Sonata in red;

"Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity."
- Albert Einstein

Silence.

Silence.

And then, a spark.

Four faces are illuminated by the darkness, the lot of them all of them long and drawn, the hardness of their years clearly evident in every nook and cranny slashed across their skin. The first man smiles as the flames go up, flashing yellowed teeth and blackened gums before he takes a round, smooth-edged stone out from the folds of his jacket and it into the fire.

Tongues of flame fly up, dithering here and there. The man beside the first takes out a nondescript green bottle, drinks from it, and then pushes it to the first, wiping his lips with the sleeve of his other arm.

"There's a piece'a eight fer your time, sai."

The second nods, leaning back as he brings the bottle to his lips and drains it dry. When he speaks, the fires grow bright, as if reciprocating the gift of carbon dioxide he expels.

"Thankyee kindly, stranger." the first replies, shaking his head. "Thankyee kindly and then some. I e'nt been treated like this in some years."

No one speaks after this, for a time, the fire crackling and hissing between them like some kind of salamander given breath and form without respect to majesty.

"I 'spose ya be wantin' t'hear the tale then, hah?" he continues, winking at the assembled men with his one good eye. "With all the bits'a legend and mystery flowin' through the words like some kind'a accursed song, yeah?"

There's a mad gleam in the man's eyes that the thick white film of cataracts cannot hide, a fire to match exploding suns building with each of his words until, like thunder, it comes:

"The tale of Atomsk."

Two of the men shudder at the name, flashing symbols of religions long since forgotten in an effort to gain the protection of gods long since dead; the third man simply...stares ahead throughout, the hard line of his jaw so tight that a match could be lit against it. The first man only nods to himself, seemingly affirming what he already knows.

"Cry havoc, then."

The fires rise, and he begins.

"Back when th' world was young, everythin' we knew separated int'a light, and dark, there existed a man an'a woman."

One of the men grumbles.

"I know this part."

The third glares at the second, clearly threatening danger - the first, however, merely laughs.

"Then I'll be needin' your help t'tell the borin' bits, sai." he gestures to the fire, swirling it up in a way that is both unnatural and serenely appropriate. "Lead on, lead on."

They tell the story of the Pirate King in hushed, wary tones, eyes glancing back and forth between themselves as if the very sound of his name - Atomsk, Atomsk, Atomsk - were an arcane, eldritch thing. It does not take long to recount the details - the gory deaths, the petty thievery, the mutinies and the wars and the agonies, all of it larger than life and that life larger than the universe itself - but, then again, what spinner of tales worth his salt stretches the moment?

The fire burns.

"Be wary of he who hath touched the voice of god," the fourth man continues, fingertips tapping hard against the bottom of the bottle in his hands. "For in incanting such a thing he will lose himself completely." he nods, here. "This I learned from my father and his father before him and so shall this be part of the tale."

Once he is finished, the man clutches the neck of his beer as if it could break at any moment, holding it hard enough to drain his knuckles of color. The first - sitting in the middle of them, rings and jewelry glowing hazy orange red gold in the light of the fire - merely dips his head, and allows him to continue.

"This is what his mother says to him on the eve of his birth, crooning the words into the shell of his ear like a benediction: 'No, no, no, my son,' she cries, trying to keep his arms from reaching to the sky, knowing in her heart of hearts that he was his father's son, and never hers; no, never hers. 'The voice of He on High is not a thing for us. It never was, and never shall be: keep your eyes to the ground and do not tempt what you do not know.'"

"And yet, for every warning, an instinct of rebellion is born," the fourth man continues, tone nearly wary. "They tell him to beware the woman in red, she who walks the stars and exists between spaces, and like every man...Like ever man he does not listen, attracted more to the mystique of her than the reality set before his face."

The first man claps his hands together, sudden and interrupting, leaning back as the fires arch towards the sky.

"So it begins!"

