Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Please, leave a message after the beep.”

Beep.

“Hey sweetie! I know you’re asleep right now. Just wanted to let you know, I won’t be coming home this month. An earthquake hit Chile last night, and we’re being mobilized to help with the evacuation. Keep doing well in school. I’m so proud of you, and I love you.”

Click.

Chapter Text

In Ishigami’s Sophomore year of high school, he eavesdropped on some murmurs in the classroom’s back row and in his notebook wrote, “Lovesickness is a disease.” Like most ground breaking theories, he developed it at three o’clock in the morning on a caffeine binge, promptly forgot about it, then remembered it again months later, two hours before an exam he didn’t study for.

“It’s too bad we don’t sit closer,” Anno said. Subject one, last name Anno, first name Sachi. Daughter to an animated movie director and Tokyo voice actress who had a fling late one night in a recording studio. She worked on TV sets during the school year and had a small passion for sculpting. Her cherry-blonde hair and sunset-brown eyes were a stunning genetic combination, and they needed to be.

She stood beside subject two, last name Maeda, first name Koji, the Sophomore class’s scholarship student. Résumé: sixth highest test scores in the country, local and national high school swimming records, award winning percussionist, and amateur poet. Maeda ran his fingers through his shaggy brown hair and looked up at her from his desk. “We can get assigned new seats, but you need to inherit my last name,” he said, and they both giggled.

Like most diseases, lovesickness has a patient zero, a content pre-pubescent child turned into a rabid affection-seeking teen. Patient zero convinces an unassuming, but nonetheless vulnerable, individual to date them. This begins the plague. Others see the couple—whether the couple are happy is irrelevant—and become infected with the same intoxicating idea. Can I have that? they wonder to themselves, and at that moment, they are lost.

Both subjects showed symptoms.

“A—Are you sharing lunch with anyone today?” she asked. Trembling voice, shaking in the hands, lack of eye contact.

“I am unfortunately. Hokama needs study help again,” he said. Abnormal stiffness in the spine, inflammation around the face and neck, subconscious misplacement of gaze.

“Are you free tomorrow?” she asked. “There’s a new exhibit opening in the abstract art museum.”

There is no cure, only treatment. The prescription? Close contact with a second lovesick individual. It is no wonder, then, that the most susceptible age group ranges between eleven and eighteen, children who are in constant proximity of each other and who lack the willpower to ignore the symptoms. A psychogenic illness like no other.

“I’d love to,” he said, “But a commoner like me going out with a renowned director’s daughter?” He leaned his head against his hand and watched her with troubled eyes.

“A commoner? My parents aren’t shallow enough to believe in status.”

“Yet, you’ve denied many boys of much higher caliber.”

She paused, leaned in, and whispered into Maeda’s ear. Whatever she said must have been convincing. “Meet me at noon?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said, a wide smile creeping across her face.

Ishigami caught himself staring and looked back down at his notes. Luckily, Maeda walked by without a word. He sighed. What those two did was none of his business, and he wasn’t about to be grouped with the jealous lonelies. He threw his bag over his shoulder and left the room after Anno.

“Found you!” someone cried into his ear. Tsubame peeked out beside the doorway, hiding a giggle in her sleeve.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“Excitement,” she said. “Keeping you on your toes.” Her unzipped backpack overflowed with cheer equipment, and she held a flag pole toward the ceiling like a rifleman. “Eating lunch by yourself again?” she asked. Her voice popped with the same enthusiasm her purple highlights did.

“It’s quieter that way,” he said.

“Oh, then don’t let me interrupt.”

“You’re not, don’t worry. Want to join me?” he asked, but she shook her head.

“Sorry, I can’t stay. I did want to ask, though. It’s three o’clock tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah, unless you’re busy.”

“Nope, I already told the team we’ll be out.” She shifted the bag straps and turned to leave, but added over her shoulder, “Don’t forget, color guard performs next Friday.” She skipped away, disappeared into the sea of black and gold uniforms, and Ishigami cursed to himself.

There was once a point he believed himself immune to the disease, the cynic he was, but the opposite was true. He’d been infected four years. It lied dormant inside him and activated with the worst person possible.

How he managed asking Tsubame Koyasu out was beyond him. Cheer team leader, beautiful social butterfly, grades that made teachers jealous, and a generous heart meticulously crafted by the free spirit of Mother Nature. Paired with—by will of some comic genius—the game addicted, middle school flunky who projected his life with the forethought of a low IQ asteroid.

But he did ask her out, and she accepted.

He headed toward the north wing stairwell for lunch. This route had several advantages over his old one, a cleaner hiding spot during, shorter walking distance, and no committee members confiscating his devices. No one used the north wing stairwell unless they were accessing the observatory, leaving the third-floor banister all to himself. He sat down, leaned back against it, and pulled out his console. The game’s start-up jingle disconnected him from reality, a comforting nostalgia from a now distant morning. The rhythmic clicks of the joystick lulled him into the quiet isolation, devoid of lectures, homework, and disappointment.

He stopped. Voices appeared beneath him in the stairwell. He swapped the game with his textbook and listened as they grew closer one step at a time.

“It’s not about being assertive anymore. Your muscles alone might’ve carried you to marriage in the 1980’s, but girls nowadays appreciate a creative.” He recognized the speaker, Maeda.

“I’m not a beans for brains, Maeda. I’m protective is all, and girls like someone who can keep them safe on the streets.”

“Means nothing if you can’t afford her stability.”

“Otsuka could afford a princess stability, so why do you see him walking around single?”

“Where he’s blessed in riches, he lacks in good lighting.”

“Getting real tired of your poetry crap.”

“I’m saying that fewer deep sea explorers visit the Mariana Trench than they do the depths of his acne scars.”

The third, presumably Otsuka, butted in, “I’ll have you both know that many girls see past my blemishes, thank you very much.”

“Of course they do!” Maeda chuckled. “That’s the only way they can even make eye contact.”

They were coming up behind him, but with only one way down, he opted for the avoidant strategy. He opened the book to a random page, placed his finger on a paragraph, and scanned the text intently. In his peripherals, the three students appeared on the landing and stopped a few meters away.

“Seems our spot’s taken today,” Otsuka said.

“Maybe we can use the observatory. The dumb Freshman probably left it unlocked last night,” Maeda said.

Yes! Ishigami thought as Maeda checked the doors across the hall. Otsuka followed suit, but the third didn’t move.

“Hokama?” Otsuka questioned, glancing back at him. “Oh, that’s not good!”

Ishigami resisted the urge to look up, but Hokama made himself known. The man stepped in front of Ishigami, arms crossed and muscles expanding underneath the white button-up. His wide-spread stance betrayed his height, and he stared down with an expression that shifted rapidly between amusement and contempt. “You,” he seethed, closing the distance in a single targeted stride. He grabbed Ishigami by the collar and yanked him up into a standing position.

“Don’t start anything stupid,” Otsuka pleaded. He stepped between the two and pried the man’s arm away with the confidence of a beast tamer and the frail physique of a sun-dried tomato. “Please, forgive him,” he said to Ishigami. “He’s a bit on edge with exams.”

“Shut up, pebble cheeks. This demon is begging for a punch or two.”

Ishigami fought Hokama’s gaze. Even as Otsuka forced the man back, those hunter eyes dug into his skin, as if searching for his soul hidden underneath the thin layers of flesh.

Maeda returned to Hokama’s side and patted him on the shoulder. “Picking fights with student council members? Your diplomacy skills are unmatched as always.” He turned toward Ishigami, eyes smiling behind the overgrown bangs. “Forgive the poor man. He’s simply heartbroken. It’s a rather tragic tale if you have the time.”

“School drama isn’t really of interest to me,” Ishigami muttered.

Maeda laughed. “True, it is rather repulsive, but nevertheless unavoidable.”

Lowering his guard, Ishigami picked up his bag and watched the two wrestle each other. Yeah, Shuchi’in Academy held its roots firm in drama. The students in attendance came from prestigious family backgrounds, and many reveled in that fact. Even Ishigami’s parents afforded his tuition through the toy-producing conglomerate his father inherited.

Maeda was a rare exception, the only Sophomore scholarship student. Few made it into the academy on merit alone, and each served a purpose beyond simple demographics. In elite society, complacency killed dynasties and nothing motivated entitled teenagers more than competing against someone deemed “lesser”. He embodied talent, much to the dismay of his peers, and thrived in unfriendly rivalry.

The exact type of person Ishigami avoided.

The other two were special in their own right. Takahiro Hokama came from a long line of talented bodyguards. They worked with politicians, generals, CEOs, Yakuza, anyone afraid for their necks. Too young for professional contracts himself, Takahiro worked after-school as an amateur vigilante and dressed like a class-less 90s action star. He flaunted the strict dress code. Unbuttoned blazer, skin-tight white dress shirt, high black ponytail, and skin-tight pants that rode up his ankles. No one dared call him out on it, except Iino, but she was a different level of crazy.

Nobu Otsuka’s family manufactured pharmaceuticals and competed directly with overseas companies. His parents’ wealth came third in the country behind the Shinomiyas and the Shijos, but they amassed a similar influence. One couldn’t sneeze into a napkin without being touched by an Otsuka product, and Nobu, being the only heir, would eventually inherit that legacy. His confidence screamed leadership where his appearance did not. Tiny beside the hulking Hokama, he still strode through the room like the walls themselves knelt before him. Combined with the bright blonde hair and forest green eyes, he might’ve looked a young prince if not for his rough complexion.

Not helping Otsuka’s plight, Maeda perched atop the railing and stuck his legs between the balusters. If he feared the drop behind him, he didn’t show it. He grabbed a water bottle from his backpack’s side pocket and sipped it with the nonchalant air of a theater-goer while the two performers grappled each other. “Love is quite the substance,” he said between sips, “and the students here are psychotic enough without—I’d duck if I were you.”

Otsuka collapsed, and a fist swiped past Ishigami’s shoulder. He side-stepped the attack, but the rest of Hokama’s body slammed into him. His back struck the guardrail which creaked under the impact, and a sharp pain exploded in his spine. On instinct, he reached around the man’s head, gripped his ponytail, and yanked on it. A punch crushed his stomach in retaliation. Wheezing, he grabbed onto his shoulders. Hokama did the same, and they circled around each other in the narrow entryway. “Still standing, huh? Bean brain.”

“Not for much longer,” he admitted. His strength had evaporated, and his abdomen screamed out in pain. He stayed standing through caffeine and pure spite.

“The stories made you sound tougher.”

“Gossip is like that,” he said.

Hokama tripped, their aimless pacing leading him straight toward the stairs. Ishigami lunged at him and brought them both tumbling down. Fluorescent lights blurred around him as he spiraled down the flight. He shut his eyes and felt his descent through the stair step corners against his limbs. One step. Two steps. Three. Four. His face hit the third floor landing. He rolled across the hardwood and came to a halt flat on his back, groaning in agony.

Neither of them moved. He glanced up at Otsuka and Maeda who watched them from the top of the stairs, one in complete unspoken shock, and the other seemingly amused.

“That a draw then?” Maeda called out.

“I’ll let you win if you don’t report this,” Hokama said, a hint of worry in his voice.

“I’ll think about it.”

***

Iino stacked the papers on the student council president’s desk. In a perfect world, documents were sorted the day they were created. Disciplinary incidents were ordered first alphabetically, then chronologically; school statutes were hierarchical in scope and specificity; budgets were digitized, dated, and graphed for bookkeeping ease; and everyone adhered to the system until they either discovered a better method—which didn’t exist—or the school ceased operations. Little by little, page by page, she crafted that perfect world, and with the other student council members on their spring trip, her momentum continued unimpeded.

She slid the rolling desk chair across the room and pulled textbook after textbook out from the shelf. Chemistry, Morino, 2017. Philosophy, Takemoto, 1984. Subject, last name, publication year. Her eyes scanned the rows and her hands flew between the books instinctively, sorting them with robotic precision. She finished in record time without Shirogane and Shinomiya studying around.

