Tilling Soil

By: Aviantei

Chapter Fifteen

Yori had attempted to relax after Shima had escorted her back to the dorm, but she'd only had a little bit of success. The good news was that she'd already finished up her homework and studying before heading out for a breather, so she didn't need to work through math problems with a heavily distracted and overwhelmed mind.

The less good news was that she'd had next to no luck sleeping. When the clock at her bedside passed over to four in the morning with only a few scattered naps in between (all of them populated with awful dreams that manifested every paranoid thought that she had in her), Yori gave it up for broke and carefully padded her way over to her desk and computer. She tended not to do much work at night because she didn't want to disturb her roommates, but she needed the distraction, and just tucking into the novel she had reading wouldn't be enough.

She needed the catharsis that came from creation.

Yori kept the curtains closed, not wanting to see any of the monsters—demons, Shima-san said they were demons—that tended to pass by more often these days than they had at the beginning of the school year. She also didn't put in her headphones so she could monitor how loud she was typing. At first, the characters were hesitant, but they ultimately started to come in a steady enough rhythm. Not the ultimate high of a scene coming together almost seamlessly, but a good enough pace that settled around her average and didn't get caught on any snags.

"Oh, you're already awake, Miyamoto-chan?"

The soft voice caught onto Yori's attention, and she took a few more moments to finish the sentence she'd been typing before quickly saving her work and turning around in her desk chair. Paku Noriko—one of her roommates—had blearily pulled herself out of bed, her brown hair sticking up in odd angles as she rubbed the sleep out of her dark eyes.

"Sorry," Yori said, keeping her voice soft. "I was having trouble sleeping. Did I wake you up?"

Paku shook her head. "No worries. My alarm's gonna go off soon anyways." She reached to her phone, either to turn said alarm off before it started, or maybe to check for whatever notifications had arrived in the middle of the night. "Sorry you couldn't sleep, though. You've been looking tired, lately."

"Yeah, well…" Usually, Yori was well-behaved with her sleep schedule, save for whenever she had a good writing idea that refused to let her go. Even so, that wasn't the reason that she was currently exhausted, even as her anxiety sent sparks of unnecessary energy racing through her veins. It would be easier if she could have someone to talk to, but Ayane and the others didn't know about the whole Assiah-Gehenna mess, and Shima-san had only been so helpful the day before, the honesty blunting any form of comfort she could have gotten from his words. So Yori came up with an excuse and hoped that it would work. "You know how coming back to school after a long break can be. I think I'm still recovering from all the summer writing binges I had."

Paku giggled. "Yeah, I know what you mean. It's hard to adjust back to a schedule when you've been working on a completely different rhythm, isn't it?" Her still-sleepy smile slipped a bit, and there was a somewhat serious look flickering through her eyes. "Well, if you ever need to talk to someone, Miyamoto-chan, know I'll listen, okay? It doesn't matter how weird it is. We roommates gotta stick together!"

For a moment, Yori considered spilling it all—the monsters she could see, the strange situation with Ayane's crush, the danger of having such a powerful and potentially volatile demon like Amaimon around. But then she remembered the way that Shima-san had escorted her back to the girls' dorm the night before, the service complete with a light reminder:

We try not to let all the big, wild demon stuff get out in the open, okay? You said you read and write fantasy, so I'm sure you understand, Yori-chan. Our little secret, yeah?

Shima was right: Yori understood the whole "we must keep the existence of the supernatural a secret" trope perfectly well, even if she thought it was a bit silly. However, what Shima hadn't considered when he presented his train of logic was that, as a writer, Yori knew how to exploit loopholes in language like nobody's business.

So long as I don't mention any of the demon bits, then there shouldn't be a problem!

"Well," Yori said, "this may sound silly—" And it absolutely does in comparison to what's actually happening "—but one of my friends is seeing someone. Ah, Ayane-san." Paku, who was generally sociable and would say hi to Yori whenever they crossed paths and thus at least knew the names of her group of friends, nodded. "And, well, she seems really happy about it, so I'm glad. But the guy she's seeing might be dangerous. And it's not that Ayane-san can't take care of herself, but I just don't want her to get hurt. Especially since she's already gone through some tough things.