At night, they speak of things that no one else can know of, whispering to each other about hopes and dreams and longing for something more in a city full of something less; about nightmares and the absences that cause them; about how things fall apart only to be put back together again, whole or broken or waiting to be both at once. Haruko tells him, sometimes, that his innocence is like some kind of magic she hasn't found anywhere else in the universe, and Naota, in turn - well, Naota comes to expect that whenever he puts his head to his pillow, he won't fall asleep for the next four hours or more.

Haruko was predictable like that, sometimes. And tonight is no different.

"...Listen," she always begins, the moon highlighting the angles of her face like something disastrous and beautiful and heart-broken: "Listen, kid: you and me? We're kings. And this planet's all but gone for the taking."

And he always replies, always true and always so much more himself than he should be when she's near. "You're an idiot, Haruko."

From here, it devolves into the usual pattern their relationship follows: Haruko will talk, and talk, and talk, and Naota will count the minutes of silence he has to himself when she stops, watching her chest rise and fall with her breath until a topic enters her mind and she starts again.

"So."

The highest he's ever gotten to was half-an-hour, before tonight. He thought she might've been dead.

"...So," she starts, and he thinks for a second that she might start repeating herself again. "-Naota-kun, have you ever kissed a girl?"

He blinks, silent. She turns over to him, using the heel of her hand to cradle her head, yellow eyes flashing only momentarily in the half-light, and asks again.

"Well?" and she's smirking, now. "Have you?"

This time, his breath hitches in his throat. She's awfully close. Breaking-bunk-mate-protocol-close, even.

"Uh. What?"

She rolls her eyes, and makes a soft sound in the back of her throat. Naota closes his eyes and tries to imagine that she isn't there, that he can't smell her breath against his face, that she isn't warm, and soft, and inviting, and certainly not that her lips make a perfect O whenever she says his name. It wasn't proper.

"Have. You. Ever. Kissed. A. Girl. Naota-kun?"

She punctuates every word in her usual way - jabbing her elbow gently into his ribs with every syllable, her voice raising to that goofy, almost cartoony pitch that edges him just so.

"Alright then, fine. We'll up the ante." she says, and now she's looking down at him and Naota can practically taste the spicy curry she'd eaten earlier, biting and smoldering at the back of his mouth, practically all consuming. He keeps his eyes closed and tries not to -

"If you had to, who would you rather have sex with, Naota-kun: Mamimi, me, or Ninamori?"

-Pay attention to her.

"C'mon! You can ever drop me from the equation, since we're so close already: would it be Mamimi or Ninamori?"

Which is made all the harder to do so when every curveballs she throws are the ones the he can never catch.

"Oh, don't look at me like that, squirt. It's not like you're into gu - oh god; should I change it to Masashi and Gaku?"

Ever.

Naota rolls over and buries his face into the long pillow they share, using the throw-pillow next to it to cover his head and block her out. Maybe he'll suffocate to death before things get even more awkward.

"Naota!"

He just wanted to sleep. Or for her to burst into flames and die. He'd most likely finally have some peace and quiet if he went out that way - Haruko didn't seem the type to know what to do in a life-or-death situation.

"Mnimer."

"What?"

He raises his head from the pillows just enough to be heard. "If I answer your dang question, will you shut up?"

He doesn't even have to look at her to see her smirking; while he wasn't agreeing to play, he was agreeing, and that was something, and she would run with it to hell and back and to hell again.

"Sure."

He doesn't believe her. Never has, never will.

"Promise?"

"Naoooota!"

"Promise?"

The pressure she applies on the bed means she's sitting up, which can only mean she's going to-

"Cross my heart and hope to die."

-Be sincere. Great. He wonders how much paperwork the police would make him go through for throwing her out the window. Or for just kicking her out of the house and making her live on the streets like a hobo - prooooobably too much. Or too little for his conscience to feel good and at peace about, afterward. And it wouldn't be justifiable since she was an alien. Damn jurisdictional limitations.

