Monday 7/20/12 , Patroller High School, Late Afternoon
The soft chime of the school's final bell resonated loudly through the room, stirring Tony out of his restless nap. He sat up in his chair, fighting the stiffness in his broad shoulders by shrugging them up and down, wincing at the pops and snaps he heard. The bright July sun bore down hard through the window, but Tony was pretty sure he would have been sweating in the dead of Winter, too. His palms felt clammy and wet as he nervously clenched a fist, the way they had always got before he knew a fight was coming. In a way, he figured, this was the biggest, scariest fight he had ever undertaken. Well...maybe fight was the wrong way to put it, but he didn't know any other way to describe what was he was planning to do.
Around him, the rest of his classmates all got up and started chattering excitedly. It was now officially Summer vacation, after all, and with the town finally back to normal after a weird year, everyone was looking forward to relaxing. Tony, himself, was pretty pleased with the idea of working with his Ma over the Summer and really getting better integrated with the business side of craftwork. But before any of that could begin, there was one thing that he had to do, something that had been languishing for almost an entire year and was hanging over his head like a sword. He saw Kari get up from the front of class and head towards him, which was good; she was his partner-in-crime on this, and part of her job was to make sure he didn't screw up.
After all, If he was gonna finally confess his feelings to Kari he wanted to at least make sure he couldn't run away in fear again.
The tall second year student had liked Kari for a very long time, but he had mixed results when it came to expressing how he felt. There had been a few choice opportunities; back in February, him and his friends had gone up North to the mountains to do some skiing, and he and Kari were attached at the hip while they were there. His trepidation about falling over made Tony, with his skiing experience, his safety blanket. Despite all the time they spent together on the slopes, Tony faltered once again when the moment seemed right, and like usual he just got tongue tied and awkward.
These kinds of things kept happening, to the point that Tony had been at his wits end. How hard could it have been to tell a nice girl that you liked her? That was just it, though; Tony had never had a particularly easy time around girls to begin with. His proclivity towards things he considered 'cute' and other types of hand-crafting had, as a younger man, made him the butt of jokes for some particularly nasty girls in primary school. 'Afraid' might have been too harsh a word, but Tony was, if anything, nervous around girls because of his past experiences. The frustrating part was, as he had come to find out over the year, that was a stupid way to think! As he had come to know Melia, Seiki, Kari and Celica, he found that there was nothing about them being girls that really made a difference to him. Even Seiki, whom was a childhood acquaintance that he always thought was kinda stuck up, was a super swell friend. It was like all his bad experiences were just the exception, and not the law.
Even with his comfortability on the rise, he still had a hard time asking any of those girls for advice on how to handle this particular issue. It wasn't a big secret; the two older girls knew, and Melia teased him about it incessantly, but he just wasn't comfortable with talking about things like that. It felt awkward; how do you ask your friend out without seeming like a creep? And, even worse, what happened if they said no? Were you still friends? He didn't want to bother the girls with questions like that, especially when two of them were literally swatting away suitors all day; the last thing he wanted to do was come off like a horny jerk.
And the guys? Xero was nice but he seemed to forget just how big of a dork he could be when it came to the ladies; Tony had seen him embarrass himself in enough places to know that. He seemed to also have corrupted Anthony, who stayed in Xero's closet and seemed to have absorbed Xero's caveman-like sensibilities by osmosis. The only positive influence for him was , who was Damian easily the coolest guy Tony had ever known. He was also the only one of their whole group who had been successful with the opposite sex; Celica and Damian had been dating for the better part of six months and both were happy, even with him being all the way in Tokyo. The man was a bonafide casanova, but he was hard to get a hold of between his studying, his after school jobs, and his girlfriend. For awhile, Tony felt himself fighting the one fight he wasn't sure how to win.
Luckily, when Summer started, his fortune started to change. Celica and Kari had become quite close, and since Celica already knew about Tony's true feelings, she did her best to relay information about her to him: what kind of food she liked, TV shows, movies, anything , really, to help get the ball rolling. Tony felt bad, like he was taking advantage of Celica's friendship, but the idol had assured him that she just wanted to see them together. While he felt she was a little too interested in it, Tony was happy that Celica was being such a pal to him; they'd kind of gotten off on the wrong foot for awhile, but they had really bonded over the past year, almost like siblings. That made asking Kari out even harder, because what if she didn't want to hang out with him anymore, and made Celica stay away too?
