June 12th, 2022
Steam curled up from Rena's amber-orange cup, matching the swirls of condensation from Shion's green tea. The chatter of the pleasant street café surrounded them, the sun shone gently down, and birds twittered on the telephone and power lines of Okinomiya. Though the scene was peaceful, tension crackled in the air between them, as obvious as the spotless white of Shion's shirt or the gleam of teeth behind Rena's cordial smile.
"I'm so glad you could accept my invitation." Shion said at last, the opening salvo in their little engagement. She smiled gently, but her eyes were sharp as she lifted her cup of tea to her mouth, sipping with a delicate precision that let Rena know Shion had picked up more than she let on from her illustrious private school.
Rena, however, refused to be cowed. She would never be as elegant or graceful as other girls, so she didn't bother trying. Rena was cute, novel, intriguing, and a wonderful cook –and the way to a man's heart was, after all, through the stomach.
"Of course!" she replied, beaming. She stirred some sugar into her cup, hoping to give her sweet smile an extra boost. "After all, Shi-chan doesn't invite me to tea very often. I couldn't not come."
"Well, we do have something important to discuss." Shion agreed pointedly, her cordiality fraying a little as she revealed a flash of the steel beneath her silken politeness, a hint of the poisonous barbs under her tongue. Rena's cheerful smile thinned, a glint of challenge gleaming in her own blue eyes, and she sipped her tea, feigning ignorance.
"Why, whatever could that be?"
"Well, my dear Rena-chan," Shion drawled, folding her hands together and resting her chin atop them as she smiled at Rena in the toothy manner of a wolf. "-its come to my attention that you and Onee are competing for the attention for a certain man. Now, we wouldn't want to name any names…"
"Of course." Rena agreed smoothly, knowing very well that Shion was talking about Keiichi.
"…but the boy in this equation doesn't seem like he's smart enough to know that he's got two pretty girls angling for him. And I was thinking –wouldn't it be nicer to him to simplify matters?"
The cheerful silence between them iced over. Rena's kindly smile gained a sudden painted-on quality, like the bared white teeth on snarling oni masks, and Shion's beaming face tightened into an almost-villainous slitted expression.
"Why, Shi-chan," Rena said around her bright smile. "What do you mean?"
"Just as I said, Rena-chan." Shion returned, not changing her own faux-cherubic expression. "If two girls are fighting over one very stupid boy, then one of the girls should back off so that he can figure out that not all girls act like this, and realize that she's actually into him."
"But Shi-chan, if one of the girls did that, then she'd lose her chance to be with him." Rena said, and paused to take a gentle sip of her tea. "That's not very fair, is it?"
"All's fair in love and war, my dear Rena-chan." Shion said with a smug toss of her long curtain of hair. "You've heard that saying before, haven't you?"
"Of course." Rena agreed, letting a hint of her own poison show. "After all, Keiichi-kun and I spend so much time together, talking about…things."
The only sign that Rena had won a point over her was a subtle tightening of Shion's fist in her lap, her knuckles turning white around her cup. Outwardly, she remained all smiles, all casual politeness.
"Well, isn't that just special." she murmured, even managing to sound pleased by this development. "But you know, Rena-chan, that he cares more about Onee. After all, she's his official rival, and the girl he spends the most time thinking about trying to beat."
An especially keen observer might have seen how the corner of Rena's masklike smile twitched. The birds twittered on obliviously.
"You are very invested in this, aren't you, Shi-chan?" Rena asked after a few moments. Shion huffed.
"Well, obviously." she said, flopping back a little and tossing her hand with feigned dismissiveness in her chair. "After all, Onee's so shy, she certainly needs the help."
"But Shi-chan, I'm not sure that the girl who isn't even brave enough face her crush –or her rival– on her own should get the boy." Rena said, a feigned smile plastered across her face, and then she laughed sweetly. "Aha-ha-ha-ha~…"
"Oho-ho-ho-ho~…" Shion laughed alongside her, closing her eyes in a dulcet simper.
Though their laughter was musical, it was a brittle, high, threatening sort of melody –the kind that might come tinkling out ominously from a haunted music box in a horror movie. A few pedestrians outside the café window shivered, without quite knowing why.
In seeing the two neat and polished girls sitting across from each other in the café, smiling with masklike faces and too-sweet grins, observers might be excused in assuming that they had come across some sort of covert exchange of two young special agents, a deal fraught with illegality and high stakes, something that would end in uneasy alliances and blood and gunfire.
Rena and Shion just sipped their tea in unison, considering their next options as they beamed across the table at one another.
10.23 AM, USA Central Time
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