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“What are you staring at?”
“Oh, um…! I was just thinking about what to buy.” Not the entire truth, not a flat-out lie, but an answer Kisa fumbles out anyway as she snaps out of her trance. Her eyes had drifted towards the unusual sight of Kamiya out and about at the convenience store instead of the shelf of grab-and-gos in front of her that she came for, and judging by his reaction, it wasn't just the passing glance she thought it’d been. But she knows how he can get. It's probably better to avoid as much confrontation as possible, especially considering that his irritation with Amber’s loss is probably still raw.
It must be really bad, because all he says is, “Whatever. Just knock it off.”
“Yeah, sorry.”
He does a double take. “What did you just say?”
“Um, I said I’m sorry. For staring.”
Kamiya rolls his eyes, the bag of chips in his hand drooping as his wrist goes slack. “That’s your damn problem. Just own it.” He scowls, and Kisa can feel her heartbeat quicken under her prickling skin. It feels like the foreboding heat in the air before a storm, making Kisa nervous enough that she instinctively finds herself taking a step back.
Kamiya, though, takes a step forward, keeping the same distance between them. Kisa realizes that he’s throwing down a gauntlet, and the buzzing from before now crackles in her brain, her eyes locking on his.
She’s sure an onlooker would find the sight odd, two teenagers glaring at each other, backlit by the harsh fluorescent lighting of a refrigerated shelf. Electricity arcs between them in the tension—every time Kisa catches a citrine spark in Kamiya’s eyes, she feels her own expression steeling, sending lightning right back. She’s not going to lose.
They stay like that for what’s probably just a few more seconds when Kamiya’s brows draw in, then shoot up. Almost immediately, he looks down and away, like he’s been slapped.
Kisa’s not sure whether she should ask if he’s okay. She takes another step closer, and just as she opens her mouth to speak, he whirls back around, standing up straight. It doesn’t do much good, though: he can’t leer over her. They're pretty much the same height, almost chest to chest.
Another oddly furtive glance, this one darting down to her hands, then the shelf. “Those are good with sandwiches,” he murmurs, gesturing at the drinks next to them before turning on his heel, making quickly for the register and practically running out the door after paying.
A bit confused, Kisa frowns, but she picks up a can.
“I can’t believe we only have two days left.” Suzu sighs, then adds, “And just a week until the third years move out, too…”
“I’m sure they’ll come to visit,” says Kisa, keeping up with him in several smaller strides, almost a jog, really. “And if not, they’ll be close by with the Tamasaka Troupe.”
“We should go see a show next year! Besides, I’m sure they’ll start asking Enishi and Chuza about you soon enough.”
“Ha, I wonder…”
“Hey. Tachibana.”
Suzu turns first—his instincts are sharp in a way hers might never be—but when she follows suit, she sees Kamiya standing a few meters behind them, arms crossed and weight canted on one leg.
“What do you want?” Suzu growls, but Kisa shoots him a look, and he backs down. She's pretty sure he knows by now, with how he’s become a little more protective of her since the winter performance, but she appreciates the deliberate step back he takes to defer, to let her handle this on her own terms.
It's the right decision, it seems. Kamiya answers the question by keeping his eyes on her, like Suzu isn't even there.
“Suzu, can you go ahead and let Sou know I’ll see you guys at dinner?”
“Uh, are you sure?”
She puts on a smile and nods. He seems to hesitate for a moment longer, throwing some sort of glance at Kamiya before beaming right back at her. “Alright. You got it. But don’t get held up too long, okay?”
“Yeah.”
Once he starts jogging off, Kisa waits until he’s out of earshot. “Did you need something?”
“Follow me,” Kamiya says. Stupidly, she does, as he leads her towards Amber’s dorm building, where more than a few students start whispering.
“Remember what I told you last time?” he asks.
Own it.
She keeps walking, doing her best to ignore whispers of “What’s he doing here?” and snickers of “Kamiya wanted an early lunch, huh?”
