Work Text:
yae miko (to: yae miko) Today 06:34
there’s someone that i like; same uniform, same shoes, same class, same age. we have a lot in common, more than you’d think between someone like her and someone like me. i don’t know how to describe ei—well, there’s not much to say about her. she doesn’t like the word ‘smirk’ in books, and needs to point out her disinterest when she does. she has several moles freckling her arm, specifically her left—that’s the one i see most often. she can finish an entire can of coffee while she’s running up two flights of stairs. she also doesn’t like me back.
It comes with enough predictability that the first day of the school year comes dully, with mundane waves of disinterest and boredom in tow. Yae wakes up ten minutes later that morning, the only time in the past two months of an uninterrupted schedule, and decides something is off about the way the sun is rising at an angle too tilted to be right, or the trees are less green than they should be. She awakes and a nebulous sensation sends her hair standing at their ends, as though in warning.
Yae, wasting no time on breakfast as she rightfully should, slings her bag over her shoulder and runs out of the door before her mother calls out her name. Lights in the void deck of her block switch off at seven, and when they do, she can never bring herself to cross without flinching at every sound. She hears a disappointed voice behind her, then the sound of a metal gate being pulled shut.
On her way to school, she notices an incriminating trail of evidence that hints that something has changed—several, really. She’d worn her father’s black socks instead of her own, and her bun is tickling her neck even though it should’ve been tied too high, and her heart’s been beating irrationally fast even though she has been with her current class for a year and gotten used to her classmates’ presences.
There is no reason to be nervous, not for someone like her, especially when she’s well-liked and has a friend in each cliqué to involve herself anywhere she’d like to be. Her hand trembles around the case of her phone, much to her obliviousness. Such insignificant observations should have done nothing to bring about an enormous change such as what happens, and the rest of her travel to school seems perfectly ordinary to not warrant an eyebrow raise or a mental question.
Then, she finds herself at the door of her classroom—her new classroom, a level higher than where she used to study the year before, and two months of not climbing stairs has strained her lungs. She sees a black floor and black curtains, with ample lighting for seven in the morning.
Yae takes a step inside, standing right on the line which cuts between the classroom and the outside, but the following epiphany has her eyes widening and she pauses at the door. Her limbs freeze in place and a cold feeling is later drowned by warmth—an undying warmth that squeezes her heart and shakes it feebly.
She recognises her seat at the very corner of the class—by the front window, in the blind spot of the teacher’s table to allow her enough liberty while also allowing her to pursue her confident facade. Most of her classmates are organised where she expected to be—Ayaka, who’s an exceptional dancer and is always stretching at the back before morning assembly, and Kokomi who’s laughing with Gorou who appears stressed in her presence.
Then, there’s one minor discrepancy that she can’t wrap her head around; the fact that Raiden Ei herself is seated on the desk beside hers.
Yae narrows her eyes at the sight, proceeding to rub them with her hands as though she’s dreaming. She can hardly believe that she’s sitting there, out of self-will, especially when she’s always preferred to sit on the other side of the classroom. Ei is proper, and she is organised, and that propriety extends to every aspect of her life. It’s not difficult to learn about her—not when she rests her head against the table in annoyance during the same lessons, when she’s always predictably sleeping in class before morning assembly, how her eyes curve when she smiles—
Yae catches herself staring, and that realisation brings with it so much embarrassment that her cheeks flush as pink as her hair. She cups her cheeks in her hands and whips her head away, grumbling under her breath in embarrassment. Maybe it’s an accident. She wouldn’t have chosen to sit next to me. It surfaces eventually that her attempt at quelling her panic isn’t quite doing that at all so she glances in the direction of her classmate and proceeds to stomp forward with a straight face.
