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I believe that the rooftop is closed to visitors at this hour.
Aiura barely looks startled as he appears beside her, which is something that he has to give her credit for. After she’s taken half a second to process his arrival, she grins.
Well, technically the whole school is closed for the summer. Are you looking to be reprimanded?
She brushes off his mild chiding, only glad that he’s shown up at all. “What are you doing here, Kusuo?” she asks, folding her hands behind her. She faces him, her back to the lit up buildings beyond them.
I told you that I’d say goodbye before you left.
(The memory returns to him, quickly: Technically, he hadn’t told her that. It was more so that Aiura had asked him, and he hadn’t given her an answer. Then, she had silently hoped and hoped that he would do so anyway.)
For only half a second, if that, her brow furrows at the mention of a “goodbye,” even if it had come at her request.
But, she moves on from that limp wave of downheartedness quickly.
Consequently, Aiura’s grin manages to widen at his small gesture of simply being here—whatever it may be a gesture of—as he tells her this. He knows that he’s a little last minute, that she will leave to move into a new apartment tomorrow morning. The joy that radiates from her, though, tells him that, in stopping by to see her, he’s done the right thing.
He glances around P.K. Academy’s rooftop, a familiar hiding space. Or, rather, what should have been a hiding space. Instead, it was always just another spot for him to be characteristically ambushed by his friends.
Feeling nostalgic?
“I mean, yeah.” She scoffs, though the short sound is not necessarily unkind, like he has asked her the dumbest, most pointless question that she’s ever heard. She walks over to the edge of the space they occupy, and clutches the rooftop’s enclosure, looking down over its ledge. “It’s hard not to be, I mean—I’m headed to university for the first time.” Aiura considers this for a moment, turning around to face him entirely again. There’s a gentle taunt laced through her voice when she adds, “Normal people feel this way.”
(Saiki thinks, although not for the first time since the two of them have met, that Aiura is pretty far from being normal.)
Still, he watches the subtle way that she shrinks away from him as she speaks, and resumes resting her elbows against the railing. He walks towards her, maintaining his distance like usual. He looks out at the buildings, too. Are you nervous?
Aiura smiles sheepishly. She’s the only one near to him right now—he barely needs to focus to hear what’s going on in her mind. And, he knows that she knows this, which is why she doesn’t lie. She shrugs, and then says, “A little.”
He would have laughed at that, were he anyone but himself. He’s seen her in action—this meaning that he knows how little effort it takes for her to turn someone into a friend. It’s not a secret that people are drawn to her forward, yet easy going nature. It’s easily within her character to keep people close and, consequently, make them feel safe.
As impartial as he’s trained himself to be, he’s inevitably become well aware of it all.
I don’t think you need to be.
Surely, he thinks, she could look into the future in order to reassure herself. Maybe, she doesn’t want that. Or, maybe, she already had, and it hadn’t been enough. Even so, Aiura has the power to accurately assess a person at first glance. But, however she may be approaching this new chapter of her life, from the standpoint of being psychic, he still thinks she’ll be fine.
Her cheeks flush at his words, and she steals a glance to the side at him. He keeps looking outwards, too, like he hadn’t noticed.
“I mean, probably not. But, y’know, it’s still a new place. Everything will be new.”
His weight shifts against the cool metal, and then he folds his hands together. I thought it was only thirty-five minutes away.
Aiura is inwardly defensive of her apprehension for a moment, and then her focus shifts. She perks up again, more like her usual self, and begins to wonder if his pointing out of this impending distance between them is his way of saying that he’s going to miss her. He remains composed as she looks at him coyly.
(Whether or not she decides to voice that question aloud, he decides that he will not give her the satisfaction of an answer to that.)
(Besides, distance doesn’t really mean anything to one who can teleport.)
She opens her mouth to speak, but doesn’t say anything for another long moment. Eventually, she argues, “I don’t know, this is a new city, though.”
He offers his version of reassurance—a small bout of hopeful logic. You were new at P.K. Academy, too. You didn’t seem nervous then. He would know, of course.
“That’s—or, was, I guess—just high school…” She trails off, pausing to shoot him a pointed look. “And, like, I knew what I was looking for…”
Me, he finishes for her. She seldom lets him forget that.
Aiura sighs audibly, and tilts her head back, glancing up at the sky. “And, I don’t even know what comes next, really.” She purses her lips. “Besides more school.”
Silently, internally, he gives a short laugh in response to the irony of her peril. Can’t you see the future?
“That’s not what I mean—it doesn’t work that way.”
Maybe not. He can agree with her there. But, he still isn’t worried for her, either. He gives her a noncommittal shrug, unwilling to switch to siding with her or to continue to debate the matter at hand.
Aiura rests her head in her hands, and she looks forward again at the lights of their locale. Her palms press against her cheeks as her mind races rapidly, overflowing each second, so much so that it’s like she has the power to slow down time.
(Maybe I shouldn’t go. Or, maybe I should go somewhere further away.)
(I don’t know what I want to do.)
(Yeah, I do. I want to help people. I want to do everything that I can.)
He interrupts her before she can stumble upon greater doubt, and find herself stuck in a cycle of sorts with these thoughts.
