Too Close?
It starts out as a surprise, somehow.
That itself may not be surprising, but we’re not here to get into a cyclical semantics argument over potentially unexpected events.
The day is ordinary. The Sun shines, the sky is a blue and spotted with grey and white. A cool breeze trickles along exposed necks and shivers the human condition. In other words, the season is shifting to colder tides, but cannot quite commit yet.
Very ordinary.
Naturally, extraordinary events always occurred with the most innocuous, unassuming of beginnings. A short turn down an alley. Taking a right instead of a left. Deciding to bring your guitar to school. And other such examples, which you may think up in your own time.
Such as just after the lunch bell has rung, and as most students were pushing desks together, turning in seats, or leaving for elsewhere on campus.
This may be surprising to you, or may not, but the day of reckoning came not with a shout, but with a whisper. Or rather, a question.
“Kita-chan, are you and Gotoh-san dating?”
It is almost casual, if you will. And in truth, there’s no “almost” about. Because it is that. Casual.
It is curious too, of course, but friends are allowed to be curious as to their other friends’ lives. That is the basic level of exchange allotted under friendship. Though, it should be noted that while they are allowed curiosity, they are not guaranteed nor entitled to such answers.
Still, Kita Ikuyo is an excellent friend, and a well-known socialite within her school. The reason for her Kit-aura is this energy of hers that somehow managed to be both constant and consistently directed to others.
Thus, it would be odd for her to not answer her friend’s question in such a casual situation, to the best of her abilities.
“Huh- wha?!”
Well, the best of her abilities at this point in time.
“Why would- Hitori-chan isn’t-”
Truly, Shakespeare would be jealous.
Kita, in a rare display, found herself loss for words. Despite this, she still managed to stammer hardly comprehensibly for the next several seconds, her cheeks burning with a quick crimson flush.
After a moment, she gathered herself. Mostly.
“Why- why would you say that?” The girl with red hair and a red face laughed nervously.
Her friends exchanged a glance.
“Well…”
-=-
Earlier that day…
“Hitori-chan! Good morning!”
“G-good morning.”
Kita bounces over to the other girl, her Kit-aura brighter than Sun and even more devastating, especially from close range.
Bocchi did her best not to melt under the intense assault. They’re at the school entrance, after all, and her classmates almost know her name now. Some of them even tried chatting with her on occasion, though for the sake of maintaining her social battery at a manageable level, she still retreated elsewhere for lunch.
But, still! It wouldn’t do well to be seen being out of the ordinary, especially after she’d built up so much social credit.
Especially, especially in front of their school’s favorite popular super darling socialite, Kita.
Naturally, Kita had no idea about Bocchi’s woes here. Actually, that’s not entirely true. She knew very well how nervous this sort of thing made the other girl. Kita didn’t care about social credit either, per se. Her genuine nature is one of the reasons she had so much of this so-called social credit in the first place.
And if we’re being real, Bocchi did not have a realistic idea of her own image. She’s wicked good at guitar, and cute as a button to boot.
In Kita’s eyes, everyone should be able to look at her Hitori-chan and see the pink-haired girl as the awesome sauce rocker chick she really is.
Hm? “Her” Hitori-chan?
Right, her friend, Hitori-chan. Her friend. What else?
Well, whatever.
Kita goes in for a hug, a more recent habit of hers. Bocchi tentatively – but not reluctantly, she was a sucker for close contact. Not having friend for years would do that – opens her arms, her eyes still half squinting from blinding Kit-aura.
Alright, fine. The truth: Bocchi had passed out the first time, had turned into sand the second, ash the third, and by around the seventh or eighth time had gotten used to holding herself into one piece and tentatively hugging back.
But that had been, what, maybe a week ago? She might as well be a hug reciprocating pro by now.
Which is a good thing. She’s going to get a good grade in hugging, which is something that is both completely normal to want and entirely possible to achieve.
Kita pulls back the slightest bit.
“Good morning!” She says again. “Hitori-chan, did you want to eat together again?”
