Work Text:
Kisa feels like the last few days swept through her like a whirlwind. Like something came through and tossed everything into the air and she’s still waiting to see how it will all land. Like it’s all just floating there, and whenever she tries to reach for something, she just comes away with empty hands. Usually, she’ll fall back into rehearsals whenever things feel uncertain. If nothing else, she has a script, and a role, and something to practice. But today, even that won’t work. Neji-senpai is, even now, reworking the whole thing. The Charles she was chasing after, the Charles she couldn’t quite find, and the new Charles that she and Sou-chan and Fumi-san made up together. She trusts Neji and Sou to make it work, to find something stronger in it, but right now, she doesn’t know what that is.
And then there’s Fumi. Everything new she’s learned about him — about last year, about all the weight he’s carrying — she can’t unsee it, now. All that weight she’ll have to stand against on stage, and that the whole play will be holding. Weekend Lesson must have been carrying it too, but she’d been too caught up trying to figure out how to play a Jack to see it. It had taken her much too long to think she understood all that Kai-san was supporting, as a vessel, and it meant changing everything at the very last minute.
Now, she thinks, she didn’t really understand at all. She didn’t understand what it meant to be a vessel for Fumi. In standing next to Fumi like that, Kai was also shouldering so much of this. Her upperclassmen are so, so strong. If only she knew exactly what to train herself in to be able to help more. Once she sees the new version of Charles, maybe she can. But that still leaves the question of today.
She walks around the pathway in front of the school, trying to think it over. Shirota-senpai is recovered now, and seems determined to make this stage better, so maybe he wouldn’t mind helping Kisa practice singing? Or maybe she should work on her stamina. Suzu-kun is still supposed to take it easy, so she can’t ask them to run together, but he always knows all sorts of ways to make running more effective — things that he learned back when he was practicing Kendo. Maybe he could show her some of that, and watch her practice? She turns the corner, and starts pacing the next length of the school buildings exterior. Kai did say she could always ask for help, maybe he knows some good exercises for Jack practice. Since, whatever form Charles will take, it’ll be different than Mukai. Or maybe —
“KISAAAAAAAA!!!!”
It’s loud, and high pitched, and projected very effectively across campus.
“M-Mare-chan?”
And running towards her, at full speed, too. “Wh-what’s wrong?”
Mare runs right into her, without stopping, and collapses against Kisa’s side, a little out of breath. “Thank goodness I found you,” Mare says. “Oh, Kisa, it’s terrible!”
Her head swims. With everything already seemingly in free fall, it’s quite the sensation. “Did something happen?”
Mare looks up at her, balefully. “I can’t find my mitten!”
“Your…” Kisa has to make sure she heard that right. “Your mitten?”
“Yes!” Mare pushes off from her side, and tugs at the hem of a long sweater. “My mitten! One of the new ones my big brother got me for my birthday!”
Kisa has to stop herself from smiling and laughing in relief. The look of distress on Mare’s face is undoubtedly genuine but… at least it’s just a mitten.
“Kisa! This is life or death!” Mare insists.
Kisa fights to keep the light feeling she feels, suddenly, out of her voice. “Okay, okay, don’t worry. I’ll help you look for it.”
Mare beams, through what looks to almost be tears. “You will? Of course you will!” And then Kisa is being hugged, tightly. “Oh you’re the best. The best!”
Kisa pats Mare on the back. Well, that solves the problem of what to do today, at least. “What’s the mitten look like?”
Mare sniffs, slowly pulls away from the hug, and then pulls out a phone with a different sparkly blue case on it than before.
“Is that phone case also a birthday present?”
Mare shakes it up and down and the glitter within it swirls. There seems to be less anxiety in her voice when she continues. “You like it? Yuki got it for me. That’s right, you had to go before we got to presents.”
“I did? Wait— was Monday your birthday?”
“Duh,” Mare says, mostly back to normal. “You were there at the party, remember?”
Kisa remembers being dragged by the arm to the Rhodonite training room, and sitting with Mare and everyone and eating fancy pastries, and also almost starting a really long and complicated looking board game. Then Minorikawa and Shirota both came in, and Shirota said he wanted to go over the new adjustments for one of the songs.
“I didn’t realize that was your birthday party, I’m sorry, Mare, I should have gotten you something.”
And now she’s being hugged again. Quickly this time, at least. “Oh, you really, really are the best. You didn’t even know it was my birthday and you still came to hang out. We’re totally gonna have to hit, like, a bunch of shops though, you know, I mean…” She trails off, a faint blush on her cheeks.
Things seem settled enough for Kisa to laugh, lightly, this time.
“Yeah, I’ll get you something for sure. You think you left it in one of the stores?”
Mare puts a finger to her lips, thinking. “Well, I had both of them on Thursday, you remember it was super cold in the morning. But then it was so nice yesterday, Yuki, Eiko, and I totally bailed on practice and went shopping, and I think maybe they were still in my purse… hold on, let me get a picture.”
Mare flips through her phone and pulls up her instagram account. There, dated to Monday, is a picture of Mare’s hands — judging by the bracelets — in a pair of mittens. They look expensive.
“They even open at the top and turn into gloves so you can still use your phone. Plus, it came with a special kind of lining that makes your hands super soft.” It sounds almost like a sales pitch. She won’t get anything this nice, probably, but maybe, while they’re out, Kisa thinks, she should look for a cheap pair for herself. It is getting rather cold.
“Big brother says if I wear them, maybe my hands won’t get all chapped and ugly this winter like they always do.”
