#Inomata Maria | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sabraeal · 6 months ago

Text

don't speak boyshit, Chapter 10

[Read on AO3]

It’s not that Kamitami waits around for Kashima. People get that shit twisted all the time, thinking that they’re joined at the hip just because they’re in the same club a couple days a week, or have stupid kid brothers that like to run around together, or because he acted like some sort of emotional support dog for the first few months after that kid came to the academy. But that’s not why he lingers at the bike rack after practice, fussing at the gears as Kashima herds the skinny little bean sprout that passes for Kotaro out the school doors.

No, it’s because when he gets up, casually dusting off his uniform pants like this is all a happy accident, like he only just saw them wandering down the walkway with a purpose and not whole minutes ago, all he has to say is, “Heading out?” and Kashima replies, “Oh, Kamitani! I didn’t see you there! I guess if you don’t mind.”

He grunts at that, grumbles a bit, but that’s the thing— he doesn’t. Most people are effort, expecting him to do shit like talk and be nice— like he doesn’t have a dozen other things he’d rather be doing than shooting the shit with the boneheads in his class, or being cornered by a bunch of girls who think giggles are a good way to carry a conversation. But Kashima can keep one up all by himself, not expecting anything more than a grunt to tell him to keep going. All those nerds that study physics might say that perpetual motion is impossible, but that’s only because they’ve never seen Kashima on a real jag before midterms. Kid doesn’t even need air sometimes.

He’s quiet today though, letting Kotaro off his leash enough to scramble through some bushes. At least, as long as they stand there, staring at the quivering branches like they have any idea what that kid is up to in there. Which is fine with him; if he can’t count kids then he won’t feel that weird missed-step pitch and roll in his stomach, like something’s missing. Like it’s weird that Taka isn’t in orbit around him, some puny little moon determined to crash right into his planet’s surface, instead of the only thing he’d wanted for the last five years.

Kashima shifts like he might feel it too, like he’s done the mental math and come up one body short of normal. But he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t fill the air with chatter, telling him that it’s okay to have emotions, to mourn even the positive changes in his life. Doesn’t ask him stupid questions either— that’s what he likes about Kashima, honestly. The kid knows how to stay in his damn la—

“Kamitani?” His name sits high in Kashima’s mouth, strained even as he tries to look casual. “Are you avoiding Inomata-san?”

Well, there goes that. Time to find some new fucking friends.

“Kamitani?” Kashima cranes his huge eyes towards him, shock scrawled across every millimeter of white around them. “Are you?”

He’s not.

That’s the long and short of it. If that girl’s going around complaining that she can’t find him, well— that’s a skill issue. It’s not because he’s been making himself scarce whenever he hears the squeak of her school shoes rounding the corner, or because he’s been finding reasons to stay late at club just in case some nerd’s lurking around the bike rack, waiting to shake him down over her stupid questions. Kamitani isn’t just walking around, letting Inomata live rent-free in his head twenty-four-seven just because she wants to know what his type is.

At least, that’s what he should say. What he wants to, once he’s had some time to stew on it. But what he manages now is, “Shut up.”

A couple years ago that might have actually done it; might have made Kashima’s eyes get all big and watery and sent him scrambling for a safer kind of conversation. But tonight he only sighs, sending him the sort of look that makes Kamitani’s shoulders ache, begging to bow beneath the weight of his disappointment.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, you can just say so,” Kashima tells him, all prim, like shut up wasn’t clear enough. “But if you want my opinion—”

“I don’t.”

“—You should talk to her.” His gives the barest little shrug, like this is casual advice, something he probably hadn’t been working himself up to say all evening. “At least find out what she wants to tell you.”

“I already know what she wants.” What feature do you find most physically attractive in the opposite sex and why? “To annoy the shit out of me.”

“Kamitani.” There he goes again, giving him that look, like somehow he’s the wrong one here. “I’m sure it won’t be as bad as you think it will be.”

He’s right. It’ll be worse. “Easy for you to say.”

Kashima hums, unconvinced. “She’s a perfectly nice girl, if you’d just give her a chance. Which you’d know, if you’d just talk to her.”

Kid wouldn’t be so quick to say that if he was the one saddled with fifty short answer questions about what gets his dick hard. “Why should I? Because you think it’s the nice thing to do?”