Amber’s dorm—the student room area, at least—is a tangled nest of winding corridors, the noise of lights hanging from the rafters overhead filling the cramped walls with a constant industrial whirr. Kamiya eventually stops at a particular door and fits a key produced from his pocket into the lock. He holds the door open, his expression gesturing Kisa inside.
His room looks oddly normal. A couple of movie posters, eyeliner and concealer left out on the dresser by the mirror, a pair of socks haphazardly tossed by the door when the laundry basket is right there. Seriously? He didn't seem the type.
“Sit down,” he orders. Kisa’s not sure where exactly he means, so she decides on the couch. She seems to have chosen wisely again; Kamiya sits down right next to her. “Ask me whatever it was you were going to, the other day.”
“What?”
“You looked like you wanted to say something when I saw you at the store. Go on, spit it out.”
Kisa’s not sure if this is another sort of test, or just a genuine opportunity to satisfy her curiosity. “Uh, well… what were you doing there, exactly?”
He crosses his arms and rolls his eyes. If this was another test, she’s almost certainly failed. “That was your burning question?”
“Well, not exactly burning.” She doesn't really care. “I just don't usually see you… out and about.”
“I was grabbing a quick lunch.”
“But the cafeteria was open, right?”
“Sometimes they don’t serve anything good.”
“So you went out?”
“Do you think Tagane kept us locked in the practice rooms until it was time for us to terrorize the rest of you or something?”
Kisa decides he doesn't need to know that she’s heard a similar joke before, thrown around in Quartz’s cafeteria, albeit way less appropriate in nature. But she can’t let Kamiya’s snide barb slide entirely. “What did you expect me to think? You shoved me against a wall,” she reminds him, voice so flat and deep that she even surprises herself.
“Yeah,” says Kamiya, almost proudly. “You were acting pathetic.” Pausing, he corrects himself a moment later, “Actually, I’ve seen you on stage. You weren't acting. You were just pathetic.”
“Wow. Thanks.” Kisa starts to realize that she can’t help the snarky responses. Kamiya has an irritating way of drawing out her cattier, more prideful tendencies in a way even Otori doesn't. Or maybe she’s just gotten too used to adapting to her conversation partners on a dime. “Anything else to add?”
“Yeah. If I ever see you like that again, I’ll gladly shove you even harder.”
The smile that cuts across Kamiya’s face sends her back to the Newcomer’s Performance. Sou’d described him as someone with unique features, but it's only now that Kisa understands exactly what he meant by that. His lips curl up into something that's just as sinister as it is coy, something that could be—and probably has been—easily misconstrued if not for the easy way his gaze sinks into his face beneath half-lidded eyes, conveying some degree of playfulness, though Kisa does have to wonder what exactly is funny to him about all this.
They sit in silence, but it's something different from their staredown at the store. This is quieter. More of a rumble of thunder from far away. Not a warning, but a watch.
“Hey, Tachibana.”
“Y-yes?”
“You’re not actually a boy, are you?”
The outright phrasing of the question shocks her, torching any semblance of her remaining confidence. As far as she knows, her secret is something of an open one—has been since winter, really—but most, like Shirota and Tanakamigi, have only subtly let on that they know while doing their best to reassure her that they’ll keep quiet.
The way Kamiya asks, though, demanding an answer, feels like a threat.
“You think I’m a girl?”
“Did I say that?”
“You just asked if I was really a boy.”
“You're pretty stupid if after a year here you think not being a boy automatically makes you a girl. Doesn’t surprise me, though.”
“That’s not what I meant!” she shouts, a little louder than intended. Kamiya seems to find that even funnier, grin now outright smug.
“Oh, I’m sure it wasn’t. Stop deflecting and answer my question. With the truth.”
“Now who’s being ignorant? What would it even matter?”
“It doesn't. I don't care. But…” His expression turns forlorn. “I do care if you have an unfair advantage playing Jeannes.”
“Are you serious?” she hisses. “If I am a girl, it would make it that much harder to play a Jeanne. It's not just about playing a girl—I’d have to play a guy playing a girl. I would have to work twice as hard to do it, and that's not even considering that I’d be lying to everyone!”
Kamiya, for all intents and purposes, looks stunned at the outburst. Maybe even a little remorseful, if she's being generous.