Mare scrolls up on the picture feed. There’s the tray Kisa remembers, now with only one solitary little cake left on it, and there, speeding past, is the board game, she’s pretty sure, and the phone case and several pictures that go by too fast to see. Mare stops on an image of three steaming mugs, covered in whipped cream and cinnamon, set on coasters that look to be made of maple leaves. It’s uploaded, from the time stamp, yesterday just after noon. Around this time, she would have—
“Isn’t that a good picture?” Mare says, interrupting whatever Kisa was thinking about. “I took so many but the steam looks so perfect in this one, right? It’s like. Professional!”
“Yeah,” Kisa says, paying more attention to the way the steam is caught in a beam of light, now. “It’s a really nice picture.”
“Tell me you’ve had one.”
“Had one?” Kisa feels lost again.
“The hot maple cinnamon apple cider from the cute little cafe by the old bookstore? No way you haven’t had one yet, it’s already been out for ten days.”
“Ah…” Kisa rubs the back of her head, sheepishly. “The old bookstore on Himehiko Way?”
Mare tilt’s her head. “There’s an old book store there too? How many old book stores do they need? I mean the one right near the end of Tamasaka Hills. You know, the cafe with all the cool coasters? You really haven’t gotten one?”
Kisa doesn’t know it by that, but she’s pretty sure she knows the place Mare means now. “I guess not…”
And before Kisa can even think another thought, she’s being dragged towards the school gate. “Well, you gotta! Plus, we’ll ask if they’ve seen my mitten while we’re there.”
“Right,” Kisa says, as they head down the stairs and into town.
The staff at the cafe have not, in fact, seen the mitten in question. But Mare insists they stay and get drinks, anyway. Kisa orders the one Mare tells her to, and Mare gets something called a “red velvet hot chocolate kiss,” which comes with a chocolate shell on top that melts into the deep red drink below.
Mare takes a bunch of pictures of it, in various stages of melting, before frowning. “Kisa, can I have some of your whipped cream?”
Kisa hasn’t even started in on her drink yet. “Sure?”
“Awesome!” Mare takes the spoon that came with hers, and scoops the top half of the white wisp from the top of Kisa’s drink, and places it, carefully, on what’s left of the chocolate on the other. And then the phone shutter starts snapping again.
“Yes!” Mare says, followed by a contented sigh. She turns the phone around and shows Kisa the picture. “I’m totally posting this one.”
The cider is good, if a little too sweet to finish all at once. And the coaster is really pretty. They’re a clear acrylic, inlaid with real maple leaves. Mare says they change them out every season, and for special occasions too. Apparently, they sell some after they switch them out for the next set.
As they leave that shop and head for the next place — the stationary store, from the order on Mare’s Instagram — Mare leans in and whispers, conspiratorially, “It’s a really dumb business model. Who’s even buying maple leaf coasters in December? Everyone wants sparkly Christmas ones then.”
“I guess?” Kisa says. The maple ones look so nice, though, that Kisa thinks she wouldn’t mind using one all year round.
The stationary store is a barrage of colors — pastels mixed with the reds and yellows of the season, sprinkled with the neon of highlighters and the full rainbows of marker sets. To get to the counter and ask about the mitten, they have to pass through a maze of different shelves full of pens, paper, cards, and stickers.
Mare stops in front of one of the sample sets and picks a bright, vivid blue marker out. She uncaps it and stares, intently, at the little notepad made for testing out the supplies. Then, she takes a long, careful breath, and scrawls something across the page, hidden from Kisa’s view by her arm. When she lifts the pen and steps aside, Kisa can see Mare’s name, in four looping English characters, with a little heart at the end.
Mare is looking at Kisa looking at it. “So,” Mare says, “what do you think?”
Kisa isn’t entirely sure how to answer that, but, “It’s cute,” she says.
Mare’s face almost glows. “You think it works? For my signature, I mean.”
Ah, so that’s the context. “It’ll really stand out in English like that.”
Mare picks a different pen, a kind of turquoise color, and hands it to Kisa. “Your turn!”
“My turn?” Kisa takes it, unsure. “I haven’t really thought about it…”
“You gotta! It’s like. Super important! Here, try one!” Mare pulls Kisa towards the notepad. There’s still space on the same sheet Mare used.
“O-Okay, here I go.” Kisa tries to imagine what her signature should look like, but all she can really come up with is how she writes her name on homework. So that’s what she does. There isn’t really any flare to it.
Still, Mare stares down at it intently.
“I changed my mind,” Mare says, sounding kind of serious. She rips the page off, and tucks it into her purse. With the same blue pen as before, she writes, this time in Japanese, just the one character of her own name. There’s… almost a ting of red around her cheeks when she steps aside. “Now you. Just your first name.”
Kisa takes the pen she’s still holding, and writes her own.
Yeah, there’s definitely a bit of blush there as Mare stares down at the paper this time. She tears this page off more gently than the last. “I’m gonna practice writing mine like that too, now,” she says, still looking down at it. “You know… because that way…” she trails off.
“Huh?” Kisa looks down at the paper, to try to figure out what Mare means.
Their names are written on it, one above the other.
稀
希佐
“You see?” Mare says. She traces the first character of Kisa’s name with a finger, the nail painted a soft pastel blue that’s similar to the other name on the page. “If we both write it like this, they kinda…”
“Oh!” Kisa says. “You mean the kanji for your name and mine?”
Mare folds the paper closed and stuffs it in her bag, looking away. “Y-yeah,” she says, a bit unsteadily. “It’s like. A super cool coincidence, right?”
“Yeah,” Kisa agrees. “It’s pretty neat.”
“Anyway!” Mare says, a bit too loudly, “we gotta ask about my mitten.”