Thoughts like those had plagued him over the past few weeks as he brainstormed ways to finally confess his feelings. He had originally considered a letter, figuring that if he was so bad at talking, then maybe he explain himself better in writing. On the best day, a conversation with Kari would inevitably leave him saying something so outrageously embarrassing things that, in his mind, Kari probably thought of him as not so much a person but something resembling a barely evolved ape.
Worse still, Tony realized that he wasn't much of a writer, after several rough drafts; it turned out that he just didn't know how to dress it up as anything more than "I LIKE YOU." He had been at wit's end until a ray of hope suddenly appeared: Celica let Tony know that during a sleepover one weekend, Kari had admitted, while playing truth-or-dare, that she felt he was the boy she was closest to in the group. It was an iffy claim, but Tony felt energized enough to kick it into third gear.
He finally decided that on the last day of school, he was gonna end the first half of school on a good note and tell Tony how he really felt. He wasn't 100% confident, but the truth-or-dare admission was a solid point in his favor, as was the "Little Stuff." The "Little Stuff" was what Tony called the collection of moments where he felt Kari may have shown an interest in a relationship. It was small and uneven, with moments that could be as little as 2 minutes apart and as long as 3 or 4 months. On their skiing trip, as an example, she had clung to him while she was getting off her skis, something he remembered almost passing out over. Then there was the time she had mistakenly touched his hand when she went to grab her pencil during a Junes study session and lingered for a second or two longer than she probably meant to. Again, it wasn't much, but he needed all the examples he could get to help build his confidence.
As Celica settled into the empty desk in front of him, he tugged at the collar of his annoying school shirt, which he had left unbuttoned to reveal a black flaming skull tank top. A yellow bandana covered the top of his head, making his hair invisible from the front. In an attempt to curb his trouble-making image a couple weeks earlier, Tony had removed his nose and ear piercings and attempted to re-dye his hair black, but had botched the job, requiring a solid portion of his hair to be cut out. He hated what it looked like, so he tried to hide it as best he could with the bandana; the school faculty all seemed a bit too afraid of him to call him out on wearing a hair accessory indoors anyways. The saving grace in the whole thing was that Melia and Kari had both told him that he looked much better without all the thug material, which made his confidence skyrocket, even though he was going through some growing pains.
Celica looked jubilant and mischievous as always when she sat down. Her pigtails flopped happily as she giggled at her obviously nervous friend. "Longest. Class. Ever . Okay, she's gonna be here any minute now; you remember what you're supposed to say?" she asked nervously.
Tony nodded. "Y-yeah, 'o course: ''Ey, Kari, can you meet me on the roof? There's somethin' really important I gotta talk to ya about.'"
"That's right! Then you guys go up there, confess your undying, wonderful love for each other, and then I'll be waiting to greet the new happy couple!" Celica chirped, clearly in her own headspace.
"'Ey, c'mon," Tony cringed, uncomfortable with how lightly Celica seemed to be taking it, "Couldja at least take it a little serious? It ain't yer ass on the line!"
Celica immediately toned it down, grasping the seat back as she leaned in close to Celica. "I am serious! I'm just trying to make you relax a little."
Celica still wasn't 100% convinced, but he could see sincerity in her big brown eyes. "I don't mean to yell at ya," he said softly, "I'm jus'...nervous."
Celica reached out and patted his hand, which made him shiver a little. "I know, I can tell, but you gotta have faith, okay!? Trust me, I'm just as nervous, but it's a good nervous, the kind I would feel when I was about to go on stage! That's a good sign! I think you guys will be great together, all you need to do is...!"
Celica clammed up as she caught a glimpse of someone or something entering the classroom. Tony followed her gaze to see the object of his affections gliding down the aisle toward them. Like him, she wore the male school uniform, although her shirt was buttoned tightly up to her neck, with just one button undone. As always, he felt his chest tighten with how heavy his heart was pounding, as if it would leap out any second. Once she got fairly close to them, she smiled and waved at Celica, who immediately started gushing to her about Summer vacation. Tony tuned it out; it was really hard to focus on anything when Kari was in front of him. All he could think about was what it would be like to hold her hand, to caress her cheek, to tell her without stammering that he cared for her...
