just me, her, and the moon
gekkan shoujo nozaki-kun, seo/kashima, college/university au. 15,249 words. | @ao3
Seo works the graveyard shift at the local coin laundromat. Kashima's an insomniac.
Or: Mutual friend AU where Seo thinks Kashima is trying to romance Chiyo, and she won't stand for it, so she puts her in her place the only way she knows how -- by beating her at every game possible. Too bad she doesn't realize Kashima's been trying to romance her all along.
It was late. Somewhere a clock ticked, minute hand dragging past midnight. Seo snapped her gum. Blew a bubble. On her laptop screen, her character died a gruesome death, falling forward on his face in a pool of pixelated blood, the battlefield greying out to a countdown timer.
“Motherfucker,” said Seo. The bubble popped.
The laundromat was silent save for the ticking of the clock and the frenzied clicking of Seo’s mouse. No one else was around at this hour, which was just how she liked it. The cool night air pricked into her skin; she’d thrown open all the windows despite the chill. It kept her alert. Outside, the moon was a distant pinprick of light in the sky, as though lying dormant, waiting to be awakened. Seo stuck out her tongue slightly, lifted her hand to position her fingers next to where the moon hung in her line of vision, and flicked her fingers. The moon stayed where it was, unmoved. She licked the gum off her lips, casting a disinterested eye over the slumbering rows of washing machines, the empty waiting area, and then went back to her game, clicking her character into the fray of battle. Resumed chewing.
Ding. The ring of the bell on the door, signifying a customer.
“Just here to drop off a load,” came a voice, bright and chipper despite the hour. A hint of perfume, carried in by the wind. Something flowery. Seo grunted, not looking up from her screen behind the counter, and jabbed a thumb towards the washing machines. Footsteps clacked against the tiles of the linoleum floor, leading away. A clinking of coins. On her screen, her character axed an enemy, and then another for a double kill.
“That’s how it’s done,” Seo muttered. Another snap of her gum.
“Hm?” A voice floated from somewhere in the distance, but Seo paid it no attention. There were enemies to be slaughtered, kill counts to be racked up. Fights to be won.
Still, there was a persistent sound in the air that made it hard to focus, like the buzz of an insect that wouldn’t be swatted away. Like someone humming off tune. “Cut that out,” Seo said without looking up from her screen, turning up the game volume. The humming stopped.
In the game someone on her team was yelling at her on the chat, complaining about how she’d stolen their kill. Seo responded by spamming the laugh command until her entire team started threatening to report her. “Boring,” she said aloud. boring, she typed into the chat.
“I’m positively wounded,” someone said, and the voice was strangely closer now.
Seo blew another bubble, still fixated on the game, where she was now dancing obnoxiously over the dead bodies of her enemies on the battlefield while the rest of her team raged at her.
“I’ll see you later, then, stranger,” came the voice. A note of amusement in their tone. Only when the door had swished closed with another chime of the bell did Seo remember to look up, and by then she was alone again. The low hum of the washing machine was the only sign of life in the room. Through the glass, clothing whirled like bursts of colour in the spray of soapy water. There was a faint trace of lavender, still lingering in the air.
“Huh,” Seo said. Popped her bubble once more. Returned to her screen, only to find that she’d somehow gotten killed again while she’d been distracted. An enemy ambush through the river. Now it was her turn to rage in the game chat, as the clothes spun themselves into the cycle of the washing machine. As the moon revolved around itself in the sky, too slow to bear.
Some time later she woke up with her cheek stuck to the warm keyboard of her overheating laptop, mouth sticky with the taste of artificial fruit. It was nearing six AM, the end of her shift. The laundromat stood stock still in the pale gleam of sunrise, all the washing machines silent and emptied. Nothing moved save for the slow dance of dust motes in the air, lit gold by morning. Seo leaned back in her chair, stretched her arms. Remembered something about lavender. The line of washing machines caught the light, chrome and glass glinting, like a wink.
Seo yawned. “Whatever,” she said to the silence of the laundromat, just to make some noise, and then she packed up her stuff. Stuck her wad of chewed gum under the counter for the poor sucker on the next shift to discover. Left to go buy a bubble tea, and to go home to Chiyo.
--
Back in high school, back when university entrance exams were still looming before them like the final boss of a video game battle, Chiyo had launched herself headfirst into the fray, burying herself in books and arriving to class in the morning with dark circles under her eyes. Seo, too, showed up deprived of sleep, but from catching late showings of horror movies and pulling all-nighters at karaoke instead. When she showed up to class at all, that was. It had been a trying time for both of them—Chiyo, because she had her heart set on a prestigious arts university in Tokyo; Seo, because suddenly she had no one to drag to the arcade with her at ungodly hours of the morning.
“If this was a real boss battle, you’d be a cleric, probably,” Seo told Chiyo once, after the fifth time she’d been turned down in favour of studying. “That’s why I need you, see. We’re on the same team.”
“It’s okay, Yuzuki-chan,” Chiyo had said, yawning on her doorstep. It was 2 AM and her hair was sticking up around her face. Seo’s hands itched to take a picture on her phone. Maybe more than one picture. “You’re so good at video games, you can win without me. What’s a cleric, anyways?”
Seo’s jaw had dropped in offense—“What did you just say to me, Chiyo, how dare you—” A few hours later, they both woke up to find themselves sprawled on the floor of Chiyo’s bedroom, laptop still open to a wiki page of RPG classes, sunlight letting itself in through the slant of the window blinds. Neither studying nor arcade gaming had been accomplished that night, but for some reason, seeing Chiyo’s sheepish half-smile, looking well-rested for the first time in a long time, Seo had felt it as a victory all the same.
Later, when the exams had rolled around and passed them by, and even when the results had been posted with her name new and shiny among the top, Chiyo would still fret for reasons Seo couldn’t fathom, staring dejectedly into her lunchbox bento in the cafeteria or at the laptop screen during a movie night.
“Yo,” Seo had finally said, slamming down on the trackpad. She’d paused one of her own favourite apocalypse movies, so this was really serious. “What the hell’s with you? Are you dying or something? It’s just university, man, how can it be as scary as this giant lizard monster? Look at it.”
Chiyo had turned her watery eyes at her then. “But Yuzuki-chan,” she had said, lips trembling downward, “what about you? What am I going to do without you?"
“What the hell are you talking about?” Seo had said, genuinely bemused. “Am I dying or something?” Sure enough, a few short months later when Chiyo made the move to Tokyo, Seo was right there next to her on the train, complaining about the stuffing of the steamed buns they’d bought at the bakery by the station, and as Chiyo settled into the frenzy of classes and portfolio projects and scholarship applications, Seo landed the graveyard shift at the local 24-hour coin laundromat. In the mornings of their shared apartment room Chiyo fixed her bows in her hair and got dressed for class while Seo came back from work bearing whatever she’d deemed worthy of breakfast that day—fish and rice, custard buns, pizza. Day after day had developed into routine, and now, sucking up tapioca pearls through the straw of her bubble tea as the sun rose around her, following the stretch of her own shadow before her all the way home, it was easy to think that nothing had changed but the scenery.
Still, the world was bigger now, and Chiyo’s was bigger than her own. She had a lot of other friends Seo didn’t know, from her clubs, from her classes, and Seo never thought about it much, though that didn’t mean she never met them. Sometimes when she dropped by the university to pick up Chiyo a tall guy named Nozaki would stop her and ask her to pose for him in boxing gloves, and whenever Chiyo invited her to go out with her and Mikoshiba to karaoke she always accepted, even though his taste in music sucked and he always needed at least two hours’ worth of encouragement from Chiyo before he could be coaxed into singing. But that was the extent of it—or at least it was until Chiyo said to her, one day, over lunch at the mall food court—“Kashima’s going to be joining us today.”
“Who?” Seo said.
“I’ve told you so many times already,” Chiyo said, looking crushed. “My friend, Kashima—she’s in the drama club—”
“Never heard of her,” Seo said, going back to her lunch in disinterest.
“Well,” said Chiyo, “she’s very nice. It would be great if you guys got along. She’s studying to become an actress, so she’s the charming, cool-looking type.”
“Oh, Sakura-chan!” A new voice rang out above them. A familiar, flowery scent. “Are you complimenting me? You’re too sweet.” Seo squinted up at her as she slipped into the seat beside Chiyo, across the table—head of short, dark hair, almost blue. A beam on her face. Green eyes widening, as she stared back at her.
“It’s you!” Kashima gasped, pointing an accusing finger. “You’re the girl from the laundromat!”
“Huh?” said Seo, through a mouthful of rice.
“Do you two already know each other?” Chiyo said in surprise.
“Yes!” said Kashima, at the same time as Seo said, “No.”
“I was doing a late laundry load last night,” Kashima explained. “She was behind the counter, and being terribly rude, you know.”
A click of recollection slid into Seo’s head clear as the bell of a closing door. “Ah,” she said.
“You remember!” Kashima jabbed her finger in Seo’s face. “You were playing games behind the counter, and then when I came back to pick up my clothes you’d fallen asleep. Very unprofessional, don’t you think?”
Seo returned to her rice, stuffed a piece of chicken in her mouth. “Boring,” she mumbled.
“That’s exactly what you said last time!” Kashima clutched her chest in offense.
“H-Hey now, guys, calm down,” Chiyo said, looking alarmed. “It’s nice that you guys have met already, isn’t it? Today’s going to be really fun!”
Kashima turned to Chiyo, then, and the smile was back on her face. Eyes softening. “Of course, Sakura-chan,” she said. A pair of passing-by girls swooned as Kashima swept a strand of hair behind her ear, then reached out to clasp Chiyo’s hand in her own. “Today’s going to be absolutely wonderful.”
