2015.08.08: This was written back in 2007, when I was 15 years old. It was shit so I eventually I deleted it off FFN, but I found a preserved copy thanks to using the Wayback Machine on - so here you are.

The faint orange-white of glowing ashes slowly burns away before the tips of his fingers, letting gravity pull the dead and forgotten to the ground. The sweet scent of flowers fills the air like invisible proof of what could be, and he frowns, because he is oh-so-sick of smiles.

There's something about this that reminds him of Kyon. Of Suzumiya's chosen one. The flame only stays for an instant, just enough to heat the thin stick of incense so that it can destroy itself into the air. And the aftermath will linger for days, he knows. Invisible flowers will follow him, cover him, smother him, and the only thing that could possibly remedy it would be to light another. He sees himself in this, in this act that he fulfills so often it's nearly a ritual. Marking each glance, each greeting, each loss. Until he's dying from the knowledge of what his future will behold.

The lighter drops from his shaking fingers onto the wood of the desk in front of him. It's a cheap, plastic blue that does nothing but mock him with the blue seas of calm days, and freedom, and an innocence that is hard to fake. Because there is nothing he wants more than to be able to tell the truth. Kyon doesn't know him, the fake him let alone the real, and he is aware that there is nothing worse than a liar in the eyes of one who sees no need.

That time, in the seconds before entering closed space in an emptying crosswalk in the middle of the city, they touched.

-

Asahina handed him a steaming cup of liquid, freshly made with water from across the room by a machine that had been, most likely, stolen. Suzumiya seemed to have no qualms about theft or blackmail, but she drew the line at cheating. Strange. But then again, one should never try to understand one's God, for that only leads to disbelief.

He had never believed in the first place.

Kyon took the item with a glance upwards and a small smile. They were playing Othello again and the pieces had never felt as cool in his hand as they did now, fingertips running smoothly over the single marker as he thought about his next move. It took only a second – a pause just long enough to show that he was there, that his thoughts held no real weight – and then he placed it on the board with the same sort of indifference as he had the one before. He was losing.

The boy – or man, was that preferred? – blinked. He was probably suppressing the urge to yawn. The brown-haired student had seemed sleepy even when he had first walked in the door an hour ago. All of them had been particularly bored as of late, nothing was happening and nothing had happened for a while now. Suzumiya was content with complaining about the cold and dressing Asahina up in outfits she found entertaining, things that were too skimpy for the current trend of weather.

Itsuki was glad that there had been no closed space to deal with lately, and at least they had a heater to ward off the cold thanks to the "movie" that they had created earlier in the year. The demanding schoolgirl certainly knew when to use things to her advantage, that was certain.

He wondered what his schoolmate had looked like, walking up the hill to the club room with such an awkward package. Had he been smiling, happy to escape the boredom of the Brigade for just a little while, with crisp air all around him and cheeks pink from the cold? The esper regretted the fact that he hadn't been there for the return. Suzumiya had gleefully told him that the other Brigade member had dozed off after he had set the device up and that she had even let him borrow her cardigan. He wondered what the boy across from him looked like when asleep, and then wisely decided not to dwell on the matter. There would be other times.

It had been startlingly easy to adapt to this daily routine. He could be a "mysterious transfer student" with philosophical reasoning and good timing alone, and could easily fake the persona of politeness in order to be pleasant to talk to. But it was those same things that had failed to gain the trust of the boy in front of him. He had said so himself on more than one occasion and there was no reason not to trust his word. Koizumi sipped his tea with another smile plastered on his face, and placed another marker down on the worn playing board. It was an expression that didn't sit well with his opponent, who knew that it was not true happiness he felt, but the smiles were not for him.

"Your turn."

The words startled him out of his musings, and his finger nervously slid to the bridge of his nose without thought. It was the first time he had heard the boy's voice in a while. Since he had entered the club that day, in fact. He looked in dismay towards the board - where he was still losing - and glanced at the pile of markers by his side. He was glad that they weren't playing for money. Itsuki placed another coloured stone on the board, effectively flipping three others to make a chain of his own, and sat back in his chair, waiting for the day to be over so that he could go home. Kant was proving to be insanely confusing and he wanted to be able to understand at least a little of his teachings in order to wow their Brigade Chief if needed, and so he had taken to studying after his schoolwork was finished.

"Kyon!"

The boy sighed and looked up to see Suzumiya standing authoritatively at the edge of their table. He didn't look very pleased at the fact that the game had been interrupted, and that gave Itsuki a small swell of glee, but on the other hand he had been looking pretty bored while playing. He stood up and ambled towards where she needed him, something to do with the computer, and reluctantly began to work.

Koizumi sat there, a smile on his face, and waited.

On his way back, he accidentally brushed against him on the while he was trying to avoid the ever-quiet Nagato's ill-placed chair, and some of the esper's lukewarm tea sloshed out of his chipped tea cup and onto his uniform pants. The smile fell for a moment. Koizumi watched as the liquid was soaked up by the material, a dark splotch that spread and spread with time, and he held his breath to make it last. But then Asahina was there, with stammered words and a few napkins, and he pressed the white paper to the damp pseudo-wound.

There was a muttered apology, one that didn't sound very sympathetic. Kyon brushed the pieces to one side and then picked out his own count among the mass of coloured stone look-alikes. Itsuki did the same and they began a new game, with Suzumiya rambling on to an embarrassed Asahina in the background and Nagato silently flipping forward through the pages of another world.