[looking for this "me"]

one more time. just one more time. as long as it takes, for her.

[timelostmemories-blog]

Ouroboros

[hansei-hansui-deactivated201609]

Sounds like a plan.

The children’s books, the idea of never touching sandy shores again – but there’s something that doesn’t fit, something that Haruka can’t just accept. He walks forward a couple steps, goes right up to the edge of the river, and he crouches down.

As soon as his sleeves are rolled up to the bicep, he dips his fingers in the water.

‘I get what you mean, but,’ he breathes, soft and encouraging like he always is… but Shintaro’s special. He doesn’t have to use that as a weapon to get his point across, and so Haruka doesn’t. ‘You’re wrong. It’ll… never just be a “fairy tale.” I know you probably want to forget,’–and that’s a luxury that’s been robbed from him, Haruka thinks, closing his eyes sadly–’But it’ll always be a part of us. Letting that go means we didn’t live, and what we have is…’

Nothing. He flicks some of the water out, but the ripples disappear instantly.

‘I love summer,’ he says abruptly, voice powerful in a way it never usually is.

‘And I’m glad it happened.’

[timelostmemories-blog]

Shintaro makes a face at Haruka’s little fishing attempt--it’s not, but he’s being cruel in his mind for a bit--and he tucks his hands into his pockets, content to wait it out. His best friend’s got the kind of articulation and thoughtfulness that fits someone who had nothing to stop him from going insane but his own thoughts; he’s turned inward, a lot more than before.

He sympathizes.

His expression goes slack--

And then Shintaro snorts, swatting the back of Haruka’s head now that he’s low enough for him to do so without stretching.

“Yeah. I know.” He watches their reflection. Haruka’s pale like a ghost and he sees Konoha for a moment...and there he is, Shintaro Kisaragi, all dark eyes and messy hair. Quite a pair.

“I’m a little sick of summer,” he admits. “I’m glad for fall, you know? But it’ll be back. And I won’t forget that.” Looking away, he scans the city, changes subjects temporarily due to a concern he’s poor at hiding. “Anyway. Let’s find something to eat. You’re probably starving...when aren’t you?”

[timelostmemories-blog]

There’s something wriggling in the spiderwebs that he’s trying very hard to ignore--it’s a winged person. A fairy or something. And she’s clearly displeased with her situation. “Uh...hold on,” he offers, gathering up his courage.

Shintaro peels the spiderwebs off of her, gently, very mindful of where he was grabbing. She’s like...Tinkerbell, he thinks somewhat deliriously, quickly letting go once it’s clear she’s free of the webbing.

“...A-Are...Are you...all right?” His life can’t get any stranger.

[goodroutes]

悪く無い

[goodroutes]

She’s not planning to ask.

She’s not planning to ask, because Ayano, she’s more focused on the uncertain chill that starts at her wrists and slowly starts to creep up her arms. There is something so dizzying about walking forward into a world without light, where left and right look like up and down – and for a breath-stealing second, she feels like she’s about to pitch forward.

She half-stumbles two steps in and clutches at Shintaro’s hand, grip like a vice. To make sure she’s not about to fall, she straightens her posture… and after a moment, she leans into him.

It helps, and she’s allowed to do that now.

‘Is there anybody here?’ she calls out, and she cranes her neck forward before Shintaro can ask if she’s stupid. (She’s not sure if that’ll come later.) Sound bounces off the walls, and Ayano’s starting to debate the finer points of echolocation when it begins.

The ride, that is.

‘Wah!’ First comes the door slamming behind them: Ayano crowds Shintaro, pressing close in surprise. Then the floor beneath their feet starts to move, and she’s pitched into him, grabbing his arm for balance. Lights scattered all throughout the halls come to life in an instant; it’s bright, it’s disorienting, and by the time she’s found her head again, the narration’s started.

… narration?

‘Welcome, foolish mortals,’ a voice begins, bone-chillingly familiar, laced with amusement that’s not quite right but – ‘To my lair. I hope you like anguish,’ And you can hear it, the venomous curl of a grin, ‘And if not… you just made the dumbest mistake of your lives.’

‘A-aah,’ Ayano answers. They’re boxed in on all sides, walls framing the moving walkway and giving them no space to breathe. ‘S-Shintaro…’ Her voice gets so high she starts to sound like Mary.

But this is –

　　　　　　　　– they haven’t even started, and it’s already scary.

