There's a beat thrumming through his hands, the electric feel of anticipation sparking the blood in his veins. He can't help but be this way when he's holding her. Despite Anis' lamentations over her weight, she's always been small and light. So the beat takes over, and she's wrapped in his embrace, and her face is all afire. There's a flame in him, too, but it's growing in his chest – steady and slow, like a fireball.
Her voice rises with fury and embarrassment, and as they turn their backs to each other, the only thing he feels is a burgeoning regret at having to let go. Because grudges are only grudges, escalating in intensity, and it's one thing he has to keep reminding himself of. But love is a spiralling fall, no gravity and no lift, and when he ohsodesperately wants to kiss her, he has to bring up a new argument. This is a complex dance of love and hate, and though she remains the oblivious partner, he has to work hard at not ever letting his affections show.
Except he's running out of time. Everyone wants her; everyone has to have her. She doesn't notice, and he's left wondering why he finds this appealing. Is it because she's a challenge? Is it because he's become so steeped in admiration that everything just makes sense even if they don't? Her back turned to him, he tries to confess; but black roses won't allow such a thing to happen.
As he goes on bended knee before her, uttering the vows of undying fealty, there's anxiety hovering in the borders. These are only words. But if he gives her his whole heart, would she take it?
It hurts him more than anything else. Anis is anything but shy, and though she doesn't mean it, she's just as capable of stringing people along. He leans over the rail, too aware of her presence, and her scent hits him hard. The jacket is tight, straining against his body. "It smells funny," he says, but inside he's savouring every last particle. And she's not making it any easier, with her pink hair flying about and the look on her face so lost. So he tells her he'll always be there for her, and she sends him away.
Maybe what's most difficult is the hope that always rises despite his attempts to control it. It's burning brightly now, as she asks him to go on a date; but reality crashes down hard when the name she utters isn't her own. "With Mikage-chan!" she orders, and he's wishing wishing wishing she says "With me!" instead. He tries to control it, but in the mirrors of her eyes, he sees his pain clearly slip through.
The wheel turns, and with it, his fate. Blood rises from the ground. She's running again, running through the droplets, and as the ride creaks all the way down, he's screaming at it to go faster – in his mind. She faints, and he tries to catch her, but there's someone else. There's always someone else.
Fire lives beneath his eyelids, and ice gathers in pools down the sides of his face. "Just friends," she says, and it echoes all around him, and he can't move a single inch. "Just friends" – how curious, that two words can destroy him completely. It's a tease, a joke, and it hurts him more than anything in the world. So he runs the other way, runs a whole race, but she's still in front of him and she's still winning. His heart caves in, collapses; and when they burst through the doors, he feels as if he's free.
"I like you the way you are," he says, and Anis leaves him hanging. Maybe it's too soon, but he's trying, he's fighting. The touch of her hands sends his spine tingling. As he looks at her blush, he's fitting together the pieces of his broken chest, and they reassemble themselves.
Goddammit but she's adorable, and he – Kaede Higa – is forever chained to her.