Track switch, she flicked her phone on and swapped from a rainfall infused piano piece to the violin overlayed on night-city traffic. She rolled toward the glass cabinet. No one cleaned it except her, and a thin layer of dust already covered the picture frames. She grabbed a wet rag off the table in the room’s center and pried the glass door off its magnetic catch.

Good memories existed between the shelves. She picked one up, their first group photo as the 68th student council, and dug the cloth into the silver border—no polish, but it still looked shinier. She then wiped the picture from right to left. She cleaned the dust off her image-self, then Fujiwara, Shinomiya, Shirogane, and stopped short of Ishigami who peeked in from the photo’s edge. She hesitated, bit her lip, and put the frame back in its place.

He could clean it himself.

The student council treasurer and the auditor never got along. Like a cat in a shared box, she either tolerated his wasteful existence or buried her claws into his neck. It had been that way since middle school, and the student council was the new box.

While she slaved away, he lounged around the room sinking time into his games, movies, and internet feeds. Wore headphones around his neck in complete disregard of the code. Left chips and cookie crumbs on the table. Smelled like lime energy drinks. Arrived late for daily meetings, bloodshot and exhausted after three AM calls. And made her life difficult at every turn.

He crunched numbers. Those three words encapsulated the entire value he provided to the council, and even then he joined by the president’s invitation, not referral. The two were friends. He never would have been picked under normal circumstances.

“Once I’m president…” she muttered, scooting the chair back toward the president’s desk. She checked the clock on the wall. Ten past eleven. Predictable. She held her fingers up and counted the seconds down, “Three… Two… One…”

The door opened, and Ishigami appeared in the entrance. Blood trickled down his face from a gash above his left eyebrow, his neck-length black bangs stuck to his cheek, and his white collared shirt was stained bright red.

She leapt into action and yanked the first-aid drawer open. “Couch! Now! Head back, eyes shut,” she demanded. Seventy percent alcohol poured out first onto her hands, then onto his wound. He winced and clenched his teeth, but she continued. She knelt on the couch, legs to either side of his lap, tangled up in her dress. She cupped his face in her hands with a sterile napkin between her fingers. The isopropyl scent flared up her nose as she dabbed at his face, and the cut geysered under the added pressure. “Wound’s too big,” she said, opening a gauze packet and roll of medical tape. She pushed his hair back, pressed the bandage against his forehead, and plastered him with tape until everything held tight against his skin. “Clean it after your last class. If it’s not scabbed over by then, visit a hospital on your way home.”

“Okay,” he said, sitting himself up.

They were inches from each other. Her face already burned, and he wasn’t helping. She’d never been this close before. She could trace the individual blood vessels around his steel-blue iris and watch his eyes dilate in the window-lit room. She thumbed the bandage edge. “Where on Earth did you get a cut like that?”

“I fell down the stairs.”

“Again?” she said, reeling back in disbelief. The last time, she caught him mid fall and broke her arm in the process. Seemed among the other negative qualities, he also didn’t learn.

“Well, more accurately, I pushed someone and fell with them.”

“Oh, reliving the glory days, are you?”

“You know what? It’s got nothing to do with you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He pushed her off him, stood up, and grabbed his bag.

“Hey, we’re not done!”

“Yes, we are.”

“No, we’re not!” She drew a document from the president’s desk, slapped it down on the coffee table, and glared at him. “As a member of the disciplinary committee, I require that you fill out a report this instant.” Stubbornness ticked her off, and his concrete slab of a skull earned Stanford PhDs in mental gymnastics.

“Fine,” he said, not sitting down. “I think Hokama hit me because I asked Tsubame out.”

Iino dropped her pen.

“Either that, or he’s a friend of Otomo.”

“Thank you for your cooperation. You can leave now.”

“But I didn’t finish—”

She rushed over and shoved him out of the room. “I’ve got enough things to do without obligatory reports, so leave before you give me more useless work.” She slammed the door behind him and listened for his retreat. Once he disappeared, she leaned back against the double-doors and slid down until her knees touched her chest.

It happened. She heard the rumors, but hearing it from him made it real.

It made it hurt.

Chapter Text

At three o’clock, Saturday afternoon, the rain welcomed itself. While umbrellas fled the shopping district, and the storm assaulted the carnations in the flower beds, Ishigami stood outside and faced the wind. Hair soaked down his neck, jacket freezing against his skin, he reveled in the great fortune the weather brought with it. I can cancel. The temptation snaked its way around his brain, became palpable, became the only option. He needed a way out.

He got too greedy. The kindness she showed him during club meetings, the happiness she brought him when she crossed his mind, the comfort she provided him at his lowest moments, the passion she inspired in everything she did, he wanted to experience it every day. Now he’s all in and can’t take it back. He gambled it all on a confession, knowing full well it was a gamble he was bound to lose.

He lost once already.

Tsubame didn’t know. If she did, she would have refused him outright, but she’d find out eventually. He felt at the bandage across his forehead. Demon. That must be how Otomo saw him too. He could argue the title, but the evidence was stacked against him. Normal people don’t beat faces into pulps. He looked at his wet hand and turned his palm over several times as if studying a relic. That’s what he brought to the table, damage, in all its unjustified, unpredictable infamy. He didn’t deserve her, that much remained constant throughout all of this.

“Ishigami! Sorry I’m late!” Tsubame ran up beside him, rain boots splashing about with every stride. Triple purple, between the rubber boots, the jacket, and highlights, she looked stunning against the gray-scale sky. She held her lemon-yellow umbrella above his head and whined, “This weather came out of nowhere! What terrible luck.”

There, that look in her eyes, that moonlight glow, the natural glow she held everywhere she went. Against the clouded, gray-scaled atmosphere, she brought color with every action she took, and he smiled. Cancel? he thought. What the hell came over me?

“I hope it’s not a bother,” he said, taking the umbrella from her hand and holding it higher above them.

“Not for me, but I left you waiting too long. You’re all soaked.” She grabbed a hand towel from her purse and wiped the water off his face with soft, gentle strokes, brushing the bangs out of his eyes. She eyed the bandage. “What happened?” she asked, dabbing around the peeling adhesive.

“I fell down the stairs yesterday, it’s fine.”

“How? I swear, you must be more clumsy than I am.”

“Oh, you’re the type of girl that claims to be a klutz?”

“I’m more incompetent than anything,” she said. “People tell me I mess up a lot.”

“You seem pretty talented to me. You lead the cheer group, you’re almost top of the class, and I bet you’re a good cook since both your parents are culinary professionals.”

She giggled. “Nope, terrible cook. Also, my dad’s a bartender. Wouldn’t exactly call that ‘culinary’.”

“Close enough,” he said.

Lightning scattered across the clouds and thunder boomed overhead. They looked up and watched the rain for a moment in silence. In middle school, he only saw the sky from confinement. During those two years spent in monotony under the rules of suspension, the weather marked change where none existed. He drew pictographs between the date lines on his wall calendar, each logging the state of the world as nature chose it. It anchored him in its unpredictability.

You’re doing the right thing, he assured himself and turned to her. “Shall we?” he asked.

They roamed the district, popping in and out of stores at their leisure. It amazed him the kinds of items that stores made entire brands out of. Homemade scented soaps, books on occult practices, design biker jackets, wallet-sized purses, realistic paintings depicting nude models, and taxidermy birds without feathers. But even with the trinkets lining the walls, Ishigami paid attention to Tsubame.

She poked at lizard enclosures in a pet store, picked up musical boxes in the artisan's shop, and eyed fruit-cakes in bakery displays. It amused him the things she was interested in, and he realized how little he actually knew about her. They hung out during cheer practice and ran events together, but this side of her was foreign to him. Each store they entered brought out a new fascination in her mind, and he adored every quirk of her eccentricity.

"You prefer moths over butterflies?" he asked as they stepped out the doors of a boutique.

"There are several species of moth that are very pretty," she said, "And they get overshadowed by the bright colors. It's rather unfair."

"So if that dress had a moth pattern instead?"

"I'd probably buy it, yes," she answered, turning toward him. "In a butterfly dominated world, that's the least I can do."

"If you ask me, I don't think there's enough butterflies. They pollinate flowers, look beautiful under sunset skies, and don't eat your clothing."

"Butterflies drink blood too, but people don't care because the thing is pretty."

“Is it bad I see you as a butterfly then?”

She hesitated, he saw it in her eyes as they bounced between his and a point far beyond space. “We have dinner and head to the Skytree, before it gets too late,” she said and pointed at a tower off in the distance.

***

Around seven, after dinner, Ishigami and Tsubame ascended the elevator to the top of the Skytree. Four-hundred fifty meters in the sky, the doors opened up to the horizon, and the night life danced below the twilight sky. He stepped out of the elevator and walked toward the angled windows overlooking the buildings below. Each one of the million yellow dots represented a small room in the country’s densest city, a tiny pinprick in the never ending concrete expanse. In the distance, the lights vanished, meeting with the deep purple horizon above, and the starless sky became backlit by the skyless ground.

He leaned over the tower’s ledge, peeked down at the streets far beneath him, and did not see a single distinct person below. The world moved at a macro scale. Buildings blipped in and out of sight as lights turned off and on. People traveled as massive shifting blobs. Neon signs became mere pixels in a larger screen. Freight ships slid smoothly across an ocean of black. And in all this, Ishigami felt insignificant, a mere observer to it all.

Tsubame stepped beside him, and it was the first time he’d almost forgotten she was there. She stared wordless at the city, her face deep in thought, reflected in the crystal clear glass. He wanted to know what she felt. Had she become disillusioned with him?

She noticed him watching her and glanced back through the reflection. “Ishigami, tonight’s been wonderful,” she said.

“I’m glad. I was worried something was up.”

“Well, there is one thing.”

He gulped.

“I’ve been wanting to get to know you better, but I feel like I haven’t learned much today.”

“What would you like to know?”

She pondered the question, a finger to her lips. “I want to know what you see in me.”

His mind swirled. He saw a lot of things in her. She was one of the few people in his life who gave a damn about him. She always had a heart bigger than herself and kindness that exuded with love and care. She was smart, creative, and gentle in everything she did. She accepted him when everyone else stayed away and was nothing less than the purist person in the entire world. He needed her more than anything, sick beyond recognition, desperate for a cure.

“I see someone who makes me happy,” he said. “Ever since I joined the cheer team, you’ve been supportive of me, and you’ve stayed by me while everyone else shuns me. I want to become someone like that for you too, Tsubame. I want to be someone who makes you happy.“

“That’s really sweet,” Tsubame said, not breaking her view of the sky.

He bit the bullet. He needed to know. “What about you?”

“What I see in you?” she said. “I’m not sure.”

Not good. He grabbed both her hands in his. She snap-turned toward him and stepped back, but he held firm. “What are you looking for? I can become that person. Whatever you need me to be, I’ll do it. I’ll go to university, inherit my father’s company, support you and never make you cry. You’ll never need or want for anything! Just tell me. Whatever it is, I promise to become the man you want. The man you need!”

She stepped back again, forcing her hands from his grasp, and a cold, empty feeling washed over his body. She stared straight down, sniffling behind her purple highlights. If the tears fell, they might have weighed heavy enough to shatter through the transparent floor. He wished it did.

She breathed once, her body tensed, and she looked back at him, trembling. “You’re a good person, Ishigami,” she finally said, and he knew it was over.

Chapter Text

The artificial shrubbery hid Iino in the cafe’s far corner where she sat waiting for Osaragi and Fujiwara. An open book rested on the table beside her, The Whims Afforded to Us by M. B. Simmons, a western doctorate of philosophy and an incredible waste of grant funding.

