It had only taken her a few days to figure it out. Eikou thought he was subtle with his hidden glares and “unintentional” distancing. Did he forget she had peripheral vision? No, it had only taken Yuzai a day to put it together: Eikou hated her. The problem could not be allowed to fester, corroding the group’s cohesion. It needed to be cut out now, so she would do what needed to be done, as she always did, and maybe, if the situation permitted, she would find out what she was really curious about: why did he hate her? Lunch proved to be the perfect hunting ground: Eikou stayed isolated, eating in silence, open for attack. If he ate outside, like she did, he wouldn’t have been so open. How foolish.
Some heads turned as she sat down with him, but most were to preoccupied with their momentary freedom from classes to mind. She would coax the information out of him through fear. It was a quick, efficient method largely predicated only on reputation. Most would be halfway through their confession by the time she sat down. Eikou, however, did not even look up from his phone when she sat down. So he’s a tough one. Yuzai could see he was watching some fighting game on his phone, but she failed to recognize it. She sat there, unnoticed, for far too long, expecting to be noticed. It was starting to feel awkward for her, just sitting there waiting, so she cleared her throat. And then again. Then louder. Finally, he looked up. His eyes did not fill with fear, but narrowed in distaste, and finally looked at her indifferently.
“Oh, Yuzai. I didn’t notice you were here.”
“It’s rude to ignore people.”
“I wasn’t ignoring you.” He put some rice in his mouth. “It’s not like ask you to sit with me.” The insinuation that she sat with him because she wanted to offended her.
“Don’t flatter yourself. I’m merely here out of necessity.”
“Well, you’re clearly not here to eat lunch,” he said, pointing to her sparse lunch, which only consisted of a couple bread rolls. “Are you one of those rich girls that thinks it’s cool to act poor?” It was not a good insult, nor was it at all based in reality. Still, it clearly hurt Yuzai more than it should have.
“It’s-it’s for my stomach.” She paused a bit before recomposing herself, her cold gaze returning with intent to kill. “Why do you hate me?” She just came right out and said it.
“What? I don’t hate you.”
“You’re a bad liar.”
“No, seriously, I have no idea why you would think that.”
“Sasaki, no matter how you think of me, at least admit I’m not stupid.” He paused, thinking, before sighing and shrugging.
“I grew up in this town. My family weren’t involved in any criminal activity. Need I say more?”
“That has nothing to do with how you view me.”
“Yes, it does. Your name comes with weight. The day that you started wearing that –“ he pointed to the hair clip “-you agreed to shoulder it."
“My family is not a reflection of who I am.”
“Okay, then you’re a reflection of your family. Is there a big difference?”
“That assertion would require evidence. Otherwise, we’re back to conjecture.”
“Well, all of the other students at this school feel the same way I do about you, so you must’ve done something.” He refrained from saying the rumor he had heard, as he thought it would be an unnecessary escalation.
“They only know what they’ve come to accept. They’ll never see me as anything else and it’s better to be feared then pitied.” It was a sad statement, said completely monotone. It was a fact, nothing more, nothing less.
“So, what, you thought we could be friends? Is that it?”
“Well-I-I thought that you could be something different, at least.” That statement was said with sadness and Eikou empathized against his own will. Yuzai could tell he was rethinking what he had said earlier.
“You have Ushinawa. Aren’t you two friends?”
“Not really.”
“What?! Then why did-“
“Remember, we are not friends. Personal will remain personal.” It was a clever way to avoid the subject.
“But, you just said!“ It was a statement that Eikou did not need to finish.
“Yes, and you just said the opposite.” Fair enough.
“Fine. What about Saki? She doesn’t seem to know anything about you.”
“Who?”
“Saki.”
“The girl with the red hair? She’s not a viable candidate for intelligent conversation.”
“That’s Yagi.”
“There’s another girl?”
“Yes. Saki.” She thought for a while.
“This is not funny. You can stop messing with me now.”
“I’m not joking! Did you really forget one of our group members?” Yuzai thought for a little.
“She must not have been that memorable.” Eikou sighed.
“Maybe this is why people see you as cold.”
“Why?”
“You literally forgot one of the people we spent an hour with yesterday and the day before.”