That’s right, that’s why they’re here. Mare walks purposefully through the rest of the rows and up to the counter.
They haven’t seen the mitten either.
Neither has the candy store, though they do leave with a few bags of seasonal flavors. Nor has the music place. Same for the board game store. Still, they spend quite a while in there, as Mare explains the differences between a competitive and collaborative game with examples Kisa’s never even heard of. The store clerk, on the other hand, seems impressed. They end up walking out with two new games for Mare’s collection, and one that Mare insists Kisa take back to Quartz, that she’ll have to figure out what to do with later.
Next on the list, by yesterday’s pictures, is the vintage and second-hand clothing boutique that stretches over several store fronts. There are a lot of pictures from here. The woman working near the front recognizes Mare as soon as they walk in.
“Mare-chan!” She says, placing the armful of clothes she was hanging up over the rack. “I’m so glad you’re here! Remember, yesterday, Kaori-chan said we were still sorting through a really big haul? I found the cutest things in there, and—” She seems to notice Kisa then, who has been standing off to the side, holding the bags from the game and candy stores. “Oh, you brought a new friend today? Well,” she bows, slightly, towards Kisa, “any friend of Mare-chan’s is a friend of mine!”
“Oh, uh—” Kisa bows herself. “Nice to meet you.”
“This is Rina,” Mare says, “and she’s like. Basically in charge of all of fashion ever.”
All of fashion ever? Kisa takes in the woman’s appearance. She looks to be in her 20s with her hair dyed several different colors and styled into careful curls that frame her face. She’s got more piercings than Fumi, and one of them is on her eyebrow. She’s wearing a purple jacket with lace accents that closes off to the side in a sort of zigzag, and an equally asymmetric skirt. And, without staring, all Kisa can say is at least three different belts. Kisa suddenly feels extremely plain in her jogging pants and sweatshirt.
Rina laughs. “What Mare-chan means is that I’m in charge of curating the selection here from the second-hand, vintage and consignment clothes we get.”
“Yeah,” Mare says, eyes sort of sparkling, “like I said. You basically decide what’s fashionable enough for Tamasaka, and that basically decides what’s cool enough everywhere! Plus —” Mare turns back to Kisa. “That means she gets first pick of the cutest clothes! Kisa, you should totally ask her to pick you out something!”
“Ah…” Kisa starts, and realizes she really doesn’t know what to say. This is all a lot, very fast. Mare seems so at home here. The second-hand stores Kisa has been to before are nothing like this — just places to get clothing a little cheaper. She wouldn’t even know what to ask for.
“Kisa’s super cool, and looks good in anything. Dresses, suits, pants, skirts, oh, I bet you’d look so good in a yukata too. Even sports clothes!” Mare gestures, vaguely, at the outfit Kisa has on that feels more out of place by the second. “So it’s like. Where do you even start? Rina, you’ve gotta help us!”
The way Rina looks at her then reminds Kisa a little of Fumi, somehow. Kisa instinctively moves the shopping bags over her hips. “Ah, um, Rina-san?” Kisa suddenly isn’t even sure what register her own voice is in. She clears her throat and tries again. “We’re actually looking for one of Mare-chan’s mittens.”
“Oh?” When Rina turns to look at Mare, the carefully wound curls on her head bounce like springs. Kisa feels, suddenly, a bit like them herself. “Do you have a picture?”
Mare takes out her phone, and Kisa stares out across the rows and rows of racks. There’s so many different kinds of clothing here, organized in a way Kisa can’t even figure out, that they start to lose their identities as shirts and pants and jackets and start to look just like wild cuts of fabric, if not just piles of pattern and colors.
“Hm,” Rina says, “I don’t remember seeing anything like that, but if you did drop it here, it might be in the back. It’s a nice mitten, we’d probably be looking to see if we had the match somewhere.”
“Big brother got it for me,” Mare says, for the first time since they entered the store looking less than completely confident. “So I really need to find it.”
“Well,” Rina says, “I’ll be sure to check thoroughly. In the meantime, why don’t you two take a look around the shelves, just in case we missed it there? Speaking of Tsukasa-san, I have a few things from the new batch set aside, whenever there’s time.” Rina starts walking off towards the back of the shop. “Oh,” she says, turning around part way. “Kisa-chan was it? When I’m done, I’ll pick you out something nice. Cool and androgynous, right?”
“Uh—” And before Kisa is forced to answer one way or another, Rina disappears behind the curtain. Kisa just stands there, watching the fabric of it ripple as it settles back to stillness. And then Mare’s pulling her by the arm into the sea of color and texture.
Kisa decides to look for the mitten. There are so many different accessories placed all over, on top of the racks, or at the edge of shelves, it’s enough of a task to keep her busy. Mare floats through the clothes like she’s flying, like she can see, in a glance, things Kisa doesn’t even know to look for. Before long, she’s holding a stack of clothes almost half her own size.
“Do you want me to hold those?” Kisa offers, since it seems the polite thing to do.
“Really?” Mare says, half-muffled by the fabric weighing her down. “You’re such a life saver!”
And then Kisa is holding them, and with them, the sudden realization that anything half the size of Mare’s body is going to be just as bad, if not worse, for her. She… isn’t sure why that didn’t occur to her, or how she could have lost sight of it.
“Did you want to try all these on?” Kisa asks, trying to balance them less precariously in her arms.
“After I find a few more. You gotta tell me how they look!” And then Mare is off again. Kisa looks, as best she can holding them all, through the clothes. There’s a cute sweatshirt with a rabbit on it, a long skirt with tule underneath so it’ll puff out when worn, a sky blue blouse with a scalloped collar, a pair of purple corduroy pants, a white sundress and— and that’s as far as she gets before Mare is back with an emphatic, “Okay! Ready!”