There are maxims individuals abide by in any culture. They keep order, prevent social fallouts, and command an underlying respect in the chaotic, every day interactions people share. “Do not murder,” often acts as a foundational maxim in society. Murdering another is unacceptable. Entire relationships are built on the unspoken belief that the one standing before you won’t thrust a six-inch blade through your rib cage. Yet, it’s a rule with holes. Exceptions are carved out of the otherwise solid marble block. Murder, in some contexts, is justified by the relevant motivations and events involved. A man defends himself from an armed assailant, the attacker dies in the process, and although the latter lies in the dirtied street a corpse, the former is hailed as both the victim and the hero.

It is those difficult scenarios that legal scholars, philosophers, and social scientists attempt to unravel in their work, but they all fall short, the same as Simmons. Each author answers how to navigate a world after an immoral act occurs, but all overlook the fundamental response.

The assailant should have never attacked in the first place.

“Problems are easier prevented than fixed.” That maxim guided Iino’s every decision and proved valuable in every walk of life. Though, she carved out exceptions herself, and now those exceptions reared their heads. Lesson learned.

She pulled out a thin ornament flower from her hoodie pocket—a white Forget-Me-Not pendant—and held it up against the orange overhung lighting. She grew up around the downtown skyscrapers, and this tiny coffee shop sat tucked away underneath it all. Beneath the hundred-thousand Yen glass windows, pretentious minimalist designs, marble worshiping interiors, and overworked middle-class people. It stood in direct opposition to efficiency, but she appreciated its life, the silence it provided amidst the noise.

She came here back then too, in middle school when she first received the flower. The gift arrived in her desk from an unknown source, tucked away behind the textbooks and legal pads. At a time when she was outcast by her peers for her strict enforcement of the student handbook and helping teachers catch kids committing even the smallest infractions to the code, someone was watching over her. A single hidden person amongst the crowd supported her and encouraged her when she needed it most.

Since then, she never once stopped doing the right thing, and this time would be no exception.

Bells chimed near the front, and she shoved the flower back in her pocket. Two girls walked in, both of whom she recognized. Chika Fujiwara was hard to miss. Bright pink waist length hair and blueberry eyes. A white-sand t-shirt, sun-soaked yellow jacket, a loud tangerine skirt, and the fizzy personality to top it off. The summer’s child incarnate bounced through the doorway, landing neatly on her left tip-toes with a wide smile across her face.

She stood stark next to the dark browns of Kobachi Osaragi picked out. Not many girls stepped outside in earth toned long-sleeve dresses, but it paired well with her straight black hair and wire-framed glasses. Her outfit acted camouflage against the dark woods comprising the café and hid her from would be prying eyes. She wasn’t aiming to impress, quite the opposite, she thrived on the lack of social perception.

Iino waved them over, and they sat down across from her, Osaragi one leg crossed over the other and Fujiwara leaning over the table with folded hands.

“Has the ship sailed?” Osaragi asked, perusing the single-page drink menu.

“Sunk,” Iino admitted.

“Thank goodness.”

“You’re horrible!” Fujiwara said shooting death glares. “How can you say that about someone’s first love?”

“Second, technically,” Iino said, still thinking about the flower. She never found out who gave it to her back in middle school, but she held onto it ever since. A good luck charm, and a reminder.

“Whatever, this is still heartless! The love detective takes no broken hearts hostage, especially not yours.” Fujiwara pulled out a magnifying glass and peered through it with bulbous pupils, eccentric as always. The overlap between her serious and bubbly side created a perfect circle.

“I’m not here looking for a match maker. He’s not really my type anyway, if you think about it.”

“Yeah, you two make each other miserable,” Osaragi said.

Iino ignored the backhanded tone. “Exactly! A lazy underachiever like him? Not to mention, socially inept and a tech addict. Far from the model citizen I imagined my first boyfriend being. Honestly, when put that way, I don’t know what came over me.”

Fujiwara smirked, never a good sign. “Yet, you still liked him.”

Iino feared this line of questioning from the start. Born into a family of former prime minsters, Fujiwara spent half her time studying political science, and the other half committing low-scale atrocities. Combine that with being stuck on a week-long spring trip, and the minister’s child might as well be a ticking time bomb. She needed to answer with caution. “I liked him at first, but he’s also not a good fit. Both can be true.”

Fujiwara looked over at Osaragi. “Give me five minutes and a double-chocolate mocha, hold the whipped cream.”

“You get three minutes, and a single-chocolate mocha,” Osaragi responded. She got up from the table, brushed her bangs out of her face, and strode over to the barista, leaving Iino alone with chaos incarnate.

Iino shuddered under the watchful eye behind the magnifying glass. Too Coordinated, she thought. She idolized them both and believed they could help her through the heartache, but it seemed bringing them together backfired.

“You can’t lie,” Fujiwara said. “I have a love meter, and it’s blaring loud and clear.” She raised her flat hand as if measuring a filled gauge. “You want their relationship to fail, don’t you?”

What a blatant accusation. “Of course not, they’re great together. It’d be immoral to wish for such things.”

“You can’t so easily get over someone, but you’re convincing yourself you can. Realistically, you wish Ishigami never met Tsubame in the first place.”

“Of course not, Tsubame makes Ishigami happy. I wouldn’t want to take that away from him.”

“You wish it were you instead,” Fujiwara said, and Iino snapped.

“Of course I do, but it isn’t! This interrogation isn’t helping me, so if you’re not going to help, respectfully leave me alone!”

“You’re giving up love for someone else’s sake. Doesn’t that make you feel miserable?”

“Yeah, doesn’t it?” Osaragi asked, coming back with two coffees and a scone. “That’s three minutes, by the way,” she said, looking at Fujiwara.

Fujiwara sighed and handed up a thousand yen. Iino looked at it in shock. “You two are gambling over my love life?”

“I prefer the term ‘wagering,’ but that’s not the point.” Osaragi sat down and handed Iino the scone. “I know you well enough to know that you’re both stubborn and ethical. You’re going to stop chasing after Ishigami, it’s in your nature. But she’s right, you’re going to beat yourself up over this forever. That’s why she’s trying to convince you otherwise.”

“It doesn’t matter what I want," Iino said, fists balled in her lap, "I have to do this.”  Feelings be damned, nothing good came from obsessing over love.

“I might have something that can help,” Fujiwara said, pulling out a small pocket watch dangling from a long silver chain. It looked antique, but so did the magnifying glass. Both glistened under the dim light of the cafe. “Why don’t we try some hypnosis?”

“Hypnosis?” Iino said, skeptical considering this was another one of Fujiwara’s dumb ideas.

“You can have the best of both worlds. I can put you in a trance and make you forget your feelings for Ishigami. That way, it’s like it never happened.”

“How does it work?”

“I don’t know! I’ve seen it at carnivals and every time someone’s hypnotized on stage, the hypnotist has immense power over the participants. It’s like real magic!”

“Totally convincing,” Iino said, sarcasm dripping from her lips, but there was no harm in going along with it for fun. “Fine, do what you want.”

“Awesome!” Fujiwara yelled out in the echoing room. She slackened the chain and held the watch a few inches from Iino’s face, standing over her with a serious expression. “Alright, you’ll need to follow the watch. With your eyes, not your head. Keep your body still, breathe easy, and simply listen.”

Iino did as she was told. She leaned back in the chair and saw the pocket-watch start up its momentum. It swung lightly from side to side like a Newton’s Cradle, steady but powerful. Each time the watch reached the peak in its swing, Iino noted how many times it had finished its path. Six, seven, eight, she counted in her head.

“Stop thinking about the watch,” Fujiwara murmured. “Picture Ishigami.”

As requested, she pictured Ishigami. His long black hair draped over his steel blue eyes like a half-drawn curtain. He reached out with soft hands, softer than any other boy she’d ever met, and in her mind’s eye, she followed it. It rose up toward a girl’s cheek and cupped it between his fingers, but it wasn’t her cheek. Each time the watch swung past her face, it wasn’t herself she saw in the reflection. It was Tsubame.

“You’re jealous. You’re frustrated.”

“Mhmm.”

“Don’t speak. Sit with it. Feel those emotions bubbling up inside you.”

Her fingers twitched. A dull, invisible force pushed against her side. It begged her to step away, to stop pushing herself. The pain in her stomach grew, and she fought it with her entire being. Those words repeated in her head over and over. “I asked Tsubame out.” A burning sensation exploded in her throat. She had her own set of words, a rare few that she buried deep down in her esophagus. “Why not me?” She couldn’t bring herself to say it, because she had no right. She did him miserable, of course he’d look for someone like Tsubame.

Because she wasn’t what he wanted.

“Good,” Fujiwara said. “Hold onto that feeling. Bring it to the surface. Make it a part of you. Now, when I snap my fingers, you will push that feeling away from you and feel relieved. On three. One…” The watch swung to the left. “Two…” It swung back to the right. “Three…”

Fingers snapped, and Iino let the anger go, let desire go, let Ishigami go, and in one single instant, the burning sensation dissipated from her throat. Almost like magic. She stopped following the watch and simply sat with the sudden inner peace.

“How do you feel?”

Iino went to answer. No words left her mouth. Her lips would not move. She stared at Fujiwara because she was unable to will her eyes anywhere else. She tried to pick up the scone, but her hand remained motionless in her lap. She could hear her own breathing, but she had no control over her lungs. She could not hold her breath. She could not force an exhale, but in her mind, she began to hyperventilate. What kind of power was this?

Fujiwara looked back into Iino’s eyes seemingly confused. She waved a hand in front of the her face with no signs of life inside. “That’s not supposed to happen.” She pulled out her cellphone and typed something in, eyes darting back and forth along the screen, like a doctor opening up a textbook right before a surgery.

What do you mean “not supposed to happen”? Iino screamed internally. If she had any motor functions, she would have grabbed the ditz by the hair.

“Aha!” Fujiwara said, chin placed thoughtfully against her wrist. “This is normal. A trance state always occurs before the hypnotist finishes.” She returned her phone, cleared her throat, straightened out her back, and regained composure. “Now, on the count of three, I will snap my fingers again, and you’ll awake without these feelings you have held onto. You’ll live your life, day by day, without this conflict bubbling up in your heart.” She paused. “And the hypnosis will only lift when you’re finally at peace. Ready? One… two… three.”

She snapped her fingers, and Iino could not move.

Osaragi gazed at the plastic carnations in the table bouquet and giggled to herself. “Welp, you fucked up,” she said. “That’ll be another thousand Yen.”

Fujiwara glared at her. “She’s messing with us,” she said, grabbing Iino by both shoulders and shaking her body back and forth. The body went limp and crumpled over in the chair. It might have fallen out of the seat entirely, if she hadn’t been holding on. She adjusted the spine to sit firmly against the wooden seat and relented, handing over the money with a scoff. “Fine, you win again.”

“At this rate, I can retire in sixteen years,” Osaragi said, flicking through the bills.

“What am I doing wrong?” Fujiwara asked, reopening the guide on her phone.

“For starters, you’re a terrible gambler.”

“I wasn’t talking to you!”

Iino wasn’t sure what went wrong, but she was infuriated. She was in a state of paralysis. No moving, no talking, no blinking, nothing. The only things working were her senses. The hard wooden blank of a chair against her now crooked back. The two’s passive-aggressive argument with each other across the table. The deep scent of coffee grounds wafting through the cafe air vents. The minty taste in her mouth from brushing her teeth earlier. She was conscious, but not in driver’s seat. She’d become trapped in a statue of a body.

The worst part, though? She still liked Ishigami, so not a single part of Fujiwara’s plan worked.

“Well we can’t leave her here,” Osaragi said. “Let’s ask Shirogane for help.”

“No! President will kill me if he finds out one of my antics caused this.”

“Shinomiya?”

“She’ll tell Shirogane! They’re so buddy buddy now it’s crazy.”

Yeah, because they’re dating, Iino thought.

“Then that leaves…” Osaragi pondered out loud.