Raiden Ei is easily one of the top students in the cohort, well on her way to become a valedictorian if she wasn’t so tired of extra-curricular activities as it is. She’s the definition of perfect, if not in the dictionary then she is in Yae’s eyes. She’s an artist—not that anybody would expect it, but she is, and she’s good at it. Sometimes the latter finds herself staring at her artworks, hung up on the gallery walls of the studio beneath the school, and her breath is whisked away by the wind.
Blues of the dimly lit classroom engulf Yae as she walks quietly through the front, with counted steps and bated breath towards the same girl she’s admired for the past year and longer. It’s not easy to admit, for someone with an ego like Yae’s, but it’s worse trying to deny it too. Her guilt consumes her sometimes, knowing that she and her could never work out in the way that they are destined to be apart. It’s guilt about everything, really, but she doesn’t think about it on most days to feel the pain. Her eyes drag in a particular direction as she slides into her seat, the little sliver of light peeking in through the window dusting over her hand like a gesture of support.
Yae doesn’t have the guts to talk to her—she knows. She remains still once she’s kept her bag and things on the floor, staring at the presence beside her over the muffled chatter of her classmates in the background. She feels goosebumps against her skin again, that hot-cold-hot feeling searing her skin because her feelings have once again relapsed into a state of not-knowing.
“Do you have paper?” Ei then asks, turning around to look at her.
She locks eyes as though they’ve known each other for a thousand years before, as if they’ve loved, and lived and done so much more than sit as mere classmates while one pined with dreadful admiration and the other ignored, and ignored, and ignored—
“Uh,” Yae stammers, jolting out of her trance. She glances at her bag, despite knowing she never carries spare paper with her. “I can check,” she fumbles out, knowing this would prolong a conversation that isn’t really that, with some prepubescent hope that her folly plan will work.
Ei gives her an acknowledging nod and continues to stare, watching as Yae digs through a bag for a spare paper she’ll never find. She hasn’t thought about what she’ll do once she has to break the news that she doesn’t have any paper and she’d just been digging in all the wrong places in hopes of prolonging an interaction that happens once in a blue moon. Seconds later, she lifts her head again and the corners of her lips pull into an awkward smile. “Sorry, I don’t have any,” Yae replies apologetically. Ei doesn’t make a fuss about it and turns away like it didn’t matter that she asked anyway.
She picks up her pencil and continues to etch the lead tip against the paper. Each scratch makes a soft, repetitive sound that can only be achieved by sketching at the hands of an expert—wasting no action to melt into the fluidity of drawing. Yae, compelled to see just what has captured her attention so deeply, steps forward to look over her shoulder. She stands, noticing the sketch of a fox on a piece of lined paper that is occupied by other doodles.
“Don’t you usually prefer to sit on the other side of the classroom?” Yae asks, clueless about the fact that she’s been staring more at the artist than the art in the working. In her eyes, it would seem like there is only one masterpiece in front of her. Ei clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth in annoyance, and it could easily be mistaken by anybody else as her disinterest in the conversation, but the latter is observant to know that she’d simply made a mistake in her drawing.
“Someone else wanted the seat,” Ei laments once she has gotten over her frustration. “I didn’t want to argue so early in the morning so I let her have it.”
Yae thinks, at that moment, the world is toying with her heart. She hasn’t ever gotten so close to Ei—not without feeling like she’s ruining the conversation, or being so persistent that she accidentally gets on her nerves with that stupid, over-enthusiastic personality of hers. She tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear and leans forward, a small smile quirking up on her lips.
“You like to draw a lot, don’t you?”
“It’s more comforting than academics,” Ei remarks, her voice as stiff and monotonous as an artificial voice, or it could be that she’s not quite interested in having a conversation at all. She continues to slide the tip of her pencil against the paper dexterously, holding the pencil at such an angle such that the shade of grey on the drawing is lighter. She’s creating shadows around the fox she drew from scratch, as though animating it and blessing it with a breath of life. Yae, for once, finds herself enamoured with the drawing instead of the hundred ways she could continue a conversation that is fated to be unsuccessful.
