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“I thought we could start a book club,” says Kotobuki, perched on the edge of Camus’s desk like he belongs there.
“No.”
“Why not? I was sure you’d agree.”
“My relationships with the three of you are professional. Talking about literature isn’t part of the job.”
“Then don’t think of it as a Quartet Night thing. Think of it as a housemates thing!”
Camus has to fight down the headache he always gets from dealing with Kotobuki, a general forehead-wide fuzziness which makes it hard for him to think; it’s distinct from his Kurosaki headaches, which are concentrated around his temples, and his Aijima headaches, which manifest behind his eyes. He forces himself to take a slow, deep breath before speaking.
“Kotobuki, you do understand why we moved in together.”
“Okay, maybe it is about Quartet Night. But we always try bonding activities I’ll like, and those never work, so I thought it might be good to do something you’d like instead.”
In all fairness, it is actually better-considered than most of his ideas. Kotobuki has an uncanny knack for always picking group activities absolutely nobody else enjoys; even things like movie nights, which should be uncontroversial, inevitably go south somehow.
He still hates the concept, a little. But he’d promised Kotobuki he wouldn’t have to be the only one trying any more, hadn’t he, and Camus is someone who stands by his word.
“Fine,” he allows, “we can do a trial month. Who’s choosing the book?”
“I was hoping you might –”
“Make Mikaze do it.”
“If I wanted Ai-ai to choose, I’d have asked him first. But it’s your problem, Myu, because I’m putting you in charge.”
Unfortunately, Kotobuki’s got him. As much as he doesn’t care to be responsible for any of this, he also genuinely doesn’t trust anyone else with the decision. Dangerously, it occurs to him that there’s nothing stopping him from sabotaging this whole endeavour: it would be easy for him to name a book the others won’t be able to finish, and doom things from the start.
But, in an annoying moment of prescience, his bandmate speaks up. “Don’t pick something too difficult, though. We need to be able to get through it!”
Damn. “I’ll consider it. Leave so I can think.”
Kotobuki goes, irritatingly cheerful, and Camus strides over to his bookshelf.
He ends up taking the safe option and settling on a British classic from the nineteenth century, with a number of versions available in Japanese. It isn’t too long – a little over three hundred pages – and should provoke discussion without being too dense or cliché. His only real qualm is that he’d rather read it in its original language, and there are always problems that come with translation, but that’s the price of accessibility.
He announces the title in their group chat, and his bandmates go on to procure it. Kotobuki sends a photograph of his copy, brand new and sitting on the passenger seat of his car. Mikaze sends a screencap of the book’s title page, in whatever app it is he uses to read his digital copies. Unsurprisingly, Kurosaki is the last to respond, sending a curt message about having found it at a library and chasing it with a blurry image of such. They set a date to discuss it in four weeks time, and Quartet Night Book Club is officially on.
*
Camus looks around at the assembled members. Mikaze and Kurosaki are the same as ever, one sitting unobtrusively in an armchair and the other sprawled across an entire couch, but Kotobuki looks exhausted, slumped on a stool by the kitchen counter. Regardless of his condition, though, they’re here to do one thing and one thing only, and that’s discuss literature. He clears his throat.
“Let’s begin. What did everyone think?”
Nobody says anything; Kurosaki doesn’t even open his eyes, although Camus is reasonably confident he’s still awake. Not a fantastic start, but he decides to try again.
“Did anyone actually read it?”
The silence continues, and then Kotobuki offers a nervous laugh. “Actually, I was so busy I only made it halfway. But I read a plot summary online, so I know what happens.”
Camus doesn’t even bother to hide his irritation. “Fine. Anybody else?”
“I watched the movie,” says Kurosaki. “Didn’t have time to read either.”
“Which adaptation?” Mikaze asks. “1955, or 2010?”
“The new one.”
