Chapter Text
The late afternoon sun slants through the classroom windows, casting long golden bars across the tables scattered around the college classroom. Most of the class has cleared out by now, but two groups linger, chatting away: You and your friends hanging out in a crowd by the door, and a group of girls circling around a table near the chalkboard.
Deciding to call it a day, you start packing up your bag while getting ready to get up and leave. Halfway through packing, your friend Kai gives you a sharp elbow to the ribs, then throws his arm over your shoulder, “What, leaving already? We’re all gonna hang at Seto’s place after this to play some games.”
You wince at the hit and force an easy smile, something you’ve practiced for these moments, then respond with a small and shaky laugh. Socializing comes naturally when it has to; people usually listen when you speak, you get along with most people, and you know how to navigate most social settings, that’s how you ended up with this big group of lovable idiots to begin with. The problem is that it’s draining, absurdly draining. It’s not like these are bad guys, and you genuinely like most of them, but the meter on your social battery is already ticking close to empty for the day. “Sorry, I have some work I have to get done today. I’ll see you guys later, alright?” You shrug his arm off your shoulder, then zip up your backpack and sling it on before getting up and swiftly making your way out the door.
From the other side of the room, there’s one girl in the group sitting down, taking a glance over her shoulder and raising an eyebrow curiously at the boy who looks like he’s running away. One of her friends, Mira, starts waving her hand in her face, her voice seemingly fading into attention, “Hello? Helllooo~ Earth to Riona~”
Riona snaps back to attention, turning her head back to her friends, “Huh? Oh, yeah. Wait, what? Something about fishing?” Mira pauses for a moment in shock, then bursts out laughing with the rest of the group. “What? No you silly bean,” she says while poking the side of Riona’s head playfully, “we were asking about your stream later tonight. Are you gonna be singing or what? I love hearing your voice when I’m studying, but lately all you do is play games. I miss you, ya know?” Mira gets down to share Riona’s chair, cuddling her from the side like a big stuffed animal. Riona giggles hesitantly, trying to push Mira off of her, “Ehehe… sorry about that. I’ve been really into Minecraft lately. You guys should try too! It’s really fun once you get past all the dying and scary stuff.” Mira pulls away slightly, pouting at Riona, “There you go again with mineblock or whatever. I swear, sometimes you remind me of those dorks over there.” Mira turns back to where Riona’s attention was earlier, raising an eyebrow and commenting louder than necessary to make sure they can hear her, “Speaking of fish, did you have your sights on one of those goldfish brains over there or what?”
Riona blushes, getting ready to deny Mira’s joke. Before she can manage a word, Kai’s attention snaps over to the girls and he stands up. Hearing that comment compels him to make his way over to the girls’ table with the rest of the boys in tow, crossing his arms across his chest and leaning over to stare Mira down. “What was that? Sorry, I couldn’t quite hear you. Did you have something to say?” Mira smirks devilishly and lets go of Riona, standing up with her hands on her hips and tilting her head upwards to meet his stare, refusing to back down. “Oh, no, not at all. I was making sure my friend didn’t go close enough to catch a whiff of your fish breath.”
Riona panics and stands up to get between them, waving her hands around to calm things down, “Hey, hey, let’s all just chill out. Come on, say sorry. And stop with the fish lines already, I’m seriously about to die from cringing.” Both Mira and Kai back off without another word, turning away with a huff. Kai speaks up afterwards, turning back to them to explain, “Anyway, speaking of being fishy,”
“Dammit…” Riona sighs, facepalming.
Kai continues to shift his attention onto Riona, “I noticed you looking earlier, but you weren't looking at any of us, were you? You were looking at the door.” Riona flinches and recoils back, finding herself in the firing line now. She rubs the back of her neck and hesitantly forces a fake smile as she explains, “I just noticed one of your friends leaving without you guys and thought it was about time for everybody to get going. That’s it.” Kai smirks, shrugging sarcastically, “Oh? I didn’t mention anything about anybody, all I thought was that you were eyeing the door to make a run for it.” He rubs his chin and leans in closer, humming and teasing, “Huh~ Hmm~ To think you were actually eyeing up our boy…” Riona stutters, her poker face cracking ever so slightly when she shrinks back as if caught red handed, “I-I didn’t, I wasn’t- urgh… nnnn…” Refusing to let this go on any longer, Mira steps between them and shields Riona, “Alright, that’s enough of that. Don’t you all have somewhere to be anyway?”
