Chapter Text
Ayase Chihaya is special. Ayase Chihaya is unlike any girl that Taichi has ever met.
She falls asleep during lectures, she falls asleep when she’s called to answer questions during those lectures; she talks while she’s eating, and she doesn’t stop eating, and she most certainly never stops talking; she wears her hair short, like a boy, but she’s still as pretty as a doll. Beauty in vain, their classmates tease.
Yeah, Ayase Chihaya is one special middle schooler.
In the first month of their term, Taichi can’t help but watch her in awe. He learns, through silent observation, that Chihaya’s rough around her edges. She doesn’t care about what she wears. She doesn’t think before she speaks, she doesn’t think about things like cliques and hierarchies. She complains a lot about having to think in general, and she’s very, very loud.
Everything about her is loud. From her Daddy Bear shirts, to her laughter, to her joy. Everything about Chihaya is punctuated by boldness. She stands tall even when she incorrectly answers the teacher’s questions because she’s asleep half of the time. She eats voraciously even if she sits all alone at lunch. She insists her older sister is a national star even if she embarrasses both herself and her sister in the process.
Even when she’s embarrassing, Taichi thinks, even when I get secondhand embarrassment from watching her, she doesn’t back down.
And deep down, he knows her unwavering boldness—along with her many loud, and quite frankly, annoying character traits—are what draw him to her. Because he really doesn’t understand how she is the way she is, and that fascinates him. Chihaya’s very being contradicts everything he’s ever thought he’s needed to be.
Taichi’s mom tells him all the time that his first word was “one”. How auspicious, she’d say. How superstitious, he thinks now that he’s older. Except she’s the one who gets to laugh last in the end, because throughout all his life he’s carried that expectation of hers with him. Number one, or nothing. Be the best, or don’t try to be anything at all.
So he tries to live up to his name, and for the most part, he does. Taichi’s consistently within the 99th percentile of his grade, whether that be in terms of scores, athletic performance. Looks. He’s rich, and on top of that, he’s got a rather rich attitude. Any uncertainties another kid might have about their own success are assurances for him, because he’s Taichi, and succeed is what he does. That’s just who he is. Pristine, prudent, perfect.
Take all of those things, add his pretty face to the picture, and he becomes an idol. Someone who draws in his peers and teachers towards him like moths to a flame. He becomes a figure for them.
Not a friend. Not someone they really see.
And that’s okay, he reasons, because beneath his test scores, designer clothing, and pretty skin is someone smaller, more scared, and more prideful than the character he makes himself out to be. Someone’s who’s afraid to admit effort in the face of failure because he’s scared it’ll make him look bad. Someone who's afraid to feel shame.
Chihaya contradicts him, sure, but Taichi knows he's full of contradictions himself. She’s an unstoppable whirlwind of guts, she probably knows humility like it’s the back of her hand. And Taichi’s got neither the guts to admit that he’s jealous of her nor the humility to circumvent the expectations set for him. To fail. Chihaya is everything Taichi is not, but she still shines in a way Taichi doesn't think he ever could.
And that’s just so fascinating.
For the first month that they’re in the same class, he continues making these assessments about her character. She’s not the brightest student. Doesn’t have a filter. Hasn’t got many friends, but the ones who do surround her love her with their full chest.
He becomes so used to watching Chihaya from the background that the day they become friends, he thinks it’s an accident. For a month, she was just the loud tomboy sitting across from her in class. Today, right when class ends, she saunters up to him after class ends with a stack of paper in her arms.
“Hey, hey, Taichi.”
She skips towards his desk. It takes all the strength in Taichi’s body not to frown in displeasure. He takes a quick glance around the room—empty. “Yeah.”
Without hesitation, she drops the papers down on his desk, fans them across his textbooks, and promptly shoves all of his pens and pencils off. “Taichi, Taichi. Oh, sorry,” she apologizes, kneeling to pick up his stuff.
The vestiges of his displeasure threaten to take hold of him again. Those writing utensils weren’t cheap. And when did they become close enough to be on a first name basis?