[timelostmemories-blog]

The fact Ayano is leaning into him nearly makes Shintaro lose his balance, because it’s dark and his heart’s hammering and he sort of tastes something like blood in his mouth--maybe he bit his tongue too hard, trying not to scream.

He’s not scared.

The door slams and the lights flicker on, and Shintaro thinks the voice has all but stated welcome to hell in the most acidic way possible. The kind of amusement found in that voice is uncomfortably familiar.

He’s not scared, but he's pretty horrified--it’s a deeper thing.

“Uh,” he states, the beginning of we made a mistake and is it too late to go back, but the floor’s moving and he wonders if maybe the scientists’ idea of a haunted house is way worse than he thought. There’s nothing in this city that’s not citizen-run that technically isn’t run by the scientists instead, right?

"It’s not real,” he mumbles out, but then something an awful lot like blood sort of just drips down in front of him, and Shintaro loses all the color in his face.

An awful hissing is filling the air, crowding around them so thickly that it’s practically a physical sensation; he thinks of Ene, and if static feels like this. It goes pitch black for a while longer before the floor smoothly directs them in a sharp L to the side.

“Why did we come in here again...?” Shintaro asks of no one in particular, and another door slams behind them that he hadn’t even noticed, making him jump a foot in the air.

[timelostmemories-blog]

Ouroboros

[hansei-hansui-deactivated201609]

Since he’s not… well. Haruka scoffs at Shintaro’s wording, not unkindly; then he laughs, maybe at the irony of it all, and it starts to sound the tiniest bit mean. When he speaks, he just sounds amused.

‘I want to be an artist,’ he says first, and if that isn’t obvious, what is? He doesn’t leave it off there. ‘Like… a real artist. Somebody who illustrates stuff for books.’ What kind of book, he doesn’t mention, but Shintaro knows all about his predilection for the cute. ‘I can do that anywhere, so I just want to be around you guys. Anywhere’s fine.’

He looks at his friend with all the weight of encouraging expectation.

‘I… um, I said it before, too. I think.’ His brow creases. ‘That I wanted to… I want to draw all the stuff we went through. N-not to show anybody,’ he hastens to add, ‘But just for us. F-for me. I think I should.’

He’s not sure if Shintaro cares. He’s not sure if he minds, but Haruka looks up at the tinted sky again, and decides…

‘– can we stay away from the beach, though?’

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　… yeah. Anything is fine.

[timelostmemories-blog]

He cringes at the laugh, but there’s a smile beneath the grimace. It’s well deserved.

“Right. Uh, right. Right.” Shintaro stammers, absently reaching out to tap a steel lamppost as they pass. His fingernails make a musical clang and he remembers what Haruka asked of him just a bit ago.

Well. Perhaps, after all.

“You’d be good at that. I saw that stuff you drew for the shooting game--how’d you figure cute animals belonged in a ruined city?” He makes this dismissive sound in the back of his throat. “Stick to children’s books.”

It sounds unkind but he doesn’t mean it quite that way, and they take another turn, walking near this big artificial river that’s running through the Sector. The air’s cooler here and he tastes something like chlorine past all that gold sunlight.

“There shouldn’t be any more. Right? If we wrote our stories. No more repeats of Ayano’s mom and obsession over kids with red eyes. It’d just be a harmless fairy tale.”

Right.

Haruka gently refuses the idea of going to the beach, and Shintaro snorts out a laugh, thinking of waves rushing over heads, beeping hospital machines and boys with dogs.

“Let’s get the hell away from water in general.”

[goodroutes]

悪く無い

[goodroutes]

He throws her a bone – but doesn’t go all the way with it. It takes a long moment for Ayano to understand, staring up at Shintaro anxiously, their fingers loose and barely connected. She doesn’t understand what he means –

Until she does. Maybe. Actually…

‘U-updated?’ she asks, but she’s standing up, she’s joining him, scanning the horizon for the attraction in question. It’s a wonder why he brought that up, of all things, but – when she finds it only so far away, she starts to get why. ‘Are you sure it isn’t – closed?’

It’s totally deserted: the line is nonexistent and empty. But the windows flash red, and the skull in the entryway opens its mouth in an evil grin, so it must be running.

So, why…

‘… okay.’ She puts on her brave face, and she starts forward, taking Shintaro with her. Each step they take toward the ride makes the air feel colder. The commotion all around them gets follower, quieter, but Ayano does not delay.

