Head in the Sky

Chapter |03|: Intrusion


Author's Note:

Hello, this is Heart-Sleeved Girl, or Emiko. As with chapter two, this chapter has been changed since it was last written a little under a year ago. Here is chapter 3, redone as of July 2012.


Not even a pin would dared to have dropped.

It was a tension that left everything in sight suspended, as if stillness were the only way to survive. It was a tension that muted all the surroundings, all the rustle, hustle, and bustle, all the cute maid voices, and all the cooing and coy, and all the clinking glassware. It was a tension that only the three Seika High students standing in the corner of Maid Latte could feel.

Misaki could feel her heart thud against its walls, her chest rise in a quickness that reality found painfully slow, her eardrums ache with the pounds of a heartbeat she couldn't stop. She told herself that she was careful, that in every manner and way she did what she could to protect her image as student council president, to protect the respect that she'd demanded and earned with her strength and her strength only. Pride was supposed to be a shield that reinforced her love of her job—but it wasn't. She loved her job, her boss, the smiles the customers gave her when she served them, the easygoing atmosphere. She loved it.

But change was hard. And she knew that.

She was prideful to a point that even she knew was unfair. She prided herself on her very pride; it was something she could not exist without. It defined her perseverance, her burning will to fight.

Or perhaps it was the other way around, and she had yet to figure it out.

For Misaki, however, the issue at hand took priority above all the thinking and change; if she didn't do something now, it would be too late and all the thinking in the world wouldn't have changed the consequences.

"-yuzawa-san," the girl's voice broke the three-man silence, "I'm sorry to have bothered you."

Not "I'm surprised to see you here" or "What a pleasant surprise." Not even a shocked "Oh..." or a nervously averted gaze.

It was only a bow. A bow and those colder-than-cold words "I'm sorry to have bothered you."

She could feel her lungs quiver. Words that should have been such a relief because there was no taunting or mockery, were scalding. It was hard to explain why, why Misaki felt threatened not by the discovery of her secret, but the underlying understanding. A cutting type of empathy. The idea that she, as a student council president with a secret to hide, was seen through so easily. It was the indifference behind her classmate's words and the stone-hard wall of judgement that landed between them.

There was something about her that was...

"W-wait!"

...wrong.

Instinctively, her hand clasped around the unfamiliar girl's thin, bony shoulder, a shoulder unlike her own firm, muscular one.

"Wait," she said, her mind spinning, "Can I talk to you outside?"

Koizumi, with her back turned, shifted her head to the side, looking at the president from the corner of one sharp eye. A jolt shot through Misaki's skin. Cold. Freezing cold.

But the girl turned around with a practiced smile, saying, "Ayuzawa-san, you're very..."

A customer laughed in the background, exclaiming in utter disbelief, "Really now?" Her friend laughed in response, "Yes, yes! It really happened just like that!" The silence was dissolving; the surroundings had begun to melt back into the conversation. The noises returned and interfered, as if it wouldn't have mattered if a million pins had dropped.

"...shaken up."

Her tone had the kind of "politeness" that reminded her of Igarashi Tora. And that was why it was troubling. Agitating.

For a moment, Misaki loosened her grip on the girl's shoulder.

"Why would you say," the president's voice shook, "that I was bothered?"

A flicker returned to her golden eyes like a wet match that'd been stricken and somehow lit. She was firing up and readying her aggression for another battle. Male or female, any type of "Igarashi" was unwelcome in her eyes. Filthy, disgusting, vile. The pseudo-Nadeshiko, though, kept her eyes to the corner of a table beside them and tightened her hold on the bag in her right hand. Then there was a moment when the maid saw something that hinted hesitance, a gentler empathy than before. The thinning of the wall. Her hand released and her arm dropped.

"Because I could see it on your face."

A dish fell. Gasps followed after the shrill sound of shattering. Misaki instantly looked away to the scene of the accident, feeling the urgency to help as she dropped her arm to move. Usui, whose presence she'd forgotten, patted her once on the arm before leaving in her place.

"Usui..."

She looked between the girl and the broken plate between at Subaru's crouched, apologetic figure. She needed to resolve this, quick.

Before Misaki could say another word, however, Koizumi continued, "I...don't spill."

"W-"

"I don't spill." Her voice was more confident and her eyes had softened in the slightest manner possible.

The maid stared, unsure what to say. She didn't know the girl well enough to say one thing or another, though she found her choice of words far too uncanny for the current situation. She had no questions she could ask, though myriads of them swam in her mind. She had nothing but confusion. So she stared on at the girl before her, noting again the almost unnaturally straight strands of dark black hair and sheltered, pale skin that characterized her small-frame. Had her skin bore more color and her hair, more shine, then she may have seemed like a children's doll that people adored and showcased behind glass doors. Had her eyes not narrowed in the way that they narrowed with nonchalance and a hint of arrogance, she might have looked friendly and open. Koizumi Atsuko, though, did not look like any of those things, not cheery, not a doll, and especially not a cheery doll. Rather, she seemed more like she needed to be dusted and polished. It wasn't the visibly the clean outer appearance but the inner Atsuko, the doll could-be, the rusting mechanical figurine.

The gears churned and the figurine turned once again, her flat back uncrinkling from Misaki's strong grasp. All the sounds flooded in and suddenly, Misaki couldn't feel the thud of her heart on her eardrums anymore than she could the falling of a thumbtack from the plaster walls. She watched her Nadeshiko classmate exit the door and faintly mumble, as if to herself, "Thank you for the food."


I could feel the autumn breeze twisting my hair, tangling it in its intangible fingers like silk thread.

