Reliability

By: Aviantei

19—Campus

Can we still receive sanctuary from a clear sky?

To some, showing up to an empty school might have seemed eerie, the kind of strange that could set you ill at ease. After all, schools were places designed to host hundreds of people at a time, and the norm was to have classrooms filled to the brim. Even when classes were in session, there was a living energy to the place as students, teachers, and administrative workers alike all breathed and existed in the same place; when classes were out of session, students filled the place with conversations, with their general excitements and woes and dramas, with the hustle and bustle of club activities that even Megumi had started to think of as welcoming, rather than intimidating. She'd even reached the point that the aftermath of club, when the only sounds were her and Higuchi putting the finishing touches back in place, seemed too quiet, because it wasn't the ruckus of dribbling balls, of feet pounding against the floor, of shouts and cheers and calls for the ball.

But on this morning, none of that bothered her at all. The fact that Rakuzan was quiet was an incredible relief; it meant that she was alone, that she would be able to tell if that were no longer the case. While she'd rushed towards the station the moment she'd gotten far away enough from her apartment, now she took slow and steady steps across the campus, taking the path from the front gates to the gymnasium where the Boys' Basketball Club was to meet a few hours from now.

I came way too early. But, also, she couldn't have left early enough; even her catching of the first train of the day didn't feel like it had been enough, but there wasn't much else that she could have done all things considered. So she counted her breaths, enjoying the coolness of the morning air along with the palest blue of the sky above, empty of any clouds, like it was beckoning her to take flight into its vast expanse.

It wasn't the first time that she'd wished she were capable of such a thing, but this time, the shackles holding her in place felt as heavy as they'd used to.

No. Stop. You're here because you're the club's manager. You have things you need to do.

It was a defense mechanism. It was running away, just like always. Either way, it was true. Even if Megumi had arrived far earlier than she needed to, there would still be things to do. Having already secured the key, she unlocked the door to the gymnasium, the air rushing out to meet her like a pet that had missed its vacationing owner. She set about turning on the lights, but there wouldn't be any equipment to set out; she had Higuchi had packed up the things they would need in advance before summer break had started. The final pre-trip checklist was waiting right where they'd left it, too, and Megumi sat down her bags by the supply room's door before double checking the gear and wheeling out the carts into the gym proper. Nebuya would lead the group of volunteers to load everything into their bus, so Megumi focused on putting everything in an accessible place by the gym entrance where it wouldn't get in the way of anyone arriving.

With just herself to do the work, it took a while to complete—but nowhere near long enough to be the time that she was supposed to be here. Getting tired of pacing in the gym, she ventured back outside, noting that the sun had moved just enough that she could see the tip of it starting to crest over the school buildings. She tugged on the front of her top to let some cool air in, but she did not roll up her sleeves. She focused on the rest of the sky again and, for the first time in what felt like ages, opened her mouth to talk.

"Hey." The greeting was simple. Sometimes, she wondered if it was rude to be so casual with something as vast as the sky, but it wasn't like she'd ever heard otherwise. At the very least, the sky had never retaliated for such a thing, so it likely wasn't as big of an issue as she thought. Even so… "I bet you get tired of hearing me complain, huh? Just the same old coward going on and on again…"

Megumi couldn't get herself to continue from there; it didn't feel like enough talking to the sky about her problems anymore. Not after she'd talked to others about the things weighing her down. It was the sort of thing she was sure Yamada-sensei or even her previous counselor would say was good, but, right now, it felt more like a step backward, because Megumi now felt like all her strategies for taking care of herself couldn't be enough.

But I can't just go ahead and burden anyone else with this. It's far too much. Choukou had done enough for her as it was, and Higuchi didn't even know the half of it. And though Akashi knew—

"You're here early."

