Their faces were close. It seemed that Murasakibara had a tendency to disregard personal boundaries and to do whatever he felt like doing at the moment. He withdrew his thumb from her face, and his face slowly withdrew from hers. But that didn't stop her from feeling heat emanate from her own face, even if his had left.

She wondered if the heat was from anger at Murasakibara's ignoring personal space or from the sudden decrease in physical distance between them. Either way, he had better have a good explanation for what he had just done.

Estelle furrowed her brows and looked at him, waiting for an excuse. Murasakibara was focused on his thumb.

"Bibimbap sauce," he drawled, and wiped his thumb on his uniform pants.

"Why didn't you just tell me? I could have wiped it off myself," Estelle defiantly huffed.

"I saw Muro-chin do it before."

Estelle blinked.

He was just copying Himuro?

She didn't know if she wanted to know who the receiving party was, but it wasn't hard to guess.

"And what about you carrying me? Was that something you saw Himuro-kun do too?"

Does he have absolutely no idea how to interact with girls, except for what he sees Himuro do?

"No, Muro-chin doesn't do that."

"Then why did you do it?"

"I already told you. You were slow."

"So you do that to everyone who is too slow?"

"Hmm," Murasakibara seemed to think aloud, "Not really."

"You do know that you should ask for someone's permission before you do that, right?" Estelle was going to hammer into him some sense of consent.

"Well you tackled me yesterday without permission."

Estelle paused.

"That was different!"

"You also held my hand without permission."

She could feel the heat climbing up her neck again.

"I did not hold your hand," she hissed.

"I was just… holding onto your sleeve for a bit." Estelle couldn't look him in the eye. She looked at another corner in the infirmary, "And plus, I asked if I could for a little bit, and you didn't say anything. So that was a yes."

Estelle intended on schooling Murasakibara in consent but ended up getting taught herself. She lost the very battle she had waged. Instead of facing her failure, she flopped onto the bed, showing her back to him.

"Ice my back."

"Where?" Murasakibara asked, ice in hand.

"Between my shoulder blades."

He abruptly dropped the ice between her shoulder blades. Estelle flinched at the hefty bag of ice coming into sudden contact with her tender spot.

"Gently," Estelle hissed.

She felt that most of their interactions involved her hissing at him to get him to behave like a decent human being. Their dynamic was entirely foreign to her. Most people of the opposite gender, at least in Akita, seemed somewhat stricken with her, or cognizant of her status as an up and coming idol. Estelle was used to interactions with these kinds of people: predictable and cooperative. Much like Okamura.

So a deviant, in multiple ways, like Murasakibara, was pushing her buttons. He didn't care for her status as an idol, or he sure made it seem that way. He seemed to not care much for her as a girl either. But at the same time, it was him who had seen her at her most vulnerable and he didn't seem affected by it either.

"Murasakibara-kun," Estelle muttered into the pillow, not looking at him.

"Hm?"

"Did you tell anyone?"

"About what?"

"What happened last night."

"What about last night?"

Estelle hesitated. Too many things happened last night that shouldn't be said.

"Everything."

"I didn't."

Estelle turned her head to face him, "No one?"

"Mm." Murasakibara made a noise that seemed to confirm her statement.

His half closed eyes bored down at hers and he was already busy with some other unidentifiable candy. She wanted to shrink into the depths of the pillow and ignore him. But that wasn't really polite.

"Thanks." Estelle purposefully turned her head into the pillow to muffle her voice.

Despite her stifling her voice, Murasakibara gave another noise of affirmation.

She began biting the inside of her cheek again. She wondered if she should do it. She wondered if he would actually agree. She wondered if her own fear overcame her sense of pride at the current moment.

"Murasakibara-kun."

"Hm?"

"Do you think… you could walk me home?"

Turns out it did.

