Chapter Two: Strawberries
Ren bites her lip, feeling like she wants to cry, or laugh, or both. She opens the door and flicks on the light switch. "Watch your step," she warns quietly. "There might still be some glass."
Tsukki steps over the threshold and into her room, surveying the area. "Everything looks fi-" He stops mid-word. The large 死ね on the wall appears to have silenced him.
Die.
Ren avoids looking at anything in the room. She doesn't notice Tsukki observing the plastic over the window, and how it feels ten degrees colder in her room than in the rest of the apartment. She doesn't notice his jaw clench, or his hands ball up into fists for an instant before calming.
"Tch."
She looks up at him, shame visible in her eyes, and wonders how she annoyed him this time.
"I've seen enough," Tsukki says, hastily flicking off the light switch, steering her out of the room, and closing the squeaky door. He walks back over to the dinner table, sitting down again. After a moment, he takes a second helping of oyakodon.
Ren's limbs feel weak. She heads over to the table and sits back down, taking a few more bites of oyakodon. "I already called the landlady about the repairs. The window should be fixed by the end of the week."
"That doesn't explain why someone broke into your room and wrote 'die' on your wall."
She sucked in a breath. "I didn't know you wanted an explanation," she retorts, not meeting his eyes. That sounded lame.
"I'm waiting." She could hear him smirk.
Ren clasps her hands together, takes a breath, and forces the words out, wincing. "People don't like that I'm smart."
Tsukki snorts. "People don't like that I'm tall."
"You leer at people. And you're tall," she shoots back. "It's the combination people don't like."
"Is that so?" He sits up taller just to spite her.
She glares up at him. "Yes!" Ren knows Tsukki's heard an earful about his height, but it mostly happens during games. During practice, it's from Hinata. It's direct. Not like the whispers about her. "Sorry," she says, averting her gaze. Collecting her words, she moves her bowl aside and clasps her hands together on the tabletop. "Back when I lived in Hiroshima, I was a little know-it-all. I had an answer for just about everything."
"How is that any different from now?"
"The amount of shit I get for it is a whole lot less." She pauses, and hastily adds on, waving a finger in his direction, "That does not mean you should give me any more shit about my brains than you already do."
"It's rude to point, you know." Tsukki stands, taking the bowls. He sets them beside the sink and walks away.
"I wasn't done!" Ren protests, on the edge of exasperation.
Tsukki brings her bowl back, smirking, and sets it down in front of her. "Sorry."
Ren looks at the bowl, and proceeds to close her eyes. She inhales deeply and exhales sharply. Once more. Deep breath. She snatches her bowl and takes it to the sink. "Never mind." She jams her earbuds in and starts up a song, sticking her phone in her pocket and scrubs harshly at the dishes. After a minute, she peeks over her shoulder to find Tsukki standing in the doorway to his room.
He's looking at her.
"What are you looking at?" she bites out, cheeks tinged pink as she breaks his gaze. Rinsing off her hands, she makes onigiri from the leftovers, carefully shaping the rice around pieces of chicken and wrapping the results in seaweed. And repeat.
Several onigiri sit in a container in the fridge. Ren's head is bent over her English homework, comparing notes from class to her textbook. Her eyes flit across the pages, skimming for evidence to confirm her answers. She lets out a sigh, closing her book and filing her homework away. Stretching out on the floor and setting her phone aside, she moves into some of her basic aikido exercises.
After exhausting that method of distraction, Ren decides to lay out her futon and watch TV. After a few minutes of absentminded channel surfing, she turns it off. She was able to focus through finishing her homework... now, her mind wanders back to- die.
The first time, it was written in permanent marker across one of her bookmarks. It was confusing and it hurt. She'd gone to use the bathroom during the lunch break, and when she returned, it was there, like some kind of evil magic. She was nine: old enough to know what it meant, but not to fully understand why someone would write it there. Maybe it was an accident?
The second time was about two months later, after compulsory exam scores came back. Her name sat at the top of the list. It wasn't as though her intelligence was extraordinary, she'd thought at the time. She was ten. She just read books, and newspapers. She understood what her teachers were instructing without difficulty. It didn't make sense, someone telling her to die. What was the reason?
Things were quiet for some time. No messages. Ren kept answering questions in class. The teachers turned to her if no one else would give the answer. She didn't realize that the others saw her precociousness as irritating. The messages resurfaced, more frequent than before. It was around that time the whispers started.
Alien. Robot. Inhuman. The ease with which she learned was thrown in her face repeatedly. She was questioning herself and her abilities more than most other preteens would.
After some trial and error, Ren discovered that her silence earned her a reprieve with the whispers and messages. She still scored well on exams, but had gone deathly silent in the classroom. Her silence carried over into her home life.
It was time to leave.
Kei, in the midst of doing his homework (listening to music) finds himself questioning how Ren could go from taunting him with strawberries (damn her) to stealing his hand like that (damn her again) to looking so... guilty.
"People don't like that I'm smart."
Maybe his comeback wasn't as appropriate as he originally thought.
Hinata had complained on numerous occasions that his height (190.5 cm) was unfair, but Kei never felt guilty about it. He was tall. The universe decided it. And he was that much better of a blocker because of it.
Why would she feel guilty about something she has no control over?