“What?”
Chihaya beams back at him. She really is prettier when she’s not talking. His face warms; he squashes that thought. “I got permission from Yamada Sensei—well, er, not really permission, she kinda just told me to print whatever forms I needed for the upcoming class trip. I ran out of ink at home and this year we're going to an aquarium, how cool is that? There's no way I'm missing out!" She worms her fingers between her stack and thrusts a paper into his chest. Ow. "Anyways!”
He looks down. It’s a poster of her sister from the magazine he read yesterday morning, and it’s a badly cropped one at that. She’s not even the focus of the photo. “Help me put these up around school!”
At least say please, he thinks. Everything about how she’s acting right now is so distasteful, it makes him want to refuse her just out of spite. He’s got a tutor waiting at home for him and soccer practice at seven on top of that.
He knows he should say no, but the moment he tries to protest, he looks at her—really looks at her—and all the complaints he’s got waiting on the tip of his tongue die out.
There’s sunlight dancing atop her head, illuminating the fire in her eyes. And in those eyes, he sees himself.
He turns his head away before she can think he's being creepy. She’s so distasteful, yet he suddenly finds he doesn’t really care.
Wordlessly, he peels her posters off his textbooks, packs up his book bag, and walks to the door of their classroom. When he glances back, Chihaya's feet are still planted at his desk, and the fire in her eyes hasn’t quieted.
Tutor at six. Soccer at seven. Poster, poster, poster.
Taichi sighs. Dummy Chihaya. “Aren’t these your posters? Let’s make this quick.”
He watches her mouth open, ever-so slightly, before something clicks and her usual big, dumb grin is back on her face. Quickly, she grabs all the posters off his desk—idiot, you’re crumpling them, he grumbles—and runs to him, pushing him straight out the door.
“C’mon then, Taichi! C’mon, I’m thinking we do twenty posters today and twenty tomorrow”. That’s not even half of what you printed, he wants to say, but expertly leaves this unsaid. “Ah, but I know you’ve got stuff, so if you’ve gotta go, fifteen is fine!” Her hands fly to his wrist.
Vaguely, amidst the feeling of her warm fingers over his cold skin, he registers what she says. “You know I have practice?”
“Well, yeah. You’ve got loads of bruises on your shins, Taichi. And you're always scorin’ so high on all our quizzes, and stuff. Must’ve worked really hard.”
Warmth spreads throughout his cheeks. She sees me.
“Er,” he clears his throat. I really need to remove this jacket. “Chihaya. That’s fine, right?”
He swears he sees stars in her eyes. “Just fine, Taichi,” she says, and the way she annunciates his name makes it sound like it’s a fact. Like that’s who he is to her. Just Taichi.
She drags him to the nearest bulletin board. There’s dirt at the bottom of her sweater, leaves plastered to the back of her shorts. Beauty in vain. “Here. You do seven, I’ll go around the corner and do seven.”
Dummy Chihaya. That’s not even fifteen. She hands him the posters—good thing he still has the first one she gave him—and makes to run down the hall.
Taichi glances at the clock. He’ll be late to tutoring. He can almost feel his mom’s fury.
But. “Twenty!” He yells, just as she’s about to round the corner. “We’re doing twenty.”
She flashes him another jaw-breaking, toothy smile. His heart skips a beat. Yeah. You sure are special.
Within the span of ten minutes, Taichi officially concludes that Ayase Chihaya is: loud, bold, and the sum of every quirk that would probably send his mom into a fit. But as he listens to the thundering of her steps as she runs down the next hall in excitement, he can't help the fuzzy feeling that blossoms in his chest.
“One poster down,” he mutters to himself. Shaky fingers reach for the next.
It’s one thing for him to be late to after-school commitments to hang up her silly posters. It’s another thing for him to want to hang them all up with her. But when he thinks of the scent of sun in her hair, her rosy cheeks, and her thumbs on his pulse point, he knows it’s pointless to try and reason with himself.
Because how could he ever deny her?
So he picks up the next poster, and the next.
You see me, he thinks. I see you.