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don't speak boyshit, Chapter 14

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Kamitani can’t claim to be an expert on the subject or anything, but he’s pretty sure: theater stairs are supposed to be safe. Not just the regular kind, keeping kids from beaning themselves on metal bars or splitting their lips on the stadium seating, but the kind that would keep grandma comfy, rise and run sloped toward a shuffle rather than full step up. And yet Usokawa still manages to fuck it up— two steps across the carpet and he trips right over the strip lighting, knobby-ass arms fully flung out, like a good panic might keep him from face-planting on industrial carpet.

Kamitani’s tempted to let him. Maybe if he hadn’t been craning his neck around like an idiot, acting like Inomata’s gonna go for his ankles if he doesn’t keep two eyes on her, he’d be able to keep two feet on the floor. And a concussion might keep that kid quiet for once, too, instead of debating the merits of caramel corn versus buttered, or why the hell Inomata Maria is his plus one.

Yeah, head trauma is sounding better and better. Preferable, even.

But Ebizawa’s nicer than him. Shoulders past like it’s fucking Tuesday or something and puts those soccer team reflexes to good use, snatching that kid mid-tumble before hauling him right back to his feet. It’d be impressive, if Kamitani hadn’t been hoping for a more concussive solution to crowd control.

“Walk much?” Ebizawa lifts his hand, ready to give this stiff breeze passing for a third year a real clap on the back, the way the team captain used to when Kamitani was an underclassman— and then clearly thinks better of it. Good idea; there’s paper that crumples under less pressure than Usokawa. “You gotta look where you’re going, or else we’re all going to find out what sort of band-aids this place has in their first aid kit.”

“Ranger Five ones, for sure.” Kamitani stifles a groan. Saginuma couldn’t pick a rhetorical out of a line up even if it stole his lunch money. “They’ve got the new movie playing on three screens, so I bet they have a bunch of tie-in—”

“I was!” Funny hill for Usokawa to try and die on when thirty seconds ago he was one missed connection away from being able to give a full report on the gum situation beneath all these seats. “It’s the low light in here. They’ve done studies on it, you know, about how it messes up depth perception for people who—”

“Can’t see already?” Ebizawa offers, so easy it takes a minute for Usokawa to parse.

“Hey! I can see perfectly fine!”

It’s not that Kamitani’s trying to pay attention to Inomata— she’s behind him, for one, and these idiots in front of him are making a big enough scene to win awards, for the other— but she keeps bobbing in and out of his peripheral, radiating anxiety, distracting, and—

“—it’s a real, observable, scientifically significant fact—”

—this is taking too long. “Yeah, yeah.” Kamitani plants an encouraging elbow in his spine and shoves. “Whatever. Just sit already.”

“Hey!” Usokawa squeaks, tugging at the collar of his too-nice polo. “Don’t rush me, I’m visualizing.”

It’s so stupid even Inomata stands still, probably calculating the amount of brain cells she’s lost just listening to this idiot. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Choosing a seat is an art, okay?” The kid takes in one of those deep, meditative breaths— like they aren’t in the middle of a movie theater, making people skirt around a clump of third years hogging the stairs— and squeezes his eyes shut. Yeah, that seems like it’ll really help with this whole visualizing thing. Big step forward in sitting their asses down for sure. “We have to be close enough to see the movie, but far enough that we’re not craning our necks to see the screen. And most importantly, we want to be central to the—”

“Cool story,” Saginuma says as he shoulders his way between them, like there isn’t a perfectly good set of stairs right next to them. “But we picked out our seats at the kiosk, dummy. The same ones we always do, because you can’t see even with medical assistance.”

“Can too!” Usokawa adjusts his glasses, trying to look intelligent or some shit, rather than the kind of idiot whose head rattles when he shakes it too hard. “I just prefer to sit at the optimum distance. Because I have discerning tastes! Not because I can’t, er…”

“See for shit?” Ebizawa sneaks in so mildly that Usokawa nods before his brain catches up to him.

“Hey! I already said that I—”

It’s not that he feels anything— Inomata can’t even bear to say people’s names, let alone touch them to get attention— but there’s a potential of something, a breeze that ruffles the hair on the back of his arm, right where his sleeve sits. Electrons tickling each other, the old hag told him once, when he’d been dragged along to one of his great-grandma’s acupuncture appointments. You’re a science teacher, he’d said, bored out of his skull, you can’t believe in all this bullshit. And she’d said, don’t be rude, and then, there’s a lot we don’t understand about the human body. Maybe this is one of them.

