A/N: So I'm basically an awful human being for not updating for so long... :( I kinda lost inspiration for this fic! I was like gahh this was panning out so nicely in the earlier stage and now I'm like. Lol what happens next. But no fear! I'm back and with an update and I'm writing this at 10:19 pm with math homework, ap chem homework, ACT studying, japanese studying, and a physics assignment so... I'm working hard for all you reviewers who supported me!
[sorry for the lack of... length. i wanted to get this one up as soon as possible. i wanna get things moving! so please do tell if you find mistakes.]
~Thank you to all of my reviews, followers and favoriters. This wouldn't be possible without you. I specifically thank satsukisweet, bakaiibee, GenesisCos, cmolindelgado, Guest, Clue, MyCheekMeat, Angel, F, Guest (2), Rose, and Hilda for reviewing the last chapter. I got lots of inspiration from you lot!~
deductive attractions
.x.
stage two-two.
The wave of summer heat in Kamiyama begin to fade after August. The weather was still very pleasant, and at least now no one felt like stripping off their uniform in the middle of class because of the sheer heat. (That hadn't actually happened, though. Kamiyama was much too formidable for that.)
It was for this reason Chitanda Eru proposed the lovely idea of a group picnic on Saturday; with the four of them.
"Okay, sure." Mayaka nodded casually and begin to jot a reminder on her calender. "What do you want me to bring, Chi-chan?"
"Drinks, if you don't mind, of course," Eru answered modestly with a smile.
Satoshi, meanwhile, seemed to hesitate with his answer. Finally, "Sure," he said after a beat. This would interfere with their whole dating scheme, but it would be suspicious if he suddenly refused. Mayaka already knew his schedule well enough to know if he was lying.
"Should I bring anything?"
"Um... I suppose extra snacks couldn't hurt."
Houtarou sighed, as he always did at social prospects. This time, however, it was tinged with something a little different. It was almost... irritated. Exhausted(more than usual for Houtarou, anyway).
Usually whenever the Classics Club decided to do something together, Eru would plan it, Satoshi would join happily, and Mayaka would force Houtarou to because she knew better.
Houtarou didn't really want to go this time, and while he was clueless to the nagging feeling himself, he had another feeling that it had to do with what Satoshi said to him that day when they went apple picking.
"Chitanda-san was planning to give you chocolates."
It was ridiculous, really. The Chitanda family were an upper class family; surely their daughter wouldn't do something like that. And above all, it was petty gossip. He didn't like the whole, "And she heard from him who heard from his cousin who was told by his great aunt who was told by his friend."
But then another voice spoke in his mind. It wasn't petty gossip. Satoshi told him. Why would Satoshi lie about something like that?
And since he wouldn't, he had come to another conclusion. Perhaps they were just obligation chocolates. She didn't harbor anything other than platonic feelings for him.
For some reason, this just bothered him more.
With his thoughts in a mess about Eru, he felt quite disconcerted about spending time with her, even if it was with the others. It would be obvious he was ignoring her, and then there would be another mess he'd have to deal with...
"My sister is taking me out this weekend," was his brilliant excuse to get out of this one.
Satoshi glanced quickly to Houtarou, slightly put off. Though it was usually a chore to get Houtarou to come with them on their group outings, he had come along without any complains these past few months. Why the sudden change of heart?
"I-If you're busy, that's okay!" Eru assured him nervously, waving her hands. Her bright smile faltered when she didn't see him object, however.
Satoshi decided to let it go. He wouldn't mind spending time with the girls, anyway.
And so the club meeting was dismissed.
&.
Houtarou wrapped his blanket around him tighter when he reached out for the remote to change the channel. He emitted a sigh as he realized nothing on the television captured his interest, even his favorite crime shows.
And he had a feeling he knew why.
He was trying to distract himself.
It was inevitable though, wasn't it? The fact that he had to acknowledge he felt this way. About someone. For the first time in his ever so gray, bland life. Or maybe it wasn't so gray anymore.
She changed that.