This is their date. Their first, and hopefully not their only.

‘Amusement Parks, Inc., takes no responsibility for any death of dismemberment incurred during…’ Well. That’s morbid. Ayano trails off as they pause at the entrance sign; bizarrely, though, a laugh bubbles up in her throat. ‘That’s, um… a little exciting.’

Scary, more like.

[timelostmemories-blog]

That’s Shintaro for you, going maybe forty percent and expecting the other to pick up the slack. (Or hoping, rather.) When Ayano follows his rather aimless-looking tread to the attraction, he doesn’t comment at first, thinking back on the thirteen-odd posters he remembers glimpsing around the park in various places.

“...Yeah,” he replies, at length. A flicker of amusement crosses his face when she starts to lead him, but they’re not even properly in the shadow of that awful skull before he feels this rising sense of dread. That disclaimer she read probably has something to do with it.

“It’s a joke,” he says--squeaks, more like, thoroughly unnerved already--but he forces out a brief cough and smooths his voice out to its usual grumble. “You know. A cheap tactic employed to make the attraction feel ‘dangerous’.”

The venom in the words is shockingly heavy--Ayano might be thinking this attraction killed his mom or something, judging by the outright disdain in Shintaro’s voice; then again, that’s how he used to speak about everything n general.

To prove his point, Shintaro flings the door open, and is faced with a wall of pitch blackness. There’s not a single light on inside, but the sign insists it’s active.

“Can snakes see in the dark?” he mutters under his breath, but moves anyway before Ayano can ask if he’s scared. (He’s sure that’ll come later.)

[timelostmemories-blog]

Ouroboros

[hansei-hansui-deactivated201609]

Haruka laughs. ‘That was really bad,’ he says, but Haruka, he laughs.

They turn away from the edge of the world, take a right back on their nostalgic journey. The buildings start to look less like Chicago and more California, and the hill starts to slope accordingly. ‘Are we, um?’ he starts, even though he’s content to silence – he’s also curious. ‘Are we looking for anything specific?’ Probably not – this is Shintaro, after all.

But then again: this is Shintaro. He keeps a certain distance between them, but his eyes scan the buildings thoughtfully, an intensity and focus in his gaze that Haruka finds exhausting to replicate. That’s the difference between someone with book smarts and a genius, isn’t it? That constant inability to not take the world seriously.

To remind him that he’s there, Haruka bumps his shoulder into Shintaro’s.

‘I can’t play I Spy by myself, you know?’

[timelostmemories-blog]

“...I dunno,” he admits, rubbing the back of his neck. “Can’t say. Never been here before, so we’re just kind of...looking for something interesting, I guess.”

He rolls his eyes at the shoulder bump, hands slipping into his pockets again, pushing deep. It’s hot out, but he can’t bring himself to get rid of his jacket. He’s never been anyplace with surroundings like this, and he starts thinking about his tiny world, and their hometown.

“You ever...think about where you want to live? I don’t mean here,” Shintaro adds hastily, though he’s well aware a chunk of the test subjects suffered from what he viewed as Stockholm Syndrome. “I mean just...back home. Go out to the country, or the beach, or  something. Overseas.”

He had so little ambition and even now he’s rather aimless--Shintaro has to confess even to himself that he wouldn’t be able to answer his own question.

“I mean, say we get back to Japan. What do you want to do with yourself? Since you’re not...well...”

Rather than find a nice way to say “not dying anymore”, he’s going to shut up and leave this awful, awkward implication that’s every bit as bad. But the silence is easier to keep so Shintaro bites the inside of his cheek and keeps his eyes forward. 

The streets here aren’t that crowded.

[goodroutes]

悪く無い

[timelostmemories-blog]

goodroutes:

He spits fire and expects, what – for it all to be okay?

She’s not sure what he expects, actually. There’s an idea that rests at the back of her mind, that demanding you know what to do that she’s listened to all her life, but she’s trying. She’s trying to ignore it, even when it means folding her hands in the face of confusion, smile falling when she has no idea what to do.

Her shoulders sink, and she tries not to be so obvious about it.

‘T-that wasn’t what I was trying to…’ Do, but words fail her before she gets that far. ‘It’s not – it’s not about me,’ she persists, except – where does that get her? They can’t fight. She doesn’t want to fight. ‘Um…’

He’d stood stock-still through all the lines, clamming up whenever someone so much as brushed by. He’d looked at all the rides – passed them over, not even the idea of traveling amusement park, limited time only enough to catch his attention. And now…

Part of her screams at her to smile, make-believe and force it to all go away.