Maybe if she’d sounded more curious, he could have believed it. But it came out exhausted instead, the hag at the end of her rope and willing to say whatever she needed to keep the peace— and he’d been twelve. If tossing his teeth on the roof wasn’t going to keep him from getting cavities, putting needles into magical energy meridians wasn’t going to help great-grandma’s back pains either.

It’s not so fantastic, you know. She’d looked down at him, all slouched in the molded plastic they were trying to pass for a chair, and lifted her eyebrows, like she was going to tell him a secret. The human body has an electrical field all around it. Free floating electrons that we put off just by living. And when we touch— she’d reached out, hovering her finger just above his arm, hair standing on end from anticipation— they tickle each other first.

So maybe that’s what he’s feeling when Inomata steps up, crowding so close her breath bleeds through the cotton of his shirt, still warm: all her electrons just fouling his up.

“Are they always like this?” she mutters, so soft he hears it more through bone conduction than his ears.

“What?” His teeth catch a shiver between them and clench. “Loud?”

“No, I just mean…” The rubber on her shoes catches on his, a hot burst of air scuttling across his shoulders before she rears back, putting something like normal space between them. “Ah, well…yes. I suppose that.”

“They’re worse.” His mouth twitches, threatening to sink his whole scowl. “Must be trying to impress you or something.”

The congestion on the stairs finally clears now that Usokawa’s figured out how to put one foot in front of the other, hurrying up to the where Ebizawa and Saginuma are already loitering, phones out and screens at their brightest setting. There’s enough debate going on that it’s got to be about what order they’re parking their asses in; one that’s solved by Usokawa bowling right through them, hurtling midway down the row before he drops, no ceremony at all, into one of the seats. Saginuma sighs, one big slump of his already slouched shoulders, but traipses after him, and—

And Inomata isn’t behind him. No, instead she’s three stairs back where he left her, more skittish horse than girl, all of her too-long limbs ready to bolt back to the safety of the herd. But she doesn’t— she’s all eyes instead, the weird glare of the lights making her eyes more shine than pupil.

“Really?” He barely catches the way her mouth wraps around the word, too busy being pinned to the spot by her eyes. “You think they’re trying to impress…me?”

It’s a stupid fucking question, but his stomach fizzes when she asks, twists— he hadn’t even had any soda today, but hell if his gust are acting like it— and he nearly blurts out something even worse, like, well, yeah, you know girls or whatever—

Only to run right into Kashima. Not his back, which would at least make sense, but straight into his whole shoulder-elbow complex. Because that idiot isn’t ambling down the aisle, like any normal person would be, but just standing there. Hands in his pockets, sneakers snuffling, but there, instead of in a seat.

“What, you need an invitation or something?” he grunts. Glares too, using all the authority the few centimeters his one-eighty plus give him over this human-sized thorn in his side. “Move it.”

He expects the kid’s eyes to be darting around, looking for an exit in this weird confrontation, but instead he just stares at him, all steady as he says, “Did you want to trade seats with me?”

“What, you somehow get stuck next to Usokawa?”

Not possible; he’d been watching the kid like a hawk when they’d been buying tickets. Hadn’t planned to— not his business which of their idiot friends Kashima rubs elbows with— but Inomata’s hands shook as they stood in line, breaking out into a full-body tremble the closer they got to the kiosk, and he could just tell every bit of her was primed to fuck up a single button press. And sure, it would have been funny to watch her twist in the wind if she had, no recourse for shit luck, but Kamitani stood there anyway, watching Kashima poke at some squares on a screen, and picked the empty one next to Ebizawa's. Her fault if she couldn't manage to pick a seat that would let her share that kid's air with only right answers left.

And if she fucked it up, well— it's not like he gave a shit about who he parked his ass next to for the next ninety minutes. Might even be a relief to be seated in movie theater Siberia, not having to put up with any of this nonsense.

“No, I just thought…” He glances over Kamitani’s shoulder, weird flush breaking out over his face, and shakes his head. “I mean, have you checked your…? Er, never mind.”

Last time he checked, people were supposed to finish the sentences they started, but he’d learned long ago that Kashima didn’t so much speak but loop together a bunch of questions he’d hope would answer themselves. Helped him lay flatter when he did his impression of a doormat, and all.

Doesn’t mean it’s not annoying. “What, you think I have a fucking opinion about where you fart for—?”

He doesn’t even know Inomata’s behind him until she pinches him. Not all cutesy the way other girls do, eyelashes fluttering as they tugged at his sleeve soft enough a stiff breeze could blow them away. No, she digs in with those talons of hers, aiming for flesh instead of cotton and twists.

“Are you gonna move or not?” The back of his arm burns where she pinched; his fists clench to keep from rubbing at it. “We don’t have all fucking day.”