The image of Ayuzawa's widened yellow eyes lingered as I rounded the corner on my way home.

"Eyes are the windows to one's soul," they say.

Whoever 'they' was had been spot on.

The nearly set sun was peeked from the edge of the earth, leaving glimmers of its rays before the day could actually be called "evening." The sky was filled with the familiar sunset gradient that caught all eyes. The clouds hovered in wisps, giant masses that stretched across the sky as if being sucked toward the sun, which, like a vacuum, drew everything toward itself.

The light at the crosswalk flashed red. I stopped.

We all were selfish, the suns of our own solar systems. What we wanted, we pulled toward us as much as possible. Even the little things that we didn't want, we pulled. We pulled in and without regard. Anyone and everyone, we all shined because we were individuals. So the only underlying difference among us?

The light flashed green and I found myself caught in a crowd that subtly pushed me forward across the street. Old men, young couples, businessmen, middle schoolers— people moved in an accidentally formed mass that grew and grew until we inevitably pulled apart and scattered.

Brightness.

The sky had become increasingly blue, the contrasting, warm hues of orange gold and fuchsia disappearing with the sun. I continued to walk in the shadows of the buildings on my left.

Who shined brighter...

"Koizumi-san!"

...and who didn't?

I looked further up ahead, where a soiled blue uniform waved its arm as it ran closer and closer toward me. It was tall and lean with a messy brown head that was brushed back in the self-created breeze of its run.

"Koizumi-san!" he called again, a certain joy in his voice. He swung his familiar grease-stained towel in the air, completely unaware that he'd almost whipped the faces of two schoolgirls and an old grandmother. I could feel the astonished gazes of passers-by fixated on the two of us.

It was getting late, and I'd used up too much energy being "respectful" earlier.

"Shintani-san," I managed to greet, "good evening."

My face was sore enough to tell me that the muscles in my face and neck were both the most tones muscles in my body.

Sheepishly, the blue clad part-timer grinned even wider and responded, "Evening! What are you doing in this area?"

"Ah...me? Visiting, you could say."

"Hmm? I see. I'm running an errand for the old boss man! He sure likes to make me run for my wages."

I heard a man behind me clear his throat . I stepped off to the side, out of his way. Shintani's eyes widened in surprise and stepped off as well.

"We must be in the way—"

"Ah!" the boy exclaimed, still oblivious to the annoyance of others on the sidewalk.

I wanted to roll my eyes.

His hands rushed to his pockets and when he found them empty, he patted himself frantically.

"Ehhh? I can't believe I didn't bring it..."

If there was anything I'd learned from Shintani's behavior, it was that Shintani was a young child in a seventeen year-old's body. As he pouted, he unconsciously puffed his cheeks and wore the look. It was a look that some took to their advantage as late as their seventies and a look that all children possessed. Yes, the look was a look of shiny, innocuous eyes the size of large, glass marbles that shimmered with the craving for a sympathy that puppies and bunnies could seduce from even an ex-convict.

For this reason, talking to Shintani while developing a migraine was much easier than otherwise predicted.

"Did you drop it on the way here?"

"Gah! That would be really bad... I was going to give it to... someone..." He kept looking around himself as if acting more frantically would increase the likelihood of finding his possession. The weariness of the day was getting to my head; my mind felt slow, as if its inner gears needed to be oiled.

Golden, amber, ...or yellow?

His frantic searching reminded me of her eyes.

"Why would you say that I was bothered?"

"Ayuzawa...-san, right? Did she enjoy the sweets?"

His face flushed a light, peachy pink as he finally looked up from his baggy uniform. He was too easy to deduce.

"Whenever I'm with Koizumi-san, it seems that the conversation always goes back to Misaki-chan," he half-chuckled, "but she..."

There was a softness in those fudge-colored eyes that made me want to squirm and loosen the tightness that formed in the pit of my gut. It was almost too pitiful. His ultimate devotion gone because of something he couldn't control.

"...she actually enjoyed them a lot! She was so cute, oh—I want to see that expression again!"

Too pitiful.

I nodded with a smile that didn't seem to lift up entirely.

He, as bright as he was, couldn't pull hard enough. In a world where the illumination of Ayuzawa and Usui was, together, all too blinding, Shintani seemed dim and barely aflare. And even all the smiles and all the gravity and all the effort capable of his little earnest self would not have been enough. It was sad.

"I see...that's good."

In comparison to mine, his voice and tone were hearty and happy, jubilant even. His gesture of love had been small and the reward, even smaller. Yet, he cherished, savored it as if it itself was greater than all the sum of all the flavors of food possible.

And it was sad.

"B-but Koizumi-san, I really have you to thank for that! Ah, those sweets were so good...too bad I ate them so quickly, but they were just so tasty and sweet and...so delicious—"

"Sh-shintani-san, you're about to drool again—"

"E-eh?"

I didn't believe it. I could have, but I didn't. The notion that for even an iota of a second, as he described his grateful, jumbled thoughts in broken sentences... I'd almost blushed.

I didn't believe it.

And I could feel the heat rising and bubbling below my untrained cheeks, my naive, inexperienced cheeks, as he rambled on to other things that did not concern me at all. But I foolishly stared at the ground, finding it hard not to feel moved for an even more foolish boy who only spout foolish words.

I blamed it on the arriving nighttime, on the departing sun, on the day's fatigue, on the fact that Shintani was more careless, oblivious, and transparent than anyone I'd ever met in my life.

"Shintani-san."