She is brave when she does not listen.

‘… you don’t have to stay,’ she breathes, ‘But I–… I want to.’

...Aw, hell.

Shintaro grimaces, drumming his fingers against his knees and leaning to the side a bit, away from her. Ayano’s still got his other hand but the muscles have grown all taut and anxious--he’s not trying to make her uneasy. A selfish part of him wants to say it’s her fault for reading him wrong.

But then again, how else can anyone read his complaining?

And here he’d been, just an hour earlier thinking that he wasn’t going to make that smile of hers disappear.

“I never said I was leaving.” 

Some kid is caterwauling in terror at the ride to their left--it’d be a miracle if he survived that without any emotional trauma. Shintaro supposes he has little to complain of save for an upset stomach, and so--

“Hey. Chill. It’s all right.” Shintaro looks back at her with an effort, and he looks all grumpy but there’s a sincere edge to his voice. To prove it, he stands up (and nearly falls over with one arm pressed to his stomach) but he regains his balance and control of his groaning belly, so he attempts to play it off. Badly. Can’t exactly make that look smooth, Romeo.

“There’s a haunted house thing...for Halloween,” he mumbles, the first thing to come to mind. “Pretty nice of our scientific overlords to keep their amusement park updated, right?”

He hates horror. But he doesn’t actually know if Ayano does. So the suggestion’s presented in a lopsided peace offering.

[timelostmemories-blog]

dancapa

Sitting out on the front steps of their house, Shintaro is thoughtful. It’s more common than he’s usually given credit for. The solitude of this dying evening is interrupted by the creaky opening of the screen door--and the appearance of none other than the danchou herself. Probably wondering why he’s not grabbing dinner by now. Shintaro simply rolls his shoulders.

“...Hey,” he says at length, absently twisting the fabric of his jacket around in his hands. Might as well just say what he’s thinking--she’ll ask anyway. “It’s...not important I guess...Or it can’t be helped more like, but...Do you think it’s a good thing we’re here?”

There exists some thoroughly bizarre positives in this terrible situation, and Shintaro doesn’t really want to entertain the possibility of Stockholm Syndrome; it’s not fondness for their captors so much as it is a sort of idle acceptance. It’s a form of helplessness.

Like with a lot of things, Shintaro is largely apathetic. So maybe he’ll ask people who aren’t.

[timelostmemories-blog]

Ouroboros

[timelostmemories-blog]

hansei-hansui:

‘”Weird…”’ came Haruka’s echo, distant in a way that questions sometimes made him be. His eyes flicked to Shintaro, and with a step away, he leaned his elbows against a sign warning them of the drop. ‘Not – really? I saw… everything. All of it.’ He’d said it before, but announcing it to the world was… nice. It no longer felt like something weighing him down.

There were words and thoughts he had about Konoha that he couldn’t say. But those would come with time.

‘I think it was weirder, um, not noticing. Until I remembered, I just thought –’ He splayed his hands, searched them for the right expression. ‘– you wanted to be nicer. But that wasn’t it, I don’t think.’ Again, Haruka felt himself pulling away, the call of memory and reflection hard to ignore. His shoulders jumped as he shifted – and, as if to ground himself, he found Shintaro’s eyes. The red in his gaze was already fading.

But he hadn’t changed.

‘I want to be with you guys for a long time. So… I’m going to,’ he declared, and that was what was different. ‘I’m not scared any more. Not of dying. Or losing you. Or… o-or Takane yelling at me!’ A surge of bravery accompanied Haruka’s words – but true to form, he was shrinking back in seconds, having the good sense to re-think that last part.

‘… maybe a little…’

When he’s not leaning against people? He’s slouching.

True to form, Haruka steps away a bit and Shintaro lets his shoulders slump, a weariness settling into him. It’s almost like the force of the sunlight is a weight that’s nearly too much to bear--he’s narrowing his eyes against it, even now.

It’s with a strange sense of relief that he watches Haruka regain his typically dark gaze; that red has no place there. Or more like he doesn’t want to see it there.

But Haruka makes him smile, and he stands a bit straighter, after.

“...At least you caught yourself,” he offers into the expectant silence, his tone snide and dry to the point of cracking. “’Time’ is something we’ve got plenty of, and I’m not exactly going anywhere. You know that, right?” 