“The one,” Camus cuts in, “in which they modernised the language? And removed entire characters and subplots?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
The rational part of his brain points out that at least they’re trying: the old Kotobuki would’ve taken it on himself to finish the book if it killed him, and the old Kurosaki wouldn’t even have bothered to watch a film version. Unfortunately, that doesn’t change the fact that two of their four members haven’t read it.
“Kotobuki, this is useless. We can cancel or reschedule, but we can’t discuss a book nobody’s finished.”
Mikaze says, “I finished it.”
“See!” Kotobuki sits up triumphantly. “This can still work. You don’t have to worry about spoilers or anything, so go ahead.”
Camus looks at Mikaze, whose tablet is tucked neatly under an arm, and who blinks at him in response. He suspects neither of them is surprised.
“Alright. Talk.”
“The protagonist,” he says, “kept acting in ways I didn’t understand. Why did he suddenly throw himself into pursuing the heroine after showing no interest in other women?”
Camus has a retort prepared, sitting on the tip of his tongue – but Kurosaki, of all people, opens an eye and cuts in.
“Yeah, I agree, his acting was wooden. It wasn’t believable.”
“That’s because,” says Camus, “it’s the point. He’s isolated himself all his life, so he doesn’t know how to proceed, and he loses his chance.”
“It still doesn’t make sense that he fell in love with her,” says Mikaze.
“Why?”
“It happens with no warning. He barely speaks to her before developing those feelings, and they only have four full conversations, including the one where she rejects him. I counted.”
“Intentional. The fact it takes him by surprise is the purpose of the arc.”
“I thought the love story was touching,” Kotobuki says.
“It’s not,” Camus says; Mikaze echoes the sentiment, although with less latent annoyance. Unfazed, he carries on. “It’s marketed as a romance, but it isn’t one.”
“There’s a speech where he talks about his mistakes with her, near the end,” Mikaze says, attention on his tablet as he swipes to the relevant section. Then he reads aloud: “She was no seraph, as he had first thought her at the party at Winchester; no Helen, although she had caused a break between himself and Bingham which would perhaps never heal; nor, in fact, were her cheeks as porcelain or her eyes as stars. She was not ugly, but she suddenly struck him as exceedingly average as she and her betrothed whirled about the floor, indistinguishable from the other dancers but for the intimacy in their postures. Ensnared by loneliness, some desperate part of him had bestowed upon Miss Barnett a significance she did not truly possess, one which she, as all women since Eve, was fundamentally undeserving of. In that instant, Clifton knew himself for what he truly was: a man of small mind and unparalleled foolishness.”
“You’d know if you’d finished it,” says Camus.
Kotobuki wilts slightly. “That’s fair.”
“So,” Camus continues, “to summarise: since the only true passion he’s ever felt will never go anywhere, he tries to convince himself it wasn’t real.”
“No,” says Mikaze, “that’s not true. Isn’t the purpose of that speech that he’s been deluding himself all along? And that he’d tricked himself into believing he was capable of more? It would also explain why his infatuation seems sudden.”
He closes his eyes. “He’s only deluding himself about deluding himself. He doesn’t know how else to cope with discovering a part of himself, and then losing it.”
“But the line about loneliness makes it sound like he had doomed himself from the start. His feelings were never really about her.”
“We obviously read different translations. My copy has that sentence as… ‘In the flights of passion born from his solitude, in the mistake all men have made since time immemorial, he had afforded Miss Barnett a stature which far exceeded her capabilities.’ Closer to the original.”
“That still seems to locate his delusion at the start of their affair, not the end of it.”
“You’re forgetting the final chapter. He acts like a man trying to deny the truth, not one who’s just seen through a lie.”
“Because he withdraws from the world? I thought he was preparing to recover from learning something unpleasant about himself.”
“That’s optimistic. And an unsatisfying explanation.”
“Hey, hey!” Kotobuki chips in. “Stay polite, you two.”