And more importantly, what damned idiot went around thinking it was okay to:
1. Break into Ren's apartment (which is also his apartment) and
2. Tell Ren to die?
And when did Ren become an exclusive case?
When are you going to confess?
"Shut up, Tadashi."
At around ten, the light in the living room goes out from under Kei's door. Several minutes later, it clicks back on.
There's a knock on his door. "Tsukki?"
Kei stifles a yawn. "Yeah?" he says lazily, sliding his headphones down around his neck.
"I can't sleep, so I'm gonna go for a walk."
He's out of his desk chair and opening the door before thinking about it. A smirk settles on his face as he asks her, "Wearing that?"
She's still in sweatpants and an old shirt of his. She looks down at her clothes and back up at him. "Is there a problem?"
Her looking like that in his clothes is definitely a problem. Kei blindly snags one of his sweaters and throws it over her face. "Not anymore," he says, shrugging on his club jacket and moving past her into the living room. He puts on his shoes. "Are we going?"
Ren pulls his sweater over her head and moves her hair out of her face. She sighs, hiding her hands in the sleeves, and joins him at the door. "Apparently, we are."
The wind is brisk.
They've walked several blocks now, and Ren isn't saying anything. Not that Kei feels the need to say anything either. He glances at her.
She's pulled up the collar of his sweater, her hands still hidden in the sleeves. Her eyes are glassy. She sniffles.
"Are you crying?" Kei finally breaks the silence.
"Yes," she deadpans, before rolling her eyes. "It's just cold."
Kei raises an eyebrow.
"Okay, fine," she admits. "I kind of want to, but I'm not going to."
"You can cry on my shoulder." He hears her footfalls stop behind him, and peers over his shoulder at her. When she stares up at him with wide eyes, he smirks. "If you can reach."
Ren fumes, blushing. With her 168 cm stature, she'd need to stand on her toes and have him stay still to reach his shoulder.
She tenses, darting in front of him and tugs down hard on the collar of his jacket.
Kei stumbles forward, and he's enveloped in the scent of strawberries. Damn. His nose is practically touching her neck. He needs-
"No strawberry pocky for you," she says, her tone soft and her breath hot on his ear. "You sure you don't want to cry on my shoulder instead?"
Kei shouldn't. He shouldn't, but... "I'll be fine. I have all the strawberries I need. Riiiight here." He sticks out his tongue and licks her neck.
Ren squeals in surprise, nearly tripping in her haste to push him away. "Kei," she blurts, wiping her neck with his sleeve, "what the hell was that?"
He struggles to keep his expression neutral. "I was distracting you." He turns and starts heading back towards the apartment to conceal his grin. Her reaction was priceless.
After passing a few buildings, he turns back to look for her. A few seconds of staring is enough to get her to reluctantly shuffle in his direction. When she finally reaches his side, she looks at him, narrows her eyes, and seethes, "Don't do that again."
"Like I would do that again," he replies nonchalantly, adjusting his headphones slightly. "You're gross."
"I took a shower. How am I still gross?"
"It's inherent." He smirks.
Her retort is immediate. "You're inherently rude."
"People are inherently annoying."
"Even me?"
"Yep."
"Wow."
The bitter quality of her voice surprises him. Oops. "You less so than other people," he explains.
"Was that supposed to make me feel better?"
"Did it make you feel better?"
She falters, thinking about it. "I suppose... that is kind of a compliment, coming from you."
"Take it however you like."
Ren's coffee eyes widen as a devious smile emerges. She whips out her phone, fingers fluttering over the screen, and she holds it up to her ear. "Hey, Tadashi!"
What is she doing?
"Sorry to disturb you, but you asked me to tell you if it happened."
It?
Tadashi's noise of surprise is loud enough for Kei to hear. Ren remains quiet, listening to Tadashi for a full thirty seconds before saying, "whoa, slow down. This is Tsukki we're talking about."
Kei plucks the phone out of her hand and holds it to his ear. "This is who you were talking to Ren about," he says slowly, deadly calm.
"Oh. Hey Tsukki," Tadashi says sheepishly.
"Did you ask Ren to tell you if I complimented her?"
"... Maybe."
Kei hangs up and hands Ren her phone. He slides his headphones on, heading down the street to their apartment without looking back. His phone vibrates with a message as he turns on his music.
New message from Tadashi: You're too shrewd for your own good.
After a few minutes, his phone buzzes again. New message from Tadashi: TSUKISHIMA KEI DID WHAT?
Followed instantly by: ... That was meant for Ren. Sorry.
Buzz. But seriously, what were you thinking?
Kei, arriving at the apartment, heads into his room and closes the door, resting his forehead against it. "Tch."
Tadashi, having given up on Tsukki sending him a response, goes to bed. Since he silenced his notifications, he misses the response he was waiting for:
New message from Tsukki: She smelled like strawberries.
a/n:
168 cm ~= 5'6" (Ren)
190.5cm ~= 6'3" (Tsukki got taller!)
Inspired by Passion Pit's song, Take a Walk.
Special thanks to my first reviewers, Mandalorian1207 and CarrieQFD!
Hope you're having a wonderful holiday!
P.S. Let me know what you think of Tsukki and Ren's characterization!