The changing rooms in the back are lined up one next to the other with large white doors in front of each and a little indicator for whether or not it’s in use. Mare picks the one at the far end, and Kisa helps hang the clothes inside, before sitting herself down on the bench nearby. Ao told her that every time they met up, Kisa seemed more stylish than the last, but right now she feels anything but certain of that. Cool and androgynous, huh?
Mare comes out wearing a black short pinafore over a white blouse whose sleeves billow out from the sides, all over a pair of blue leggings. “So,” she says, “what do you think, Kisa?”
“I like the sleeves,” Kisa says.
“You do?” Mare pokes at them. “I’m worried they’re kinda too much. Wait, let me try this instead.” The door closes again. Kisa lets out a long slow breath and leans back against the wall. A couple walks up to the changing booths from the rows of the store, and Kisa watches the young man help the woman he's with put everything in one of the other changing rooms. When she’s closed behind the door of it, the man rubs at the back of his neck with a sigh. He looks over at Kisa, and nods, in a kind of camaraderie. Kisa offers a smile back.
She’s suddenly aware again of the pressure around her ribs, one she’d quite forgotten about all day. She feels like, maybe, she’s forgotten about a lot most of the day.
Mare opens the door again, and it cuts the man off from Kisa’s vision. She isn’t sure how she feels about it.
This time, there’s a thick knit sweater over the pinafore and instead of blue leggings are the black one’s Mare was wearing when they came in. She looks at Kisa waiting for an answer to a question Kisa guesses she’s supposed to just intuit.
“It really reminds me of autumn,” Kisa says, hoping she’s guessing right. “It looks super cozy.”
Mare beams, so that must mean she wasn’t too far off. “It is!” Mare says. “I thought maybe the sweater would be too baggy but with this—“ She tugs on the bottom of the dress, “it still looks super cute, right?”
“Yeah,” Kisa says. “Totally.”
Mare goes back inside for the next outfit, and that woman who had come in after them opens the door to her changing room. There’s a mirror on the inside of it, and Kisa ends up looking at herself, sitting on the bench, as the couple talks. She wonders what it is she’s looking at. Her own baggy sweatshirt that hides most of any shape under it. Loose pants over wrapping to keep her hips looking more narrow. When that man looks at her, does he see a boy? What about Rina? What about Mare? What does Kisa see, herself?
It occurs to her that this entire day, she’s been thinking of both Mare and herself as girls, just out for a day together. That once they walked off the steps of Univeil’s campus, by Mare’s side — going to the cafe, and from store to store — she’d been acting just like she used to when Ao took her out during middle school. She isn’t even sure she acts that way when she’s with Ao now. Now that she’s a Univeil student. A Univeil student…
Mare comes out of the changing room again, this time wearing those corduroy pants and an oversized pale blue cardigan over a different blouse. It looks cute.
Is that how a boy would think? A girl? A Univeil student? A Jack? a Jeanne?
“Earth to Kisa!” Mare is saying, waving her hands in front of Kisa’s face.
“Huh?” Had she really zoned out that badly?
Mare leans down so her face is right in front of Kisa’s. She bites at her lip, as if she were thinking very hard about something.
“Is— Is there something on my face?” Kisa asks.
“Nope!” Mare says, rocking back on her heels. “Not even any makeup. Your skin is so good it’s totally unfair.”
Kisa reaches up and touches her own cheek. “You think so?”
“Totally! We’re supposed to go to the makeup store next, but you don’t even need any.” Mare twirls around, and strikes a pose. “This outfit rocks, right? It’s adorable.”
Rina arrives, then, saving Kisa from having to decide how she’s supposed to answer. And which role she’s supposed to play to do it.
“No luck on the mitten. Love the look, though, Mare-chan. It’s just missing— hold on.” Rina navigates the store so effectively it looks almost rehearsed. She comes back holding a belt, a bag, a scarf, and a hat. “Don’t forget accessories — they make or break any outfit.” She flicks at the choker she has around her own neck. Mare puts the offered items on, then looks at herself in the mirror on the back of the door.
Rehearsed, huh? When was the last time Kisa even thought about rehearsals? Listening to Mare talk about the special drinks at the cafe, or, excitedly, about board games in terms Kisa never heard before, or when they were playing with pens in the stationary store… she hadn’t thought about Charles once, the whole time. She hadn’t thought about the stage, even when they were practicing signatures, had she?
“I said, doesn’t Rina just have a magic touch? Kisa, are you okay?”
“Fine!” Kisa says, quickly. Mare and Rina are both looking at her now. She grips at the bottom of the sleeves of her boring, baggy, unfashionable sweatshirt. “Really,” she says, “I’m fine.”
Mare smiles, as if coming to a realization. “But you’re clearly super hungry right? That’s why you look so out of it. Low blood sugar!”
Kisa laughs. It’s so easy to do around Mare, somehow. And maybe she is kind of hungry. “I guess I could go for lunch.”
Mare claps her hands. “It’s settled then!” Then she looks down at them, half covered by the sleeves of the cardigan. “Oh! I’ll change back, and then we can pay for the ones I’m totally taking. You’ll hold the rest for me, right?”
“Anything for my favorite customer,” Rina says. “You too, Kisa-chan. Come back any time and I’ll help you pick out something that suits you perfectly.”
“Thanks,” Kisa says, “I appreciate it.” Though right now, she has no idea what that could possibly be.