“She must not have been that memorable.”
“You already said that!”
“It’s the only explanation. I am not one to forget.” The conversation paused.
“You really don’t remember.”
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“No.”
“I’ll point her out to you.” Eikou scanned the room for Saki. Predictably, she was nowhere to be found. “Never mind, I guess I won’t.”
“Can we get back on topic?”
“This is on topic, isn’t it?”
“No.” Eikou sighed again.
“Listen, some people just aren’t meant to get along. No matter who you are, there are some things I can never get past.”
“That is the definition of discrimination.” She was expecting a rebuttal, but Eikou was a master of the unexpected.
“I guess it is.” If the conversation had been an official competition, Eikou would have just won. All he had to give up was his pride, too, so he found it to be an overwhelmingly positive result. Yuzai, on the other hand, decided to abandon the conversation with hers.
“I do not associate with bigots. Now, at least, I can reciprocate your feelings, but with actual reason.” She got up. Only one piece of bread remained, which she took with her. The mission had been a painful failure. Yuzai thought it best to erase the experience from her memory completely. Something had sparked inside of Eikou, however.
“Hey! Don’t act like you’re walking away from me! Don’t act like it was your choice!” It was a bit louder than anyone expected, including Eikou. Yuzai’s frustration boiled over into anger as all eyes shot to her. She whipped around, transformed into the people’s champion, a weapon primed and ready to destroy.
“Why would I care about what you think? Who are you to say that?! Some child from some backwards family of saints that could never do wrong? Some kid who thinks there is merit in acting higher than me?! Well, let me inform you of the truth: you’re dead weight. The only reason that I even bothered to talk to you was due to your exceptional incompetence! And you ridicule my family? Look where you are. Even if your family used to be detached from this world, you brought them in. I was born into it. By your own definition, you’re worse than I am.” She leaned in. “Get your head out of the fucking clouds and look me in the eyes. If you have any intelligence, you’ll see that they’re human.” She began walking away. “That’s more than I can say for you.” Eikou wanted to refute her points but realized he couldn’t without giving up his real reason for being here. Instead, he decided to shrink into himself. An awkward silence fell over the school, all surrounding Eikou.
“Yuzai,” he muttered. She turned to look at him. He was almost whispering, trying to tune his voice so that only she would hear him.
“Ready to apologize?”
“What about that girl a few years back?” Yuzai knew what he meant immediately. She paused as if she was preparing a witty retort, but she suddenly grabbed her stomach and ran out of the room. Eikou remembered that she had mentioned that she had a weak stomach, but it seems it was a lot worse than just weak. It only took a few seconds for the chatter to build again and Eikou went back to eating normally. He just assumed it was a normal occurrence for Yuzai. Unfortunately, he was correct.
It would be couple of days before they saw each other again. Eikou ditched that day’s meeting to avoid her, but she did not show up anyways (most likely owing to her stomach, Eikou would later think). Naturally, the conversation was on both of their minds for the interval. They reached two conclusions concurrently. The first: the two were far more similar than they had anticipated, like two sides of the same coin that would never be able to truly face each other. The second: the conversation had been a lot more fun they would care to admit, a fast-paced battle of the minds that would have been enjoyable if it had not devolved into insults and hot tempers. It wasn’t exactly hatred that hung between them – just the idea that they should hate each other, and, in all their pride, that was enough for them, no matter if they wanted it or not.
