AN: Another three-week delay! I had this ready a week ago but my poor beta was sick. She valiantly worked to finish checking my errors. Thank you, starbrigid!
Chapter Six
It rained that night, just enough to darken the streets and blur window glass. In the morning, Hideaki walked to school breathing in the clear, warm air with a feeling of strange anticipation. He waved to three girls who called his name, flashing a trademark smile. Inwardly his mind roiled with anxiety.
Walking into the broadcast and reception meeting, he caught sight of Yukino holding a stack of papers with an expression of hurried exuberance. Her bright eyes fastened on him and she beamed with relief.
"Asapin, you're here too? Let's work together!"
She looked a little tired but incredibly cheerful in spite of it. Hideaki decided that as much as Yukino complained about the amount of work the school piled on her, the inherent leader in her thrived at the busiest times of the year. She seemed to be able to be everywhere at once and accomplish whatever was asked of her. He understood why a few administrators called her the "miracle-worker."
"Hey," Tonami called, coming up from behind them. "I'm so glad to see to see you guys here." He lowered his head with a gesture of embarrassment. "Um, I just don't know my way around this place yet…"
Yukino straightened instantly with the vigor of a guide discovering a lost traveler in the Sahara desert. "No problem," she declared eagerly. "Just stick by me today and I'll make sure you find where you need to go."
Something shifted unpleasantly in Hideaki's stomach. He knew instinctively that Yukino was only behaving the way she always had as an ideal class representative. But another part of him saw the scene as Arima might and he didn't like how close Tonami stood to Yukino, looking over her shoulder past the fall of smooth, caramel hair to the papers she held. The familiarity in Tonami's voice when he remarked that she looked tired sparked a sudden fear in Hideaki.
"Of course I am," she muttered in reply, focused on the papers.
Arima wouldn't see two friends with common interests or understand the source of Tonami's obsession with Tsubaki. Hideaki had seen the way Tonami followed the athletic girl around school, focusing on her with an intensity he had never shown Yukino. Looking through Arima's jealous eyes, he saw only Yukino's obvious attractiveness and Tonami's ease in her presence. Confusion and concern twisted in Hideaki at the thought of Arima's reaction. Something had to be done but he wasn't sure whether to face Arima with stark reason or consult Yukino with his observations. As it was, he felt strange about seeing Arima so soon after that stupid shower. His skin burned just thinking about it. On the other hand, getting free time alone with Yukino at this time of year might be very well impossible.
In the end, he decided to go straight to the source and confront Takefumi Tonami himself. He got his chance that afternoon when an administrator asked him to fetch some papers from Yukino. Approaching the preparation room, Hideaki heard Tonami's voice say something about the pleasure of a slow, sure revenge.
"But you have been fixated on her all these years," Yukino reminded him slyly.
Hideaki stopped in the doorway and watched them argue casually. Yukino leaned against a desk stacked with paperwork and held a pencil in one hand twisting it coyly. She had that subtle smile on her face that told him she was thinking of something amusing—probably something to do with Tsubaki.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Tonami demanded, suspicion in his voice.
"Oh, nothing," she answered lightly.
She noticed Hideaki in the doorway. "Hey, Asapin. Awada-sensei told me you'd be coming for this paper." Riffling through the pile on the desk, she found the sheet and handed it to him.
"Lots of work today?" he asked.
Her eyes rolled back in an expression of mock exhaustion. Strands of her bangs were stuck to her forehead. "I have to go through all the club proposals tonight! It's going to take forever."
Tonami shifted sheepishly. "Well, I guess I should probably go help out my class."
"Okay," Yukino said. "Thanks for carrying stuff for me, Tonami."
"Sure."
Hideaki and Tonami left the room together and proceeded down the hall. As Hideaki walked beside the taller boy, he tried to form a convincing logical argument in his head. The silence between them made him uncomfortable and he felt the need to break it, but Tonami beat him to the punch.
"What's your relationship with Sakura?" he asked suddenly.
Hideaki was floored. He blinked a few times in confusion. "Tsubaki? Um… she's a friend, I guess. Why?"
Tonami didn't look at him. "I just saw you guys together yesterday after first period."