Kashima just stands there for a minute, staring at him with his too-big eyes, and— and he’d be ready for it if they were all pleading and puppyish, or hell, even just confused. But they’re not; no, they’re steady instead, thoughtful. Unnerving.

“All right,” he says, stepping aside. “Just thought I’d offer.”

*

If there’s one good thing about this stupid seating scheme, it’s that his part of it is over.

Kamitani drops down into the seat next to Ebizawa, ignoring the slack-jawed stare he skirts down the aisle behind him. There’s probably some slapstick routine going on down there, both Inomata and Kashima struggling to be the most polite, ‘after-you’-ing each other until the lights go down. But that’s not his problem, not anymore— Kamitani can take a girl to hang out, but he can’t make her act right.

That’d been the whole point of this movie thing anyway: putting these two idiots into close quarters without some cockamamie scheme to do it. A pretty foolproof one too, since Inomata can’t even ruin it by doing something stupid, like opening her mouth. And yet here he is, forced to not only participate in another one of her overly complicated setups, but direct the damn thing, just so that she could brush elbows over an armrest.

At least he won’t have to deal with her for the next ninety minutes. Kashima’s going to sit next to him, and then he’ll get a full armrest to himself. That kid’s phobia of taking up space pissed him off, typically, but this— this pays for all those other ‘he said no pickles’ moments in full. All that’s left is to get real comfortable and—

“Do you plan to hog the entire armrest for the whole movie?” There’s not enough light for Inomata to loom, but her glower more than makes up the difference. “You have two, you know.”

Kamitani snorts. Like he’s going to risk bumping elbows with Ebizawa. That kid’s so used to pushy girlfriends he might hold his hand on reflex.

“You do too,” he reminds her, and ha, if she aimed that look at Usokawa, he’d be dead and cremated before the previews were over. But Kamitani’s not about to be intimidated by someone who handed him an open answer essay question about optimum sock height. “What the hell are you wearing?”

Inomata hauls up mid-sit, palms pressed against the pleats at her knees, ass literal inches from the seat, and honestly— it’s impressive. There’s guys in the club who couldn’t hold a squat like that without shaking. And she just does, swiveling that slack jaw over at him like he’s the problem. “You’re the one who told me I could wear anything. You said I could even wear my uniform and it’d be fine.”

“Well, yeah.” Girls might obsess about whether slouched socks were in this year, or whether shorts were appropriate for a group date, but he’s not fucking Usokawa. Kamitani doesn’t give a single shit about they what wear. Usually. “That’s before I know you’d actually wear one.”

“What?” The weight of her glare’s enough to pitch her down into the seat, and for once, Kamitani knows what it feels like to be an English exam. “This isn’t— I’m not— this blouse has a cowl neck!”

His finger flicks out. “Pleated skirt.” It ticks down. “Tennis shoes.” His thumb jerks behind her. “Jacket. All you’re missing is the stupid tie.”

“It’s a cardigan,” she hisses, gripping the sleeve between them. “It’s knitted.”

“It’s June.”

“Movie theaters are still cold!” She folds her arms over her non-existent chest, like somehow that’ll make her less of a grandma. “They try to compensate for the number of people they think will be in the theater, which makes it even worse this time of year, and—”

“Isn’t that what you want?” he grunts, chucking her elbow off the rest. “Some stupid excuse to cozy up to Kashima?”

He’s seen tomatoes less red than the color Inomata turns, every inch between her hairline and that cowl-neck so ripe to burst it nearly makes his skin ache. “A-as if I would stoop to deception just to, t-to receive attention from some, s-some—”

“Ah, Inomata-san…”

She wrenches around so fast that she nearly spears him with one of those deadly weapons she passes for an elbow. “What is it?”

Kashima’s been all smiles since he caught on that the plus-one to this little shindig was the school’s winner of Worst Personality for three years running, playing polite and attentive host so hard his personality’s practically leaking out of his ears to keep it up. But even his sunny disposition gets a little dinged bearing the brunt of Inomata’s attitude, sunny smile flirting with a grimace before he says, “It seems we have a few minutes before the movie starts, did you want me to get something for you from the concession stand?”

Her back may be to him, but even still, he can tell: she frowns. Scowls, probably, because there’s no way she can’t look constipated with that stick so far up her ass. “Why would you do that?”

Kashima blinks. “Oh, well, I mean, I am on the end, so—?”

This is the sort of train wreck Kamitani would usually be happy to watch in slow motion, savoring the crash, but instead he slouches into seat, low enough that his sneakers brush the back of the one in front of him.

