i.
There's this girl in Kyosuke's class, this outspoken and, as Sakakura puts it irritably, aggressively optimistic redheaded girl with a smile brighter than Shinjuku neon lights. This girl whom everyone immediately likes, this selfless girl, this hot headed girl, this girl whose joy shines more than the sun.
This girl, who's now standing before Kyosuke's desk, her delicate hand with manicured fingernails outstretched towards him and a welcoming grin on her sweet face.
"Hi," she says cheerfully. "I'm Chisa Yukizome, but you can call me Chisa." Before he can reply, she proclaims, "And you must be our newest student council president, right?"
"Ah, yes," Kyosuke says belatedly, shaking her hand with a polite and slightly unsure smile. Yukizome's grip is firm but her palm is soft. "My name is Kyosuke Munakata. It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Yukizome."
"I told you, call me Chisa, like... Okay, not everyone does that yet, but they'll change their minds in no time!" She puffs out her cheeks, saying, "No, seriously, Chisa's fine."
"Maybe when we get to know each other better," Kyosuke says with a small smirk and a nod. Despite himself, he's already growing to appreciate her.
"It's a deal, then!" Yukizome beams at him. Sakakura shakes his head from the other side of the classroom in mute terror, mouthing something akin to 'dude, she's gonna eat you alive'. Well, he does so for only about three seconds, because Yukizome notices it, frowns and strides there to give him an excellent, huge lecture, complete with yelling and pointing. Their homeroom teacher walks in, looks at that, rolls his eyes, and mutters something about not being smashed enough for this (Kyosuke raises his brows, hoping he's misheard), then promptly walks out. He seems like a person who will do that on a daily basis.
Huh, Kyosuke thinks, watching Yukizome jab her finger in Sakakura's solar plexus while other students cower in fear. She shakes her head, then smiles mischievously in Kyosuke's direction.
He may have found a new ally.
ii.
The second Kyosuke hears screams coming from the gym, he starts to both fear and anticipate the possibilities of what he may encounter. And, sure enough, he is right about that.
"Fight me, Juzo!" Yukizome boasts, apparently quite comfortable with trying her best to crush Sakakura's head between her powerful thighs.
"Did tha'... Now, will ya— stop— choking me— woman?!" the poor fellow groans, half-heartedly punching the mat beneath them.
"Shall I ask what I have walked into?" Kyosuke asks with little to no inflection. Yukizome waves at him gleefully.
"Hi, stranger! So, yeah, the Super Level Policewoman taught me this neat new trick, and I just had to try it out on this buttface." She pats Sakakura on the cheek, to which he responds with another groan, then releases him. As she stretches out, all lean legs and shapely arms in her tank-top-and-short-shorts combination, she chirps, "And look at how wonderfully it worked!"
"See, no, she came at me outta nowhere, I was busy minding my own stuff when she jumped at me like a fuckin' demon or something," Sakakura says, quickly rising to his feet, his brow scrunched in clean annoyance. "Almost had a heart attack there, Jesus."
Kyosuke blinks at that. Then he starts snickering. These two dorks, he realizes, are my best friends. Unbelievable.
"It ain't funny," Sakakura says indignantly.
"It kind of is." Yukizome places her fists on her hips.
"The Ultimate Boxer defeated by the Ultimate Housekeeper. I'm sorry, Sakakura, but I simply have to agree with Yukizome." Kyosuke somehow manages to maintain a semi-serious tone, but then he sees Chisa high-fiving herself and bursts out with laughter.
"Now, it's prize time," she says after they all have calmed down (and Sakakura stopped glaring). "Call me Chisa!"
"Not yet," Kyosuke says nonchalantly. Yukizome punches him playfully, which almost topples him down.
"Bummer."
Sakakura has the audacity to chortle at that.
iii.
After she pulls away, he can only breathe out in wonder, a ghost of her warmth still lingering on his skin.
It has happened. And he initiated it, additionally.
"Yukizome," he says blankly. "Why— How—?"
"Why didn't we do it before? Mm, I wonder." She shuffles closer to him, as her eyes focus on the gray vastness of the ocean laid out before them. Kyosuke instinctively puts his arm around her waist, and she rests her head on his shoulder. "We were kids, maybe that's the reason. And we were afraid. Not ready for this. Now, that we're all adults here..."
"I mean..." He licks his lips, tastes Yukizome's strawberry lipstick — just another reminder of what he has done, what he doesn't regret. "Are you sure I wasn't... imposing on you?" Pressuring on you, he almost says, you give me so much, and I want — need — even more. I need you, he almost says. You are my dream. There are so many things waiting to be said that they feel heavy in his throat. But he pushes them down. Not now. Not yet.
"Kyosuke." Yukizome's profile is serene, her fingers strong and sure where they're twined with his own. "I believe in you. Alright," she chuckles, "maybe I don't always agree with your choices, but you, ultimately, make the right ones. And this one," she squeezes his hand a bit tighter, "was no exception. There was no pressure. Only hope. I'm very glad you chose me."
"Was there ever any other option?" Kyosuke's tone is serious. "It's you. It's always been you."
"What about Juzo?" Yukizome asks with a small smile, meeting his eyes.
