Chapter Text
Rei walked through the halls, filled with students that, but at the same time cold and lonely. Friends chatting and having a good time before classes started, sweet couples flirting with each other, some studying hard so they could be welcomed home with proud looks from their parents.
She felt like a freak, or like an alien who had been sent to the wrong planet, but still hoped to be reunited with her peers on a distant, utopian world. Sure, she had some friends, she wasn't a total weirdo either. Quite the contrary, she could get along in society decently enough. That was never the problem.
The problem was…
…
Suddenly, her steps slowed down. She took a book from her bag, "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" by Haruki Murakami, and pretended to read it to hide her gaze fixed on the scene in front of her. That weird boy, Denji, as usual, being used like a human chair, a girl she didn't recognize sitting on him as if that was the most normal thing while talking to her friend about a subject that didn't really matter.
Trying to appear casual, her back rested on the cold wall, only a few meters away from them. She was reading some occasional sentences in the book, something about unicorns, wars and penises. She wasn't really paying attention, her interest was in that boy with blond hair and a blank stare. Rei had met a lot of weird people in her life, herself included, but no one like him. Her mind couldn't even get an idea of how Denji's brain worked to go to such dehumanizing lengths for money.
She dropped her body to the floor, put the book away and took out her sketchbook and a pencil, and began to sketch Denji's face. His lost look, those dark circles under his eyes, lips that always seemed to be half-open, messy locks of pretty blond hair. But despite that disheveled appearance, his uniform was, for the most part, in good condition. It had a few scratches and loose threads here and there, and looked pretty cheap, but it was very clean, smelled good. Not that she sniffed him or anything.
Rei didn't think she was a stalker, at least not a dangerous or perverted one. She was just interested in such a peculiar character. She had drawn him so many times she filled an entire sketchbook full of portraits of him. She found her muse.
She wasn't sure if it was simple fascination, a bizarre form of love, or a sick obsession. Her feelings about him were unclear, the thoughts in her mind confused. She had never spoken to him, they weren't in the same class, gosh, they hadn't even crossed glances. The love option was impossible at the moment, even if her cheeks felt warm at the thought of him, she didn't know him well enough to come to that conclusion.
Nor did the obsession option make sense to her. Sure, sketchbook full of drawings of a complete stranger is kind of creepy, and more than once she had gone to sleep with images of him in her head, but that wasn't enough to call it an obsession. At least not in her head.
"... Simple fascination, that's it. Just that. I don't really care about him" She muttered to herself as she continued with what had become a detailed drawing.
Those two girls were still chatting as if Denji didn't even exist, he was just there, so still and quiet, without moving a single muscle, so rigid he could perfectly pass for a real piece of furniture. He didn't seem to be on the same plane as everyone else at times like this, which made Rei a little more confident when it came to staring at him.
But for a split second, the unthinkable happened. Eye contact, an introvert's worst nightmare. When she looked up, Denji was looking directly at her, it was short, maybe she was just imagining things, but he was definitely looking in her direction, that's for sure. Rei blushed heavily and ducked her head as much as possible, so much so that her back hurt. Lucky her, at that moment the bell rang and she ran out of there as fast as she could.