“Popcorn,” he grunts, eyes fixed to the ad on the screen. “And a coke. Biggest they have.”

The thing is: Kashima’s got everyone convinced he’s some mild-mannered doormat, ready and willing to flatten himself for their convenience. And he is— hard to deny it when he lets that hag of a headmistress order him around like he’s Saikawa Part 2, only without the eight-digit paycheck— but the second his brain parses just how many calories Kamitani’s about to shove into ninety minutes, the mask cracks, a furrow burying itself right between his eyebrows. “Kamitani!”

“What?” His shoulders hike high enough to bump his jaw. “You asked.”

The kid’s got himself all wound up, ready to lob a slow ball right down the pitch, the sort of dressing down Kamitani could knock right over the bleachers before it passed the plate, but—

“What do they…I mean, are there…?” Her neck tenses, trembles, chin half-turned like she’s going to look at him, like somehow he’s going to tell her something besides, don’t admit you’re too much of a loser to know what they sell at movie theaters. “I’ll come with you.”

“Oh.” Kashima’s eyebrows bounce against his hairline before they settle for a more confused slope. “You don’t have to! I’m sure I could carry anything you two might—”

“Hey, are you getting snacks?” The theater’s dead silent, but shame’s never stopped Usokawa from shouting before, and it sure won’t now. “Hold up, I’ll come with you.”

Kashima grimaces. “Oh, that’s really not—”

“Too late,” Kamitani snorts, watching Usokawa nearly trip into the seats in front of them. “Enjoy babysitting.”

*

Usokawa’s mouth is moving a mile a minute when they disappear behind the entryway, grilling Inomata before they’re even in sight of an exit. Hell knows what they’re talking about— probably her taste in movie snacks (non-existent), or if she’s ever had soda (doubtful), or whether sock length was a good measure of a girl’s personality (hell no), or whatever else boneheads like him talk about when their single brain cell is bumping around, making enough static to mimic a whole thought. Kamitani stopped paying attention fifteen minutes ago, after that idiot took one look at the movie posters lining the wall outside and asked if they thought a girl climbing out of a TV was a deal breaker or not.

At least he doesn’t have to deal with that sort of shit right now. Sure, Saginuma might swing out of left field with some stupid question, but without Usokawa egging him on, he’ll be happy just reading the vintage trivia on the screen until the lights drop. And Ebizawa— well, he’s a guy who knows how to keep his mouth shut. The kind of kid who stays in his own lane, who wouldn’t just turn around and ask—

“Not to make too much of a point out of it,” Ebizawa mutters, shifting in his seat. “But what the hell were you thinking?”

It takes Kamitani a whole minute to realize this kid is talking to him. “What?”

“What do you mean, ‘what?’” Ebizawa fixes him with a look so flat even Usokawa would have trouble tripping over it. “Bringing Inomata-san!”

“What?” His shoulders dig into the padding behind him, braced. “You got some problem with her or something?”

“I-I didn’t say that,” the kid sputters, hands already up and waving, too obvious. The kind of not-subtle that was already drawing Saginuma’s attention. “It’s just…well, you know…”

“You didn’t say you were bringing a girl!” Saginuma drops his voice on that last bit, so quiet Kamitani has to strain to hear it— and instantly regrets he even tried.

“I didn’t bring a girl,” he grunts, glowering at the screen. “I brought Inomata.”

Ebizawa stares at him like he’s the one being ridiculous. “Inomata-san is a girl, Kamitani-kun.”

He snorts. “Barely.”

“I mean, she’s got all the parts for it.” There’s not much Saginuma applies himself to outside of fucking around, but here he is, looking thoughtful about all this. “Soft skin, long hair—”

“Some girls have short hair, you know,” Ebizawa says, like he’s some sort of expert on girls, and not just the kind of guy who falls face-first into having a girlfriend every few weeks. “I think they’re cute.”

“—nice hair,” Saginuma amends, like he never said anything else. “And of course, a rack—”

“Like I said— barely.” Nothing to write home about, at least, and the damn cardigan wasn’t helping. “What’s the big deal anyway? Her and Ushimaru are always hanging around anyway.”

“Come on, man. You gotta know how this looks right?” Ebizawa’s got a face made for looking like he’d rather be having any other conversation, sweat practically pouring off of him as he mutters, “I mean, it’s not like you’re actually…? Like, you can’t really…?”

Kamitani could die happy not knowing how Ebizawa wants to finish that sentence. “I’m just doing her a favor.”

“What? Hanging out with us?” These idiots only have one brain cell between the two of them, but by the way his brow knits, Ebizawa’s putting it through its paces. “That’s your favor?”