"...something….ay, isn't that right, Tony?"
Tony heard his name being said by Celica but he couldn't break his gaze on Kari, who turned to look at him and gave him a confused glance, destroying his illusionary world. He suddenly felt a flat shoe viciously kick his shin, and as he winced in pain he noticed Celica giving him the stink eye.
"You had something to say , right Tony!?" she repeated slower and with more venom. Quickly he remembered that was his queue to ask Kari up to the roof. Unfortunately, his mouth couldn't catch up to his brain.
"HeyKarilet'sgoroofsomethingIgottatellya!" he blabbed, which made Celica smack her forehead in frustration and further confused Kari. He stepped a bit closer to him, which made him recoil until his head gently smacked the plaster wall behind him.
"You have to slow down. You are speaking too quickly," she said, sounding like a mother addressing a child.
Tony swallowed hard; he was so close, he couldn't back down now! He straightened up, and did his best to look directly at Kari. "C-can you come up to the roof, Kari? I got...somethin' I wanna talk to ya 'bout…"
There was hardly a moment of hesitation. "Of course. Celica, would you mind waiting for me?"
"Oh, of course not!" Celica grinned, a little too obviously, for Tony's liking, "I'll be by the stairs. Have fuuunnnn!"
With that, Kari beckoned Tony out of the classroom. Taking a deep breath, Tony followed suit and was soon in the hallway, following Kari's lead toward the steps in the middle of the hall. As Tony took one last look back at Celica, she flashed him a peace sign, then slowly crossed the two fingers.
"Good luck," she mouthed, a determined look on her face as she watched Tony leave the classroom to face his destiny.
The long walk to the roof was agony; Tony imagined himself as a peasant in one of the historical dramas his mom watched on TV, being escorted to the local magistrate to be beheaded. The nonchalant way Kari had agreed to go up to the roof was a sign, wasn't it? Or the fact that she was silent the whole time? Tony couldn't decide what to think as the two quickly rounded the 3rd floor, where there other friends' classroom was, and up toward the final set leading to the roof entrance.
After a minute, Tony heard the creak of the school roof door and nervously looked up instead of at his shoes, seeing the bright light of the late afternoon just above him. He climbed the last few steps and looked at Kari, who was holding the door for him.
He took a second to steel himself. The big teen knew that whatever the day's outcome, he had to shed this particular albatross. He was tired of spending every night just staring up at the ceiling of his room, unable to push his detective friend out of his mind's eye. Like an addict, memories of his best moments with her played on a loop while hours ticked by like picoseconds. He barely had any sleep, and his already shaky hold on academics had slipped even further since he had met the InbetweenGamers Star. He couldn't bear this secret anymore, and it was time to give up the ghost. Feeling that he was losing his confidence the more he waited, Tony hastily stepped through the open door and into the buggy Summer air of the rooftop.
Although it was fairly plain, with nothing but a few scattered AC units, ventilation shafts, and a large fence running around the perimeter, the roof was pretty special to Tony. He and his friends met up there almost every day for lunch or just to talk, and along with the Junes food court, he considered this place hallowed ground. It was the perfect place to confess his feelings, he thought, because it felt like each of his friends was there in spirit, giving him some extra support. He heard the roof door close, and Kari stepped forward to speak to him, a small smile in the corner of her mouth.
"So, Tony-kun. What did you need to speak to me about?" Kari asked, shifting her book bag to her other hand as she did.
"U-uh, well...," he started, his throat suddenly seeming beyond dry and raspy, "There's somethin' I gotta tell ya, an' it's important. Real important," he repeated, hoping his cracking voice would portray the seriousness of what he was saying. Since Kari's stare had forced his gaze down to his shoes again, he heard rather than saw her step closer to him.
"Is there something wrong?" she said in a concerned voice, her smile changing into her usual, more placid expression. He clenched his fist and grit his teeth, struggling to form the words he wanted to say.