"Neither."

The effect of denying her what she wanted is almost instantaneous - the entire bed shakes as she flops back down to the mattress, coming dangerously close to flipping off over the side of the bunk.

Naota almost pushes her.

"You gotta pick one!" she whines, actually eliminating the concept of personal space by rolling over on top of him. "Just one!" and here, she gently caresses his temple, sending small shocks of stillness running through him. "...I'll even add myself again, if that makes you feel better."

He tenses at how low her voice goes, at how her fingertips fall down the side of his face, play against his jaw and the corner of his mouth, his shoulder, pressing into the skin there, pushing against and stressing it.

"S'only pretend."

He sighs, counting how fast his heart beats.

"You promised," he says, after counting past twenty-two.

"But-"

"Haruko."

She rolls off of him, all feline grace and fine, rippling muscles. Naota revels in the blessed, blessed silence, rolling onto his side so that he faces her back, particularly enjoying how her shoulders spread and contract with her breathing for all of the better part of an hour. Ah, silence.

"...T'che. You never even answered my first question."

He barely cracks open an eye. "Haruko."

She turns on him, but the angle is all wrong and he's caught staring at a face-full of stomach instead of face, heat rising to his own because she's too close, and he's too close, and things are touching, and, and -

"Perv."

Long, pale arms wrap around him, holding him there. He can almost count her ribs through the thin layer of cotton she calls a nightshirt. It's so embarrassing.

"Have you ever kissed a girl?"

God. No. He only tolerated them; Mamimi more so than Ninamori, and Ninamori more so than everyone else, but he didn't like them, no. Not in the way that Haruko meant. He wasn't even a teenager yet, for crying out loud, so how could he - how could he explain that, paradoxically, girls were people to be appreciated and nervously fretted over, like a person who wakes up in a lion's den and realizes he's on the wrong side of the bars?

"Have you ever kissed a girl?"

He feels almost smart for turning the tables on her, but then. But then. His mind wanders. There were some things that children, by and large, only heard about in very very filtered and diffused ways. Things that people did not discuss out in the open, did not imagine about on the playground, not under any circumstances, because hinting at it was wrong, and you'd be ostracized for it. There were Standards; things that boys didn't do around boys (like cry, or wish for big brothers to beat someone up), things girls didn't do with girls (like get along past the surface, or stand up for themselves), and then there were things that boys definitely, irrevocably, did not do with other boys. Even if girls could do it, in secret, when no one else was watching, one didn't even think about those things. They didn't exist.

He almost tries to take the question back when she bites his ear, and everything goes warm and wet and his stomach is like -

"Na-uh, Naota-kun. You answer mine first."

Damn cop out. "But -"

"I asked first, Naota-kuuuun...!"

He closes his eyes, and counts his heart beats again, trying to drag out what he knows is going to come out of him. She'd enjoy him trying to lie to her too much to make thinking up of one worth anything.

"Naotaaaaaa...?"

Thirty-seven counts. It feels like an eternity.

"No."

She smiles. The moonlight catches the side of her face, glinting off her eyes, her teeth, blinding him.

"Good. Now I won't feel so bad for robbing everyone of the chance."

It isn't his first kiss. Not in his mind.

Haruko feels that, in the end, she refuses to tell Naota when she will return simply because of how much pride she has. Being able to refuse and accept any man's love in the same breath used to emasculate them was always one of her favorite talents, and this boy, with his god-like power and god-like neediness - so much neediness, as if the hole in his head was a hole in his heart, instead - simply brimmed with opportunity to show it off.

"I'm leaving you," is the only thing she can say, when the time comes.

His bottom lip quivers at the words, reminding her of - how he shifted against her, crying out for his mother at night. At how he grabbed at her, trying to prove he was a man with his lips instead of his words; of so many things encapsulated in half-lit moments - how young he was. Of how innocent he was. She finds that can't condemn or bless him for it.