Seo narrowed her eyes. Her line of vision followed Kashima’s fingers to where they patted Chiyo’s hand lovingly. To the lessening distance between the two of them as Kashima leant in close to compliment Chiyo’s dress, to admire the pink of her painted fingernails. All around them, the cloying scent of lavender, ruining Seo’s meal. An itch dug its claws into the back of Seo’s neck, taking root and refusing to let go. Raising the hairs on her skin.
“Yeah,” said Seo, chewing, feeling the deliberate grind of her teeth, the tension in her jaw. She swallowed her food, and stretched her mouth into a smile. “Today is going to be so much fun.”
--
“Um, guys,” Chiyo said. “This wasn’t really what I had in mind.”
“Oh, yeah?” Seo said, raising her voice. “You think you can beat me in this game? I’m the king of this machine! I practically built this machine!”
“But Seo-chan,” Kashima said. “You haven’t won yet, either.”
“Don’t call me Seo-chan,” Seo said. The claw came up empty-handed once more, and began returning to its original spot. “No, hey, wait, stop, don’t do that. Go back! I almost had it, god dammit, this machine is a piece of crap—”
“It’s okay,” Chiyo cut in, eyes wide. “We don’t have to win, guys, you’ve already spent so much on this claw machine, let’s just go.”
“Nonsense,” Kashima said, feeding another coin into the slot. “We can’t admit defeat, can we, Seo-chan?” She took the joystick from Seo, turned to wink at Chiyo. Seo felt a growl forming in the base of her throat.
“It’s fine if you want to,” Seo said. “I mean, since you’re not even gonna win, anyway.”
Kashima pouted. The claw brushed past the edge of a stuffed toy, pulled back in retreat.
“Hey, hey, Yuzuki-chan,” said Chiyo, with a nervous giggle. “There’s a line forming behind us. Maybe we should just move on. Do you guys want to check out the bookstore? There’s a new chapter of Let’s Love I want to see if they have in stock—”
“Don’t worry, Chiyo,” Seo said, elbowing Kashima out of the way. “I’m the champion, I got this. You’ll have that toy in no time.”
“It’s okay!” Chiyo squeaked. “I don’t even want it, seriously, you don’t have to go through so much trouble!”
Seo narrowed her eyes, gritted her teeth in concentration. Ever so slowly the claw lowered itself down into the valley of toys and began closing its jaws. Seo tightened her grip on the joystick, nudged the claw ever so slightly to the left. The metal grip closed around the beak of a large plush duck and dragged it into the air, as slowly and surely as if it had spread its stuffed wings and flown.
Seo fist pumped the air. “That’s what I’m talking about,” she shouted, and then, punching the claw machine, “that’ll show you, you piece of shit machine.” She turned to bow to the mall passersby with exaggerated grandeur. “Thank you, thank you, no need for applause, really.” Most of them stared at her strangely before hurrying away, but Chiyo was laughing, a little, and she was the only one who mattered anyway.
“You got it!” Kashima clapped her hands together, and the sound of it was loud, jarring. The duck dropped into the toy retrieval chute. “Wow, Seo-chan, you really are the champion.”
“I told you I was,” Seo snapped. The triumph of victory suddenly felt short-lived, and she frowned at Kashima, wondering why she was smiling so wide. After all, Seo had beaten her, hadn’t she?
Kashima was bending down, lifting the giant stuffed duck. It looked ridiculous in her arms, bright yellow and garish against her neatly ironed, white-collared shirt, her sweep of elegantly styled hair.
“Here, Sakura-chan,” Kashima said, thrusting the duck into Chiyo’s arms. “For you.”
“Oi, why are you giving it to her like you’re the one who won it?” Seo said.
“Wow, thanks, guys,” Chiyo said, struggling under the weight of the gigantic duck. “Um, I guess we should return this to our apartment. It’s a bit of a shame, though—we didn’t get to do anything else together.” A pause. “Hey, Kashima, do you want to come over? It’s been ages since we’ve had guests over at our place.”
“What,” said Seo.
“Sakura-chan, you’re too generous!” Kashima beamed. “I’ll have to take up that invitation some other time, though, I’m sorry. I have a rehearsal I should be getting to.”
“Oh, no!” Chiyo gasped. “Is that why your phone’s been buzzing for the past half hour?”
“Has it been?” Kashima peered at the screen. “Oh, it’s just Hori-chan-senpai, he’ll get over it. Anyways, don’t worry; it’s nothing big I’m missing—just one of our final dress rehearsals, you know how those go—”
Chiyo dropped the duck in horror. It rolled across the floor of the mall, and Seo scrambled to save it. By the time she returned Kashima was gone, leaving nothing but a trace of lavender in the air and a crestfallen look on Chiyo’s face.
“You know,” she said. “I was really hoping you and Kashima would get along.”
“What are you talking about?” Seo said. “We got along fine.”
But Chiyo still looked dejected, so Seo fluffed up the duck in her arms, waved it around a little in her face. Punched its belly a few times. “Hey, c’mon, Chiyo, look at this thing,” she said. “It’s so cool-looking, right? Totally worth the trouble, right?”
“You know,” Chiyo said, “it would have cost less to just buy it.”
“You can’t buy the sweet taste of victory,” Seo said, affronted, and she flexed an arm, blew a speck of imaginary dust off her bicep. “That’s what it’s all about, man.”
Still, on their way back home Seo made Chiyo hold the duck. There was something off about it. Every time she buried her face into the soft plush, all she could smell was that maddening scent of lavender.
--
In a few days’ time Seo would have forgotten about the whole thing, if not for the giant stuffed duck that greeted her on the windowsill when she returned home every morning, and if not for the fact that Kashima began showing up more and more at the laundromat, at the most suspicious hours. The first time she’d come back, Seo had been snacking on a bag of chips and watching a horror movie on her laptop, earphones plugged in and dead to the world for all intents of purposes, until she became aware of a distant sound, one that didn’t belong in the soundtrack of screams and blood splatters. When she took out her earbuds and looked up, it was to see a familiar figure bent over one of the washing machines, a load of clothing in her arms, humming a tune.
“Hey,” said Seo. “Stop humming. It’s off-key and it’s distracting me from my movie.”
Kashima stilled, then slowly straightened up, head whipping around dramatically to stare at her. “Off-key?” she repeated. “You need to get your ears checked, Seo-chan. Me, off-key—that’s impossible!”
Seo considered this, then shrugged. “Okay,” she said. “Sure, whatever. Just stop doing it so I can watch my movie.” The earbuds went back in.
But a few minutes later Seo felt a presence at her back, and turned to see Kashima peering over her shoulder at the screen. She paused the movie.
“What is it?” Seo said. “Is the machine out of detergent?”
“Oh, no, nothing of the sort,” Kashima said. “What movie are you watching?”
On screen, the characters were stuck mid-death, waiting for Seo to return to them. “It’s the best movie ever made,” Seo said.
“Hmm,” said Kashima. “It looks interesting. Can I watch, with you?”
Seo considered turning her down, but that would probably lead to arguing, and possibly Kashima pouting, and more effort than she was willing to spare. Also, she liked watching horror movies with other people. Their terrified reactions made the experience all the more savoury. “Whatever,” Seo said, offering an earbud.
Kashima took it with an eagerness that would be quickly depleted by the end of the movie. “Is it over?” she said, peeking out from behind her hands.
The credits were rolling. “Not yet,” Seo said. It took another five minutes for Kashima to realize the movie had long ended and she removed her hands, sulky. Watching her cower from the screen and suffer was almost as good as the movie had been. Almost.
“Well,” said Kashima, popping a chip into her mouth, “that wasn’t a very enjoyable movie at all. Though the actors were quite good, I must say.”
“They died so realistically,” Seo agreed. “Hey, wait a minute. I didn’t say you could eat my chips. Give that back.”
Kashima crunched down on the chip, licked the salt off her lips with a smile. Seo’s eyes followed the movement, the slow swallow of her throat. “It’s called sharing, Seo-chan,” Kashima said.
Chiyo’s face popped unbidden into Seo’s head, then, smiling innocently, and Seo scowled. “I’m not sharing anyone with you and your shady intentions,” she said.
“What are you talking about?” Kashima said, and Seo merely pointed the V of her fingers at her own eyes, then at Kashima, in the universal I’m-watching-you gesture.
But Kashima was watching her back. Gone was the cowering fear she’d faced the movie with, and instead she leaned closer into Seo’s space.
“What?" Seo snapped, unsettled by the weight of her considering gaze.
“My humming is off-key, huh?” Kashima said, almost thoughtful. “Hey, Seo-chan, you must have an ear for music, then, right?”
“Why do you ask?” Seo said in suspicion.
Kashima brightened. “You do, then! You’ll teach me how to sing, won’t you, Seo-chan? I’ve been trying to get someone to teach me singing so that I can convince Hori-chan-senpai to direct the amazing musical I’ve always known he’s capable of, but no one ever takes me up on my offer.” She pouts. “You’ll do it, though, won’t you?”
“No,” Seo said. She wondered what a guy with a name like Hori-chan-senpai looked like. Probably a nerd.
“If you could help me out,” Kashima continued, as though she hadn’t heard her, “I’d be in your debt forever, Seo-chan.”
That got Seo’s attention. “Hmm,” she said. “Sing something, then. How bad can it be?”
Kashima beamed, opened her mouth.
“Hmm,” Seo repeated a few moments later. She put her earbuds back in, started playing another movie. “Keep going.”
