"Shinobu?"
"Hmmm?"
"You asleep?"
"Hmmm."
"Coz you know, if you were asleep, I could stop talking."
"Hmmm."
"Just tell me if you're asleep and I'll shut up."
A resigned sigh. A rustle of sheets. "Alright, Mitsuru. What's on your mind?"
"Oh. I thought you were asleep."
"Not anymore."
"Oh."
Crickets chirped outside the open bedroom window.
"Now, Mitsuru."
"Oh. Right." The blonde got on his knees on the top bunk and hung his head upside-down to peer at his roommate.
"You're going to fall."
"No, I'm n---whoops!" With a wild flailing of arms and a muttered expletive, Mitsuru lost his balance and toppled loudly to the floor. He lay, spread-eagled, trying to catch his breath.
Another resigned sigh from the bottom bunk. "Get in here before you hurt yourself some more."
"Okay."
Mitsuru scrambled from his prone position and clambered onto Shinobu's bed, positioning himself, cross-legged, at the foot of the mattress. Shinobu shifted under the sheets to make room for his lanky friend then propped his head up on two pillows. Two, soft, inviting, sleep-tempting pillows. Mitsuru blinked at him owlishly in the gloom, waiting expectantly. Shinobu exhaled, drew one of the pillows from his head and tossed it to his roommate.
"Alright. Speak." The silver-haired boy ordered peremptorily even as he watched in chagrin while Mitsuru bunched his pillow into an unrecognizable, albeit comfortable, shape.
"Do you think Ryan made it home safely that night?"
"This is what you woke me up for?" Shinobu bolted up, on his way to incensed.
"Come on, Shinobu! Aren't you the least bit worried? After all, you were the one who scared him off the train!"
"I did not scare him off the train. And he even said it was his stop, so he should have known how to get home from there. Why this sudden interest in his safety? It's been four days."
"Exactly. Four days. And he's not called once."
"You're acting like a worried wife."
"And you're acting like a jealous one."
"Are you implying I'm jealous of you and Sakata?"
"Well, aren't you?"
"Do you really want me to answer that?"
The two boys had been getting progressively louder and more irate with each other. With every sentence, they had drawn closer together, the way circling dogs would, until now they were practically nose to nose. Mitsuru could see the soft curl of Shinobu's lashes in the faint light of the crescent moon. Shinobu noticed the angry flush to Mitsuru's cheeks. Mitsuru remembered Ryan's comments from their escapade in town. Shinobu held his breath. Both boys realized at the same time that the situation had escalated from minor squabble to something more indefinable and infinitely more dangerous.
"Baka!" Mitsuru growled awkwardly and pushed his roommate away, scrambling back to the far end of the bed.
"If the shoe fits…" Shinobu leaned back himself, smiling enigmatically.
It was the same look that had graced his face that day after school. Mitsuru had not thought much about it then but now, in context of Ryan's prior observations, the expression made the blonde decidedly uneasy. The word "lover" tripped teasingly to the forefront of his thoughts. Mitsuru chalked up the drunk butterfly feeling in his stomach to disgust and outrage at the concept, but he knew he was lying to himself.
"So, four days. And you worry about this because...?" Irony was rife in that unfinished sentence.
Mitsuru discarded his apprehension - mentally reminding himself to go back and peruse it at his leisure – and focused on the more innocuous, if perturbing, issue. "Look. I know you don't like Ryan, for reasons you have yet to reveal, by the way. But that's not important right now. What worries me is that he's new in town, he doesn't know anyone but us, we left him alone in the middle of downtown Tokyo and…"
"And?" Shinobu prompted, curious at the trepidation that suddenly clouded his roommate's amethyst eyes.
"Well, that night, I saw something really weird…"
Mitsuru related the evening's events, starting from the incident in Ryan's bedroom through to the final confrontation on the train. He left nothing out, and Shinobu was once again amazed at the acuteness of his roommate's powers of observation. Mitsuru was so tongue-in-cheek and carefree most of the time that most people usually overlooked the keen intellect housed in that pretty-boy façade.
Every detail was delineated with objective precision, as if Mitsuru were a lawyer presenting his case to a doubtful jury. He recounted the tale so thoroughly and succinctly that Shinobu was able to slough off his still simmering ambivalence toward Sakata and actually pay attention to facts rather than to the person involved.
"…and you saw him at the end, Shin. He looked ready to pass out."
"You noticed it too?" Shinobu was so caught up in the puzzle that he chose to ignore the use of his hated nickname for the time being.
"I'm not entirely useless, you know," Mitsuru retorted softly.
"Ah." That was just too easy but Shinobu decided that this was not the time for innuendo. Besides, his roommate had piqued his interest. "So you think he's sick?"
"That, or something else altogether." Mitsuru's voice took on an ominous cast.
It warmed Shinobu's heart to hear his doubt and suspicion; it spoke of a distrust and an absence of the unconditional acceptance Mitsuru had evinced for Ryan previously. This defection from the enemy camp prompted the silver-haired boy to be magnanimous.
"You know, this matter could be easily resolved. If you're willing, of course."
"What do you have in mind?" Mitsuru was eager but wisely cautious. Shinobu's plans always seemed to end up making him look foolish.
"We could deploy a covert reconnaissance mission…"
"Oh, no! No way! Not again! I still haven't been able to get the stains off my favorite shirt from that last `recon'!" Mitsuru glared accusingly at his roommate, his eyebrows furrowed in a mutinous scowl.
"Come now, Mitsuru! It won't be a seek and destroy this time. And you're the one who's so intent on finding the truth. You do want to solve the Sakata mystery, don't you?"
"Fine. You win. You always win. When do we start?" Mitsuru sighed in resignation.
"Well, certainly not tonight, you dolt! It's late and I need to strategize. Go away!" Shinobu made a shooing gesture with his hand but his tone lacked irascibility. It was merely his way of dismissing his roommate when genius struck.
Used to his peremptory ways, Mitsuru readily unfolded his gangly frame from the bottom bunk and vaulted on to the top, eschewing the ladder as was his wont. A general silence fell upon the two as both boys left each other alone with their privte thoughts. Just when Shinobu thought it was safe to go to sleep, a blonde head popped in view once more.
"Shinobu, I'm glad you're helping me with this, even if it is kind of sudden. But you never told me why you hated Ryan so much in the first place."
"So?"
"Well, I'm just curious. Why do you hate him?"
It was really too much. Shinobu had already agreed to utilize his wile and expertise – for free, even! – and investigate someone he held no affection for. Mitsuru demanding introspective thought about said someone was pushing the envelope. The silver-haired demon decided to indulge in one last bit of deviltry before bed.
Schooling his face in that expression he had just realized bothered his roommate, Shinobu gave his response: "Do you really want me to answer that?"
He took one glance at his roommate's face and the dreaded look that plastered it and Mitsuru's eyes widened in panic. Gulping audibly, the blonde hastily withdrew from sight, thus missing the silent laughter that shook Shinobu's shoulders.