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“Are you all right? You seem tired.”
The voice was unexpected, and Shingetsu frowned as he tore his eyes away from the test results in front of him. There was a girl watching him—someone he recognized. The most popular girl in school.
Monaka Towa.
“Tired” was an understatement. He almost wanted to say that, but he didn’t, opting for a sort of disgruntled silence instead. What did a social butterfly like her want from a dull boy like him? They’d barely exchanged more than a few words thus far over the course of the year. He was usually too busy for conversation.
She laughed softly. “Monaka corrects herself—you seem really tired. What’s wrong, Shingetsu-kun?”
“Nothing. Sorry, I don’t have time to talk.” Right, right…had to get back to reading…
She placed a finger on her chin, glancing around the empty classroom. Red rays were bleeding in from the windows, the blinds creating shafts of scarlet through the semidarkness. Sunset was surely claiming the sky.
“You don’t have time during class, and you don’t have time after…Monaka’s not sure how you’re supposed to have time for anything!”
“I don’t. I have to study.”
“Why’s that?”
“My parents. My grades.” Exhaustion was making stringing words together a regular gauntlet. Each syllable was a pitfall of fatigue…God, he just wanted to sleep…
Monaka craned forward in her seat, using her arms to lift herself up. He hadn’t realized the fact that she must have moved her wheelchair closer at some point—their proximity was alarming. Shingetsu was mortified to feel a slight redness creeping up his neck.
“A ninety-nine on the exam? That’s amazing, Shingetsu-kun!” She dropped back into her seat, clapping her hands, and he flipped the offending test over before slamming it flat on the desk.
“It’s not amazing! Are you insane? I studied so much and for so long and I still didn’t get a perfect score! If I don’t ace the makeup exam, my parents will—“
“Your parents should be proud of you,” Monaka interrupted. “Monaka thinks you’re worrying too much. Monaka’s parents—“ She paused. “Any parent would be super happy with a score like that!”
“Not mine. It’s not what they want. I don’t have time to talk, Towa-san,” he said with clear dismissal in his tone. He avoided looking at her, avoided brushing their arms together, avoided making any sort of movement that would imply that he wanted her around. He just wanted silence and reading until he went home with his dad later that evening.
Monaka, unbeknownst to him, was puffing her cheeks out in annoyance. “Okay, okay, Shingetsu-kun. Monaka-chan didn’t mean to bother you.”
Shingetsu listened as she finally moved her chair away, trying to ignore the sudden lurching in his stomach since…since hadn’t the room been a bit warmer, a moment ago? Monaka wheeled her way out with the book she must’ve come back to retrieve in the first place, pausing in the doorway with her back to him.
“Shingetsu-kun?”
No reply on his end. Rather pointedly so.
“Monaka-chan’s really impressed with you.”
His grip tightened on his pencil, and she left without another word.
~***~
It took Shingetsu a full thirty seconds to process what he was looking at. Not just because he was dead tired, but because it simply didn’t make any kind of sense.
Chocolate chip cookies.
On his desk.
On a plate with little pink hearts.
“Surprised?” A voice giggled behind him. Shingetsu didn’t react even as she maneuvered her way over to him, grinning from ear to ear. “Monaka thought you deserved a reward for working so hard all the time! So she baked these up all by herself!”
“I…U-Um…” Inarticulate behavior from him was unusual, to say the least, but she’d well and thoroughly baffled him. “These are for m-me, Towa-san?”
She clasped her hands before her. “Mmhmm, all for Shingetsu-kun! She hopes you like them!”
He wasn’t sure what to say. They did look delicious, and she did go to a lot of trouble, and it had been so long since he had any sweets, so to refuse them…
The classroom was empty, save for the two of them and the watchful eyes of a human anatomy dummy.
“Why are you doing this?” He asked instead, meeting her gaze.
Her green eyes were very bright, and she smiled right at him. “Because it’s just like Monaka-chan said—she’s really impressed with Shingetsu-kun. So...She wants you to smile!” She placed the tips of her pointer fingers on her lips and tugged the edges up—the act really brought out those adorable dimples of hers. “Shin-get-su-kun must have a handsome smile!”
Her sing-song tone made him blush.
Shingetsu swallowed hard, tugging at his scarf since when…when did it get so hot in here? “T-Towa-san—“
“Monaka-chan,” she corrected, leaning toward him and giggling again. Once more she’d edged right up to his desk and he hadn’t seen her do it. “Please, Shingetsu-kun? Monaka’s just a little worried, that’s all. She doesn’t want you to look so sad all the time.”
Shingetsu shifted back from her, fidgeting with his pencil. In the end, despite his weariness, he gave her a shaky smile. A small one.
Monaka’s face lit up like the sun.