There’s nothing impolite, under the circumstances, about the way Camus has been acting. Books are a solitary experience for him, and discussing them with others is significantly out of his comfort zone. Aijima, Nanami and Kotobuki have all tried to engage with him about his reading habits before, but it was obvious none of them would have anything to offer, so he had quickly shut down their inquiries. And yet: even if he doesn’t agree with it, Mikaze’s interpretation isn’t unfounded. Strangely enough, this hasn’t been a complete waste of time.
Still, he reins himself in. “But we’re in agreement it isn’t a romance.”
“Yes,” Mikaze says. “It’s too focused on the protagonist’s inner life to be about the heroine at all.”
“Alright,” he says, “what else did you want to bring up?”
*
They wrap up after half an hour of fairly amicable discussion, and agree to reconvene in another month. Their next book is Mikaze’s choice, a classic sci-fi novel he says he’s been meaning to read but hasn’t managed to get around to yet. Camus scowls a little when he sees the title appear in the group chat; he has zero interest in genre fiction, no matter how acclaimed. But Mikaze had read his book, so he should at least return the favour.
He finishes it in two days flat, takes down some brief points for discussion, and puts it out of his mind until their next meeting. When the time comes, It turns out Kotobuki hasn’t had time to read this one either, somehow mired in even more work than usual. Kurosaki volunteers that, since there’s no film adaptation, he had tried the audiobook but given up after a chapter. And, once again, both of them resist any attempt to reschedule. The force of Camus’s combined Kotobuki-Kurosaki headache is only mitigated by Mikaze, in no uncertain terms, telling them to leave if they have nothing to contribute.
They do, Kotobuki hesitantly and Kurosaki with obvious relief. Camus counts to fifteen in his mind, just to make sure they’ve really gone, before asking the obvious question.
“Mikaze. I realise it’s a classic, but why else did you choose this?”
A blink. “A lot of science fiction is about robots, but never meaningfully gets into it. I heard this book treated them with empathy.”
“The protagonist murders three of them.”
“But the lives she takes are worth more than her own.”
He agrees with that, sort of, and the discussion goes from there. They cover the quality of the writing (prosaic at best, barring the climactic dying speech), the characters (the protagonist is good, but her love interest is dull), the worldbuilding (initially jarring, but smoothing out quickly). This time, their major battlefield gets established early: Mikaze is convinced the heroine is secretly a robot, and Camus is equally convinced she isn’t.
“There’s no evidence for it.”
“I looked into critical readings of the novel. Academics agree that the dragon scene is meant to symbolise her robotic nature coming to the surface.”
“That’s arbitrary.”
“The author also said so in interviews.”
“The author should’ve said so in the book,” Camus growls. “There’s no link established there between dragons and robots.”
Mikaze blinks. “I didn’t say I agreed. But even without that section, other clues still imply she’s an artificial being.”
“Like what?”
“The photographs, mostly. But also her lack of family, her numbed emotional response to death, and her indifference to the world around her.”
“Even if that’s the case, it makes the ending fall apart. It has more impact if she’s a human leading a meaningless life, killing robots who lead meaningful ones.”
“But there’s also a tragedy in her, a robot, being made to turn on her kind by humans.”
“I suppose,” he concedes, with slightly less irritation than last time. “We’ll have to agree to disagree again.”
Mikaze says, “So we will.”
*
It should be Kotobuki’s turn to choose next but, as the reluctantly designated leader of Quartet Night Book Club, Camus moves to step in. He decrees that it’s unfair for someone who hasn’t read either of the previous titles to take part in the selection process, and strips him of the right to participate this round. By the same logic, Kurosaki gets passed over too, and he doesn’t seem invested enough to contest that decision. Which means it’s Camus’s pick again, much sooner than expected.
