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“KAZU-CHAAAAAAAN~!”
Kazuha startles, dropping her chopsticks in her lap.
“COMING!” she shouts, inwardly smiling when Kyoya sends a death-glare in her direction. Honestly, if he doesn’t want to hear her shouting then he shouldn’t be in the living room. Kazuha stabs her utensils into her cup of ramen and trudges towards the door, opening it to a widely-grinning Rian. “Hey.”
“Hi!” Rian says, breezing past Kazuha. She kicks her shoes off so hard they fly into the wall. “Wow, you’re still in your pajamas? It’s past noon.”
“…I had a late night yesterday,” Kazuha says tiredly, gently shutting and locking the door. “Lambo slept over, but he’s a little afraid of the dark so we had to keep the lights on all night. It was hard to fall asleep even without him and I-pin giggling every five seconds.”
“Oh.” Rian leans closer, scrutinizing her face, possibly the very prominent bags under Kazuha’s eyes. “You might want to use a face mask or something.”
“Those scary things?” Kazuha asks, raising an eyebrow. “I think I’ve seen Bianchi wearing one sometimes. Makes her look terrifying.”
Rian snorts, making a beeline for the kitchen. Kazuha drifts along behind her, too sleepy to really do anything else. “You’re scared of the weirdest things. Anyways, get dressed. We’re going—oh my god, what is he doing?”
“Kyoya?” Kazuha asks.
“Who else,” Rian says, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Why is he eating out of the fridge?”
“Because I was sitting at the table.”
Rian’s face screws up, whether in confusement or disgust Kazuha can’t tell. “O…kay…”
“Kyoya, the food’s going to spoil if you keep the fridge open like that,” Kazuha reprimands. Rian tugs on her sleeve, wide-eyed and looking disbelieving. “It’s fine, he hates me but he listens to me.”
Kyoya slams the fridge shut and exits the kitchen, wiping a stray glob of pudding off his face as he passes her by. He completely ignores Rian’s presence.
“See?” Kazuha asks, plopping down into her chair and picking up her chopsticks again. “Everything’s fine.” In between bites of ramen, she asks, “So where did you say we’re going?”
“Downtown!” Rian says happily, splaying her hands and grinning sunnily. Kazuha squints. Why are her teeth so sparkly. “How about it? Girls’ day out?”
“Sure,” Kazuha says. Grunts, more like. She wolfs down the rest of her food and chucks her chopsticks at the sink, and then crumples her ramen container and tosses it in the trash can. Rian claps politely, which gets a half-smile out of Kazuha. “Gimme a minute, I’ll get changed. Wait here… or not, I don’t care.”
“‘Kay!” Rian responds cheerfully, already disappearing into the living room, where Yui, Yuki, Yasu, Lambo, and I-pin are playing some kind of card game. Or at least, they had been the last time Kazuha checked; from the muted sounds she’s hearing from the next roomo over, they might have moved on to watching television.
She nearly collides with Huang in the hallway. He looks more awake and alert than she feels, despite Kazuha knowing he’d been asleep until only very recently. There are still a few lingering signs of sleepiness on his face though—his slightly droopy eyelids, the second or so it takes for him to notice that he’d bumped into her, and then to apologize.
“It’s fine. Sleep well?” she asks, stepping aside so he can pass.
“Fair,” he responds, making a so-so motion. “Did you eat yet?”
“Yeah. We had some cup ramen left so I had that,” Kazuha says. “It was kind of a lazy breakfast, but…”
She trails off upon noticing the perturbed expression on Huang’s face. Kazuha resists the urge to ruffle his hair, and instead continues on her way into her room.
She changes quickly out of her nightclothes and into a long skirt (with, of course, extremely deep pockets), a plain tank top, and the brown leather jacket Hatsue had given her zipped up over it. She frowns as she notices a small tear in the material near her left shoulder. Even though she’s probably not supposed to, she picks at it. She’ll have to ask if Hatsue can fix it for her.
When Kazuha finally joins Rian and the kids in the living room, she finds that more time has passed than she’d expected, courtesy of her encounter with Huang. Not that she minds—though their conversations can get a little awkward sometimes, she finds she enjoys them a lot. She’s… genuinely not the best at communicating, and, she suspects, neither is Huang, which is why these little interactions are so important to her.
Kazuha hopes he’s aware that she cares.
She brings herself out of her thoughts and surveys the room, nothing that the kids have switched to watching television. Some show Kazuha doesn’t know the name of but is sure Yui’s told her before plays at a low volume, while all five kids (plus Rian, to some extent) sit enraptured in front of it. All of them are sprawled out either on the floor, the couch, or Rian herself. It’s quite the endearing sight.
“Ready to go,” Kazuha says, laughing when all six heads snap towards her.
“Aww, do you have to?” Yui asks, clinging to Rian’s arm. Yasu glances at Yui, and then copies the action, latching onto Rian’s other side. Yuki hangs back a little, looking like she wants to join in but is too embarrassed to actually come forwards, instead hanging back with Lambo and I-pin who are firmly glued to the television screen. “Can I come?”
“Maybe another time,” Rian says good-naturedly, slowly prying Yui away from her. Kazuha does the same with Yasu, depositing him on the opposite couch and giving him a pat on the shoulder for his trouble. He looks a little disgruntled, but quickly becomes appeased when Yui comes over and sits next to him. “Today’s a gal pal day.”
“Can we be gal pals?” Yui asks. “Then I can come along, right?”
“Aw, how about this? I can make some time for just you and I to go do something,” Rian suggests. “We can have our own gal pal day.”
