Nagi fell asleep first. About five minutes into the first movie. Reo followed not long after. And it didn't matter what anyone did around them, the two of them were in their own little world, curled up on a single sleeping mat, sleeping like the dead.
The girls were giggling over it for a reason Sae didn't really understand, because she was equally parts impressed and disgusted. She'd only chosen these futons because she could fit as many as there were girls in the basement, but they were a bit small for even her petite framed liking. She didn't know how the two of them were comfortably sharing one or sleeping that soundly all wrapped up in each other. If anyone touched Sae while she slept, ever, it ruined her entire night.
She waited patiently for the rest of the girls to fall asleep, which took longer than she would have liked, but during the second movie, they really started dropping like flies. Rin ended up being the one who got up to put on some gross slasher flick as the third pick, and those who were still clinging to alertness at this point finally let themselves sink into sleep. Including Rin herself.
When the movie had finished and Sae had effectively counted to five hundred without anyone moving or flinching, she slowly peeled off her covers and started slipping herself out of them.
Ryusei, who she'd long thought asleep, suddenly jerked a hand out and grabbed her wrist. Sae managed to keep herself from screaming, but she did gasp.
"You scared the shit out of me!" she hissed at her.
"Where are you going?" she whispered back, entirely unphased.
Sae was wholly aware that she could have lied. She could have said I'm just going to the bathroom. I'm just getting some water. I won't be long. Go back to sleep. But she decided against it. They were best friends, and best friends didn't lie. Or so she figured.
"I'm going to sleep in my own bed," Sae told her.
"Alright," Ryusei said, releasing her wrist.
Sae thought that was quite the muted reaction from her, until she saw that she too was pulling herself from the futon bed and climbing out of it.
The two of them crept up the stairs like they were spies. They tip toed up the carpet and when Ryusei stepped onto the creaky spot on the stairs that Sae had avoided, she turned around in the dark stairwell and pressed a finger to her lips.
"Shh!" Sae said.
"Go faster then," Ryusei whispered.
So, Sae did. She climbed the rest of the stairs with the quickest grace she was capable of and opened the basement door, letting the two of them slip through it before closing it just as silently.
They didn't say anything once reaching the relative safety of the main level. The entire house was dark and sleeping and empty. The Itoshi parents, like any reasonable human beings, had not particularly wished to be in the house with twenty-something teenage girls and had taken it upon themselves to dish out expectations and warnings before treating themselves to an impromptu date night. Sae looked at Ryusei's face, illuminated only by the faint moonlight snaking in through the windows from the rooms off the hallway, only to find her grinning back. They were the only two solders in an endless night.
She waved her along to follow her. She did.
Sae hadn't really put two and two together. What this climbing of the stairs together, the invitation, the intention behind it, had really meant. She just thought that she was her best friend, so of course she could come with her. It didn't really strike her until they got all the way into Sae's room and Ryusei fell right onto her bed and pulled one of the pillows under her own head.
"This is how the upper class lives, huh?" Ryusei said, nuzzling further into the pillow. "I could get used to it."
"Whatever," Sae said. She still didn't know quite what to make of those comments about her family's money. "I'm going to do my skincare routine."
"I'll come with you," Ryusei said. "I don't want to get eyeliner all over your sheets."
That incited something in Sae, too.
The bathroom attached to Sae's room let into Rin's room on the other side. They had a long vanity counter with one sink each and plenty of counter space for each of them. Ryusei seemed to understand this and made her way to Rin's sink, poking through her things.
"That's Rin's stuff," Sae said. She had no particular agenda to it. It was just factual.
"I know," Ryusei said, pulling out her face cleanser. "It's funny."
Sae scoffed. But it almost doubled as laughter. She didn't fight her on it.
Ryusei peeled off her false eyelashes and washed her face in the time it took Sae to make it through two steps of her own skincare routine. After she was finished, she stuck her face under the tap, swished some water into it, found Rin's mouthwash, did the same thing. Sae half watched her through the mirror and side glances. When she was finished all of that, she waited patiently and half sat half leaned up against the counter, waiting for Sae to be done. Sae's watching her between steps became less reserved. If she was going to be shameless about it, so can I, she reasoned to herself.
As she put on her eye cream, Ryusei lifted her arms all the way above her head and stretched, leaning backwards, her shirt riding up as she did so to expose those horribly ugly shorts, the hipbones that jutted out of them, and her soft, tanned stomach. Sae couldn't help but watch. Ever since that first day they'd ever seen each other, or that time she'd recruited her in the gym, she'd seen plenty of Ryusei's body, and she never tired of it.
"What?" Ryusei asked.
Sae lifted her eyes then. Ryusei was already looking at her, one side of her mouth lifted.
"I love your body," Sae said unapologetically. It was the truth after all. "It's perfect. I'm obsessed with it."
