Rikuo swallows the last few noodles left in the bowl and sighs contentedly. Cold food in summer is the best.
"You like plain soba?" she asks.
Rikuo is a polite young man, so of course he says yes. He'd say it was good even if it was terrible. But it's nice not to have to lie about something, even if it's as simple as copping to an old man's taste in diner food.
Keikain-san smiles, and because it is a Keikain-san smile it is worn and thin and a little bit of a lie. Rikuo isn't sure why that's so interesting.
:Idiot: says the voice in his head. The voice is his, only pitch-shifted to baritone.
Rikuo pointedly ignores the arrogant jerk in favor of studying his dear friend Keikain-san, who unlike someone he could name is capable of going two sentences without being rude.
She's not tall, is the first thing he thinks, and he's thought it before. He can't call her small, though, not after seeing Sunlight fight. (Sharp and shining all through every line of her body, she is lost in folded cloth until she resembles a grand fabric doll. He has no idea how she can run in that. His darker half sends him a few half-serious suggestions, and Rikuo fights down the blush threatening to set his face on fire. Darn him anyway.)
In casual clothes, Keikain-san seems delicate. Thin, like a runner or a swimmer, all sleek muscle and china-pale skin. (He's seen her at the beach. He's never seen anyone use that much sunscreen before, and she still burned.) If Kana-chan is a painting, a portrait of cheery girlish beauty, then Keikain-san is a work of spoken word: syllables flowing like whitewater, delicate lines that can tear a kingdom down, or build it up. Keikain-san is poetry.
Rikuo can hear himself laughing. :Oi, shrimp, do you even hear yourself?:
Please shut up. And who are you calling a shrimp? We're the same person.
:Not a hundred percent: he shoots back, marginally serious. :Besides, I'm way taller.:
Rikuo directs a thread of annoyance in the general direction of his personal annoyance. That's an early growth spurt, not a personal accomplishment.
Secure in his petty victory, Rikuo smirks into his tea.
"Nura-san? Are you thinking of something funny?" Keikain-san asks him.
"Ah, yeah," he says on autopilot. "Just something someone said."
She hums acknowledgement and nods sagely. He can just see her thinking so what did Kiyotsugu-san do now? and he smiles and lets her.
Keikain-san turns back to her meal. She carefully gathers the last stray grains of rice with her chopsticks, and Rikuo makes a mental note to accidentally bring an extra bento to school. Keikain-san is too proud to accept charity, and far too transparent.
She tips the last bit of flavored water down her throat. The little glass ball lodges itself in the bottle's throat and tinkles in the light. Her lips-
Rikuo examines his shoes. Shoes. They are very fascinating, with their... laces, and aglets, and things. Yes.
I hate puberty.
:I don't.:
I hope you humiliate yourself in front of the entire clan, and everyone laughs at you.
Dark laughter greets that thought, and Rikuo curses himself for sassing back at the part of his personality who is literally every dark thought he's ever forced himself not to have. Why does he keep doing this to himself?
:Because it's fun: he replies cheerfully. :It's easy, messing with people's heads, especially since most people don't use their heads. But we do. We think circles around people all the time, and don't tell me you don't enjoy it, I'm right there when you brag to yourself about being at the top of the class in subjects you barely studied for.:
Shut up, Rikuo thinks to himself.
:Oh, but it's not that simple, is it?:
And Rikuo wants to laugh, and that's the worst part, that he gets the joke.
:You only do it for your friends' sake, of course.: He presses on cheerfully. :You know, little things. Like talking Kana-chan out of taking dark creepy demon-infested shortcuts, or showing Torii the steps to a tricky math problem, or killing all those curses Kiyotsugu keeps digging up. We're smarter, that's all. Why do you call that a bad thing?:
You know why, mushi. This is his joke, the trick he's playing on the whole world. Him, the heir of a demon lord, attending public high school and :making nice: being friendly with a demonslayer. I'm supposed to be normal.
There is a profound sense of oh-really sarcasm, despite the lack of retort. Rikuo's not actually sure if that counts as a win or not.
There's a shadow over his face, and for a moment Rikuo thinks Tsurara, thinks Kana-chan, but it's Keikain-san instead. Her eyes are dark and drooping and oddly intense in the yellowing light, shadowed by her chopped-straight bangs. (Not for the first time, he wonders if she just chops it all off with a knife.) Her shadow stretches out to cover him. For a moment his mouth is dry, and he thinks he can see why his other wants her so much, wants this impossible horrible girl who hates demons with every fiber of her being :and she let me go:.
He'd saved her life, yes, of course he had. Keikain-san is his good friend and Yura-san is his new fascination and even without that neither of him could let someone die like that, but – she's a demonslayer. She should have at least tried to shoot him, and how messed up is it that he wishes she had, that he could keep thinking of her as a dangerous enemy to keep at arm's length :in sword's-strike distance: and no closer.
"Are you done talking to yourself?" she says, and just like that the spell is broken, and they're just two ordinary humans having a very late lunch together in the park.
"Yes," he says, and he smiles.
"You shouldn't live with your head in the clouds, Nura-san. That's not safe," she chides.
Keikain-san has tiny wrinkles in her forehead, like it's a square of thick scrunched-up fabric. There's a part of him that wants to reach up and smooth them flat, to tug at the frown-folds weighing her face down until she shrieks and curses and maybe even smiles for real, just a tiny bit.
The worst part is, Rikuo's not sure anymore which part of him wants that more.
Somewhere in the gloaming echo-chamber of his mind, his shadow is laughing.