The two looked at each other in pure horror, and Iino would have too if she had the physical capability.

“How will we get her all the way there?”

Fujiwara looked at Iino. “Iino, come with us,” she said, but Iino did not move. “Weird, the hypnosis should allow me to issue commands. Follow me!”

There was no response. Iino tried to do as she was told, but her legs would not act.

“I think you’re going to have to carry her,” Osaragi said.

“Me?” Fujiwara cried out in disbelief.

“I’ve got my hands full already,” Osaragi said, picking up her drink, Iino’s drink, and the scone.

Chapter Text

You’re a good person.

It had been twenty-four hours. The open bedroom window blew cold misty air in Ishigami’s face and comforted him in the street-lit black. He sat on the floor studying the view, watching colors meld together as the sun set. Thick magenta clouds dimmed to navy blue as the full moon disappeared behind them, rain still threatening the sky. The lilies in his mother’s garden had bloomed early, and he could barely make out the purples from the pinks in the night’s shade. The asphalt grays changed very little, but brought the environment together into a single, beautiful, cohesive chain. A simple monochromatic world.

You’re not the monster people say you are.

He knew the sight all too well. He’d spent two years watching the sky from this lens, and now he was back. The same blank canvas, the same null goals, the same face value. He tilted the canned energy against his lips and slurped down the last few electrifying drops. It’d keep him up all night, but he had no intention of going to school tomorrow anyway. He threw the empty can behind him and heard it thud against the closet door, bounce off the overflowing trash bin, and rattle along the vinyl floor.

But I’m not ready.

Nothing changed except the weather. His middle school self rushed back to him like it’d been sitting in the corner of his room waiting to be reunited. An echo, strong in its reverberation, hit him harder than anyone ever did. Square one. Four years later and square one. Still as sick and delusional as the day he became a demon.

Someone told me what happened in middle school…

But he meant everything he told her. Go to university, study hard, get a good degree, work his way up his father’s company, and inherit it. He’d planned it all out for her, for their future. He was ready and willing, because he finally had someone to fight for again, someone who made him happy, gave his life meaning. And it wasn’t enough.

… and I need some time to process it...

He fell backward and let his head slam against the floor. The swelling around his forehead screamed as the blood rushed toward his brain. It felt great. He lifted his head up and slammed it back again, a heavy thump dissipating into the foundation. His neck grew sore and a headache rushed in to support the bludgeoning pain. “Why did I do that?” he mumbled, sitting back up and rubbing his scalp. Maybe to experience how it felt being on the receiving end.

... to get to know the real you.

If he closed his eyes, he could still imagine it clear as the day it happened. His death grip around the boy’s collar. The balled fist above his own head. The blood draining from his classmate’s broken nose and busted lip. He pinned the boy down with his entire body and clobbered his face with every punch. Unrelenting, merciless, driven by justice and an enacting retribution. He heard his classmates crying for him to stop, a single distorted cacophony. He didn’t recognize the voices, only the smug, bitter tone of his victim.

“Is that enough?”

A knock interrupted his thoughts. He looked at his alarm clock on the nightstand, 8:37. Did someone lock themselves out? He left his room for the front door. Everyone’s shoes were gone except his. He opened the door a crack and peeked through, barely making out the wire-frame glasses in the dark. “Osaragi?” He then spotted Fujiwara approaching from the street, carrying an unconscious Iino in tow. “Not tonight,” he said, firmly shutting the door in Osaragi’s face, but it wouldn’t close.

“Ishigami!” Her foot wedged itself in the opening, and she sounded desperate. “Please, you’re the only one who can help her!”

“Not interested.”

“I know, but if I had other options I would use them.”

He sighed, and he opened the door.

“Thank you,” she said, stepping inside, but he held out his arm to block her.

“Only you,” he said, and she nodded.

The living room exuded with a tinkerer’s passion. Completed jigsaw puzzles were framed on the walls; LEGO sets sat atop the glass entertainment center in lieu of a television; the coffee table hosted a transparent motorized marble run, complete with an elevator carrying the aluminum balls back to the top; and the couch’s armrest was littered with wood cutouts for a model airplane. His father's work.

Once the two were far enough out of ear shot, Ishigami spoke while staring at the marbles rolling around the frost colored tubes, “Why didn’t you take her to a hospital?”

“She’s not sick.” She stepped up behind him, and he glanced back. Strands of her black her fell in front of her face, covering portions of her thin lenses. “She’s council. Don’t you feel any obligation?”

“Student council operating hours are between eight and four.”

“Look, I get it. She’s narrow minded, stubborn, and a miserable pain, but you need to help her.”

A marble spiraled around a wide funnel, circling down toward the sink, its inevitable destination. He felt the same, like his mind was traveling toward a single, unavoidable state. She’s council. “What even is the problem?”

“She’s pissed off at you.”

“Well that’s reassuring!”

“Fujiwara tried hypnotizing her to calm her down, and now she’s not waking up. Since you’re the one she’s mad at, we thought—“

“That she’d come to life out of unadulterated spite? Yeah, amazing plan. It all makes sense now.”

“Are you going to help or not?”

“Yes, if it will get you three to leave me alone.”

Osaragi clasped her hands together and bowed lightly. “Thank you! Really.” She rushed toward the front door and waved Fujiwara inside.

The physical manifestation of Pandora’s box walked in carrying an open-eyed, but otherwise unconscious, Iino on her back. Her legs trembled under the weight, and she made a beeline toward the couch, throwing the girl down like a body bag, then promptly collapsing herself. Fujiwara glared at Osaragi between gasps of air and held up a single middle finger, “Next time, I’m grabbing the coffees.”

Ishigami ignored them both, taking a seat on the coffee table across from Iino. It was odd seeing her in a hoodie, straight black like her school uniform. She wore loose denim jeans that ran past her ankles, and a pair of gray sneakers from a brand he didn’t recognize. Purely functional, just like her. Her mocha brown eyes stared back at him devoid of life, like her conscience was in another universe from him. He blew directly on her eyes, and she didn’t blink, completely paralyzed under the spell. “She’s really hypnotized, isn’t she?”

“Unless she’s screwing with us!” Fujiwara cried. “I’m taking a nap. Wake me up when a rich man walks by.”

Osaragi nudged the marble run aside and sat beside him, hands in her lap. “What do you think?”

“I think she’s more tolerable like this,” he admitted.

“Be serious for a second,” Osaragi said. “Hypnosis is a subconscious state, so she’s probably still listening somewhere in there.”

“Right,” he said. It sometimes amazed him that she was the primary disciplinary committee member of the school. They were always opposite ends of the height spectrum, him well above average and her well below, and she always had to look up at people when scolding them. Her baby face made citations hard to take seriously, her two loose pigtails always swung around her head like gavels, and her thin frame made her the most unassuming person in the room. Yet, she took it all in stride and slammed hammers down harder than anyone else. Every student respected her tenacity, her adherence to morality, and her unbridled execution of moral code. Many hated her guts, but no one denied that she earned her place on the council.

“Any ideas?” Osaragi asked.

“One,” he said. He opened up a drawer in the coffee table and pulled out a black drafting marker. One line at a time, he drew on Iino’s face, starting from the edge of her nose and stretching out straight across her cheek, a small set of cat whiskers. “Aww, she looks adorable, doesn’t she?” he mocked before running off into the kitchen.

“What are you doing?”

“Humoring myself,” he said. He grabbed a glass and a mug from the cabinet, filled the glass half ice, half tap water, and the mug with the remaining water in the tea kettle. He went back with both, stood over the couch, arms outstretched, and dumped either on Iino and Fujiwra.

“What the hell!” Fujiwara jumped up from the couch, pink hair, jacket, and shirt soaked in ice-cold water. “What was that for?” she screamed.

“Payment, for making me fix your problems,” he said.

“You little,” she grumbled, shaking the water out of her face, but it was clear the politician’s daughter knew when to stand down. Still, Iino would not stand up, as unresponsive as before. The ink on her face dripped down her chin and disappeared into the hoodie’s fabric.

“I’m running out of ideas,” Ishigami said.

“Then you’re as useless as always,” Fujiwara said, sitting back down and soaking the couch cushions with her back.

“You hypnotized her. Can’t you break her out of it?”

“I tried, but I did something wrong. She won’t even listen to commands. I can try and research a solution, but it’s going to take time.”

“Fine, but what do we do with her until then?” he asked.

“Let’s take her back to her apartment,” Osaragi said. “I’ve been there before, and I know the room code. Her parents won’t be home, but I can stay with her for the night and make sure nothing happens.”

“That works,” he said. “Guess we’ll need to carry her home then.”

“Not it!” Fujiwara yelled.

“It’s okay, I’ll do it,” he said. Forcing one hand under her legs and one under her back, he lifted her up in his arms.

“You idiot!”

A hand shot at his face and yanked his bangs so hard it might’ve ripped his skin from his skull. “Agh!” he yelled, letting Iino drop to the floor like a dead weight and her limbs sprawl out in the twisted form of a dismantled mannequin. It happened instantly. One moment she was awake, ripping his hair out, the next, she was in a trance, frozen and unconscious. She couldn't keep herself function for long. “Seems she can hate me enough to break the hypnosis,” he said, straightening up and looking at the girl now paralyzed on the floor. “Let’s try again, with less hair pulling this time.”

He lifted her up in his arms. Once he did, she closed her eyes and covered them up with her forearm. She began whimpering, and even through a face covered with water, he could tell tears were trickling down her face. “It burns. My eyeballs are on fire. All the colors are blinding me. Everything hurts,” she said, and he realized how long her eyes had been open during her trance. The hot water probably didn’t help either.

“You’ll be fine,” he said. Something came over him, and he pulled her closer to his chest in an awkward hug. It probably made things worse, but he liked to think it helped.

***

The walk to Iino’s apartment exhausted him. Sure, she was small, but over the course of an hour, carrying a cheese platter would make his arms weak. Every time he tried to set her down to take a break, she’d freeze up and enter her near comatose state. She could stand on her own, but making her walk was like moving a marionette one leg at a time. The worst part, though, of all things, was that she kept absolutely silent during the walk, and it unsettled him. Normally, she’d be down his throat at any opportunity, and her now quiet air became eerie overtime.

Neither Osaragi or Fujiwara would explain to him what happened. They threw around the word “hypnosis” as if that explained anything. He assumed Chika pulled her weird shenanigans again, but Iino never allowed herself to become one of Fujiwara’s experiments. Whatever happened, it had a strangle hold on Iino’s psyche.

They eventually arrived at a forty-floor high rise building constructed with floor-to-ceiling windows wrapping all the way around the skyscraper. The entrance was made of two automatic sliding doors that parted ways as they approached and opened up to what looked like a hotel lobby. Velvet sofas and circular leather chairs lined up across the marble tiling, and the fluorescent lights shined bright white in the spotless halls. Three hallways branched off in any direction, each with a sign either labeled “Swimming Pool”, “Cafeteria”, or “Fitness Center”. Straight ahead were two elevators leading up to the rooms, and to his left was a front desk receptionist who welcomed them with a smile, nodding at Iino who still sat in his arms.

“Good evening Ms. Iino,” he said. “Are your parents aware you’re having guests?”

“They’re not Mr. Arima,” she said. “I’m recovering from passing out earlier, so they offered to take me home. They’ll be leaving shortly.”

“Very well, I wish you a speedy recovery,” he said.

“Is the cafeteria still open?” Fujiwara asked, and Iino smacked her behind the head.

They ascended the elevator up to the 17th floor. It surprised him to know she lived in a place this fancy, but her father was a Supreme Court justice, so money certainly wasn’t tight. The apartment room was 1712, and Osaragi input the code on the pad, “0627”.