Slowly she bloomed everywhere, spreading rosy warmth to his bland, colorless life. She bloomed in the cracks through the floor and the ceiling, prettily on the windowsill and even where there was no light. She was an enigma he couldn't stop thinking about.
He shut off the television with a swift click of a button.
But what now?
His mind suddenly rushed back to the events of the apple farm tour, as if to convince himself this wasn't a bad idea. He remembered the feeling of being so close with her in that enclosed space, the feeling like his head was going to burst along with his heart.
He definitely felt something.
He couldn't restrain a groan as the revelation was becoming more and more lucid in his mind. What was he going to do? He undoubtedly had feelings for Chitanda Eru.
And they were in no way minuscule.
&.
The picnic with the Classics Club had been a pleasant, casual affair that lasted the afternoon on Saturday. With Satoshi checking out after eating saying he had some club meeting to attend, the girls set off home together themselves.
"Ne, Chi-chan..." Mayaka begun.
"Hm?"
Mayaka begin swinging her legs as she walked beside Eru, feeling nervousness flood through her veins.
"You know what you told me about that day? On Valentine's Day?"
It took Eru a lot of self-control to not stumble on her next step. As a trained lady with elegance, however, she forced herself to present a calm facade at Maya's question. "I... I remember," she responded.
"Hm," Mayaka nodded. She had to be careful of what she said. If she said too much, Eru might find out about everything. She couldn't allow that to happen.
"Why didn't you ever give him the chocolates we made that day? Were you... scared?" Immediately after she said it, Mayaka mentally smacked herself. What an insensitive thing to say! That idiot Houtarou was rubbing off on her.
But Eru only gave a wry smile. "It wasn't that, really. It's just... in our family, we don't give chocolates to people we're already very close to."
Mayaka's eyes widened before a sly grin rose onto her face. "Ooooh!" she said.
Predictably Eru flushed at the jibe and walked faster to cover up her embarrassment.
"Wait, Chi-chan!" Mayaka laughed as she jogged ahead to catch up to her friend. "I was kidding!"
Eru didn't respond, and they walked in silence for a few moments. Mayaka couldn't stand the silence. "Are you going to tell him?"
"No!" Eru's response was too quick, and Mayaka wasn't in the slightest bit taken aback.
Mayaka wanted to say something - badly - but she knew she couldn't. It wasn't right to meddle in Eru's business. The other girl had always been so kind to her whenever Mayaka went on her Satoshi rambling sprees...
"Everything will work out the way you want it to," Mayaka told her instead.
&.
"We were supposed to go bowling," Mayaka reminded Satoshi crossly during lunch break. It wasn't much of a lunch break, since both of them opted to work on their assigned project rather than eat.
"I know." Satoshi didn't even look up, still scribbling away notes in his notebook.
"So what's the plan? Our progress has been near stagnant for weeks!"
"I have a plan. Don't worry!"
"Somehow, with you, I always do..."
Satoshi finally glanced up, and Mayaka felt herself flush at the intensity of his gaze. She was immediately reminded of the events inside the tunnel simulation and suddenly felt like being swallowed up by a black hole.
Don't think about that, don't think about that, don't think about that... Mayaka repeated to herself.
Satoshi smiled in that automatic way he always did and simply returned to sketching again. Mayaka mentally facepalmed and restrained herself from exploding. There was a reason she had blocked out the events of that day. A good one.
She didn't need to ruin everything by asking him - because if there was one thing she knew, it was that Satoshi could never give her a proper answer.
"So, um... about the next plan on that list..." Mayaka's voice wavered as she struggled to focus on changing the topic.
"Bowling?" Satoshi asked.
Mayaka nodded. "Since it's such a western sport, I don't think we'll find one around here."
"True. We can try something else, then. Later."
Mayaka glared. She was used to Satoshi dodging and avoiding an issue like it was the plague, but this one was about their friends. What was his problem? He had suggested this silly matchmaking plot in the first place!
&.
With acceptance came a lot of things. Acceptance meant acknowledging the fact that someone had power over you. An embarrassing type of power over you. He berated himself for not realizing it since the beginning.
He berated himself over this fact even more when he made the timely mistake of entering the grocery store at 7 pm that night, only to spot Eru at the cash register getting rung up.