Since, if the pattern holds, it’s just going to be him and Mikaze, Camus feels comfortable in setting something a little more ambitious. After much deliberation, he assigns an old favourite of his that he’s been intending to reread for years. It’s a seven-hundred-page political thriller that moves at a glacial pace, told across an ensemble of nearly twenty characters, and he fully expects Mikaze to hate it. Which is the intention, really – this is the true test of both his bandmate’s taste and opinions, in the least mean-spirited fashion possible.
To his quiet but intense despair, the book doesn’t hold up. Characters he found sympathetic when he was younger come across as exhausting now; none of the death scenes, no matter how dramatic, can seem to move him; and his Japanese has improved between reads, to the point where the prose now strikes him as clunky. It does have redeeming features, but he still comes away from it irritable. He’s made no secret of the fact this is a reread he’d been anticipating, and no doubt Mikaze thinks the novel’s unevenness reflects poorly on his taste. That bothers him, but mostly in the abstract: the same way he might be ashamed to be seen in a poorly tailored suit, or caught making an impolite comment off set, if such things ever happened. Certainly not because it’s Mikaze, of all people, whose esteem he stands to lose. He’s never cared what the rest of Quartet Night thinks of him, so long as they can perform as a coherent unit, and he doesn’t plan to start now.
“It wasn’t very good,” are the first words out of Mikaze’s mouth at their meeting. Camus is too well-bred to wince, but he still finds himself clenching his teeth, the movement hidden behind the fall of his hair. “So why did you choose it?”
He forces his jaw to unlock. Kurosaki had flat-out quit the club, and Kotobuki had followed suit, with the good grace and uncharacteristic lack of tenacity that meant he was probably scheming something. And while neither of those exits were unexpected, he hadn’t accounted for how exposed that would leave him in the face of a poor choice of book. “Sentiment.”
“I didn’t think you put much stock in that.”
“I don’t. It was a momentary lapse.” Annoyed and impatient, Camus presses the point. “It was a mistake, but if you’re going to try embarrass me for that, hurry and do it.”
“No,” Mikaze says, “I’ve already told you I thought it was a bad choice. But since there was sentiment involved… I was wondering what this book might have said about you.”
Probably too much, if he’s being honest; it’s a good thing his bandmate’s people-reading skills are as weak as they are. Camus forces himself to put on his most pleasant voice, the one he reserves exclusively for journalists and the most important meetings with Shining Saotome, not even caring that it makes his deflection obvious. “Shall we discuss it, then?”
Mikaze agrees, letting that slide for some unfathomable reason, and so they do. They quickly dismiss the parallel love stories, although Camus elects the one between the corrupt politician and his mistress as the most worthwhile, and Mikaze sides with the one between the student intern and the mafia boss. The family relationships at the novel’s core fare a little better with them, but not much. Besides, the star is clearly the odd-couple friendship between two of the side characters, which they both found much less stale than just about everything else.
But most significantly, Mikaze takes issue with the entire final act, arguing that none of the payoffs justify the absurd amount of buildup that goes into them. A second reading and a few years later, Camus feels far enough removed to agree; the author simply tries to pack too much in, and it’s still too long for its own good. He proposes removing a particular character, purely as a thought experiment, which Mikaze extends into cutting an entire subplot. From there, they move into a hypothetical full restructure, casting out and replacing characters, plotlines and beats with equal fervour. Nothing is safe from their critical eyes, an attitude which he only wishes the book’s editor would have shared.
Kurosaki comes into the main room around the point Mikaze is proposing two of the female characters be merged into one, and Camus is insisting they be kept separate for the sake of the male character they orbit around. He ignores the pair of them completely, shuffling over to the kitchen and opening the fridge. From his position by the window, Camus can see how empty it is; all that’s left are the most basic staples, like milk and eggs. It occurs to him, vaguely, that it’s already almost dinnertime.
Although Kurosaki is perfectly silent as he takes stock of the fridge, the pantry and the fruit bowl in short order, the presence of a third person throws Camus off his game. His eyes keep flicking to the intruder, and it doesn’t take long for him to notice.
