Title: Meeting Halfway
Fandom: Kimi ni Todoke
Characters: Ayane/Chizuru/Ryu
For kyuuketsukirui at the Kaleidoscope fanwork exchange.
1.
During the summer break, Chizuru and Ayane hung out at the convenience store near the station. Chizuru's house was a few blocks away, but Ayane kept forgetting to buy a new bottle of sun block and insisted on wearing as little clothing as decently possible without mortifying the rest of the neighborhood, so walking was out of the question. It would have been fine if Chizuru remembered to bring an umbrella with her, but she had a reputation to maintain, after all.
The food was mostly an added bonus.
A lot of people could accuse Chizuru of being dumb, but when it came to free snacks, she knew how to play the game of mooching. Chizuru had complained about the heat and the broken air conditioner before Ayane cracked and bought her a popsicle to keep her quiet. There weren't a lot of people to bother in the combini to start with, but Chizuru knew Ayane was particular about things like that, and it got Chizuru what she wanted anyway. Ayane sometimes looked like she had caught on to Chizuru's schemes, but Chizuru was certain she didn't voice it out for fear of Chizuru blaming her influence for the marked improvement. (Not that she hadn't been scamming snacks off the Sanada family since the age of five, but Ayane didn't know that.)
A few guys had tried their hand at picking up Ayane, but Ayane had given them the cold shoulder, claiming that middle schoolchildren were a waste of her time. Chizuru had ignored the whole set-down, content with her popsicle, but she had briefly toyed with the idea of telling them off with a different explanation.
When the disgruntled middle-schoolers had left, Ayane turned to Chizuru. "You looked like you wanted to say something," said Ayane. Her arms were crossed in that no-nonsense fashion Chizuru had seen more often than not. "Spill."
Chizuru's shirt clung to her back, the sweat dried out long ago but the prickle of heat still thrummed under her skin. It made Chizuru feel drained, but she always liked to get a kick out of her friends' issues. "You could have told them you were already going out with someone," said Chizuru.
Ayane rolled her eyes. "Yeah, and then who knew where their minds would go? They'd probably think you were," she hesitated, and shook her head. She looked like she wanted to say something that would likely hurt Chizuru, like she did whenever Chizuru brought up Toru. "Never mind."
Chizuru bristled at the insinuation. "I'm what?"
"You wouldn't get it," said Ayane, but her tone was apologetic even with its high-handedness. "Your brain's not built for that kind of stuff."
"Hey!"
"But it's true," said Ayane, smiling; the expression looked awkward on her usually severe face, but it was still endearing all the same. It was a waste when she realized she was doing it and immediately looked dismayed at the prospect.
"You're too self-conscious, Yano-chin," said Chizuru, and Ayane's expression completely shuttered into itself.
"I'm not," said Ayane, sighing.
In her mind, Chizuru conceded. It was not self-consciousness… not quite; more like: a heightened and fluctuating sort of awareness that was present when Chizuru was around.
"Hey, Yano," said Chizuru, tilting her face towards Ayane.
"What is it?" Ayane said, warily.
Chizuru picked at the loose thread on her shirt sleeve. "Help me out with science."
Ayane snorted. "I thought you already had Sawako's notes."
"That's different," mumbled Chizuru. "The heat's making my head spin. I can't read the kanji well."
"Fine," said Ayane, "but you're making me dinner that's not ramen."
Chizuru could live with that.
2.
When asked how they first met, Chizuru would tell them that Ayane looked so mature that she thought she was an upperclassman. The makeup and the perpetual texting to an older boyfriend made the impression likely, but if anyone had noticed the slightest bite in Chizuru's words, then they never said anything.
Because the thing about Chizuru was that Chizuru didn't like those kinds of girls, the types that looked like they could try their hand at dating for money or going to love hotels without batting an eyelash. Ayane, for all intents and purposes, looked exactly like that kind of girl, and the excessive adoration for brand name items didn't help at all. A long attempt at friendship and the insistent reminder that Ayane was at a sensitive age and had something more underneath the mascara and lip gloss smoothened out the initial kinks of their relationship, but sometimes Chizuru couldn't help but remember.
Chizuru was kind of dumb about some things, but the Ayane she'd met in the hallway was sort of scary and looked like she could pin Chizuru down with a nail file in ten seconds flat, never mind that silly rumor about her winning streak being shot down to hell by Ryu. In her mind, Chizuru despaired at the prospect of adding another tally to the list, so she swallowed down the initial urge to roll her eyes and made more room for Ayane in the hallway, even if there was a lot of space anyway. Those girls didn't really care about things like that.
"Sempai," said Chizuru, ducking her head with as much respect as she could muster, never mind the fact that it looked more like impertinence when she said it.
Ayane cocked an eyebrow at her and promptly entered the classroom.
