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sabraeal · 1 year

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don’t speak boyshit, Chapter 9

[Read on AO3]

“Inomata-san?” Most girls would be thrilled to be the object of attention for the Prince of Third Year, utterly breathless by the way his gaze follows them across a room, seeing sparkles with every bat of his eyelashes. “You’re looking very...determined this morning.”

The rest of the female student body might also squeal at the wisps of blond curling over their desk, thrilled that Yagi-kun deigned to rest his head so close to their own fingers. But Maria simply frowns, dropping her pencil case near enough to endanger his well-being. Or at least the integrity of his haircut. “I didn’t ask you.”

His smile tightens by the smallest flinch, imperceptible to anyone whose vision blurs to pink and bubbles when he breathes.

“Inomata-san.” It’s impressive how normal he can seem when there’s no chubby cheeks around to entice him. “I’m only trying to be friendly.”

“You should try that on someone who would appreciate it,” she suggests, sliding into her chair. It takes a moment for her to organize all her limbs-- girls may stop growing at her age, but she’s still never gotten used to all the extra inches-- but when she’s nearly folded and tucked, Yagi’s still there, curious. “There’s a whole classroom full of girls who don’t know you well enough to know there’s something wrong with you.”

One end of a perfectly shaped eyebrow twitches. “You really don’t mince words, do you?”

Maria squints down at him, the same way Galileo must have when he stared into the sun. “I’m not trying to impress you.”

The blinding brightness of his smile doesn’t blur or dim, but this close, Maria could swear a nerve jumps in his jaw. “That much is clear.”

“Yagi-kun...” After three years as the sole female in the Advanced Course who is safe to sit next to the Class Prince-- a dubious honor doled out her first year after the disastrous mid-term seat change-- she’s nearly in expert in the gradation of weariness in Nezu’s sighs. This one suggests that he should have stayed home if they were going to be in this sort of mood today. “Stop bothering Inomata-san.”

With all the speed guilt can provide, Yagi springs up from his seat, smile dialed up to its max wattage. “Ah, Chuukichi-kun, good morning! I wasn’t bothering her, we were only--”

Nezu slants her a dubious glance.

“I was handling it,” she assures him, “but thank you.”

“H-hey!” That sunny smile shines itself close to a grimace. “I mean it. I was just trying to compliment her.”

With a toss of his head, the wild thicket of Nezu’s hair parts just enough to reveal a rare glimpse of his forehead-- one that is furrowed with incredulity. “Uh-huh.”

“Really! Inomata-san came in with a spring in her step. Or, er--” his voice falters under the strength of their combined stare “--as close as she comes. I assume this means that you had some progress with your romantic endeavors.”

It’s Maria’s turn for her eyebrows to take a hike up her forehead. “Excuse me?”

“That’s what you’ve been frowning over the past few weeks, isn’t it?” He darts a glance at Nezu, as if confirmation might come from that quarter, only to be met with resounding confusion. “You said Inomata-san asked you about boys just a few weeks ago, right, Chuukichi-kun?”

He has the grace to flinch under her glare. “Ah, yes, but I didn’t think you’d, er...”

Be interested, the slope of his shoulders says. His glare, however, implies, didn’t think you’d run your mouth off about it.

“I was surprised you didn’t come to me.” Yagi’s popularity has always been one of life’s mysteries, another sign that she’s not like the other girls in her class, a statistical outlier destined to go uncounted. But looking at him now, all concerned and earnest and every inch what a class president should be--

Well, it’d be easy to get twitterpated under this sort of attention. If she didn’t know the precise amount of tissues he goes through when the children play house.

“I’d be happy to help you.” Under the spotlight of his smile, it’s a struggle not to shrink back, to raise a hand to make some shade. “Between the two of us, I’m sure we can figure this guy out.”

Nezu snorts. “You’ve never even been on a date.”