Yui’s eyes go wide, and she kicks her legs out in excitement. “Yeah! But… um… can we bring Yasu and Yuki too?”
“Sure,” Rian agrees, standing and stretching. “We’ll be back later, okay? I’ll watch TV with you all again if you want.”
“Okay!” Yui agrees. Kazuha smiles fondly.
“Come on, Kazu-chan,” Rian says, pulling her towards the door. “I’m gonna show you my favorite milk tea place.”
“Milk tea?” Kazuha wonders, pulling her tennis shoes on and looking up to see Rian sporting a horrified expression. “What.”
“You don’t know what milk tea is?” Rian asks slowly, holding the door open for Kazuha. The two of them exit, and Kazuha locks the door behind them. “You’re joking, right?”
“I know what it is,” Kazuha says, rolling her eyes and stuffing her hands into her pockets. “I’ve just… never had it.”
“That’s almost as bad!” Rian says. She pulls a pair of sunglasses and a hat out of the pocket of her jacket, shoving them onto her head and flashing Kazuha a nearly blinding smile. Then, she grabs Kazuha’s arm and begins to drag her down the stairs of the apartment. “Come on, we’re hurrying.”
Rian’s definition of hurrrying is a nearly breakneck speed to the train station, even faster than her usual quick pace.
“I’m gonna die,” Kazuha warns, speeding up to a jog to keep up.
“Cut the crap, I know your endurance is better than mine,” Rian retorts.
Kazuha shrugs to that. “Wanna race, then?” she suggests.
“Oh?” Rian asks, reaching over to Kazuha a little. “I didn’t say you were faster than me, Kazu-chaan.”
The two of them are slightly out of breath by the time they reach the train station. Kazuha loses, due to both being slower than Rian and having to contend with the skirt she’d worn flapping all over the place and trying to trip her every step along the way.
They link arms during the train ride, Kazuha peeking over Rian’s shoulder while she scrolls through social media. Kazuha has no idea how to navigate “Tweeter,” or any other forms of “Social Media,” but it’s entertaining to look at the pretty pictures Rian clicks on. Occasionally Rian mentions some drama or other in the celebrity world, but it mostly goes in one ear and out the other.
Kazuha hardly listens to music anyways. She’d been a little embarrassed to have known Rian for an entire month without knowing she was fairly famous, and that had sparked a brief interest in pop, but other than that, she’s pretty much clueless. She hadn’t even known how to access the music library until Hatsue had gently told her she was in the calculator app, and had then directed her to the right place.
That had been mortifying.
They reach their station in short order, and from there, Rian takes the lead, navigating through crowded streets and bustling throngs of people.
“It’s really busy, huh?” Kazuha observes, nearly stumbling over someone else’s foot.
“Not that bad,” Rian says, tugging Kazuha into an alleyway that connects to a back street.
Little shops line the small road, awnings nearly touching from how narrow it is. The shopkeepers back here seem to mostly be elderly—some stand in front of their shops calling conversations back and forth, gossip and small talk, and others sit in chairs and doze.
Rian leads her to a small shop near the end of the street, and she withdraws her arm from Kazuha’s to push the door open. A soft bell tinkles as the two of them cross the threshold.
“This is my favorite place to get milk tea,” Rian says. “It’s out of the way, plus I like how small it is. It’s really cozy.”
The woman at the counter—elderly, with her long grey hair tied up in a loose bun—greets them as they draw nearer to her.
“King Rian, what an honor,” she says, tone light and teasing. “My granddaughter will be heartbroken that she missed you; she’s out with her boyfriend right now.”
“Hi, Asaka-baa-chan,” Rian says. “Can I get my usual? With the frog bobas? And Kazu-chan, what do you want?”
“Um… can I just get what you’re having?”
“Another house milk tea then,” Rian decides. She points at the little menu on the counter. “Look, they have really cute boba here. You can choose any one you want.”
As soon as Kazuha sees the little boba bird face stamped onto the laminated menu, she knows that’s the one. “The chick ones.”
She and Rian haggle a little over who’s paying, and Rian wins by virtue of being lucky at jan-ken-pon. She triumphantly hands over the money to the shopkeep, and within ten minutes they’re both seated at the lone table inside the shop, sipping at their drinks.
“It’s good,” Kazuha says in surprise, chewing on a boba. “I like the texture.”
“Right?” Rian agrees, nodding emphatically. Her hat looks like it’s going to fall off. “I know you’re bad with directions, so I’ll give you the address later in case you want to come here by yourself.”
“Maybe I’ll take Yasu here after school,” she considers. They lapse into a peaceful silence, until something occurs to Kazuha. “Hold on. Tell me something.”
“Yeah?” Rian asks, tilting her head.
“Why did that woman call you King?”
“That’s… my name,” Rian says, laughing lightly.
Kazuha stares.
Why did Rian never tell her she was a king?
“What country?” Kazuha demands, setting her cup down with more force than necessary. “You didn’t mention you were a king on top of being a pop star!”
“Hold on—”
“What other secrets have you been keeping?” Kazuha pries, leaning forwards. “Are you going to reveal you’re from outer space next?”
“Kazu-chan—”
“What kind of double life…” Kazuha trails off, shaking her head.
“My stage name,” Rian says. “Stage. Name.”
“…Ah,” Kazuha says delicately, pointedly avoiding Rian’s eyes. She clears her throat. “Anyways. Let’s just. Enjoy the tea or something.”
Rian giggles. “Yeah, let’s.”