“I look forward to sitting beside someone as talented as you,” Yae happens to mention, not because she meant for flattery but because the words slipped off her tongue in the intimacy of the moment. Ei’s hand relaxes around the pencil and she stops drawing to turn her head. Their faces are close, closer than they’d realised when their heads were looking in the same direction and not right at each other. Her eyes widen briefly, like some actuality graced her. Yae looks at her and beams, the sun lighting up her face with a warm, red glow as the curtains are yanked open by a classmate.
Ei suppresses a smile. “I’m not very talented.”
“I think you are.” Yae’s smile widens.
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yae miko (to: yae miko) Today 04:29
oh god, it’s so hard
it’s killing me
It shouldn’t be so difficult to watch. Not when she has been over this with herself thousands of times—memorising the perfect words to blurt in a moment of panic, slapping herself on either cheek in a feeble attempt to drill any rationality through her skull or promising herself that she would not make the mistake of falling too deep.
She should have known, from the beginning, that it would be awful to love. Her heart speeds up routinely as she watches Ei walk into the classroom at perfect timing, on-the-dot as she is on every other day. A can of coffee in her hands and her jacket wrapped around her waist—she looks terribly attractive this way.
Yae leans her head against the edge of her palm, following her with her gaze longingly. She knows Ei will not look in her direction, or even turn her head from the path along which she’s walking because she is stoic and obedient to her schedule. Even then, she feigns ignorance and turns her head away, drumming her fingers against her laptop. Her empty screen illuminates her face in the dark classroom but she has learned to hate darkness from how uneasy it leaves her due to the anonymity of it all.
Yae purses her lips together, watching Ei settle on the desk beside her. In a clean, polished motion, she unties her jacket from her hips and pulls out a worksheet from underneath her desk.
A sigh leaves Yae’s lips as she forces her gaze away from her classmate, the tips of her ears flushing bright crimson from the heat she cannot control. Her heart aches in all the worst ways—twisting at the thought of being so far from Ei despite being only a metre apart, flaring at the memory of every time their fingers have brushed and alas, the slow descent into chaos every time her mind misunderstands simple words. Yae lifts her head, groggier than the first time and her fingers jittery.
Restlessness is not a fair word to describe the insanity that comes with being in her place. In the vastness of it all, pining for a classmate who will never reciprocate should not be so hard.
Yae’s gaze turns on instinct, falling on Ei affectionately. She presses her lips together, her hair obstructing her vision yet leaving her enamoured by the mere sight of her. She should be focusing on her work, especially when she has tests in the week to follow and a stack of undone assignments piling up in her file. She slouches in her chair, slapping a hand over her eye. The sound comes louder than intended—a few heads turn in confusion but a final glimpse tells Yae that it wasn’t enough to perturb Ei.
She feels something lodge itself at the edge of her throat—unsaid words, maybe, or the suffocating feeling that visits her irregularly in moments like this when the epiphany is crushing enough to remind her of the fact that she is undeserving of any attention at all. The corner of Yae’s lips twitches into a small smile, a knowing one. She stares at the blank wall ahead of her instead; her heartbeat thumping in her temples.
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yae miko (to: yae miko) Today 04:22
it’s really killing me
i had a conversation with one of her close friends and it really feels like there’s no hope for me because
she’s closed off and uninterested in romance
i shouldn’t be interested in romance, i’m young and i have so much to do with my life
Yae leans back against her chair, glancing at the empty seat beside her and then the front door of the classroom. She pulls her headphones over her ears, turning her head over the shoulder a final time to confirm nobody has been watching her. She has to leave for a class in fifteen minutes and, to her, it’s plenty of time to finish an incomplete draft she’s yet to work on or homework that’s pending from the week before. She is, in no way, lacking work but her mind is farther than it could ever be from school. It’s terrible—this discomfort that clenches its talons around her heart.