Their noses are nearly touching. Her right-hand rests just past Bocchi’s ribs on her side, under her arm. Her left hand sits lower on the other side, closer to Bocchi’s hip.
Bocchi’s own hands have lowered to her own sides, fingernails pressed tight into her palms to keep her from slipping into her own world.
Kita smiled, that beam of hers nearly deadly from close range. Bocchi couldn’t see anything else: it was all Kita. She did her best to smile back, shaky and wonky as it was. The attempt only brightened Kita’s expression.
It is the thought that counts, and the fact that her- ahem, that Hitori-chan is trying oh so hard means more than the world.
“G- g- good- um.” Ah, now it was too much. Bocchi looked way, her cheeks warm. “Yes. I brought- um, mom made a bento for you. Again.”
“Oooo, I can’t wait!”
Maximum Kit-aura achieved.
Limiter surpassed. Warning: further operation dangerous. Please advise. Please advise.
To anyone looking, they’d appeared the quintessential young couple. Like the cover of a 300-chapter slow burn GL manga. Or more accurately, like the cover of the last volume of that series, in which the protagonists have already confessed and gotten together, and now things are wrapping up in an epilogue.
“Ah?” Kita blinked. “Hitori-chan? Are you- are you melting?! Hitori-chan?!?!”
-=-
Now, if Kita was red before, the here and now blew that out of the water. Her face burned all the way to the tips of her ears.
To be honest, she hadn’t really thought about it like that. Not until now. They had a completely normal, if close, relationship, okay?
“We’re in the same band.” Kita said, as if that explained anything.
“Do you also stare at them while doing a performance?” One friend asked, rather unfairly might Kita add.
So, she stared at Bocchi one time. The girl’s guitar string had broken! It was a big deal!
That didn’t explain why she’d kept staring, though. Or why she’d stayed at Bocchi’s bedside for so long. Or why she’d held her hand until the other girl had woken up-
Uh, she needed a good deflection here. For multiple reasons.
“And- Hitori-chan is still teaching me guitar!”
Her friends gave her matching flat looks.
“So, the two of you spend hours together alone almost every single day.” Kita’s other friend noted, nodding to herself. “Right, that makes sense.”
“Right, it does.” Friend number one nodded too. “No wonder they hug all the time. Every time.”
“No wonder Kita-chan’s eyes always go to Gotoh-san immediately. And why she has a specific LOINE message tone just for her.”
“No wonder they-”
“Stop stop stooooop!” Kita could practically feel the steam. She shook her head back and forth, “We- we aren’t dating! We-”
“Ah, Kita-san?” Another girl comes up to them, a slightly confused look on her face.
Kita turns, unintentionally turning her Kit-aura back on.
“Yes?” Even as she said this, her eyes are drawn to the doorway behind the newcomer girl. It’s like an instinct, almost. It’s like innately, she knows that she’ll see-
“There’s a girl- um, Gotoh-san, I think? She’s-”
…pacing outside the classroom, occasionally glancing inside before going back to pacing. Students going elsewhere for lunch pay her little mind, walking around the tracks she’s wearing into the hallway tiles.
“She’s your friend, right? I think she’s looking for you.”
“Oh, alright. I’ll go talk to-”
Immediately, Kita turns into an ice statue. Literally.
Not actually, but the power of the imagination is indeed incredible, and perhaps Bocchi’s quirks had started to bleed over a little more than usual.
In any case, Kita freezes. Looming over her shoulders are the shadows of two devils, staring at her and smirking.
“Are those bento boxes she’s holding?” One of the Devil’s minions- sorry, one of Kita’s friends puts a hand on her shoulders, leaning around her to look out the door.
The other minion- friend, friend, did the same, looking over Kita’s other shoulder. “Say, Kita-chan, you should go meet her. Wouldn’t want to keep your Hitori-chan waiting.”
Kita resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands.
Evil. All of them were evil.
…
…maybe they are dating?
The ice statue melts in an explosion of flustered, blushing heat.
System overheating. Danger. Danger. Danger-