His jaw grits so hard he can hear his teeth grinding. “It’s not like this was my first choice either.”

“Huh, yeah. I guess if it’s a favor, Inomata-san must have asked to tag along.” Saginuma leans his chin on his hand, too thoughtful. “Maybe she wanted to see this movie real bad, or something.”

“Bro, be serious.” Ebizawa's eyebrows bounce right up against his hairline. “You think she wants to see Onibaba’s Curse 2?”

“I dunno, it’s not like I know what Inomata-san is into.” There’s not a hint of shame in Saginuma’s shrug, just a curiosity that sets Kamitani’s skin crawling. The last thing he needs is these idiots asking too many questions, especially ones like— “How’d you end up owing her a favor anyway? She helping you study this semester or something?”

Like that. “None of your—”

“No way,” Ebizawa snorts, settling back into his seat, all confident, like he knows what he’s talking about. “Inomata-san has never let anyone borrow her notes, not even Ushimaru, and they’re friends or whatever. Why would she just hand them over to Kamitani? It’s not like they’re—”

His mouth hauls up to a complete stop, forehead furrowing as he overworks that single brain cell he’s got bouncing around. “Wait…you didn’t bring us on some date, did you?”

“It’s not a date!” Not with him, at least, but he needs their help with Kashima like he needs a hole in the head. “She just—”

“You’re supposed to be on a date?” Saginuma’s mouth could catch flies, even if he couldn’t catch a hint. “And you’re making her hang out with Usokawa?”

Ebizawa casts him a conspiratorial look. “We’re going to be on her shit list forever. For being accessories or whatever.”

“I already said, it’s not a date,” he grits out. “She just wanted to come. Hell if I know why. I wouldn’t hang out with you idiots if I didn’t have to.”

“You don’t,” Ebizawa reminds him, though it’s lost beneath Saginuma’s blaring, “Maybe she likes one of us, then?”

Fuck. Leave it to that moron to trip into the right answer by accident. People really are right about monkeys and typewriters.

“Who?” he huffs, arms folded over his chest. “Usokawa?”

“What? Of course not,” Saginuma snorts, shaking his head. “But girls do like Ebizawa” —ha, like to push him around, maybe— “and Kashima’s popular too.”

It’s an effort not to choke up, not to let any part of him give away just how close that bonehead has gotten to the truth—

But it’s all ruined when Ebizawa snorts, “What if it is Kamitani, though?”

There’s no reason for Saginuma to brighten up the way he does, laughing, like this is funny or whatever. “Oh, you mean since he never knows when girls like him?”

“What?” he blurts out. “I do so.”

Saginuma passes him the kind of look Kashima is always giving the brats in the daycare when they’re explaining some adult thing their baby brains can’t comprehend. “You super don’t.”

“I do.” It’s not like he’s blind or something. There’s a reason the stands are never empty during practice, and it’s not because they care about how Midoriyama’s fast ball is coming along. “I just don’t care.”

“Uh-huh, sure. Whatever you say, man.” Ebizawa hooks his hands behind his head, the barest hint of a grin haunting a corner of his mouth. “But if it is you, then we’re all really on her shit list, and—”

There’s a whole stadium’s worth of words trying to elbow their way out of his mouth, practically climbing over each other just to get crushed between his teeth as he grunts, “Shut up.”

Saginuma’s slack jaw is the only warning he gets before an all-too familiar voice from behind him snaps, “What did you say to me?”

Kamitani rolls his head along his shoulders, the sharp edge of his flat look catching Inomata just as she perches at the edge of her seat. Not dainty, like a girl, but wary, like a bird on the wire, ready to take off at the slightest breeze. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

“Could have fooled me,” she sniffs, settling a snack tray across her knees, one shiver away from shedding soda onto the theater floor.

His soda, to be exact. “You gonna eat all that yourself?”

“What are you—?” He jerks his chin toward the tub on her lap; Kashima must have taken point on order-placing, since it’s almost over-full, kernels generously peeking out of the top. “Oh! N-no! Of course not!”

It’s impressive how much she manages to fumble the hand-off. He reaches out and she shoves, unstoppable force meeting unmovable object, popcorn rustling in the tub, threatening to spill over one rounded side. The butteriest bits too; the kind that gets all that movie theater butter first, soaked right down to the shell and salted to within an inch of its life, and well— Kamitani just bends down. Sticks his tongue out and collects them right off the top of the tub before they can tumble off. Waste not, want not, and all that.

Inomata snatches back her hands like it burns, and he gets to take a whole ass minute to savor the exquisite flavor of her outrage right before she squawks out, “You’re meant to use your hands!”