Neither’s anyone else unless the scientists have their say, but that’s obvious, so Shintaro just jerks his chin down the street. Clears his throat. “Come on. We’ve got more stuff to look at.”

Dwelling on deep, personal matters is not his forte.

“Sheesh...This street should’ve been called Memory Lane.” It’s a bad joke because he’s not good at jokes, but there’s an effort, and that’s more than he used to do.

[goodroutes]

悪く無い

[timelostmemories-blog]

goodroutes:

She squeezes his hand and presses closer, and there is something amazing in that.

Not so much in the rest of this situation, though. Ayano gives a weak bout of laughter, runs her thumb over the back of Shintaro’s hand. She can only hope it’s comforting.

It better be, considering he’s bent over in his seat, miserable among crowds of happy people.

‘I… I thought it might be fun,’ she says, but it comes out sounding nervous. ‘You said you’d been on one before… r-right?’ She bites her lip; part of her wants to backtrack, stop blaming it all on him, but she’s not and this isn’t. This isn’t a bad thing.

Even if Shintaro is sick at the end of summer, knocked off his feet by a teacup ride.

‘At least that little girl stopped laughing at you…’

But somehow, she doesn’t think that’s very comforting either.

timelostmemories

Ayano gets special treatment. This isn’t rocket science, it’s not anything someone’d have to reach especially far in order to grasp.

Ayano gets special treatment, because he’s missed her.

And, he once thought, that meant virtual immunity from his temper ever since she returned from the dead. It’d been something held up as fact for the (worrying) amount of time they’ve both been here, though he’s starting to wonder, with his next statement--

“This was a frickin’ stupid idea.”

Maybe she’s not as immune as he thought.

“We’re too old for these type of rides anyway,” he tries to say, though it comes out interrupted with a sickly groan. He doubles over, and she’s holding his hand so it’s not as bad as it could have been; her presence hadn’t helped in regards to that laughing kid, though. The little brat...

“I was on one when I was a kid, yeah.” (When his father had been alive. He remembers.) “Are you satisfied now? It’ll be a damned miracle if I can ride anything else today without keeling over.”

Shintaro supposes she’ll coax him regarding that too, but in the meantime, he’s looking more than a little pale.

[hikkirabu]

[goodroutes]

放

[timelostmemories-blog]

goodroutes:

‘W-what’re you asking?’

Keep reading

Just the answer he wanted to hear.

He’s standing there in confusion, staring down at her as she suddenly gets up on the tips of her toes, but it’s not enough. He’s still too focused on her earlier words--she’s happy, by God, she’s finally happy--and he completely fails to understand what she means when--

When.

He’s too tall, apparently.

“H-Huh?” he wheezes out, that whap! on his chest knocking out more air than she probably anticipated. “What did I do?”

She’s pouting at him. A lightbulb finally clicks.

Really? The word runs, disbelieving, through his mind as he chuckles, and he knows laughing is probably not the best thing to do when a girl is all huffy like this, and he doesn’t think crouching a bit will help either.

So he lifts her up, placing her to sit on the teacher’s desk because it looks way sturdier than anything else in the room, and he’s...

Well, overestimated and underestimated both. He nearly loses his balance when he does set her down, and he stumbles, one arm braced against the worn wood as he lifts his head--

And suddenly their faces are really close together.

There’s a logical conclusion to this, but he wonders...

She’s ever been bad a problem-solving.

“...Okay, I could probably stand to work out a bit,” he mumbles, eyes flickering to and fro. Whether he will or not largely depends on the Dan and what they can push him into, of course.

Maybe to her surprise, Shintaro does in fact hold her gaze after a moment.

”I’m glad,” he admits, and this tension leaves his shoulders that he never realized was there at all. It’s an answer to her words from earlier,and this smile crawls up and touches his eyes, turns them soft as the red sunlight outside.

[timelostmemories-blog]

interiusincendium:

“Being here for a year is rather impressive. I hope your time in the city hasn’t been too bad.” It wasn’t meant to one-up him, and she offers him a small smile. “Yeah. I come from a more ordinary world, unless World War Three happened while I’ve been gone. And you?”

“Huh...has it been bad?” he mumbles to himself, eyes roving. “It’s been...an adventure, I guess.” There’s a quirk to his lips--a smile, maybe slightly? In reply. “Same, more or less. I’m guessing no one’s shown up from your home either, besides you...if it helps, uh, I hear time sorta stands still outside of this city.”

