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When Chihiro Fujisaki woke up in an empty classroom, they were, to say the least, alarmed. Eyes wide, they looked around anxiously, taking in their surroundings - large green chalkboard, four rows of four desks, four times four is sixteen, sixteen places, sixteen students?
But they were the only one there.
They stood up slowly, trying to counter the shaking of their legs. Smoothing down their skirt, they made their way to the door and used all of their strength to pull, pull, pull it open, and the latch popped and the door swung open and they fell right onto their butt with a squeak.
“Are you okay?” a voice smooth as honey and cold as ice asked.
Chihiro looked up to see a girl staring down at them.
She was tall and pale, almost inhumanly so, with violet eyes and lavender hair. Her mouth was pressed in a straight line and she was extending a hand - a gloved hand, black leather wrapped tight around slim fingers splayed out to reach for theirs.
Eyes even wider than before, they took her hand and allowed her to pull them up. The corners of their mouth pulled up in a relieved grin.
“Y-yeah! I’m f-fine, th-thank you….. My name is Chihiro F-Fujisaki, what’s yours?”
The girl retracted her hand and stuck it in her pocket. “Kirigiri,” she said simply.
Chihiro stared in awe as Kirigiri looked around the room, as if she were searching for something. She seemed so cool…..
“Sixteen places,” Kirigiri noted quietly. She held a gloved index finger to her mouth and hummed. “There are other people here besides us. Classmates, I believe; they're in the gymnasium. You should head down there now.”
Chihiro furrowed their brows in confusion. They had no idea where the gymnasium was. Of course, they couldn't say that to Kirigiri - she was so smart and cool, they didn't want to look stupid. Thankfully, they didn't have to tell her, because she gave them directions. When they left the classroom, she was inspecting the teacher’s desk on her knees.
True to her directions, the gymnasium was exactly fifteen steps down the left hall turn. They pushed open the door and there were twelve other students. Four times four is sixteen, sixteen places, twelve students, plus them and Kirigiri made fourteen. Where were the other two?
The fifteenth student arrived shortly after Kirigiri returned to the gym, a boy in a hoodie with a big gap-toothed smile and a baby face. It turned out that their class was only fifteen - there was just an extra desk, probably.
That night, Chihiro was too scared to sleep. How were they supposed to sleep when their classmates could kill them at any moment? They were much smaller than everyone else and probably couldn't defend themselves very well. Anybody could be dangerous. Except Kirigiri, they thought as they burrowed deeper into their blankets. She seemed nice. She showed them around the first floor of the school, and Enoshima was nice to them too. Maybe things weren't so bad?
In any case, no matter how nice Kirigiri and Enoshima were, the real fear of being killed in their sleep kept them up that night. They made sure their door was locked every half hour. By the time the sun rose, they had a hard time keeping on their feet and found themselves nodding off on their way to breakfast.
Kirigiri was waiting in the cafeteria, a mug of something that smelled really nice in front of her. She gave Chihiro a little smile. They returned it as best they could but yawned loudly, bringing a hand up to stifle it.
“Morning, Kirigiri-san,” they yawned.
She yawned as well. Too much yawning, Chihiro thought. “Good morning, Fujisaki,” she responded. “I take it you didn't sleep too well.” It was definitely not a question.
“Um, no, not really.” Chihiro frowned and looked towards the floor, shifting their weight from foot to foot.
Kirigiri frowned. “That's too bad. Would you like some coffee? I have some I wouldn't mind sharing.” Before Chihiro could answer, she had pushed her mug towards them, a silent urge for them to taste. They didn't want to be rude, so they lifted the mug to their lips, took a sip, and made a face as they tried not to spit it out. Kirigiri smiled sympathetically and pushed an empty mug towards them as she removed hers from their hand. “Spit,” she instructed. They let the coffee dribble out into the empty mug, noticing a lip gloss mark on the rim. It must have previously held Enoshima’s morning tea.
“Sorry,” they said, looking down at the backwash in the mug. “I wasted your coffee….”
She waved a hand in polite dismissal. “I have plenty more.” And that was that. Kirigiri waved for Chihiro to sit down, so they took the place opposite her, where the two of them sat in comfortable silence. It didn't seem like Kirigiri was much of a talker. That was okay, though; she showed what she was thinking in other ways, as Chihiro found out over the next few days.
She liked to read a lot. Chihiro would find her in the library during weird hours with a book clutched in her gloved hands. Sometimes she would be reading, but other times she was fast asleep and Chihiro wasn't sure whether or not to wake her up. She seemed like she needed the rest.
Chihiro found her watching them a lot, too. Not in a weird way - it felt protective, like how Oogami-san watched Asahina-san when they were together. Chihiro knew what they did together, so they weren't sure what that meant for them and Kirigiri. Did she like them like that? It seemed unlikely. Kirigiri was so cool, and Chihiro wasn't really anything special, they thought.
They decided to ask her about it after breakfast. It was horribly nosey, but they were curious. She was reading at the table long after everyone else had left. It would be private. If she did like them, they would figure out what to do next, and if she didn't, nobody would be around to see their humiliation.
“Um, excuse me, Kirigiri-san,” they said, waving a hand in between the book and her face. She looked up at them and they swore they saw annoyance flash in her eye for a second before it was replaced with curiosity.
“Yes, Fujisaki?” She tilted her head inquisitively. Her fingers flexed against the cover of the book, smooth black leather rubbing against brown.
“This is kind of a stupid question, but…. do you like me?”
Kirigiri’s eyebrows rose. “I would consider us friends, so yes. I wouldn't play a three-hour game of Scrabble with you if I didn't.”
Chihiro faltered. Was she ignoring the real question on purpose? Also, the Scrabble thing was probably true. She had let them use “scritch” as a word. Only true friends did that. But no, they had to get a real answer. They took a deep breath, smoothed their skirt, and said, “No, like, romantically.”
The way Kirigiri’s eyes widened told Chihiro that she really hadn't expected that. Her cheeks tinted pink and she looked to her right. “What makes you think that? You'll have to back up this accusation with evidence.” She spoke quickly, almost defensively. This wasn't the cool headed Kirigiri that Chihiro was used to.
In order to get a real answer, though, they figured they might as well tell her what they noticed. Their finger rested on the side of their lower lip as they thought for a moment. “Hmmmmm….. I a-always catch you looking at me, and when you notice that I noticed, you look away. You let me use ‘scritch’ as a word in Scrabble. Y-Y-You smile at me when you don't really smile at anyone else, except maybe Naegi-kun. You stare at my mouth sometimes, e-even when I'm not talking. You let me t-try some of your favorite coffee, the kind Naegi-kun gave you, I think. That sounds like a c-crush to me. But I guess I could be wrong, now that I think about it. A-Am I?”
Kirigiri was even pinker now. “You're quite the detective,” she answered. “But no matter how I feel, the current chain of events makes a relationship unwise at best and deadly at worst. So the point is moot.”
“I like you too.”
Her jaw dropped ever so slightly and Chihiro giggled. She was cute when she was flustered! Not wanting to overstep their bounds, they rested their hand, palm up, on the table. A few long moments passed before Kirigiri seemed to come to some sort of nine resolution. She grinned, took their hand in hers, and pulled them close. “Meet me in the library tonight?” she whispered in their ear. Privacy must be important to her if she wouldn't even say that loudly in a room with just the two of them.
Chihiro beamed. “It's a date, then!”