“Look, I get that you don't like me for god knows what reason related to Tanakamigi, but if you're seriously going to try and get me expelled on grounds like that, you're just as pathetic as you say I am.”
The accusation—and Kamiya’s clear guilt, source less clear—hangs low in the air, the weight of the sky in every moment that passes where the only sound is their breathing.
“That's not why I asked.”
A haggard breath, as she tries to catch the air that escapes her. “Then why?”
“I meant it. I don't care if you are a girl or not. I wouldn't even tell anyone. I don't care enough about you enough to do that, either.” He breathes out. “But if I know that you're not like me, then I can finally let this shit go. If you really aren’t a boy, there's nothing I can do to compete with you. You said it yourself. You’d be acting 24/7. That’d be more of an accomplishment than anything I could ever pull off.”
“W-what?”
“Sissia,” he says. “Sissia made Chui cry. You know that, right?”
She didn't. “Really?”
“Really.” He scoffs. “To be honest, it was like someone slapped me across the face. Seeing the devout artist I came here to act with, single tear rolling down his cheek like he was in a movie. Spent the whole day after muttering about how he was inspired. It was ridiculous. All that because of trite garbage about the power of friendship.”
“You know, Sissia punched someone for saying something like that.” The line doesn't come out as the threat she intended: he cackles at that, a maddened thing.
“You? Throwing a real punch? That's something I’d pay to see.” His face falls again. “Amber was pretty shaken up, seeing him like that. It… made a lot of us think.”
“About?”
“How we all want to crush you beneath our heel, mostly.” God, he won't give her a break, will he? “That probably doesn't sound significant, but before, it was about Chui. We all wanted to support him, even if it meant losing ourselves in the process. Amber’s a class of blind ambition, but I didn't realize how different that was from hunger until I saw the way he looked at you.”
“What are you saying?”
“It wasn’t him that changed me. It was you. You finally—agh, I don't fucking know how to say this—you made me look away. You made me look at you, too. I wanted to see what he saw, and… I did. And just like that, it was like everything else fell away. Chui, I Am Death, the class rankings. All of it. And… I didn't even think to feel bad about it until after the fact.”
“That… still isn't very clear.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not a poet, okay!? I just—! Agh!” He continues to sputter, struggling for the right words between squawks. “It's not my fault you’re this dense!”
For some reason—spite horseshoeing into empathy, maybe, who knows—Kisa takes pity on him. “I think you're wrong,” she says quietly. “About not knowing that feeling until you saw Sissia.”
He pauses in the middle of his unintelligible tirade. “And how would you know that?”
“Charles,” she says. “I based him on you. The chastising… the mouthiness,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “But there was something else there that I picked up on, even back then. Some purpose that wasn't plain anger or madness. I just couldn't put my finger on what. I’d guess that part is something only you’d know, huh?”
Oddly, instead of frowning at her armchair psychology, his eyes light up with genuine mirth in a way she's never seen before but wants to see again. “You took a lot of liberties. My laugh isn't that off-putting. And if I bit it tomorrow, Kakuto wouldn't be screeching for vengeance. He’d probably show up to rehearsals like nothing was wrong and call me unprofessional for being late.”
“I thought you guys were friends?”
“The same way cellmates are, I guess. Spend enough time with someone tolerable, and they start growing on you. And you start feeling weird when they're not around.”
“And… someone intolerable?” she ventures.
“You shove them against a wall, apparently.” He murmurs, “And then you wonder what you’d do if it happened again.”
“If you shoved me against a wall, again, you mean?”
He winces. “Yeah. I guess.”
“Huh.” How else is she supposed to respond to that?
“Never mind,” he says. “That was weird.” He shakes his head, probably with confusion or embarrassment, perhaps a little of both.
Kisa coughs, chiding herself for entertaining the same line of thinking. Regrettably, she finds her brain slipping into something syrupy at the mental image of it.
And so, just like everything in her imagination, she chases it. She stands up and walks over to the bookshelf. “I just wish we could stop fighting.” She pouts deliberately but sincerely, which she knows for a fact will make him tick. She fights a laugh when really, that same itch under her skin from the other day is back with a vengeance. “I really do think we could be friends.”