"Oh, crap," said Chizuru, and she went off to find Ryu in a fit of hysteria.
But Chizuru had more cause to think less of Ayane inasmuch as first impressions were concerned, after all, even taking away the hair style and the manicured nails and the expensive bags and - well, everything.
It began with a train station. Chizuru was on her way home from running an errand for her mother when she'd caught sight of a girl with bleached hair and the shortest skirt Chizuru had ever seen. The girl was smoking in an alley in a train station when a boy came up to her, saying, "What's up, Ayane-chan?" and kissed her, all open-mouthed and unashamedly that Chizuru felt her ears heat up at the display. It didn't help that the girl had kept her eyes open and trained on Chizuru the entire time, as if to telepathically transmit the message that she would find Chizuru and kill her dead. That kind of memory wasn't something she could have easily forgotten, and the thought of running into Ayane was enough to send her into alternating fits of terror and indignation.
"You're an idiot," said Ryu, shrugging. "She's probably just quiet."
"Or she's shy," said Kazehaya, who just didn't get it, obviously. To cement Chizuru's long-standing belief of Kazehaya's incapacity to understand people, he said, "She's probably like Kurumi, you know. You should give her a shot."
"Kuru-who?" Ryu asked, taking another bite out of his bread.
"Why am I even talking to both of you about this," said Chizuru, groaning into her hands. She still thought it was a bad idea, but when she marched up to Ayane the next day and gruffly asked if the seat beside her was taken, Ayane almost looked flustered at Chizuru's words.
Kazehaya was right about one thing, though: Ayane was really kind of shy.
3.
The first time Ayane heard about Toru was also the first time Chizuru got a vague inkling that Ayane was like that in a completely different way than she'd originally thought Ayane was.
"Excuse me?" Ayane said, gaping at her even as the lettuce from her sandwich drooped on her table the way what used to be a leafy green vegetable cut off from its life source would have - woeful, abandoned, and as dry as the plant Chizuru was supposed to tend back in grade school.
"I said I failed the last test so you better lend me your notes," said Chizuru. Ayane made an impatient, tsk-ing sound and fumbled with her sandwich.
"Not that. I meant, before that."
"Ryu's brother is coming home for winter break," said Chizuru, shrugging. "I was thinking of buying a dress or a skirt, you know, to look less like a bratty neighborhood kid and more like a. Uh. A girl."
Ayane looked surprised, as if the thought didn't even register to her. Chizuru was torn between feeling bad and feeling hurt that Ayane didn't even think of her as a girl, even if they were friends. Behind her, Ryu turned to look at the window. Chizuru felt the awkward atmosphere rise with every second.
"I didn't know you liked anyone," said Ayane, very carefully not looking at Chizuru or Ryu. Chizuru flushed, despite herself, and wanted to retort that she could like anyone she damn well pleased, but noticed that Ayane's fingers were trembling, slightly.
"I want melon bread," said Chizuru, crossing her arms and stalling further conversation about Toru. Talk about a downer.
"Get me some on your way back," said Ryu, and Chizuru smacked him with her wallet on her way out.
What was more disappointing was Ayane's subsequent attempts to brush her off when Chizuru begged her to come shopping with her. Chizuru had figured that Ayane would be the person to go to in times of extremely pressing matters such as this, but Ayane had given her a look that could freeze a guy's balls and went back to texting her maybe-boyfriend. "I'm busy," said Ayane, tersely.
"Come on," said Chizuru, "I don't know a thing about this kind of stuff!"
"What's wrong with your uniform?" She paused, as if willing her phone to ring. The guise of being busy didn't hide the sneer too well, and Chizuru almost bristled. "He'll probably like that if he has a school girl kink. Then again, I'm not sure I approve of a guy with pedophilic tendencies like that. It's your loss, either way."
"Don't talk about Toru like that," said Chizuru, feeling her cheeks heat up and her eyes well up.
Ayane opened her mouth, but Chizuru started to cry into her scarf and damn it, she was so uncool. "It's a skirt," said Ayane, finally, but not without rolling her eyes. "What on earth is so amazing about that?"
Everything, Chizuru wanted to say, but Ayane's anger crumpled into fatigue and Chizuru wasn't so sure if she wanted more bad blood between them.
It only took a few excuses like that for the lie to fall flat. Ayane definitely wasn't keen on Toru, but she made an effort to hide it, at least. Even best friends didn't act that possessive towards each other, so Chizuru reasoned that it must have been something else. A healthy dose of her mother's day time soap operas and her own 12 AM epiphany one night might have pushed her mind into that kind of gutter, but she knew, instinctively, what the matter was.
Chizuru always spoke her mind, but what people didn't know was that she was very good at hiding some things too. She wasn't completely blind; if anything, Ryu could probably argue that her obliviousness was selective and Chizuru wouldn't shoot the idea down, but she was a girl who relied on her intuition more than calculation, unlike Ayane.
