Aichi never talks about himself. No matter how Misaki prompts him, all she pulls out are surface reflections and faint concepts of what other people think of him. It's not in any way what she's looking for.
"And I was thinking, about Kai—" She tunes out the ramble, letting Aichi spill out his thoughts freely without having to chance a response. He doesn't notice the third time he circles back to his original question, or that his drop zone is thicker than his head.
Then Misaki is behind the counter, absently folding up empty trays where she once crowded booster packs next to the register. Aichi treads a little too close past the service line; her ankles twist together, dress folds rippling with the motion like a churning black whirlpool. His arms are thrown up, crossed over his head, the flinch too poignant to take back.
"...I'm not going to hit you." She stretches the words out over the silent moments, fingers worming into his thick blue mane. Like a lion, Misaki feels his whole body spasm under the chill touch, silk hair walling up on either side of her palm, A little lion.
Aichi keeps flinching, retreating back toward himself. Only occasionally—in the heat of a prolonged fight, in the dead of a night that won't break—does Aichi let thunder peal out from his lion's jaws, charging on from beneath the mask he calls Alfred. Maybe it's that this whole world is so much bigger than Aichi, wreathed in coils of scales and fangs that send the little lion back to his den.
Or maybe it's Kai.
The only one Sendou's keeping it a secret from is himself. Tournament winners get framed in pictures Shin spends weeks trying to find a place for between the merchandise, before shutting up their photos in a public drawer at the back. Aichi runs his thumbs against the glossy portrait, his breath sending a dusty film rolling away from Kai's eyes. They come alive in that instant, a piercing gaze that smolders with serpents of charcoal and rings of fire. As if that one look could intoxicate the senses, with tales of writhing wings and dragonfire.
Misaki's thumb plucks absently at her collar, driving the button away to feel moisture beading on the surface of her skin. "I wonder if I'll ever measure up to Kai," "I hope I can fight Kai again someday," "Do you think he was holding back? I think he was holding back—"
He's like candlewax, bubbling back and slipping away past the stick's rim, one chance piece at a time rolling down out of reach. And here she is, the wick set aflame, and no matter how she chases at the bits of wax or douses the fire, she can't stop the candle from burning.
In the end she'll burn out into faint cinders, with a puddle of Aichi waiting at the candle's feet. She can only trust that like all flames Kai will fade, and leave her to gather the remains.