“Well, yes.” His head tilts, half-thoughtful, half-guilty. “That, and, er…Inomata-san isn’t exactly known for giving up…”

Ah, well. Kamitani grimaces. Kid does have a point. It’s just fifty questions, after all. No wrong answers. “I’ll think about it.”

Just fifty questions.

What traits besides the physical do you find desirable in the opposite sex?

Opinion shit, too. Simple stuff.

What would you consider the ‘perfect date?’

Easy as breathing.

Do you have a ‘type?’ If so, what is it?

Except it’s fucking impossible. Oh, sure, he’d given Kashima a metric ton of shit about letting some perfectly cute girl off because he didn’t know whether he liked her or not. Because he’d spent too much energy trying to figure it out, and he wanted to focus on being a good big brother, or whatever, but now—

Now he’s had two weeks to find out he doesn’t know shit about what he likes either. Just like back in first year, when Kashima cornered him with the sort of questions those stupid magazines asked idols, and all he’d been able to give him was his height and blood type. Only worse, because a third year should know his favorite food, or favorite color, or at least have a fucking opinion about whether he likes shy girls or sporty girls or whatever, and Kamitani—

Kamitani doesn’t. Even when he’s got his dick in his hand, it’s just whoever’s on the cover of the nearest magazines from the neck down. Nothing special, just breasts and butt and the idea of a warm body to make the whole thing go quicker. Real simple. Utilitarian, even. Reasonable.

It’s goddamn embarrassing, that’s what.

“I’m as bad as fucking Kashima,” he grunts, the heel of his hand the only thing keeping his forehead from meeting the desk. He’s half-tempted to let it go— a couple minutes of unconsciousness would be welcome with the way this day is going but—

“What’s up, Captain?” Saginuma’s grin can get him climbing walls on a good day, but right now one flash of it has him putting in real effort not to snap the arm resting between his seat and Kamitani’s desk. Be easy too; the kid doesn’t work out enough to give him more trouble than a toothpick. “Can’t figure out how to get the team to Koshien?”

“Shut up.” That gets his head up at least, even clears it a little. “I could win those games with my eyes closed.”

“Yeah, get real, Saginuma!” Hands clap down on his shoulders, shaking them the way Usokawa’s probably only seen through the TV screen. It takes a full count of ten for Kamitani to convince himself it’s not worth it to break his fingers too. “Kamitani’s got our season on lock. We’re going all the way to—”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.” Saginuma waves him off, already bored. “But it begs that question doesn’t it? If our dear captain here isn’t biting his nails over plays, then just what has got him so stressed out?”

It’s bad enough that he has to suffer that idiot’s grin ratcheting wider, his stupid arm trespassing further into his personal bubble to support that shit-stirring lean— but it’s worse to see he’s got Usokawa doing the same thing, lenses flaring like some lame cartoon villain. Even Ebizawa’s half-turned in his seat.

“None of your business,” he snaps. Stupid move, since that only gets Ebizawa to turn the full way around, brows pitched high on his forehead. “I’m not stressed out.”

“Sure, of course. You’re just pulling your hair out for fun, like the rest of us.” Usokawa adjusts his glasses, too knowing. “Now come on, tell us what’s up.”

“Nothing.” It comes out too fast, too defensive. Might as well have put up a big sign saying, I’m hiding something. Bonehead move, since there’s no way he can asked these losers about—

Or maybe he could. Ebizawa’s had a string of girlfriends; nothing serious, just a few confessions that stretched into a handful of dates, petering out by the time they had to switch uniforms. Even Saginuma had a vague something over summer break second year, at least until the girl left him for the ghoul in 3-B’s haunted house during the culture festival. And Usokawa…

Well. Was Usokawa. Even if he’d never strung more than three words together in front of a girl, he had opinions about them. Not ones Kamitani cared to listen to, but he had them, at least. Unlike some people.

“Hey,” he grunts, scrubbing at the back of his head. “What’s your type?”

Kamitani’s not stupid— he expects the question to land like a bomb, devastating the conversation around it. He expects the silence, the glances that pass between Ebizawa and Saginuma, like there must be something wrong with their ears—

But he doesn’t expect Usokawa’s nearly instant, “B! Just like yours, right, Kamitani?”

It takes his brain a full ass minute to catch up. “I don’t care about your fucking blood type.”

Usokawa blinks. “But you said—?”