The next thing she knew she was waking up from her stiff position on the chair, blinking at the pale light of morning. Kashima was gone, and the laundromat was empty. On the counter was Seo’s phone, screen open to her contacts page, where a mysterious new Ouji-sama stared up at her, complete with its own smiling profile photo. Seo grunted at it in disapproval, but it would have taken more effort to delete the contact information, so she snapped her phone shut instead. Tilted her chip bag down her throat, only to find that Kashima hadn’t even left her the crumbs.
--
Seo didn’t much care for the university Chiyo went to; never had, not even back in high school when Chiyo showed her photos on her phone of the pretentious-looking brick buildings, stars in her eyes. “It’s perfect,” she’d insisted, eyes already glazed over with some fantasy vision of the future, with a dream. Chiyo always liked to hook her hopes onto impossibly high, hard-to-reach places, and Seo’d always thought—she had to have a hard heart, to be like that. In any case, there was one good thing Seo could say about this university: its floors were always polished to perfection, which was killer for sliding down the hallways in her socks. Which was how she bumped into Nozaki one day, waiting for Chiyo’s class to finish so they could go get dinner together.
“Oh, it’s you, Seo-san,” said Nozaki from the ground. He knelt to pick up his books from where they were scattered around him. “What brings you here?”
He reached for the last of his books, but Seo stepped on it casually before he could pick it up. He looked better like this, on the ground, blinking up at her.
“Waiting for Chiyo,” Seo said. “She’s in some art class right now, but we’re gonna get drinks later, so it’ll be worth the wait.”
“Ah, art,” said Nozaki, looking pensive, unfazed from his spot on the floor “I’ve seen some of Sakura-san’s work up in posters around the school, she’s very good. I was actually on my way over to her class, too—there’s a favour I want to ask of her. Why don’t we go see her together?”
Which was how Seo ended up relinquishing the book and resuming her sock-sliding down the hall, expertly weaving through crowds of confused-looking students as she whooped loudly in warning, while Nozaki tried to keep up, furiously scribbling something down in his notepad. Something that looked suspiciously like sketches.
“Come on, man,” she said, “put down your pen and slide with me. It’s more fun that way.”
“It’s more fascinating to simply observe,” Nozaki said, around the pen cap clamped precariously between his teeth as he scribbled. “Hey, what kind of socks do you think the love interest of a shoujo manga heroine would wear?”
Seo thought about it. Shark-patterned, definitely, she decided, and was about to voice this aloud, when she skidded past the open doorway of a room and caught a glimpse of familiar blue. She stopped in her tracks before even realizing it and ended up losing her balance, crashing into Nozaki once again.
“What is it?” Nozaki said, peering over Seo’s shoulder inside the room. “Oh, it’s Hori and the rest of the theatre students, working on their play.” He removed the pen cap from his mouth, then raised a hand, calling out. “Hey, Hori!”
Some guy with a head full of hair gel looked their way, waved. But he wasn’t the only one. Next to him was none other than Kashima, dressed to the nines in an extravagant prince costume, and she was staring straight at Seo, waving her hand frantically.
“Seo-chan!” she said, and then she was running up to her, even as the other guy chucked what looked like a script at the back of her head, shouted Kashima get back here or so help me I will shove your own sword up your nose. “I didn’t know you went to this university! I thought for sure I’d have seen you around!”
“I don’t,” Seo said. She vaguely wondered why she had stopped in the first place. The polished gleam of the hallway floor looked very inviting, especially now that a slightly out of breath Kashima was standing before her, panting slightly. Her getup was still immaculate, though, with not a single wrinkle to be found in her shirt, not a hair out of place. Seo’s hands itched—to mess up her hair, to rumple her collar—and she clenched them into fists instead. “I’m just waiting for Chiyo.”
“Ah,” said Kashima, and Seo caught the blink of uncertainty, the flash of disappointment in her tone, and she narrowed her eyes. She opened her mouth, to say something about staying far, far away from Chiyo, but what came out instead was—
“If you’re supposed to be playing a prince, why do you still stink like flowers?”
Kashima winked. “Why, Seo-chan, it’s precisely because of my royal status that I must remain fragrant at all times!”
“You know what, you’re right,” Seo said. “It makes sense. Rich people stink the worst.”
“I didn’t know you two knew each other,” Nozaki said. She’d forgotten he was there, and he was watching the two of them closely, pen still poised over his notepad like a weapon.
“We don’t,” Seo said, at the same time as Kashima said brightly, “Any friend of Sakura-chan is a friend of mine!”
“I see,” Nozaki said, thoughtful. He started sketching something again. Seo hoped it was Kashima’s head on a platter.
“Anyway,” Seo said. “Time to go, bye.” She started to turn away, but Kashima suddenly grabbed her arm, halting her.
“Wait right there, Seo-chan,” Kashima said, and she was whirling around, heading back into the room. Seo watched in bemusement as Kashima ran up to the hair gel guy, expertly dodged the swat of his clipboard, and fished something out of his shirt pocket. In seconds she was running back, waving two slips of paper in the air.
“Here,” Kashima said, and she was grabbing Seo’s wrist, pressing something into her palm. “The first showing of our play is in a few weeks, and though admission sold out ages ago, I’m sure Hori-chan-senpai won’t mind giving up his family’s tickets. It’s more important that you come, after all!”
“Why did you give me two tickets?” Seo said, peering down at the tickets in her hand.
The flicker of uncertainty was back. Seo homed in on it like a predator closing in on its kill.
“Well,” Kashima said. “I thought you might have wanted to bring Sakura.”
Ah. Seo could feel her hackles rising. “I see,” she said. “I’ll be sure to pass on the message.” In her mind she was already thinking of how beautiful the tickets would burn, long before Chiyo ever got to see them.
“Can I have a ticket, too?” Nozaki said.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Nozaki-kun,” Kashima said, not even looking in his direction. “But tickets sold out three weeks ago. Maybe you can find a recording of it online.”
It was then that Seo realized Kashima was still hanging on to Seo’s hand for some reason. The skin of her palms was smooth, unmarred by callouses. Seo bet she’d never punched anyone in her life.
“Kashima,” Seo said. She smiled, full of teeth. “We should go boxing sometime. One on one. Loser has to kneel at the victor’s feet and beg.”
“Sounds fun,” Kashima singsonged. Seo peeled her hand from Kashima’s grip, but the unsettling feeling that she’d been outmanoeuvered somehow was harder to shake off. Beside them, Nozaki was taking notes again, though Seo couldn’t fathom why.
After the hair gel guy had come and dragged a kicking and screaming Kashima back into the room, Seo surveyed the length of hallway before them, turned to Nozaki. “Shark-patterned,” she said.
“What?”
“Shark-patterned. That’s the kind of socks the hero of a shoujo manga would wear.”
“But those are the socks you’re wearing now,” Nozaki said.
“You bet,” Seo said, and launched into a sprint, knocking several people over as she slid down the hall, cackling the whole way to Chiyo’s class. Nozaki had to run to keep up.
In the end, though, Chiyo wouldn’t sock-slide with her either, opting instead to blush and stammer—N-Nozaki-kun, you came to pick me up from class? Just for me? Seo had to wonder why Chiyo was always so surprised, when she set her heart on something and then got it, every time. It had been like that for the university entrance results, too, Chiyo unable to take her eyes off her own printed name, pressing a palm to her forehead and wobbling on her feet like she’d been about to faint. Or maybe it had just been the sleep deprivation catching up to her at last. But now, too, Chiyo was trembling as she walked side-by-side with Nozaki, looking up at him like he was the sun, which was fine, Seo supposed. More floor space for her, as she whizzed down the halls and dodged professors and authority figures, leaving the two of them in the dust. The tickets to the play burning a hole in her pocket, long forgotten.
--
In her dream Seo was chasing something through a forest, flyaway branches scraping at her face as she crashed through the undergrowth, sun beating down through the thick canopies of leaves and sticking against her skin. A bread of sweat rolled down her temple. It was a good dream; her muscles were coiled tight with energy, veins pulsing, heart pumping. The rush of adrenaline meant she was alive. She barrelled through the trees and—there—a glint of brilliant blue—
She dove for it, landing face first in the grass and dirt, fallen leaves crushed under her weight. Her hands closed around something. She’d caught it, she thought, with more than a trace of vindictive triumph. Of course she’d caught it. She always won. She opened her fist to reveal a butterfly, wings broken, lying limp in the lines of her palm.
“Seo-chan,” came a voice. The heat of the forest melted away, and Seo blinked up at Kashima, who was sitting on the counter of the laundromat, legs dangling over the edge. “You’re always sleeping, when I come in. It’s bad customer service. No wonder no one else ever comes here. You should rest more, you know.”
“Rest is for the weak,” Seo said. “I’m invincible.” She eyed Kashima suspiciously. There was something off about her, though she couldn’t quite place her finger on what it was, exactly. “Why are you up at this hour anyway?” But she already knew. There was no other reason for Kashima to be here, to keep returning here, if not to fish for information about Chiyo. Good thing Seo had spotted her game plan early—she wasn’t going to give away a single thing.
Kashima’s smile, though, was spread strangely thin. “Not all of us can fall asleep as easily as you, Seo-chan.”
“Don’t call me Seo-chan,” said Seo.
“What should I call you, then?” said Kashima.
Seo thought about it. “Sensei,” she decided.
Kashima moved closer, propping her chin up on her palm, elbow balanced on her knee. She was still smiling, a little wider now, and Seo didn’t know why, so it made her wary.
“Seo-sensei,” Kashima repeated, slow and deliberate, and Seo remembered the forest, remembered the sweat trickling down her spine. She swallowed. Kashima’s eyes traced the movement, down the column of her throat. There was a pause.
