“I just don’t know anymore,” I said, frowning, trying my best to look like I was in the middle of a crisis of conscience. As transparent as I was being, I thought that someone who was so easily carried away demonizing someone else probably wasn’t too keen on sweating the details. Hatate didn’t immediately react with suspicion. Thoughts of Aya and her faults clearly still clouded her judgment. I went further, adding, “I get along with her well enough, but if what you’re saying is true...”
“It is,” she nodded vigorously, “she’s the lowest of the low.”
“...if that’s the case then I’m not sure how I feel about being with her.”
“It can’t feel good,” she said. I got the feeling that she was trying to sound understanding, but she just came off as abrasive and smug, “wasting your time with a harpy who is just using you is horrible. Getting tricked never feels good.”
Normally, I’d get annoyed at hearing something like that, but I was playing a part. My pretend hurt needed to morph into something else if I were to get her where I wanted her. I balled a fist and grit my teeth, overacting because I was sure she was too self-absorbed to register anything but the most blatant of overacting. “No,” my words were stilted, coming from between teeth, “it really doesn’t feel good.”
“I’m sorry that you had to learn the truth like this,” she veered towards more outright sympathy, but that self-satisfied twinkle in her eyes very much undermined the message. A very crow-like thing to do.
“I don’t know what I should do with myself now,” I said, turning to her. It was difficult to keep a straight face. I didn’t know what sort of articles she carried in her paper, but what was playing out was a scene that would make even the trashiest tabloid think twice about publishing. I paused and then, as if sudden inspiration had come to me, widened my eyes and smiled. “What if there was something that we could do to get back at her?” I asked.
“Like what?” Hatate asked in turn, sounding earnest rather than suspicious.
“Your feelings for her are also mutual,” I told her, “before sitting down and talking to you, I assumed that she was right in calling you all those horrible things. So clearly I’m being used and even if she doesn’t care for me like you say, she still cares that I think she cares about me...”
“Yeah, you’re a means to an end,” she nodded, agreeing with the premise.
“So… um, I know it’s a bit forward of me to say this,” I cleared my throat and cast down my gaze, doing my best impression of a bashful young man, “but maybe we should become a couple? Before you say anything!” I preempted the obvious objection by keeping the initiative, “if Aya thinks you’re stealing me away, she’ll be upset and jealous. It’d make her miserable. There’s nothing worse than feeling insecure about yourself and seeing slowly someone you thought was into you be taken away.”
“That’s probably true,” she conceded, nodding like I had just said something profound. She folded her arms across her chest and puffed her lips out into an almost pout as she thought. The conclusion wasn’t very interesting. “I don’t particularly feel like stealing you away,” she said, “don’t take that the wrong way.”
“It doesn’t have to be for real,” I told her, “it’s just enough that she thinks it’s really happening. If we become close, it’d be great, but just seeming like it is enough, don’t you think?”
“Yes, it might be,” she nodded again, actually buying into what I was saying.
“I can’t just break things off with her at the drop of a hat,” I told her, mindful that I’d still be hanging out with Aya for the foreseeable future, “but if she starts noticing a change in attitude from me…. Or if we start meeting in secret. It might take her a while to suspect but it’ll eat her up inside.”
“Cruel,” she smiled, “but I think it’s fair. Love is a battlefield, after all. I guess you’re more than just a pretty face from a good family.”
“Thank you,” I smiled back at her, ignoring the damning with faint praise. “Maybe we could be pretend to be careless in public one day too… be seen holding hands or maybe even kissing.”
“Rumors are what she lives off of,” Hatate didn’t reject the idea, “it might be extra devastating for her to learn about this affair while doing work for her stupid paper.”
Her desire to hurt Aya forwent the feminine modesty that one would expect at such a suggestion. Obstinate and single-minded, I had to admit I still found myself liking her. She had drive, and that was a trait to respect, even if that willpower was directed towards a dubious end.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to make you too uncomfortable,” I said, shrugging, “if you want we can take it slowly...”
“Alright, Tokushige, even if it we aren’t really serious, it’s worth a shot,” she said.
“You should be more familiar with me,” I told her, smiling, “we’re lovers, having a secret affair, after all.”
“Good point,” she nodded again, her hair bobbing. “Um, I’m not really too good at this sort of thing though,” she confessed, her smile morphing into something altogether more sheepish, “is ‘darling’ a little too much?”
“I would have settled for my given name,” I said, trying not to laugh – she seemed to get oddly worked up about such a trivial detail. The anger had evaporated and in its stead was something resembling a normal young girl. “But I’m really fine with whatever,
sweetness,” I proffered a lame pet name of my own with a wink.
“Ahaha,” she laughed, letting down her guard some, “I guess it’s something that we can work on.”
“There’s no rush, whatever feels right will feel right,” I told her.
“Yeah, I guess,” her ire deflated, she quickly found excuses to end our interaction. “we should leave it at this. It’s a lot to think about and plan. This is the sort of thing that I’ll try to savor as much as possible.”
“Sure,” I didn’t offer resistance, “we can continue to hash out details some other time. Maybe over dinner sometime? Something proper, not this fast food. So we can take our time.”
“We’ll see, um,
honey?”she replied and then shook her head, commenting, “...not sure that one works either.”