The kernels crunch between his teeth loud enough to get a flinch out of her. “It’s my popcorn.”

There’s not much Inomata’s good at doing— well, not much that isn’t on an exam— but sneering, that’s one of them. Really gets a good condescending curl going on at one corner of her mouth, the kind she usually saves for gum found under desks, or that kid from the Advance Class that gets nosebleeds every time Kotaro so much as breathes. “I don’t even know how you can eat that much.”

“Talent.” And the three hours of ball practice daily followed by the old hag’s poor excuse for cooking helps keep him in a calorie deficit it’d take five of these to make a dent in. “Kashima usually takes his share too.”

Only after he practically shoves it in his lap, grunting out, are you going to let all this go to waste or what? But it’s funnier to watch this neat freak sit here, torn between abject disgust and the statistical likelihood of her and Kashima casually colliding if they reach into the same bag.

“Well, I suppose I could keep it at my seat. If it would keep you two from reaching over me during the movie,” she says, all reasonable, like somehow she’s the one doing him a favor, and not the other way around. Wrinkles her nose for good measure, too, before adding, “As long as neither of you do…whatever that was.”

Ha, like Kashima putting his mouth that close to her wouldn’t make her full-body vibrate with excitement. But there’s no use in arguing that— not when they both know that kid is more likely to apologize to the theater employees for dropping a single kernel than lick one right off the top of the tub. So Kamitani cedes the high ground and shoves her arm right off the rest instead.

“Hey!” He doesn’t know how she’s allowed to walk around like this, with literal weapons for bones. There’s going to be bruises on him his uniform won’t cover. “This is supposed to be a shared—”

He snorts. “Don’t you have better options?”

That draws her up short, sputtering and stammering, pink from her hairline to that damn cardigan. It’s the sort of overreaction that should annoy him, eyes rolling hard enough to rattle in their sockets, but instead he bites back a grin, wondering just how red she could get if he muttered, nice way to be obvious. Or how much her cheeks would puff out if he grunted, holding his hand would be less desperate. But—

“Excuse me, I think you’re sitting in the wrong seat.”

— Kamitani doesn’t get his chance.

Kashima’s already half out of his seat, fishing his phone from his pocket, frantically flipping through screens. “Am I? I thought— ah, yes, I see, my seat’s actually a couple over. But I’m not sure”—his eyes dart toward Kamitani before fixing back to his screen— “we’re actually not sitting in order, so I don’t know if one of my friends might actually, er…?”

Inomata’s shoulders square as she flashes her phone’s screen, so quick it’s practiced, like she’d been ready for someone to tell her she didn’t belong. “I’m in the correct seat. Have you checked your ticket?”

“It’s not really mine. We got a reservation for our friend, but um” — she fumbles with her phone, flinching under the pressure of Inomata’s stare— “here! E05?”

There’s no arguing with the characters on her screen, but Kashima still stares at it for a minute, like if he does it long enough, the bits might flip to something he likes better. “Haah, right…I think”— Kashima glances back at him again, eyes all wide like he’s some mutt caught on the carpet mid-stream— “I think my seat is actually where you are, Kamitani.”

“Mine’s next to yours.” He’d made sure of that, at least.

“I just followed Usokawa,” Saginuma admits, followed by Ebizawa’s shrugged, “And I just followed Saginuma.”

“Well, I’m sitting where I’m supposed to,” Usokawa insists, phone in hand. “Look, it says right here, seat E10.”

E11, it reads on the screen.

Saginuma coughs on his laugh. “Hey not to make a big thing out of it, man, but uhh, when was the last time you got your eyes checked?”

He blinks, eyes impossibly big behind his lenses. “What are you talking about? You can see it here. One, and then a zero—”

“Bro.” Ebizawa’s too much of a pushover to get angry, but he does get tired. “Are you serious right now?”

“Ah, sorry about this.” Kashima doles out his best bashful smile, the kind that gets even the most level-headed girls in their class to shuffle their school shoes. “If you wouldn’t mind giving us a minute, I’m sure we can get this all sorted out.”

“Oh, um, it’s no problem, really!” Her hands wave between them, cheeks suspiciously pink, and, yeah, looks like this girl isn’t immune either. “Suki’s running late, we just wanted to make sure she’d have a seat when she gets here. Sorry to make you, um…?”

“Oh no, we’re the ones in the wrong seat,” he assures her, all gracious and shit, and the girl just up and giggles, hiding it behind her hand and everything, really getting into this cutesy act, and—

And Inomata pinches him. Right under his elbow, where the skin’s weirdly tender and painful, like it’s his fault that some girl is out here doing a better job flirting with Kashima in three minutes than she’s managed in three years.