So if Chizuru caught on to Ayane's interest in her, then that was fine with her. Her gut didn't tell her that Ayane was a raging, obsessive psychopath, and she felt more gratification than repulsion, to be honest. If she weren't so keen on keeping Ayane's secret with her to her grave, she would have gloated to Ryu months ago.
Besides, Ayane had enough sense not to be as evasive as she looked like she wanted to be; she might have put her foot down on future trips to the mall for skirts, but she had taken to teasing Chizuru about Toru with the kind of misguided attempts at communication that only someone from the sidelines could come up with. She'd never met Toru, anyway, but Chizuru wasn't sadistic enough to bring up any plans of getting the two to be acquainted. She wasn't dumb like that.
4.
The thing about Ayane was that she was in a constant state of denial. She claimed she got bored of relationships because her ex-boyfriends were too clingy, too cold, too insensitive, too touchy - there was never any middle ground for her, and Chizuru could go on and on about the imperfections of Ayane's past lovers, but Chizuru thought, privately, that none of them were good enough because Ayane wasn't really interested in them enough.
Besides, what was wrong with being alone? "Who needs men?" Chizuru joked after Ayane struggled to maintain her indifference at her most recent break-up. Chizuru slung her arms around Ayane and Sawako, pulling them closer to her. "Now we have more time to hang out, right, Sawako?"
"Chizu!" Sawako gasped out, trembling slightly. She looked like she wanted to agree but didn't want to cross a line.
"You already act like one," said Ayane, arms akimbo as she inched away from Chizuru's grip. "Should have been born a boy, you idiot."
"Uh huh," said Chizuru, cheerfully. "I dunno if I'd go for Yano-chin or Sawako, but that would make me kind of gay for Toru, right?"
Ayane flinched, a little. Chizuru wasn't a mean person in general, but being good friends with someone meant that they knew each other's weaknesses and insecurities and could push if they were prodded.
Chizuru's mindless chatter filled the rest of the conversation, Sawako being too concerned about Ayane to offer much in the way of small talk, and Ayane too reticent and tense to poke fun at Chizuru. They parted ways with Sawako at the bus station, and Chizuru and Ayane began the trek to the train station.
"I'm not gonna say sorry," said Chizuru, as they passed the game center.
"I won't apologize either," said Ayane.
"But you should," said Chizuru. She didn't mention that she should have, either. Ayane would never forgive her for it, if she did. "I've always been one of the guys but you know I'm still a girl. You know."
Ayane had the grace to look a little ashamed. Chizuru took pity on her, for that, so she reached out to brush her knuckles against Ayane's cheek.
"I wasn't kidding, though," said Chizuru.
"About being gay for Toru?" Ayane said, swallowing slightly.
"Totally," said Chizuru, and she burst out laughing at the thought.
"Are you done yet?" Ayane asked, sounding less annoyed than she probably felt. She would have looked more mature had she refrained from checking the soles of her shoes and making a disgusted noise at the wad of gum stuck underneath. It was more play-acting than serious, but Chizuru knew Ayane was just embarrassed.
"Mm, not really, Yano-chin," said Chizuru. If she turned her face away from the strange expression that Ayane wore, then Ayane made no acknowledgement of it. "See you tomorrow."
She raised her hand in farewell as Ayane stepped past the turnstiles. She didn't know if Ayane looked at her as she left; she didn't bother to check.
5.
What Ayane never told Chizuru was that she used to go to an all-girls school. What Chizuru didn't tell Ayane was that he already knew.
She wasn't entirely clueless - she knew some things happened in schools like that. The knowledge drove home the point that Ayane's sexuality wasn't exactly what her boyfriends would have preferred, and that probably didn't help them reach second base, if the increasing rate of crash-and-burn relationships Ayane entered was any indication of that. Joe liked to brag that there was something irresistibly sexy in something forbidden like two girls in a Catholic school falling in love, but Chizuru thought it was more of the repression and less of the preference. Ayane wasn't just a school girl lesbian, maybe.
The rest of the girls in their batch, though, had other ideas.
Chizuru had fallen asleep in the toilet when she heard a group of girls come in the washroom, shrieking about seeing some girls from the middle school a few blocks away making out in the park. "It was really gross," one of them said. "Like, get a room, you guys? This isn't your classroom anyway."
"I didn't know the girls from that school were like that," chimed in another. "My cousin used to go there and she had a boyfriend in high school."
"She was probably really into girls," a third voice said, giggling, even as the other swatted her. Chizuru was about to yawn and go back to sleep when the girl drew in a sharp breath and pounded her fist against her palm. "Oh! Didn't Yano from the class beside ours come from there?"
Chizuru stiffened, suddenly awake.
"Eh? But didn't she graduate from a co-ed school?"