The stove light was still on when they walked in, illuminating a pristinely clean, almost bare room. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think it was a model room to show prospective renters. There was a single television cabinet with no television, purely used to store the plethora of books they owned. Academic journals, legal documents, geographic maps, histories of natural disasters, and a few photo albums. Each book was leather bound, sleek, and dusted. The L-shaped sofa fit snug against the corner across from the cabinet and looked like no one had ever sat on it, not even a coffee stain.

The kitchen was practically sparkling. The white and gray marble counters looked recently wiped down. The dishes and cups were neatly stacked inside the windowed cabinets. The stainless steel appliances didn’t have a single fingerprint or smudge on them. Each of the chairs against the island were perfectly aligned with each other in a row of three seats. And a pan sat on the stove, as if for show, because it looked like no one cooked with it.

Osaragi led him toward the last room down the hall. Inside, every single wall was a bookshelf, windowless. Thousands of books surrounded him like a personal library, and there were more in small stacks scattered around the floor. No wonder she was top of the class. There were enough pages to make someone read while they dreamed.

“I’ve never been in your study before,” Fujiwara said, mouth agape and eyes wide.

“It’s not a study,” Iino said flatly.

“This is your room?” Ishigami asked, noting the distinct lack of a bed. There were two pieces of furniture, a wooden table low enough to sit at, and a life-sized stuffed bear plushie, if that could be called “furniture”.

“Yeah, you can set me down on the bear,” she said, pointing at it.

“You can’t be serious,” he said, but did as she asked. He placed her in the bear’s lap with her back resting atop its gigantic cotton filled legs. She closed her eyes, and the moment he let go, she went back into her paralyzed state, unable to move and unable to speak. It looked like she had fallen asleep.

After making sure she was still breathing, the three of them stepped out, Fujiwara taking the lead. He closed the bedroom door behind them and spoke in a low voice, “She lives like this?”

Osaragi nodded. “It’s by choice.”

“It looks miserable,” he said.

“Maybe, but who am I to stop her if it’s what she wants?”

“She’s always been weird, this is nothing new,” Fujiwara said turning toward both of them. “More importantly is the question of how we get her back to normal?”

“She responds to you,” Osaragi said, looking at Ishigami. “I know she doesn’t deserve it after all she’s done to you, but you might be able to help her.”

“How? I’m not even sure what on Earth Fujiwara did to her.”

“No one’s sure,” Osaragi said, “But I’d bet ten thousand Yen you can find out.”

Chapter Text

The stone steps led up toward the prestigious Shuchi’in academy, and Tsubame walked them as another student in the century long history of its existence. She twiddled with a purple highlight strand between her fingers and stared her feet with each stride. The sun rise peeked over the pointed rooftops, sitting beside the decommissioned clock tower, and it shined through the misty clouds left over from the weekend’s storm. That weekend.

One question in particular circled her mind as she approached the front entrance, “Why not?” A simple question with no answer. A thought with no end.

It started with a single word. “Love.” The definition was illusive, if it had a proper definition at all. Even when boiled down to its basic forms—loving a sibling, loving a parent, loving a dessert, loving someone—it felt foreign. Then, if it had a definition, she wasn’t sure it applied to the one person it most rightfully should.

Ishigami.

Another word she could not wrap her head around. Being two years her junior, Ishigami didn’t strike her as a love interest until he suddenly confessed, and she couldn’t say no. Their history was not complicated. He joined the the cheer team. She coached him through the routines and watched him grow within the squad. Like a beautiful moth escaping its cocoon, he broke through the barriers and challenges with innate determination, and she admired him for that. But she wasn’t sure “love” applied.

Lost. A different “L” word that better described her feelings. She was months from graduating high school. She was overseeing the year’s last cheer dance, solidifying her final class grades, choosing her career path, making last-ditch memories with her closest friends, and despite the tremendous toll of it all, Ishigami became her biggest struggle as the year came rushing to a close.

Why not?

She tucked a few bangs between her lips and pondered the question before her class. Generations of students must have done the same, walked in with a boy or girl on their mind. Despite the ancestral status and extensive history seeping between the cracks in the brick layers, they were each so unequivocally human. How many students has passed through the halls questioning the realities of love? And how many graduated without finding answers?

Ignoring the rumors, she had no reason not to date him. With the rumors, she had an excuse to not commit for a while longer. She felt bad leading him on, but it was the only way she could know for sure, and if he left her, then it was never meant to be.

“Good morning, Tsubame.”

She turned toward the voice and a boy with disheveled brown hair stood beside her in a classroom doorway. Maeda, the second year scholarship student and second ranked in his class. He leaned against it, half smiling at her, and his hands were shoved deep in his pockets. “Good morning,” she said and continued walking, but he side stepped out of the door and blocked her path.

“Sorry to bother you on such a magnificent day,” he said, “But I had something to ask, won’t take more than a few minutes.”

“You’re friends with Hokama, right?” she asked. “Sorry, I already told him I wasn’t interested.

“I know, because you’re actually interested in that freak.”

She gave no reaction to the statement. How could she when every conversation began so similarly? She knew the story. In middle school, people hurried toward some commotion going on in an upstairs classroom during lunch. Inside, they found Ishigami pinning down a classmate and beating his face into a bloody pulp. All because Ishigami was jealous of the couple and crushed on the girl involved. “My friends have warned me about him, I’ll be careful.”

“You saw the bandage on his head? He got that on Friday while fighting Hokama. Thought you might like to know, he’s still the same person he’s always been.”

I appreciate the concern, really,” Tsubame said, “But I’d like to understand him on my own terms.” She stepped past him, and her body flung to the side. Pinned by her shoulders against the flat drywall, she winced in pain as rough fingers dug into her skin through the thin black uniform dress.

Maeda stood over her, his face inches away from hers, and he spoke in a low, raspy voice, “Don’t forget this, when he’s forcing himself into your skin, I warned you.” His breath curled around her ears with each syllable and his eyes burned brighter than the sunlight behind his head. If nothing else, he knew how to make his point clear. He loosened his grip, and she headed toward her class, now more unsure than when she woke up that morning.

Chapter Text

Time continued endlessly into the night, and Iino remained sleepless on her plushie. After enough time awake, the brain creates colors where none exist. Periwinkles and mauves swirled around her mind’s eye like ink drops in warm water until the sun rose that morning, at which point her vision was consumed by an overwhelming citrus orange. Her eyes were closed, her breathing even and controlled, but her thoughts raced with the conscious and subconscious ramblings befitting insomniac patients. She couldn’t sleep.

The alarm on her phone triggered at six o’clock sharp, blaring in her pocket and vibrating against her thigh. She tried reaching for it, but the hypnosis prevented any movement. Fujiwara’s done it this time, she thought as footsteps thumped in the hallway outside her door. Her mouth felt dry, and the inability go grab water infuriated her. She had no control, no autonomy over herself, and that needed to be fixed, fast. The alarm shut off on its own after five minutes, and she lied there listening for the halted footsteps. Was no one coming to wake her?

A phone’s outgoing ringtone sounded off beyond the door. It jingled a few times before stopping abruptly, and Osaragi’s voice filled the silence, “Pick up.” The phone rang again, and this time, someone answered, but Iino only heard one end.

“I told you to be here by six…

“You might not be, but she needs to go…

“You said you’d help…

“Okay, see you in fifteen minutes. Don’t fall asleep again.”

She hung up the phone and opened the door, the creaking hinges giving away both her action and the cautious speed at which she took it. “He’s hopeless sometimes,” she muttered.

The footsteps came closer. Iino listened close, mapping out the room in her mind. Osaragi was on top of her. Knees popped as her classmate crouched down and a hand placed itself on her shoulder, shaking her. “You should be awake by now.” The voice became heavier as the morning dragged on, sounding burdened and tired. Did she stay up all night too? Iino wondered, upset that her best friend was forced to labor over her. She wanted to respond, open her eyes, tell Osaragi to rest, but the hypnosis held firm, locking her body in the bent state against the bear’s plush skin.

It must have been the rules. Fujiwara effectively created the prefect, perpetual trance, and the results were clear. There were three clauses, the first, that she’d awake without the feelings she’s held onto, the second, that she’d live her life, day by day, without the conflict bubbling up in her heart, and the third, that the hypnosis would lift only when she was finally at peace. The problem with rules was that specific words changed their interpretation, and the vagueness warped their application. The hypnosis treated the phrases with the same ferocious “technically”s of an adolescent.

The first clause was obvious in some cases, but not in others. The feelings she held were those for Ishigami, but since she still had them, the phrase “she’d awake” had likely not been satisfied yet. She must wake up from sleep without liking him. This might explain why she was unable to sleep, because if she didn’t sleep, she could not wake up still liking him.

The second clause explained the paralysis. “Bubbling in her heart” likely meant increased heart rate, which was impossible if her emotional brain disconnected itself from her nervous system. Her body would continue life, day by day, in a plateaued stated without ever considering the feral desires of a teenage girl. Being unresponsive also removed all conflict, because she could not act in support or opposition to anything.

The third clause was the trickiest, but might explain her response to Ishigami the night before. The hypnosis lifted, temporarily, because him lifting her up in his arms brought peace to her mind. That affection calmed the need she had for him, the want to have her feelings reciprocated. When he set her down, that peace left her, and she was back to being on the outskirts, witnessing her crush leave her behind in real time. The lack of his touch sent her straight back to square one, straight back to the lonely, pathetic state she started from. The only part that didn’t make sense was the “finally” portion. What was the end goal?

One popped into her mind, to be with him, to go against her morality, her very essence, and convince him to abandon Tsubame for her. Sick, the whole concept was sick. She would rather die on her bedroom floor than give into such an inclination, that was the only correct path.

***

Ishigami returned in the morning through the pure caffeinated boost of three energy drinks and an all nighter. He never woke up this early normally, let alone after a depressive episode. The chilly morning blasted his fast with cold wind, but that didn’t stop him dragging his feet along as if boulders chained him down. He pushed through, because Osaragi knew which buttons to push in his fragile head. Book bag over his shoulder, he approached the skyscraper with one goal, get this over with, as quickly as possible.

He took the elevator up to Iino’s apartment, and Osaragi was waiting for him at the kitchen counter with two teas and the scone leftover from yesterday. She peered at him from behind both the wireframe glasses and the mug, a temporary smile appearing on her face. “I was worried you wouldn’t show up.”

“Sorry,” he said.

“Your presence is worth more than an apology.” She placed the mug down and crossed one leg over the other, hands in her lap. She still wore the brown dress from yesterday, though her flats were off, sitting beside the front door. Natural light filtered through the thin curtains, the sun’s rays bouncing off the crystal clean marble counters and stainless steel appliances. “Iino is still asleep. I did what I could, but you need wake her up.”

He nodded and grabbed the mug beside hers. Another dose of caffeine sounded terrible, but he accepted the tea out of courtesy. “I have questions, you know that.”

She frowned at him, placed her chin into the palm of her hand, and tilted her head in a sympathetic, mother-like fashion. “I can’t answer them. It’s not my place, and I hate involving myself in people’s personal lives.”

“This is Iino we’re talking about,” he argued. “You two are nothing but personal with each other.”

“So it seems.” She sipped on her tea, looking away from him toward the clock on the microwave. “School starts in half an hour. We don’t have time for deliberation.”

She moved to get up, but he grabbed her wrist and stopped her. “I’m not getting involved either unless it’s personal for me too.”

“One day,” she said, clasping his hand between both of hers, “I ask for one day. After that, you can decide to help or not on your own.”

They walked down the narrow hallway toward Iino’s room and opened the door. There she was, body in the bear’s arms, eyes closed, and frozen like a statue. It was like her entire body was a shell, a hollow ornament for a soul that did not yet inhabit it. Unlike Osaragi, Iino had changed clothes, wearing the school’s uniform dress instead of the plain black hoodie from the night before. The long-sleeved black dress flowed down to her knees, meeting the black tights halfway up her legs. It had white cuffs at the wrists, and a white collar that folded out away from the neck. Beneath the collar, a thin red ribbon was tied across the chest, an accessory only provided to the girls. And around her left arm, a thick yellow band signified her involvement in the disciplinary committee, an enforcer of rules in the school. Osaragi must have gotten her ready alone.