Her hands are in the wrong places and her mind is scattered, driving her attention off anything except the clock that’s in constant motion. Yae taps her foot against the ground impatiently, her hand bouncing with her shaking lap. Her headphones are wrung uncomfortably around her neck, at a particular spot on her shoulders that feels heavier than usual. She takes a deep breath. I should probably go. Maybe she’ll spend the last minute in the canteen.
Yae thinks of standing, of leaving the classroom and running into her in the middle of the corridor and regretting the missed opportunity for a conversation.
She turns her head to the pressure of a door opening, sitting up in her chair. Ei saunters inside, her phone in her hand and staring blankly ahead. Upon noticing Yae in the classroom, still in her spot while doing nothing at all, she raises an eyebrow in curiosity.
“I thought you wanted to leave early,” she notes, sliding into her chair.
The same as other days, she places her phone on the table and shifts her things around to organise her table—or, sufficiently, make an attempt at it.
Yae hums in acknowledgement, averting her gaze. She fumbles with something—anything to make it look as though she’s been busy and not waiting—and pauses for a few moments. She searches her mind for anything that would make sense at the beginning of a conversation. “I’ll stay until the end of this period and leave. I don’t have anything better to do anyways,” she replies, the safer option. Yae turns to look, leaning back against her chair with feigned playfulness. A smile leaves stars in her eyes.
“Not gonna lie, I don’t see the point in coming to school anymore,” Yae laments.
She isn’t the best at conversations, apart from rambling about the numerous complaints she has on the daily or spouting nonsensical jokes that are barely enough to make people laugh. She watches Ei’s expression carefully, everything from the way she slowly moves her papers together or fumbles with her phone without doing much in particular. Ei’s eyes curve as a smile grows on her lips—and, God, it’s so charming. It’s what’s so sickening about liking her, that she doesn’t need to be perfect to do unthinkable things to Yae—and love unravels from things as little as harmless smiles.
Ei nods her head, halfway in agreement. “Me neither. I don’t feel like staying in school on most days.”
“You could always go home,” Yae raises an eyebrow. It’s a bold suggestion, something that wouldn’t be considered by the latter altogether, knowing her model-student attitude towards school. She’d much prefer to miss the entire day rather than leave halfway and have to explain to her parents that it has nothing to do with her health. Yae has pulled the excuse on numerous occasions—faking migraines or, well, naturally being stressed enough to have a headache bad enough to allow her an early release home. “Besides, we don’t have anything important today. Just breaks, I think. No reason for you to stay. I don’t want to come to school either since nobody’s face is pretty enough for me to look at all day. My friends aren’t a good enough reason for me to come either.”
“Same,” Ei replies simply, leaning against her chair. She has turned ever so slightly, just enough to face Yae and look at her properly. She rarely does this because she’s always so focused on what’s in front of her, shifting her things around her table or more interested in the matters of her phone rather than a proper conversation with anybody—much less Yae. There is a pause before she continues to speak. She cups her hands together over her lap. “Sometimes... I’m scared of my friends.”
“Why would you be scared of them?” Yae furrows her eyebrows. She doesn’t mean to sound as confrontational as she does but there’s no retracting her words or clarifying to wear down the harshness when Ei looks up at her with an awkward grin and fidgety hands. An expression like this—it’s new, something that Yae has never seen before. It’s strange , most of all, and no amount of time would help her understand the flurry of emotions that swirl within her. Her mind keeps a photograph.
Ei shrugs, looking away again. “I don’t know how to explain it.”
The bell chimes overhead; a fitting end for the exchange. Yae lets out a breath. Absent-mindedly, she stares at the space between their knees that are centimetres away from touching. She grimaces under her breath and stands, aware of the students filing into her classroom. You’re getting too ahead of yourself. The teacher from her next lesson doesn’t take nicely to tardiness, especially when there’s a free period before the class. Picking up her bags and then fixing her hair, she prepares herself to leave. From the corner of her eye, she can see Ei staring at the ground, waiting for something to say.