"Why?"

She looks up to the sky, and feels her heart breaking. The need to chase after Him, it's all but encompassing - "Because he's gone. Or leaving. And I need to go after him."

"Why?

"Because."

They aren't the best of parting words, but they somehow fit, and even Haruko knows that, deep down, she's killing him by saying them. Just a little.

"I don't want you to go."

She smiles. He can't see it and never will, damn the distance.

"I know you don't, kid." and another look at the sky. "But I gotta."

He shakes his head rather vehemently. "No you don't!" and there are tears, or maybe it's raining and she just can't feel or hear it yet, the beating of her heart so loud as to be defiant of what her mind really wants. "You don't have to go! You never have to do anything!"

Haruko shakes her head, the flaps of her helmet crashing into her jaw just this side of painful.

It's almost as loud as her heartbeat.

"Tch."

Almost.

"You just don't understa-"

"No, you don't understand!" He points his bass at her, and purple-orange-hot-rod-red lightning dances up and down it's cords like something wonderful and alien, like something never experienced on this Earth more than once. "You could be happy, here!" and now, it's in his hands, and in his arms, and his entire body is alive with the echo of it; Atomsk, Atomsk, Atomsk. "Happy!" he swings it horizontal, a straight, one-handed cut just as if he were holding a bat and playing pretend, and the lightning strikes, all bone-shaking thunder and raucous noise like God himself were sermonizing through the winds. "I could make you happy and you wouldn't have to leave me again! I could! I could!"

And now he's sobbing, and her heart is breaking just a little bit more. Just a little bit more.

"I could, Haruko." pause, inhale, exhale, break my world down into nothing again you little cretin. "I really, really could."

This time, she can't bare to make a sound. She can't. Her soul is trying to escape her but her body feels solidly tethered to the ground, and her vespa refuses to move; she's caught in a Kodak moment that would do Mamimi proud.

Haruko shakes her head, and Naota takes it as free reign to continue speaking. Dammit.

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to..." he shakes his head, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. "You're - you're Haruko. You don't play by their rules!"

She says nothing. Naota stays silent, breathing anticipation, his jaw set like he's trying to hold back - She doesn't even know what anymore.

She. Doesn't. Even. Know.

"Say something!"

Dammit.

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

God. Fucking. Dammit.

"You just don't..." she starts, and she knows it's going to be a patronizing slap in the face, but stops herself and swallows to continue anyway. "You just don't understand it, kid," she explains, surprised at how loud and angry she sounds now, because she doesn't mean to be harsh for once. "I have to follow him. It's a calling; a sacred duty. If I don't find the bastard and tie him down to the ground, then he just up and leaves and I can't have that." there's thunder in the distance; in her heart; in her mind; echoing between her ribs. "I can't." and she's shaking her head to try and drive it out. "Not again."

"But-"

She finally revvs her vespa up, drowning out whatever stupid stupid thing he had to say next. Stupid.

"I can't, Naota." but she can revv her bike to the point of painful repetition. "Just stop."

She knows that Naota will understand why, someday. Maybe not tomorrow, and maybe not in the end, but someday. Their's is a connection born of causality, and this is simply another bend in the curve: either adjust to the median, or forget and follow the pattern. That's simply how life was. Haruko doesn't expect more than that, and neither should Naota have. She was in the right.

"I love you."

And then her whole world comes crashing down.

I love you.

These are words that mean permanency; that mean no more chasing, no more hounding, no more fighting and fucking to try and get ahead of the one thing she can never catch. These are words that move the sun the stars and the sky for her, cracking it open like everything she had ever built her world up was just glass, impermanent and frail, like the little girl she never had the chance to be and who had always longed for a boy like him to come along and say those fucking words before the actual fucking part came into the equation.

God. Dammit.

She wants to scream. She wants to tell him he's a rat bastard for saying it now, after all of this time; after denying her all those other chances to make it right between them before this, you stupid fucking brat. She did not deserve to hear those words and he had just -

I love you.