“He meant like with girls, idiot.” Ebizawa glances at him, like he can’t quite believe it himself. “Uh, right?”

His shoulders twitch, skin starting to itch right around his collar. “Whatever.”

“What? Really? Kamitani?” Sure, it’s not something he usually cares about, but there’s no reason for Usokawa to gape, pitch forward all slack-jawed like it’s some sort of shock. “Well, I like bookish girls with glasses and a soft side.”

Huh. F cups and a preference for bikinis would have been his guess for that perv, but that’s practically normal. Nice, almost.

“They always have the biggest breasts, after all,” Usokawa leers, and ah, there it is. The weird shit he’s been waiting for. “Plus they get all bashful during the beach chapters when they lose their—”

A well-timed cuff from Saginuma saves him from having to hear anymore about beach episodes. “He means three dimensional girls, idiot.”

“Hey, some of those games are fully rendered n—”

“The ones that aren’t programmed to take their tops off if you feed them enough cheesecake.”

“Oh, well, fine, I guess. In that case,” —Usokawa clears his throat, adjusting his tie for good measure— “my type is anyone who lets me touch them.”

“I said real girls,” Kamitani grunts. “Not non-existent.”

“I kind of like when they’re shy,” Saginuma offers, almost wistful. “Girls, I mean. Though I like them when they’re perky too. Energetic, you know. Or both, I guess.”

“They can’t be both shy and energetic,” Usokawa scoffs, like he’s some sort of expert. “Those are on two completely opposite sides of the same slider, like bookish and sporty—”

“I don’t know, some girls are shy until you get to know them.” Ebizawa shrugs, holding the only brain cell between the three of them. “And then they talk just as much as all the other girls. Sometimes even about the same stuff.”

“Yeah, Usokawa. Girls have layers.” Saginuma grins, adding, “At least the ones in 4D.”

“Hey, my waifus have layers too!” he insists, entirely too earnest. “Some of them even have seasonal outfits!”

Kamitani turns, putting both of those idiots at his back. “What about you?”

Ebizawa blinks. “Me?”

“You’re the only one out of these chucklefucks who’s managed to talk to more than one girl for ten minutes.” And have her keep his interest for longer than it takes the conversation to end. A superpower, as far as Kamitani’s concerned. “What’s your take?”

“Oh…er…” He runs a hand through the fluff of his hair. “I don’t really know. Ah…nice girls, I guess?”

“Nice girls?” Saginuma groans. “Really? All those girlfriends and that’s what you’re got? Girls that are nice to you?” He huffs, shaking his head. “Must be nice to be good looking.”

“T-they don’t have to be nice to me!” Ebizawa sputters, red splotching his cheeks. “Er, I mean…it’s nice, when they are. But I was thinking when they’re like…actually nice. The ones that are always supporting their friends, or uh…helping underclassmen with their work, or like…get chocolates for the whole class on Valentine’s Day—”

“Really?” Saginuma’s brows brush his hairline. “You want obligation chocolate?”

“I’m not saying that I—I want that! I just think it’s just nice that they’d think of everyone when—”

“Not everyone is too proud to take Kamitani’s seconds,” Usokawa sniffs. “Right, Ebizawa?”

“He doesn’t speak for me.” Ebizawa’s gaze cuts to him, desperate. “You know that, right? I don’t want any of your, er…ah….?”

“Actually, yeah.” Saginuma swings back around, forehead crumpled in disbelief. “What is with that, dude? Can’t you be at least a little grateful? Some of the ones you got last year were handmade.”

Annoyance itches up Kamitani’s spine, spiking his shoulders up around his ears. “I don’t like sweet shit. What’s hard to understand?”

“Yeah, but you could be nice about it.” Ebizawa flinches under his glare. “I’m just saying! Girls put in a lot of effort into that sort of stuff. It wouldn’t kill you to think about their feelings.”

“Why the hell do I care?” It’s not like any of those girls cared about his. None of them asked if they could shove their chocolates in his face; they just did it and hoped he’d think they were cute enough not to care that he couldn’t even put a name to a face. Like it wasn’t weird to have upperclassmen corner him with some half-baked confession when they hadn’t even spoken two words to each other. “I’m not interested in any of that sort of shit.”

His life’s complicated enough; the last thing he needs is to add some girl’s tender feelings to the mix. The hag’s bad enough as it is.