"Yeah, but I think she just transferred in her last year! Maybe she got expelled when she got caught." The girl snorted. "She's definitely a lipstick lesbian of some sort. Have you seen her hands? They look too feminine, she's probably compensating."
"God, I'm so glad I'm not in her class."
Chizuru wanted to yell, well, I'm glad you're not in ours too, and you're so ugly she'll never be interested in you, but the words kept ringing in her mind, like some kind of unholy confirmation of what she already suspected. She wanted to deny the slightest rush of satisfaction of knowing she was right, but she couldn't.
Instead, Chizuru thought about Ayane's hands, of taking them into hers and holding tightly to stop herself from punching out someone or some thing. Ayane was always so careful about her hands, and if Chizuru could hold them, she'd know that Ayane was also careful about other people's feelings, other girls' hearts. They didn't know Ayane at all.
Well, screw them.
6.
Kurumi was the kind of girl everyone but Chizuru (and Ryu, who never really paid attention to a lot of people) thought would end up with Kazehaya. She was nice (maybe), cute (uh huh), helpful (sometimes), and generally fun to be with (depending on who you were and what she needed from you). Chizuru wouldn't go so far as to say that she hated her, but at the very least something about Kurumi didn't sit well with Chizuru, ever. The feeling, apparently, was mutual, if Kurumi's snubbing was any indication of that.
When Ayane met Kurumi, Chizuru seriously wanted to question her tastes. Even after Kurumi's schemes and barely-concealed spite, Ayane still acknowledged that Kurumi would have been her type. Maybe. Chizuru thought Kurumi was a total bitch. Ayane would probably tap her. The thought made Chizuru retch.
"You traitor," said Chizuru, after hearing Ayane recount her confrontation with Kurumi. "How could you, after what she did to our poor Sawako-chan?"
"It was a hypothetical scenario," said Ayane. "Don't act like such a jilted lover. What are you, my ex?"
"Our relationship has been damaged forever," said Chizuru, weeping into her beef bowl. "You've turned to the dark side, Yano-chin."
"If I did, you wouldn't be calling me that," said Ayane, looking strangely pleased with herself. "And I'm not a boy, so don't worry about that, okay? I'm not gonna suddenly attack Kurumi or something." Ayane made a face at her own slim pickings of chicken.
If only I were a boy. Chizuru wondered if Ayane thought of this every night, if Ayane could get what she wanted if she weren't herself. Ayane could go on and on about how love wasn't really her thing, but Chizuru knew it was Ayane's way of handling some things she hadn't completely accepted about herself. It felt kind of lonely.
They passed Kurumi in the hallway, once. Ayane's eyes narrowed at the ribbon tucked neatly beneath a starched collar, above the swell of Kurumi's breasts. Her fingers twitched, once; she let them curl into her palm.
Chizuru didn't miss it.
"Not gonna attack her, huh," said Chizuru.
Ayane looked vaguely disgusted. "Oh my god, stop."
The belligerent sexual tension was nauseating, but Chizuru had the consolation of knowing Kurumi was completely obsessed with Kazehaya. At least Ayane wouldn't get swallowed up whole by her.
"I'm so glad you're not a boy," said Chizuru, suddenly relieved by the prospect. "And I'm glad you're not a pushover like Kazehaya."
"Huh?" Ayane looked confused. "What are you talking about now?"
"Nothing," said Chizuru, sighing. "Absolutely nothing."
7.
She didn't go to school after Ryu told her he liked her, nor did she answer Ayane's messages; instead, she hung out with Kazehaya staring at the sky and wondering where on earth everything went wrong and how she could have missed that (seriously?). When she finally went back to school, she still couldn't muster up enough courage to look at Ryu without wanting to rage at him for changing everything. Chizuru was so used to everything going along like one smooth flow; she'd been out of sorts when Toru had gotten married that she'd been fooled into thinking that she could go back to riding the wave. What was it about the Sanada family that made her life more complicated than it should have been?
On the rooftop, Chizuru pretended to sleep. Her hair was tousled and bleached; it fanned out beneath the solidity of her head.
When she was in middle school, she used to skip class like this all the time. Now, she didn't do it that much except when she needed to think without Ayane prodding her into the right direction. It wasn't like she never had problems of her own that Ayane couldn't help her with. Not like this.
Ayane kept her hand on the doorknob, probably unsure of how to proceed. She could have heard all about it from Kazehaya, or maybe from Ryu himself. Ayane wasn't some vindictive bitch. Not usually. Chizuru had the sneaking suspicion that Ayane had mostly resigned herself to Chizuru getting a boyfriend in some form, and if it happened, it happened.
It didn't mean she wasn't going to be jealous about it, though. Chizuru had enough experience to know that.
"You can come in, you know," said Chizuru, finally, still keeping her eyes closed. No point in delaying the inevitable. "I'm not gonna do anything stupid."