-
The curious turn of events led to Kentaro and Saki in the after school meeting alone. Eikou and Yuzai had been in an intense argument earlier, that they knew, so it was somewhat expected that they wouldn’t show up. Ushinawa was missing merely because she thought it would be cool to turn up fashionably late, while Yagi had forgotten (an occurrence which would become common). The room was dead quiet. It was exceptionally hard to ignore someone when it’s just you and them in a confined space. Well, maybe not exceptionally hard, but exceptionally awkward. Yet, Saki still did it, pretending not to hear or see Kentaro. Kentaro found himself in an awkward situation, too. He had prepared for this type of situation a thousand times over, but this one was difficult. She was attractive, he was aware, but that wasn’t what made it so hard. He had been on one-on-ones with girls before, girls arguably more attractive than Saki. Sometimes he had even been confessed to. This was different. No matter how much Kentaro changed himself to fit in or be popular, he was still him at heart; those other girls and him were incompatible. However, looking at her, he could see himself and within that, a chance at something real. Maybe not a relationship, but even a real friendship would do. The problem, then, was that he actually cared about how this turned out beyond his image. That socially awkward kid he had buried was clawing for air; he could feel his old habits that he had worked so hard to get rid of surfacing and in those, the will to hide himself behind a more conventional facade. He was so, so close to showing himself, but in the end, he decided it was more likely that she would like him if he acted as his usual charming self. After all, he was irresistible. Mustering himself up, he thought of the most basic question that he could and asked it in a gratingly vanilla tone:
“How was your day?” The silence was deafening. She was wearing her headphones and completely ignored him. He couldn’t tell what she was listening to or if she was even listening to anything, but it didn’t matter. Kentaro refused to sit there in silence for the remaining hour. He resolved to tap her on the shoulder to get her attention. This proved to be a mistake, as soon as his hand brushed her shoulder, she jumped up and let out a quiet squeal of fear. Then, as if on impulse, she darted in the other direction, but stopped after realizing that she was not in danger. Finally, she turned off her headphones and turned back towards Kentaro, keeping her head down at all times.
“S-sorry.” Again the urge to protect her washed over Kentaro. He put up his hand and laughed.
“It’s no problem. I shouldn’t have startled you.” It was awkward again. Kentaro had forgotten how to hold a basic conversation. Saki checked the time on her old flip-phone. Kentaro decided to try again: “How was your day?”
“Um…fine, I guess.”
“You know you don’t have to talk like you’re scared. Nobody is going to make fun of you.”
“I know. I’m just…not that…um…interesting.” She had begun fidgeting with a ring on her finger while talking. It was a golden ring with a large prismatic diamond on the top. The circlet itself was the shape of a snake biting its own tail: Ouroboros. It was far more ornate than any a high schooler should’ve had, but, of course, Kentaro missed it.
“Don’t say that. You’re plenty interesting.”
“You don’t know that,” Saki said quietly. Well, it would have been quiet if anyone else had said it, but it seemed natural for Saki.
“There are plenty of things I find interesting about you. For instance, you’re a transfer, right? I don’t remember you from last year.”
“No…um…I was actually here last year.” Kentaro’s heart sank. “I was just a year above.” Redemption!
“So you were held back a year? That must’ve been hard.”
“Um…I guess.” Her voice was the perfect pitch to sound cute: it didn’t sound like a child, but rather closer to someone who was always on the brink of crying.
“How about-“ Kentaro was starting another question when Saki cut him off.
“Why do you even care? Um…we all know that you all can do this without me…so…so why do you even care about me?” Kentaro was very surprised at the interjection. He took a second to think.
“Why wouldn’t I care?”
“Um…Kaneshiro?”
“Yeah?”
“You…you need to understand something. Um…me and you…we are nothing alike. You may think you see something, but it’s not real. Forget me. Me…um…I’m just an unnecessary problem.”
“What?” Kentaro was confused. He was caught in thought when Saki checked her phone for the last time before leaving. It was twenty-five minutes into the hour, so she moved towards the door. “Wait! Where are you going?” He still hadn’t figured out what she meant. Saki hadn’t totally intended for him to understand, but it had been clear in its intent. He could not and would not misinterpret it.
“I…I have to go. Sorry.” She walked out briskly. It clearly was not a light commitment: she had somewhere she had to be. Her white hair glimmered in the fluorescent lighting, like a spirit dissipating from the vision of a mere mortal. Kentaro would spend around ten minutes thinking to himself about that interaction. It was not what he was used to, that’s for sure. He wasn’t sure what exactly had happened. There was something there: something mysterious, something genuine, something that he might have been looking for, but he wasn’t sure. Going forward, he would stop thinking about it in favor of his petty social struggles. In fact, Ushinawa showed up later. Her presence required a lot of thought. Navigating a social minefield took up most of his focus. Still, even as they talked for far longer, even walking home together, he felt less in their entire time together than he did in that one conversation. But feeling was easy to forget, especially for someone with so much practice; so he did, just like Saki had advised.