“Really?” Saginuma blinks, all wide-eyed, like this is some revelation or something. Like he hasn’t spent the last four years dodging every doe-eyed classmate that tried to get him on the roof alone, or every enterprising senpai that brought him a bento. “You know, now that I’m thinking of it— just what do you like in a girl?”

“Oh, hey, yeah!” Usokawa whips around in his seat, practically vibrating. “You’ve asked all of us, but you haven’t said— what’s your type, cap?”

It’s just his luck that every conversation in this classroom reaches a fucking lull just in time for Usokawa to put his personal business on blast. There’s not one head that doesn’t snap to their corner, the weight of thirty stares boring into into him and—

And Kamitani scowls. This isn’t just a mistake, it’s a fucking disaster.

“None of your business,” he grunts, already halfway out of his chair. There’s no plan once he gets out of it, just a certainty that anywhere he goes will be better than staying here, but—

Bing-bong ding-dong.

“All right, students,” Kumatsuka-sensei hums, quiet voice carrying beneath the last tolling note of the bell. “Time to take your seats.”

The thing is: he really doesn’t care about this shit. Perfect dates and blood types and whether someone’s chocolates end up on his desk out of obligation or not— none of that matters. The other guys might waste their time thinking about which girl in class fills out the uniform best, or who would look the cutest in a yukata, or whether they have a chance of getting either of them to kiss them on the school roof before the end of the year, but that’s not his problem.

A girlfriend’s inevitable; the kind of thing that’ll happen to him one day no matter how he feels about it. Worrying over when or how is like tearing his hair out over earthquakes that’ll hit in his thirties— absolutely useless, and completely out of his control. It’ll either wreck his whole life or it won’t; he doesn’t need to have an opinion about whether it’ll have a B or C cup when it does.

Or at least he didn’t, until now. Because now it’s weird that he hasn’t.

“Kamitani-senpai?” Chain link rattles as Sato settles against the batting cage next to his, arms folded just under the name stitched onto her windbreaker. “Got something on your mind?”

None of your business sits at the tip of his tongue— a reflex, really, a rock he’s always ready to throw— but there’s no one else here on the pitch, and if he’s being fair, it’s a manager’s job to ask that sort of thing. “No.”

“Senpai.” It huffs out of her, as close to a laugh as he’s heard from her. “The machine stopped pitching balls two minutes ago.”

The bat dips in his fingers, scuffing dirt across the plate. “Huh? Re—?”

A ball whiffs past— the perfect one, a real potential out-of-the park pitch— the whole cage rattling as chain link catches it instead of aluminum. Sato simply says. “No.”

Kamitani’s cleats kick up clay as he shifts, abandoning his hitter’s stance to scowl. Another pitch whizzes through, hitting the chain a little lower, and she adds, “But you didn’t notice one way or another, did you?”

Kid’s got him there. He sighs, leaning back until metal crowds him, worn enough to bow out and cradle his shoulders. Her head cocks, bobbed hair settling against the line of her jaw. Makes it look strong, like she belongs here, part of the team rather than just a cheerleader on the sidelines.

“Sato.” This time the machine’s really out, gears clucking across the pitch, whining and whirring until it finally shuts off. “You’re a girl.”

She blinks— real slow, mouth rucking up all weird too, weight shifting until she goes from at rest to potential energy all at once. “Is that what you were thinking about, senpai?”

“What?” It’s not like he needs to meditate on her bone structure to figure it out; the bust-to-waist ratio kinda gives it away. “No. I’m saying that you know what girls are thinking. Because you are one.”

Kamitani’s not the type to give ground, but he will give the kid this: he’s earned the epic side-eye she slants him, both brows hiked up to hit her hairline. Or at least, he assumes they are after he loses line-of-sight over the event horizon of her bangs. “I know what I’m thinking, at least.”

Good enough. “If you were asking a guy about his type, what would you want him to tell you?”

Sato stares. “Is someone asking you that kind of stuff, senpai?”

“Hypothetically,” he grunts, shoulders hunched. “What would a girl be looking for?”

There’s a pause— a long one; strained, like she’s coming up with answers he’ll never have the clearance to hear— before she says, “A boyfriend?”

“Not happening.” Not when his only qualification for this whole survey business is that he’s best friends with the idiot Inomata actually likes. “What else.”

“I don’t know about that, senpai.” Her nose scrunches up, all dubious. “Are you sure she doesn’t want you to say she’s your type?”

