VIOLET SKY, takigawa chris yuu

━ chapter fifteen

act ii

how do we do this?
( carefully. )

chapter fifteen

❛it's terribly heteronormative, truthfully speaking❜

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Amara is in the middle of taking out two slices of bread when the door to the kitchens swings open.

Miyuki halts in his path for a moment, taking in the scene before he bows. "Pardon the intrusion."

"You say that every time you come into the art class, too," she muses. "Those are communal spaces, you know that, right?"

He looks back up at her and snickers. "I know. Just trying to respect my seniors, that's all."

Because Miyuki has been decommissioned for the injury he received in the quarterfinals, he's made a habit of dropping by the art class, where Chris and Amara have their own habit of going there after school. She practices her painting and he joins her when he returns from PT to work on homework, but since Miyuki's joined, it's mostly him and Chris talking about baseball and other statistics that are too dense for her to keep up with.

He's an . . . interesting person, to say the least.

An interesting person who's currently drinking canned coffee at one in the morning.

She unscrews the cap on the peanut butter and spreads it on one of the slices.

"So, then, as your senior . . . why are you drinking coffee at one in the morning?"

"Why are you making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at one in the morning?" He shoots back, taking a couple steps closer to the metal table.

She shrugs. "Working on some last minute assignments that I didn't care to complete over the weekend. What's yourexcuse?"

There's no good reason for him to be up this late and drinking coffee. Hiro hasn't made any complaints about projects, or exams, or assignments lately; none of the second years have. And she has a feeling that he's the type of student that calls it a night at a reasonable time when it's apparent that they can't finish or half-ass an assignment in time, resigned to taking the zero.

The injury, she thinks. Is that it?

The boys are still in practice, of course, but it's toned down with the end of their Fall Tournament and spot in Spring Senbatsu clinched; even Chris had said there wasn't much high hope for the Meiji Jingu Tournament because Miyuki was out of the job.

"Until next year, at least," Chris had told her. "My dad's meticulous with these kinds of things and he knows how important Miyuki is to the team — and how much it means to Miyuki, too. He can't afford any slip-ups because he's eager to get back on the field."

Chris had sounded unusually steely when he said that and she figured — he would know.

Part of her wants to reach out to him but she figures, as terribly unhealthy as it is, that he's not the type to sit down and talk about feelings.

At least, not so plainly.

"Hey, be honest with me." He tenses in her peripheral vision and she finishes spreading the jelly on the other piece of bread, smooshing the two slices into a sandwich and setting the knife in the sink. "What did you guys think of me initially?"