The sky was now entirely blue. The hues strewn across earlier had vanished without a trace and the clouds seemed only like mysterious bumps in the sky. Sharp edges of a luminous white had begun to cut its way in and reign, for one more night, the darkening expanse. Evening had truly begun.

The boy's ears perked at his name, his head snapping up instantly. Street lamps and neon signs were beginning to light up; his wide eyes glistened. I almost forgot what I was going to say.

"I...It's getting a little late. We should probably start heading back."

He blinked blankly at me before briefly looking side to side and registering the changes around him.

"Wh-Whoa! It's already dark? Oh, my boss is going to kill me!" The panic that escaped before returned and he began to sweat with a different sort of nervousness this time around.

"I hope you find what you're looking for," I commented as we both began to move past each other. We spun to face each other slowly because in the gravity of our conversation, we were pulled together. I was stuck due to politeness, respect, whatever social norm that prevented me from simply ignoring him. But him? He stayed to talk simply because he was kind.

The dam we'd formed in the middle of the sidewalk broke as we drifted farther and farther. And like the rushing waters, people began to stream through between us.

One hand cupping his mouth, he yelled, meters away, "I hope so too! It was a present for you!"

What...?

I couldn't bring myself to move.

"Good night!"

The shadow of his back-turned figure faded as he shrunk into the distance, his hand up in a parting gesture, his cry audible from distances away. We'd parted and his brightness had gone, soaring through a galaxy of hundreds of other stars that seemed to intervene.

My breath was caught in my throat.

"That would be really bad... I was going to give it to... someone..."

I couldn't even bid him a proper goodnight.

"O-oi, young lady! Young lady, please move, you're in the way here!"

It hurt.

The lead in my feet, the weight of my legs.

"Hey you!"

The sudden heat of my blood and the stone in my chest.

"Excuse me!"

We all are selfish.

"-ove! Please move!"

So the only underlying difference among us?

"Thank you. Goodness, kids these days."

It all hurt.

Brightness.


Everything was going right.

At the moment, there wasn't a reason in the world for Shintani Hinata to have worn anything less than a brilliant, shining smile. In his mind, he'd succeeded at just about all that he'd aimed for: he'd found his childhood love, gotten a job, made wonderful friends, put a gorgeous smile on the face of the childhood beauty he adored, and even got to eat scrumptious, mouth-watering sweets while he was at it. Sure, there were some humps and bumps along the way, but that was to be expected! It was life he was dealing with after all! Nothing came easily. But to him, every single success overcame the sum of all his failures ten times over. Life, he thought, was fantastic.

Everything was going right.

In the midst of the night, when the stars above the busy, unfamiliar city had begun to twinkle with the same glee that filled his chest, Hinata had finally finished his shift at the Ideyuna gas station and was off to the one place that he could have stayed forever: Maid Latte.

That was for one reason and one reason only: Ayuzawa Misaki.

She was the melody to his harmony, the key to his lock, the ink to his pen, the icing to his cake, the dazzling, golden apple of his wide, chocolate-coated eye.

To him, she was the one. The only one.

The mere fact that he'd found her so quickly after his initial departure deluded him into to believing that fate was on his cheery, earnest side. There was no reason for him to believe otherwise. There never had been and according to his reaffirmed trust in fate, there never would be. And not for a minute of a second had he thought to realize that perhaps the red string of fate lingering at his side—

"Misaki-chan~"

"Oh, Hinata-kun!"

—had already gotten him tangled, choked, and blindfolded like an absolute fool.

Hinata had burst through the glass door of Maid Latte with the kind of mirth that suggested he'd won the lottery. Erika eyed him at his loud, obnoxious entrance, recalling the previous days where he'd done almost done the exact same. The reason for the 'almost,' though, was that today, he had an even greater leap in his step and a wider smile on his face. Something was up, and it made her curious.

"Misa-chan's in the back taking out the trash. She'll be—"

"Got it, thanks!"

The red-haired maid continued sweeping with a smirk. Reminiscing fondly of her own bright-eyed high school days, she turned to the nearby Subaru with a matured grin. The door that had just opened quickly slammed shut with a jingle of the shop bell.

Oh, the high school drama...


Outside, an anxious, raven-haired maid swung a massive white bag into the garbage can by the door. The clinking of broken glassware within caused her eyes to flicker with recognition. The single incident had been haunting her the rest of the evening, not once leaving her worries. Once again, her secret had been discovered—and there was nothing she could have done about it.

Coincidences like these, she thought bitterly, sucked the worst.

Her mouth twisted into a disgusted frown. Her troubled amber eyes remained on heap of trash she'd just set down, its white, plastic wrap stretched and tight. Standing in the alleyway, Misaki was surrounded with the silence she hadn't yet wanted to face; with the silence only came thoughts. Thoughts were never merciful.

"Because I could see it on your face."

It was frustrating. Not the discovery itself, but how it progressed. Not Koizumi as a person, but as a revealer.

"Hmm?" the familiar voice mused, "I guess I should get the muzzle... Down girl! Down! No picking through the tr-"

"Who are you calling a dog, stupid Usui!"

Balled fists threateningly grasping the front of his white collar shirt, nonchalant blond at the doorway laughed in monotone, completely unfazed by the maid's short-tempered reaction. He could see the anguish ablaze in her large, golden eyes as she pulled him close, hard enough that if she pulled any harder, his shirt would have torn in two. She was close, her cheeks red and burning with the bottled vexation in her chest. It was times like these when she failed to realize how close they actually were that he wanted to just...

"What are you staring at?"

...steal her lips away.

"You're right," he teased, "you're better suited for sexy cat ears...don't nya think?"