That voice was unmistakable; even when it wasn't giving direct orders, it still had that faint commanding edge. Or maybe that was just what unrelenting confidence sounded like? Either way, Akashi (dressed in casual-looking clothes Megumi had never seen him in before) had arrived, though Megumi's watch indicated that no one else should have been around for another hour at least. Though it had been since their conversation on the rooftop that he'd made the switch, Akashi's expression when he looked at Megumi was closer to the one he wore when he looked at the other members of the first string—a faint tint of satisfaction, or at least no traces of visible disappointment—and she wasn't used to it at all.

She couldn't stand the idea of that expression on him changing.

"So are you, Captain," she said, doublechecking her watch. There was still at least over an hour until anyone was expected to show up, and, even if you were accounting for people showing up early (as tardiness was not acceptable in the Rakuzan culture, and even less so within the Boys' Basketball Club), it was too much. "Did you come here to make sure things everything goes well?" The implication was that she was here to do the same, which was a passable reason as a manager.

Though I'm sorry if this ends up seemingly reflecting poorly on you instead, Higuchi-senpai.

"In part," Akashi said, not even betraying any surprise at Megumi's presence. What she wouldn't give to have a poker face that good. Stepping past her and into the gym, he sat down his travel bag next to the club equipment, where Megumi had left her own belongings after shed closed up the storage room. "Reo and I have been talking about playing shogi, so I thought to procure a board from the Shogi Club to bring along with us."

"Eh? From the Shogi Club?" In the short time she'd been involved with the Basketball Club, Megumi had gotten used to Akashi's attitude of supremacy there—but she'd assumed that had stemmed from his position of power as everyone's captain. The truth, it seemed, was that was his natural attitude towards everything. I shouldn't be surprised, though, considering how he was when we were just strangers in the stairwell, and I guess he's got that same aura in the classroom, too, huh? Such different creatures he and she were from each other. "We'll be gone for camp for a few weeks, though, and I know the Shogi Club still has meetings, so they'll miss something if it's gone."

Akashi's look, though it didn't change in the slightest, was still no doubt a question that he had deigned unworthy of wasting spoken words on.

"Ah, my friend is part of the club, so…" Thinking of Kenta dragged a recent conversation out of the haze of her memory (goodness, had school just let out of school a handful of days ago? It felt like so much longer). "Now that I think of it, he was mentioning that they'd just gotten some extra money from their budget to get some new boards. If we took one and something happened to it, I know that we don't have the leeway in our club funds to cover such a thing." The Rakuzan Boys' Basketball Club's budget was impressive, yes, but renting transportation and lodgings for events like training camps and tournaments were expensive things, not to mention the regular fees of replacing balls and other equipment as necessary. An unexpected expense, such as paying reparations to another club for taking their equipment without permission and maybe damaging it (even more so as Kenta had been gushing about the nice quality of the new boards they'd been able to procure) wouldn't be impossible, but it also wouldn't be within acceptable grounds, either.

"I didn't expect you to take the time to learn about our budget while you're still acquainting yourself with the fundamentals of the game and our strategies as a team," Akashi said, his inflection giving no indication to his feelings on the matter.

Megumi tried and, in a miracle, succeeded in not taking it personally for the time being. "Things like finances are one of the things I consider myself to be skilled at, so it wasn't that hard to figure out after reviewing the numbers. The rough ideas had been part of the "supplemental information" materials Higuchi had prepared for her, and she'd investigated the rest for herself. Including the set expenses for the trip they were about to go on, Megumi was confident she could recite the ledger from memory with a five percent margin of error, though declaring such a thing out loud felt a bit too much like tooting her own horn. "I'd like to work on a strategy to give us a bit more leeway in our budget going forward, but I figured such a project would be a bit too presumptuous while I still have so much else to learn about the club." She was hoping that she could immerse herself in more of the sport-relevant information while on this trip, far away from the distractions of everything else in her life.