"Skipping class is stupid," said Ayane, crossing the space to stand beside Chizuru without taking a seat. "Why didn't you answer my texts?"
"Didn't feel like it," said Chizuru. "I just wanted to go home and sleep."
Ayane leaned forward and slapped her upside the head, suddenly. Chizuru let out a strangled cry and shot up, looking at Ayane, wounded, as she cradled the her head. She was about to crack a joke about that, but the look on Ayane's face told her she kind of screwed up there.
"I didn't know if you jumped off a building or not," said Ayane, her voice shaking. "I didn't want to think you were kidnapped, or robbed, or- or-"
Wordlessly, Chizuru held out both her hands, and Ayane fell to her knees, letting Chizuru enfold her into an apologetic embrace. Chizuru felt some shame at how she'd acted out, and she wondered what it felt like for Ayane, when Chizuru had all but rejected her concern.
"I didn't know what to think," said Ayane, her voice hushed and tiny and scared, and Chizuru felt the guilt come back in full force. If Ayane couldn't accept some parts of her selfishness, what more when it came to Ryu? It was hard to act like a child now, and it was harder to get her feelings across the more real they were.
"Sorry," said Chizuru, already well past the point of sniffling into Ayane's sleeve. "I'm an idiot, the biggest idiot there is."
"Yeah," said Ayane, patting her head. She sounded more like herself now, scary, responsible Ayane who took care of her friends and made sure they didn't do stupid things. Sometimes Chizuru forgot that Ayane was just a kid like her. "You really are the biggest idiot I know."
8.
Chizuru didn't tell Ayane about Ryu, and Ayane didn't push. As far as Chizuru was concerned, whatever feelings she had invested in Ryu struck too close to home with Ayane, regardless of the difference in the length of time Chizuru had known each of them. Ayane was what Ryu could have been to her if Ryu had been a girl, and it would have hurt Ayane if Chizuru had to make a choice. Chizuru had always been the kind to be reticent about potentially disastrous changes, and sometimes it was less about the risks and more about how much she wanted to preserve the nice things she already had.
They moved on, anyway; all of them did. Chizuru began a tentative relationship of sorts with Ryu that she didn't like to label, especially when Ayane was around, but she felt like they were perpetually stuck in the friendship rut, too comfortable in each other's skin as childhood playmates than as lovers. It didn't help matters that Ryu was a little too eager to fit neatly into the boyfriend role to the point that it was starting to bug Chizuru when she could hardly go into the classroom and not have anyone (mostly Joe) make childish remarks about it. Ryu's father had even started to introduce her as his official future daughter-in-law to the patrons, and while that would have delighted her earlier on, it didn't feel right to want things that she wanted when she was in love with Toru, like Ryu was getting slim pickings as she settled for the sibling.
Ayane didn't ask, and Chizuru didn't tell, but Chizuru felt like Ayane knew the undercurrents of their relationship well enough to take in Chizuru's tension and Ryu's almost-disappointment to understand. Sometimes Ayane would look at Ryu with something resembling pity at his apparent masochism, and Ryu would look back with a blank expression that somehow managed to say be glad you're not me. Sometimes Chizuru really wanted to stab both of them with her chop sticks.
At least Ayane gave her some space, thought Chizuru, spitefully, only to realize that it was precisely because they werefriends that Ayane gave her liberties Ryu or any other guy wouldn't have. Like, say, letting her go to a goukon.
Goukons weren't really interesting, Chizuru decided. The boys were mostly from their batch, anyway, and some of them were terrified of her and Ryu, equally, that they could barely let out a word to her. Ayane kept shooting dirty looks at their classmates for dragging them along to what was officially the most tedious moment of her life.
"This was a bad idea," said Ayane, wincing after she'd shot down the latest offer to take the mic and let Joe do the honors of maiming the latest Morning Musume song. "Do you wanna go home now?"
"No way," said Chizuru, sipping her iced tea. "Mom's just gonna make me study for entrance exams anyway."
Ayane hesitated, before glancing at her surreptitiously. "We could go watch a movie, or-"
"Oh, hey!" Chizuru yelled, waving at Kento as he opened the door to the karaoke room bearing a tray of appetizers. "Over here!"
Ayane seemed to freeze up, beside Chizuru, even as Chizuru gleefully stole a french fry from the bowl and dipped it into the ketchup. "Hello," said Ayane, pointedly looking at Chizuru.
"It's been a while," said Kento, equally politely. Ayane made a non-committal noise at the back of her throat. Chizuru looked at the two of them, confused at the greeting. Didn't they see each other in class, anyway? Not like Kento and Ayane talked much; Ayane seemed to succeed in avoiding him like a plague most of the time, and Kento had his own hangers-on. Ayane never did tell her what went on between her and Kento.
"I feel like I haven't seen you in forever," said Chizuru. "You haven't been bothering Sawako or Kazehaya much, huh?"