“I bought you a plant,” Kashima said. She placed the pot on the counter.
Seo squinted at the plant. Then at her. Then back at the plant.
“I thought it would spruce up this place,” Kashima said, gesturing around them at the empty laundromat.
“I can’t just bring in a plant to decorate the place,” Seo said. “I don’t actually live here. My shift ends at six.”
“Oh,” Kashima said, dejected. Another pause. “Do you wanna get breakfast when your shift ends, then?”
It was sometime after 4 AM. Seo thought about it, but she could never turn down food. “Fuck it,” she said. “Let’s just go now. Nobody comes by at this freakish hour besides you, anyway.”
Later, they walked back to Chiyo and Seo’s apartment together, Kashima swinging the bag of leftover takeout they’d saved for Chiyo from side to side, Seo cradling the potted plant in her gloved hands. Winter was on the horizon—Seo could feel it in the chill of the morning air. The heat from the forest in her dream was already distant, fading into memory. The sun hadn’t yet risen, and the moon was pale as a thumbprint pressed against the sky, like someone could wipe it away at any moment. Seo lifted her hand to do just that.
“What are you doing?” Kashima said.
Seo lowered her hand. The moon clung stubbornly to the sky, and she bared her teeth at it. “Nothing,” she said.
“Hey,” Kashima said suddenly, like it had just occurred to her. “If I call you Seo-sensei, then that means you’ve agreed to teach me how to sing, right?”
“Sorry,” said Seo. “I didn’t bring my earbuds, so there’ll be no lessons today.”
Kashima grinned. It was a sudden flash of silver, lightning-quick, revealing a peek of tongue, and Seo’s eyes chased the movement. Fish darting into sunlit waters. It struck Seo then, finally, what it was that had been off about Kashima today—she hadn’t bothered to put on makeup. Seo was close enough to make out the shadows under Kashima’s eyes, the dryness of her chapped lips. She wasn’t even wearing her lavender perfume. Something caught in Seo’s throat. In the stillness of the open street they had all the space in the world, but suddenly all she wanted was to close the distance.
“That’s too bad, then, isn’t it, Seo-sensei,” Kashima said, eyes wicked with mischief, and she started singing, some terrible butchery of an old folk song, right there on the sidewalk. If it could even be called singing.
Seo shoved her with her shoulder. “Stop that,” she said, and when Kashima just started warbling louder, she shoved a bit harder. “I said stop that!”
The air was so cold it hurt to laugh, stinging Seo's teeth as the breath rushed out of her in clouds of steam. “Make me,” Kashima said, and then she was running, still singing all the way. Seo stared after her for a moment, the weight of a potted plant in her hands. The streets were empty, the sky a stretch of shadow, the stoplights blinking silently for ghost traffic. At this hour, the entire city felt like a graveyard, alive for nobody but them.
A slow smile spread over Seo’s face. The rush of adrenaline. “That was a head start,” she shouted, and then she was off, the echoes of Kashima’s song straining the space between them. Her silhouette flaring a brilliant blue in the distance.
Later that morning, when Seo was trying to fit the potted plant on the windowsill next to the fat stuffed duck, Chiyo said, voice still sleepy, “It’s nice that you and Kashima have become friends.”
Seo stilled. “What are you talking about?”
The bathroom door was open, so Seo could catch Chiyo’s gaze in the mirror, from where she stood over the sink, curling her eyelashes. “You don’t have to look so surprised,” Chiyo said with a giggle.
“We’re not friends,” Seo said.
“Then what are you?"
“You’ve got it all wrong,” Seo insisted. “She’s not my friend, she just comes into the laundromat all the time because she has a lot of dirty clothes to wash. Like, all the time. It’s kind of disgusting, actually. She must sweat a lot.”
Actually, she didn’t. Seo knew this for a fact because that morning when she’d caught Kashima by the collar three blocks down the road, choking the song to its well-deserved end, Kashima had been pristine as ever, lips curving up into a white-toothed smile. “Okay, okay, you caught me,” Kashima had said. Only a slight flush to her cheeks marked anything out of the ordinary, any sign that Seo had gotten a rise out of her, and Seo had curled her fingers tighter from where she had Kashima’s shoulder in a death grip, wondering what it would take to leave her mark. What it would take, to win.
“Hey,” said Chiyo, setting down her eyelash curler and turning around to meet her gaze for real. “This is what I wanted from the beginning, you know.”
Seo scowled, turned to punch the stuffed duck in its stomach. The duck stared balefully back at her. The potted plant didn’t move, but Seo was suddenly struck aware of how alive it was. Fuck. She couldn’t be held responsible for the life and safety of anything that didn't survive on takeout and junk food.
--
But the plant was still alive when Seo saw Kashima next, a fact that Seo made sure to bring up and brag about.
“It’s a cactus, Seo-chan,” Kashima said, grinning. “It’s pretty hard to kill, don’t worry.”
Seo squinted at her. “Is that a challenge?”
It was late afternoon. They were walking down the street, drinking bubble tea. Or at least Kashima was drinking hers. Seo was more preoccupied with trying to shoot tapioca pearls at Kashima’s face through her straw. Chiyo wasn’t there with them, and Seo forgot to remember that was strange.
“It’s cold,” Kashima pouted, dodging a pearl as it sailed particularly close to her cheek, and then she was moving closer, snaking an arm through Seo’s to sneak her hand into her pocket.
“What are you doing?” Seo said, frowning down at where Kashima was trying to lace their fingers together, deep in Seo’s jacket pocket.
“You’re warm,” Kashima said, breath fanning across Seo’s ear. Seo shivered—an involuntary reaction, pulled deep from the root of her spine. It struck Seo that at this proximity, Kashima’s perfume should have been suffocating, but at some point she’d gotten used to the scent. At some point she’d gotten used to Kashima. Seo would have remembered to feel unsettled by that, but she was distracted by the comfortable fit of Kashima’s hand in her own, and she tightened her grip.
“You’re weak,” Seo retorted. Kashima was wearing a thick puffy jacket against the late autumn wind, but Seo liked the chill biting at her cheeks, at her fingers. It made her feel awake, senses sharpened by an energy her body couldn’t contain, waiting for direction. Her hands, her joints all itching for action.
Kashima hummed in lieu of a reply. “Where do you want to go, today?” she asked instead, and Seo chewed the end of her straw in deliberation. She lifted it, aimed, and shot another pearl at Kashima. This time, it struck her smack dab in the middle of her forehead, and Seo curled her mouth into a smile, still wrapped around her straw.
“Laser tag,” Seo decided, closing in on the answer like an arrow to its target.
Kashima reached up with her free hand, plucked the pearl from her forehead. Seo eyed her warily. Was that a smirk on her face?
“Sounds good, Seo-chan,” Kashima said innocently, and then she popped the pearl into her mouth, sucking the residue from her fingers, eyes never once leaving Seo’s.
Now that, Seo thought, recognizing the rush as hunger, was a challenge.
But Kashima really didn’t know who she was dealing with, not even when they’d forked over their money and gotten geared up with their vests and guns. “See you on the other side,” Kashima said, shooting her a wink before disappearing into the shadows of the arena. Seo didn’t reply; she was already getting into the headspace of competition, of the hunt. Every cell in her body flickering awake, alive, ready to spark.
The laser tag arena was plunged in darkness and artificial fog, lit only by the LED glow of labyrinthine walls and partitions, and the blinking red targets on her own vest. Seo tightened her grip on her gun and darted in blind, pulse drumming to the beat of the loud electronic music playing over the speakers. Kashima was nowhere to be seen, but it was only a matter of time. Seo prowled through the maze for a while, picking her way through groups of other players, sweat licking uncomfortably into the crook of her neck, when a flicker of blue landed on the wall in front of her, just over her right shoulder.
“Oops,” came a voice from behind her. “I missed.”
That was all Kashima had the chance to say before Seo was whirling around, gun already up and shooting. Time seemed to slow down, then, or perhaps stretch out, like a rubber band being pulled out of place. All Seo was aware of for a long moment was the music blasting in her ears, the adrenaline pumping through her veins, the solidity of the trigger under her finger as she slammed it over and over. The bursts of neon red light that bloomed in response. Over and over and over—
When the rubber band let go of its grip on time, snapping back, Seo felt the recoil like a bruise. Jerked out of her trance to see past the crosshairs of her gun, past its neon laser trail, to the shape of Kashima’s silhouette braced against the wall, every target on her vest glowing Seo’s red. She’d won.
Seo lowered her gun. Kashima didn’t move. They stared at each other through the fog, noise still blaring from the arena speakers, other players darting around them, shouting and shooting. Kashima was breathing heavily, her hair mussed, chest heaving, and Seo thought, with perfect clarity, that she’d done that. That for the first time Seo had dug in with her two hands and she’d ruined that perfect picture.
But in the darkness of the arena, their silhouettes backlit by flashing neon lights, electronic music drowning out the thud of Seo’s own heart hammering against her chest, she couldn’t make out Kashima’s face. The look in her eyes, as they stared at each other, neither saying a word.
It didn’t feel anything like a victory.
--
There’d been a weird tension in the air, after the laser tag game. Kashima had been strangely subdued all the way through the dinner they’d grabbed at the mall, glancing at Seo when she didn’t think she was paying attention, eyes narrowed like she was trying to figure something out. Seo didn’t believe in beating around the bush, so she confronted her about it on the bus ride back.