For Usui, the subsequent fireworks of deep magenta that flared across her entire face made for the best type of nighttime display. Her grip tightened. He could hear the seams of his shirt begin to tear as the girl before him shouted violently, "Don't 'don't nya think' me! You stupid, perverted space alien! Go back!"

Her expressions were always the cutest.

His mouth opened to spout another comeback, but she'd looked down, away.

"...don't...make fun of me." Voice quivering, bangs shading her eyes, the respected student council president trailed off with a certain fatigue in the shadows below her normally unbreakable eyes. She loosened her grip on him, turning to the side.

To comfort her. What did that mean? To distract her with more teasing? To embrace her? To tell her the honest, harsh words that reminded her she was one of the most stubborn, insolent women he'd ever faced in his life?

He moved.

She gasped.

The fall was light, almost as if she, for a moment in time, hovered. The breeze that brushed along her body, chilling. The collision of her back to his chest, hard and soft at the same time. Whenever he pulled her into him so easily, she recalled why she couldn't shoo him away like any other guy.

The touch of his skin made her heart skip. The touch of her skin made him remember: self-control.

"Prez," he breathed in her ear, "you make this so much harder—"

A beat.

"—than it needs to be."

Her heart was racing and it made her mad for reasons that she would never admit to herself.

She struggled to escape his arms, his mold, his perverted, breathtaking ambiance. And he likewise struggled to release her, fighting the testosterone that fueled his urge to hold her down. Ayuzawa Misaki was the cutest as a tsundere.

"U-Usui..."

He rested his chin atop her shoulder, smelling hints of the cheap shampoo she'd used that morning and would use again tonight.

"Let me go..."

She wasn't very convincing.

"Oh? Maybe if you say it."

"S-Say what?" Her voice exclaimed in harsh whispers.

"Nya~"

"W-Wha-"

"Nya~"

Heat radiated off her cheeks. He could feel it.

"Just let me g-"

"Nyaaa~"

His voice was low and his breath was hot against her exposed collarbone. She cursed at her maid attire and at the shame and embarrassment that boiled in her veins. She cursed at her weakness to his strength. She cursed at Usui Takumi for being a stupid, perverted space alien.

"N-nn-n—"

Usui blinked, eyebrows raised.

"Nn-ny-nn-nya—"

"Pfft."

He let go, feeling her warmth escape his arms in an instant. She stumbled out, almost hitting the garbage she'd just disposed.

Astounded, she turned to him in disbelief. "Wh-what are you laughing at?"

He, a hand to his mouth, looked to his left, averting her astonished gaze as she questioned him.

"Wait! W-wait, you told me to say it! So stop laughing, you idiot!"

And as she reached for his white shirt for the second time that night, he waved his free hand before him, suppressing his laughter, the surprise and unexpected satisfaction from her naive efforts. Humiliated, she watched as he calmed, as his chuckles faded and his jade green eyes returned her stare.

"As expected of Prez."

The flutter in her chest was already painful enough, and only the man before her could have simultaneously worsened and alleviated the burden. It was something that had been going on for a while now and even up until now, she hadn't found the answer or the solution.

One hand back on his crinkled chest, she mumbled, "What...am I going to do?"

He looked down at her with the lightest of grins, and with one hand on her head answered simply: "What you always do."

The silence of the night was beginning to settle. It was late, and lights had completely illuminated all but the alleyway where they stood, a place where there was one lamp hovering above their heads.

"What kind of a stupid answer is that?"

"...I'll give you a better one if you meow again."

"Sh-shut up!"

"Hmmm?"

Brown. Usui's eyes flickered at the sight of the familiar strands of annoying brown hair lingering behind the wall at the front of the alley. It was irksome and it made him... antsy.

"So," he started, looking back down at the maid before him. He'd decided his next move, as if playing a game of chess, and pulled the girl's head in. His lips tickled her ear as he cooed, "Does that mean you'll put on the cat ears?"

There was a devious smile in his voice that made her thwart him over the head and finally walk back into the cafe. He was stupid. An idiot. A perverted, lecherous, cat-obsessed idiot who deserved to be thrown back into outer space.

"G-go die..."

He looked at her small back, its stiff shoulders, the delicate frills on the laces that strapped around the maid uniform that disappeared from his view as the door shut. She'd escaped once again.

Before following after the chagrin-stricken student council president, Usui glanced back at the entrance of the alleyway from the corner of his eye. The strands of hair that he'd witnessed earlier had fled the scene; one moment there, and another moment, gone. Assured, the tall blonde turned the door knob and re-entered the closing Maid Latte.

A confident, victorious smirk played at his lips.

"All's fair in love and war."


Tangled, choked, and blindfolded.

He didn't know.

Back against the hard, concrete walls, he barely supported himself. Numbness had stricken his limbs. Emptiness resonated in the hollow cavity of his chest. The electrifying confidence that surged through his veins came to an inaudibly high-pitched, ear-piercing halt.

It was nine, Maid Latte was closing, and he didn't know.

He didn't know that the red string of fate could be so cruel. Twisted. Violently knotted. A scorching, seering scarlet.

Shock was the only thing that kept Hinata from leaving. It was the only thing that kept his eyes dazed, his mind shrunken and shriveled, his legs quivering with a tiredness he'd not felt in years—not since he'd lost his parents.

Why?

There was no answer. There could never have been an answer. And if there was, he, of all people, couldn't have found it.

Why?

Was it arrogance on his behalf? Was it because he was too late? Was this a test from fate itself?

Why?