“What the hell is your—?” Problem, that’s what he means to say. But he suddenly doesn’t need to, since Kashima gets up. “What are you doing?”

Kashima blinks down at him, like somehow he’s the slow one. “I’m in the wrong seat?”

“Yeah, because Usokawa’s an idiot." Kamitani sinks far enough into his seat that he can put his leg across the aisle, blocking Kashima’s exit. “What’s that got to do with you?”

“Well…isn’t it easier if only one of us moves?” Kashima’s head tilts, and ugh, of course he’s got to be reasonable about this. “Otherwise, everyone has to get up and shift over a seat, and, er…”

Usokawa nearly tripped into row D just getting snacks, and that was without the audience. Now that there’s cute girls to act like an idiot in front of— well, Kashima’s got a point. And it’s not like Kamitani’s in any rush to get up, either, not when he’s just got the seat the way he likes, and—

And Inomata sinks her talons into him.

“I’ll go or whatever.” Even if it means sitting next to freaking Usokawa. A sacrifice this girl won’t even recognize, let alone appreciate. “You can just take my—”

“No!” Kashima’s not a loud kid, most of the time; he’s got his moments— mostly when the daycare brats get some fool idea into their head about just how high they need to climb for their flying super powers to kick in, or when Kamitani so much as breathes in the direction of that old hag headmistress— but this time, the whole theater goes quiet in his wake, a half dozen curious eyes aiming themselves in their direction. “No, that’s all right. You’re the one who brought…I mean, you should, ah”— his eyes dart to where Inomata sits, boring holes into Kamitani like it might make good ideas leak out if she does it hard enough— “I’m fine, really. You should enjoy yourself.”

“But—” Kamitani routinely hits balls that barrel down the pitch at over a hundred kilometers per hour, and yet somehow he misses snagging Kashima’s sleeve as he skirts past. “Wait!”

It’s no use— by the time he’s managed to stumble the word out, Kashima’s already crab walking around Saginuma’s bag, too far away to hear anything over Usokawa’s yammering. Great. He can’t wait for this to be his fault somehow.

Good thing he doesn’t need to; the minute he sinks back into his seat, heat still radiating from where he was sitting before, he’s right in the range of her glare. “What are you doing? Tell him to stay here!”

“What do you think I was doing?” he grumbles, slouched so far down his shoulders practically bump his jaw. “Hes the one who—”

The lights flicker, three times before dim becomes dark, the only light coming from the screen. “We’ll talk about this later.”

She bits off every word, more threat than promise. “What? Like I control what Kashima—?”

“Shh!” Her finger presses to her lips, a poor impression of every stern 2D librarian Usokawa’s ever panted over. “You’re not supposed to talk during the movie!”

“But—”

“Shh!!”

He slouches back down into his seat. “It’s just the fucking previews.”

*

There’s a movie’s worth of trailers before the curtains start to widen, but finally the screen goes black. Not a real darkness, the way rooms get with all the lights out, but projected shadow, bathing everyone in an eerie blue backwash. It’s the kind of trick that might spook a kid, but Kamitani’s skin is too busy burning to crawl. Where the hell does that girl get off telling him they’d talk later? Going around, shushing him like he’s Taka at one of those lame ranger live shows, jawing off about what his stupid zord would look like. He’s doing her a fucking favor, and—

A spur of a shoulder digs into his armpit, practically shoving his arm off the rest. “Is this a horror movie?”

For a minute he just stares at the screen, watching as the stick-thin strokes of Onibaba’s Curse wash away into a doll’s dead eyes. “I thought you weren’t supposed to talk during the movie.”

A huff skitters across his skin, catching at his collar. “I’m just asking a question.”

Sounds a lot like talking to him. “Why? You get scared easy or something?”

Every inch of her stiffens into a full-body scowl, spine so straight his own back hurts looking at it. “Of course not.”

“Good.” His elbow clips her off the rest as he settles back in his seat. “Then we don’t got to talk about it. Unless, you know, you do…”

“I don’t,” she informs him, prim as the perfect pleats in her skirt. “It’s just a movie. Only children would let themselves be scared by this sort of garbage.”

He shrugs. “If you say so.”

“I do.”

He believes her, for a minute. Until the doll blinks, big blue eyes taking up the entire screen.

His ears are still ringing when he leans over, mouth twitching, to ask, “You good?”

She turns to him, all wild eyes and chest heaving, and tells him with feeling, “Shut up.”