Bullseye. Kamiya’s nose flares as he follows her, stepping closer like he’s just smelled blood. “You're so full of shit.”
“I do mean it, you know.”
“Delusional, then.”
“Is it really so hard to believe? We just had an almost-normal conversation without you calling me trash or filth. I’d say that’s a good first step.”
“Well, that's—you're still an over-idealistic freak who desperately needs a reality check, and I’ll wipe that look off your face one day—don't ever forget that! But…”
At this point, she knows what he actually wants to say, and really, she should just let him say it, but the way he hesitates draws a giggle out of her. “But what?”
It happens too fast to even register, but she finds herself slammed against the wall by the speed of a cobra and the strength of an undertow. No, wait—not the wall: something softer, that shields her back from the full impact. It doesn't hurt at all. Kamiya’s squeezing her firmly, yes, but safely between his arms, one forearm pushing at her collarbone, his other nestled between her shoulder blades. Idly, she wonders if he’s done this before, or at least thought about it. He seems practiced.
“I hate you,” he hisses, eyes seething with something completely different.
“Is that why you thought about what would happen if we ended up like this again? Is that why you're so close?”
“Shut up,” he says, pushing a bit more, and it feels good. Safe, even though he’s looking at her like she really is his lunch. “Shut up, right now. Stop talking.”
“Or what?” goads Kisa, knowing exactly what’ll come next.
She’s never thought about what it’d be like to kiss Kamiya—not before today, at least—but he’s full of surprises. Rather than searing heat or an icy chill or a harsh bite, it's… normal. Achingly slow and ardent, sure, but otherwise as warm and soft as anyone else probably is, despite the fact that one of his hands has moved to pin both of her wrists over her head. The other wraps around her waist, selfish fingers spreading wide to guide her back into an arch like his end goal is possession.
Between gasps for air when he finally pulls away, her spit still glossing his lips—an obscene sight—Kamiya uses one of his labored exhales to say, “I told you I’d wipe that look off your face.”
“Glad you're enjoying this.”
“You have no idea.” His fingers, so strong earlier, are now dainty and delicate as he tips her chin with two of them. “Are you?”
She is, but she's not going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that. “What do you care? You don't like me.”
“You're right,” he says, and she knows now that's a lie. “But right now, I want you, and I don't half-ass things.”
His knee creeps between her legs as he continues to practically devour her. At some point, he pauses and splits another smile when she yelps.
“Knew it.”
She tries to voice her annoyance that he's saying something like that with his—albeit valid—ideological objections to the gender binary earlier, but she's interrupted by the whine that works its way up her throat.
He pushes his knee further, and she can feel tendrils of near-euphoria working through every nerve. “Hey, Kisa,” he purrs, tone even more vulgar than usual, “you wanna know the real reason I asked you here?”
“I-I think I got it,” she responds.
“Good.”
With that, he sinks his teeth into her lip, and she bites right back.
“Um, Kisa?” Sou asks, waving a hand in front of her face. “Are you alright?”
“Y-yeah! Just a bit tired,” she half-truths, startled by the sudden question when she was spacing out. She can't help it. Kamiya is walking across campus with his neck entirely exposed, wearing several bruises like it's nothing more than costume jewelry.
She feels hot under her fully-clasped collar, and not just because it's the middle of summer, but because she knows if it slips down or comes undone even a little, Sou and everyone else in the courtyard is going to get a front-row view of her matching ones, fewer in number—she wasn't going to lose—but just as purple.
Sou clearly doesn't buy the explanation, but bless him, he leaves her alone after an eye of soft suspicion, turning to Suzu to ask about some homework assignment for another class.
With their attention diverted, Kisa chances another glance at Kamiya. He's with Momonashi—and strangely enough, Kasai of all people—smirking and pointing at his neck, to the former’s same old empty smile and the latter’s clear displeasure.
It's then that lightning strikes for the third time, their gazes meeting. He mouths the words, and she knows them well enough to not need to hear them.
What are you staring at?