The street was crowded and the flow of human traffic hadn't changed. Back and forth, there were people constantly moving and changing direction in front of him, some even staring at him, muttering about his still figure. To them, he was shady. To him, they were shadows. Everyone was moving, but he was stuck, frozen. Tangled and caught.

The question was ingrained and he couldn't get it out because it was all in his head—the conversation, the holding, the hugging, the closeness, the blushing—all of it was burned into his memory and tied down by that scarring red string.

"See you tomorrow!"

A thud.

"Bye-bye, Misa-chan! See you tomorrow and remember to rest well!"

"Got it!"

She was coming.

"What are you doing following me? As if you didn't harass me enough!"

The hairs on his skin stood as the biting cold sent deep shivers down his back.

"Hmm? But I'm your loyal stalker from outer sp-"

"S-Shintani!"

Another thud. Could he handle it?

The muscles in his entire arm tensed, his hand instinctively curling into one dense ball of fear, hesitance, and all the unmanly things he thought he'd overcome long ago.

"M-Misaki-chan! Good work today! Must have been hard work, huh?"

One step. One step forward for outer-self, and one step inward for the being in him that was frightened to death of what she would say, how she would react, and how she really, honestly felt.

He smiled as wide as he possibly could.

She blinked with blank golden eyes reflecting back at her childhood friend.

"Y-yeah...What are you doing here?" she responded, curious, concerned. She herself had worn a muffler tonight. When her breath started becoming visible in the air, she took that as a sign that the winter headgear needed to come out of her closet for the season.

"Just stopping by to say good night, of course," he said casually, "I never get to see you enough at school!"

He tried to pout, and didn't know whether it worked. He hoped, oh he hoped, that it worked.

She raised her eyebrow in half-amusement, half-disbelief. The girl was gorgeous regardless of what expression she made. That made his chest all the more cold. "I see you all day in class, don't I?"

Cold and tight and empty.

"There's no way that's enough," he laughed. He could feel the effects of his prolonged smiling; the effort was wearing off and he could feel the green eyes staring at him. He thought before that he'd imagined it, that irritated glare.

Apparently not.

"Well...I need to head home and study for that test tomorrow," she said, raising an arm as she looked at her watch, "You need to study hard too and stop fooling around! I can't watch out for you forever, and I certainly can't and won't keep track of your grades."A finger pointed sharply at him, Misaki lectured with a type of sternness that people mistook for cruelty. Her eyebrows curved downward in the serious, protective concern that he'd known since they were little. It made him glad, a little more confident, a little less pained. That was the kind of effect she had on people. She gave them glimmers of hope when they needed it most with the smallest of gestures and words.

Hope.

"Alright, I'll do my best!"

As he expressed some teaspoon of determination he'd mustered up, Hinata spot the wallet in the the hand pointed at him.

"Shintani, go for i—"

"Misaki-chan, what's that?"

Etched in a little rectangle behind a screen of plastic was a pale face framed by straight, black bangs and long, curtain-like hair. The expression was plain and lacked a smile; if it'd belonged to anyone else, one might have expected that the photographer took the photo too soon. But it was her. Most definitely.

"Ah, someone forgot her wallet at the cafe and it happens to be someone I—"

"Koizumi-san, right? Hm? That's strange."

"You're familiar with her?" Golden eyes wide and eyebrows arched high, the president herself was astounded that he was more familiar with a girl at Seika than she was. And he'd just transferred in!

"Y-yeah! Not that way," he reassured clearly, "but she's really nice!"

Nice. Kind and patient and did favors and brought him sweets.

"I see..."

"You're very...shaken up."

For him, the mention of Koizumi Atsuko brought to mind the word "nice." But for Misaki, it couldn't have been more different.

Images of hard, black pools had resurfaced to Misaki's mind like the bubbles in a soda ready to burst. The eyes that had stared at her and discovered her secret, the eyes that bluntly revealed and at the same time, guarded. Those were the eyes that made Ayuzawa Misaki stumble in her confidence.

"Misaki-chan? ...M-Misaki-chan?"

Hinata watched as the grip on the wallet loosened and reached for her arm.

But he was beat to it. As if measuring her frame, two other hands clasped to both sides of her upper arms in an instance. Green eyes ignited.

"Ayuzawa."

It pulled him back. Hinata retracted his hand as her head turned back to the blonde that had been silent until now. The closeness, the hugging, the holding all came back to him like a nightmare. Like a scar left by that stupid, red string.

Ashamed, the brunette looked away childishly, unable to face his own pitiful defeat.

Misaki, jarred, turned back with her eyes to the wallet in her hands and finally answered, "O-oh right...Koizumi-san...right..."

Even the photo on Koizumi's I.D. didn't look straight back at her.

"Misaki-chan, I can return it to her. That way you'll have less to care about!"

She hadn't noticed the difference in the midst of her own little relapse. Swimming in her own worries, she hadn't realized that the peppiness that came from the tan boy standing before her with his hands out happily was dead and killing him in the process. She needed to study, sleep, and get up once more as the student council president. She needed to rest her mind, and that's why she, although somewhat hesitant, agreed, "Sure...be careful."

If the photo I.D. was in her hands any longer, she might have gone insane.

He took the wallet with a tight clutch the moment its fake leather hit his skin. And if it was anything she'd noticed that night, it was the strength of his hand as he accidentally pushed down to grab it.

Shintani...?

"...Well, good night, Misaki-chan! Sleep well!"

His feet were itching to hit the pavement and take off. Back half-turned, he waved to her with his version of a worn smile.

"Yeah...d-don't forget to study!"