"Bothering?" Kento said, looking mildly amused. "I can assure you that my affections are perfectly pure-hearted and-"
"Yeah, yeah," said Chizuru, waving him off. "Whatever. Can't say I'm complaining, though. Kazehaya looks less jumpy these days."
Kento let out a short, sharp bark of laughter. "What about you? What are you doing at a goukon? Ayane-san, I could understand, but isn't Sanada-san going to be pissed?"
"'s not cheating if it's boring," mumbled Chizuru, playing with her loopy straw.
"Haven't you terrorized enough people yet?" Ayane finally said, giving Kento a disapproving frown.
"Ahahaha," said Kento, smiling, "I don't know what to make of that, Ayane-san. I really liked Kazehaya-kun, you know."
"Never mind," said Ayane, her lips thinned out in a tight, severe line.
Ayane didn't talk for the rest of the goukon, but Chizuru caught her looking at Kento in a funny way when she thought no one was looking. "Huh," said Chizuru, considering.
9.
Kento started to hang around Ayane shortly after the goukon, but Chizuru knew it was Ayane who had approached Kento first. Ayane, who had made it a point to forswear any interaction with Kento after he had made a mess of Kazehaya and Sawako's relationship. Chizuru couldn't help but feel lonely and not a little jealous at that.
Kento was a nice guy who liked to laugh and make other people happy, sort of like Kazehaya only without the straight-laced tendencies. Chizuru didn't know how Ayane could have resisted that kind of flamboyance for a time, but maybe it was because Kento had left a less-than-perfect impression that she'd shied away from him, however tempting the idea of Kento as a companion was. Chizuru definitely had nothing on Kento; heck, she didn't have anything on Ayane's ex-boyfriends when they were still new, but this thing with Kento didn't look like it was wearing off any time soon.
After the initial epiphany that the road to the life of a serial killer began with the incapacity to feel happy for anyone, Chizuru found some comfort in the opinions of her friends. One of them, anyway.
"I don't like how she's hanging out with him," said Kazehaya, voicing out Chizuru's exact thoughts. "He's a bad influence."
"Sensei isn't like that," protested Sawako, looking horrified at the idea. Kazehaya made a pained noise at the back of his throat at Sawako's eager defense of Kento's good qualities, but stood his ground.
"I still don't like him," muttered Kazehaya, and Chizuru fumbled with her handkerchief as she nodded fervently.
"Do you really think they're going out?" Chizuru said.
"It's none of our business," said Ryu, stealing a bite out of Chizuru's nikuman, and for once Chizuru didn't launch into a tirade. She slumped into her seat, face pressed against the table, and didn't look up even as Ayane bopped her on the head as a hello.
When classes were over, she grabbed onto Ayane's purse. "Wait up," said Chizuru, beaming. "Let's go home together!"
"I don't think that's a good idea," said Ayane. "Aren't you going home with Sanada?"
"Eh," said Chizuru, "I can walk home with him any time."
"I was going to walk home with Kento, actually," said Ayane, looking nonchalant - at least, until Chizuru burst out crying.
It took at least two cans of soda and fifteen minutes of consolation for Chizuru to calm down after being reduced to blubbering about the wreckage of their friendship and the intrusion of unassuming pretty boys, but Ayane hit her with her bag and then they were okay, pretty much.
"What's wrong with you?" Ayane said, crossly. "I'm not gonna go off into the sunset and marry some guy and have babies ever after. Besides, I'd never forget you, especially if you kept crying like this over every little thing."
"But you will!" Chizuru wailed. "I can see it in your eyes!"
"Ugh. I can't," Ayane made a flustered face, "be like that. With anyone."
"What about Kento?" Chizuru said. Ayane had to pull at her arm to keep her from walking into a bicycle rack.
"What about him?" Ayane said, looking for all the world like Chizuru had better have a perfectly good explanation unless she wanted her head on a stake.
"I thought he liked you," said Chizuru.
"Are you kidding me?" Ayane snorted. "He's gay."
Chizuru's mind ground to a halt. "What?"
"Yeah, I'm serious," said Ayane, laughing. "I'm never wrong about this stuff. He really likes Kazehaya-kun, trust me on this."
Oh. That explained a lot of the teasing and the flirting and the - never mind.
"So what are you? Is he blackmailing you to be his beard?" Chizuru mumbled.
"No," said Ayane, carefully. "I was just thinking that we had a lot in common, that's all."
"Oh," said Chizuru, blowing her nose. "That's good."
They were silent, for a beat, save for Chizuru's sniffles. Ayane looked like she was struggling to find the right words, and Chizuru was just waiting for her to say anything. When they reached the intersection, Ayane turned to Chizuru, putting her hands on Chizuru's shoulders. It looked comical, with their height difference, but Chizuru couldn't bring herself to laugh.