They end up leaving with three more bags and no mitten. Mare leads Kisa to the restaurant the Rhodonite freshmen had lunch in yesterday, just in case the mitten is there. It isn’t, but the sandwich Kisa ends up ordering looks good, and once Mare is done with the Instagram pictures, tastes good, too. Plus, it’s nice to put the bags down and take a bit of a break.
“So that’s the end of the first phase of the game. Simple, right?” Mare is saying, trying to explain the game she insisted Kisa get for Quartz.
“I really think you’re going to have to come over and—” Kisa’s phone buzzes in her pocket. “Hold on.” She pulls it out and looks at the display. “It’s Minorikawa-senpai.”
Mare pushes Kisa’s phone away when she goes to answer it. “I don’t want to hear his stupid voice,” she says. The phone keeps ringing. Mare looks really, genuinely angry, not just the normal level of annoyed she always looks like when Minorikawa asks her to come to practice.
“Did something happen?” Kisa asks.
Mare pulls in on herself in the seat across the way, and fiddles with the straw on her drink. “Minorikawa is a big dumb meanie, is what happened. Whatever he wants, I don’t care. Just tell him to leave you alone.”
“Mare-chan…” The phone is still buzzing in her hand. When she goes to unlock it, Mare doesn’t stop her. She just looks down at the table.
“Minorikawa-senpai? Is everything okay?”
“Are you with Oshinari?” comes the voice from the other end. He sounds stressed, but then, Minorikawa often does.
Mare scrunches up her nose. Kisa guesses everyone in Rhodonite must have really good hearing. Kisa doesn’t say anything — suddenly in the middle of a fight she knows nothing about.
“That’s you in the background of all those Instagram pictures, isn’t it?”
Mare takes out her phone and swipes through it, furiously. From the other end of Kisa’s own, Minorikawa makes some kind of sound of frustration.
“It’s too late to block me, Oshinari, I know you’re there.”
“Uh,” Kisa says, “Did you need something? Did something happen?”
“None of them will reply to my texts or answer the phone. All week it’s been like this. How are we supposed to even have a show ready for the festival at this rate.” He sighs. And grumbles, a little.
Mare makes a face, clearly meant for Minorikawa.
Kisa feels very, very out of her depths, in a totally different way than she had with the board game or the clothes.
“Did you want me to tell Mare-chan something?” She says, trying to be diplomatic.
“Whatever it is,” Mare says, “I don’t care.”
“Fine,” Minorikawa says, to Mare, rather than Kisa, even though the phone is not on speaker and still up against Kisa’s ear, “don’t come crying to me when Tsukasa-senpai finds out you lost your new mitten.”
“Wait,” Kisa says, “you found Mare-chan’s mitten?” She looks over to Mare, because this is good news, right? But Mare’s face just looks sour.
“I’ve been trying to tell Oshinari about it for two hours. It was in the practice room, and I figured I’d save us all from what would happen if Tsukasa-senpai found it first.”
Kisa doesn’t know what is supposed to happen in that situation, but Mare seems to.
“We’re in town having lunch now, is it okay if we finish up first? Sorry to keep you waiting, Minorikawa-senpai.”
He sighs again. “It’s fine, Tachibana. Thanks for actually picking up. I’m going to be in here practicing for a while, so just tell Oshinari not to forget, okay?”
“Okay,” Kisa says. “See you, and thanks.”
Mare scoffs, silently, at that. Kisa hangs up the phone and places it back down on the table. She’s not sure what to say, considering Mare seems to have heard the whole conversation already.
“I’m glad we found your mitten, though,” she says, finally.
Mare pokes at a french fry. “I guess.”
The entire mood is different than it was before. Kisa is just glad Minorikawa was calling about that, so she doesn’t have to feel bad about picking up. After all, it’s what they came out here to do, right?
“We don’t have to rush back, you know,” Kisa says, even though Mare heard that part of the conversation, too. “So we can finish our lunch.”
Mare takes a slow sip of her soda. “If you want. I’m not really hungry anymore.”
“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Kisa asks, a little hesitantly. Minorikawa has been nothing but nice and helpful to her, but she knows there’s some kind of tension between him and the Rhodonite first-years. Usually it seems to be over practicing, but she doesn’t feel sure, anymore.
Mare pulls her knees up to her chest in the seat. “I told you. He’s just a big meanie. That’s all.”
Kisa doesn’t want to push, if it’s not something Mare wants to share on her own. Everyone’s advice when Sou and Suzu were fighting was to let them work it out on their own but… Kisa isn’t sure this is the same kind of thing.
“Hey,” Kisa says, “do you wanna order dessert?”
Mare perks up at that, a little. “I guess I am still a little hungry, if it’s for dessert.”
They end up ordering a piece of pumpkin spice cake that comes with a chocolate truffle shaped like a pumpkin on top, sitting on a bed of whipped cream. It arrives on a special plate and everything, like it was made for Mare to take pictures of, as much as eat. Kisa’s just glad Mare still had some appetite for it, because after a whole sandwich, it’s a little rich to have more than a couple of bites. Still, Mare looks happier, at least.
When Kisa, Mare, and six shopping bags leave the restaurant, the afternoon sun is hitting the buildings of Tamasaka Hills just right to make the windows look like they’re on fire. The glare makes it hard to even see all the way to the path back to campus. Mare seemed hesitant about going back, even if it’s to just get her mitten. Even when Kisa said she’d go and get it from Minorikawa herself, Mare didn’t seem to want to leave town just yet. And, well, there is one thing Kisa meant to do while they were out and hasn’t yet.
“Do you mind if we stop at one more place before heading back?” Kisa asks.
Mare’s smile is almost as bright as the sun off the buildings. “Of course not!” she says.
“You sure?” Kisa asks, “It’s kind of out of the way from here.”