“Neither have you, and you got to help,” Yagi reminds him with his usual maddening calm. “I’m a boy, aren’t I? I’m sure that’s enough similarity for Inomata-san to--”

“Absolutely not!” The very idea that she could apply advice from this man and apply it to Kashima-- her skin shivers at the thought. “The two of you don’t have a single thing in-- in--”

(Shouldn’t it bother you that you’re stuck here with us? Usaida’s grin says he already knows the answer. I think most seventeen year olds would prefer to be celebrating with their friends.

Oh, no no! Kashima’s smile isn’t even the littlest bit strained. I like being here. The kids are so excited, and er... He must forget she’s here, playing house with Kirin in the corner, since he mutters, I think they’re a little easier to deal with than my classmates sometimes.)

“Really?” Yagi arches one of those perfect eyebrows of his; a girl three rows back squeals. “Not one thing?”

(He’s getting too big for it now, Kashima sighs, listing close enough to her that the cotton of his button-down brushes hers, but sometimes I just want to-- to-- it’s charming, how red he flushes --pinch his cheeks! Just a little.)

“It just wouldn’t work.” Her fingers curl, nails too short to cut her palms the way she’d like. It’d be grounding, if they could. “A-and you’re too late anyway! I already found someone else to help me.”

Yagi blinks, jaw so slack he could catch flies with it. “You don’t say. Who offered to...?”

“That’s privileged information.” Maria stifles a grimace. It’s the same answer her father pulls from his pocket every time she pushes too hard and too long on why she isn’t allowed to go to sleepovers, or about the Sunday plans that are too rigid to allow her to see a movie on Saturday, but-- well the last thing she needs is word getting around that she needs help from Kamitani. He’s not even in the Advanced Class. “And in any case, their advice will be much more helpful than anything you could give me.”

There’s a moment where that sunlight flickers, Yagi’s mouth flirting with the beginning of a frown before his mood clears to bright skies once again. “Is that so? I would have figured that someone as logically-minded as yourself would have wanted as much data as you could collect.”

He would have a point, if he was anyone else. As it was... “There’s no point in collecting from what’s sure to be an outlier.”

Nezu chokes. Impressive, since he hadn’t even seemed to be eating anything, but Yagi leans over, pounding him on his back until the sputtering stops.

“Well, if you’re sure,” he says, giving Nezu one last slap on his back for good measure. “I’m always here, if you change your mind.”

Maria’s mouth pulls as thin as her patience. “I won’t.”

Not as long Kamitani follows through, at least.

It’s not that Maria is impatient, per se. Excited, perhaps. Eager for the rush of data analysis, definitely. But impatient? Restless?

Certainly not. During homeroom, she doesn’t even think about the oddly powdery pages of those test booklets, never quite holding fast to the strokes of her pen. Even as far as first period, she never once dwells on the unique pleasure of being finally being the one that wields the corrective marks, scrawling red over what’s already written--

And then Yagi is called to the board, chalk squeaking as he works out a differential equation in his neat hand, clean enough it could have come from a textbook. The girl beside him flushes, hand trembling with the effort to make her bubbly numbers look as professional as his. In the end, it’s a failure, her own nerves making fours into x’s and b’s into sixes, until she has to write the whole thing out again, chalk dust dotting her uniform as she trudges back to her seat.

But the boy after them-- his answer has more in common with chicken scratch than letters, so cramped that even sensei has to squint. Maria snorts; no one will be asking her to letter any banners, but at least her handwriting doesn’t require the teacher to crouch down, as if being level with the mess might help untangle it. That sort of disaster seems to be entirely the purview of boys, Well, excepting Yagi-kun.

It’s only logical then, that she thinks of it. That her mind suddenly projects Kamitani’s test booklet into her hands, completed cover to cover. It falls open, draping over the smooth wood polymer of her desk, and--

And it’s utterly illegible. A thicket of hiragana that cuts as she tries to wrap her mind around it, brambles pricking at her palms she as teases out individual strokes. With the way he keeps his room, it could hardly be anything else; even if Kamitani gives her that booklet today, she’ll have to spend weeks wading through his answers, trying to uncover his meaning. Her syllabus will be in shambles.

The lunch bell isn’t the same complicated set of bings and bongs as the one that marks the start of homeroom, but Maria’s on her feet at the first note, out the door fast enough that the squeal of her school shoes puts a flourish on its final one.