"It's not as if thinking ahead is a bad attitude to take." Megumi remembered Shirogane's words—It's not often that clubs get to work with any captain or manager for all three years, let alone at the same time—and the implication that she would still be around that long. Even if that future didn't come to pass, she had thought it worth it to consider what possible avenues she could take in the months to come. Whether Akashi was thinking the same thing or not, he still pivoted on his heel, heading back outside the gym doors. "Since you're so well versed in the topic, you can come along and advise me."

"A-advise you?!" The concept itself seemed so far beyond ridiculous that it had to be a test. There was no way that Akashi would default to her opinion over his own otherwise.

"You brought up the budget as a way to try and convince me not to create a risky situation, did you not?" Megumi grimaced; he'd seen right through her. "There's no sense in being roundabout and trying to convince me that it was my way in the first place. A student of Rakuzan shouldn't feel the need to be so roundabout with their intentions, and not one that's a member of my team. You need to learn to be forward with your opinions." Ah, another lecture. Except this one had the pressure of Akashi's upgraded expectations of her attached, which meant that falling short wasn't an option. "So I'll allow you the opportunity to try and influence my decision on which board I take. And know that I won't accept something low quality just because the risk is lower.

"Let's go, Megumi."

Knowing better than to argue when Akashi was talking like that, Megumi followed.

The emptiness of the Cultural Club building was another strange contrast to how Megumi often encountered it. There was no bustle of voices, no students toting around drink orders for their friends. No Choukou-chan to catch me off guard, either, Megumi thought, her lips twitching towards a smile that didn't finish forming. Akashi didn't hesitate in the slightest to take the key for the Shogi Club room off the board, and Megumi scrambled to fill in the kanji for both her family name and his on the white board, though there wasn't going to be anyone around to check.

Akashi was already half the way up to the next floor by the time Megumi got to the stairwell, and she tried to keep pace without scrambling to follow him. She caught up to him just as he was unlocking the Shogi Clubroom's door, and the lump that formed in her throat was almost enough to make her want to choke, the shortness of breath soon following.

You're just looking at the things. You'll be fine.

And if she didn't go, after she'd followed him this far, Akashi would question why.

She couldn't stand the idea of what little progress they'd made in their relationship thus far crumbling.

So she took in a deep breath and stepped through the threshold. The Shogi Club's room felt ordinary, and it wasn't that much different than the Go Club next door, which she'd seen a few times while meeting up with Choukou. There were a few tables, white boards along the walls with a mixture of club activity schedules (local competition next month, a field trip to an upcoming pro match later that fall) and messages from club mates to each other (good job with that last game, Sa-chan!), some group pictures hung up on a corner, a few fake plants for decoration along with what seemed to be souvenir knickknacks, and, of course, the collection of boxes each containing a complete set of a board and pieces.

Some boxes were doubtless the newest sets; all no longer had the protective plastic sleeve around them, but the lack of any marks of use made it clear. That wasn't to say that the older boxes were in poor shape, but there were still worn-down edges along the cardboard and corners that showed their regular use, even when all neat and organized. Akashi, at the very least, avoided the brand new ones, which was one less worry on Megumi's nerves, but it wasn't like that solved the potential issue they were facing.

If Megumi had known she was going to end up on this ridiculous quest, she could have asked Kenta for advice, but it was too late for that now. A call was a possibility, but Megumi didn't trust herself to handle it well; plus there was still the chance she would be waking him up if she did, and she didn't want to impose.

Betting on the chance that maybe she could find a board suitable for Akashi's tastes first (a bold assumption, but worth a shot), Megumi pulled a box from the middling age section and opened the container, observing the edge of the board. Though it was an incomplete view, there seemed to be some signs of heavy use in the form of a few nicks or wears in the finishing. The style of the packaging indicated it was at least as old as Megumi, but the contents didn't seem that way, a symbol of Rakuzan's dedication to excellence in even the smallest of things.

"How about this one?" she asked, offering it to Akashi, who was still observing the stack of boxes before him. "The box is worn down, but that doesn't have to indicate what the board is like. And I don't think anyone would mind if this one was gone for a little while, either." It had been on the bottom of its pile, suggesting that it didn't see regular use and so maybe wasn't anyone's favorite.