As her vespa floats upwards - and her heart sinks; sinks because of gravity pulling at her bones, trying to ground her to this earth and so many other things - she pretends that whatever the fuck is at the corner of her eyes is just stardust. Just. Stardust. Atomsk always had that effect on her, after all. He was -

"Catch ya on the flipside, kid."

He was the only thing that mattered.

"It's been real."

She kicks her vespa into gear, pulls down her goggles - to hide her face and her tears, to hide her shame, her embarrassment, her anger, her everything from the one person who was honest with her - and throttles it upward, breaking the sound barrier so fast that buildings nearly collapse, shaken to their very foundations by her passing.

I love you.

Without even looking back, she can tell that Naota watches her until she becomes nothing more than a speck across the horizon.

Every fiber of her beings hates him for it.

There are sounds in the darkness of the start of creation and these sounds are like heartbeats, steady and strong and ever-prevalent, echoing off like the strumming of a well-tuned bass to a beat no one else can comprehend.

"What will you name him, hm?"

Beat.

"Atomsk."

Thrum.

"What does it mean?"

Thrang.

"Honesty."

And so it went, forever and ever, and then back again.

When she leaves, the sky is still red and the earth is still shaking like the breath of god's hitched in his throat, heavy and uncomfortable. In and of itself, Naota knows that this state of cautious anxiety - the clean-up crews and his friends always giving him a wide swath; his father looking at him as if the definition of Furi Kuri was written over his face - is far too amazing for his city to support it for long. It won't last; this breathless waiting, for and because of everything Haruko has done, is simply not the cure the city needed.

Not by far.

It takes sixteen days to shut down Medical Mechanica, and two more months for the government to kill any hint of hysteria still lingering in the people who witnessed what happened. After, Naota waits another month for Haruko to return, and then another, visiting the blast site even as its being rebuilt, his eyes peeled to the sky for a sign. He knows she won't return - not yet; maybe not ever - but. But. He's never been one to discount her in proving him wrong. She was just so damn good at it.

...

Was.

Sometimes, when it's still dusk outside and he finds that nothing else in the city will hold him back, Naota takes up Haruko's Rickenbacker and just...strums. Back and forth, his hands ghosting over the hard metal strings, every movement coaxing chaos and deep, belly-filling vibrations out from nothing like some kind of witch-doctor pretending at being a god; he lets his mind wander, and his fingers dance, and he just -

Naota wanted to kill her. Just a little. She had come into his life like an accidental birth, disrupting everything that was him so that he could only be him with her inside of him, and that wasn't what he had planned for his life. Not even close to it. Haruko had - ever since Tatsuku had left, Naota had had a Plan, and this Plan was to become every bit of the adult his brother was. There was no room for fun. No room for insanity; there was no room for furi kuri, and robots, and fires, and gunfights, and basses that didn't even sound right unless they were being slammed into someone's forehead.

"Nothing amazing ever happens here."

His room is cold without her. And it's raining outside; gray and blue-tinged sheets and sheets dropping down, nailing into the dry earth and wooden overhang as frantically as a drowning man. The perfect scenery for a bout of melancholy. Or murder. Naota kicks over his CD player so that it turns on - a trick Ninamori taught him, of all people - and waits until it cycles through to the song he can actually keep up with, using all the noise that happens beforehand to block out the rain. Amongst other things.

'Well you know I hardly speak; when I do, it's just for you; I haven't said a word in weeks; cause they've been keepin' me from you.'

When the music starts, he feels his body fill and overflow - with what, he can't describe, but his fingers are moving something fine and electric across the bass' strings and his foot is keeping rhythm with the beating of his heart so it can't be a bad thing. It can't be. Never mind that it reminds of him Haruko, and that the sweat he's working up will just make him colder: something here is real, and he's almost touching it, and it's bigger than everything else on the planet, Haruko and her crazy schemes be damned.