Ryusei turned back to the mirror. Her smile didn't fall. It parted only to let out some laughter.
"Since you already did your dare," she said, picking an eyelash out of her own eye. "Are you ready for your truth?"
"I wasn't aware one of the rules of the game was that you had to do one of each," Sae said.
"How old were you when you realized you were into girls?" Ryusei asked anyways.
Sae almost flinched. She felt a bit like the question had slapped her. Whatever she'd been expecting Ryusei to ask her, that wasn't it. And more than that, she didn't really know what to do with the question.
She didn't like girls. Not plural, anyways. She didn't like anyone. That was kind of her whole thing. She knew she'd been an island in this way since childhood, and it hadn't ever bothered her. She'd always had something more important to lay her focus into, and anything even remotely romantic had ever enticed her.
Including now. She thought so, anyways. But then again, she didn't really know for sure, because this was the first relationship she'd ever poured this much time and effort into outside of obligation. As such, she had never learned what the difference was between friendship and something more.
"I don't like girls," Sae said.
"Are you sure about that?" Ryusei asked. She pulled her fingers away from her eyes, rinsed them off under the tap, and laughed some more.
"Yes," Sae answered, crossing her arms defensively, leaning back against the wall.
"Hmm," Ryusei said, turning towards Sae. She took a step towards her.
"What are you doing?" Sae asked.
"I just want to see something," Ryusei said, taking another step.
"See what?"
"If you're lying."
"Lying about what?" Sae asked.
Though she knew full well what. And Ryusei didn't answer either way. She just took another step, and then another, slow and catlike, like Sae had any and every opportunity to stop her, or to get out of the way.
She didn't.
"Are you scared?" Ryusei finally asked.
She was close enough now, not touching, but close enough to feel her breath and the heat that was basically constantly radiating off of her.
Sae scoffed. "No."
This was true. Whatever Sae felt, it was surely not fear.
"What about now?"
Suddenly, no more distance. There was a surge of something inside her, but still not fear, definitely not fear. But it wasn't anything unbearable either. She'd been plenty close to Ryusei. Being in a stunt group together, and best friends, she supposed, will make that the case. This feeling had long been lingering, and she hadn't needed to fully understand it to get used to it.
Sae looked right up at her. They might have been pressed right up against each other, but Ryusei was a lot taller than she was, so their faces weren't all that close. "You know I'm not scared of you, right?"
"Well, let me ask it another way," Ryusei said, looking back down at her, leaning in a little. "Are you...disgusted?"
The answer drifted into her mind as comfortable and easy as smoke. No.
"No," Sae said.
That answer didn't make Ryusei move. Or rather, it didn't make her back off. She moved by means of adjusting. Sae felt Ryusei's knee pry her own apart and slide in between the space, the places they were making contact riding up Sae's legs until it stopped at her upper mid thigh. Ryusei just kept watching her, as if gauging her reaction. Sae just kept looking back, refusing to hand one over.
Eventually, in a very obvious motion, Ryusei's eyes flicked down to Sae's mouth before returning to her eyes. Sae didn't have much, or rather any, romantic experience, true, but she understood what that meant. She still wasn't disgusted, and she still wasn't scared. Before she could tell her as much, Ryusei moved again, bringing her head down in one swift motion.
But the kiss never came. They brushed lips, Sae was sure of that, because she'd leaned forward to meet her, but Ryusei had pulled back just as fast, a look of elated shock on her face. All of a sudden, the heat from her body was gone and Sae was all too aware of how much they'd been touching before.
There was still no fear, no disgust, but in response to the kiss that never came, Sae did feel red hot humiliation. She thought she might scream. She thought she might hurl things, insults and objects both, with an intensity that would wake up every single person two storeys below them. This wasn't supposed to happen. Sae hadn't even wanted any of this. She'd wanted a great team to take to nationals, a talented third in her stunt group, to be the best flyer that Blue Lock Prep had ever known, and here she was, rendered some confused, rejected girl standing in a bathroom at a slumber party.
"You are a fucking psycho!" Sae finally said, her fists balling up at her sides. "Who in their right mind-"
"I knew it," Ryusei said, simultaneously cutting Sae off and not acknowledging her outburst in the slightest. Her hand was back around her wrist and she pulled her off the wall and out of the bathroom, flicking the light off on their way. "Let's go to bed."
"Why?" Sae scoffed, but there was some relief coming, and she let herself be pulled across her dark room.
"I'm gonna show you something," Ryusei said.
And in her true ominous nature, that's all she offered by means of explanation, but Sae did understand what she meant this time. Well, not completely. But she did remember what she was referring to.
Why are your nails like that?
Maybe I'll show you later.
By morning, Sae did indeed understand what she'd meant by it.
Oh god, she understood.