Hideaki wracked his mind for the instance and remembered standing by the window with Tsubaki that morning to observe the schoolgirls walking the paths between classes. They had argued about the meaning of beauty— Hideaki had insisted that all girls were beautiful while Tsubaki had declared that she only cared about the physically attractive ones.
"I just… I wanted to warn you that she's not a very reliable person," Tonami continued, moving his hand restlessly in the confines of his pockets. He turned suddenly to look Hideaki in the eye. "And she's not a proper girl at all, more like a guy really."
Hideaki laughed out loud. "You don't have to tell me that," he said, grinning at Tonami's uncertainty. "I'm not romantically interested in your lovely Tsubaki-chan so you can relax."
"Well…fine. But I don't like her either, you know" Tonami denied quickly. His voice rang with defiance, but his stiff posture had loosened considerably.
Hideaki bit his lip. "Let me give you some advice in return." He stopped walking and gave the other boy a slow, serious look. "I think it's best if you stop getting so friendly with Miyazawa. Arima isn't too generous when it comes to her." He tried to say it casually but Tonami's mouth dropped open in surprise.
"Are you saying that Arima is jealous… of me?" Tonami asked incredulously. "You've got to be kidding. He's the nicest guy ever."
The strange thing was that Hideaki could look straight into Tonami's clear brown eyes and see that wonderful, heroic version of Arima shining like a polished bronze statue. "You knew only one side of Arima," he said carefully. "The real Arima is actually very possessive and insecure. He depends on Miyazawa completely and he feels threatened when anyone gets close to her."
"What about you?" Tonami countered, skepticism obvious.
"He knows me," Hideaki answered with certainty. "He knows I would never touch her."
Tonami ran a hand through his hair self-consciously. "Come on! I don't like that crazy girl. Sure, she's cute… and smart. But she's definitely not my type.
Hideaki almost laughed. A bitter frustration burned in his mind, a need to make the other boy look past his own foolish self-awareness to see the dangerous line he was pushing. But Tonami was still flustered by the idea that he could be compatible with Yukino and Hideaki only tilted his head to sigh indifferently.
"I wonder why I thought you would understand," he said. "You really are a child."
As Hideaki turned to walk away, he thought he heard the other boy start to stutter something. His mind was filled with the image of a shadowy Arima wrapped in the chains of his own fears though, so he didn't stop to listen.
-
Hideaki found Aya on a bench outside the art building hunched over a smudged notebook a focused scowl on her face. Between her ink-stained fingers, a worn pen trembled with indecision.
He sat on the bench beside her but she didn't look up, so he dug into his book bag for a purple folder.
"I finished some new designs last night," he said, opening the folder. "I'm thinking a very smooth, elegant look for the surface of the bed-thing with some technical-looking buttons underneath. But we should keep the rest of the set simple to avoid distractions."
Aya lifted her head and studied the drawings with red-rimmed eyes. She looked like she hadn't slept in days.
"Yeah. Looks good. We need to find or build a big bookshelf though. I wonder where we'll get all the books."
"I could just paint them in," Hideaki said. "It'd be a lot more practical, but time-consuming."
"Hm." Aya pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and brought one to her mouth to light. "I'm not sure how much room we'll have yet. Gotta ask Yukinon."
Another time he might have wailed and fussed like Rika and Yukino did whenever they caught the obstinate writer smoking, but today he felt complacent and unwilling to spark a conflict. Her body seemed to relax and loosen as she drew on the cigarette between her lips and the anxiety in her eyes faded.
The smell of the smoke reminded him of days sitting behind the sofa with a box crayons and paper while his father watched baseball, puffing his way through a pack of cigarettes. After his dad would come home from work, Hideaki could never get his attention away from the television, but this hadn't bothered him very much. The voices of the announcers and the steady breathing of his father had been strangely comforting as he knelt on the hardwood floor drawing shapes with the blunted points of the waxy crayons.
Smoke rose in a slight wisp of cloud as Aya exhaled, insubstantial in the bright light of day. "Don't tell Yukino," she said. "It's a bad habit but sometimes I need it."
"I know what you mean," Hideaki said. And he had to press his lips tightly together to keep from laughing. Hey, I jerk off sometimes thinking about her boyfriend! It really wasn't that funny. If he said it aloud, he doubted Aya would smile.