Haruko and her crazy schemes be damned.

He throws the Rickenbacker as hard as he can, hitting the wall so hard that it cracks down the center in a spider-web pattern, the world hanging as still and silent as a holocaust thereafter. There was no room for Haruko or her antics anymore than there was room for warmth in his stomach; only cold, still acids and bright nuclear waste remained, slowly decomposing there, and she had left the stain. She was bad for him, just like Mamimi was, and - He knew this. He knew this already. This was old information being reprocessed for the sake of no one but himself, useless as binary was to everyone operating in the real world. Haruko had always been bad for him, and she was not coming back, and the world would keep going on, with or without, just like it had when Tatsuku had left.

Just like it still was.

He sighs.

"...I'm sorry."

Naota picks the bass back up, then, dusting it off, slowly before he takes a seat and strums out the rest of the song.

He isn't crying.

He cries a lot.

The rain lasts until Monday morning, letting go only right as dawn is peeking up over the horizon.

"Hey little brother, what's up?"

"Just calling to check in on you, Tatsu."

"I think that's supposed to happen the other way around, isn't it?"

"Who's the one who forgets his bat at home every time he has a game?"

"Alright, alright: point taken - what's up?"

"Nothing much, really. You know nothing ever happens here."

"Yeah, but it's not like the states are much different."

"Heh, I guess. You're training for the next season around now, right?"

"Dude, yeah. It's freaking murder! Can you believe my coach has us running two-hundred suicides every practice?"

"Well. You are a pro and everything, now, so. You'd think someone that good would expect being pushed to the limit!"

"Is that sarcasm I hear, Nao?"

"And he slides into first: home-run!"

"You're terrible at baseball analogies."

"I know, I know. Masashi says I should stick to tsukkomi and let him handle all the real work."

"Ha! I can see it, man! You'd probably fall on your face, though. Never were good with crowds."

"Yeah..."

"Speaking of, how is everyone back home? Dad and Gramps haven't tried to eat you or anything, right?"

"No, not yet. But they are trying to slowly drive me insane. And summer break's over, so that's a whole new mess they don't want to face."

"At least you've still got your health, as tenuous as you grip on sanity might be. And your friends, man! They're still all around, right?"

"Yeah. We're supposed to go to the movies tomorrow, but..."

"But...?"

"It's a group date."

"..."

"...With girls, Tatsu."

"So I gathered; what's the issue, little bro?"

"I -"

"-Oh. Oh, I know that tone. Say no more! You met someone while I've been away, and things didn't go too good, right?"

"Yeah...Yeah. You could say that."

"Tell your big brother what happened, Naota."

"...She left me for her ex-boyfriend as soon as he blew into town."

"...Oh, man. Seriously?"

"Yeah. Unfortunately."

"Damn. What a bitch."

"Yeah."

Canti stays despite Atomsk leaving.

No one really ever has the heart to tell him that the bread he makes still sucks.

In Ninamori's well-founded and researched opinion, the gist of Naota's life was that Tatsuku had gone off to the states to follow his dream, and Natoa had stayed behind and felt forgotten. It was also of her opinion that the gist of Haruko's life followed a similar pattern, but had ended up with her throwing it all away to keep in contact with a dream, like some kind of silly little girl holding out for a high-school sweetheart. The both of them had loved and lost and then refused to find love again, and now - well, she couldn't speak for the alien girl - moving on with their lives seemed like they were betraying what could have been, like adults looking back on childhood and wondering why they were accountants instead of astronauts.

All in all, it was very Freudian of them both. And selfish. Especially on Naota's part, since he had a network of people to fall back on and share his pain with, instead of keeping it all bottle up inside.

"So."

Then again, Ninamori couldn't throw stones. She'd done the same thing to him, and first.

"Are you ready to have company, for once?"

