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"Everybody's staring at us," someone says under their breath, in a voice that sounds like it's trying to be calm but not quite succeeding. Masaki, who has not been staring but now really wants to, turns his attention from the underwhelming competitors to whoever it is sitting behind him.
"They're probably staring at me," another boy says, sounding much more collected. It would be extremely obvious if he were to turn and look now. Masaki leans back a little and crosses his arms, and tries to look like he isn't eavesdropping.
"Why would they be staring at you?" A third voice, mildly skeptical.
"The same reason our whole school stares at me, Seiya," replies the boy, "I'm the Fujiwara heir, for what it's worth."
Now that, Masaki thinks, is interesting. He's heard the rumour that Saionji Kazuyo's mysterious disciple was the Fujiwara scion, and it seems possible that rumour had not been unfounded. He hopes he'll see the boy shoot in the group competition tomorrow, at least— and won't that ruffle some feathers. Saionji-sensei has been refusing students for years. The conversation behind him has devolved into a whispered quarrel about Valentine's chocolate, of all things, none of the boys even pretending to pay attention to the individual preliminaries going on in front of them. Masaki supposes he can't blame them; all the good seeds have already gone before their less prepared peers.
He stretches languidly, gets up and makes his way to the edge of the stands. There he turns, looking back at the three boys one row behind him, and freezes.
There is a distinct shape hovering around the boy closest to the aisle, a shape that strikes him as dangerously human and at once not human at all. Masaki's mouth tastes bitter, and he swallows against the sudden onset of fear, despite the boy being seemingly unharmed. The boy himself is unmistakably the Fujiwara heir; he has sharp purple eyes and wavy brown hair that falls loosely in his face, a smile tilting the corners of his mouth up, and he doesn't seem to notice that he is being possessed.
Masaki stares for longer than is polite, long enough that a lady seated nearby asks if he's quite alright. He snaps out of it, thanks her for her concern, and almost runs to his car where he's stupidly left his phone.
Ren, he types, in a hurry, what does demon possession look like in a person? He wonders if his stepbrother will take it seriously. But Ren is usually serious about his extra sense, so he sends the message anyway despite his misgivings. Which, really— does anyone else know? Do Fujiwara's family? Do they even suspect? Masaki wants to believe it's just a stronger than normal spiritual aura or even a guardian spirit, but he's never seen such a big anomaly, much less one almost entirely separate from its owner except for the dark threads connecting them, winding deep into Fujiwara's chest. He can't get the image out of his head. They'd looked like awful roots, like they had latched on to whatever was inside Fujiwara and wouldn't ever let go. He hopes it isn't malicious.
His phone buzzes with a reply. What did you see, Ren asks. So Masaki tells him, in as much detail as he can. He looks back in the direction of the kyudojo, wondering if he should at least talk to the boy. But what on earth could he possibly say? Hi, I'm a priest, have you looked into exorcisms lately?
Masaki jumps when his phone buzzes again, and keeps buzzing because Ren is calling him. He picks up, but before he can say anything Ren is already speaking.
"Are you sure it was shaped like a human? Adult-sized?"
"Yes," says Masaki, nervously, "is that a bad thing?"
Ren sighs, a burst of static in his ear. "It probably isn't a demon, but— you know you're half blind when you're away from the shrine. If you saw something that large and distinct..."
"He didn't look like he was in pain." Masaki bites his lip. "And it— I don't know, it didn't look like it was really doing anything yet."
"Yeah, still, if it's got its claws into the kid's insides instead of just his external aura… damn it, Masa, I'm on assignment right now, I can't go and take a look for myself. You better stay on the kid until I get back." Ren sounds uncharacteristically serious, which is the only reason Masaki doesn't balk immediately.
"I— okay, but— I can't just start stalking a middle schooler!"
"You're at a kyudo competition, right? Go offer him some guidance or something," Ren laughs. "Don't let on that you can see it, though. Who knows what it wants."
After more exhortations to keep an eye on Fujiwara and to do his own research because Masaki is a shrine priest after all, Ren hangs up on him. He stares at his phone glumly. Exorcisms are something he's been trained to do, but he and the other priests usually perform them for places, not people. Sighing, he resolves to ask the head priest about it later. For right now, he has a middle schooler to befriend, and reluctant as he is, he knows just the way to do it.