"But there's no way I can actually prove what the problem is, and, even if I could, it's Ayane-san's decision what she does and who she sees. Like, I don't get to decide what is and isn't too much for her." Yori paused a minute, another fresh thought swirling around in her head that was almost too much for her to want to admit out loud. She pushed forward and said it anyways: "I feel so powerless."

"Miyamoto-chan…" Paku pulled herself out of bed and crossed the room, looking unfittingly determined for someone that was still in their kitten-patterned pajamas. She easily closed the distance between them, and soon Paku had pulled Yori into a hug, the still lingering aroma of her mango-scented shampoo filling the air. "That's not silly at all. You're someone who cares a lot for their friends. If it were Shirou-kun or Hayabusa-senpai or even me in the same situation, you'd want to make sure they were okay, right?" Yori nodded, her cheek rubbing against the cotton of Paku's night shirt. "I know that something like this is frustrating, but you can always talk to Fukui-senpai. While you still care about her, you're not powerless."

Yori nodded again, trying to form something worthwhile to say in response. She hadn't felt quite this tongue-tied in a few years. "You're right, Paku-san. Thanks."

"Don't mention it. We're friends, too, Miyamoto-chan. I've always got your back!" Paku squeezed Yori's shoulders one more time before stepping back, and her cell phone buzzed back on her bed. "Whoops, I gotta help Izumo-chan get out of bed. Why don't you go ahead and get dressed, Miyamoto-chan, and we'll all go eat breakfast together. Sound like a plan?"

Eating breakfast. With everything else going on, sitting down for a meal sounded like a strange luxury. But the rest of the world didn't stop happening just because there was a trouble, and things like eating and school and life in general would keep moving. Yori was grateful for someone like Paku who was willing to pull her back to that track, so she could keep moving, too.

"Sure thing, Paku-san," Yori said, closing the lid on her laptop, "sounds like a plan."

"I know you've explained this whole thing before, but it still doesn't make any sense."

Whiskey didn't blame Rin for his assessment, but she still hadn't come up with anything new to say in response, so she let the statement hang, moving another bite of tamagoyaki to mouth via chopsticks. Though it had taken some time, she had explained the (becoming increasingly stupid by the day) situation with Amaimon and Fukui-senpai the night before.

"Like, who'd even be interested in a guy like him?" Rin continued, ranting between bites of his own lunch, with the occasional grain of rice flinging back onto the table. "He's completely out of his mind! Like, she's hung out with him twice, right? She has to have noticed that something's off about him."

"He is under restraints," Whiskey said in reminder—and that little detail was the only reason that Rin hadn't completely lost his shit as he'd learned the details. "So it's not like he can go all out and fight. Take that away and he's just some weirdo with a barely changing expression and a never-ending stomach."

Rin slammed his hand to the table so hard it was a miracle that the chopsticks in them didn't snap in half. "Exactly! So how in the world does she still wanna go out with him?!"

Whiskey shrugged. There was absolutely no accounting for taste in situations like this. Fukui had already proven that ten times over.

"While this conversation is an interesting little look into your dynamic, may I ask why the hell I'm here, too?" Shima asked, sitting to the side of Rin in an otherwise empty Cram School classroom. He'd barely touched his own lunch, which consisted of a sandwich and a couple of other snacks that you could pick up from the school store. "You two are the miracle half-demon squad. You two can actually do something about a Demon Prince of Hell. I'm just a standard Exwire that doesn't even have a proper Meister yet."

"You should have thought about that before you decided that you were going to get involved," Whiskey said, not bothering to hold back her glare. Shima immediately jumped in his spot and looked away, cowering under the almost unrestrained antipathy Whiskey was projecting. "Rin told me that you were the one that suggested you try to follow me. Not to mention you were acting like hot shit whenever you showed up yesterday. 'Looks like you could use some help, Whiskey-chan,'" she said, mockingly.

"Was I wrong?"