He looks up from his lunch at her, still toying with the chopsticks in his hand. Haruko had had left Naota, crying and forgotten in the light of the midday sun, just like that, and the abandonment had - Ninamori didn't want to say broke him, because that would probably be making child infatuation into something it wasn't, but. But.

"Ah well."

She sits down next to him without waiting for an answer, and he tries not to acknowledge her presence for the rest of the period. This doesn't keep her from talking the next time she finds him up on the roof, his back to the city and the metal fence keeping him from falling back into it, his eyes stuck to the sky in front of him.

"You're going to catch a cold if you stay up here, you know."

All she gets in return is a grunt.

"That means you'll die, Naota."

Naota had shut himself off to everyone else around him, obviously feeling like he had been used and thrown away like a soda can. Her psychiatrist says it's separation anxiety that's keeping him in his shell, but she doesn't buy it. Not yet. She can't quite disagree, either, but. But. That funny little word. Naota made her think of possibilities far too often for her to say he had closed himself to any and all of them.

"If you die, I can't use you in my next play, Naota."

Silence.

"Which means I'll have to pick someone else for the leading male role, Naota!"

And then again.

"You're starting to piss me off, Naota!"

His eyes narrow only a fraction.

"Get bent."

She punches him in the face, sneering down at him until he gets back to his feet.

"I'm sick of this crap, Naota." she almost screams, jabbing a finger DOWN at him. "All you do is mope around like the whole world's ended, and I'm sick of it; sick. Of. It - do you understand me?"

Naota winces. Whether it's because she just gave him a shiner or not, she doesn't know.

"Naota!"

It's probably the stamped foot that gets him to talk. That or the fact that she's in his face, staring hard, forcing him to see the whites of her eyes.

"...Fine." he waits a beat, looking down at the floor. Her hand reflexively twitches. "Whatever."

Ninamori throws her hands out at her sides, turning away from Naota so that she comes this close to slapping him.

"You're impossible, I swear!"

"I said I'm fine, Ninamori!"

She whirls back on him, hands grasping for his collar. "Stop lying to me Naot-!"

He shoves her off of him, and she hits the ground hard.

"I'm not!" he screams, fists clenched at his sides, that single, all-telling vein in his forehead pulsing, nearly looming over her in a way that makes the sun outline him in electric red even though it isn't dusk. "Get it through your thick head, Ninamori: I'm fine. I don't want to think about it, and it's not up for discussion!"

She says nothing.

"I'm fine. Stop trying to meddle."

What could she say?

He's practically sneering. "I don't need your pity."

She'd hurt him first.

"It's not," she starts, swallowing hard. "-Whatever. Help me up."

There's a long, tense moment where the air seems almost pregnant with silence.

She thinks he's more liable to just up and walk away than help.

"You're going to run yourself ragged if you keep this up, Ninamori."

His grip is tight, every single one of fingers encircling the whole of her hand like something...like something bigger than the both of them, but just as childish as ever.

"Whatever."

It's not like you even care, Naota.

Once she's back onto her feet, she dusts off her skirt, and gives him a flat look to compliment the nonchalance she can't seem to perfect around him.

"I mean it."

She stomps his lunch flat, and makes her way to the stairs.

"Whatever."

Asshole.

It was possible that Naota didn't try to hurt her intentionally. It was very possible he wasn't even doing it consciously; but, even if he was, even if he did, Ninamori wouldn't fault him for it.

Couldn't, really.

Eventually, he ends up going to his dad for advice.

"Well Naota, you could always convince her to Fooly cooly, yeah? Do a bit of the ipso-facto sidewise tango?"

He decides that braving the group date may be the better choice. Or, at the very least, the least disastrous.

"Fooly cooly it up, Naota! Ladies dig it when you give them the wham-bam-jammies!"

Just maybe.