“Hell no.” Inomata might not know much about this shit, but even she’s not stupid enough to expect ‘high-maintenance know-it-all’ to rank at the top of anyone’s list. “This is…informational. Data, or whatever.”

“O…kay.” She fixes him with this look, one that says then-what-the-hell-are-we-doing-here-senpai, and, god, he should have just kept his mouth shut. “Then why can’t you just tell her what you’re into?”

Kamitani might be shit with his feelings or whatever, but even he knows that it’s frustration that makes his neck knot up so much it aches, that makes his fingers so stiff they practically crack as he drags his hat down, covering his face. “Forget it. This is stupid.”

“W-wait! Senpai”— there’s chain link between them, but Sato half-reaches out anyway, eyes wide— “do you not…? I mean, with girls, don’t you—?”

“Girls are hot.” There’s some heat behind it when he says it, a different kind of frustration funneling right out of his mouth, the kind that hits him when school skirts slip a little too far up a thigh, or when his elbow brushes past something that certainly isn’t a shoulder, but he’d rather die than let more of it out. “I just don’t think about it all the time.”

Sato blinks. “Oh. Okay. So you don’t really have a, er…?”

“I just don’t get what people want to hear,” he grounds out, folding his arms to hide the way his hands clench. “Like, what? That tits are good? Or that I care about some hobby or whatever? I don’t.”

“Ah, I…see. I think.” Her head tilts again, but this time it’s assessing, like she’s trying to figure out his fucking problem. “Maybe you should think of it like…what’s the first thing you notice about a girl when you look at her?”

Easy. How annoying she’s going to be until he finds a reason to walk away. “Legs?”

Sato coughs, like something’s gone down the wrong pipe. “Well. That’s a start.”

He frowns. “Doesn’t feel like it.”

Her grimace is all the answer he needs. “Okay, what if you thought about it more as…if you were going to date someone, senpai, what would you want them to be like?”

Nothing like the old hag, for one. “Normal.”

Sato’s whole face furrows, like not only is his answer shitty, but it has a stank to it too. “Normal.”

“Like they don’t get weird or whatever.” It’s self-explanatory, really, but Sato keeps staring at him like he belongs beneath a microscope. Or maybe on the bottom of her shoe. “You know what I mean. Girls are fine, but then they become girlfriends and just hang off a guy until something shakes ‘em off.”

“And that’s”— she hesitates— “bad?”

“Yeah,” he huffs. “Because then they wanna go on dates. Get all picky over who a guy talks to, even if it’s just for school stuff. Want to call them by their first name.”

Kamitani hadn’t even known Ebizawa had a name, not until his last two-month wonder came in with a special bento just for her Arata-kun. He could have died happy never knowing.

Sato sighs, hand rubbing over her face. “Senpai, are you even sure you want a girlfriend?”

“I’m not talking about me,” he grunts. “This for data or whatever.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, senpai” — she glances up at him, shaking her head— “but I think you’re an outlier.”

Outlier — that’s a nice way to put it, one even Kashima would be hard put to argue over. He’d try, of course, say a bunch of things about opportunity and responsibilities and everyone taking things at their own pace, but it wouldn’t change the facts:

It’s fucking stupid that he can’t figure this out.

“Hayato!” The hag doesn’t so much shout his name as let it reverberate through the whole house, practically shaking the floorboards just to get attention. “Hurry up! I’m leaving in ten.”

Kamitani grunts, wrist-deep in his shirt drawer. The same place he’s been standing for the past five fucking minutes, thinking about this shit instead of picking between long sleeves and short ones. Because that’s apparently where this whole disaster has put him— not able to think and function at the same time. “Give me a minute, woman!”

It’s Inomata’s fault. He’d been just fine before he looked at her stupid questions, but one flip through them has him so twisted up he’s struggling to put his arms through the right holes, taking no less than three tries to get the damn thing buttoned the right way and—

“Hayato!” His teeth clack down so tight he nearly scrapes a layer off his tongue. “Let’s go!”

“I’m coming,” he growls, shoving his shirt down into his pants. “I’m coming.”