“What?” Kurosaki grouses, turning around. “You got a problem?”
“Why would I?” Camus says, in a tone that suggests he very much does.
Kurosaki’s eyes narrow. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. Keep talking.”
“I can’t focus with you here.”
“You think I can?”
Mikaze usually endures their arguments in silence; Kotobuki’s the one foolish enough to put himself between them. For whatever reason, though, today he opts to speak up. “Camus. You were in the middle of making your point.”
Camus glares at Kurosaki. Kurosaki glares at Camus. They get along a little better these days – helped along by their agreement to maintain separate pantries – but Camus’s antagonism runs deep, and it’s difficult to overcome it. Still, Mikaze’s right: he was, in fact, partway through a train of thought. Emphatically, he turns his back to the kitchen.
“As I was saying. Neither of them are meaningful, but his mother and lover still have different functions. And having both of them die makes it feel as if he really has lost everything.” Behind him, Kurosaki makes a sound almost like amusement. Determined to be the bigger man, he ignores it and plunges onward. “Besides, the cast would feel too empty otherwise. The novel’s too long, but the fact it’s an ensemble story is still its best feature.”
“It could be told just as well with four narrators. No, with two.”
Mikaze is wrong. Uncharacteristically wrong, but that doesn’t mean Camus can go easy on him. “There are three major factions in the story, and you’d need at least one point-of-view character in each. Two is unfeasible.”
“No. The faction revolving around the politician and his childhood friend suffers, because the reader is allowed to –” Then Kurosaki leaves, the door clicks shut behind him, and Mikaze sits back with something that reads like relief. “Thank goodness. I didn’t think I’d be able to distract you.”
“Who am I, that you think I need a distraction?”
“I’m not going to bother answering that. But I didn’t want to sit through one of your arguments.”
Camus makes an irritated noise, figuring he’s more than earned it. “Fortunately, I’m more invested in books than I am Kurosaki.”
“Yes,” Mikaze says, “I was banking on it.”
*
Mikaze’s next pick is a thousand-page epic, much of which is taken up by minute details of the lives of the residents of a monastery. Camus devours it in under a week and then, feeling unusually magnanimous, suggests they take this month’s discussion somewhere else.
At a reserved table in his third favourite tearoom, Mikaze holds forth on the book’s characters, its historical accuracy, its divisive critical reception. And Camus, helping himself to cake, realises he’s enjoying himself.
*
Things Mikaze likes to read: books about transhumanism, mysteries which present an intellectual puzzle, some kinds of historical fiction. Things Mikaze doesn’t like to read: romance arcs, anything too fantastical outside of science fiction, books with slow openings. With all this in mind, Camus makes his third selection.
They discuss it backstage, in one of the dressing rooms, at a rehearsal for their next live. Camus might have pulled some strings to ensure that Kotobuki and Kurosaki’s sets would be run back to back today, giving them more time to talk, but that really isn’t anyone’s business. They’re both in the outfits they’ll be wearing on the night, Mikaze in a shirt and waistcoat over slim-fitting pants and boots, and Camus can’t tear his eyes from the slight curve of his waist.
“So,” Mikaze says, “what motivated this choice?”
By now it’s become a standard opener, familiar grounds for their initial salvos. But this time, Camus has to swallow his pride a little.
“I wanted to see what you’d think.”
“Isn’t that the purpose of a book club?”
“No,” he says, “not you as a member of book club. You as Mikaze Ai.”
“I don’t understand the difference.”
Camus never used to, either. But the fact is, he’s starting to suspect Mikaze might be good for more than just being the least frustrating, non-Camus fourth of Quartet Night, or having passable opinions on literature. What he actually means by that, though, he can’t seem to put into words yet.
“It’s hard to explain.”
“Actually. I was going to ask why you insisted on continuing with this, even after Reiji and Ranmaru left. Wasn’t the point to bring the four of us together?”
“Maybe,” he allows, “but I don’t think it’s bad like this either.”