"Chizuru," said Ayane, "when I said Kento and I had a lot in common, I didn't mean it like we had the same hobbies."
"Yeah," said Chizuru, "I know."
"No," said Ayane, sounding as frustrated as she looked like she felt. "Chizuru, I like girls."
"Yeah," said Chizuru, "I knew that."
"Ugh, you don't get it," said Ayane. "I'm lesbian, okay?"
Ayane looked so miserable in her coat and scarf that Chizuru wanted to coddle her a bit. "Yeah," said Chizuru, "it's cool. I told you, I already knew that."
"You did?" Ayane said, face blank as she let her hands fall to her side. "Since when?"
Chizuru had enough self-preservation instincts to know when to lie and when not to. "Since Kurumi," she blurted out. "You kept staring at her breasts and I—"
"Okay," said Ayane, hurriedly, but she started to relax when she realized Chizuru was completely okay with it. "Not the way I planned to come out, but you're really something else, aren't you?"
"Could have told me earlier," said Chizuru, sniffing. She probably didn't realize it then, though.
"Jeeze," said Ayane, looking relieved, "you really thought Kento and I were going out? What are you, an idiot?"
"I couldn't help it," said Chizuru, sniffling into a tissue, "you were ignoring me."
"I forgot about your clinginess," said Ayane, sighing. "Good thing I'm not a boy, or we'd have the most dysfunctional relationship ever, right?"
Ayane's smile was kind of strained, and for a hilarious, insane moment, Chizuru kind of wanted to wipe off that smile with her mouth. "I dunno," said Chizuru. "Don't we have one right now?"
Ayane hit her on the head again, for good measure. "Don't joke around," said Ayane.
"I'm not joking," said Chizuru, sullenly. "You're important to me."
"You're important to me too," said Ayane. "Probably the most important person I have right now. But you have to understand that I'm not the most important person to you, and I never will be."
"Yano-chin," said Chizuru, "I love you more than ramen!"
"Great," said Ayane, passing a frustrated hand over her hair, "like that's supposed to make me feel better."
"But I do!" Chizuru said, side stepping a trash bin. "You know how much I like ramen."
"Chizuru," said Ayane, sternly. "If I asked you to rank your preferences right now, I'm sure I'd be below Toru or Ryu. And I'm not stupid enough to think I'd ever rank higher than that."
Chizuru made an unhappy noise, but didn't deny it.
"Besides," said Ayane, "it'd be unfair to Sanada, and I don't want that. So can you accept that I love you very much and I'd never leave you for some stupid boy?"
Ayane held out her hand to Chizuru. Chizuru's own hands were sweaty and she still held on to the box of tissues Ayane had chucked at her earlier, but she took it anyway, lacing their fingers together with the kind of gentleness Chizuru thought she'd only share with a boy.
"Still higher than ramen, though," Chizuru insisted.
Ayane looked vaguely touched. "Don't forget it."
10.
Contrary to popular belief, Ayane was still a virgin. Chizuru knew this because Ayane had told her halfway through the last Christmas party of their class. No matter how many magazines she stacked under her bed or how many dirty jokes she'd heard, doing it wasn't the same as just talking about it. There were some things she'd never let herself do just for the heck of it, but some things she could let other people get away with.
Like kissing, for example.
"It's mistletoe, Ayane-chan," wailed Joe into his second cup of pity alcohol while nursing a bruise on his cheek courtesy of Ayane's faux Gucci purse. "Can't you be festive, for once?"
Ayane's eyebrow twitched as she raised her bag above her shoulder, much to Chizuru's amusement and Joe's despair. "Want me to deck the halls with red, then?"
"I'm pretty sure that's not how the saying goes," chimed in Kento, and he leaned forward to peck on Ayane's cheek. Sassy gay friend didn't even cut it. "You're still standing underneath it, by the way."
"Ugh," said Ayane, wiping at her cheek. "Gross. You should kiss Joe for good measure."
Joe looked completely cowed by that, although he did look suspiciously like he was considering it. Chizuru laughed and patted Joe on the back, saying, "I don't think Kento's fans are gonna take that too well, though."
"Better Joe than me," said Ayane, grumbling even as she lowered her weapon.
"Not really," said Kento, sympathetically, "but they wouldn't know that, would they?"
"Okay, you guys," said Ayane, "Pin's coming over here with the innocent couple and I'm not sure I want to be here with that."
"Kazehaya and Sawako, huh?" Kento said, perking up despite his conscious efforts at looking disinterested. Chizuru would have thought it was cute if she didn't find it creepy.
"Thought Pin was sweet on you," said Chizuru, bumping their shoulders together.
"Ew," said Ayane, making a repulsed face. "He's like my weird big brother."
"Who's weird?" Pin's voice boomed behind Ayane, and Ayane spluttered as Kento gleefully pointed out the decoration perched above Ayane.