The movie had been all right – in the diffused, idiotic way most mostly-kinetic action flicks were nowadays – but, in truth, it hadn't really been anyone's cup of tea. Gaku's enthusiasm for all things with explosions aside, Masahi was too busy sucking face to care, his date was otherwise occupied, and Naota felt too odd at being seated next to Ninamori for more than an hour to do anything other than sulk throughout.

"So."

So he decides to walk her home. To make it up to her.

"That was a really crappy movie."

He snorts.

"What was your first clue?"

Ninamori lets out a small laugh.

"I think it was by the time the third car exploded without provocation," and then. "You'd think Hollywood would learn by now."

He smiles, and it's almost genuine.

"You'd think."

It wasn't - it wasn't the lack of plot, or even the presence of Ninamori that dragged it all down for Naota. Not really. It was more the main character that did it; a do-nothing loser who only started to shine after the sultry female assassin uprooted him from his mundane life, making him out to be something he never should have been…that hit entirely too close to home. Naota dozed off right after the woman had killed herself, and hated himself just a little bit more for not doing so beforehand.

After a while of walking side by side in silence, they reach Ninamori's house.

Or, rather, they reach the gate leading to Ninamori's house.

"...This is you?" Naota asks, eyebrow perked up in incredulity. Her place was large enough to fit four bakeries.

Ninamori rolls her eyes. "Don't make a big deal about it, please?"

He puts up his hands in a placating gesture, trying not to look too surprised. "Just wasn't expecting it, is all."

"Whatever."

He stuffs his hands in his pockets, waiting for the cast iron thing to open after she gets off the phone with...whomever opened these types of things. Were they rich enough to have guards? Maids? Guard dogs? Naota doubted it; they couldn't be that rich, after all. Not after the scandal that caused her real mom to divorce her father.

"Aren't you going to go home?"

He shrugged, leaning against the wall beside the fence, hands still in his pockets, his gaze focused on nothing in particular. His dad - he didn't really have a home to go back to. Maybe a house, but certainly not a home.

"Should I?"

The gate opens before she can answer, and it's only in the way that she slightly hesitates, eyes closing while she takes in a breath, that makes Naota wonder if Ninamori felt the same way about whatever she called the looming thing in front of the both of them.

"Whatever."

He looks back and forth, neck straining. Naota's enough of a gentleman to walk her to the front door, but definitely not enough of one to hold back the sigh he heaves when she doesn't move inside for the full minute the gate remains open.

"...Something wrong, Ninamori?"

Her head was tilted to look up at the night sky. Naota gave her another couple of minutes - in which the gate would open and close twice - before speaking up again.

"If you want me to leave, just say so. Or start walking in the next time it opens." he says, eyes cast down to the ground, already growing uncomfortable in the extreme. "Someone'll come out here to check on why you haven't gone inside yet, otherwise."

She says nothing.

"Ninamori?"

He shakes his head, knowing an answer isn't forthcoming unless he drags it out of her. Brat.

"Find anything interesting up there?" he drawls, purposely invading her personal space as he makes his way next to her.

"No, not really. It's too dark to see anything." Ninamori let out a tiny sigh, "Smells like it's probably going to rain, though - we should head inside."

He nods, but the both of them stay still anyway, lighted a pale amber color by the lamps on either side of the gate. It's - it's peaceful, but there's going to be a cost to it, Naota's sure.

He puts a hand on her bicep, and instead of moving at the provocation, Ninamori places hers on top of it, squeezing once.

He doesn't pull away.

"Naota?"

And if he stopped - if he just stopped thinking about the past and what they had been and how fucking ugly he could get when he was angry, and what a sadistic, conniving bitch Ninamori could be when she really had it in her, he had to admit that it was - she was…

"What're you looking at?"

Ninamori was...very pretty.

"Nothing."

She smiles, watching him watch her out from the corner of her eye, and the edges of his lips twitch up just slightly in response.

The next day, she arrives carrying an extra bento box, and leaves it on his desk before lunch.

It isn't love, but it's a start.

- fin