"No, but if you're gonna show up all smug, then you don't get to back out whenever you get pulled into things—especially since you told Rin I was in trouble!" Whiskey knew that it had probably been for the best that she and Rin got everything out in the open, but she would have rather handled the situation on her own terms than…well, the mess that had happened instead.

"Hey, hey, take it easy," Rin said, stepping up to play mediator. "We're all here, right, and we know what's going on. So we should all work together to make things easier."

It was good argument, and Whiskey sighed, easing the glare she'd trapped Shima under for the time being. They saw each other every day; it wasn't like she couldn't exact revenge on him later if necessary. "I'm not saying that I don't appreciate the idea, but I'm sorry you guys had to get pulled into this. It's all stupid." A faint sense of guilt niggled at her, since Whiskey had been the one to fail at convincing Vati not to let Amaimon out in the first place.

Shima shrugged and swallowed what seemed to be a quarter of his sandwich in one go. "It's still happening, though, yeah? So long as your dad finds it interesting or something goes wrong, there's not much we can do about it."

Whiskey hated that Shima was right—and Rin's scowl showed that he shared the sentiment. "No offense, Whiskey, but your old man's a piece of work."

"Yeah," Whiskey said. She'd tried not to think too much about it, but the feeling of discomfort that had been steadily growing in her gut since the beginning of the school year was only festering worse and worse by the day. I wish that I understood what he was trying to do. "If nothing else, he secured Uncle Amaimon yesterday, so it's not like he's out and running loose. And Fukui-senpai hasn't come at me, demanding an explanation or panicking, so I can only assume that he behaved yesterday."

But she still didn't have to like it.

"Oh, yeah, I guess you've had to arrange things with Fukui-senpai," Shima said, looking the most interested that he had the whole conversation. "Does that mean you have her number? I'm so jealous, Whiskey-chan."

"Shima, if I thought that you'd have half a chance at catching Fukui-senpai's attention and getting her to stop pining after Uncle Amaimon, don't you think I would have done something about that already?"

"Whiskey-chan's so mean!"

"It just sucks," Rin said, poking idly at the remainder of his rice with his chopsticks. "No matter how much we complain at the clown, he's not going to change his mind. But we obviously can't let Amaimon do anything that's gonna hurt that senpai or anyone else. So what in the world can we even do?"

Whiskey bit her lip, hoping that the sting of her blunted fangs would give her some timely inspiration. It didn't. Rin was scowling at thin air, and even Shima had a frown of concentration on his expression. The silence stretched out, and Whiskey was forced to admit that there was only one answer to Rin's question:

"The only thing we can do right now," she said, hating the sound and taste of resignation as the words rolled off her tongue, "we wait and see what happens next."

At her next tennis practice, Ayane recognized that she was more on top of her game than usual. She could easily track the yellow blur of motion that was the ball, even when her practice partners pulled off trick shots, and her own swings had even more force behind them than usual. Points quickly stacked up in her favor, drills felt like opportunities to get in better touch with the movement of her body, and overall Ayane just felt more fulfilled, even as her muscles burned with the oncoming exertion.

"Fukui," Abe called as Ayane managed to flick her wrists just right to launch an excellent lob to the other side of the court. The ball sailed through the air, making Ayane realize that the color of the sky had not only become orange, but also mostly passed through that phase into a hazy sort of purple. She'd been so in the zone that she hadn't even noticed. "While I commend you on not dragging some kōhai into your unlimited tennis works festival again, I'm gonna have to tell you to pack it up. You go much longer, and you're gonna miss dinner—and I'll end up missing dinner right along with you."

"As selfless as always, Captain," Ayane said with a touch of dryness. Abe did pass her a still cold bottle of water, though, so she couldn't fully complain. "I just…have so much energy right now. It feels like a waste to not make use of it."

And anyone you could break isn't worth your time, Amaimon had said. And while Ayane was still conscious of how she could potentially impact others, the idea that she didn't need to completely hold herself back was appealing. It promised some sense of liberation from the guilt she'd been carrying around the past couple of years.