“Mari-chi?” Kawata leans her hip against the door of 3-C, sipping at a strawberry milk. “You’re back today too?”

“Uh...” Her shoes skid to a stop just shy of that speculative stare, suddenly aware of how her hands are utterly empty of excuses. There’s no papers to pass to the office, no official business to shield her from scrutiny; even her lunch is left back in her bag, forgotten in her rush. “So it would seem.”

“Oooh, who are you looking for this time?” Yamane cranes her neck out around the corner, gaze sweeping up and down the hall. “Yuki-chan, maybe? You guys haven’t had lunch in a while.”

“Yuki just stepped out to drop off some papers for sensei,” Kawata informs her, bumping Yamane to the side. “I’m sure she’ll be back in just a few minutes, if you don’t mind waiting.”

“Ah, but I’m not, er...”

Honesty may be the best policy-- at least, that’s what Father always says-- but Yamane’s grin goes a little sharp, like a small puppy about to bite the neck of her favorite squeak toy, and only just clamps around the impulse before the girl asks, “Or maybe you’re here for someone else? Kashima--”

“Not him either!” she squeals, loud enough that a few passerby give pause, and oh, this isn’t worth it, not at all. There’s no point in making a spectacle of herself when it would just be easier to find that annoyance after school, or maybe even--

“What’s all the noise about?” Kamitani’s scowl is already firmly set when he insinuates himself in the doorway, but when he catches sight of her, it furrows deeper. “I should have known.”

There had been a plan when she left 3-A, a course of action; one that involved dragging Kamitani from his desk and demanding the data she’d so patiently waited for. But now that he’s here, one arm braced against the jamb, buttons popped above the vee of his cardigan, like he didn’t even bother to dress right--

“There’s a tie in our dress code,” she snips, “as a third year, you might bother to wear one.”

His eyebrows spring free of their furrow, hitching up his forehead until it’s no longer a scowl stretched across his mouth but a smirk. He shifts too, slipping past Kawata to lean against the outer wall, limbs so long Maria has to step back to avoid scuffing his shoes. “That right?”

“To...” It’s terrible how she feels a flush working up her neck as he watches her, far too pleased with himself. "To set a good example. To the younger students.”

“To the younger...?” Humor leaves him in a huff. “What are you doing over here, Inomata? Looking for someone to nag?”

His edges might be blunted by annoyance-- a feeling that’s mutual as far as she’s concerned-- but she can see the gleam in his eye, the tilt of his chin. He wants her to rise to his bait, to admit that, yes, she’s looking for him. A challenge she’s willing to meet, except--

Except that Kawata and Yamane are right beside them, stares burning into the side of Maria’s head.

“I...” Maria clears her throat, letting the motion pull her spine all the straighter. “Not anyone in particular.”

His mouth pulls tight, frustrated his little farce has been foiled. Good. Maybe now he’ll learn that silly games earn silly rewards.

“Cool.” It’s indecent the way that he pulls the word so long; insolent even. And only made worse by the wall he pulls away from the wall, one vertebra at a time. “Guess I’ll just go back in and--”

“Wait!” If she’d taken more than a moment to think, Maria would not have reached out. And if she’d done more than react out of simple panic-- well, she certainly wouldn’t have grabbed him, fingers locking tight over the pulse fluttering in his wrist. “Don’t...!”

It’s bad enough that he is staring at her, the already muddled color of his eyes made muddier with incredulity. But Kawata and Yamane--

They’re right there, watching with entirely too much interest, and-- and she doesn’t know how to do this. To put a patch over this whole debacle and slip out unscathed.

“Er...” She turns to them, stiff, her grip wrapped so tight it’s little more than bone and tendon itself. “Would you excuse us?”

Kawata’s expression hardly changes; she just darts the smallest, subtlest glance between the two of them and squeezes out, “Go ahead...”

“Yeah,” Yamane adds faintly. “Take your time...?”