Murasakibara didn't respond right away. Suddenly, Estelle felt the urgent need to dry up like a withered leaf and blow away with the wind. She hoped some language would coin a specific word for that feeling because it seemed to be a frequent occurrence to her lately.

"I'll—"

"Mm."

Estelle had accidentally spoken at the same time as Murasakibara and she couldn't quite make out if it was a "no" noise or a "yes" noise.

"What— Could you say that again?" Estelle sat up, ice sliding off her back.

"Ok."

Estelle was shocked as much as she was pleasantly surprised. She couldn't think of any reason why he would say yes, but at the same time, she didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"Ah," she said rather lamely, "Thanks."

It was dark walking home. And it was strange to Estelle to be going home this late. Usually she could appreciate the signs of the changing season around her, but in the dreary yellow tinted shadows of streetlights, it was much more difficult to see. Plus, despite her sharp hearing, her night vision was rather terrible. She felt exposed in the cold night air. Unable to see well. Jumping at every specter and rustle.

Though with an almost seven foot foot purple titan by her side, she felt safer. Not completely at ease, but safer. She wondered at how she was to make it the rest of the semester this way. Going to the counselor and telling her about her special circumstances might change her mind. As she considered the possibilities, she almost missed hearing him speak.

"The chocolate," Murasakibara said, "It was good."

His voice snapped her out of her stupor.

"You can have some more you know," Estelle turned her head to look up at him.

In the dim light, she could see his purple eyes brighten at the sound of more sweets.

"As thanks for walking me home."

His stride was long. Even with Estelle's fast pace, she was barely keeping up with him. He was just slightly ahead of her. Surprisingly, though he had only been to her place once before, he seemed to know the way. Slightly, Estelle could notice his sluggish but long stride change in the correct direction towards her place in front of her. He had a surprisingly good sense of direction. She couldn't help but think that he wasn't a complete imbecile after all.

"Elle-chin." Murasakibara didn't have any candy in his mouth at the moment. How rare.

"Hm?" She looked at him.

Once again, the feeling of tilting her chin so high just to meet his eyes was a peculiar sensation that she couldn't quite get used to.

"Why are you so scared of the dark?"

Estelle bit the inside of her cheek. Partly to prevent her from laughing out loud and partly to prevent her from displaying some sort of other inappropriate reaction. If she really did have a debilitating fear of the dark, walking down a dim street at night was hardly the right time to ask. Pushing down her nagging instinct to tell him how wrong the timing was, she felt that she owed it to him. After all, he was walking her home.

"Well, there's multiple reasons."

Looking at his face, Estelle was slightly astonished that he seemed engaged as he was. No food in his mouth and his eyes on hers.

"I've heard stories," she continued, "of girls in other idol groups. Who went home alone and got attacked. And after the attack, they, and their career, were never really the same. A lot of the girls who went through it quit shortly afterward. Probably for a lot of reasons."

A half-truth. It was the reason why she asked him to walk her home, but it wasn't really because she was particularly afraid of the dark alone. She was more fearful of the things that lurked under the guise of darkness. Now that she analyzed her own fear, maybe she was scared of the dark after all. Maybe it was a whole truth.

They arrived at her apartment. She punched in the code. They rode the elevator up to the eighth floor.

As she was punching in her door code, she saw the light above her go dark. Her heart rate spiked.

What happened to the lights?

She whirled around to see what was going on and was met with Murasakibara's towering torso over her, his head blocking out the light above. Murasakibara had placed his forearm on the door behind her, cornering her with his large stature. The physical feeling of being looked down upon was rather unsettling to her. His purple hair fell forward and lightly brushed against her face. Though her heart beat was slowing down within her chest, it was still faster than usual. Murasakibara always had some sort of misleading reason to do the things he did.

"What is it this time? You startled me. More bibimbap sauce?" Estelle joked, looking him straight in the eye.

She was curious as to what sort of reason he would give for his ambiguous behavior.

"Kinda wanted to look at your face up close."