Yae chooses to ignore it. “I’ll see you… whenever, I guess,” she waves, sliding her chair back in.
“You should attend classes more,” Ei tries to persuade. She makes a particular expression, one that’s easily readable and suggests strongly against a certain someone’s habit of skipping classes when her interest wavers. Don’t overthink it. Don’t read into her words. The latter purses her lips, knowing well what she’s hinting at but she only offers an ignorant smile.
“You never know, maybe I’ll disappear for good.”
To such a dark comment, Yae doesn’t expect a proper reply. She presses a hand over her chest when she has turned her back to the girl behind her, dizzy with joy. She takes a step forward, and then another until she hears a voice call out to her. All within a moment, her heart flares once again with life and Yae whips her head towards the sound—but the moment that follows, the split second in which time freezes for her, it would go down in her memories as something far better than the preachings in age-old novels.
Ei frowns at her and points. “Don’t you dare.”
Three words to charm her. If only they’d been something else.
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yae miko (to: yae miko) Today 04:18
i liked her before, last year
i convinced myself it was just admiration
this year, i got to sit next to her but she’s so perfect and she’s everything i want to be
…but i want her so badly too
As soon as the lesson ends, Yae is the first to rise from her seat. Her chair screeches as it’s pushed back roughly, clattering against the table behind her. She snatches her books off the tables but it seems none of her classmates seem to mind her loud packing. She’s been watching Ei who looks perfectly focused beside her, busy with a worksheet or one of her many activities that keeps her attention occupied. Yae clenches her jaw when she feels the familiar ache return to her heart before it squeezes. The trepidatious feeling of standing right there, unnoticed, has her turning her head away with her fingers wrapped too tightly around her books. I’m going, she thinks to say. It wouldn’t matter to her.
Yae leaves the room, her absence unnoticed. Stepping out of the room is the only chance she gets to breathe in a while. Her lungs, however, don’t leave much space for oxygen than it does for pain. She coughs, her chest weak and sore from the fickleness of her feelings. She trudges along the corridor, unable to soothe her mind despite the privilege she has to spend a second without Ei’s lingering presence.
Going outside, however, brings her to the uneasy realisation that there’s no place for her to sit at the benches outside. She likes it best here because it’s always covered in a shadow and dimmer than the other parts of campus, and— sometimes —quieter than the library itself. Yae accepts the sight with a sigh of acknowledgement and makes a turn around the staircase at the end of the corridor.
She finds herself in a perfectly comfortable position at the bench on the floor below. It’s warmer than she would like it to be but it’s her fault for wearing a vest and then her jacket in predictably humid weather, something she pays no heed to once she settles down. Yae lays out her things, scanning the disarray while avoiding the speckled dirt and splotches of paint on the benches at once. She presses her hands against her lap, staring at nothing at all. Her focus has vanished. This is the only time you’ll get to do work on your own without being disturbed by anybody else. Focus. Focus.
It isn’t as easy in reality as it sounds in theory.
Yae opens the cover of her laptop, picks up a pen and starts to do the homework she should’ve done two weeks ago. She pulls her headset over her ears and thankfully so, it’s enough to persuade her into working. She manages to commit to it for a while—this being, ten minutes and only two pages into a worksheet thicker than the Constitution—until Yae’s attention is conveniently grasped by the silhouette at the top of the staircase. She watches.
Ei stands, squinting her eyes at the benches. She turns her head around, as though she’s looking for someone. Her friends from class are not far behind her—Kokomi and Sara, even Ayaka, but it doesn’t make sense for her to be searching for anybody else. For a second, she happens to look down the stairs and in Yae’s specific direction, where she would swear upon them looking eyes. She taps her foot against the ground restlessly, perturbed by the fact that she’s losing control of her mind because of Ei’s distant presence. She’s not looking for you. She’s searching for her own friends elsewhere.