“Of course I’m sure! I wanna spend all day shopping with Kisa!” Mare grabs Kisa’s hand when she says it, over the shopping bag she’s holding there.
“O-Okay then, it’s by the station.”
That’s all the way at the other end of the street, but Mare starts pulling her in that direction as soon as she’s done talking, anyway.
Kisa isn’t really sure how to fill the silence as they walk, but Mare seems content to look in through the windows of the stores and occasionally tell Kisa about what’s inside as they pass. Kisa realizes that all these months in Tamasaka, she hasn’t actually been inside most of them. A few of the cafes, when someone wants to go out to eat, and Tamasaka Burger, which is Suzu’s favorite. There’s the music supply store she went to once with Shirota, and a bookstore, with Sou, but still, it’s a small percentage of what the street has to offer. There’s a store that just sells leather goods, and another that specializes in perfumes that she can smell just walking past. There are several jewelry stores and quite a few that sell makeup. Even one that only sells skin care from Korea. They pass a work-out studio, a nail salon, and two hair salons before Kisa can see the store she’s looking for.
“There.” She points with the hand holding less bags. “The toy store over that way.”
“The toy store?” Mare asks. “Oh! The one with the dancing rabbit!”
“Huh?” Kisa doesn’t know about that part. Maybe it’s a toy they sell.
“Yeah, there’s sometimes a dancing rabbit outside. Yuki, Eiko, and I took a picture with it this summer. Let me see if I can find it.” She starts scrolling through her phone. Kisa watches the blur of colors as the pictures go past, only able to see them clearly enough when Mare moves her thumb down to scroll again. Fall foliage gives way to the beach of Ayahama, as Mare goes back in time.
“There!”
Mare holds the phone out. Sure enough, it’s a picture of Mare and the rest with someone wearing a rabbit mascot costume outside the toy store they’ve almost made it to. “Whoever it was, they were a really silly dancer,” Mare says.
They push open the door to the tinkling of the shop bell. A man with mussed hair and bags under his eyes, but a kind smile, greets them from behind the counter. “Can I help you with anything specific today?”
Kisa looks over to the shelf she remembers seeing the last time she passed the shop. Good, it’s still there. Kisa goes to point, then pauses to shift the shopping bags around.
“Long day of shopping, huh?” The man asks, looking towards where Kisa was starting to gesture. “If you want, you can leave the bags by the counter and look around a bit, I’ll watch them for you.”
“That’s alright,” Kisa says. With her hand now free, she points at the top shelf of a display of stuffed animals. “Can I get that one?”
The man grabs a long pole from behind the counter and points with it. “This one?”
“That one’s so cute!” Mare says, from behind a display of smaller plush animals with big shiny glass eyes.
Kisa nods at the store owner, who expertly hooks a light blue stuffed bear by the ribbon around its neck and lowers it down to the counter. “Will that be all?”
Kisa turns to Mare who is staring at it with eyes almost as glassy and round as those of the toys. “Did you want anything else in here, for your birthday?”
“My… birthday?” Mare crosses the small store, dodging a stack of puzzles and a rotating shelf of model cars and trains to stand next to Kisa at the counter.
The store owner seems to understand, and addresses his next question to Mare, instead. “You want me to put it in a bag? We have one that almost matches it.” He pulls out a blue bag with a bit of a shimmer to it, and starts stuffing it with tissue paper without waiting for a reply.
“Kisa,” Mare says, “You. Are. The. BEST.” She holds the bag like it's something sacred, and the way her face glows when she looks inside makes the stuffed bear seem like it may as well be made of shining gold.
“I love it,” Mare says. “I really love it.”
Kisa laughs. “I’m glad. Happy birthday, even though I’m a little late.”
“Happy birthday,” the man behind the counter says, as well.
Mare is still staring into the bag. She reaches in, and strokes the head of the bear inside. “It’s so soft.”
In that moment, all Kisa can see is a regular teenage girl. The sort of girl who might have noticed a teddy bear walking past the store the other day. The sort of teenage girl who might have several stuffed animals dear to her, on her bed at home.
As they start to leave the store, the shopkeeper says, “I look forward to the Autumn performances. Break a leg, you two.”
Mare doesn’t seem to notice or mind, still looking mostly at the new present. Kisa, for her part, plays her role well. She thanks him, and leaves the shop, and does it all without any indication of how suddenly dizzy such a simple thing made her feel, for a second.
Because they are Univeil students, aren’t they? That girl’s stuffed bear is sitting there, all alone, because it had seemed like the kind of thing no Univeil student would have brought with them. If she’d known that she’d meet someone like Mare here — someone whose eyes sparkle like gemstones looking at a stuffed bear — who would swing the shiny bag around with so much glee — would she have brought her own, tucked into her suitcase? Does Tachibana Kisa the Univeil student like stuffed animals?
They pass a store selling Univeil memorabilia on their way back from the station, and Kisa thinks about the dolls in Mary Jane, and the fact that there’s going to be a doll made to look like her. Or made to look like Charles. But Charles looks like her, doesn’t he? Whatever form he’s going to take, it’s going to look like her. Kai’s words come back to her, about Mukai. That there are men who look like Mukai, that talk like Mukai. That she doesn’t have to be someone else to play a Jack, because of that. That the person looking back at her from the rehearsal mirror—
“I’m going to have to get you something even cooler than this for your birthday,” Mare says, pulling Kisa out of her thoughts.
Kisa laughs, matching Mare’s mood more easily than she’d thought she could. “My birthday’s in April.”
“Really?” Mare makes a face at that, that does nothing to hide how happy she looks under it. “I totally missed it, then! Next year, I’m going to have to get you two presents! I’ll start planning now. Just you wait.”
