"So you like Noriko, huh?" Her eyes were too sharp, her smile too fake, for him to quite trust her observation as being a harmless piece of gossip. Maybe he was getting paranoid – who wouldn't be, in this situation – but something told him he had to tread carefully. Utsumi was clever, more so than Nanahara would ever be. He gave her a small, wary nod, conscious of the fact that he was a bad liar, and muttered a quiet and unsure:
"Why?"
She tilted her head to one side, watching him for such a short moment that he could almost have sworn she was merely studying him for lies, rather than calculating his reactions. "I know all about you." The words sent a chill down his spine, despite her playful tone, and the glimmer in her eyes. He swallowed, making the best of his meagre acting ability to look as if he didn't have a clue what she was talking about.
But she knew. He could tell. There was something about the way she looked at him, even the fact that she'd been lying next to him when he first regained consciousness – Nanahara would be willing to bet that she wouldn't have done that with Mimura, or with Sugimura, or even with Nobu. She knew, and it was almost a relief. That he wouldn't die with nobody knowing his secret. And that she didn't seem to be condemning him for what he was.
"You know what that means?" She asked him, and he shook his head out of instinct.
Shuya didn't have any defining moment. No epiphany, when he had realised he was gay. It had always been something that just was, a certain fact in his life. Boys married girls, girls married boys, Shuya liked boys and didn't like girls. There had been no sordid encounters in forbidden clubs, no secret touching. He had never told anyone – Nobu would have been horrified, and Shuya would have said a fond farewell to living at the Charity House (or at least, in the same room as his best friend) if he had known. He had endured his hopelessly unrequited crushes – one, even, on Mimura – in absolute silence, and gained a reputation as the perfect gentleman when he had refused various offers from girls after becoming a lust object for many of them. He let them down gently, telling them that they didn't want to waste their first time on someone who wasn't special to them, and that had been enough.
"What?"
It wasn't hard to hide it. He just had to keep his hands to himself, and make sure that nobody saw him looking. Changing before and after basketball had been torture. But he'd been good at keeping his sexual orientation under wraps; after all, he'd had a lot of practise at it. Utsumi looked at him once again, this time for longer – she was the most perceptive girl he'd ever met, even Noriko hadn't guessed, even though she'd pointed out that he didn't look up her skirt when he'd tended to the wound on her leg. Maybe she would never know why he hadn't. Maybe he'd never tell her – if they did ever get away, and found somewhere to be, maybe he would just tell her that he needed the right woman. Or maybe he could learn to take care of the mechanical side, though he didn't want to hurt her feelings by faking it. Even if she never knew, it would feel like a betrayal.
"Never mind."
There was a knowing look in her eyes, and after a little more chatter she closed the door behind her – leaving him with his own thoughts. So Utsumi knew. The brave, fierce girl who had never spoken to him much before knew his secret, and he felt…liberated.
Maybe telling the truth wasn't so bad after all.