The girls are quick to scuttle back into the classroom, but their wide-eyed glances through the door are a reminder that this is hardly a secure location. Certainly not free from prying eyes, and if the searing pressure at her back is any indication, any one of them will feel welcome to relate what happens between Kamitani and herself to the nearest willing ear. Which may, most distressingly, be Kashima’s. “Come with me.”

It’s a pleasant surprise that he doesn’t struggle when she tugs him. She’s hardly gentle, either; panic and the threat of humiliation tightening her grip until her own fingers ache, she drags him down the hall with very little care to what obstacles might be behind her. Which there must be, it’s busy; most students in the upper school bring lunch, but there’s always a horde of boys ready to supplement their carefully crafted bento with the high-calorie offerings of the bread line.

One he might be in, if she hadn’t waylaid him. Not that the state of his stomach is precisely her top concern; she’s too busy shoving him into a stairwell to think about such petty things as physical needs. It takes climbing up one flight and down another before she’s content that there’s no malingerers, no underclassmen with big ears and bigger mouths to spread their business far and wide, and--

“You just about done?” he asks, utterly unimpressed. “I’ve got gym after this.”

Of course he has to ask her when she’s still catching her breath, winded from adrenaline and exertion. “Do you have it?”

His eyes narrow. “Have what?”

Oh, honestly. It’s not like she’s in the habit of just handing him things right and left. “You know what!”

She can practically hear the gears grinding behind that sour face; it takes entirely too long for his eyes to widen, for him to finally grasp the low hanging fruit of her meaning. “You wanted me to finish that today? Are you crazy? It’s got to be fifty pages.”

“Thirty-five,” she informs him, prim. “It’s shorter than most practice tests.”

“Yeah, but those tests are multiple choice,” he huffs. “Every one of yours is some...short answer or something!”

“Well, I’m asking for your opinion!” She tucks her arms over her chest, shoulders hiked high enough to brush her ears. “That should be easy for you, shouldn’t it? Since you love to give it entirely unprompted!”

“Me?” He straightens so quickly it’s a race to put space between them, her stepping back even as he looms. “I like to give my opinion--?”

If boys could breathe steam, Kamitani would. She can picture it, curling tendrils like smoke from a dragon’s mouth, all rushing from his nose in one great huff. That’s how he does it now, one huge exhale that seems to empty him right down to his toes.

“Fine,” he snaps, like even that’s more than he can chew. “I’ll get it done.”

Huh. Maria blinks. She hadn’t quite thought he’d give in; not that easily at least. “Tomorrow?”

He sneers. “Don’t push your luck. Soon, okay?”

Soon. Like she’s going to believe the timetable of someone who can’t move two feet to drop their underwear in the hamper. “You’re not getting my notes until you’re done.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He shoulders past her, heading toward the door. “I get it.”

Kamitani’s version of soon, as she suspected, doesn’t conform to any accepted definition of the word. Or at least, not unless she would like to make progress at the same rate continents separate and divide. At this rate, maybe she’ll get to have a conversation with Kashima that isn’t about schoolwork or small children by the next ice age.

Honestly, you’d think with her-- highly coveted, never shared-- notes on offer, he’d be able to answer fifty simple questions. But Tuesday blends into Wednesday, and Wednesday into Thursday, and there might just as well have not been a weekend for how little relaxation brings, since by Monday morning, she is just as tense as she was when she confronted Kamitani by the bike rack, as if she hadn’t done any work at all.

It would be one thing if he had approached her like a civilized person; Maria may be eager but she is not inflexible. If between two clubs, his schoolwork, and his homework he had needed an extension, she would have been happy to give it. But oh no, after five days of coming all the way over to 3-C only to find he’s already left-- for bread, for club duties, for a conveniently timed bathroom trip-- she’s left to conclude that this is not all just happenstance. No, Kamitani Hayato is dodging her.

Well, fine. If that’s the way he wants to play, then Maria can play too. He can keep on slipping out of every room she enters, using his club-- and the men’s facilities-- as a shield, but Maria-- Maria--

She’s memorized Kashima’s schedule. A data set that just so happened to include the days Kamitani would be at his club, if only to assure minimal interference when she did deign to come down after her own. Last thing she needed was some grumpy manchild complaining about how he didn’t like sweets when she showed up with two bins of extra desserts.