[timelostmemories-blog]

magnetem

“No.”

Mekakushi House was as crowed and busy as ever, with the sound of a vacuum screaming from somewhere upstairs as the air conditioner labored to combat the heat. In the kitchen, preparing dinner for the gang for the evening--as per the chore chart--were the two Kisaragi siblings.

“You picked last time!”

Getting along swimmingly as usual.

“Put that thing back where it came from, or so help me--!”

Shintaro bodily hauled a soup ladle at his younger sister, and though it initially missed, it somehow bounced off of the fridge and pinged her in the back of the head. Talk about bad luck.

“You picked the last two times, I--you know, I don’t even need you to help me cook, just go help Kido or something. Please? Come on.”

[timelostmemories-blog]

Ouroboros

[timelostmemories-blog]

hansei-hansui:

Shintaro’s voice took on that wistful tone he always used for stories: half-embarrassed, half-sarcastic, a sort of chagrined bite to it that expressed his fondness in spite of everything. Hearing it had Haruka shutting his eyes, smiling soft; the tug of jealousy was ever-present in his heart, but it was easy to ignore.

– not ignore, but… live with. Acknowledge.

‘… that sounds just like her,’ he murmured, laughing despite himself. It was a quiet sound, and for a moment, he even doubted it was real. ‘Back in school, on my birthday? She – well, we weren’t in school–’ He shifted, some of his liveliness returning in the confusion. ‘… but after we got back, she tried to celebrate it with me. She even got Sensei in on it.

‘It was really… really…’

Sweet.

The way she’d snapped at him before that, it hadn’t been as sweet, but – it made it all that much more meaningful. He sighed at the very thought.

‘Show me sometime,’ he continued suddenly. ‘Okay? Show me everything.’

The fact that Takane was apparently secretly nice even before she became Ene--

It wasn’t that surprising in hindsight.

He remembered now, looking back. Remembered the way her eyes traced Haruka’s movements in both adoration and concern; the way she sat with Ayano during study sessions and tried fruitlessly to help her grades. Even their constant quarrels had been some kind of bizarre affectionate display--the only sort he’d accept back then, really.

Shintaro tilted his head back, knocking a fist against Haruka’s shoulder--he had to reach higher than he thought for that backwards bump.

“Fine. I’m sure you’ll bust a lung laughing at all the stupid crap she’s saved on my computer over the years.” He snorted sharply, something sort of like a laugh and pure derision. But then.

“...Isn’t it weird, though?” he asked, a tacked-on after thought that had been on his mind for ages. “Seeing how everyone changed. There’s something different about you too, but I’m...well, I’m working on figuring that out.”

[timelostmemories-blog]

interiusincendium:

Needless to say, she wasn’t expecting anyone to answer. Though, she isn’t surprised at his reaction. 

“Oh! Ah, yes.. It’ll be two years in the Winter.”

“W-Well...I was about to complain I’ve been here about a year, but you know what? Never mind.” Always someone in a worse situation. “Was...Was everything okay at home? Last time you were there, at least.”

[goodroutes]

放

[timelostmemories-blog]

goodroutes:

Oh.

Keep reading

Either he just said something stupid again, or she...

He looks at her, the tension in his body drawing him into a cord--taut, stretching, threatening to snap.

He looks at her, and he forces himself to fold his arms, let out his frozen breath, and...

Smile.

It’s tinged gray with disappointment. The momentary drag on the edges of his lips turns it wry but soon enough it changes into something small but still sincerely happy, because a big grin is asking for way too much.

Right now, she likes him. And that’s okay.

“Oh,” he states, echoing her. A blush is busy seeping up the side of his neck and down from his ears, and he shuffles his feet, self-conscious as ever. The fact that she just laughed helps, though.

It makes it possible for him to meet her eyes.

“It...matters. Sorta. Not really, but--” He wants it to. “What...Whatever’s comfortable with you. It’s fine.”

He tries for a nonchalant shrug and gets this sort of nervous rustle, palming his hair flat unnecessarily. It’s a bit like he imagined, and not, because there’s this abandoned classroom and the sun behind her, but the script’s all wrong, and there’s still something a bit sad in her eyes.

Shintaro moves, and he adjusts her scarf, settling it back into places. The wind’s not going to ruffle either of them.

“Ayano.”

He gives her a curious look.

“Are you happy?” he asks at length, and holds his breath.