“Monaka was right! Shingetsu-kun’s smile is really wonderful!”
And she laughed again, which made Shingetsu blush all the harder.
~***~
After that, she kept coming back. Over and over.
If she could be with him at some point during school, she would, and her gaggle of friends would watch from a distance and clamor on about Monaka-chan’s “kindness”. Shingetsu found himself noticing more and more things about her, like how her eyes glimmered when she was pleased, and how she would always animate her emotions with her hands—she scarcely stood still throughout the day, talking with everyone she possibly could.
But she always returned to him, and gave that brilliant smile, and asked:
“Did you miss me, Shingetsu-kun?”
Even when his parents and the Academy ramped up his studying so viciously that he required an IV just to stay hydrated, Shingetsu had trouble putting her out of his mind. He didn’t get it at all. Monaka Towa was such a meddlesome girl—had she really wormed his way into his thoughts, when he had more pressing matters to attend?
The answer seemed to be yes.
He wasn’t sure exactly how much time passed before he saw a whole different side to her; the problem would become that it still wasn’t enough to expel her from his thoughts.
In fact, she only consumed him further.
~***~
The other students had left. Everyone but Monaka, yet again. Shingetsu watched her from the edges of his eyes as he turned a page with shaking fingers. Two days of no sleep now. How he longed for the sensation.
Something was different this time. She was staring out the window, fingers clutching the arms of her chair. He was just about to inquire after her, since the absence of her smile was a worrisome thing, but she beat him to the punch.
“Shingetsu-kun.”
He cleared his throat, trying to get his voice to work. It emerged in a tired drawl. “Yes, Monaka-chan?”
She rotated the chair to face him, her smile back in place, but it seemed…odd. “Aren’t you tired of this, Shingetsu-kun?”
“What do you mean...?”
“Studying. Working. The constant pressure. Monaka-chan knows.” She stared at him. Unblinking. “You’re not having fun, are you?”
“I’ve said it before. It’s not about fun, it’s about—“
“What your parents want,” Monaka cut in, her voice smooth as if he’d never spoken. “What everyone else wants. But what do you want, Shingetsu-kun?”
He saw her this time. Inching closer. He closed his textbook slowly and watched her. His heart began beating faster in response to her advance, but was it because of…of that, or—
Fear?
“I…want to meet their expectations. Nothing more and nothing less.”
She clicked her tongue, shaking her head slowly. “Nothing more, Shingetsu-kun?”
There was a soft click as her chair ceased moving. He was still sitting at the desk and now she was right beside him, reaching a hand up and softly stroking his face. Shingetsu could hardly breathe as she tenderly traced the outline of his cheekbone, down to his jaw, ghosting across his neck until she could grab hold of his scarf.
She pulled him close. “Monaka sees the way you look at her.” Her voice was so very low. “You don’t even know yourself, do you, Shingetsu-kun?”
His mouth had gone dry, and with it, his voice.
Closer. “It’s all right. Monaka doesn’t mind.” Her lips brushed his with every word. “Monaka would be happy to make you happy.”
“Wh-What—What are you—“
Still holding his scarf, she used her other hand to gently tilt his head toward her. She was smiling so serenely, but it didn’t match the darkness in her eyes. “You don’t know what you want. But Monaka does. Monaka’s not going to make you, Shingetsu-kun. Monaka’s giving you a choice.”
“A…A choice?” Her breaths. He could feel them. So warm…
“Monaka knows how to take it all away. The pain. The pressure. The sleepless nights. Monaka can make it all better.”
“Y-You can?”
She grinned like she did when she baked him cookies. “She can. Monaka just wants you to trust her. Do you trust Monaka, Shingetsu-kun? Do you trust Monaka to free you from it all?”
Silence. Breathing. Her touch, a trail of heat on his face, and he didn’t know anything—no, didn’t know enough about what he was feeling to combat it.
So he nodded, shoulders shaking.
And she kissed him.
“Monaka’s going to help. You’ll see.”
~***~
The deed was done.
There laid his father in a pool of his own blood—and his mother as well, close by. Once more nothing but silence, save for his own ragged gasping.
Both of his parents were impaled clean through with IV rods. All over.
For a moment, Shingetsu’s thoughts turned delirious. Or perhaps they had been that way for a long time already.
They looked like hedgehogs. Sporting those metal rods like that. Sort of like mechanical hedgehogs.
A familiar whirring sounded behind him as Monaka moved up to his side. She took his trembling hand in her own and smiled sweetly up at him.
Her hand was so warm, but Shingetsu still felt cold.
“You’re free, Shingetsu-kun,” she said in a quiet voice. Her green eyes gazed up at him with triumph.
Free. Shingetsu looked back at her.
On that...he wasn’t so sure.