The wallet's skin wrinkled in his hands, whose veins and muscles bulged like walls rising below his skin. Shops, stores, offices, apartments—one by one, he passed them by, them and their blurring, dimming lights. In the cold night air, along the darkening sidewalk before him, Hinata grimaced and clenched his teeth.

Everything had been going right.


Dough slammed to the wooden board with a thick thunk. Flour rose to the air in clouds of powdery white smoke.

My wallet was gone. And it was probably there.

Peeling off the dough, whose flattened face was smooth to the touch, I folded it in half, beginning to knead once more.

Memories of yesterday zoomed through my mind like a film strip on a high-speed reel. The resulting headache reminded me why I'd taken the morning off from school. Some days just weren't worth it.

Especially with a newly emptied bottle of pain-killers waiting to irritate someone who already had a migraine.

I picked up the dough in its deformed, lumpy mold.

My wallet was gone and it was at the only place that I wouldn't re-enter: Maid Latte.

Slam.

Thud.

Good job, genius.

Flour.

"A-chan! Take care of the store for a bit while I head out, 'kay?"

Chiyako-baa-san called from the front desk where the register sat. Hearing shuffling footsteps and a creaking door panel, I soon called back, "Got it; have a safe trip!"

And don't lose your wallet!

I peeled the dough off again and slammed it back to the counter. For a second, I wondered who felt worse: the dough, the counter, or me?

Fingers jammed in the soft, cream-yellow glob, I felt the crevices I created, the heat that I added to a dough that had once been cool to my skin. Squeezing it, I childishly treated the dough like a stress ball gone wrong. Its thick, foreign, malleable nature drew a hand's attention like a shiny, new Transformers doll to a little, robot-crazed boy. Therapeutic was the only word I could use to describe dough. Therapeutic and tasty.

It almost made me feel bad.

Picking it up again, I chucked it down to the counter forcefully, expecting a mushroom cloud of white to erupt.

Almost.

I could feel the headache leaving as my hands dug more and more into the pasty, pre-baked Heaven-for-Fingers. I think that if I could've, I would've already married dough itself, it and its wholesome, therapeutic goodness.

It would have saved me the trouble of dealing with any marital conflicts after all; the thing about inanimate objects was simply that: they couldn't actually talk back.

In a final motion, I rolled out the dough into a single, smooth slab, feeling a certain peace glow within me as I approached the last steps in the pre-baking process. The dough seemed to shriek in horror as I pulled out, in what felt like pure ecstasy, the gleaming metal cookie cutters.

With every press of the bear outline, thoughts about my wallet, about Maid Latte, about a silly student council president and her ridiculous secret, faded, as if diffusing from my hands to the very dough I was cutting. My eyes shut in the quiet tranquility of the bakery. The cutting was rhythmic, almost as if I could picture it all in my mind without sparing a single look.

This was what I could call "carefree," a state of psuedo-lightheartedness bestowed upon those who, for an instance in time, could simply live.

"It was a present for you!"

And just like that, it was gone.

My eyes shot open as I looked back down at the slab of yellow laying in front of me.

Ugh...

Two overlapping bears, intersecting at the rounded shoulders and the legs. Heads sat side-by-side.

Sickening.

The once-suppressed thoughts, like the parted waters of the Red Sea, suddenly flooded back in, crashing and bashing until all that was left were tumultuous waves. Like being struck from above by a waterfall that didn't stop and kept on going, rushing down ceaselessly.

"U-um!" a light voice called from the counter. Young, bright.

I stepped back from the counter and shook myself, triggering a shiver across my skin.

The last thing I needed was the slack off.

"Ummm...!" it repeated.

Right.

Reaching the counter, I glanced down at the child whose ruffled brown hair held a mature, feminine hand. It was the hand of a mother, a gentle half-scolding, half-caressing touch upon his head.

Without hesitation, he yelled, "Chocolate cake! One slice of chocolate cake!"

"...Kentarou..." the mother warned, eyeing her child carefully.

As I slid open the refrigerated display to grab and package the requested desert, he added, "...p-please!"

And by the time the little box had reached his hands, his eyes had had grown larger than ever, radiating with the type of sheer delight that dominated even that of a doe prancing in a flower-filled meadow. He giggled a childish giggle that might as well have overflowed with rainbows and butterflies, given the degree of innocence at hand. There was nothing for me to say, mock, chastise in my mind. I stood, a plain cashier, basking in the rays of a mere child's teethy expression. In it bore a lifetime of lightheartedness that had took me five slams of dough on a counter to achieve—and I only sustained two minutes.

"Thank you!" he chimed, as his mother plopped a few coins into my hand and chuckled her motherly chuckle.

Grateful? Appreciative? Relieved?

I wasn't sure what I felt as I handed the mother a receipt and their backs began to turn.

All I knew was that if I hadn't been smiling the whole way through, then even I would've considered myself...

"Bye-bye!"

...inhuman.

I waved in return as the warmth he brought in left along with him. The pair's figures faded behind the glass panels. The jingle of the doorbell was my cue to drop my hand. I opened my eyes from my smile.

"K-koizumi-san?"

Then I instantly wished I hadn't.

"Hehhh?" he uttered with awe, "Koizumi-san, you work here?"

It wasn't a secret and never had been. I never intended for it to be a secret, seeing as I took no shame in the job. There was no logical reason for me to have felt the slight panic and shock that I'd felt. There was no justified explanation for the sudden collapse of my lungs or the tightening of my chest. None of it made sense, and briefly, I empathized with Ayuzawa and the shaky paranoia she'd fallen into the day before—except even then, her reason was pride. Mine?