His hands fumble the belt— someone needs to put him out of his fucking misery already— and it’s with one last glance in the mirror that he sees red and white stripes balled up in the corner. A half-tied, hopeless mess that’s probably been there since April, when the old taskmaster that ran this school insisted that everyone had to wear their full uniform to the Entrance Ceremony, and—

There’s a tie in our dress code. Even now he can see that sour sneer she gave him, all superior, like being top-spot in the Advanced Class made her better than him. As a third year, you might bother to wear one.

It’s stupid. He couldn’t be paid enough to care about what Inomata thinks about him. And still—

Still he snatches that tie and sling it over his neck. Let her fucking choke on that.

Lunch bell’s hardly rung before Saginuma’s hanging over his seat, phone shoved right up under his nose. “You guys seen this yet?”

Kamitani’s neck cranes back, the black blur on the screen resolving into a blur with shit on it. “Maybe,” he grunts, knocking Saginuma’s arm wide. “If you didn’t just shove it in my face.”

Kid doesn’t even break stride, just lets his phone settle between the four of them as he plows on. “It’s Onibaba’s Curse 3: The Cure, the sequel to Onibaba’s Curse—”

“I know how numbers work,” Kamitani grunts, glaring down at the screen. Not that there’s much on it— just black and some white figure, no less blurry at this distance. “What’s it got to do with me?”

“It’s playing at the theater in town right now.” Ebizawa and Usokawa are crowding in now, and Saginuma puffs up as he says, “We should go see it. I heard it’s even scarier than the first one, and that—”

“Nearly had Kashima climbing out of his skin,” Usokawa reminds him. It’s gleeful, the way he says it, a feature rather than a warning. “Sounds perfect.”

Kamitani catches the empty seat to his side and frowns. “Where the hell is Kashima, anyway? Didn’t he bring lunch today?”

“He did.” Usokawa turns wistful, one cheek propped up on his hand. “Probably made by that butler of his. Think he’ll let me have a slice of his omelet if I give him one of my hot dog octopuses?”

“No deal. That guy makes a whole aquarium’s worth of those suckers,” Saginuma sighs. “And they’re made from the really fancy dogs too.”

“Aw, but—”

“I didn’t ask about his hot dogs.” It comes out of him like a whip crack, a roll of thunder right before lightning strikes, but neither one of them does so much as jump, too caught up in dreaming about Saikawa’s stupid sausages. “Where’s Kashima?”

“He got called out by another girl again.” Ebizawa shakes his head, huffing, “This is, what? The third one this month? It’s not even summer break.”

“It’s third year, I’m telling you.” Usokawa’s eyes blink wide behind his glasses. “It makes the girls crazy. All of them are looking for their high school romance, and they’re taking no prisoners.”

Kamitani snorts. “Seems like they’re taking plenty of prisoners, actually.”

“Hey.” Ebizawa shifts in his seat, pitching himself up on one knee. “If we’re gonna get bread, we should probably get going.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Kamitani gets to his feet, rolling his shoulders to work the stiffness out of them. “I’m—”

“You!” School shoes squeal as they skid to a stop right in front of him, and oh, he knows that stomp too well to even need to glance above the knee-highs. “Don’t move.”

It’s nothing to smirk down into Inomata’s scowl, to straighten from his slouch and loom every last inch over her, enjoying the way her mouth only furrows further into her cheeks. “And what are you going to do—?”

About it, that’s what he should be saying. Maybe even with a real aggressive lean, feet planted so she can’t haul him off like she did last time. But she wraps a whole hand around his tie and tugs instead, and the thought rattles right out of him, ideas as dried up as his mouth.

“Come with me,” she grunts, another good yank driving him two steps after her. He barely makes it; the room tilts as Inomata herds him out, knees suddenly jelly, trembling, and—

And she’s got to be choking the life out of him. That’s why everything’s gone all swimmy, breath ragged like he’s run four kilometers without stopping for air.

“Hey.” He digs in his heels, hauling her up short. “Cut it out.”

She scowls up at him, knuckles still blanched to match the red and white wrapped around them. It’d be nothing to knock her away, to squeeze that wrist until her fingers untangled themselves, but instead he just stands there, stupid, as she snaps, “We don’t have all day.”

Kashima’s the kind of idiot that would just take it, that would stand here, letting his mouth work— babbling, probably— until she hauled him off. But Kamitani— Kamitani waits until he’s sure his knees will hold him before he yanks the tie from her grip, demanding, “Just where are we going?”

Inomata blinks— all slow, like he’s the idiot— and says, “The courtyard.”