“No, it isn’t.” Mikaze turns to face the mirror, intent on fixing his outfit, and Camus watches his reflection’s fingers as they play over his tie. “So, about the hero of this book…”
*
Mikaze chooses a mystery thriller, published earlier in the year to rave reviews, which they discuss in the back of Kotobuki’s car as he drives them to a rehearsal in peak-hour traffic. Camus retaliates with a classic of western literary canon, American rather than British this time, that gets dissected over tea in the lounge room. Mikaze follows up by picking another science fiction novel, a much newer one, and the meeting is held in the first-class cabin of a plane taking them to Hokkaido. Although he discusses the book in the same measured tone as ever, there’s a zeal creeping into his words that Camus can’t ignore any more: subtle enough to go unnoticed by someone who doesn’t know him well, but clear as day to a bandmate who’s worked with him for years. Although he gives his all to his job as an idol, Mikaze has never approached it with any kind of passion. It’s obvious, at least to Camus, because he’s the same way. So why is it that books manage to draw out this side of him, when nothing else can?
Sincerity is still new to Camus, but not so new that he can’t recognise the stirrings of his heart, nor the fact that what he’s feeling is an undeniable, uncharacteristic jealousy. The ball is completely in his court, and he takes his time working out how best to get his message across. He scours book reviews, online forums, the “similar titles” feature in the app he uses to monitor his reading list. At last, he texts Mikaze a title and an author name, and then he waits.
Mikaze doesn’t reply to the message, but he does join Camus in the lounge after dinner. Kotobuki and Kurosaki are off somewhere or other; he doesn’t usually bother keeping track of where either of them are at any given moment, but he thinks they might’ve mentioned something about visiting Starish. Well, so long as they’re out of the way for this conversation.
“You assigned a romance novel for book club,” Mikaze says.
Camus, standing in one of his usual spots by the window, doesn’t look up. “I did.”
“I thought you’d realised I don’t enjoy love stories.” Mikaze gives him a strange, almost curious sideways glance. “I thought you wouldn’t, either.”
“It’s an experiment.”
“With what variables?”
It’s now or never. Camus turns away, busying himself in thorough contemplation of the cityscape below. Uselessly, some part of him notes that the glass is covered in smudge marks; he’ll have to tell whoever’s rostered on for chores this week to clean it. “I wanted to see if you were only passionate about books.”
“I don’t see how choosing a novel I wouldn’t like –”
“Process of elimination. If we could still have a passionate conversation about a book you lack passion for,” he says, “then the target of your ardour would have to be something else.”
“Camus,” he says. “Stop talking around what you mean.”
“Mikaze. What other factors could you be passionate about, during a book club meeting, if not the books themselves?”
His bandmate goes horribly quiet, and Camus closes his eyes. He doesn’t need to try very hard to imagine the expression he’s making, seeing as Mikaze only really has variations on one, which doesn’t help anything. Once again, he’s intensely grateful they’re alone; Kurosaki would eviscerate him if he knew about this conversation, while Kotobuki would go overboard in trying to preserve a façade of normality. Not to mention the inherent taboo of a relationship between idols, one he’s willingly ignored just by pushing things to this point, even if it won’t amount to anything. All in all, this really isn’t one of his better decisions.
“The only other constant,” Mikaze says slowly, “is you.”
“That’s right.”
“I’m not misreading this, am I. You wanted to find out if I was passionate about… about you?”
He’s lightheaded, and every breath he takes doesn’t feel nearly deep enough, and he thinks vaguely that his heart might be hammering. How ridiculous, to be swept away by emotion over something as minor as this. “Your readings have all held merit so far.”
“But you always disagree with them,” he says, and then, “How would I know if I was?”
As if he’s any kind of expert on feeling things strongly. “I’m not sure.”
“Well, what do you want me to say then?”
“I’m not expecting an answer. But I couldn’t deny it to myself any longer.”