“Yes, we’ll see,” I agreed, moving in closer to clasp by the shoulder. She squirmed some, evidently not expecting physical contact with me so soon. Her thin frame felt incapable of harboring those intense negative feelings that I had witnessed earlier. Not willing to leave it at just that, I gently brushed her cheek with a hand. Anything more than that, I felt, would maybe tip her off that I was just taking advantage of her. “I’m glad we had this talk,” I whispered, taking the tone of a lover sharing sweet nothings, “even if we’re not really going out, remember that I still like you. Who knows how this kind of thing will play out?”
“We’ll see, yes,” she agreed, her voice mimicking my own intimate tone by reflex. A dash of color had spread across her cheek, more or less following the brush stroke of my fingers. “A tryst is a very exciting thing to punish her with...”
“Punish… her… with you helping me… even though I’m not your type and you’re not really mine...” I averted my eyes and took a step back, acting like I had just realized how suggestive my posturing was. There was no need to push too hard. I was just getting to know her. I cleared my throat again, “let’s leave things here. Take care, Hatate.”
“Mm, yes, you too,” she spoke as in a daze, lingering needlessly before finally gathering her wits.
I sat back down on the rock sighing loud enough for her to overhear. Youthful melodrama was oh so tiresome. I wasn’t sure where I was going with things but it sure beat having her as an enemy. I waited for her to leave, walking back to the village, before placing my arms behind my head and looking up towards the early afternoon sky.
As the scion of my family, I was expected to know how to court. Though I supposed that I wasn’t applying Father’s advice about dignified refinement at all. It didn’t matter. He was a giant hypocrite anyhow. Mother had hinted that their courtship was anything but decent and dull. What I gathered from our relatives with looser tongues, some of it was outright scandalous. Their personal disdain for us was probably why we only saw them a limited number of times per year. It wasn’t like they showed disrespect directly – they wouldn’t dare – but even as a child I had felt that there was a gulf there.
I sighed, wanting to forget all about the ways of so-called ‘polite’ society. All those lessons on being proper and living up to my birthright just drained my spirit. All the freedom that I had had to rebel I had to use subtly. Being subversive meant being outwardly in line with their expectations and only being able to enjoy the small improprieties I could get away with.
“Hey Aya,” I greeted as a shadow loomed over me. She was my first prolonged chance to experience freedom. Even if she was annoying, I appreciated what she represented.
“You didn’t wait for me,” she said. I tilted my head back down. She stood arms akimbo, but with a broad smile on her face. “I suppose that you were eager to get to your secret rendezvous as soon as possible.”
“Oh, so you were watching?” I asked, knowing full well that she was.
“I was in that tree over there,” she pointed her chin at a tree above us on the mountainside, quite a ways from where we were. “I got a few interesting pictures. I thought you were going to kiss her at one point.”
“Nah, she’s not really my type,” I told her, “you misinterpreted the situation.”
“Hmm… is that so?” she raised an eyebrow.
“Too skinny, don’t you think? Slender legs are fine and all, but I imagine she’s a little bony under those clothes of hers,” I said.
“Yes, I agree, I’m definitely more of a woman than she is,” Aya said shameless, with a laugh.
“You’re definitely curvier in places,” I smirked, thinking back to the bath, “but then again, you have an unfair advantage over her.”
“And what would that be?” Aya asked.
“You’re more confident about yourself,” I explained, “maybe I’m being unfair about Hatate’s body without having taken a proper look, but being comfortable in your own skin goes a long way in enticing others.”
“Oh, what a grownup way of thinking,” Aya praised me, patting me on the head as if I were a child, “I think that things will go just fine tomorrow as a result.”
“What’s happening tomorrow?” I asked.
“It’s why I came to find you in the first place before you rudely left,” she said, “I’ve got an interesting offer that I think will do you a lot of good. But, we can talk about it later. We ought to get our affairs sorted out around here first since we might not be back for a while.”
“...that sounds ominous,” I couldn’t help but remark.
“Oh, it’s nothing too bad, I think you’ll enjoy yourself,” Aya reassured me. “But like I said, we can talk about it later. Let’s go home first, I need your help sorting out a few things.”
“Fine, fine,” I got up and sighed.
We began to walk together. We were close enough that flying was pointless. Aya took a few snaps of the village from the distance while we were at it. Just because, I supposed. If I asked her, I was sure she would tell me that it was because one never knew when they’d see something interesting. I thought about asking her about what happened at Eientei, but she beat me to the punch, putting down her camera as we walked up a narrow path.
“So what do you think of Hatate?” she asked, “besides not being interested in her romantically.”
“She’s okay, just a little too quick to get worked up,” I replied.
“She does have a tendency to obsess,” Aya nodded, “probably not a bad person but a little single-minded. I bet she had a lot to say about me.”
“Yeah, she did.”
“Not much good, I imagine?” Aya asked, chuckling.
“Not really, no,” I said, “she doesn’t like you much.”
“A shame, she could stand to learn a lot from me,” she said, “but she’s predictably stubborn and clearly has an inferiority complex.”
“I wanted to get to know her better, but she sure hasn’t made it easy...”
“I doubt she ever will. It’d probably be really hard to get her to trust you. In fact, I’m surprised that she didn’t just try to punish you for what happened yesterday,” Aya said, “you must be more skilled with your tongue than I thought. Another good sign.”
[] Tell Aya about the ‘agreement’ with Hatate – she’ll definitely want to play along.
[] It’s more interesting to see how things develop without her knowing.
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>>190952 Just reread this thread. It's just been 10 or so days and 4 updates. Things should be pretty clear.