Something Tony had struggled deeply with his whole life was getting over his expectations of it what it meant to 'be a man'. Without his father in his life, Tony could only act out in ways that he thought could be perceived as manly without ever knowing the truth. In his adventures with Damian and the rest of the InbetweenGamers, Tony had come to realize that maybe the truth was that it didn't matter, and being his own man was more important than anything. Nevertheless, he could feel a pulsating and powerful pull in his chest that demanded he discuss his feelings with Kari while looking her in the eye. He obeyed it, his fists trembling as he did.
"N-nah, nothin's wrong," he started, scratching the back of his head. "More like...I…" Dammit! The words wouldn't come out!
He didn't even notice Kari stepping a bit closer to him. "Tony-kun, you musn't always be so nervous. If you have something to say, stand up straight and say it." In an earlier time, Tony would have immediately balked at the vague hint of condescension in her voice, but he was different now. He understood now that she was trying to be helpful, in her own way.
He took the deepest breath he could fathom, then took Kari's advice and stood up to his full height, almost two heads taller than the Star. "Look, uh, Kari-san ...I never met anyone like you before. After everythin' that's gone down this whole year, I dunno what th' hell to think about me, but I know what I think about you. I-I think you're...like, awesome, at everything. You're really smart, and you don't care what people say about who you are. I w-wish I had th' balls that you had..." he stammered and groaned when he saw Kari's eyebrow raise suspiciously, "I-I don't mean it that way or nothin'! I just... shit! " This was harder than any fight he had ever been in. He almost forgot to take a breath as he hurriedly tried to get to his point.
"I know that I'm...I'm, like, not good at this stuff, but I really like you, Kari-san. A lot." There. It was out there. But he had to stick the landing. "I-is it awright if we, y'now," he almost lost it, choking on the words as they came up in his throat, "t-that we, uh, well...start seein' each other? In a-a-a romantic-al type way?"
As soon as all the thoughts left his mouth, Tony finally inhaled. He wanted to scream from the sheer relief that came with relieving his mind of this immense weight, but he knew that he had to hold it together, for both his and Kari's sake. He had shut his eyes trying to hold back tears of anguish, but was too nervous to even make an attempt to look for a reaction. When he finally cracked a single eye open, Kari was still standing in front of him, the same infuriatingly blank expression on her face. Aside from her earlier eyebrow twitch, she didn't appear to have moved a muscle.
There was a long silence before Tony finally saw her smile a little, the sides of her eyes crinkling as she did. In the dying light of the day, he could barely make out a blush spreading through her cheeks.
"T-Tony-kun..." Kari broke off, a pensive look on her face as she considered what to say, "I-I am flattered, of course, by your kind words. To be quite honest, when we first met, my first impression was that you were crude, unsophisticated, and merely a means to an end for my investigation."
Tony winced, not really wanting to hear something like that. Luckily for him, she wasn't finished.
"...And yet, I have never been so happy to have been wrong. You turned out to be a very loyal, kind, and strong person. We could never have solved the case last year without your help. There are many ways in which I greatly admire you, too, and I am proud to count you among my closest and dearest friends," Kari finished, the shy smile remaining as she praised him. Tony was on cloud nine; here was the girl of his dreams, making him feel like he was every bit the person he wanted to be. He couldn't contain the chuckle that came out his lips as he bashfully rubbed the back of his head.
Just as quickly as it had appeared, however, Kari's smile vanished. Her eyes looked downward, and a thin-lipped frown rose from the ashes of her previous, happier expression.
"But..." she uttered, again looking unsure of how best to frame her speech.
But . Tony hated "but." Ever since he was a kid, he had been haunted by that conjunction, which was always used to fuel others' rejection of him. "You're really good at sewing Tony, but that's for girls!" "You were doing so well, but now you've ruined everything!" "You did help those kids, but you're still just a thug, Tony!" Tony hated "but," and just the mention of it was enough to turn his blood cold.
"B-but...!?" Tony stammered, coming down hard from the high he had just been on.
Kari let out a deep sigh, and continued her own confession, "B-but, having said that, a dear friend is all that I think of you as..." she stopped and pulled the bill of her cap down just a tad, shielding her eyes, "I am afraid that I cannot return your feelings, Tony-kun, I...I just can't. I'm sorry."