“Inomata-san!” Kashima’s eyes round when he sees her in the doorway, jumping to his feet to greet her. “I-is there something you needed?”

His gaze drops down to her hands, and, ah, yes, maybe she should have brought something. An excuse, for one.

“No.” A glance over his shoulder counts five children, as it should, and Usaida, even if he’s just napping, but-- “Are you the only one here today?”

“And Usaida,” he offers staunchly, even if the man doesn’t deserve it. It’s a point she might stick on, if she didn’t have other useless boys to account for.

Maria squints, glaring a hole through the green apron still hung on its rack. “Doesn’t the baseball club have the day off?”

“Ah, yes, it does! But Kamitani came by just a minute or two ago to tell me he wouldn’t be able to make it.” Kashima smiles, entirely too used to the habits of his fair weather coworkers. “Apparently there’s something he needs to do with the manager today. He explained it but...well, I’ve never really been all that good at sports...”

He shrugs sheepishly. An act she’d typically savor, coming from Kashima, but today, oh, today--

She’s too busy thinking, how convenient.

“Is that Kamitani-kun?” One of the first years-- Makino, she thinks the girl’s name is, or maybe Miura-- steps away from her station, standing on tiptoe to see over the sill. “I thought baseball club got canceled because of the rain storm last night.”

“Of course it did,” Inui sniffs loftily over her batter, too good to follow suit. Still, Maria catches her glance, that small bob up on her toes while backs are turned to take a peek. “But Summer Koshien is only months away. Even if the team doesn’t practice, he and the manager still have to come up with their strategy.”

She spares an ingratiating little smile for Maria. “He’s going to take us all the way to nationals, you know.”

A lofty goal for a boy who can’t even take his clothes all the way to the hamper. Or keep to a perfectly rational timetable.

“But isn’t...” Makino-- Miura?-- drops her voice to the precise pitch gossip travels at. “Isn’t the manager a girl?”

Another one of the first years slides between them, wide-eyed. “Oh, do you think that they might...?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Inui snaps, cheeks flushed. “You can’t possibly think he’d go after the team manager when...”

The rest of that thought catches between her teeth, ones she turns right on Maria. “I suppose if someone were his girlfriend, though, they might get nervous about something like that. You know, their boyfriend spending so much time with another girl. Especially if there wasn’t much special about them to begin with.”

It’s not until Tanaka-san murmurs under her breath, “Don’t take her bait, senpai,” that Maria realizes it’s even meant for her.

Inui simply stands there, saturated in self-satisfaction, so sure that Maria will react. That somehow, the insinuation that Kamitani has something going on inside his head besides a rotating system of baseball scores and bad attitude will send her into a tailspin. That him tolerating some girl was any of business of hers to begin with.

Quite frankly, it’s insulting. Or at least, it would be, if she wasn’t too busy being annoyed that he might have devised some legitimate reason to be unavailable. Air hisses through her teeth just thinking about it. Unbelievable. The lengths he’ll go to to avoid doing her a single favor.

At least she knows now: if she wants those lessons, she’ll have to be the one to set the syllabus. “Kaichou, could you--?”

“What do you think, Inomata-senpai?” Inui grits the words through her sunny smile, never once letting it flag. She expects the first years to giggle, to flank her as they always do, but this time they simply stare at the girl, as if drawing attention to their snide asides is somehow beyond the pale.

It’s tempting to ignore her; it’s not as if she actually cares about that poor manager being cooped up with hours of Kamitani’s irritating company. But the air stills, and she realizes that the entire club is watching their exchange, even Tanaka and Suzuki-san. For some reason, her answer matters.

So Maria lifts her chin, letting her gaze snowball into a glare as it slides down the steep slope of her nose, and says, “I think if someone has to worry about who their boyfriend is with all the time, that is either a reflection of their own insecurity or their own poor taste. Either way,” she continues, bored, “I think it’s hardly any of your business.”