Next year, huh? Next year Kisa might not be here, at Univeil. If she doesn’t get a lead in the final performance, or if anyone finds out her secret, by the time it’s her birthday again, she won’t be here to get any presents.
“Okay,” she says, hoping Mare can’t hear any of that in her voice. “I’ll look forward to it.”
“You better!” Mare swings the bag holding the bear, and the other bag she’s carrying, around in a circle and near-skips down the street back towards campus.
What would Mare think, if she could tell the truth? What would Mare think if, by her next birthday, Kisa isn’t a Univeil student anymore? Mare, who loves board games and cute cakes and is singing, happy and high and sweet, some made up song about teddy bears as they walk — who seems, to Kisa, far more a normal teenage girl than Kisa can remember how to be herself. If Kisa were to become a normal teenage girl again, at the stroke of midnight like Cinderella, would they still be friends?
Her chest feels heavy, under the binding, pulled by the weight of the shopping bags and a thousand other things besides. The idea of a world where there was never a Univeil, where she and Mare met somewhere else — even as a quick and fleeting thought — stops her dead in her tracks.
“Kisa?”
“It’s fine, Mare-chan. I just…”
Just what? What was she going to say? She pulls for something — something that isn’t a lie, even if it can’t be the truth.
“I was just thinking. I had a lot of fun today, even if your mitten ended up being back at Univeil the whole time.”
The concern on Mare’s face melts away. “Me too! We should totally do this again, like. Tomorrow!”
“I don’t know about tomorrow,” Kisa says. She has to be ready for whatever the new script looks like, after all. “But some other time, for sure.”
Mare whines, a playful sort of whine. “Aww, but I wanna see what Rina picks out for you. And even if you don’t need makeup, you looked so cute in it as the Maiden, so we just gotta get you some. My big brother is the best at teaching people how to do makeup.”
Kisa doesn’t say she already knows how, or that she used to wear a little bit every time she and Ao went out. That she already has some — or had some, anyway. Back in that room with its lonely teddy bear. She doesn’t have to, right now, at least.
“I bet I’d learn a lot,” Kisa says, because it’s not a lie, either. It really isn’t.
When they get back to Univeil, they head right towards Rhodonite’s dorms. They place all the shopping bags down on one of the benches that overlook the small man-made lake that separates the dorm from the rest of campus.
“Minorikawa-senpai says he’s still in the practice room,” Kisa says, carefully, bracing herself for the shift in mood it will cause.
“You shouldn’t even be texting him,” Mare mutters. She’s clutching the bag with her new stuffed animal in it tightly.
“Well, it’s just to make sure we get your mitten back,” Kisa says. “You sure you don’t just want me to run in and get it?”
Mare kicks her feet. The bottoms of her thick platform shoes scuff against the pavement with a slow steady rhythm. “You’re really always so nice, Kisa,” she says, looking over the water. She takes a big breath in, and puffs out her cheeks. Maybe it’s just because they’re sitting outside Rhodonite’s dorm that Kisa thinks about it, just how big of a breath Mare can take. She is a singer, after all.
“No,” Mare says, determination in her voice, “I’m gonna go.”
“We’ll go together,” Kisa assures her.
They leave the bags on the bench and head over to the Rhodonite training room. As they get close to the door, Kisa can hear the sound of a piano being played. Whatever fight Mare and Minorikawa are having, Kisa just hopes they can resolve it quickly.
“Okay,” Mare says, steeling herself, “here we go.”
The music stops as they enter, but not before Kisa catches a glimpse of Minorikawa’s face as he plays — enough that she can see how the serene concentration melts off when he looks over towards them.
“Finally decided to come back to campus, huh?” he says, annoyance clear in his voice. Mare’s face is already set in a hard grimace.
“That was my fault, Minorikawa-senpai, I’m sorry. I remembered something I had to do in town.” It isn’t enough to defuse all the tension, but Minorikawa’s stance relaxes, just a little.
“It’s alright, Tachibana. I was going to be practicing anyway.”
Mare scoffs.
“Of course you wouldn’t know anything about spending your Saturday practicing.” Minorikawa glares at Mare, across the room.
Mare snaps back. “And you wouldn’t know anything about having fun with a friend!”
Kisa feels caught in the middle, being tugged from two directions at once. It feels kind of familiar. If this is what the fight is about, maybe she can help resolve it.
“You said you found Mare-chan’s mitten here, right?” Kisa says, trying to cool things down a bit.
“Right,” Minorikawa breaks the tense stare he's locked in with Mare, and pulls it out from behind a stack of music books resting on the piano. “I don’t know how your mitten ended up here when you barely even come to practice.”
“And I don’t know how you even knew it was mine, considering how little you cared about my birthday party!” With each volley of this match Kisa can’t figure out how to end, Mare’s voice gets louder.
Minorikawa rubs at his forehead. “Is that what all this is about? Seriously? Just because I didn’t want to play a five-hour board game and get my nails painted or whatever?”
“It’s not—” Mare says, face red, “ ‘Whatever!’ It was my birthday party! It’s bad enough that you made Kisa leave so early but—“
“Shirota wanted to go over something with—“
“NO!” Mare screams so loudly that Kisa jumps, a little.
“It’s okay, Mare-chan, Shirota-senpai really did want to—“
“It’s NOT okay. Mitsuki-sama looked so tired you could totally tell this was something he was roped into. Just because you,” she says, pointing at Minorikawa, “hate when Kisa actually has fun with me and everyone else.”
“Huh?” Kisa says.