Maybe, with Amaimon…

"Well, I guess it's thoughts like that that make you our ace, huh?" Abe asked, and he ruffled Ayane's hair, despite how sweaty she must've been. "But if you spend all your time practicin', that boyfriend of yours is gonna end up getting lonely."

"Ah, we're not really dating yet! Not officially." She absolutely wouldn't have minded, and Amaimon had insisted that they were on a first name basis. But without a define the relationship talk, Ayane wasn't about to assume anything. For now, she'd be content with sharing his company. And if he came to return her feelings, then that would be another matter. "Besides, Amaimon's busy a lot. I'm sure he has plenty of things to occupy his time even when I am busy." They didn't talk a lot about the rest of their lives, but Ayane still got that impression.

Abe's expression spread out into a wide grin, and he caught Ayane in a noogie before she could protest. "You're not making a very convincing not dating argument if you're already calling him without honorifics."

"He's not from Japan, and that sort of thing is normal where he's from!" Ayane said, unable to free herself from Abe's headlock without potentially injuring him. "Besides, he's the one who asked me to. Now let me go, Captain!"

"Huh? But I'm not done teasing you yet."

"Abe-senpai, I swear to god—!"

"Yoohoo, Ayane-chan, darling! I'm here to pick you up so you actually have time to eat like a human being." A delivery like that could have only come from Michiko, and Ayane and Abe both stopped their tussle to acknowledge the newcomer. "I know you adore tennis and it does wonders for your figure, but taking care of yourself is extra important."

"Since when the hell did you become a self-care guru, Michiko-chan?" Ayane said under her breath, not really expecting an answer. Besides, she could tell what was up with a simple glance, anyways. Michiko had already changed out of her uniform into a frilly tank top with light-colored shorts that did an excellent job at showing off her legs. She'd also touched up on her makeup a little bit more than usual, the effect really highlighting the sparkle in her eyes.

Come to pick Ayane up from tennis practice indeed.

"Oh, you one of Fukui's friends?" Abe asked, finally releasing Ayane from his hold. Knowing exactly what was going on, Ayane just accepted her fate of watching things unfold from the sidelines and held back a sigh. "Thanks for keeping an eye on our ace over here. I know she's a handful, but we appreciate any help we can get." Sure, make me the problem child, I only went to nationals last year, no big deal. Abe dipped his head in a short bow. "Abe Youdai. I'm the Tennis Club's captain."

"It's nice to meet you, too," Michiko said, keeping her voice light and natural. "I'm Hayabusa Michiko, Ayane-chan's friend and roommate. We appreciate you keeping an eye out for her, too." Yeah, and you're probably also 'appreciating' him in a couple other ways, too, Ayane thought. She didn't fault Michiko for being willing to go for it and flirt when she was interested, no; Ayane just always felt awkward as hell whenever she was caught in the middle of it.

"Well, if we don't want to hold anyone up," Ayane said before the conversation could leave her in the dust, "I'm going to go take a quick shower, and then we can head to dinner, okay, Michiko-chan?" It would be a dinner filled with a recounting of what strategy Michiko had put together to get Abe's number, anyways. No reason to watch it live when she could just get the tl;dr version. "I'll see you at the next practice, Captain."

With a quick wave to signal her departure, Ayane slipped away and began to trot across the court and back towards the locker rooms. She was about halfway there when Abe called, "Hold up!" after her. Ayane complied, looking over her shoulder and hoping that whatever it was would be quick. Without the exertion of practice to distract her, the sweat was starting to form a sticky and uncomfortable crust on her skin. Abe cupped his hands around his mouth to better project his voice. "I meant to tell you. We got word that in two weeks, we're gonna do some exhibition and practice matches. I signed you up for singles, since I knew you'd flay me if I didn't."

"Smart move," Ayane called back. Practice was great and all, but she longed for a game with an opponent she didn't know, a match that would bring a new level of tension aside from just improving her skills. And if she kept in the state that she was in now, then there wasn't any doubt that she might be able to push forward to some new level of skill she'd yet to reach. "You can message me the details later, okay? I was serious about washing this sweat off."