"A good friend and an outstanding partner," Kyosuke says readily, carefully refraining from scoffing. "Nothing else. Besides, he's not my type," he adds with a hint of laughter in his voice.
"Partner... It does sound kinda ambiguous." Before he can reply, she adds, dimpling, "Well, he'll be your partner, and I'll be your... partner." Her voice takes on sultry undertones with the last word. Kyosuke sighs quietly.
"Yukizome," he mutters tiredly.
"Chisa?"
He leans down and kisses her again. She giggles at that, a sound of pure happiness.
"Another time, for sure."
iv.
He can't find her.
"Yukizome!" he yells, knowing he makes a scene, but he doesn't care, doesn't fucking care. "Where is she?" he asks Tengan haphazardly, his eyes flickering from one survivor to another, searching for familiar face, and, god, she was so pale the last time he saw her, pale and bloody and was she even breathing—
"Munakata." Tengan puts his wrinkled hand on Kyosuke's shoulder. His voice is sure, gaze unwavering, as he says, "Calm down. She is fine. Our medics are taking care of her. I suggest you also allow them a little checkup."
"I'm alright," Kyosuke says firmly, even though there's this terrible pain in his chest and his breath is coming short (a rib, probably just a rib, not a punctured lung, he's fine, he's fine), because he needs to— he has to—
"Where is he?"
A familiar voice. Faint and weak, coming from the other side of the room. Kyosuke shrugs off Tengan and bolts there.
Yukizome.
She's covered in bandages, several stitched cuts peeking out from underneath the collar of her shirt, her hair is ruffled and matted. Her eyes are red, and there are dried out tearstains underneath them.
"Yukizome," Kyosuke breathes out and almost collapses down there, by her bed. She takes his hand and presses a kiss to his scraped knuckles, a shadow of her usual grin curving her chapped lips.
"It's okay," she says weakly. "It's okay. They're going to help us, and we're going to help them, we're not going back there."
There being the streets, the ruins of the once blossoming city, the despair and the odor of her blood as she fell, down, down, red staining her shirt—
"We're safe, Kyosuke, we're safe."
Kyosuke does collapse, then, and silently cries as she embraces him, soft words and soft body so familiar, so close and so far away from normal.
"Yukizome," he finally says, each syllable threatening to fall apart, and feels her chest shake with quiet laughter.
"Even now?"
"Always," he says.
v.
It's hot. The snow is falling, hundreds and thousands of grayish flakes covering every flat surface, wind whistling through cracks in the window frames, but here, there, underneath the covers, it's burning.
Yukizome hums a senseless tune, tracing invisible patterns on Kyosuke's collarbone with her finger. He watches her through half-lidded eyes, then lazily reaches out to bring her closer for another kiss. She lets out a sound full of pleasure as he moves from her lips to her cheek, neck, shoulder. Her fingertips brush his bare chest.
"You look so cute like that," she whispers. "So adorable."
"I fight despair every single day," he whispers back. "Not cute at all."
"Mm," she agrees distantly, using her free hand to muss his already unkempt hair. "Not at all."
He kisses her again. Intently. Hotly. With so much passion.
"Such a dork," she says, out of breath, after Kyosuke has moved away. "Cute dork. My cute, dangerous dork."
"Whatever you say," he replies, sliding his hand to her hip, and frowns as he feels the faint outline of a month-old scar.
"Don't think about it," Yukizome whispers, closing her eyes. "Not now."
"You were hurt," he says, and the memory makes his heart twist.
"So were you," she replies. "We all were. Are. But, for now, let's just... forget."
"How?" he says hoarsely. "There is still so much to do."
"We're going to end this, you know." Yukizome looks at him hopefully, a small smile playing on her kiss-swollen, apple-red lips. "Tomorrow or in a year, this nightmare will be over. I promise."
"I will hold onto those words," Kyosuke says, daring to believe her. Daring to feel the greatest hope.
"For now, let's just..." She doesn't finish, just makes their mouths meet, cups his jaw and breathes out, alive and sound and hoping.
"Yukizome," Kyosuke whispers. She replies by deepening their kiss.
And all is almost alright with their world.
(There's a small box in Kyosuke's desk and a question to be asked, but that will wait. It will happen, tomorrow or in a year, but it will. He's sure of it.)
i.
She doesn't look like the sun, now. More like the moon, pale and ghostlike and cold.
Kyosuke looks at her for a moment. Just long enough to start aching all over again.
The katana slides into her chest far too smoothly, and she doesn't even make a sound, doesn't open her eyes.
Doesn't breathe.
He's kneeling by her, watching. Waiting. Maybe she'll— do something. Anything. Smile, laugh, cry, shout, frown, or she'll stand up and kiss him again, maybe it's all just a dream.
Maybe she'll kill him. After all, she was the one to lose the war before it had even started.
It's so strange, yet fitting, to see her with only one eye. So unusual. But nothing about her was ever ordinary. Not the way she moved, or fought, or held onto his hand. Not the way she died.
Finally, he stands up and turns from her. Nothing here to anticipate, no place here for hope.
Who'd think despair is so serene?
"Bye," Kyosuke says absently. "Chisa."
She doesn't reply.