His first instinct was to internally panic. Okay, she's getting rung up. If I can just slip into one of the aisles...
And as he desperately hoped she would do anything but turn around, she did exactly that in the next moment, and Houtarou felt his shoulders slump in defeat as the other girl's eyes widened in recognition.
"H-Houtarou-san!" Eru took her shopping bags in one hand and walked up to him. "How are you? I haven't seen you since yesterday." Eru seemed to realize what was wrong with what she said, but if Houtarou saw it, he didn't comment.
"I'm... fine. My sister just wanted my to buy things for... dinner," he finished lamely.
"Oh." She nodded briefly and her eyes drifted to the ground. Houtarou was glad for the silence, as it signified the end of the conversation. Eru, however, seemed determined when she looked back at him. "I will help you!"
"...Wh-What?"
&.
If he had doubted he was going to go insane earlier, there was no doubt now. He would surely go insane. There was no way the distance between him and Eru was normal. Was it?
Their shoulders brushed together at least twenty times by now (but Houtarou wasn't keeping count or anything).
"You're picking out all the spoiled ones," Eru chastised. She plucked the tomatoes Houtarou had chosen out of his hands and swapped them for greener, firmer ones. "These will last longer."
"You sure do know a lot about food." Houtarou could barely repress an amused smirk after realizing what he said.
"Houtarou-san is being mean... again," Eru accused, lips molding into a pout.
"It's a compliment," he assured her, "seeing your family business and all."
Eru seemed to accept the explanation so they walked on in silence, a system of Eru picking out the items and Houtarou crossing them off the list. When they were nearing the end, he found Valentine chocolates at the end. What did Tomoe want with those?
"You should get these," Eru said, handing him a heart-shaped box.
"How do you know which ones are the best?" Houtarou questioned, raising an eyebrow.
"Experience," she answered fluidly. Her shoulders visibly tensed, but Houtarou didn't seem to notice.
"You mean you gave... someone?"
"Something like that." She nodded.
"Ah."
This was one of the most tense silences that had ever passed between them, and Houtarou hadn't a clue why. Or maybe he did.
"So who... was it?" He couldn't believe he had actually asked her. That was supposed to be inner monologue! Houtarou wanted to kick himself.
She visibly flinched before reclaiming her poise again, offering a small smile. "I can't answer that."
&.
"So... do you know how the plan is going?"
Houtarou wondered why he was the one starting all of the conversations. It was probably just because he preferred conversation over their heavy, awkward silences. Anyone would do what he was doing.
"Oh!" Eru's reaction seemed guilty. "I'm sorry! I kind of forgot with everything that's been going on lately..."
Everything that's been going on lately? Houtarou absentmindedly wondered if anything hectic had been going on in the past few weeks. As far as he could recall, nothing, but he supposed the Chitanda family had a different agenda. A very different one.
"And it was your plan too," Houtarou told her dryly, feigning annoyance.
"I'm sorry!" she repeated, more frantic than the last apology.
Houtarou glanced away, amused at how easy it was to rile her up. He considered continuing the subject, but dropped it out of pity for her. She might actually start to feel guilty - he didn't want that.
As they begin walking again, Eru found a reason to bring up conversation. "Ano, Houtarou-san... I recently got a new cellphone so I lost your contact number. Would you mind giving it to me again?"
While Houtarou brought out his cellphone in agreement, she begin reciting her number to him to enter.
"Tch, you go, man!" A lanky student flashed a thumbs up at the two as he walked by on the streets. Eru flushed more easily while Houtarou determinedly ignored him, punching the numbers into his phone with more force than necessary.
Houtarou begin reciting his number as well, and Eru had to ask twice for him to repeat.
"Ah, sorry," she apologized. "My mind has been somewhere else all of today."
Houtarou was growing rather concerned.
"Are you having issues at home?"
There was a lapse in Eru's demeanor, a strong frown that Houtarou barely caught. Eru responded evenly, "No, nothing like that."
Houtarou could sense the change in atmosphere. Deciding that it probably wasn't a good thing, he launched into the next topic. "When do you want to meet next?"