*

The plot’s as thin as the screen it’s projected on; after forty minutes of building up this stupid cursed doll, cutting back to her creepy glass eyes every time something even slightly unfortunate happened, some killer guy shows up out of nowhere, playing dark voyeur as Little Miss Honor Roll trips around a conveniently abandoned storehouse. Usokawa might be into this crap: ghost grudges and haunted dolls and the sort of camera tricks that would have that idiot avoiding the mirror for a week; but as far as Kamitani’s concerned, this is ninety minutes of stupid problems being solved by even stupider people— and if he was into that sort of shit, he didn’t need to pay 1500 yen to get his fill of it. He’s got it for free just being friends with these idiots.

It’s not a surprise when Miss Honor Roll catches a knife through the ribs, fear leaching out of her eyes along with her life, but—

But her death rattle is all the warning he gets before a lapful of girl nearly launches herself right over the arm rest.

“Hey!” Inomata’s nails dig into him like a cat caught on a curtain, clawing deeper when he reaches over to pry her off his sleeve. “Watch it!”

Everyone’s pale in the backwash of the screen, but she’s white as a sheet, eyes so dark he could trip into them and never find the bottom.

“What? O-oh!” Her talons retract with a blink, popping off like pins from a corkboard— and with almost as many holes. He’ll be looking like a pin cushion for a week, if he’s lucky. “S-sorry. I didn’t…um…”

Her hand hovers between them, knuckles stark in the blue light, knobby even, the bones along its back and wrist suddenly delicate in comparison. They tremble, trapped between flight and fight, so frail that they must be freezing. Not just the regular kind, ready to warm up with a few good rubs, but ice cold, leaching heat out of him the longer he holds on. “I thought only kids got scared by shit like this.”

Her jaw sets, turning shiver into scowl. “I’m not scared. I was just surprised, that’s all.”

His mouth twitches. “Right.”

“I mean it.”

Probably does too; this girl couldn’t pick any emotion out of a line up, let alone her own. “Uh-huh.”

“Don’t—” A door slams, the killer right behind it, knife already raised, and Kamitani doesn’t even get to learn what he ‘don’t’— not when his ears are too busy ringing from her shriek.

He leans in as the klaxon fades to a buzz, mouth tugging toward a grin. “You were saying…?”

A glare is his only answer.

*

This movie might be a total waste of time, just a cobbled together mess of curses and creepy dolls and a killer that is someone’s second cousin’s roommate or something that gets fed into some thresher thing just in time for this brain dead group of kids to realize the old lady’s in on all of it, but Kamitani’s got to admit: it’s worth it to watch Inomata white-knuckle her way through ninety minutes.

Her heels have been hovering for the last five minutes, tapping down timidly before some door slam or dark shadow has her jerking them back up again, digging hard into faux leather. Like there’s some ghostly hand that’s gonna reach out with each jump scare and drag her under the seat. He’s tempted to lean over, mutter something about how it’s not even that kind of movie—

But then some monstrous hand does reach out— the killer, suddenly not dead— yanking the bad boy back into paddies. The kid fights it the entire time, fingers dragging runnels into the mud—

And Inomata’s got her feet on the seat, shoving herself so far up and back she has to grab at him to stay upright.

“It’s just a movie,” he grunts, trying to pry her off him, but her fingers clench so hard she practically tears off his sleeve. “Sit down, already, you’re gonna hurt yourself or something.”

“I’m not!” she snaps, and hah, it’d be more convincing if she didn’t nearly vault the armrest as the killer’s knife slashed down, narrowly missing Bad Boy’s vitals. His arm snakes out around her shoulder, shoving down until skinny girl connects with seat, no feet mediating contact. “Hey—!”

“Stop squirming around.” That stupid cardigan is softer than he expects, the difference between sweater and skin prickling where his bare arm slumped against her. “You’re going to crack your head or something, and I’m not walking you home.”

“Like I would—” the doll leaps off a shelf, tangling itself in the hot girl’s hair, and Inomata muffles her shriek into his shirt, eyes screwed shut against his shoulder.

It’s not until she hears porcelain shattering that she dares to crack an eye open, still half hidden behind his shirt and her hands. She’s trembling hard enough to rattle his teeth, but she’s not squirming anymore, and—

Well, not until the door groans open, and she nearly jumps out of her skin. Kamitani bites a grin back to a lifted eyebrow. “What was that?”

Her head lifts, both eyes needed for the glower she graces him with. “Oh, shut up.”

It’d be easy to clap back, to really dig under the nail on this, but—

But Inomata sets her head back on his shoulder and just breathes, her whole body relaxing into his, and—

And, well, it doesn’t matter that much anyway.

#year three

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#year three