You can’t hold the world in your hands, Saiki chides, albeit gently.
Aiura blinks, and then looks at him. “What,” she retorts slowly, but sharply, “just like you do?”
He finds that he doesn’t have an answer for that. Not that that matters, because Aiura keeps going and further prompts, “Are you going to miss me?”
Her eyes are wide, and bright, but his expression is merely unimpressed.
“Well, if you are, don’t worry about it. Like you know, my school is only a thirty-five minute trip on the train. Maybe just twenty-five when it’s, like, late at night, or whatever. So, if you ever do miss me, I’m not even too far away.”
(Again, he thinks to himself, nobody's ever too far away so long as he can teleport.)
He doesn’t say that to her, though—in lieu of that, he only waits, knowing she’ll keep talking.
“Or, the next time you’re in trouble and need me—”
In trouble? He scoffs, and out of the corner of his vision, he can see Aiura smiling at his indignant reaction. You’re the one who gets into trouble. I’m the one who always ends up getting dragged into it.
Were he anyone else, he thinks his words might have come out whilst sounding far less convincing. Nobody is capable of forcing him, of all people, into getting involved with anything. So, really, when he does, he’s aware deep down that it’s because he—
“Maybe.” She shrugs—not necessarily agreeing, nor wanting to prove him wrong. The same way he’d felt minutes earlier, he realizes. “I’ll count on you being there the next time, then.”
See, it never stops. Now, Saiki rolls his eyes, a little fondly. Here you were, acting like you were at some daunting end.
Aiura falls silent in lieu of responding aloud. He watches as her hands move from her face to instead clutch the top of the rail, a unique energy coursing through her that hasn’t left him since their first meeting in this very spot.
Her head turns again, and he looks to the side, back at her. Her fingernails drum against the chipped metal, until they slow, and then they stop, and she says, “Huh, you’ve got me there. But, well, you never know when you’ll need a hero.”
I’m not a hero, comes his fast, automatic, monotonous response—stemming from the familiarity of a heavy conversation they’ve had a thousand times.
“You are,” she counters, too quickly like he had a moment earlier and protective of him against his own words about his own livelihood, “to me.”
So are you, he thinks—but to himself, and not to her.
Aiura barely acknowledges his lack of a response, even to herself. She looks at the ground and fills the silence with her own silent uneasiness again, wondering whether or not she should go. He knows that she is well aware that he can quite literally hear everything that’s going through her head, but he doesn’t know if she wants his input, or not.
He doesn’t think what he says would matter though. Not really, at least. Aiura would consider his advice—should he choose to offer her it, which he knows is unlikely—and then hold it close to her heart. But, ultimately, her mind would be made up and unaffected by what he or anyone else had to say, and she would be brave, and do the right thing.
Despite the way that her headstrongness has gotten in his way in the past, it’s also all quite admirable of her.
He cuts off his mind’s current tangent, and, in the process, hers, too: Aiura.
She smiles at the sound of her name coming from him, as distracted as he had intended. “Yeah?”
It’s late. You’re leaving early in the morning.
“You’re going to miss me,” she concludes, as if she’s coming to understand something that he’s suddenly spelled out for her.
As her features continue to light up, Saiki decides, instead, that she rather looks like she’s just uncovered the meaning of life.
Apathetic, he stares back at her. She’s unbothered by his silence, thinking she could almost bask in the familiarity of it.
“Have I said that I’ll miss you?” Aiura asks, placing her hands on her hips and doubt leaving her mindset. Even if she hadn’t, he could have guessed that much himself. “Like, a lot. So, I mean it when I say if you ever do want to come visit me—”
Good grief, is all he can say.
Her head cocks to the side, and she pushes her hair behind her after it slides freely along her shoulder. “Thirty-five minutes.”
He shrugs evasively. I can teleport, he deadpans.
Saiki is seriously considering executing that reminder and demonstrating to her that ability when Aiura sighs again, and steps away from the railing like her mind is really made up. Internally, to herself and unavoidably to him, she wonders if those words of his are a hidden promise.
(He’s not so sure himself.)
“It’s late,” she blurts out, as if he hadn’t just said that.
He reaches forward and grabs her forearm. A second later, they are in her home, surrounded by stuffed bags and taped up boxes. He lets go of her arm, and then glances around curiously.
“Um, thank you,” Aiura says as she registers the change in their surroundings. She wants to reach for his hand again, Saiki knows, but he also knows that it won’t happen. Maybe another time beforehand, but not on her last night here.
It’s no problem. He takes a step to the side, and places his hands in his pockets. I’m going to head home, though. Good luck, tomorrow.
“Thank you,” Aiura says again, but, this time, Saiki can hear the weight of her words.
He almost smiles at it.
He doesn’t tell her the same, though he thinks that he probably should—thank her for all of the times she’s come through for him without hesitation. In the present moment, he can’t seem to remember if he has before, and as he stands amongst Aiura’s closing of a chapter of her life, he silently corrects himself, thinking that he certainly should have.
(As far as chapters, he can't help but wonder to himself how they might first find each other in the new one.)
He nods once. Goodnight.
Then, he is gone. Tomorrow, he reminds himself, she will be, too.