*
Shuu is immediately wary when a strange man comes up to him and asks him if his teacher is Saionji-sensei. Not because of the question, or because he's never met the man before, but because for a fleeting moment he had glanced to a spot just above Shuu's right shoulder and looked afraid. Shuu isn't stupid. The man, whoever he is, had seen Sai.
The problem at hand is what Shuu should do about it. Sai, despite how he persists in acting on a daily basis, is also far from stupid. He'd caught the man's glance and is now intensely curious, almost begging Shuu to go along with whatever the guy asks. Judging from the man's bland smile, he probably can't hear what Sai is saying.
"Sorry, what did you say your name was?" Shuu asks, as politely as he can.
"Takigawa," the man replies, rubbing his neck sheepishly. "I guess this would make more sense if I told you my mentor was Yasaka Akihiro."
Yasaka-sensei, Shuu remembers, was an old friend of Saionji-sensei's. She'd gone to his funeral some time ago, and Shuu had followed out of respect. He doesn't recall seeing Takigawa there— but then again, he hadn't been paying too much attention. Shuu isn't fond of funerals.
"I see," says Shuu, deciding to be cautious nonetheless. "Yes, I am Saionji-sensei's student. Did you have business with her?"
"Shuu, do you have to be so stiff?" Sai whines, trying to hit him with the trailing end of his sleeve. The cloth, as always, goes right through him and he bears the uncomfortable chill without flinching. "He can see me! That's so odd, do you know, no one else could ever see me!" Shuu silently agrees that it is odd, but this is a public place and so he continues to ignore Sai's wheedling.
"I— well," Takigawa starts, then grimaces as though whatever he wants to say physically pains him. Shuu waits patiently. "I heard she and Yasaka-sensei knew each other when they were young. And I just wanted to know a little more about— about my grandfather."
Suddenly, Shuu is more interested. Yasaka-sensei had many students, and he was equally strict with all of them, but Saionji-sensei had said that he was particularly ruthless with his grandson. Which can only mean that Takigawa must also be well loved by the god of the bow.
Sai has been haunting Shuu long enough to recognize the gleam in his eye when he's thinking about kyudo, and he throws up his hands in despair. "You'd better not forget about me when you start talking about your kyudo again— and if you don't find out if Takigawa-kun can play Go I'll never forgive you!"
A Sai thwarted in his pursuit of another game of Go, Shuu has come to realise, is a Sai who will drive him into insanity. "I'd be happy to introduce you," he says, tilting his head to the right to include Sai as well, but Takigawa seems to miss the implication, "as soon as you let me watch you shoot."
"Ah," sighs Takigawa, "I was afraid you'd say that." Shuu peers intently at the man's face, but he doesn't look offended. (Although Sai is in rapture at the idea of actually communicating with someone who isn't Shuu, which makes Shuu feel mildly offended.)
"Would you prefer not to? It was only—"
"No, no, it's fine. I might be a little out of practice, is all." Now Takigawa has a weird expression on his face that Shuu can't read, so he ignores it.
"You can come to our dojo. I'll let Saionji-sensei know."
"Actually, I was wondering if we could speak before that? Maybe at the shrine where I work— I haven't spoken to Saionji-sensei in so long, you see, and of course there's a kyudojo there too—"
If Shuu were a regular thirteen year old boy, he might think nothing of this. It would only be natural for someone to be nervous of meeting Saionji-sensei, of course he would assuage their fears. If Shuu were even just the Fujiwara heir, his suspicions then might only go so far as to think Takigawa Masaki another schemer trying to get in the Fujiwara pockets. Gods know he's seen enough of those, at all ages. But Sai, at his shoulder, laughs with the same diamond edge that Shuu has in his own eyes, leans forward until he is almost touching the other man, and Takigawa doesn't quite manage to hide the way he flinches. No— Shuu knows that this can only be about Sai.
"Of course," he says then, settled firmly into the noble prince role that so entertains Minato and irritates Seiya, "when shall we meet?"
Perhaps, he reflects, much later, things would have been simpler had he just said no.