“I’ll need time to process.”
Camus shrugs. “As you will. But don’t tell Kotobuki or Kurosaki about this.”
“I won’t let it interfere with Quartet Night,” he promises, and then he leaves.
*
Mikaze barely interacts with him for the next week. That isn’t unprecedented, seeing as they’re both busy people with no real relationship in the first place, but there’s usually less hanging on his absences. Camus distracts himself as best he can, but that’s difficult when his usual fallback is to immerse himself in reading. After he’s tried and failed to make it past the opening of four different novels, all of which he had been able to imagine Mikaze’s commentary on in vivid detail, he switches to nonfiction.
Thankfully, around the time he’s torn through three history books and is, in what he thinks might be mild hysteria, considering reading an old Japanese dictionary just to put words in his brain that aren’t Mikaze’s, he gets a text. My room. 9pm.
He dashes off a quick reply and pockets his phone. Today he’s at a shoot that’s slated to run through dinner, so at least he won’t have to be idle until then. He just wishes it was a little more challenging, because modelling isn’t enough to silence his thoughts; although his blandly-pleasant persona is as unshakeable as ever, his head is a mess of hypothetical scenarios, warring with the rational knowledge that he’s being ludicrous. Either way, he’s unreasonably thankful when they wrap up and dismiss him.
Camus gets home at quarter past eight, deflects Kotobuki’s questions about his day as he constructs a light dinner, nearly comes to blows with Kurosaki in an attempt to extract him from the bathroom, changes into something slightly more formal than necessary, waits for his watch to tick over to 8:59, paces restlessly over to Mikaze’s room, knocks, waits for the muffled “come in”. Enters.
He’s only been in here once or twice before, shortly after they moved. The four of them have found that staying out of each other’s rooms does wonders for their working relationship, although that doesn’t stop Kotobuki from launching regular invasions regardless. Mikaze’s space is functional and clean; his overriding impression is that while it’s minimalistic, that speaks more to indifference than intentional aesthetic.
“Sit down,” Mikaze says. Camus goes for the desk chair, but finds it unusable: it’s covered with debris, gadgets and charger cords mixed in with old paperbacks. Out of options, he goes to sit on the edge of the bed, and his host follows suit. This angle puts Mikaze completely in his peripheral vision, which is better than having to look directly at him, but not by much.
“I read the book you chose.”
Put on the spot, Camus scrambles to remember anything about it. Although he had looked at the specifics during his research, they’ve been chased from his mind by the events of the last few days – no, the last few minutes. “Did you.”
“I found it boring. Too reliant on character archetypes, largely illogical, lacking an emotional core. We could do better than that.”
“We.” Hope catches behind Camus’s teeth, although he isn’t even sure why. He tries again. “We could?”
“Unless you’re also the illegitimate son of a sultan and a property tycoon.” He lets that hang and, apparently not getting the response he had been looking for, adds: “That was a joke.”
Mikaze edges closer, and their legs brush together. This isn’t the first time they’ve touched, not by any margin, and even if he’s spurned here, it won’t be the last. A lot of Quartet Night’s choreography necessitates making physical contact with each other; it’s just part and parcel of being an idol, and putting on a performance fans will want to see. Usually, though, it doesn’t make Camus’s heart speed up a little.
“I’m not.”
“To be honest,” Mikaze says. “I don’t know what I feel for you. There’s no point of reference in any of my databases, and while I read a number of romance novels during my search, none of them were useful.” He laces his hands together, looks at Camus. “Help me find out?”
He exhales, for what feels like the first time all week. That’s a better answer than he had been expecting, although he still doesn’t know how to unpack any of this himself, or have any idea where to go from here. He forces himself to make eye contact; this is no time to be getting self-conscious. “All right.”
“So. What now?”
“Well,” he says, "I didn't read the book myself. Tell me about it.”
And Mikaze, with his head pillowed on Camus’s shoulder, does.