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Togami Byakuya had lived through worse things, of course. Finding himself locked up inside of Hope's Peak, while immensely inconvenient, was merely another stepping stone along his path to his successfully inheriting his father's corporation. Fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, Byakuya reminded himself of that fact.
As he continued to ruminate, a shuffling noise arose amid the bookshelves behind him. Despite knowing who it surely must be, Byakuya raised his head. It never paid to make fool-hardly assumptions; lesser men found their graves that way.
Turning round, he could make out a blurry form- slight build, with dark hair hanging down either side of her face. At least without his glasses on, Byakuya could imagine that her braids weren't shiny with grease.
“What do you want?” he grumbled, returning his glasses to his face. Despite not having yet read a word of it, Byakuya flipped to the next page of the book laid open in front of him.
“N-nothing...” Touko stammered. “Naegi was being pushy again, so I came here to get away. What's the point of trying to make friends in here, anyway? We... we all know how it's going to end up. ...N-not that there's any point to making friends back in the outside world anyway...”
“True,” Byakuya couldn't help but agree with a curt nod toward his book. When she actually managed to spit out her words, Touko did make good points now and again.
“Which... which part?” she asked, voice growing brighter as she approached the table where he sat.
“Both accounts. Naegi is an insufferable chatterbox, and friendship is nothing more than an asinine waste of time,” Byakuya informed her, finally pulling his eyes off the page once more.
There was a pause and Byakuya frowned, wondering the cause, until Touko’s arms began to snake around herself.
Oh. That again.
“Byakuya-sama agreed with me!” Touko squealed, limpid eyes traveling somewhere far away as her mouth curled up into an insipid grin.
“Tch,” Byakuya clucked his tongue, turning his attention back toward the open book. “Why don’t you just hug me , if you love hugging things so much...”
It had been meant as sarcasm and nothing more, however as soon as the words fell from Byakuya’s lips, his eyes grew wide. “That is to say-”
“W-whatever you say, my darling!”
It was too late. Scrawny arms flung themselves around his shoulders.
He should have scoffed, should have shaken her off, firmly told her no.
Instead, Byakuya froze. For arms so small and seemingly weak, Touko’s were surprisingly warm, locking Byakuya in a firm embrace.
Byakuya’s heart clenched deep within his chest, although he immediately dismissed the novel sensation as nothing more than annoyance, frustration. And what was Touko doing now? Slobbering over him? Byakuya’s cheeks were suddenly damp with salty droplets. Mechanically, he raised a hand to touch his face.
The tears couldn’t possibly be coming from his own eyes. A Togami never wasted his energy on something so ridiculous as blubbering all over himself. And yet, the corners of his eyes still stung, welling up and spilling over like a cup of coffee poured by an inattentive servant too distracted to know when best to stop.
“B-byakuya-sama?” Touko squeaked, pulling back and taking her warmth and closeness with her. Instead, she tugged on the ends of her braids. “Are you hurt? W-what should I do!?”
Hastily, Byakuya whipped a handkerchief from his breast pocket, tugging off his glasses once more in order to swipe the cloth roughly over his eyes.
“You raised some dust scurrying over here like that,” Byakuya muttered, stowing the damp handkerchief away, “Try to be more careful the next time.”
Again, Touko’s face lit up like the sun they had yet to see in so long.
Again, Byakuya’s brain had supplied a phrase that could taken in an entirely other way. Perhaps he needed more sleep. Overtired. Surely that was the cause of such a bizarre parade of folly.