But Ei gets closer, far closer than she should for somebody who’s searching for her friends elsewhere until she invades Yae’s peripheral vision and makes her presence known. Sounds drowned out by the music she’s blasting into her ears, Yae doesn’t notice the latter’s presence until she realises that the silhouette has been lingering for too long. She raises her head, pulling her headphones away with a tilt to her head. Just before, she scans the surroundings—two empty tables and a free bench that’s not cluttered with a person and her disarray of worksheets.
“Can I sit here?” Ei requests, vaguely formal as though they’re not classmates. Yae could not blame it when, after all, their interactions don’t go far beyond a simple exchange of smiles and a boring exchange of words that barely make up a conversation. It’s one-sided on most occasions. Occasionally, two, but they are never about anything fun. Yae forces a smile and nods. This will be fine.
She leans her head against the edge of her palm, drawing her pen against her worksheet aimlessly in her quest to divert her attention away from Ei’s painfully obvious presence. She draws shapes, writes words that string into half-sentences, and searches through her file until twenty minutes of dawdling brings her to the realisation that she has not been productive in the least. Yae looks up hopelessly, staring at Ei who hasn’t once tried to strike a conversation since her approach. She’s focused. I wish I could do the same. Her cheeks flush at the sight of her eyes.
They’re beautiful.
Especially so with the buttery light of the morning sun shining into them from behind, reflecting an aureate, ethereal shine into her vibrant purple eyes. Yae hides her face behind her hands, revealing flushed cheeks only through the gaps between her fingers. It doesn’t take long for the latter to catch on to her staring. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“The way the sun is reflecting into your eyes makes them look so bright,” Yae blurts. It isn’t instinct.
Ei pauses for a moment, stunned by the compliment. Her lips curl into a hapless grin which she can barely hide with her sheepishness. Ah, she is bad with compliments. Yae smirks, only out of affection for the situation and holds her gaze with a teasing lilt in her own eyes. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” the latter questions with a short laugh. It’s curt; more of a sound than it is a laugh. It suffices.
“A good thing. It makes you look pretty.” A heart beats faster in response.
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yae miko (to: yae miko) Today 04:18
looking at her is like standing somewhere and reaching out for someone who’s a whole world away from me and i’m running towards her but i walk straight into empty space
it’s killing me because nothing happened and losing feelings won’t hurt anyone
it’ll be for the better
Ei stands with her hands pressed against a classmate’s table, watching something with utmost curiosity. It’s obvious from the way her eyes have widened and the way she’s leaning over as though she might climb onto the table altogether. Yae groans, running her hand through her hair and messing it up but doing so doesn’t make it any easier to snap herself out of it. She has written a grand total of one algebraic equation on her homework when she has to finish the entire page by the end of fifteen minutes.
9x - 7i > 3 (3x -7u)
Yae turns her head again, expecting to see Ei on the other side of the table, inspecting whatever she’s been looking at with more detail or focus. She would have liked it if she was—she’s attractive when she’s deeply focused on anything. Her gaze falls on the arm wrapped around her shoulder and Sara who has her chest pressed against Ei’s back.
It’s an innocent gesture between friends, one that could not possibly bear any meaning when Sara’s doing so only to get a good look at the paper they’ve been analysing. She should not be feeling this—the flare of jealousy in her heart and the twisted rage that comes with it.
Yae clenches her hands around the seams of her jacket. They’re friends. This is what friends do.
I have to focus.
She approaches them instead. She folds the slip of paper with the sum in her hands, concealing it behind a clenched fist. A wide grin grows on her face as she walks up to them, standing in between them so they can’t continue the conversation. Sara looks up at her, and for a tense moment, they lock eyes with furrowed eyebrows. Her expression contorts into an annoyed one as she rolls her eyes, turning her head away from Yae.