Tony knew there was a summer wind blowing around them, but the air around him had slowed to such a crawl that he could no longer feel it. He had definitely heard what Kari had said, but processing the information was a different story. It must have showed on his face, because Kari took yet another step forward, although he again only saw her feet as he forced his gaze elsewhere.
"Y-you must understand this has nothing to do with you as a person! I meant every word I said, but I-I just don't have... those kinds of feelings for you. I wish I could give you a clearer answer but..." she stopped, lost in thought again. Tony just stared at his shoes, still too shaken to respond. After a while, he finally felt the soft wind blowing into his face, which made him keenly aware that a few hot tears had begun leaking out of his intense, smoldering eyes. He didn't look up or attempt to wipe his eyes as he answered her as best he could.
"'S okay, Kari...was a long shot anyways," he mumbled, annoyed by the shakiness in his voice, "I jus', y'know, figured I should give it a shot. L-least I know now..." The words felt like sandpaper on his tongue. He thought about the "Little Things," and how now each one of them was tainted by his stupidity at thinking that he had a shot with her. He wished he had been smart enough to be able to tell the difference between basic kindness and romantic gestures; it would at least have let him temper his expectations, at the very least.
When he finally managed to turn his neck up and look at his friend, he was very surprised to see that Kari, too, had moist eyes, a sight he thought he would never see. Despite the watery sadness in them, the star's eyes remained steely and serious, like trembling, gray ball bearings.
" Please don't blame yourself; it was nothing you did or didn't do," she almost whispered, forcing Tony to listen closer, "That isn't it at all. B-but I understand if you don't wish to see me or speak to me f-for a while..." she looked away for a second before turning back. She tugged her cap down over her eyes even further, breaking her long, pitying stare.
There was another sting at Kari's eyes, which pissed him off; he may not have known a lot about what men did, but he definitely knew they didn't cry in front of girls they liked. He angrily swatted at his nose, trying to rid it of the mucus that was rapidly rushing into it. Her words made sense, but Tony couldn't break through his own self-loathing long enough for his brain to communicate a positive, constructive response; right now, any further response would involve his heart leaping out of his throat. Seeing Kari so upset, upset because of him , was way too much to take. And the last thing he wanted her to do was leave, but he couldn't force himself to say it, not when he was already on the verge of blubbering like an idiot.
Kari answered his silence by taking a big swallow and bowing gracefully, her bookbag scraping the concrete of the roof as she did. "I-I'm going to go now. Forgive me, Tony-kun," she choked, turning and hurriedly walking back out the rooftop door as quickly as she had appeared.
"K-Kari...!" Tony hissed, his voice cracking at the end and making the noise unintelligible. He reached his long-left arm out, as if he could catch the fleeing star, but she was gone. Tony stared at the swinging door for too long, hoping that this was all just a dream and this was where he finally woke up. No such luck.
His heart and mind rendered useless, Tony slowly walked up to the rooftop fence, interlocking his fingers with the steel mesh. He was trying as hard as he could, but there wasn't a shred of strength left in him to help stop the harsh sobs that were beginning to emerge from deep within his chest. He angrily rattled the mesh, muttering curses to himself as he did. In his suffering, he didn't hear the rooftop door opening again.
"T-Tony! ?"
Just what he needed; he familiar but now shaky voice of Celica coming from behind him.
"W-what happened!?" she asked, "Kari-chan just...she ran past me! Was she...did she…"
Celica stopped dead when Tony turned to look at her. His eyesight was blurry, and he could barely make out the idol getting closer to him. This wouldn't do.
"S-stop, just guh-get outta here," he moaned, hoping Celica would get the message.
The mirage he assumed to be Celica stopped, its head looking off to the side. "What are you saying!? I'm not gonna leave you alone right now! T-tell me what happened, why was she…"
Celica kept babbling, and the more she talked, the more Tony felt a familiar, visceral reaction beginning to grow in his gut and his throat. He was hurt, he was embarrassed, and he just wanted to be left alone, like usual. Why couldn't Celica understand?! Tony fully turned around and looked at the his fellow 2nd year, magma in his eyes. The girl seized up immediately, seemingly horrified at what she saw.