He walked over and waved his hand over her face. She looked odd without her pigtails framing either side of her head, and the back-length strands curled and tangled in unruly knots without the red hair ties keeping them under control. She breathed steadily through her nose, alive, but otherwise still. Here goes nothing. He dug his arms under her, one under her legs, the other under her back, and she immediately opened her eyes like an undead corpse in those cheesy horror flicks. It startled him. She covered her face with her arms and released a muffled whine into her sleeve. “I feel terrible,” she said, stretching her limbs out against his arms.

“I’m not happy about this either,” he said, lifting her up with a groan. He was still sore from carrying her across town.

“Oh, shut up, you’re not the one suffering here.”

“I’ll have you know, I’m doing a lot by being here. If you’re going to be ungrateful—”

“Ungrateful? If that’s your problem, then we’ve got a score to settle. How many times have I bailed you out at this point? The committee would have you hog-tied with the number of violations you’ve incurred if it weren’t for me!”

Ishigami opened his mouth to argue, but realized there was a better solution. He dropped her back into the bear’s lap, and her body seized up like rusted cogs. Her eyes locked open, her lips froze, parted in between a spoken syllable, and her body kept its sprawled pose in perfect form. “Much better,” he said, chuckling to himself.

“Ishigami,” Osaragi said behind him, her voice quiet, dejected.

“Look, I tried, but working with her is impossible.”

He pushed past her and left the room, tired and annoyed. The hallway opened up into the living room, and the front door invited him toward escape. In his heart, he wanted to leave, but Osaragi’s gaze burned into his back. He resisted the silent nagging and distracted himself with the books around the apartment’s common area. The collection of legal textbooks and leather-bound journals blended together into a single brown, rectangular mass. He thumbed through them until he reached one of two photo albums and slid it out from between the textbooks. Inside the book cover, there was a single picture glued to the binder, a young woman with brown hair wrapped up under a baseball cap. She had a dense oak hiking stick shoved under her shoulder, and her cheeks were covered in thick layers of black ash.

Iino’s mother, the philanthropist and humanitarian herself. A well known adventurer who sought out the most dangerous locations and disasters in recent history. Whether there be tsunamis in the tropics, or earthquakes in South America, she went anywhere with people in need. A line of work that demanded respect, there was no justifying disdain for someone whose life’s purpose provided kindness and compassion to those in need. Part of him wished he could be that type of person, selfless in service of others, but he knew better than to strive for something he was incapable of.

He flipped a few pages forward and realized it was more than a photo album, it was a scrapbook. The first written entry stood out on page five, dated more recent than he imagined.

August 27th, 2009: It’s not everyday you witness the explosive power of a volcano. The Earth’s screams overpower the dying. How terrible it is to suffer without being heard, not by your friends, not by your neighbors, not by your family. The tremors drown out your cries as the dust consumes your lungs. We’re evacuating everyone we can, but there’s people out there, buried under the ash. I can see them, their splintered bones protruding from the rocks like spears in a war-torn field. Those people need me. Captain says to wait until the second eruption subsides, but I must go. Where others flee deaf, I hear the buried call. Where others fall, I stand. Where others die, I fight. If the risk proves to be my end, then I lie on this mountain without regrets.

It was written in near chicken scratch, but he made out the words through squinted eyes. Alongside the journal entry was a cut newspaper snippet, an article written about the disaster including some interviews from the crew on the ground. Highlighted was a quote taken from Iino’s mother herself, “Stay alive! We’re coming for you. We’ll find you. I promise.” The story goes that later in the night, she went out against her captain’s orders and singlehandedly rescued four people trapped in their collapsed home. A two hundred seventy-three people were confirmed dead by the end of the week. Many were never recovered, likely eviscerated in the initial blast, but through her heroism, and others like her, many survived the tragedy. He placed the book back on the shelf. Depressing, even for him, but nonetheless admirable.

Osaragi peeked out from around the corner, hands together, hung below her waist. “I’m sorry. You can leave, if that’s what you really want.”

“No, it’s not,” Ishigami said, reaching up and feeling the bandage across his forehead. “Iino’s right, we have a score to settle.” He’d never be someone like her mother. He was selfish, lazy, arrogant, and a complete wash of a person, but his pride wouldn’t let him walk away from a one to nothing game. He went back into Iino’s room, knelt down, and dug his arms under Iino for a second time. “This is just because you helped me on Friday.” He picked her up, and her neck snapped to face him.

“Don’t do that again,” she demanded.

“No promises.” He turned back toward Osaragi. “Alright, she’s awake. Now tell me, how do you intend on her going to school like this?”

“I was hoping you could figure that out,” she admitted.

“Great, got any ideas princess?” he asked Iino, expecting her to spit at him in disgust, but she stared at him with confused, wide-open eyes.

“Princess?” Iino questioned, almost inaudible.

“Yeah, I’m calling you difficult like usual, answer my question.”

She stared at him for what felt like minutes, then shook her head. “What was the question?”

“What should we do to fix this?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to think like this,” she said.

Tired and annoyed, he lowered himself until he sat cross-legged on the hard floor, laying Iino in his lap. He then took his arm out from under her legs and ran his fingers through her hair, tugging against the knotted strands. “At the very least, we should fix this before heading out.”

Iino sat up, facing away and uncomfortably close. Centimeters separated her back from his chest, and the scent of rose petals danced around her hair. Shampoo, or something else?

“Can you grab my brush from the bathroom?” she asked Osaragi, a request fulfilled within moments. She then pushed the hair from her face, moved the brush toward the back, and struck the bridge of his nose.

“Watch it,” he said.

“Sorry.”

She apologized, but whether she meant it or not, she kept hitting him. Each stroke through her hair, the brush’s head knocked his forehead, cheek, eyes, and mouth without fail.

“You’re doing it on purpose!”

“You’re too close!”

“How is that my fault?”

“Lean back or something!”

She went to brush again, but he grabbed her wrist and yanked the thing from her hand. “Let me do it.” He set the hairbrush down, collected the strands from around her ears, and pulled them back behind her head. They draped over his palm, and he brushed it all one section at a time. The bristles snagged frequently, and he’d apologize before pinching the length and forcing his way through the tangled mess. All the while, Iino remained silent in his lap. She wasn’t in a trance. Her fingers twiddled around each other, seemingly deep in thought, but he had no reason to ask what about.

He reached into his pocked and brought out a black hair tie, one of his, and coaxed it around his wrist like a bracelet. During cheer practice, he used one so his bangs stopped sticking to his sweat covered face. “Hold still.” He ran both hands through her hair, one after another, tugging it back until all but a few bangs were between his fingers. He then grabbed the hair tie and pulled his hand through, taking the hair with him until it all formed into a single low ponytail. “Sorry, I’d do the pigtails, but I don’t have a second band.”

She said nothing. He expected a snide remark, a comment on his low-quality job, his lack of skill, or even a “Be more prepared next time.” Nothing. She sat there, staring at the floor without a sound outside her own breathing. “You okay?” he asked.

“It’s not fair…”

“What do you mean? We’re even now.”

Iino looked at Osaragi a pained expression on her face. He’d never seen her upset, angry, sure, but sad wasn’t an emotion in her repertoire. Her voice cracked as she spoke, a chaotic swirl of pitches that ate each other like crashing waves, “I would rather die.”

Chapter Text

“I would rather die.” It echoed in Ishigami’s ear the entire walk to school. She meant it, and in a way, he understood. He heard those words before. He said those words before. It took conviction, something buried ten-thousand meters below the heart’s surface, crawling out from the abyssal depths, rearing its head in the tunneled darkness. A hatred. A rage perfectly in lock-step with the deepest values one held.

He hoped—foolish in retrospect—that their relationship might repair in the council, but some bridges burned faster than constructed. A napalm lit between them in middle school. Before, they were acquaintances, passing glances in the hallway, a disciplinary cat-and-mouse game. He played on his console during lunch, she confiscated his devices, simple as that.

Then, that fateful day.

The parallax he fought against consumed his life and turned an introvert into an isolationist. Everyone had their own opinions, their own beliefs, their own accounts. To this day, even his own memories felt wrong, incomplete, jagged around the edges, but he held no regrets.

In middle school, kids developed their concrete segregations of right and wrong. They squabbled amongst themselves, with themselves, and one way or another, developed the core beliefs they carried through adulthood. His core belief was a common one, good people did not deserve to suffer. Naively, he considered himself a good person.

Otomo was another good person. The little things put a smile on his face. She greeted him in the hallways, accepted him when others shunned his quiet existence, and became a friend. Later, she found a boyfriend. Irrelevant to him, no personal stake in her relationships. Otomo simply made him happier, and her happiness was his happiness.

It died fast.

He bunkered down in the east wing hallway, second floor staircase, hidden between two windows that looked out upon the middle school fountain. Three levels in, he strained his eyes on the dim lit game screen, brightness turned down to avoid the disciplinary committees surveillance. A hushed voice traveled up the stairs, Ko Ogino, Otomo’s boyfriend. He took his hands off the joysticks, halted the clacking, and eavesdropped on the conversation. To this day, the urge went unexplained, but he felt obligated to listen.

“Don’t worry, I’ve already reserved a room.”

Instinct kicked in. He shut down his game and switched applications, a video recorder. Keeping the device in his lap, he stayed low and let the boy talk unknowingly into the microphone around the corner.

“My parents do anything if I ask them too… Her? She won’t know. Not that it matters, you’re the only one for me.”

Disgusting. An entitled brat who took pleasure in cheating on girls, a disease that rich bloodlines bred without second thought. Admittedly, he didn’t know who was on the other line, it could’ve been Otomo herself, but the gross nature crept around beneath his skin, and he refused to let it die in silence.

He gambled, and he was right. Confronting Ogino the following day, after classes, he presented the recording and accused him of cheating. The confrontation turned furious. Ogino disregarded the cheating, downplayed it, and when Ishigami remained, unswayed, the kid played a despicable hand.

“You like her, right? That’s what this really about. If you keep quiet, you can have her.”

Ishigami remembered two things. The first punch, and the last punch. Everything else blurred together in a single instant of time and space that he’d forgotten. What happened, he could only piece together in the aftermath. There were screams, tears, blood, bruises, broken bones, torn clothes, overturned and displaced chairs, scattered papers, spilled ink, and a crowd of students, his entire class surrounding the two on the hardwood floor. He grabbed Ogino by the collar and spat in his face, “Admit it!”

“Admit what? That you’re stalking Otomo.”

“What?” He reeled back in shock. “What are you—”

“You can beat me up all you want, Ishigami! But that won’t make me leave her, and it won’t make her love you!”

“You rotten little—”

“Let him go!” Otomo pierced through the crowd.

The command struck him, and he did as instructed, dropping the boy like dead weight onto the floor. “It’s not true,” he defended, “He’s cheating on you.” But who believes an acquaintance over their own boyfriend? Who believes a stranger over a friend? Who believes a perpetrator over a victim?

Iino was the last person he saw that day before his indefinite suspension. “Did you really stalk her?” A simple, innocuous question with one correct answer: “Stay out of it.”

That severed it. He spent the next two years alone in his bedroom under familial solitude, a prison of grays and blues. The academy refused his re-application, requesting both a written apology to Ogino and records of anger management therapy, and he was open to neither. He suffocated between four distinct walls, two different parents, two opposite labels, the troubled and the troublemaker, in need of therapy and in need of discipline, deserving attention and deserving avoidance. No one checked on him except his mother, a trojan horse bearing messages from his willfully absent father, “You should apologize to Ogino.”