Kai laughs and backs away, “Sorry, sorry, just teasing, but-” He thinks back to a scene from a few days ago: He had been scrolling YouTube shorts on his phone at your place, when you peeked over and caught sight of one of Riona’s dance shorts. “Oh, isn’t she in our math class? She’s pretty good,” you commented in passing, not giving it too much thought. When Kai replied with, “Yeah, you’re not really into the bad girl type though, are you? Cute though, isn’t she?” You blinked somewhat absently in response, shoving chips into your mouth and simply nodding along while half-listening, “Hm, yeah, I guess.”
Cutting back to real time, Kai has somehow managed to twist that exchange in his head into the most overblown version of it imaginable. He puts his hands up in surrender and takes a step back, deciding to play wingman while talking to the girls, “Hey, if it makes you feel better, I’ve got some good info for you.” He glances back at Riona and cups his hand over his mouth to whisper, “Our boy back there who left earlier told me he has a seriously huge crush on you. He saw one of your videos and instantly got all gushy about how cute you are. Since you were staring, thought you might be interested…”
“Alright, you’re done here,” Mira says with a sigh, casually grabbing Kai by the ear and dragging him away. “Ah- Ouch! Ouch! Wait, stop, I’m not even lying though- Ow!” Kai mutters as he stumbles along behind her. Mira glances back over her shoulder as she tugs him along, waving back at Riona, “We’ll go toss these losers by the dumpsters or something. Don’t bother catching up, we’ll see you this weekend for the trip. Later!” Both groups follow Kai and Mira out the door, leaving Riona by herself at the front of the room, stunlocked. The whole scene was a whirlwind, and now her head is empty after overheating, but she absently waves at the last of the disappearing girls anyway.
Once they’re all gone and the door is shut, Riona puts her hand back down and just stands for a moment, then her thoughts shift into overdrive. W-What was that? He likes me? A crush? I mean, he’s always looked more relatable than the rest of the guys, pretty considerate, kind bland… Hmm, I wonder what he’s like out of class though… Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Now that I think about it, we might be pretty similar. He’s kind of cute too, like maybe in a baby alpaca kind of way.
Through Riona’s irrational deductive reasoning and Kai’s story, somehow, somewhere along the way, your throwaway comment on her undeniably cute looks has turned into a full blown confession in her head.
“Eh? That’s weird. This feeling-” she interrupts herself, quickly turning back around and taking out her phone. She flicks up the phone case stand and places it on the table, turning on the front camera. Everything looks normal, hair tied up on one side with her favorite black ribbon, long and dyed gray as always, though some black roots are starting to show. She’s standing in her usual posture, shoulders back, nails painted pink and black, black leather jacket hanging off her shoulders over her sleeveless cropped white shirt. She didn’t mind showing some skin, so she wasn’t embarrassed, she thought her piercings looked cute enough to show off, one in her belly button, and plenty hanging off her ears along with the jewelry around her neck. Her bottom half was less flashy, sporting some long loose black and white pants along with simple chucks on her feet.
That’s right, everything seemed normal.
“Then why…” she mumbles to herself, picking up her phone and focusing on her face. Her normally sharp, red eyes are instead big and wide, shining with something unrecognizable, and more importantly, her normally porcelain skin is a searing, bright red. She reaches up to put her fingers on her cheek, nearly burning herself in the process, “Oh,” she takes a deep breath, lowering her hand over her heart. -Thump, thump, thump- the sound drumming up to her ears, beating so hard that it could jump out of her chest, “...so that’s what it feels like.” She mumbles to herself, sitting with the feeling a little while longer before she puts her phone back in her pocket. She stands a little straighter, puffs her chest out, and takes a deep breath. After gathering herself and her things, she turns and heads for the door with one last sigh. “Maybe I’ll sing tonight after all.”