"How many times I gotta say it!? Get th' hell outta here, now ! Jus' leave me the fuck alone!" he hollered, smashing the fence behind him with his fist, dramatically. He hated himself for it, but the familiar feeling of using his rage to handle his emotions was stabilizing, like an addict engaging in vice for the first time in years. He heard a meager whimper come out of the idol's form before she made an about-face and ran toward the exit, her pigtails thrashing to and fro in the wind.
Bitter and ashamed from the outburst, Tony slumped on a nearby air conditioning unit and lay back down on it, his heart pounding and his soul exhausted. Feeling like the fading sun was too invasive and burning him up, he quickly peeled off his white school shirt and placed it over his face. Lying perfectly still on the air conditioner unit and covered up like a corpse, he just wanted badly to wake up; if it was actually the first day of Summer vacation and he overslept, then it would mean he and Kari were still fine, and he never would have tried something so stupid.
But each heavy sob that forced him to take deep breaths through the stifling fabric of the shirt was a cruel reminder of the truth: this wasn't a dream, and there was no cure for a broken heart.
Sunday, 7/26/12, Grand Residence, Early evening...
Xero yawned, stretching out his sleepy limbs on the Mace's long green couch as a TV quiz show droned on in the background. While he was disengaged from the action on the screen, his charge, Seiki, was completely enthralled in the show, bouncing excitedly on her cushion positioned close to the TV.
"Alright, for 600,000 Yen, can you tell us who built Sunomota Castle in just one day?" the host asked, prompting a concerned look from the contestant as she struggled to think of the answer.
Immediately, the 8-year old sprang up to her feet, a firefly glow in her eyes.
"Oh, oh! It's Hideyoshi! Hi-de-yo-shi! " she shrieked, cupping her hands over her mouth as if the TV was straining to hear her. Xero chuckled as the host revealed her and the contestant on the television to be correct, at which she clapped her hands and did a little victory cheer. Xero was pretty impressed that she was interested at all in quiz shows, let alone getting the answer right.
"Woah, pretty smart, Seiki-chan!" he complimented, giving her a high five. "How'd you know that?"
Seiki grinned cheesily, her childish innocence lighting up her face. "I studied realllyy hard for my history test, and I still have it all up here," she informed Seiki, poking the side of her head with a finger. Xero chuckled; he always found it hard to resist Seiki's playful energy. The 3rd year leaned over and tousled her now shoulder-length auburn hair, but stopped when she abruptly gasped after looking back at the TV.
"I didn't see that it was already six! Time to start dinner," she said like an adult. She straightened out her white sundress as she walked into the tiny kitchen,strutting like a mother hen, her youthful skip all but disappeared. Xero sat up and put his hands behind his head, a secret smile tucked in the corner of his mouth.
"Yo, Seiki-chan, need a hand?" he asked, holding back an evil laugh as her response came exactly as predicted.
"Um...well...no, it's okay. If I need something high up, or a knife, you can help me then," Seiki said carefully, appearing to tiptoe around what she may have been actually thinking. With the little girl's back turned, Xero laughed into his hand, happy that his plan worked out. Xero had been in a few different cooking sessions with the group and always proven to be sub-par; Seiki, who always took pride in both her independence and her cooking, probably thought it would be easier without him. Made an already cushy gig even cushier, he thought.
A few weeks before Summer break, Melia had gotten the whole team to agree on setting up a way to see Seiki during their time off. An only child, Seiki was often left home alone while her father went out and worked long hours as a police detective; when her friend, Damian, was around, this wasn't as big an issue, but he was gone now, with no suitable replacement. Seiki hated her friend, and proudly referred to him as "big Asshole," a moniker that started as joke from Melia but had clearly taken on a life of its own. The group had tried their best to hold back tears at the train station back in May as Seiki pushed Damian, unwilling to let her "big asshole" go back home after Golden Week; a memory as painful as that helped everyone agree to figuring something out quickly.
The way the system worked had one of them over at the Mace home every other night until her father, got home later in the evening. Mace had no complaints; he and Seiki had become closer than ever since Damian had taken off, but he was also extremely dedicated to his work, and appreciated the help that his nephew's friends were willing to give. Since Xero worked on the weekends, he had agreed to come over on most weekday evenings. He didn't mind at all, considering how much he liked Seiki and how boring life had gotten in the past few months. As Xero had discovered when confronting his shadow self, he had an unbearable sense of ennui that Inaba rarely seemed to help cure. Without Damian around, trouble seemed to stay away, which was good for the town but lame for the Investigation Team, and Xero by extension.