She cared, in her own way, and he loved her as any son loved their mother. So it pained him to see her tears when he responded, “I would rather die.”

I would rather die. I would rather die. I would rather die. He said it so often it lost all meaning. I would rather die. I would rather die. I would rather—

“Ishigami, the light changed,” Iino said, wrenching his mind from his reminiscence. She rested in his arms on the walked to school, the hypnosis an ever-annoying hinderance. People shoved past him toward the busy crosswalk, hurried in the early-morning commute. “You okay?”

He shook his head, disconnecting his present-self from his past-reflection. “What was that?”

“You can put me down if you need a break.”

“No, I’m fine.” He lied, but the truth didn’t change anything. No sleep. No food. He lived off the combined sustenance of Monsters, Bulls, and green tea. The morning blitzed past, hour by hour, existing in a quantum state of having happened and never happening at all. It enveloped him in its tangled mess of stimuli, synapses he had only marginal control over. He needed silence. He needed space.

But he wasn’t getting either with Iino. Passerby stared at them along the crowded city streets. No sane man strolled through town holding a girl like a bride on their wedding night, and while he was certainly not sane—many mental illness symptoms existed without diagnosis—he was also not delusional. Adults gave off blank get-a-room expressions. Children giggled amongst themselves, mocking with—they probably believed—sneaky kissy faces. And Ishigami dreaded the gossip his peers would spread the moment the two stepped on campus, another weighing thought. He wished Osaragi came with them, but she went back home for her own uniform and they were already running behind.

They arrived in Shuchi’in Academy’s empty halls fifteen minutes late for class. Classroom doors were closed, students comfortably at their desks ready for the morning lectures, and the droning tones drifted through the thin walls. “Electron clouds”, “Restoration Period”, “Trigonometric integrals”, “Deconstructionism”, he could decipher each room’s subject from a few, key, muffled phrases. Their own, B-2, taught computer literacy first. The keyboard clacking sang a familiar song, and for a moment, serenity pulsed through his ears. Until, he noticed the teacher in the doorway, arms crossed, eyeing their approach.

Shit, Ishigami thought to himself. It wasn’t uncommon for him to be late or skip entirely, but Iino being with him exacerbated the situation. She had never been late for anything and getting written up was exactly the spark he needed to set Iino off. He took a deep breath, stepped forward, and despite carrying her, made no mention of it.

“Sir, I can explain,” Ishigami said, but he waved him off.

“Shirogane already explained.” The teacher handed Iino two stacks of papers, the lecture notes and homework for the day. “Take these to the council room. You have permission to study there.”

“President?” he questioned, but he was grateful. Fujiwara must have clued him in. “We’ll have to thank him later,” he said, relieved.

The student council, not present, left the room in disarray. Papers scattered across the desk, books stacked on the coffee table, and coffee mugs abandoned on the shelves. Ishigami bent his knees and flicked the light switch up with his backpack. Thick red splotched the green couch headrest, stains from his head wound the week before. Iino sighed. She tossed the homework down on the coffee table and situated herself in his lap on the couch, legs draped over his, head against his arm against the couch’s. Uncomfortable, but tolerable. He leaned back until the ceiling came into view. “Looks like we could have stayed home,” he said.

No response.

She had fallen asleep. “Seriously?” he wondered out loud. Then, he saw it, the position she laid in matched the plush bear’s lap, and he substituted the bear. “Didn’t sleep well after all, huh?”

It looked peaceful. The uptight face melted away in even breaths. Gone was the anger, the morality, the ethics, the committee. It was just Iino in his arms, like he hadn’t seen her in years, the middle school friend that time forgot. It captivated him, the bangs curtaining her face, the gently closed eyes, the delicate rise and fall in her chest, the warmth of her body against his.

He molded into his role as a still, inanimate object. Occasionally, light footsteps sounded outside, teachers transferring between classrooms, the marking of another hour past. The shadows shifted across the room, cast down by the sun through the morning. His spine grew stiff, the blood circulation slowed in his left arm, and his leg fell asleep, but he ignored the urges to move.

Then, a dull pain developed in his elbow, right where she nested her head. Desperate, he slipped his free hand under her neck and lifted her off his arm with the ginger attention one gave a live cobra. Slow, slower, then slower still, he slid his arm out and held his breath.

“No, don’t leave me.”

He almost dropped her. His breath caught in his already evacuated lungs and his body froze on a dime, but she didn’t wake up. Sleep talking? She rolled over in his lap and wrapped her arms around his, trapping one hand under her head and the other in her grasp. Her hold became tighter. She curled her legs, knees digging into his ribs, burying herself into his body. What he wouldn’t give to replace his bones with cotton filling. He winced and pushed himself further into the couch, but the more space he gave, the more she took over. She encircled him, crunching herself further into a singularity around his stomach.

“Don’t go back.” Panicked. She was having a nightmare.

“I won’t,” he answered. He didn’t know who she was talking to, but he hoped she’d hear him. He adjusted his arm within her embrace and rested it atop her head beneath her hair. “I’m right here.” Leaning in, he repeated into her ear, “I’m right here.” Her grip held strong, but her breathing normalized, calm as before. “I’m right here.”

“Good morning!”

The door slammed open, and Iino jumped awake. Her skull crashed into his and bounced back into the arm rest, a heavy thud against the wooden frame.

“Damn it!” Ishigami cried, rubbing his forehead.

The rest had arrived, Fujiwara in the lead, Shirogane and Shinomiya behind. After two weeks, the whole team was present, the five visionaries of the 68th Shuchi’in Academy student council.

President Miyuki Shirogane: The two-year running council president was the Junior year scholarship student, and the best there was. Second highest standardized test scores in the entire country and highest grades in the school, let alone his class. Stanford university prospect, star volleyball player, dancer, and most importantly, devoted boyfriend to vice president student council member, Kaguya Shinomiya. He achieved the impossible, being an accomplished and respected student amongst elite, pretentious children, and becoming the first scholarship-student president, a position so rot with nepotism it made monarchies look like meritocracies. His slick blonde hair and bloodshot, blue eyes were hard to forget as he forged a path for the academy’s future with a coffee in his hand.

Vice President Kaguya Shinomiya: Also her second year as vice, she was arguably the richest girl in Japan. Heir to the Shinomiya conglomerate, she competed and crushed the best in a school choked with top tier members of Japan’s corporate children. Her bloodline was perfected to excel in a world of extraordinary people, and excel she did. Second highest scores in her class, champion archer, chess grandmaster, competitive runner, multi-lingual, and an enchanting, mysterious aura to top it off. Her jet black hair and ruby red eyes captivated anyone who had any sense of beauty, and the quick switch between her sweet and devilish personalities made her an unpredictable social force. Ishigami always stayed away from her when she had her hair down, a sign that she was pissed beyond recognition. Ironically, the red-ribbon she tied it up with acted as a green flag in most circumstances.

Secretary Chika Fujiwara: The bubbling bubblegum nightmare herself. The physical embodiment of spitting on fate’s shoe, her antics had ways of manipulating reality itself. Not literally, usually, but she had undeniable luck in being in the right place at the wrong?… right?… times. Daughter of political giants from her parents to her great grandparents, her fluency in social matters exceeded her entrepreneurial classmates. In the outward facing battles of public image and diplomacy, she reigned supreme, but it had the adverse affect of making her act completely bonkers. The detective cap, the magnifying glass, and the single black bow clipped onto her pink bangs like a fake mustache vertically shifted way too far above her nose, it all looked as ridiculous as she acted.

Council Auditor Miko Iino: If president and vice were the visionaries, and the secretary was the public affairs manager, then Iino was the internal affairs manager. No council ran without answering to integrity, and Iino excelled at tracking moral aptitude. Rules, laws, codes of ethics, book keeping, fraud searching, priority tracking, violation handling, course corrections; she oiled the gears and kept the group on pace. The “dirty work” as they called it. Her parents were both the Honorable Supreme Court Justice and the world-renown humanitarian, devoted public servants and keepers of human justice. She took after them well, following not only in their studies, but also their narrow path. Her brown hair matched the school’s prestigious oak walls and her milk-chocolate eyes were molded by the warm forge of legacy. Ranked number one in the Sophomore class, no one dared challenge her on any level, academic, disciplinary, or otherwise.

Treasurer Yuu Ishigami: Son to a toy company CEO. Local computer geek. Ranked 37th in the class. Oh, and he went to cheer practice sometimes.

“Sorry we’re late,” Shirogane said, tossing his book bag into the desk chair. “This morning has been rather busy.”

Shinomiya giggled, “Not that it matters. You two seem comfortable.” She twiddled with her ribbon and sat herself on the edge of the President’s desk. High schoolers in a room without authority figures always spawned mischief, especially between couples. The president and vice partook in their fair share.

Shirogane skipped over the teasing. “Let’s get down to business. Shinomiya has been helping me brainstorm possible solutions given the odd nature of you two’s predicament.”

Fujiwara went to the closet, dragged out an on-wheels chalkboard, and handed Shinomiya a white chalk bit which she accepted. “For starters, the hypnosis is a failed procedure,” Shinomiya said, her cold biting tongue not holding back, even against one of her own council members. “Fujiwara did not seek the advice of a trained hypnotist before Iino went under a trance, so we can’t assume anything about the effects. What happens under normal circumstances can guide us, but there’s only a few things we know for sure.”

She wrote three words, “Hypnosis,” “Iino,” and “Ishigami” on the board, drawing double-sided arrows connecting all three in a triangle. “These three are linked, somehow, by a mysterious connection, caused by our resident secretary. The current state is simple, Iino is in a trance until she’s being carried by Ishigami. She then stays conscious until Ishigami sets her down. However, there’s some notable pieces missing.”

She wrote more, “Off-Switch” and “Commands.”

“Iino does not respond to commands from Fujiwara despite acting as hypnotist. As well, removing the hypnosis failed, but that may be because we have an amateur.”

“Hey! Be nice,” Fujiwara said from the far corner.

“Regardless, researching the current properties of the hypnosis might prove useful in breaking Iino out of it. That means,” she set the chalk down turned, studying Iino in his lap. “We’re playing an information game, and unfortunately, you’re our lab rat.”

Iino sat up in Ishigami’s lap, hands buried in her dress. “What do you want to know?”

“For starters, why did you agree to be hypnotized?” Shinomiya side-eyed Fujiwara with mild contempt. “Our secretary also knows, but she was adamant she couldn’t say.”

Iino put her head down. Of course, she won’t say, Ishigami thought. Openly admitting she was pissed at him in front of Pres would get her scolded. He watched her twiddle with her fingers, eight eyes on her in the creeping silence. She picked at her nails, hands shaking violently, and peeled the white tips one finger at a time. The missing keratin layers exposed the vulnerable flesh underneath and turned from perfectly filed ends to rough, torn slivers. Ishigami wanted to nudge her, tell her it wasn’t a big deal, prompt her to spill, but Shinomiya controlled the room, and he dared not do something out of turn. But Iino’s fidgeting reached her second pinky, and she didn’t stop. She retuned to the top, pulling at her thumbnail until she drew blood. It pooled into a single red bubble along her raw skin and dripped onto her dress.

“I’ll tell them,” he said, jolting her back to life. “I pissed her off the other day after getting into a fight during lunch, and she used the hypnotism to stop being mad at me.”

“Is that true?” Shinomiya asked.

“Y—Yeah,” Iino mumbled.

“What a terrible method of conflict resolution. I expect better from a politician’s daughter.”

Fujiwara crossed her arms and jumped in, defending herself. "I'd been practicing over the spring trip, super excited to show someone what I learned, and Iino was having such a terrible day. How could I leave her suffering? That cute little face deserves all the happiness and joy in the world. I offered to hypnotize her, and she accepted, so really, this is her fault for not understanding the risks!"

“Terrible excuse.” Shinomiya went back to the chalkboard and wrote “Conflict” between “Ishigami” and “Iino.”