"I have no intentions of compromising until I see the board itself," Akashi said, but it wasn't a refusal. He accepted the box and headed towards the table, pulling the board out and inspecting it before setting it down. The nostalgic clatter of refined wood on refined wood was almost painful as Akashi shook a handful of pieces into his palm before setting about putting them on the board.

Figuring that he was checking for missing pieces, Megumi stepped forward to help, swallowing down the fresh lump in her throat. After a few more moments of hesitation, she took a palm's worth of pieces as well, setting them on the board, almost on autopilot.

"You play, then," Akashi said.

It wasn't a question. Someone unfamiliar with the game could misplace the pieces, but Megumi had no issues, and it wasn't even because she had Akashi's side of the board to copy from. Even now, when she hadn't played in at least a year, she still remembered the setup, the movements of each piece. Already, sitting before this half-filled board, part of her mind was putting together strategies, though she doubted that she could compete with someone like Akashi, who (she presumed) enjoyed the game enough that he was willing to take a board from another club without permission. She couldn't help but wonder what had pulled him towards basketball as his extracurricular activity instead, how different things might be now if this clubroom had been where they'd met.

Of course, that would never happen, now would it?

"I know how to play," Megumi said. "I haven't in a while." That had been what she'd mentioned to Choukou and Kenta when they'd brought it up, and that was where she stopped. So why was her mouth opening again, why were the next words coming out? "Nii-san taught me." She hoped her voice was too quiet for Akashi to hear, but, with both of them the only ones in the room and just the space of a shogi board between them, it wasn't the case. Once more, those red and golden eyes narrowed in displeasure, but Megumi wasn't the target of their ire. "I was still in elementary school. We would play a lot, but Nii-san would just use the same strategy over and over, so I could beat him, and we went back and forth until I was always winning against him, and…"

Akashi was smart; he wouldn't need her to finish the sentence to know what had happened next.

That had been the first time that Kaizuto Yūta had hit Kaizuto Megumi.

She could still feel it now; or maybe that was conflating her memory with reality? It didn't matter which way. The physical injuries aside, that incident and every other one like it had left wounds in her mind, heart, and soul that hadn't been able to heal whatsoever.

She said it because—? Because what? Because Akashi already knew, and there wasn't a point in pretending otherwise? Because she wanted an excuse to step away from the board before her as soon as possible? Because she wanted Akashi to say it again, to tell her that what had happened—what had happened—wasn't okay?

Akashi stared at Megumi for a whole minute, or perhaps it was more accurate to say he scrutinized her.

And then he opened his mouth:

"Play a match with me."

[Author's Notes]

Happy anniversary to Reliability. May this update make up for the godawful cliffhanger I left y'all off on last time? Maybe?

Thanks to ukyon, Stuti Mohanty, amgs, tokkiKANA, Sapphiresushi, nwyd, Guests, wisteris, Tears of Forgotten Shadows, BooRN03, sartiel, nicoleAnE, my Ella-Verayne, ap.310, ondreamsidwell, doumeki, Fahdza, SadisticKarma, AnimeLover345643, adgenelia, MyFandoms7, Elis76, xOxO Lost Angel OxOx, Clang, and FallenSlayer17 for the favorites, follows, and reviews! I promise I wasn't planning on leaving you all in suspense forever.

This is what we could consider the beginning of the summer training camp arc, I suppose? We're off to a very dramatic start, though. My updates will still be scattered for a while because of walk steady and the [Twelve Shots of Summer] challenge, but know that the rest of this arc is in production mode. Prepping this update also had me fleshing out more story plans for the arc after this one, so we'll see how that motivates me. I do have a lot going on irl-wise, and fanfic is my hobby, so please be patient with me as I pull things together (even when I leave you with rude cliffhangers)!

That said, I'll work on getting the next update when I can, so please look forward to it!

-Avi

[06.09.2021]