Then, a hand brushes against Yae’s, and a curious voice asks, “What’s that?”
Yae looks up at Ei, and the question seems to catch Sara’s attention as well. She leans forward, chin resting against her palm and lips covered by her fingers. Yae glances in her direction, noticing the intent staring on her part, eager to know what’s in the paper. The corners of her lips twitch into what is half-removed from a smirk, opening her palm. She hands it to Ei, who unfolds the paper curiously and stares at the question with her full attention.
She stands with her expression stiffened in the same position, and two minutes later, Yae worries from her lack of movement that she doesn’t like the pick-up line. Then, like the flip of a switch, a smile grows on her lips, even reaching her eyes. She leans forward, picking a pen off Sara’s desk and starts scribbling something on the scrap piece of paper.
Yae feels her palms get jittery from waiting, wondering what she could be writing so hastily. Sara’s staring too, trying to decipher what’s happening.
Ei looks her in the eye and hands her the paper, making sure it’s faced downwards. She returns her attention to her friend once more, obviously stifling a smile. Yae turns her head away, wondering if her pick-up line had really done any good if it meant she’d talk to someone else again. She unwraps the paper, slowly walking back to her seat. In Ei’s handwriting, right under the equation, writes—
i <3 u
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yae miko (to: yae miko) Today 04:29
every time i tell myself i’m so sick of liking her, she does something to my heart and i find myself
falling even harder than i did the first time
and it’s so bad because i shouldn’t keep liking someone i have no chance with
but it’s always her and i don’t think i can love anyone like i love her
And somewhere along the way, Yae doesn’t realise how much deeper she’d fallen into something she was so surely pulling herself out of.
She convinced herself, over the months of sitting beside Ei and spending time with her, that there’s enough about her that she could love like a friend—after all, if they become close enough by the end of the year, they’d still be a thing for a while. Except, every time she feels that strange pull in her chest when she sees Ei smiling for someone else, and the ember of a dangerous flame threatening to ignite when she leaves with someone else, she’s convinced she’s too far gone.
She’s been scribbling on her paper for a couple of minutes now, with a disturbed expression. Her eyebrows are furrowed down and her eyelids are almost completely covering her eyes, making it look as though she’s tired when, really, her head is filled to the brim with traitorous thoughts. Upon ignoring the voice calling out to her for a few minutes, a hand eventually grabs her wrist and makes her look up. Yae raises her head to find Ei calling out to her. She stares at her lips, then at the hand that’s holding onto her own, and with the terror of a thousand, her heart starts drumming once more.
“We have chemistry,” Ei reminds, raising her voice.
Yae, still swimming in a daydream, mistakes it for something entirely different and straightens her back in surprise. “You think so?” she gapes.
“It’s on our timetable,” Ei sighs, pointing at the printed timetable on her desk. She releases her grip on Yae’s risk and starts walking away, not wanting to be late for the lesson in the laboratory. Yae, still trying to grapple with what her stupidity made of her, shoots out of her chair and starts throwing her lesson materials together, proceeding to run out of the classroom before she embarrasses herself forever.
“Sorry, I was a little out of it,” Yae apologises, lowering her head sheepishly. Her cheeks are flushed from running across an entire corridor to catch up to the rest of her class that is walking in a uniform file up to the lab, all with a thick chemistry textbook and a practical manual in their arms. Ei shrugs nonchalantly as a gesture to assure her that she didn’t care, and didn’t mind, but she turns her head away to hide a smile. Yae doesn’t notice it, nor is she as sharp as she was months ago to be able to deduce it with logic. “Do you want to be partners for chemistry?” she asks.
“Sure.”
“Do you want to know a pick-up line?”
“Trying to flirt with me?” Ei cocks back, raising her eyebrow in an unimpressed manner.
“Trying to steal your heart,” Yae replies smoothly, catching the latter off guard. She smiles proudly at her achievement and takes the silence as her invitation to continue. “Are you copper—”
“No—”
“Because I Cu in a relationship with me.”