“What’s up with you?” she said. “Do I have something stuck in my teeth?” Outside, the sun had set. A thin sheen of condensation clung to the glass of the bus windows, blurring the glow of the traffic lights. It was cold, so it was strange how Kashima kept herself carefully angled away, a few inches of distance between them even as they were sitting next to each other on the bus, when on the way to laser tag she’d been holding Seo’s hand out of desperation for warmth.
“No, Seo,” Kashima said, her mouth curling into a sheepish smile. “You look fine. You always do.”
“Why are you telling me things I already know,” Seo muttered. Kashima was still tense, though. If she was cold, Seo thought irritably, all she had to do was ask for Seo’s pocket again. But Kashima wasn’t asking, and hell if Seo was going to offer it first. She huffed to herself, clasped her fingers tightly on her lap. She could hold her own damn hand if Kashima wasn’t going to do it.
A pause, as the bus rolled its way around the city, making its stops. Seo turned to the window, wrote her name on the window fog with her finger, claiming the space for her own. Overhead, the moon hung heavy as though close enough to reach, for once, and Seo reached out to press a hand against the glass—
Kashima cleared her throat.
“I know we’re in a fight, or a contest of some sort,” Kashima admitted. “I’m just not sure of what it is that we’re trying to win.”
Seo frowned. Remembered for the first time that Chiyo should have been there, sitting between the two of them.
“Everything’s a fight,” Seo said, and she unconsciously tightened the muscles of her right hand into a fist. “Everything that’s real is what you can feel under your knuckles, what you can touch. What you can take in your hands for your own.” Like how sometimes Seo rode the subway and sat on its pristine seats and stared out the window at a city full of white lights and wanted to smash her fist straight into the glass; like how sometimes she walked home after her shift on the waking 6 AM street with the moon weak enough to look like just another star in the sky and it would force a sudden awareness like a breath down her throat that the only true thing she could be sure of was the ground under her feet. Like how sometimes in a crowd her body would be seized with the compulsion to open her mouth and sing, at the top of her lungs, so they could hear her all the way on the other side of the world. That was the only way you could be sure anything was real—you had to dig in with your two hands and make it. You had to fight for it.
Kashima was watching her, carefully. “So what is it you’re fighting for?”
Seo hadn’t realized she’d been talking out loud. She didn’t voice all of that very often—just to Chiyo, usually, when Seo called her up in the middle of the night from the laundromat just to see Chiyo’s name and contact photo light up her phone like something tangible she could touch, or in the middle of a boring movie with the laptop volume on low when Seo’d had too many beers or—even worse—none at all. Or back in high school, every time she showed up on Chiyo’s doorstep at 2 AM with a shitty excuse to get out, to get lost in the world, to leave it all behind for a little while. Just a little while. And Chiyo—only Chiyo—would always pick up, even in the middle of the night, voice muffled with sleep, but still there through the phone connection; would pour her water between cans of beer and nod, and listen, and get it. She always got it. And back in high school Chiyo would always open the door for her at 2 AM, every time, clad in her sushi-print pajamas, and she would go with Seo, sometimes, get lost in the world, leave it all behind, but she would always bring her back, too. She would always bring her home.
So who was Kashima, really, to look at her now like this, like she’d heard all of what Seo had said, like she’d listened, like she understood? Who was Kashima to watch her like she was waiting for what she had to say? Who was Kashima to ask, as though she wanted to know, when she still held herself so carefully, so deliberately out of reach, perched on the edge of her seat?
“Chiyo isn’t going to go out with you,” Seo said, and it felt a lot like losing, having to say it out loud for the both of them. Like she’d given something away. Like she’d given in. “She’s in love with this other guy. Tall, dark-haired, a total nerd. Maybe you’ve seen him around.”
Kashima was silent, which was strange. Kashima was never silent.
“You’re not her type, anyways,” Seo went on. “All your cheesy compliments—you give her too much that isn’t real. That’s not what she wants.”
Kashima was still silent, not giving away an inch.
Seo’s irritation rose. Well, fine. If she wanted to be that way, Seo could dig the nail deeper into the coffin. “You have to let her come to you, out of her own will,” she said. “You have to give her the freedom to let her choose you—and once she does she’ll never leave, look away.”
Kashima was still watching Seo, but there was something different in her gaze now, something sharp. She blinked. And then she burst into disbelieving laughter, the ends of it lilting up like a question.
“Chiyo?” Kashima repeated, as though incredulous. “Chiyo? All this time—and you think the one I’m trying to date is Sakura-chan?”
Seo squinted at her. “Who else would it be?” she snapped, suddenly angry for some reason. But something in Kashima’s expression was slamming closed, so sudden that Seo only just then realized it had ever been open in the first place.
“Don’t worry, Seo-san,” Kashima said, a hard edge to her voice, but at the same time oddly thin, fragile, like it might crumble if Seo just pressed on it a little. If all she did was push. All she had to do was just push a little. “I won’t take Sakura-chan away from you, or from Nozaki-kun. All I wanted was to be her friend.”
All she had to do was push. But for once in her life, Seo hesitated, held back. She didn’t push.
“Good,” she said, her face neutral. “That’s all I wanted, too.”
The rest of the bus ride was sat in silence. Seo watched the world outside her window, the lights all blurring into one, and wanted nothing more than to punch her fist into the glass. She held the weight of that want clenched in the palm of her hand, but she didn’t do it, not even after Kashima got off the bus three stops later and didn’t look back, the moon in the sky full enough to break.
--
It was late. Somewhere a clock ticked, minute hand dragging past midnight. Seo’s teeth dug into the cardboard rim of her coffee cup as her character died a gruesome death on her laptop screen, falling forward on his face in a pool of pixelated blood.
“Motherfucker,” she said. The death timer started counting down in reply.
The laundromat was empty. The laundromat had been empty every night for the past week, and Seo was not on a game losing streak. Losing streaks didn’t exist, for her. There was no such thing.
Her team seemed to believe otherwise. On the game chat they were threatening to report her for feeding. Seo gritted her teeth. “Boring,” she said aloud. boring, she typed into the chat.
The silence of the laundromat sounded like the echo of where a laugh should be. Seo hated it, so she turned the game volume on her laptop speakers all the way up. Sounds of slashing and stabbing filled the room, but it still wasn’t enough, so she got up from her seat and fed a coin into an empty laundry machine, just to hear it come alive. It struck her as a good idea, so before long she had all the machines up and running. She stayed there for a while, watching the spin of empty water behind the glass, row after row. The mechanical whirr of each machine was slightly off beat from one another, never quite lapsing into synchronization, one cycle starting as another ended. It was strangely calming. By the time Seo remembered to return her game, they had already lost and her entire team had reported her for being AFK.
“Still not a losing streak,” Seo said, aloud. Her coffee was cold, but she drank it down anyway, like a champ. Five and a half hours until she got out of here, and got to go home to Chiyo.
--
“You know,” Chiyo said, “you haven’t hung out with Kashima in a while.”
Seo squinted into her beer can. She couldn’t make out anything inside it, but that couldn’t be right, because she’d just opened a new one and it couldn’t be empty already. Her mouth tasted funny—sour, like she’d just woken up, and couldn’t remember what it was she’d been dreaming about—and she smacked her lips, tilted her head back to suck the last few stubborn drops from the can.
“I haven’t seen her in a long time, really,” Chiyo went on. “I guess she’s busy preparing for her play.”
Seo grunted noncommittally. It was movie night. The film playing on the laptop nestled between the two of them on the bed was one of Chiyo’s favourites, a love story of some sort. On screen, the guy was working himself up to taking hold of the girl’s hand. Chiyo sighed wistfully, rested her cheeks on her palms, propped up on her elbows. Seo wasn’t watching the movie. She was having a staring contest with the stuffed duck on the windowsill instead. The duck was winning, though. Seo scowled at it. Dirty cheater.
“It was nice when she was around, though.” Chiyo still wasn’t done. “You seemed to have a lot of fun.”
“I’m always having fun,” Seo said. The stuffed duck seemed to glare at her in accusation, and she looked away, past it out the window, at the moon. She closed her fist around its shape, but when she opened her palm, it came up empty.
Chiyo hummed. Said nothing for a long while. Seo licked the alcohol off her lips and reached for another can.
“Do you ever miss home, Yuzuki-chan?” Chiyo said, too suddenly, too deliberately for it to not have been a question she’d been meaning to ask for a while now.
“No,” said Seo, and it was true. She couldn’t miss home if she was still there. But she knew Chiyo meant something else, so she asked, “Do you?”
Chiyo bit her lip. “Maybe,” she admitted. “Sometimes. It’s bad, right?” She was wringing her hands. “I’ve worked so hard to get here and I’ve learned so many things and met so many people and I’m really lucky to wake up every day feeling excited for the life I get to live but—but sometimes I can’t help but remember how much simpler it used to be, you know, back in high school, when I didn’t have to do so many things on my own.” She reddened, as though embarrassed by her outburst, and looked down at her hands. “That’s bad, right?” she added, quietly.
Seo yawned, scratched at the nape of her neck. The alcohol was smoothing out the ache in her spine, making her feel loose, limber. Her bones felt like liquid, and it was nice to stretch out on the bed, lazy like a cat. “It was fun,” she agreed. “When we played pranks on our teachers and the corner store was close enough to visit on the way home from school and I knew everybody’s name and face and weakness on the basketball team. But it was also a bit boring, don’t you think? Looking back at it now, wasn’t it a bit small?"
Chiyo let out a breath neither of them knew she was holding. “You’re right,” she said, with a laugh. “It was really fun. But there’s more now, isn’t there?”