-
It was Yukino's idea to eat lunch by the river. They even managed to drag a reluctant, frustrated-looking Aya out the door and into the sun.
"One of her stories was published," Rika whispered to Hideaki when he asked about Aya's irritability and fatigue. "The magazine wants her to write some more and she's really stressed."
"I wish I was that talented," Yukino said, opening her lunch with a sigh. "I'm only good for studying."
"What an idiot," Maho grumbled from her place on the grass beside the other girl. "You're the one practically putting this entire festival together, stupid."
Hideaki chewed on his sandwich and watched little Tsubasa drag something out of the tall grass, pulling it up the steep incline of the hill.
"All my focus has been on school and Arima," Yukino mused. "But Arima's so busy with kendo and class activities. I guess I just want to build a new place for myself and develop some interests outside my shallow life of trying to be the best in class."
He saw now that Tsubasa was hauling a thick piece of pale blue plastic that had been bent at on end to make a sled. Some kids must have left it there from last winter and the grass had grown up to hide it.
"Sometimes I think that Arima is so much deeper than me… it's like there's such much going on beneath the surface of his face," Yukino continued, turning a fish cracker in her fingers. "It's a little scary—like I don't really know him, or I'm not deep enough to understand him."
Hideaki felt that he should say something, but he couldn't think of the words. Obviously, Yukino couldn't be completely oblivious to what went on beneath the face of Arima's calm façade. But Arima loved her too much to show her who he really was. He wanted so badly to be this perfect person for her sake—the kind of person he felt she could love in return. The harder Arima tried to maintain the pasted persona, the more Hideaki watched it crack.
Standing, he smiled back into Tsubasa's animated, expectant face. She gripped the cheap blue sled in both hands, determination clear.
"Are you going to ride that down the hill?" he questioned in a tone of teasing disapproval.
"I hope it will slide on the grass," she said, eyes shining with anticipation.
"You'd better let me do a test drive first," he advised.
When he sat on the sled, she pressed two small, firm hands against his back and took several steps, pushing hard to give the sled momentum. As it slid fast over the edge of the hill, she jumped on to stand behind him and gripped his shoulders, shrieking with delight as they picked up speed.
They didn't make it very far before friction and rocks combined forces to overturn the sled. Hideaki fell sideways onto the grass. Tsubasa tumbled over the top of him and rolled a ways on the hill before coming to a stop, long hair flung over her face.
At the top of the hill, Yukino stood up quickly. "Are you okay, Shibahime?"
For a moment, Tsubasa just lay there. Then she spoke. "That was so cool!" she breathed, voice husky with excitement. "I bet we could roll all the way down to the river, Asapin."
Her enthusiasm was contagious. Like long bowling pins, they rolled their bodies down the steep slope, flattening spiky grass with their wake. Tsubasa yelled as she tumbled, her voice vibrating and jolting with the movement of her body. She reached the bottom first because, although she weighed less, Hideaki's long legs tangled and slowed his pace.
"Rematch!" he demanded when he reached the bottom. In the background, the river chattered loudly.
Standing, Tsubasa grinned widely and sprinted toward the hill. "Beat me to the top first!"
He raced after her, pitting his legs against her wild endurance. The sun heated his back and his light-colored hair swung against his face. His knees were bruised and a dark green grass stain showed on his left pant leg, but he felt like a kid again, racing for the sheer thrill of his pumping lungs and strong legs.
"Hurry up— lunch is over!" Maho yelled at them.
In front of him, Hideaki saw only Tsubasa's long, wavy hair flying out behind her like a banner. As he passed her, he caught a strand and tugged it playfully. She snarled, seeing him surge ahead and Hideaki felt those small, fierce hands on his back again, fastening onto his shirt. Decisively, she went limp and the weight of her body brought him down face first into the grass.
"Oonf," he gasped, weak with the weight of the small, giggling sixteen year-old girl who had scrambled to straddle his back.
"You're like a bunch of kids," Yukino said. She stood a few feet above them at the top of the hill, grinning broadly at the sight. "It's so cute."
"Asapin is so much fun," Tsubasa declared, pulling his hair happily. Hideaki turned his head and spit out a mouthful of grass.