He yawned again, gently tugging at the collar of his white t-shirt as he tried to vanquish the humid summer air from his body. While he leisurely listened to the gentle hum coming from Seiki as she pattered about, a loud chime rang out over the sounds of the kitchen and the glowing TV in the family room. The vibration in his pocket gave away the source of the noise, but he took his time retrieving the rumbling phone from his pants. Once he did, he could see the name on the phone's caller ID read " Celica!", which was also accompanied by a rather revealing cheesecake shot of her in lacy nightwear.
This finally made him sit up, a little excited. Even though it had been roughly a year, he still found it surreal that a celebrity, a smoking hot celebrity like Celica not only had his phone number, but texted him on a decently regular basis. While he did genuinely enjoy the friendship and company of Celica Lakowska, the idol's true name, it was difficult to get over that it was freakin' Celica talking to him when he went to school or hung out at Junes. It was hard not to have the tiniest bit of a crush on the beautiful starlet, as Xero wasn't much different than any other hot-blooded Japanese boy whose good friend was a national sex symbol.
With a grin a mile wide as he slowly examined the photo of her on his screen, he pressed the answer button and eagerly pressed the phone to his ear.
"Hey, Celica-chan, ya checkin' up on me? That's so nice," he said in a wise-ass tone. The haughty huff of air he heard on the other line was music to his ears.
" In your dreams, Treeslug!" she hissed; Xero loved it when she was feisty. "I'm not in the mood! Are you able to talk?" she asked, the tone in her voice serious enough to jog Xero out of his joking mood.
"Uh, sure, hang on a sec," he answered, peering in to see Seiki happily standing on a stool as she watched something fry in a pan on the stove. He briefly worried that she shouldn't be playing with the stove, but Seiki seemed like she knew what she was doing, so he let it go. Satisfied, he settled back down into a comfortable position on the couch.
"Yeah, I'm good. So what's up?"
There was a deep, shaky breath on the other line. "Alright, so, like, how much do you know of what's going on? With Tony and-"
Xero winced, whistling some air through his teeth as he cut off Celica. "Um...I-I dunno a whole lot, just what Melia told me the other day. Why? Did something else happen?" he asked, hoping that he was conveying how uncomfortable he was through his words.
Celica was, of course, referring to the drama that had been manifesting between the 2nd years since school had ended. As far as Xero understood, Tony had finally manned up and asked Kari out, only for the InbetweenGamers Star to reject him; Xero could only shudder to think at what it was like to be shot down cold by someone like Kari. Rise made it sound about as dramatic as Romeo and Juliet, but Xero figured it was closer to the sort of high school junk one would find in a manga magazine.
While he half-listened, Celica aired her frustration. "Nothing yet, but it just sucks, y'know?! I can't get a hold of Tony, and I'm totally getting the cold shoulder from Kari-chan! I've never been ignored this long! I dunno what to do, Xero, and I'm worried that they won't talk to each other and it'll get worse until..." Celica broke off here, and Xero could imagine her just staring off into space with wide eyes, stunned into silence at the prospect of the two not speaking to each other anymore. You kinda had to respect how earnest she was about feelings, he thought.
"Look," he started, "I'm sure it seems crappy now, but it's only been less than a week! They'll forget about it in like, another few days, tops. People get crushes and break up and stuff all the time, why is this any different?" He didn't mean to sound rude, but he thought Celica was overreacting quite a bit. If he knew Tony like he thought, he couldn't imagine him ever disliking Kari, even if he tried; he was too much of a sissy to do that. And Kari was a pro at everything, her attitude aside, so she'd probably just continue to be her usual self and nothing would be different, Xero figured.
"You didn't see Tony like I did! He was devastated!" Celica moaned, "And I tried to talk to Kari-chan today, and she was just like 'I appreciate the urgency of your call but there is no need for you to concern yourself with my well-being, Celica.'" Celica said this with an exaggerated, sultry, man-ish voice that made Xero snicker sinfully into the receiver, upsetting the idol.