He frowns. “What? Why?”

“What do you mean why?” She lifts the bag in her hand— a nice cloth one, the kind the rich kids always had wrapped around their parent-packed bentos— and says, “It’s lunch time.”

That girl might not have him on a leash anymore, but she still bullies him right down onto one of the courtyard’s empty benches. One of the last ones, by the looks of it; everywhere else is covered in couples, making doe-eyes at each other, feeding each other from their nearly compartmentalized meals. Thankfully they’re all too wrapped up with each other to notice when Inomata shoves a bento in his lap, a single sheet of printed paper balanced on top.

“What the hell is this about?” Kamitani grunts, glaring as she drops down beside him, her own bento perched in her lap. “I was gonna get bread.”

“This is better than bread,” she informs him primly, breaking apart her chopsticks with the same precision as she arranges the pleats on her skirt, a sharp charcoal horizon cutting across her knees. “This is a balanced meal.”

He glares down at the metal lid, dubious. “Curry bread is balanced. There’s meat. Bread. Stuff.”

“It’s really not. Now hurry up and eat.” Her chopstick stabs toward the paper he’s snatched up between his fingers. “You’ll need time to fill out the rubric.”

“The…?” It’s a grid, he realizes, staring down at the sheet. Flavor, one square says, while another below it reads, Mouth Feel. There’s other squares beside them too— comments, the first one reads, while the one after says, score—

A grading rubric. She’s given him a grading rubric for lunch.

“There’s something wrong with you, you know that?” he grumbles, flicking open the latch. “Something real unbalanced.”

“Well, if you can’t answer some simple questions” — simple, she says, like it would take a real moron to get caught up on question two. Like a hot-blooded high school boy should know what he likes when it bends over right in front of him— “then I’ll have to resort to acquiring useful data through other means.”

He snorts. “Like making me choke down your cooking?”

“Don’t scoff when you haven’t even looked at it.” Her chin lifts, all prideful, but he can’t help but notice she hasn’t opened hers either. “Maybe I’ve struggled with some of the…er…finer points of pastry, but even I can make a bento.”

“We’ll see,” he hums, giving her rubric a pointed glance. She swallows at that, real thick, the nerves starting show in the way her fingers clench against her own tin, and, well, he might as well put her out of her misery—

“What?” It’s barely more than an exhale, breathy as she leans closer, glancing between the open bento and the look on his face. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s vegetables in this.” Bell peppers, broccoli, and the worst offender: carrots. Big, thick slices too, laid right on top of his rice. Gross.

Her forehead furrows, mouth rucked up with annoyance. “There’s vegetables in curry too.”

He grunts, rolling the chopsticks in his hand, trying to figure out how to get to the actual food underneath. “Not ones I can see.”

Inomata stares at him, real nasty-like, as if he’s the problem, and not the girl who put vegetables in his lunch. “How are you one of this school’s top athletes? You eat like a garbage bin.”

“I’m a growing boy.” That’s what the hag always says at least, before shoving more bok choy onto his plate. Chopsticks clacking, he excavates the rice beneath a strip of nori, stopping to pick up fish and pickled radish before shoveling the whole thing into his mouth.

Inomata pitches forward, eyes wide. “Well?”

He shrugs, picking out a slice of carrot. “It’s edible.”

“Edible.” He might as well have said disgusting from the way she groans, a useless heap collapsed over her completely untouched lunch. “I don’t want it to be edible.”

Kamitani shovels in another bite— this one with pickled lotus— and it’s…passable. Nutritious, if not exactly mouthwatering. He’d probably finish the whole thing, if she let him stop talking long enough. “Considering some of the other stuff you’ve made, you should be happy I’m not calling a dentist.”

“The point isn’t just to not cause physical harm,” she grits out, still not eating. “It’s supposed to display the sort of skills that would make me…girlfriend material.”

Inomata slumps, hair falling forward in a solid black sheet, hiding her face like she’s that girl from Ringu. Dejected, that’s how she looks. Mortified too, knowing her. Completely hopeless.

It doesn’t fit on her. Same way that case of nerves didn’t in his house, making her look all coltish and lost, like some little kid, and—

And maybe there is something wrong with this bento after all, since he gets that weird pit in his stomach again, the kind that can’t be filled with more rice and a hefty dose of curry bread. His mouth rumples, wrinkling as the words shove themselves out between his teeth. “It’s not bad.”