The air around them had gained a fuzzy quality, washed in gold, like Seo was floating. She licked at the rim of her beer can, and the press of cool metal against her tongue yanked her back to the ground. “I really liked that time,” she said, “because I met you, and because I got to do a lot of things I wanted, like playing video games and blasting rock music just to wake up the neighbours and going out at 2 AM to eat ice cream by the side of the road. But I still get to do all of those things, and what’s more, now there’s so many other things I get to do, too. Some of them I didn’t even know I wanted to do, before.”
Chiyo was watching her, and Seo never hid from anything, so she opened her eyes extra wide and stared back, but the golden sheen of the world distracted her, made her blink. Damned alcohol. She took another swig.
“And now?” Chiyo said, so softly it might have been a whisper, in the same tone she’d used when she’d pointed at the university insignia on the website she’d pulled up on her phone and announced that’s the one, the same tone she’d used when she’d clutched Seo’s shoulder in the middle of the school hallway and hissed don’t look, don’t look, that’s him, the really tall and handsome one, was he looking at me, what do you mean you weren’t watching, why weren’t you looking at him, the tone that made Seo think, every time, without a doubt: this was important. “Is it still boring for you, Yuzuki-chan?”
Seo’s beer can was somehow empty again. She groaned, smacked it into her forehead. The pain of the resulting metallic clang shot down to her skull, but it suddenly brought flashes of other images to her mind, other memories. The clatter of train tracks, steamed bun burning her tongue, a world whirling by past the windows, an anchor by her side. The echo of her footsteps against the ground, racing the rising sun home after her shift at the laundromat, until her bones rattled and her chest felt like bursting and all the breath in her body couldn’t get out past the hollow of her throat. The clinking of coins, accompanied by a voice, reaching out to wrap around her in a greeting, or a laugh, or the lilt of an awful, off-key song.
Seo wrapped her fingers around the empty beer can, remembered the warmth and the weight of holding Kashima’s hand in hers. Scowled at the blushing couple on the laptop screen. On the windowsill, the duck looked like it was mocking her.
“No,” Seo said. “No, it’s not boring.”
Chiyo was smiling, like she knew something Seo didn’t. Seo hated those smiles. “That’s good,” Chiyo said, her voice light. “I’m glad, Yuzuki-chan. I’m glad you’re happy.”
“Who said anything about being happy?” Seo grumbled. “Hey, do we have any more beer?”
Chiyo raised an eyebrow, tickled her side until Seo felt like she was ballooning like a pufferfish from the exertion of remaining stoic. Still, she whined when Chiyo peeled away, taking the warmth with her. A moment later Chiyo was back with a glass she pressed into Seo’s hand.
“This isn’t beer,” Seo said, squinting down at the suspiciously colourless contents.
“Oops,” Chiyo said, but she was smiling, even after Seo glowered at her. Seo sighed, drank the water anyway.
“If you miss home,” Seo said after a while. “We should go back and visit sometime during the winter holidays.”
Chiyo brightened visibly. “That’s a good idea, Yuzuki-chan, I was just thinking that! You could stay at my house, I know you like my mom’s cooking, and we could take a walk in the park by the school, and visit all our old high school teachers… Maybe I should bake them cupcakes or something, as a token of appreciation, that’d be nice… Why’re you looking at me like that?”
Seo smirked. “No reason,” she said, already thinking of all the thumbtacks she was going to leave on their old teachers’ chairs.
Chiyo’s eyes were getting glassy, from the beer probably, or from the way the couple on the laptop screen were staring starry-eyed into each other’s gaze. “Hey, Yuzuki,” she said, hiccupping slightly. “Nozaki-kun told me Kashima gave you tickets for her play. You didn’t tell me you were going.”
“She did?” Seo’s mind went blank for a moment, then remembered—sock-sliding, in the hallways. Kashima’s hand pressing carefully, deliberately into her own. The tickets still waiting at the bottom of her shirt pocket. “Oh.”
Chiyo punched her shoulder. “You’re totally going, right? Take me, too! Nozaki-kun says he helped write the script, so it has to be good!”
Seo’s eyes darkened. “That’s right,” she said. “Kashima told me to invite you, too.”
But Chiyo was smiling. “See,” she said, as though triumphant, “she knows you so well already.”
“What do you mean?” Seo said, bewildered.
“She knows you’d be more likely to go if you’re with me, silly,” Chiyo said, and then, eyes wide, in a perfect picture of innocence, “though I think she really, really wants you to go for her, not for me.”
“How would you know something like that?” Seo scowled. Her throat itched, but now the water was gone too, dammit.
But Chiyo was batting at her arm, pressing a finger to her lips, pointing at the screen. “Wait, shh, Yuzuki-chan! They’re going to confess to each other!”
“Is that it?” Seo said, peering at the screen, unimpressed. “I thought they’d have at least kissed by now.”
“Shh, shh! This is way better than a kiss!”
Seo obligingly suffered it in silence, though she made a face when the two characters hugged in lieu of kissing like they obviously wanted to. The girl couldn’t take her eyes off the guy’s lips, for god’s sake. Chiyo sniffled, looking suspiciously misty-eyed.
“You know,” Seo admitted. “I was wrong—you’re more of a mage than a cleric, really.”
“What’s the difference?” Chiyo said, falling back onto the pillows. She looked like she was going to fall asleep at any moment.
With anyone else Seo would have sighed loudly in exasperation. With Chiyo, Seo still sighed loudly in exasperation, but she also took the time to explain. “It means you’re more than just a supporting character,” she said. “It means you can handle yourself. Also, your armor is way cooler.”
“Yuzuki-chan,” Chiyo said, voice dreamy. “You know you’re my best friend ever, ever, ever, right?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Seo said. “Of course I know.”
--
The seats Kashima had gotten for them were in the centre of the auditorium, third row, up close and personal. Close enough to make out every intricate detail of the set and costumes, the cardboard rose-thorned bushes and the pale marbled castle spires, the gleam of polished buttons and the cut of high-collared robes. Or so Chiyo would gush to Seo later after the show, eyes shining, breathless with wonder; Seo hadn’t noticed any of it. It was a boring story, really, the same old thing, and Seo might’ve fallen asleep, if it weren’t for the fight scenes. If it weren’t for Kashima’s sword, catching the light with every flick and jab. If it weren’t for Kashima, dancing around the shadows of the stage, back straight, neck bowed in grace, eyes shuttered in concentration.
“I don’t get it,” Seo muttered in Chiyo’s ear, next to her. “So the princess is in love with the frog, and that’s why the wicked witch turned him into a prince? Why’s that ugly dude fighting Kashima? Who’s the lady in the giant balloon thing?”
“Shh,” Chiyo hissed, “the prince was turned into a frog, not the other way around, and it’s not a balloon, it’s a carriage, and that’s not an ugly dude, that’s Mikorin—we’re not supposed to be talking during the play, shh!”
“You’re the one who’s talking so much,” Seo said, and then, perking up, “Hey, is that a real goat?”
Half an hour and a dozen questions later, with Chiyo resolutely ignoring her in her seat, Seo snorted as Kashima leant in close to her love interest on the stage, a smile sweet on her lips. “She calls this acting?” she whispered to Chiyo. “She looks like that all the time.”
Chiyo turned to her then, the light from the stage slanting across her face, so that only half her expression could be seen. “No,” Chiyo said, mouth twitching like it couldn’t decide on a smile, eyes gentle, that tone of hers reaching out to grab Seo by the neck, sit her still: this is important. “She looks like that around you, Yuzuki-chan.”
At that moment, Kashima—reaching the end of a long-winded, flowery speech—glanced up, and somehow caught Seo’s eye, straight across the stage, the spotlights cutting between them. Kashima stared. Seo stared back. There was a pause that might have lasted an eternity, or only a second. Seo wouldn’t know. The stage lights were blinding, scattering blurry spots across her vision, and the silence of the entire auditorium felt like a tangible, breathing layer around them, and nothing felt real—not the uncomfortable seat digging into the small of the back, not the rows and rows of faceless silhouettes surrounding her on all sides, not the lights nor the shadows nor the silence sinking into them all—except for the hesitant tilt of Kashima’s head, the guarded look in her eyes. It seemed foreign on her face, and Seo didn’t like it. Wanted back the smile, curving up easy as the first few bars of a song she knew in her bones, as a victory. But anything you wanted, Seo knew, you had to fight for. You had to choose. You had to dig in with your own two hands and make yourself known.
So Seo waved, then lifted her hands, pulled her lips back over her teeth, and wolf-whistled loud enough to wake up the entire world.
Later, when the security guards showed up to strong-arm her out of the auditorium, Seo didn’t put up a fight. Just sat on the sidewalk outside, blasting rock music out of her headphones, and waited for the show to end. Chiyo emerged with the rest of the crowd, red-faced and embarrassed and refusing to share the post-show refreshments she’d gotten from the lobby, but Seo didn’t mind. She was still full on the memory of Kashima’s blush creeping down past her collar as she launched back into her lines, like a true professional; the slow tug of her smile, like a secret they shared; her eyes, bright and open as the moon hanging over their heads. She’d done that, Seo thought, with perfect clarity; she’d done that, and made that perfect picture.
“Where’s Kashima?” Seo said as Chiyo furiously texted Nozaki on her phone, tongue sticking half out of her mouth in concentration. good thing you weren’t here yuzuki-chan was SO embarrassing i can’t believe she got banned for LIFE from the theatre I’m never going anywhere with her ever again but I really really liked your story!! She took advantage of Chiyo’s distractedness to sneak a sip from her soft drink.
“They’re all gonna be at the afterparty,” Chiyo said, still glued to her phone. “It’s at Kashima and Hori’s apartment, Nozaki’s going to be there, too, we should go congratulate them on a work well done,” and Chiyo was looking up then, “do you wanna?”