Plus Ayane knew better than to make Michiko wait any longer, and it only half had to do with her scoring a private conversation with Abe.

Ayane tapped her fingers against her mattress as she lied on her bed, staring at her phone. Since the screen was currently blank, there wasn't anything much to stare at, but Ayane was doing it anyways, hoping that it would get her somewhere.

You already made the decision. Now you just gotta stop wussing out. Honestly.

Sucking in a deep breath and trying not to make too much of a fuss to catch her roommates' (most specifically Michiko's) attention, Ayane unlocked her screen, navigated to her contacts where she'd saved Amaimon's number from the week before, and pressed the call button.

The ringing went on for several seconds, and Ayane couldn't tell if it would be better or worse for her nerves if the call went to voicemail. But, eventually, the line picked up, though there was a beat of silence before Amaimon's sleepy sounding voice said, "Hello?"

"Hi," Ayane said, almost whispering out the greeting before she realized how quiet she was being. "Amaimon—" Not -san, don't add -san "It's Ayane. Sorry if I interrupted you. Do you have a few minutes to talk?"

"Don't worry about it. I can talk."

"Great." Amaimon's responses were overall minimal, but Ayane wasn't doing much better. Maybe, one day, I'll be able to talk with him without completely freaking out first. "I actually wanted to ask if you were free next week. On Thursday afternoon." Amaimon didn't say no right away, which was reassuring in itself, but he didn't give any other response, either. Ayane pressed on. "I know we normally meet up on the weekends, but I have a tennis exposition match that day, and, uh… I'd like it if you came and watched me."

Given that she'd gained some notoriety in the high school tennis world, Ayane was used to people watching her while she played. Hell, she'd even admit that it felt nice to be at the center of everything, one of two stars on the stage that was the court. Ryouichi and the others would also come to cheer her on when they could, but Ayane usually let them know when a game was coming up and let them decide if they could spare the time in their schedules, which they usually would.

This is was just the first time in a while that Ayane was asking someone to specifically come and watch her.

"I know it's not the same as what we were talking about before," she said, letting the words slip out before she could even think to taking them back. "But tennis… It's a place where I feel comfortable not holding myself back. And you said you wanted to see that." Maybe she was clinging too hard onto his words, but that had stuck out at her. "So I would like it if you could come and watch, at least for a little bit. So you can see the new way I've learned how to fight."

Ah, I had to say that part out loud. Sheesh. Though Amaimon had reminded her of it, Ayane hadn't told him about the accident, about why she didn't like to fight if she didn't have to. But, even without the full context, she hoped that would be enough to catch his attention and make him interested in coming.

There was a beat of silence that Ayane almost couldn't stand, and then Amaimon said, "Let me check something first." The silence began anew, and Ayane could hear that a discussion was happening away from the phone without understanding any words that were spoken. Maybe he'd already had plans and she was making him rearrange them? If Ayane had been able to say anything and be heard, she would have told Amaimon not to worry, that there would be other matches he could come and see if he wanted to, that he didn't need to change any of his plans.

Another part of her that was connected directly to her heart felt elated that he was potentially willing to rearrange his schedule for her.

There was the sound of clattering that proceeded a phone getting picked up. "Okay," Amaimon said.

"Okay?" Ayane repeated though she had an idea of what that one word response meant. She just wanted to be certain. And sure enough—

"I'll come and watch you play."

[Author's Notes]

Another chapter down. Whoo!

Thanks to Dragon Lord Draco, MyoJinMjolnir, and Black Moons Daughter for the reviews and follows.

I am way too tired to provide detailed story notes, but I hope you enjoyed this read. See you in two weeks' time for the next update!

-Avi

[10.10.2020]

Preview:

"Does that someone happen to be this guy you're all worked up about?"

"You hear that, Michiko-chan? At this rate, Aya-chan's not going to need us anymore."

"If we're going to chat with Amaimon-kun here, we shouldn't talk over other people."

"I'll be sure to give each match everything I've got, so make sure you cheer me on, okay?"

"Match point: Fukui."

"Ayane's tough."

"What a fucking mess."

"What a fucking mess."