-
Hideaki met Reiko at the music store near his apartment. His eyes caught on a rare Miwa Sasagawa single nestled between its companions and when he reached for it, her hand was already there. Their elbows jostled for a moment before they both laughed and apologized.
"You like Sasagawa?" the young woman asked. She had short, dark hair and wore a turtleneck sweater despite the heat. He had meant to give up the CD to her and return home to finish his homework, but instead they talked about music for half an hour until the store closed and the staff kicked them out.
Reiko introduced herself as psychology major studying at the local university. She seemed much more confident than most of the girls he knew and didn't hesitate to invite him out to a concert on the weekend. Hideaki liked dating older women; they knew what they were getting into, didn't have as many fluffy fantasies as pretty young school girls, and generally avoided hysterics when the time came for breaking up.
After attending the concert, they went back to his place to eat. Reiko was surprised to find out that he was only a second-year high school student living on his own. After eating the meal, she was also impressed with his culinary abilities.
"You'll make someone a great husband some day," she told him seriously.
Hideaki smiled politely and laughed inwardly at the thought. Girls were fun to admire and hang out with, but the idea of actually staying with one for the rest of his life had never crossed his mind. It didn't really help that his parents' union hadn't exactly been a model of marital bliss.
He considered telling sensible, serious Reiko about his plans to support himself through college instead of relying on his parents, but he decided it was better she think him a handsome, harmless distraction. He had played the role all his life and it was an easy fit now. Once things got serious and people became close, the fun was gone. It was better like this with a friendly, careful distance between them.
"Have you heard of Yin and Yang?" he asked her, scraping the dishes clean and setting them in the dishwasher.
"Of course," Reiko said. "They're only the hottest new thing in indie rock."
"I've met the lead singer," he bragged. "His sister goes to my school."
In truth, he had never actually been introduced to Kazuma or even attempted to make contact with the blonde singer at all. The memory of Kazuma's instant connection with Arima still rankled in his mind. That day in the courtyard, Arima had looked at the other boy like he was a long-lost friend suddenly discovered.
If he went to our school, he'd replace me in an instant as Arima's best friend. The thought entered Hideaki's mind and he quickly pushed it away.
-
With the approach of the school festival, Arima wore a calm, veiled expression. The days stretched long and hot with a choking humidity. Students plucked at their damp uniforms in obvious discomfort during classes and Arima came out of kendo practice soaked in sweat. His dark bangs clung to his forehead when he removed the helmet.
"What are you doing here?" he asked when he saw Hideaki. "Don't you have practice for your show?"
"Fujisawa's handling the preparations," Hideaki said. "I've got all the steps down. I just hope that the girls can get all the costumes done in time." He reached to help Arima take off the thick kote hand and forearm protectors that made long, unwieldy mittens unsuitable for anything but holding a bamboo sword.
"Girls?" Arima questioned, raising an eyebrow. He avoided Hideaki's touch and pulled the kote off himself.
"Yeah, the young ladies of class F were kind enough to volunteer for costume preparation in order to do their part for the class."
"I'm sure," Arima said wryly. "All for the good of the class." He wiped sweat off the side off of his neck with one hand, looking away at the other students who were rolling up their mats and putting their shinai away.
"Are you jealous, Soichiro?" Hideaki teased, tilting his head with an exaggerated expression of sympathy.
Arima began to unlace his heavy armor. "Why would I want to make your stupid costumes?" he retorted mildly.
"But you'd look so good trimming lace and hemming sleeves," Hideaki persisted. He picked up Arima's helmet and followed the other boy into the storage room. If Arima was smiling, he hid it by keeping his head turned away.
"What, are you discriminating now, Soichiro? Are you too masculine to sew costumes but not so masculine that you can't serve girly desserts?" He tapped the helmet playfully against Arima's back.
"The whole club is doing it," Arima replied, hanging up his armor on the rack. "Even the captain is baking his specialty."
"I thought nothing a man cooks can taste good," Hideaki grumbled as another kendo student approached. Arima didn't reply, looking up at his teammate.
"We're meeting in the preparation room, Arima-sempai," the kendo student said. "Captain wants to start setting up the booth."
Hideaki set the helmet on top of the rack with its companions and nodded to Arima. "I'll see you later then."