"...Meet?"
"Hm. We can't count on the geo prep room any longer since Satoshi and Ibara are there."
And suddenly, Ery begin giggling.
"What?" he asked incredulously.
"Nothing, Houtarou-san," she replied bemusedly and unconvincingly.
"Chitanda," he said.
"Houtarou-san," she said.
&.
Satoshi stared at his phone's home screen.
8:35 p.m. Monday. August. The 26th. Next week is Houtarou's birthday. We should probably plan something for that.
He wondered why he was thinking of that when he was clearly toying with his phone for a different purpose. Of course, he was stalling. Stalling with talking to Mayaka, a seemingly impossible task as of late.
His last phone call at night, in the biting wind with his collar still mangled from Houtarou's grasp, wasn't exactly... great. It didn't go horribly, though. He told her what happened, and for once she just said 'okay' and she didn't ask.
He wasn't sure if he should've been relieved or worried.
But he couldn't let this go on any longer. He had to at least let her know - he owed her that, and so much more, he knew.
He pressed 'Mayaka.'
&.
The atmosphere all around them seemed so surreal. A gentle breeze blew past and Eru's hair fluttered prettily in the breeze. Houtarou's eyes latched onto the movement, and wondered why it was so incredibly entrancing.
Were these the side effects of liking Chitanda Eru?
He chided himself for getting swept away so easily in such moments - it seemed vulnerable to him, like a weakness. And yet no amount of self-reprimanding could stop his burning gaze. He stood still as he watched her, arms resting at his sides.
Eru finally caught his gaze as she turned her head, and she too found all thought abandon her at his intense gaze. She pondered why he was looking at her in this way. Either way, she realized she rather enjoyed the attention.
She exhaled shakily and took a step closer to him.
&.
"Fuku-chan... it's already nine. What is it? Notes again? Because-" Mayaka was hoping it was anything but what she was beginning to think it was.
"No, Mayaka. I need to talk to you." Those hopes shattered.
"...Alright. Talk." Her voice was stiff and controlled.
"What I said. Are you going to give me an answer?"
"Do you really want me to give you an answer, when you obviously know-"
"But I need to hear it from you."
"You never asked me a question to answer, in case you didn't notice," Mayaka told him, unable to restrain her annoyance.
Satoshi didn't say anything.
"I'm-" Mayaka gripped her arm, realizing where this was beginning to venture into. Again and again and again, she couldn't stop things between them from spiraling out of control, could she? "You can't expect an answer from me when all you did was refuse to give me yours!"
"I'm sorry," he said. It was automatic and very Satoshi and Mayaka growled because she hated it when he said sorry.
She knew she couldn't change the past, but she knew she could control her future.
"I'll talk to you later," was all she got out before she snapped the cellphone shut. She felt herself go weak all over again, hands trembling against the mattress of her bed where she lay.
She had finally heard what she wanted to hear, but her own paranoia and fear wouldn't let her accept it. It was being cruel to herself and yet she didn't regret it, because she didn't want her heart to crumble further but it already was.
&.
She wanted to be closer.
There was something brewing and neither of them knew it, so when Eru's hand flexed experimentally and reached for his, they were both startled at the loud chiming of a cellphone ringtone.
Houtarou snapped out of it, and he took a step back and felt his face flush, still not entirely clear on what had just happened. Eru was otherwise occupied with answering the blasted device. What timing.
"Mayaka-chan?"
&.
Satoshi knew now that it was a mistake. A horrible, horrible mistake. He had messed things up and had gone out on a limb and been honest and somehow it only made everything more convoluted.
But the truth wasn't out, not completely.
He couldn't let himself be obsessed with her. That was the root of which all of the problems he had created between them came back to. Was he even thinking properly when he had told her that? Was he even ready for her?
Feeling unsure and regretful and happy all at once, he ran a thumb over the dangling charm on his cellphone tenderly.
"I love her," he murmured out loud, voice cracking halfway between. He could feel his vision clouding and the tears falling, signifying the repercussions of his actions, except this time it felt all too real.
He hadn't bothered to stop and speculate why.