Seo hummed, and heard it as an echo of Kashima’s breathy voice, low and light and off-key in the silent stillness of the laundromat. An answer to what she realized now had been calling for her, all along. “Yeah,” she said, and she reached over, stole a handful of Chiyo’s candied pretzels, fingers sticky. “Yeah, I wanna.”
--
Kashima and Hori—the hair-gelled guy with the anger problems she’d seen at their practice that one time, apparently—shared an apartment five blocks down from Seo’s laundromat. If she’d just looked out the windows once while on shift, she would’ve been able to see their apartment building, towering over the rest of the city. In Seo’s defense, though, video games were much more interesting.
It was Hori who opened the door, a beer bottle in hand, greeting Chiyo with a nod and Seo with a bemused knit of his eyebrows. “Aren’t you the one who got kicked out of the theatre during the show?”
“No, no, that was a misunderstanding, that wasn’t supposed to happen,” Chiyo squeaked, at the same time as Seo puffed out her chest and said, “You bet.”
The guy looked dubious, but let them in anyway. Which was good for him, because Seo would’ve fought him if he hadn’t. Inside, the cramped space of the apartment was made more obvious by the rush of bodies that inhabited it, but the arrangement managed to keep short of being claustrophobic, somehow. Everyone had their place—on the couch, at the table, or lounging in the spaces in between—and the rhythm of conversation kept the closeness of the crowd from being overbearing. Chiyo immediately beelined for Nozaki and Mikoshiba, who were standing a little ways off from the rest of the crowd, looking a little awkward as they perused the DVDs on the shelf by the television in silence. Seo’s interest was piqued by the glasses of wine lined up on the counter, but she was more concerned with the fact that, narrowing her eyes and sifting through the crowd, she couldn’t make out that single head of blue hair anywhere.
“Do you go to the university, too?” some random stranger was trying to ask her, and Seo swatted them away. From through the glass doors leading out into the balcony she could make out the moon, gleaming bone-white in the clear sky, and she found herself drawn towards it, out of the fray and into the cool silence of the night. She was turning to slide the door shut behind her when her foot bumped into something solid.
“Ow,” said the figure lying on the balcony. It sounded suspiciously like Kashima. “What’re you doing here?”
Seo squinted down at her red-cheeked face, lit silver by the pale shadow of the moon, by the stray beams of light falling through the glass doors from the party inside. “Are you drunk?”
Kashima’s face twisted into a pout. “No,” she said. She was totally drunk. She was drunk and lying outside on the balcony at her own party in the middle of the night, hugging a ridiculously yellow pillow to her chest. This was amazing.
Seo was already reaching for her phone to take photos for blackmail when Kashima’s hand shot up and grabbed her arm. “What,” Seo said.
“You’re too tall like this,” Kashima said.
Seo peered down at her, unimpressed.
Kashima tugged. Seo went.
It was cold, but Seo didn’t feel it, not with the corner of Kashima’s pillow digging into Seo’s face and her fingers circled around her wrist. Still, maybe Kashima was cold, so Seo pried her grip off her arm, replacing it with her hand. They lay in silence for a while, Kashima hiccupping a little next to her.
“I can’t believe you whistled for me in the middle of my play,” Kashima said. “Hori almost had a heart attack. I could see him in the wings. You have the worst audience etiquette of anyone I have ever seen in my entire life, including Hori’s three-year-old little brother who threw up once in the front row right when the lovers were about to kiss.”
“It was awesome,” Seo said.
Kashima laughed, sounding breathless. “Yeah,” she said. “It kinda was. I didn’t think you were going to show up, though.”
Seo scowled. “Well, who told you to stop going to the laundromat? All your clothes must be so gross now.”
Kashima snorted, batted at her shoulder. “Do you know how many coin laundromats there are in this city block alone,” she said.
“Good thing you found mine that first night, then,” Seo said.
There was a pause, which was strange, because Seo didn’t think she’d said anything worthy of one.
“It was pretty lucky,” Kashima agreed, after a moment. “It was in the middle of the night, and I couldn’t sleep—I’ve had that problem for a while now, you know, and I’ve gotten used to it, but that night Hori-chan-senpai was snoring so loud from the next room and the moon was shining so bright and I just had to get outside.”
“So that’s why you’re always hanging around at weird hours of the night,” Seo said. “You can’t sleep, huh? Aren’t you tired, all the time?”
Kashima shrugged. Her shoulder dug into Seo’s, and Seo shifted to accommodate it. “My doctor says it’s a nerves thing. Sometimes I work myself up too much during the day, and then I can’t come back down. Being an actress doesn’t help, you know—it’s a highly stressful career path, and my scenes are always running through my head. Even when I tire myself out, I still can’t just go to sleep.” Her words were slurring into one another, but Seo didn’t mind. Her restless chatter sounded comfortable, soothing. Like a song of its own.
“I think I know what you mean,” Seo said. “Like hanging onto something so badly, you can’t ever let it go.”
Kashima laughed, and it sounded stretched thin. “Yeah,” she said. “Kind of like that. Except it’s myself I can’t ever let go. Because if I do—if I let myself go, there really won’t be anything left to stop everyone else from doing it, too.”
I won’t, Seo thought, to herself. Not again. I won’t do that to you, again.
“It’s not all bad, though,” Kashima went on, “because I’ve gotten a lot better at acting with all the time I have to practice at night, and also because it’s really funny watching Hori-chan-senpai try to survive early mornings without coffee, since he threw out our coffeemaker after I told him about my sleeping problems and he thought ridding our apartment of caffeine would help.” She giggled. “I’d tell him I don’t drink coffee anyway, but it’s cute when he walks into furniture at six AM with his face all scrunched up and his bangs down. And I really do like spending time outside in the middle of the night, it’s very peaceful—it feels weird to do it without an excuse, though, so I pretend I’m hungry for a midnight snack and go to a restaurant, or I grab my clothes hamper and find a laundromat.”
“It’s not weird to be outside in the middle of the night,” Seo said, when the steady stream of Kashima’s thoughts trickled out. “I do it all the time. That’s when the acoustics are best, you know, for singing.”
“Hmm,” Kashima said, yawning. Now that her words were worn out, it was a lot more obvious that she sounded very tired. “You know, I’ve sung for you so many times now, but I still haven’t heard you sing. Not once.”
Seo smirked. “Is that so,” she said.
Something soft smacked into Seo’s face.
“Did you just hit me with your pillow?” Seo said.
Kashima was rearing back to hit her with it again, but Seo grabbed its corner, tugged the pillow out of her grip, out of reach.
“Hey,” Kashima said, “give it back.”
Seo patted her own chest, grinned extra widely to show all her teeth. “I’m softer,” she said. “C’mon.”
Kashima turned bright red—“You’re not funny, you know—” but she was obligingly scooting closer, nestling her head into the crook of Seo’s shoulder, hair scratching against her neck. Seo could feel her breath blowing across her collarbone, like condensation fogging up the glass of a window, like a message being written there. She wondered what it said.
“You said nothing I gave was real,” Kashima said.
“What?” Seo shivered. Kashima was curled up beside her, body heat pressed against her own, and she was warm, solid. She breathed in the scent of lavender, and it was familiar. It felt right.
“On the bus,” Kashima said. “You said, what I had to give wasn’t substantial. Wasn’t real.”
“Because,” Seo said. She tapped the nail of Kashima’s thumb, ran a finger over her knuckles. “Because I thought you were trying to give it to Chiyo, when you didn’t look like you were trying very hard to fight for her.”
Somehow, Kashima shifted closer, the line of her lashes tickling Seo’s throat. “What about this, then?” she said. “Is this real?”
Seo turned her head. Inside, through the glass doors, the others were raising a toast. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, traced the movements of their mouths instead. They looked happy, Seo mused. That was all. That was all that needed to be known. When she turned back around, Kashima’s head was angled impossibly high to watch her. The light from the party filtering through the glass doors of the balcony reflected a brilliant blue in her eyes, and Seo remembered a flash of something, the crumple of paper-thin wings in her hands, in a dream.
“You’re not a butterfly,” Seo said. Not so easily caught, and not so easily crushed.
Kashima raised an eyebrow. “No,” she agreed.
“You’re not in love with Chiyo, either,” said Seo.
Kashima stilled. “No,” she said again, after a pause. “Though she is very lovely,” she added, like an afterthought.
“Damn right she is,” Seo said.
“It’s a little funny, though,” Kashima said, but she wasn’t smiling anymore. “Of course you thought I was in love with Sakura-chan. She was all you could see, wasn’t she? I knew this, the whole time, but I still—you know, I still—” She was tracing a finger down the shell of Seo’s ear, down her neck—“I still really wanted to be your friend, at least.”
“You know,” Seo said. “In a contest—in a fight—you really shouldn’t settle for anything less than what you want.”
Kashima pouted. Seo could feel the press of her lips into the column of her throat. “But I didn’t want to lose it all,” she said.
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Seo said. She could feel her words vibrating where Kashima was nosing into the hollow of her neck, and it made them seem intimately closer to her, somehow, like Seo was reaching her on a level past speech, past the static of sound between them in the air, through a connection unbroken by distance. Through the places where their bodies met. “Because I think you won.”
“Yeah?” Kashima tilted her head up, eyes sleepy, and whispered into the line of Seo’s jaw. “What did I win?”
