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Ritsu was doing everything in his power to ignore Suzuki Shou, floating upside down outside his classroom window, but his patience was thinning and any second now he was going to punch him through the glass.
But he couldn’t-- he was stuck sitting with his back straight as a board, sweat on his brow as he kept his expression flat and pretended he couldn’t see Shou puffing his cheeks up and smearing his face across the glass.
Somehow someway no one else seemed to notice him. As the teacher turns away from the blackboard towards the students she doesn’t turn to the window in shock or amazement. Students who’ve checked out long ago are lazily staring at the clouds and not the idiot smudging the glass. There’s a girl with her chin in her hands and staring through Shou as he breathes fog on the glass and draws whiskers and cat ears over her.
Ritsu watches him out of the corner of his eye, glancing at the clock every few seconds. In exactly ten minutes he is going to launch Shou into space.
Five minutes to go. Ritsu is going to develop an aneurysm.
Two minutes. He gives in to his homicidal urges slightly, pretending to accidentally knock his pen off his desk only to telekinetically grab Shou’s hoodie as he bends down to pick it up, sending Shou into a tailspin that sends him up past the second floor and finally (finally) out of view.
When the bell rings Ritsu forces his limbs to fill with lead and stiffen so he doesn’t bolt out the classroom like he's on fire. He just silently and slowly grinds his teeth as he puts his notebook in his backpack and puts his pencils in the designated pockets (pens on the left side, rulers and erasers and other little things on the right) and then leaves calmly.
He glances through every window he passes as he walks through the halls, into classrooms and out towards the sky as if Shou is haunting him. He sees some kid with red hair and freezes, rushing out a half-assed apology to the girl who ran in behind him when he realizes it’s some boy who used a splotchy home-dye kit and keeps walking.
Anxiety makes him look around every corner as he walks up the stairs toward the roof, anxious that someone would see him and question him even though it’s never happened during the hundreds of times he’d escaped up here. Still, he digs his lunch box out of his bag and holds it in his hands like it’d work as a social shield. But the roof is thankfully empty and quiet when he shoves the door open.
A strong breeze of fresh air hits him first, giving him a moment of pause before the door shuts loud behind him. The sky is big and bright and blue with barely any wispy clouds to obscure the sun. The air has that early morning chill still clinging to it; not quite enough to make him shiver but just so that he can see the faintest edges of his breath in the air.
Ritsu isn’t surprised to see Shou up there as well, walking along the top of the chain link fence around the ledges and holding his arms out beside him like he’s on a tightrope. He can hear him singing some lyric-less song under his breath to himself that sounds like carnival music. Ritsu’s heart gulps when Shou slips to one side, only for Ritsu to curse his own stupidity for daring to worry about him when Shou just floats back up without a hitch.
He doesn’t look in his direction as he asks “what did you bring for lunch?”
“Why are you on my school’s roof?” Ritsu asks instead of bothering with a response. Shou pouts his bottom lip out as he looks at Ritsu, his humming dying in his throat as he jumps down from the fence, almost instinctively shoving his scarred hands in his pockets before remembering who he is with.”I dunno. Why are you?”
Ritsu rubs his hand down his face and groans, glaring at Shou’s cheshire grin through his fingers. “Don’t dodge the question. What are you doing here, Shou-kun--”
“Just ‘Shou’ is fine.”
“-- why were you floating all around? Do you really have nothing to do, Shou? And how in the world did no one else see you?” Shou perks up at that last thrown in question, (definitely just something Ritsu thought of last minute, not that he’s interested in how Shou managed to pull that off or anything) looking like he was going to float off the ground. “I just figured that out a bit ago! You know how like, everything we see is just light reflected into our eyes, yeah?”
He paces back and forth a little bit, rubbing his hands together and throwing them in the air and flapping his hands exaggeratedly as he explains. Ritsu doesn’t interrupt him, just listens. “Well, like. The whole vanishing trick has always just been about moving light around me y’know? So I was thinking like ‘hey, can I control what light goes into peoples’ eyes?’ So I’ve been experimenting a bit with some squirrels in the back and-- in short, I made it so the light bended around me for everyone but you. Kinda.”
At some point Ritsu had sat down near Shou, on the ledge with the chain link fence digging in his back. He had a mouth full of his teriyaki chicken rice when he coughed out a muffled response. “I don’t sh.. think that’s how light worksh.” Shou huffed and threw his hands in the air, his grin giving away the ruse that he was fed up with Ritsu. How he easily sat beside Ritsu so closely that it was like they were connected at the hip didn’t help his faux annoyance either. “I mean it’s not but it is. Like maybe it’s not how light should work but it’s how I can work psychic powers with light, yeah?”
“Sure,” Ritsu shrugged, smacking Shou’s wandering hand away from his lunch box, “I don’t get it but okay. Why are you here though? Actually?”
“Can’t I just miss you?” Shou scoffed, continuing on before Ritsu’s face warmed too much. “I’m gonna come to this school soon, actually.” His brain stuttered for a moment, leaving him staring at Shou. He was wearing a bright yellow hoodie with a bear’s face on his chest, rounded ears on his hoodie grabbing Ritsu’s attention only for what he said to properly register. “Wait, like. As a student? Or are you coming to this school as in you're gonna be living in the walls like a rat?”
“Nah, walls are too thin,” He hummed, “I’m going to be enrolling! Like an actual student! Crazy, right?”
“Y… yeah. Crazy.” Ritsu nodded, silence stretching for a quick moment as he mindlessly ate. Shou hummed some song in English under his breath, head leaned back and eyes closed as he faced towards the sky. Ritsu couldn’t help but break the silence. “How is that gonna work, though? I mean, you’re dad is--”
“Currently locked away in an undisclosed high security prison that is completely unknown by nearly the entire world?” Shou said quickly, his tone dry. “Yeah, obviously he’s in no position to sign any papers. It’s not like I’d ask him anyways. I’ve forged some signatures and my lackeys are playing the part of parents in they need to.”
Ritsu wanted to ask about his mom. It’d been a while since he properly saw Shou like this, and he’d thought Shou was staying with his mother after all these years. He could vaguely recall Shou being excited about getting to ‘catch up’ with her. He wanted to ask, but maybe not on a school roof with a few minutes before the bell rings him back to class. “Can you really forge his signature?”
He laughed, making sure to move his whole head as he rolled his eyes. “Obviously! I could copy any signature you gave me, I swear it! Hey, write you name on my hand I bet I could--”
Ritsu didn’t react to the bell ringing, Shou’s whole body flinching as he nearly jumped straight out of his skin, his figure flickering out of visibility for a second. He looked to Ritsu with wide eyes, who smiled back at him with a laugh. “That’s the bell. Lunch is over.” Shou whined as Ritsu stood up, flipping his backpack against the fence and shoving his lunchbox back in it half eaten. “I have to go back to class.”
“You could skip.” Shou said, deflating as Ritsu stared back at him in silence. “Or not, you nerd.” He hovered a few feet off the ground, crossing his legs and digging his elbow into his thigh, tapping his chin. “Who knew you’d be so diligent and devoted and loyal to the bell, Riichan.”
Ritsu rolled his eyes, turning towards the door. “Don’t call me that. I’ll see you in the halls, then?” He said, not knowing he was talking to empty air until he turned around and saw he was seemingly alone. Ritsu frowned at empty air, saying a goodbye he was sure was heard before vanishing through the door.