Her head rolls toward him across her shoulders, fixing him with a flat stare. “Do you want to date me now?”

Ha. Now that's fucking funny. “It’d take more than a bento to do that.”

“That’s what I thought.” She sighs, straightening her spine along with her skirt. Only one of them needs it. “Well, if there’s something you’d actually like to eat, just make a note of it somewhere on the rubric. I won’t make any promises, but…I can take it into consideration.”

He glances up at her, fingers stiff where they settle against the chopsticks. “So this what we’re doing now? Bento?”

Her palms smooth over her already pristine pleats. “It seems the most obvious skill for improvement. Yagi-san said—”

“Yagi.” He nearly spits out the fish in his mouth. “You’re taking advice from that pervert?”

Red flares over her cheeks, splotchy and uneven, but her shoulders take on a defensive hike. “Well, I wouldn’t be, if someone had given me something else to go off of. But if there’s anyone who knows what a bento should be like…”

It would be the prince of third year, who had his pick. “Why are you so worried about what he thinks anyway? Shouldn’t you be making stuff Kashima likes?”

“Well, ideally— yes. But…” Her shoulders twitch, a flinch rather than a shrug. “It’s not as if I have a natural way to ask. We don’t…hang out outside of school hours.”

“Does anybody?” he grunts, so dry he nearly scorches his mouth. But she glances up at him, all reproachful, like she doesn’t know if he’s teasing her or Kashima, and there it is, that stupid knot again, lodged right in his gut. “Listen. We’re going to a movie this weekend.”

Inomata glances up at him, brows furrowed. “Huh?”

“The guys. All of us together.” There’s an itch between his shoulders he can only scratch with a shrug. “Kashima’s coming too.”

Or at least he will be, once Kamitani’s done with him.

“Oh.” Her head tilts, wary. “That’s…nice?”

He sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. “What I’m trying to say is: it’d probably be fine if you came.”

“What?” She’s all eyes when she blinks, mouth falling slack. “You mean…really? And you wouldn’t mind?”

“Yeah.” He sets the chopsticks over the empty tin. “It’s fine or whatever.”

“Real—?”

“I said it’s fine, didn’t I?” he snaps. “Besides, I owe you for the lunch.”

“But…” Her mouth works, rounding over a half dozen words before she sits back, hands pressed flat against her untouched bento. “All right. Sure. I think I could make that work.”

She spares him the smallest, shyest glance. “T-thank—”

“Shut up,” he grunts. “Just eat your damn food already.”

“I-I don’t know.” Kashima’s pale when they finally corner him before homeroom, eyes darting all over like he’s looking for an exit. “I-I might have to look after Kotaro that day.”

“Kashima,” Saginuma groans, hands slapping to his face. “Come on. The headmistress can’t spare you for a day?”

“I mean, sure, but really…i-it’s fine.” He puts on that shaky little smile of his, and Kamitani knows: if he looked under the kid’s desk, his knees would be quivering. “B-besides, it’s not like those sorts of movies are, you know…my thing, really…”

Kamitani had assumed it would be him who had to lean in, him who had to put the nail in the coffin, but instead it’s Ebizawa, brows pitched to his hairline as he asked, “Oh, so you’re scared?”

“W-what? No.” He can’t tell whether Kashima is shaking his head or just having full body tremors. “I’d be perfectly happy to go, if it wasn’t for—”

“So you’re coming?” Kamitani doesn’t even flinch when the kid turns that betrayed look his way. He’ll thank him later. Probably. “The hag’s gonna have to get used to not having you around anyway. She won’t have all this free labor when you’ve got entrance exams.”

Or after, but he knows better than to say that. He’s not going to be the one that gets Kashima to chicken out of college just because it might be more than two doors down from his brother.

“I-I suppose so.” The kid straightens, nodding. “I’ll, ah, see what I can’t work out.”

“Hell yes!” Usokawa whoops. “The five of us, hitting the town—”

“About that.” Kamitani strives to keep his voice even as he says, “I’m bringing someone with me.”

Saginuma blinks. “Yeah, sure, man. Whatever. The more the merrier.”

“No problem at all!” Usokawa adds, as if he has any bearing on the answer. “Anyone you bring is sure to be cool!”

“Yeah.” Kamitani smothers a grimace. “We’ll see about that.”