"Why me?" Ayane groaned, even as Pin leered and swooped down to kiss her forehead.
When Pin pulled away, Pin almost looked like he was smiling. "Still think you're off the straight and narrow path?"
Ayane rolled her eyes. "Definitely."
Chizuru looked betrayed. "Did you tell everyone before me?"
Ayane snorted. "I might have."
Hours later, when the alcohol consumption was coming to a dangerously high point and Pin had succeeded in planting a huge kiss on Kazehaya's cheek in front of an increasingly inebriated and rambunctious crowd, Ayane tipped her beer can against Chizuru and said, very seriously, "I didn't get to kiss you earlier, huh?"
From Chizuru's other side, Ryu stiffened, imperceptibly. Chizuru knocked her can against Ayane's with more force, and said, "It's no big. You didn't kiss Joe either, right?"
"Yeah," said Ayane, looking into her can of Asahi. "But I would have. If you wanted me to."
It might have been the alcohol, but Chizuru suddenly felt very light and warm. "Friends can totally kiss," said Chizuru, and she let her head rest on Ayane's shoulder, making smacking noises to prove her point - whatever it was.
"I'm not drunk enough for this conversation," said Ayane, finally. "Ugh, my head."
"Hn," said Ryu, even as Chizuru erupted into a series of choked laughter, but he looked like he meant, neither am I.
11.
It ended with a train station.
They graduated a few months later, and by some miracle Chizuru had passed her exams and had gotten into a fairly middle-rate university she didn't think she had a chance of getting into. It was more of a waitlisted kind of pass, though, and Ayane took every opportunity to point it out just to reduce the subsequent bragging everyone was subjected to. Chizuru didn't have to move out since the campus was only a few stations away, not like the rest of their friends that opted to go to school in other regions, like Ayane.
The technical school Ayane applied to was based in Tokyo, and commuting was too much of a hassle for Ayane to consider. Chizuru was a little terrified of the thought that everyone would drift away and lose contact; she'd always took leaving the hardest out of all of them, but with good reason. There wasn't much to tie the rest of them down, not like Ryu, who'd begun training to inherit the shop.
"Think of it this way," said Ayane, "we're gonna have a long distance relationship like Kazehaya and Sawako."
"Pfft," said Chizuru, "easy for you to say. They kiss. We don't."
"You don't even pick up your phone half the time," said Ayane, lightly.
"Do one thing once and you get hell for it forever," grumbled Chizuru. "Are you done packing yet?"
"Quiet, or I never will."
They made small talk as Ayane finished shoveling the rest of her clothes in her bag; she'd moved most of her stuff in her apartment the week before, and she was finally moving in two days before classes started. Chizuru wondered if Ayane would have anyone to walk home with, or to talk about annoying boys with, or to hit if they were being stupid, or to share an umbrella with when the other forgot. She wondered if Ayane would find a girl she really, really liked, more than Chizuru liked ramen, or Ayane liked Chizuru.
"Do you think it'll rain soon?" Chizuru said, idly picking at the loose thread on one of Ayane's pillowcases.
"No," said Ayane, peering out of the window, "probably not." She zipped up her bag and stood up, dusting off the back of her shorts. Chizuru waited for her in the doorway.
"Ready to go?" Chizuru said. Ayane stepped forward, and Chizuru held her hand.
"Yeah," said Ayane. "I am."
They walked to the station, hand in hand. It was the first time they'd done that, and Chizuru felt unhappy at the prospect that it would be the last. She must have started to tear up when Ayane let go of her hand and purchased a ticket, because when Ayane came back, she sighed exasperatedly and clapped her hands against Chizuru's cheeks.
"It's going to be just fine," said Ayane, firmly. "We're going to be fine."
"You promise?" Chizuru croaked, bringing her hands up to touch Ayane's knuckles.
It was easy, now, to let Ayane touch Chizuru's cheek with careless nothings pooled in her thoughts. How easy it was to brush a thumb against the slightest hint of a dimple and let it seem as meaningless as a hangnail. Beneath her touch, Chizuru's grin was wide and toothy, all too open and vulnerable that perhaps Ayane might have lingered if only to test the waters.
But Chizuru didn't think Ayane was brave enough for something like that. Chizuru wasn't. Not anymore.
"I'm sure," said Ayane, and brought her hand to touch Chizuru's chin.
Chizuru thought of saying something funny like, the first time I ever saw you, I thought you were going to shoot me, or something stupid like, if I were a boy, I'd totally kiss you right now, but she wasn't funny and she wasn't that stupid and, more importantly, she was still a girl, so she didn't.
"Okay," said Chizuru, and Ayane's own smile was awkward and all too familiar that it made something in Chizuru ache, "I'm glad."
"Me too," Ayane confessed. "Me too."
end