Up above, the moon was low in the sky, impossibly round, fuller than Seo’d ever seen it. She lifted her hand to reach out, then lowered it again. She didn’t need the moon. The weight of Kashima’s body pinned Seo down to the ground, right where she wanted to be. Right here. So instead she curled her fingers in Kashima’s hair, stroking it in a slow rhythm, to match the lazy pace of her heart. She wondered if Kashima could hear it, pressed against her ear, through skin and bone and space. She hoped so.
“A song,” Seo said. “And I know just the one.” She closed her eyes, opened her mouth to sing a lullaby.
--
It was late. Somewhere a clock ticked, minute hand dragging past midnight. Seo’s eyes were narrowed in concentration, tongue sticking slightly out of her mouth, entirely focused on the task at hand. She aimed. She let loose. The empty candy wrapper sailed out of her hands and arced perfectly through the air, only to bounce off the rim of the trashcan and hit the ground.
“You missed,” said Kashima. She was sitting on the countertop again, because there was only one chair in the laundromat, and Seo wouldn’t share. Kashima had whined about it—“I’m a guest, Seo-chan”—but Seo had put her foot down. She was the one who actually worked here, after all.
Seo scowled. “It was the wind,” she said. “I’m an expert at this, you know, I used to be the star player on my high school basketball team. When I graduated I snuck into the sports equipment room just to autograph all the balls. They could sell those for good money, man, I was doing them a favour.”
“Does this mean you’re famous?” Kashima said. “Am I your number one fan? Come on, hotshot, let’s get a picture together so I can pin it up on my bedroom wall and brag to all my friends.” Her phone was already up and angled towards them as she leaned forward into Seo’s space, slinging an arm around her neck and squishing their faces together. Seo blew a raspberry into Kashima’s cheek, just to feel the throaty vibrations of her giggle. The camera flash went off. Seo blinked, momentarily blinded, and when her vision cleared Kashima was peering down at her phone in satisfaction.
“You look so cute, Seo-chan,” Kashima crowed. “I’m going to make this photo my wallpaper. I’m going to send this photo to everyone I know so that they can make it their wallpapers, too.”
“Gross,” Seo said, but also, “They’d better.”
Now that Seo knew to look for them, the shadows under Kashima’s eyes seemed less pronounced, softer. She smirked—it was probably the doing of Seo’s phone calls every night like clockwork, listening to Kashima talk or singing into the call until nothing sounded from the other side but faint snoring. Sometimes Seo didn’t bother to hang up even after Kashima fell asleep. It made the room feel fuller somehow, more alive, like the two of them were breathing the same air. On the cusp of the same dream.
“Hey, wait a minute,” said Seo, zeroing in on Kashima’s decidedly empty hands, the silent washing machines. “You don’t even have clothes to wash this time.”
Kashima raised an eyebrow. “Do you know how many times I had to re-wash my clothes just for an excuse to be here? I even started having to raid Hori-chan-senpai’s closet. He didn’t seem to mind the free laundry services, and what’s more, he didn’t even notice when I slipped new clothes into his batch before returning them. He wore the blouse I picked out for him the other morning and he totally liked it.” She paused. “Or maybe he was just too groggy to notice. Oh, well, coffee’s bad for him anyway! Aren’t I the best roommate ever?”
“I knew you couldn’t actually sweat that much,” Seo said, feeling oddly vindicated.
Kashima smirked. “Is that a challenge?”
Seo’s laptop was still in her bag, untouched. Kashima was more interesting, anyway. Losers on her team could find someone else to carry them all to victory—served them right for reporting her. And Kashima had brought snacks. Her team could kiss her ass goodbye.
“So did you come all the way here for a bedtime lullaby?” Seo said, tearing open a pack of salted seaweed crackers. “There’s such thing as a phone, you know.”
“Don’t you want to see my face?” Kashima said, pouting. “And you’re eating the food I brought, aren’t you?”
Seo just eyed her suspiciously, like she had something up her sleeve, and Kashima sighed, long-suffering.
“It just seems a waste,” Kashima admitted, cheeks turning slightly pink, “to sleep away the night, when you’re here.”
Seo nodded in agreement. “Damn straight,” she said. “I’m the greatest.”
“It’s nice, though, isn’t it?” Kashima said with a laugh. “Being awake at this hour, in here with you. It’s like we’re the only two people in the world, you know?” She swung her legs back and forth from where she was sitting on the counter. Seo followed the movement with her eyes, like the pendulums of a clock, propelling them forward through the stillness of the night, one moment at a time. “Like the rest of the world just doesn’t matter.”
Outside Seo could make out Kashima’s apartment building, illuminated by the lamp-lit windows of office towers, the neon jungle of hotel vacancy signs and billboard advertisements, the glitz and glitter of overcrowded bars spilling out onto the street. Beyond that, the blocks of parking garages and mall plazas, the convenience stores and fast food joints and hair salons, the tangle of traffic lights and taxicabs that connected them all to each other. Beyond that, the steady rush of people from one place to the next, slowing down to a trickle, to a single stranger walking past the window of the laundromat, hands shoved into their pockets, briefly sharing their same light. Beyond that, the sky. The moon waking up from slumber.
“Like none of it is real,” Seo said, “except for this.”
Somehow Kashima’s legs had ended up on either side of Seo, caging her in her chair. Seo looked up, only to find that Kashima had been watching her the whole time.
“Except for us,” Kashima whispered.
Seo didn’t know who leaned in first—slowly, deliberately, dangling—but they met in the middle like a truce. The slant of Kashima’s mouth opened up under hers, and Seo brought a hand to the back of Kashima’s neck, hooking her in, closer. Their teeth knocked together, and Kashima giggled, nose bumping into Seo’s cheek. Her breath tickled down her throat. Kashima’s eyes fluttered closed, but Seo kept hers open. She wanted to see it all. She drew back, ran her tongue over her lips, and went back in for more.
Kashima tasted full.
She also tasted like salted seaweed crackers. “Hey,” Seo said, “I didn’t say you could have those.”
“It’s called sharing, Seo-chan,” Kashima said. She swooped down, snatched another cracker out of Seo’s bag with her teeth, looking smug. She didn’t look so smug a second later, when Seo lunged forward and swiped it back out of her mouth with her tongue.
“Hey,” Kashima spluttered, “that’s cheating!”
Seo considered it, chewing on the cracker. “You’re right,” she said, swallowing, and then she leaned back in, murmured against Kashima’s lips, “I guess I’ll just have to make it up to you.”
Kashima snickered, batted at her shoulder—“You’re not smooth at all, Seo-chan—” but she still kissed her back. The bag of crackers lay on the counter, forgotten. Kashima tasted better anyways. Five and a half hours until they had to get out of here and go home to Chiyo, but until then, the night was all theirs for the taking.
--
“You know what I think,” Kashima said.
“Uh-huh?” Seo said, a blue lollipop hanging out of her mouth.
Kashima turned to her, flashed a conspiratorial wink. “I think I can get to the auditorium before you can.”
“You’re on,” Seo said without skipping a beat, and they were off, zipping down the polished floors of the hallways. Turned out Seo didn’t need Chiyo or Nozaki to sock-slide with her anyways, because Kashima was more than willing to do it. The door to the university auditorium was just within reach when Kashima bowled into her from behind, knocking the both of them through the doorway. Seo straightened up, Kashima’s steadying hands on her waist, just in time to receive a rolled-up script to the face.
“Kashima, you’re late for rehearsal again!” Hori said. “Where the hell are your shoes?”
Seo rolled the script back up and pitched it right back at him. It bounced off its head, messing up his hair. She snickered around the lollipop in her mouth.
“Sorry, Hori-chan-senpai,” Kashima singsonged, hand settling on Seo’s hip. “Seo-chan was giving me singing lessons, and we lost track of time.”
“You? Singing lessons?” Hori repeated, incredulous. “Is that a euphemism for something?” He squinted at Seo. “Do you even go to this school?”
Seo choked on her lollipop. “Fuck, no,” she said. “Thank god. I’m just here to watch Kashima. Then we’re going out for dinner.”
Kashima beamed, patting the top of Seo’s head. Normally Seo’d bite her hand for an insult like that, but it felt nice, so she let it pass this time.
Hori looked like he was battling a sudden headache. “Rehearsals have a no-audience policy,” he said. “It’s too distracting.”
Kashima pouted. Seo planted herself down on a seat in the front row and stared Hori dead in the eyes, as though daring him to say a word. Hori sighed.
They had to stop rehearsal twice—once to tell Seo to mute the volume on the phone game she was playing, and once because Kashima slipped onstage in her socks and bowled over two other actors, falling into a heap on the floor. Seo took pictures. Hori called it a day and stormed out of the auditorium, a vein pulsing in his temple.
“What’s with him?” Seo said, sucking on the last of her lollipop.
“Don’t worry about him,” Kashima said. There was a bruise forming on her temple from when she’d fallen, but she’d stopped complaining about it after Seo had kissed it better and said it looked badass. “It wasn’t even that important of a rehearsal, just the first run-through of our lines. We just had the roaring success of our last production, after all. Anyways, I’ll make it up to him later—I bought him a new coffee machine.”
“Joke’s on him, anyways,” Seo said, poking Kashima’s chest. “Now we can just go eat sooner.”
The rest of the theatre club had left, and now it was just Seo and Kashima standing in the half-darkness of the auditorium, most of the lights switched off. Kashima’s mouth was hooked up in a grin, and she took a step closer. Seo stayed where she was, and let Kashima come to her.
“Sounds good to me, Seo-chan,” Kashima said, and then, “what do you wanna get?”
Seo bit down on the lollipop, felt the satisfying crack under her teeth.
“Anything,” Seo said, by which she meant, everything.
“Your tongue is blue,” Kashima said, and leaned forward to make hers match.