“Then the best way forward is to resolve their disagreement, right?” Shirogane hypothesized.

“Possibly,” Shinomiya said, “She doesn’t appear mad though.”

“It’s been… ongoing,” Ishigami said.

Shirogane nodded. “Then, while the hypnotism is alive, Iino is in our hands," he said. "I expect each of you to treat this situation with the utmost seriousness. Fujiwara, you're tasked with figuring out a way to reverse the hypnosis. Shinomiya, you'll make an amendment to the student handbook banning all forms of occult practices on campus. And Ishigami, you'll take care of Iino."

"I was afraid you'd say that," Ishigami said. “What a pain.”

“I can take care of myself,” Iino argued.

Ishigami exhaled out of his nose. “Yeah, sure you can.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and tossed her aside onto the couch. Her back hit the arm rest, and she slouched over, seemingly unable to hold herself up in the seat, like a rag doll. He’d grown used to it over the past twenty-four hours, seeing her completely blank stare and immobilized body.

“That was unnecessary,” Shirogane chided.

“Cut me some slack, I haven’t had a great week.” Too lazy to get up, he grabbed Iino’s hand and began tugging her back into his lap. It was soft to the touch and tiny. She was always small, smaller than most kids in their class, but seeing her fingers wrapped in his made him squirm, like he was holding a crystal glass, the kind he could snap under his grip. Her thumb transferred blood into his palm, and it dried against his skin, turning powder in the ambient heat.

Entranced, he didn’t realize for a moment she was looking at him, neck turned up while her back crumpled over her knees as if in a possessed state. She was awake, moving. Simply by holding her hand, she’d left her trance and gained autonomy over her own body.

Carrying and hand holding? An odd combination of triggers for anger. He imagined his mere presence pissed her off to such a degree that the proximity agitated her, but her eyes said something different. A glint that wasn't there before. A soft gaze that locked onto the connection between them. A light pink in her cheeks.

That couldn’t be right…

Chapter Text

Who could blame her? Iino eyes gradually drifted to her daydreams manifest, Ishigami’s hand gently squeezing hers. The two walked hand in hand toward her apartment down roads she had walked countless times. How dull everything looked. Grey concrete blanketed the ground, steel lampposts sprung from the ground like dystopian spikes, carbon-copy buildings sat Tetris-stacked in uniform rows, peoples faces floated past her as another quickly processed and discarded stimuli. The birds and the flowers, the shops and the shoppers, the kids and their mothers, things she watched during mid-spring walks now had the attention-grabbing visuals of a maroon 1960’s casino carpet.

And it couldn’t have been worse. She flipped internally between two extremes. Elated happiness partnered with a silent wish that she could freeze time, savor the passing seconds, and extend them into eternity. Then, self-inflicted dread as she suffocated the boiling want, need, to ask if the burning sensation in her heart also circulated his veins. He’s Tsubame’s, she reminded herself, but it wasn’t working. The broken hypnosis proved as much.

“Ishigami?” His name quietly left her lips, almost a whisper.

“Yeah?” he responded, so indifferent, like their hands together meant nothing to him.

He’s just doing what President wants. Her throat burned of hellfire. So many questions, not enough answers. She forged with manipulated innocence, undetectable tendrils feeling around the shadows, cloaked by morally gray lies.

“It went alright,” he answered.

No elaboration, details, or excitement, but it made sense he wouldn’t spill anything to her. Dare she stoop further? The curiosity tugged at her heart, but she risked exposing herself.

Logically, this led nowhere. Even if he developed feelings during the exchange, they would prove shallow long term. Lazy people often took the path of least resistance, and she propped herself up as an easy target. Her sincerity would inevitably be overshadowed by his lingering feelings for another woman, and he’d split when he got the chance.

Besides, she was out of his league. Her ideal match had strong academics that propelled him to the tops of industries, a vibrant, charming vocabulary that swept her off her feet, a serious demeanor that took the world’s mightiest challenges head on, and an intoxicating passion that drove them both to everlasting. Ishigami was effectively none of those things.

Then why? Why did she walk beside him counting the pulses in his fingers? Why did she curse the hypnosis for bailing him out of carrying her? Why did she consciously match their strides beat for beat to emulate her intimate fantasies? Why did she want it to be him?

She bit her lip and pulled the trigger. “Ishigami, I—”

“You don’t have to pretend to be nice to me,” he said.

It slapped her in the face, deadpan and abrupt. He continued walking as if the statement came naturally to him, dragging her along by her arm. It stung like a hornet in the face, but of course he hated her.

She tried rectifying that chasm between them, but it proved impossible ever since middle school. “Stay out of it.” When he pushed her away in the courtyard, it reeked of a confession, an admittance of guilt. He stalked a girl, brutally assaulted another student, and Ko Ogino walked away that day both a victim and a hero. Textbook case. She continued her semester with the understanding that seemingly good people often did terrible things, and Ishigami was no different.

Then, the rumors sprung up, spreading like ivy in a graveyard, and the story changed every time. Ko Ogino altered the timeline, dropping details in the water and fertilizing the gossip’s growth. “Ishigami stalked her” turned into “photographed” turned into “harassed” turned into “attempted blackmail,” but of course, Ogino stopped Ishigami from getting that far. His statements alone banished Ishigami to permanent exile, but they were just words, hearsay from one student to another.

Two realities sat unsettled in her conscience. Either, it was all true, and she was crushing on a boy who harassed another student in unbridled lust, or it was all false, and she blindly abandoned a friend when he needed her most. Over time, without any proof for the allegations, she leaned toward his innocence, but that meant she herself committed a terrible injustice, and in his place, she’d hate herself too.

She stopped dead in her tracks and grounded them both to a halt. He turned back and looked at her, a head and a half taller, thin like a cinnamon stick, and cold as the day she met him. She had encountered many guys before, most more intimidating than him. On the disciplinary committee, you meet all types. Blood thirsty, self-centered muscle-clad bullies; incomprehensible drug addicted slackers; unpredictable vengeful wannabe gang members; and rich, entitled lawyer happy shove-it-alls who denied the very concept of “no”. She faced them all, pen and pad in hand, writing citations without a single regard for her safety. She’d been berated, bullied, and scorned more times than she can count by people who could destroy her.

But against all rationale, she stood before him weak, afraid, and alone. Unable to speak. Unable to look him in those pretty dark blue eyes. She wanted to cry, but not in front of him. And without warning, her muscles locked into place, one after another, starting from her feet, climbing up her spine, and finishing in her neck, like wet cement dried into solid statue. Her fingers still wrapped around his, but the hypnosis kicked in anyway. Something changed, but she was helpless to understand what.

Ishigami stepped closer, seeming to not notice the state she was in. “I understand it must be hard putting on a tough face around me,” he said, “But next time, be honest instead of following Fujiwara and her voodoo, okay?” His free hand reached out, placed itself on her head, and became tangled in her hair.

She gasped for air as if her lungs had surfaced from the ocean, and her bones cracked free from the mental ice. The hypnosis broke again with that one small, affectionate gesture. She clasped her hand atop his and pulled it down to meet the other, sandwiching both his hands between hers.

“Sorry, I should have asked,” he said, but she shook her head.

“Ishigami!“ she cried out. Her mind spiraled with the anxious, excited, exhausted, hopeful, scared, loving feelings that plagued her, but she gripped him harder and stood tall. “Please forgive me! And I’ll be honest with you, just this once.”

Flash! Out the corner of her eye, in the alleyway between a flower shop and the bakery, a camera flared from the alleyway. She couldn’t see the face obscured behind the hanging pots and bouquets, but she made out the clothing, a male Shuchi’in uniform.

“Ishigami, that’s…” She lurched forward, yanked by her arm in the stalker’s direction. Ishigami broke into a sprint and made chase toward the alleyway, weaving around and sometimes shouldering pedestrians as he ran. She followed behind him, struggling to keep up with his longer legs and quickened stride.

They reached the path and saw the boy’s legs disappear around the opposite street corner. “Damn it,” Ishigami said, surveying the area. The alley was lined with backroad mom-and-pops shops and restaurants. Customers sat around outdoor tables eating and drinking in the late-day sun, and bicycles were crammed against the wall in the narrow passageway. Ishigami kicked up a bike.

“Wait! You can’t just take that! That’s illegal!”

“We don’t have time to argue.” He hopped over the other side, stood himself on both pedals, and balanced the bike with one handle, leaving the seat open for her. “Get on!”

“Let’s at least ask around, see if we can borrow one.”

“Iino, he’s getting away!” He attempted to yank his hand out from hers, but she held on for dear life.

Panicked, but not wanting to let him go alone, she hopped onto the seat and wrapped both her arms around his waist. “Okay, let’s go.”

Instantly, he struck the pedals and clicked up the gears and they screamed down the alley. The humid air whistling through past her ears and her hair blew in a million directions. The rough concrete streets turned into cobblestone paths that felt like biking up stairs. The buildings closed in on them, tighter and tighter. Ishigami dodged customers and suppliers alike, ran over cardboard boxes strewn beside front doors, and scared patrons leaving those doors. “Sorry! Pardon me!” Ishigami yelled out at the people he rushed past, expertly hurtling through the dangers without slowing once.

Iino tightened her embrace. His back blocked the road ahead, and she witnessed only the hindsight of his actions. “Slow down! You’re gonna get us killed!”

“No promises!” he replied, hitting the gear shift a couple more times. “Hold on tight!”

They hit the curb and burst out the other end of the alley to the shock of many. The wheels left the ground for a brief moment, and she felt weightless, lifeless. She caught a glimpse of their faces, the sheer fright matched her own. Reckless! Dangerous! She wanted to collapse, let her soul leave her body.

But not him. He howled a laugh like a kid riding down the peak of a roller coaster. Her eyes widened, unable to believe what she was hearing, something she’d never experienced in him before. Fearlessness. The same boy who dreaded interacting with his peers, who hid in the corner atop the stairs to avoid the world. Him. “What is happening?” she cried out.

“We’re gaining on him is what’s happening!” he said triumphantly.

“Who is it?”

“It’s…” he paused, before answering, “Hokama, you stop right there!”

For the first time, Iino leaned over the side and saw the boy for herself. The black greasy ponytail and bodyguard build could not be mistaken for anyone else. He didn’t stop. He kept running as fast he could to who knows where, but they were gaining.

“I said stop!”

Ishigami let go of the handle bar and reached out for Hokama’s shoulder. Hokama side stepped him, and in a single abrupt turn, punched Ishigami straight in the jaw. The bike rattled and swerved, one second in line, the next toppling sideways into the ground.

On instinct, Iino went to shield her face, but her entire body froze. The hypnosis. Her arms dangled on either side of her, unable to move another inch. She slammed into the ground wrist first and rolled along the concrete for several feet. The blue sky turned over and over in her head, and by the time she stopped, the buildings tripled in her blurred visioned. She lied flat on her back staring straight up, immense pain spiking in her arms, legs, and back. Her wrist might have broken, but she couldn’t check.

“Iino!”

She heard Ishigami in the distance, how far she wasn’t sure. The sounds melded together into a single choppy hum like the low constant stream of an industrial fan. He peeked out from the edge of her vision. Blood streamed down his chin from his crimson covered lips. His uniform tore in three places, across the shoulder, beneath his ribs, and above the hip. The skin on his hands was peeling in several spots, also bloodied, and when he knelt down beside her, he clenched his teeth.

“I’m sorry! That was stupid. I should have listened to you!” He grabbed her hand, and she tried to squeeze his back, but her fingers didn’t listen. Something definitely fractured. “Let’s get you to a hospital,” he said, but she reached up with her other hand and caressed his cheek. Her arm was covered in road rash, but she saw it more than she felt it.

“I’ll be honest,” she said, tasting iron on her tongue, “I really hate Tsubame.”

Adrenaline was one hell of a drug.