Unlike Inui, Maria has no need to see a reaction, instead she simply turns on her heel and says, “Kaichou, may I ask to borrow some of your culinary expertise?”

Tanaka-san stares at her, eyes so wide it’s obvious when they slip behind her shoulder, and even more so when they snap back. “Ah...my expertise?”

“Yes.” She nods. “I’m curious about the way one would go about constructing a bento.”

“Inomata-senpai.” Tanaka-san’s hands tremble in the air, first toward the containers, as if she might grab them, then to her hair, as if that might soothe, before pressing them both firmly onto the lab’s countertop. “I appreciate that you came to me for this, erm, important advice, but surely...you must know how to make your own?”

“I do.” Her mother does prefer to make them-- if my mother did it for me, she says, checking her watch to make sure that she will not be late for her train, then I must do it for you-- but part of Maria’s duties have always including picking up whichever balls drop in the juggling act of between motherhood and making partner. Lunch happens to be one of the more consistent ones. “But that’s different than when you make them for someone else.”

“A-and that’s what you’d be doing?” Tanaka-san’s eyes bounce around from table to table, hardly pausing to rest. That’s what makes her a good president; even when she’s giving her attention to one club member, she’s always keeping an eye on the others. “Making it for someone else?”

A quick breath steels her spine. “Yes. Hypothetically.”

“So this is a...hypothetical situation,” Suzuki-san asks, her stool dragged close. “You would hypothetically use this information, because there isn’t someone you’re hypothetically using it for?”

“I mean that I would like to learn the basic rubric of creating a bento for another person,” she clarifies, “so that I could conceivably make a passable meal for anyone in the future, not just to please the person I would make one for right at this moment.”

Suzuki-san swings her head toward the president, weary. “I think I’m more confused now. Is there someone, or--?”

“That’s not what matters right now,” Tanaka-san declares breathlessly. “Is it? Inomata-senpai wants to know the, um, rules of making one. What other people would expect if you were to give them one. Some...common sense?”

Maria nods. “Yes, exactly. Common sense is just what I’d like. The sort of things that are considered standard. Or if there’s any, er, hidden meanings to what dishes are made.”

The last thing she needs is to find out that edamame is a signal that you’d like to be kissed, or a sweet omelet means you desire the receiver carnally, or whatever other terrible shorthand simple dishes have become in the hands of the romantically inclined. It would just be sleeve-tugging all over again.

“Hidden...?” Tanaka-san blinks. “Ah, no, it’s just usually what your boyfriend likes to eat. Or, ah, whoever you’re giving it to!”

“What if...?” It’s a struggle to keep from grimacing. “What if you don’t...know?”

Suzuki’s giggle is light, more bells than belly, and it takes the sting from her reply. “Then you ask him!”

Doing that will give her an excellent idea about what Kotaru likes in his lunches, but Kashima, well... “That won’t work. Is there anything that boys like in general?”

“Ah...” Tanaka-san flushes. “I’m not sure I’m the one to ask. I’ve only had the one boyfriend, and not for that long...”

“I made a bento once!” Inui offers. “It was pretty good.”

“Really?” Miura-- no, Makino?-- asks, curious. “I thought you said not even the babies would eat it.”

Inui deflates. “Well, sure. But it looked good, that’s all that matters.”

“No.” Suzuki’s smile is too wide when she assures her, “It definitely has to taste good.”

“Maybe you should ask someone who has made a lot of bentos,” Tanaka-san suggests. “Or, ah...has received a lot of them...?”

“Yuna-chan,” Suzuki coughs, “are you telling Inomata-senpai to ask a popular boy. A prince type or something?”

Tanaka-san claps her hands to her cheeks, shaking her head. “N-no! I mean, maybe, if she knows one--”

With a sigh, Maria feels her mood sinking straight into her stomach. “I think I just might...”

“Inomata-san.” There’s a distinct lack of enthusiasm in Yagi-kun’s greeting this morning, his customary smile fading to a frown as she heaves herself into the seat behind him. “Is something the ma--?”

“I think,” she says, begrudging every word, “that I might need to consult your...personal expertise.”

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