"Sure." Arima ran a hand quickly through his sweaty hair, conscious of his disheveled appearance. His eyes never focused on Hideaki's and there was an absent, distracted air hanging over him that bothered Hideaki for some reason. It was natural for a responsible class rep like Arima to be distracted in a busy time like this, but Hideaki felt something prickle in the back of his throat as the boy's distant behavior. Did Arima think brushing his friend off was the best way to hide himself? Are we just going to play busy casual acquaintances now? Hideaki wondered. It certainly wasn't the first time Arima had pushed him away, but this rejection was more subtle, Arima's emotional distortion less easy to read.
Impulsively, Hideaki reached out and caught Arima's arm as the other boy turned to leave. Arima turned slightly and gave him a confused look. The skin of his upper arm was flushed and slick with sweat under Hideaki's fingers.
"Call me if you need anything," Hideaki said. "Or you can come by anytime. You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to… but you should know that."
Arima's eyes were focused on the gray expanse of cement wall behind his shoulder. "I have to go, Asaba."
"Okay." Hideaki said calmly. He let go. There was a dry, disgusting feeling in his mouth.
-
Reiko invited him to a movie the next day and she brought her roommate along. Hideaki liked the girls well enough; they were both attractive and friendly, but they chattered continuously throughout the film, or at least for the first forty minutes that Hideaki was awake. The theater was dark and warm and the feminine voices strangely soothing. He dreamed of odd, disconnected moments, of the time he drew the outline of a pink rabbit on the wall of his childhood home and his first trip to a haunted house where yellow banshees chased him down moldering wells.
He dreamed, then, of a little boy with black hair and expansive eyes who walked the surface of a cold moon. His small feet raised puffs of chalky, gray dust with every step and a shadow trailed behind him like a dark cloak. As Hideaki watched, the shadow pooled deeper and wider, lengthening like some morbid wedding veil until it suddenly reared its head and began to walk upright. The shadow had formed the shape of a young man and it followed the child closely, dogging its footsteps. Like a malicious black mist, the shadow engulfed the figure of the little boy and swallowed him up completely.
"Asaba!" Reiko called. "Wake up, you lazy kid. The movie's over."
Hideaki blinked rapidly and stretched his body, accustoming himself to his surroundings. "Well, that was a great film," he said, gathering up his jacket and empty soda container. "I feel so refreshed after seeing it."
Laughing, Reiko shook her head in defeat. She wore long, dangly earrings that rocked against her jawbone as her head moved.
"You're too cute," her roommate, Arisu said. "I'd steal you from Rei-chan but my mother always warned me not to dates guys who wear more jewelry than me."
Hideaki put on his shocked-surprised face. "It's a sign of affluence, my dear. You should be eager to get a rich man like me who can afford these accessories."
He was keenly aware of the subtle flirtation beneath the surface of their banter. In his experience, girls loved to be teased and given this kind of half-serious scrutiny. It made them aware of their own attractive potential, something they had been taught since childhood. Even though these were college girls living in a new age of sexual equality, they instinctively knew that the duty of a woman was to attract a stable, handsome male. This social expectation both repelled and amused Hideaki. He really liked girls, especially looking at them and just being with them. Even so, they never had the power over him that he had seen them exert over other boys and men.
Arisu giggled at him and lowered her head slightly toward one shoulder in a coy expression of false modesty, covering her mouth with one hand while giving him a lovely view of her thin white neck. She had long, red-gold hair, a sharp contrast to Reiko's dark pixie cut. When they exited the theater, the streetlights made the jeweled clips in her hair sparkle and Hideaki realized she had fine glitter on her cheekbones. All this he saw like a man critiquing a flower or a painting. Attractive, but a little childish and gaudy, he thought. He did not like to see himself like this, a detached observer of beauty and companionship. He did not have any desire to think of Arisu in the shower.
All the same, he did nothing when she slipped a piece of paper with her cell phone number into his hand.
That night he stayed up late, drinking and talking with the girls before returning to his dark apartment. Unable to summon the energy for homework, he collapsed into bed and slept soundly through the night. It wasn't until the morning when he woke up with the white light of day in his eyes that he remembered the shadow swallowing the boy on the moon.