“Stop talking.”
“Bet you think we have great chemistry though—”
Ei pauses on the stairs and turns around, pressing her palm against Yae’s mouth. Her expression darkens for the entirety of a second, and the latter feels her blood run cold. She clamps her mouth shut in obedience, although she believes it’s a matter of time when both of them become aware of the thunderous beating in her chest. “Stop talking, for your and my sake,” she warns, and like she’d done nothing at all, continues walking up the stairs, leaving Yae behind.
Her lips part in shock and her gaze shifts mechanically to the ground, essentially combusting on the spot.
…
Ei doesn’t speak to her for the first half of the lesson. She seems to keep her attention fully on the teacher, whom she isn’t too fond of, to begin with and jots down notes on the small memo pad she carries around with her. Yae glances in her direction ever so often, wondering what’s on her mind—whether she’d actually gotten bothered by those god-awful pick-up lines of hers. She wonders if she owes an apology, but she figures she’d owe an apology for worse things if that were the case. Somewhere during the lesson, Ei pulls Yae’s worksheet towards her and starts sketching something on it.
Having not paid attention during the class, Yae decides she’ll take the opportunity to speak to her teacher while her worksheet is occupied either way. She approaches him at the other side of the laboratory, counting her questions on her fingers so she’ll remember them all. Somewhere during her discussion with the teacher, curiosity gets the best of her and she glances in the direction of Ei.
A shiver runs through her body and the burning warmth returns to her chest once more, as indigo eyes find hers, a pretty, little secret hiding in that deep colour. Ei averts her gaze almost immediately, leaving no time to think if Yae had only dreamt it up. She clears her throat as her teacher calls for her attention again, trying to keep her mind from wandering elsewhere.
Back at her desk, hidden on one of the pages, is a portrait of Yae.
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And at the end of the year, Yae understands that it’ll never get better. She’s two weeks away from finishing the academic term, and once it’s over, she’ll be moving on to a new class in the next grade. She’d indulged in a fantasy she spun out of dreams and hopes that could never be, clinging onto every moment with hopes that someday, they’d be so much more than stolen glances across Chemistry labs, accidental hand brushes during lessons, or graphite portraits on worksheets.
Yae fears she’ll look back at the gallery of doodles on her worksheets when she’s packing them away, and she’ll remember everything she had over the past year—everything she wants so badly, but can’t have once they’re no longer in the same class. She imagines Ei sitting beside somebody else, drawing on their worksheets or talking to them over coffee, and it makes her heart twist. It’s an ugly feeling—this, knowing that what they had for a year isn’t forever, that she shouldn’t be counting on small things built into one big thing when feelings like this will eventually fade.
She doesn’t know what she’ll do when it does, when she isn’t relying on things like astrological placements and personality typology to pinpoint things that are intrinsic to her personal peace, or searching for their initials on tarot videos because somehow it’ll mean they’ll get together. She doesn’t know what it’s going to be like, not having her on mind when she’s singing to an overplayed teen romance song, singing, dreaming about the day when you wake up and find / that what you're looking for has been here the whole time and whispering ‘I love you’s between each stupid, ignorable interaction. She doesn’t know what she’ll do when she isn’t looping the same gesture for days in her head, because six months later and she’s still thinking about the one time they sat together during lunch.
Yae slides forward against her desk, pressing her cheek against the table. She stares at the sleeping Ei beside her, face covered in a shadow from the closed curtains. Her expression is relaxed, and it’s the only time in the day when she doesn’t look so intimidating—but Yae has gotten used to the mildly terrifying part of her over the months. A glum light washes over her eyes, leaving them glassy in its wake.
She reaches a hand out to Ei’s, left open against the gap between their tables.
Their fingertips don’t touch.
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yae miko (to: raiden ei) Today 11:11
what if i told you
i liked you