“I do not,” Minorikawa says, “but some people at this school actually care about doing their best, and don’t have the time to get sucked into some endless board game on a school night.”
“You even admit it!” Mare yells.
Shirota really did take Kisa to practice, after that. But he had seemed really tired doing it, like his voice wasn’t totally recovered from the week before. She isn’t sure what to believe, right now.
“You didn’t get me anything, or even say happy birthday! All you did was grumble about the practice room, and call us dumb!”
“I did not call you dumb.”
“Yes you did! You said it was stupid that a bunch of—“ Mare takes a shaky breath, and squeezes her hands into fists. When she continues, it’s somehow even louder. “You said it’s stupid for a bunch of boys at an elite theater school to be spending all night playing games and doing makeovers!”
“Well it is!” Minorikawa says, not trying to match Mare’s volume. He presses a hand to the bridge of his glasses. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t get you anything but—“
“I don’t WANT anything from you!” There are tears at the corner of her eyes.
Kisa feels completely glued to the spot and utterly helpless.
“I don’t want a birthday present from someone who thinks everything that I like is stupid or dumb or—“ her voice cracks, a little. “Or wrong for me to like. And that’s why I told Yuki and Eiko to just block your number. If you hate everything we find fun, there’s no point in talking to you at all!”
“You… you guys actually blocked my number? So that’s why I couldn’t reach any of you all week,” he sighs, long and dramatic. “I’m just trying to get this class ready for the performance. Someone has to care about that.”
“I do!” A tear slides down Mare’s cheek. “But I also want to have fun sometimes. It was…” The intensity of her words sputters out, a bit. “It was my birthday. And you, you…”
“Oshinari…”
“NO!” The anger flares back up, and the volume with it. “My name,” she says, eyes blazing through the tears. “My name is Mare! It’s MARE!” It echoes around all the acoustics built into this training room, until it rings, just like a bell, in Kisa’s ears.
Mare stomps across the training room floor, snatches the mitten from Minorikawa’s hand, then turns and storms out. The door slams behind her.
Kisa feels like all her breath goes with it. No, like all the air in the entire room did. It’s suddenly hard to breathe. Even Minorikawa is silent, for a while.
Then he sighs, proof there’s still air in here, after all. “I’m really sorry you had to get caught up in the middle of all that, Tachibana.”
“It’s—“ Kisa starts. She isn’t sure how to continue. Because it’s not okay, is it? Mare looked so, so hurt. “I’ll go after her, and make sure she’s all right.”
Minorikawa slumps against the side of the piano. “Yeah,” he acquiesces, “you probably should.”
Kisa finds Mare sitting on the bench where they’d left all the shopping bags. She’s holding the teddy bear in her arms with a vice grip. Kisa sits down, cautiously, on the other side of the bench.
“Are you okay?” She asks, even though it seems like a stupid question. There are tears visible over the edge of the bear’s blue fur.
Mare shoves her face against the back of the plush, and mutters her reply into it. Kisa can’t quite make out what it is, not that she really needs to, to tell what Mare’s feeling.
“You’ll have to show me how to play that game some other time,” Kisa says. “And you can give me a makeover, too.”
“Really?” Mare mutters, around the side of the bear.
“Yeah,” Kisa says. “I don’t think it’s dumb at all.”
Mare sniffs, and lowers the stuffed animal a bit, so Kisa can see her face.
“Minorikawa-senpai is always so mean to us. He’s nice to you, and Mitsuki-sama, and everyone in Quartz, but he’s so mean to us. If he likes Quartz so much more, maybe he should just go there.” Mare pets the bear’s arm as she talks. “And then you can come to Rhodonite instead. You’d be a way cooler Jack Ace.”
Kisa laughs, softly. “You really think I could be a Jack Ace?”
“Totally!” Mare’s eyes, for the first time since they’d started towards the training room, seem to lighten. “You’d be the best Jack Ace Rhodonite could ever ask for! A Jack Ace who’s super cool, and doesn’t think it’s dumb or weird to like makeup, or fashion, or shopping. You’d be perfect!”
“I’m not sure that would make me a good Jack Ace, though,” Kisa admits.
“Of COURSE it would!” Mare says. “Because that means we’d be better as…” she shoves her face back into the bear’s fur. “As partners.”
Partners… Because to be partners, you have to understand each other. Understand what the other person is going through and what weight they’re carrying so you can carry it to.
She wonders if that means she can’t be a good partner, as she is. As someone who has to keep so many secrets, who isn’t even sure what form she’s meant to take herself. Kisa toys with the edge of her baggy sweatshirt. She’d fought so hard to figure out what being a Jack was over the summer. This term, she’d felt confident in it — like it was something she could do and do well. Now, she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know if she could be a Jeanne, either. Back in the board game store, trying to understand the difference between team and co-op, between deck building and drafting, she wasn’t any of those things at all.
“Hey,” Kisa says, looking out over the water, “Mare-chan?”
“Yeah?”
She wonders what the water is reflecting back. “If we weren’t at Univeil, you and I, do you think we’d still be friends?”
Mare grabs her hand. Kisa turns away from her own wavy reflection. “Of course we would!” Mare says. “I’d be Kisa’s friend no matter what!”
Kisa wants to believe it. She really, really wants to. That however this year ends, and whatever Mare learns about her, they could still play board games together, even if Kisa never quite understands all the rules. She laughs. Looking at Mare’s face, with streaks through the makeup, Kisa feels tears prick at the corner of her own eyes.
“Yeah,” Kisa says. “Me too. I’ll be Mare-chan’s friend no matter what.”
They sit there, holding hands, with the blue stuffed bear resting between them, as the sun starts to set over Univeil’s campus.