It surprised even me that no one from Seika had ever seen me in this bakery since the day I began part-timing. And I indulged in it, the secrecy, the solitude, the solid wall that separated the judgement of my schoolmates from my personal life. The lack of obligation, involvement, and attachment. An inherent and ironic...freedom.

There was no secret to hide or mystery to solve.

"Yes, Shintani-san. I do."

Only the intrusion of a fortress that should been eternally unreachable.

He blinked and I waited.

And aside from the tick of the timer behind me, the room was silent.

The corners of his lips lifted and I realized how, in retrospect, such a reaction was typical Shintani.

"That's the best!"

Perfectly imperfect.

He went on, "That's how you got the cookies so fast! No wonder I couldn't find them in the supermarkets or convenience stores. No fair! You know, I thought it was weird that you always smelled so sweet but now it makes so much sense!"

His voice was loud and his whiny, cheerful exclamations, strangely refreshing.

"Ah, but now, I don't know if the present I got for you is good enough. It looks pretty good but someone who works in a bakery like this must be pretty picky, huh?"

He laughed sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck and I had no choice but to stare blankly, stupidly. I didn't know what sort of reaction I'd been expecting. If it were anyone else, it would have felt awkward and emotionally draining. I would have been greeted with a polite "Hello" and some other useless, polite questions whose sole purposes were to avoid further awkward silences and uphold the social standards of adequate conversation. But there wouldn't have been as much shock and fear. There wouldn't have been the inward panic characteristic of claustrophobia. There would have simply been the knowledge that somewhere out there knew and would judge accordingly. It would have been natural, too, if opinions about me changed at school.

So why was it that Shintani was... different?

"Y-yeah..."

I mustered a soft grin.

"Ah!" he cried, his eyebrows jumping, "That's right! I also have your wallet. I got it from Misaki-chan but you weren't at school this morning. Good thing I have my stuff with me..."

Hands shuffling through his pockets, the boy searched for the wallet as if digging for the prize at the bottom of a cereal box. His tongue stuck out from the side of his mouth and he looked up as he dug deeper into his pockets. It was childish.

I was at a loss.

"Oh, there we go. Here! Ta-da~"

And if I hadn't looked further, I wouldn't have realized it at all. I wouldn't have noticed that I was putting such a normal high school boy with a silly unrequited love, on some ridiculously high pedestal. I wouldn't have recalled that he too was a person with problems. I wouldn't have caught the brief reflection of fear and regret that flashed across his chocolate brown eyes when he stared at the wallet he was handing out to me.

"Thank you, I'd thought I'd lost it."

The words came out before I'd had time to think about them. My eyes were glued to his face, his expression, the hint of something gone wrong. I wanted to see it again. The true imperfections of a perfectly imperfect boy.

He'd shut his eyes by the time I'd reached out to grab my wallet.

It was too bad; I'd missed my second chance. I wanted to capture it, examine it, and dissect it like a specimen that had never stepped onto this green earth ever before. In this sense, it almost seemed elusive... and I? I sounded like a sadist who'd craved for far too long.

But that didn't matter because something pounding at the bottom of my chest was demanding for it and an answer to it.

I wanted to see it: Shintani's pain.

By the time he'd reopened his eyes, I found myself oddly positioned. Hand still on the wallet, face near his, I could feel his wide chocolate eyes beginning to swallow me whole. It was there. Staring right at me, but I couldn't find it again. Blood rushed to my face and I flinched back.

"A-ah...sorry."

A miscalculation, if one could call it that, on my behalf. I wondered what what wrong with me and clutched the wallet in my hand. The leather felt more loose today, as if I'd tightened my grip on it too often recently. It seemed to bear more crinkles than it did two days ago. Then again, I didn't touch my wallet all that often.

"N-no...it's fine." The eyes I'd averted were drawn back up to his face when he stuttered, a light pink glowing across his tan features. He was more normal than I expected. Because even for him, something as borderline as human skinship was quite... troubling.

Neither of us made eye contact and the clock's ticking became apparent once more. It made me think that dough in the back had probably begun to harden. Time waited for no one.

Suddenly, Shintani lifted his head, a serious look in his eyes as he straightened his stance like a soldier in line. Determination was aflame in his posture.

"D-don't get the wrong idea." He began his declaration with a firm stutter that caused the muscles in his torso to visibly tighten. The way he shook unnervingly wreaked of indignation. An internal struggle against the turbulence. "I don't think that Koizumi-san is that kind of person, but I'm serious about Misaki-chan, okay?"

He was reassuring me of things that he didn't need to reassure.

"When it comes to Misaki-chan, I definitely... My heart, it—"

He closed his eyes and clenched the end of his blazer. It seemed hard for him to breathe when his head dipped down at his last words: "—will never waver!"

And for a moment I wondered as he stood, his figure slightly shaking with the force that had just escaped his mouth. The image of his eyes came back to mind: pools of confusion and anguish, dripping with a thirst for victory and acceptance.

"Shintani-san, you..."

I wondered why he sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than anyone else.

"...are being quite hasty."

That was enough to make his head snap up, enough for me to see them again. Eyes that bubbled like tar pits ready to gush. They alone were enough to tell that for the first time, his self-assurance was being tested. And he was failing the test miserably.

"...What...?"

" 'Good things come to those who wait.' "

Averting my own eyes to the wallet in my hands, I could feel his perplexity and his unrestrained stare. In all honesty, I felt like I was lying through my teeth. Wasn't it obvious? He would lose this race because he was an idiot who didn't know when to forfeit. Even worse, he probably didn't know how to forfeit.