"Ugh, screw you, Treeslug! Why did I even bother if you're just gonna be a jerk..."
Xero held his side as he worked through his chuckles, "Oh, c'mon, that was funny! You got the robotic part down like a champ!"
"But that's the worst part! Kari-chan only does that when she's, like, super upset; she just totally shuts down and won't talk to anybody. None of the other girls can even get a hold of her, either. That's...sorta why I called you..."
Xero shot up, immediately annoyed at even the slight hint that Celica was dropping. "Oh no..."
"Just listen! You're, like, our last resort here. I need you to at least try and talk to Kari-chan. Me and her always go to Junes for lunch on Monday afternoons, but I have a shoot this Monday so I can't go. Can you just like, I dunno, go and talk to her then, see if she's doing okay?"
Xerp scoffed at how nonsensical this sounded to him. "W-wait, why me!? I don't wanna get involved in this crap! Plus, I gotta work tomorrow morning anyways!"
Celica blew out some air again, clearly exasperated. "Well, use your lunch break or something, I don't know! Please, Xero, I wouldn't ask if I wasn't desperate. She's not really talking to me or the older girls, and I have no idea what will happen with her and Tony. That means there's only Anthony left, and are you really gonna leave this up to Anthony!?" she wailed, letting her emotions override any sense of volume control; Xero quickly pulled the phone away and rubbed his aching eardrum.
His back was now figuratively against a wall. Obviously, Tony would be of no use in reaching Kari, Anthony would probably make it worse, and Damian was only available through the phone. If the girls were truly unable to talk to Kari, it made sense for Xero to do something about it. But he really didn't want to, something he tried to make clear one last time.
"Celica, please, I'm beggin' you, just leave me outta this! What am I gonna say!? Why can't I just call Tony and figure it out!?"
Surprisingly, Celica took a little while to contemplate an answer. Finally, she sighed and calmly said, "Don't worry about Tony, I'm taking care of it," she said ominously , "And as for Kari-chan...just be there for her. She'd do it for you."
Even to a grouchy Xero, something about Celica's sentiments seemed to hit closer to home than anything else. He wasn't exactly sure it was the truth; he and Kari weren't exactly the best of buds, even on a good day, but he supposed when it came down to it, it was pretty hard to ignore a friend in need, even one as stuffy and weird as Kari. Rolling his eyes, he acquiesced.
"Urgh, fine, fine, you win. I'll see what I can do, I guess..."
"Yay! Thank you so much, Xero. I owe ya one!" Celica squealed, her attitude doing a complete 180. Xero tried, but he just couldn't help his mouth.
"Well, y'know, I'm not doing anything tomorrow night..."
A loud raspberry came out of the receiver. "God, as if! Listen, if I find out you bailed, you're gonna be so dead-"
"Alright, alright, I got it! Geez! I'm hanging up now, bye!" Xero yelled teasingly, inching his finger toward the red end-call button.
"Don't you dare hang up on me!"
"Too late!"
A little bloop let him know the call was disconnected. With a loud groan, he tossed his phone down near his thighs and put an arm over his eyes, wondering exactly what he had been roped into. A part of his ego was satisfied that he was being depended on to help, but he really would have preferred not to get involved. Xero supposed it was only a matter of time before feelings and romance started to intrude on the group friendship, but it all seemed to be coming too fast for him.
He slowly moved his arm away and blinked in surprise when the nervous form of Seiki was suddenly right near up in his face, tightly gripping his arm.
"U-uh...what's up, Seiki-chan?" he asked nervously.
Seiki looked as if she was going to tell him she had a serious disease. "Are you...are you and Celica-chan fighting? Big Asshole said to tell him if you were mean to his girlfriend..."
Xero wanted to laugh, considering how deadly serious she looked, but all he could muster was a sigh before he put his arm back over his eyes.
"Tell your Big Asshole he's got nothin' to worry about, we were just messin' around," he huffed, which got Seiki to back off a little. As she went back to the kitchen, she turned and looked back to Xero, a very sincere look on her face.
"Being a grown-up seems weird ," she mused, scuttling back over toward the stove. This made Xero grin sadly, momentarily forgetting about the mess he was stuck with cleaning up.
"Seiki-chan, you have noooo idea..."