That drove me insane.

The chance of him gaining Ayuzawa's favor over Usui was less than nothing. He would always remain "that childhood friend," simply because he was an idiot who couldn't admit his own loss.

We all are selfish.

The setting sun from yesterday's encounter flashed through my mind.

The look in his eyes that I so desperately wanted to dissect and solve became haunting and all too pitiful. It had piqued my interest because it made him human. But when I finally discovered the reason behind them, such a look only made him a fool. A fool that I felt I had an obligation to pity and pamper so that the smiles and radiance and brightness that filled his entire existence wouldn't, like a candle, blow out. I didn't know how he felt—what it meant to be Shintani. I couldn't empathize... but I knew that someone like him needed all the support he could get before he finally agreed to a checkmate.

"Koizumi-san..."

When I glanced back up, I found his head tilted back down, his eyes on the counter where he then set his hand. He was close. Just as close as he'd been before. I could smell it again. His scent. Not drenched in cologne or any sort of artificial fragrance, but plain. A boy's scent.

"...thank you."

As he muttered his thanks, I realized that he'd moved closer and that his mouth was lingering beside my ear. I could feel his heat, the warmth of his genuine appreciation and the warmth of his body. Thuds beat through to my eardrums and I didn't want to admit it again. I didn't want to admit that I knew why my heart was pounding so hard when just a few minutes ago, it was fine as I reached for my wallet.

The touch of his skin sent stinging ripples, leaving behind an incomprehensibly itchy sensation under my skin. The blood circulating throughout me teetered on the verge of boiling as it stirred violently, running through stiff veins and thick, tired chambers—a hornet's nest locked behind ribs.

Why?

The crinkle of plastic made me jump.

"Here you go!"

It was back. The cheery and playful, happy-go-lucky undertone in his voice.

My blood calmed as I, still regaining my composure, returned his gesture with confusion. Bewilderment. I couldn't read him when he closed his eyes as he smiled.

"Shintani-san...?"

"Y-you don't like it?"

His worried, disappointed gaze made me actually look down.

Settled atop my wallet was a plastic wrapped bun of, as the wrapper stated, "Super Delicious Wonderbread: Coffee Deluxe!" Light and fluffy, the bread's hues of cream brown reminded me of the froth on a cappuccino. I hadn't noticed him take it out, this simple package of bread. Simple and soothing.

I was the observant one. And yet, I was so easily distracted.

"I put so much thought into picking it too..."

How was I supposed to react when I felt like I was being controlled? It perplexed me to no end.

"No." I wanted to laugh. "I like it."

"Eh? Really? Honestly?"

When his eyes shined, sparkled with such excitement, I couldn't shut him down.

"Yes," I affirmed with a nod.

Stupid. It was stupid. All of it.

"Alright! I did it!"

His smile lit up the room. His laugh cleared the air.

A soft chuckle escaped my grasp. I had lost.

"I knew it," said the boy who'd just been bouncing with triumph. Our eyes met and I was quiet.

Hands tucked behind his head, elbows in the air, the childish idiot turned his head slightly and continued to look at me from the corner of his eye. "I knew Koizumi-san was a good person."

I blinked and couldn't muster up the composure to answer calmly. I had lost.

As he began humming some frivolous tune, basking in the delight of his accomplishment, a discomforting gurgle cut through his song.

"Ah...I should," he complained as he eyed the deserts behind the glass panel, "go home and eat..."

Obvious, transparent, and oblivious. I had completely lost.

It was all too much for me to hold in.

"Pfffft—"

"E-e-eh? Koizumi-san? What's so funny? I'm trying really hard, you know?"

What started a suppressed giggle evolved into a laughing fit. I could feel the hornets in my chest rejoicing and breaking away, soaring into the air where nothing encapsulated them. It was freeing. The unstoppable "ha"s that left my mouth kept puttering out and left me breathless and pained, desperate for cooling air.

"K-koizumi-san?"

You're so stupid.

So much so that it was only laughable.

How had he changed moods from terrified and depressed to jumpy and happy so quickly? How had he taken to heart such a cliched, trite saying? How had he regained so suddenly the confidence that was crushed?

How had he controlled my mood swings so easily that I was frantic one second and laughing the next?

Why did he even affect me at all?

I hugged the bread and wallet close to my stomach as I bent over, drowning in a mirth I didn't understand. Soon, a deeper voice chimed in with my laughs, a voice that couldn't have been anyone else's but Shintani, the master of smiles himself.

It felt light.

In reality, our laughter collided in disjointed cacophony of unhidden, shameless noise. In my mind, however, it was a symphony. A symphony of the foolish and the grave, the useless and the purposeful, the realizations and the reflections, the pride and the pity. Strangely mellifluous, as if it actually resolved some sort of conflict. Strangely joyous, as if...

...there wasn't a wall. As if the rest of the world could have carried on, and it didn't matter the slightest. As if the happiness overflowing from our small, insignificant selves could have continued past nightfall, when our bodies would have collapsed of a wondrous exhaustion.

Why you?

And that was how I would remember the entire afternoon: stupid yet beautiful.

A bittersweet symphony.


A/N:

[Edited 7/1/12]

Phew! I added so much to this chapter! It took me so long to rewrite because I didn't keep any of the older material... I kept the basic plot, but otherwise, I completely rewrote it. This chapter hit... over 10,000 words. (Holy...)

Well it's a great way to start off July!

Anyway, thanks to all those who reviewed! To those who didn't, please do! (Please!)

Regardless, I'll continue to improve, so please watch over me even if you don't review! (But please do!)

- Emiko