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Shou can sense the tension radiating off of Ritsu the moment he steps into the classroom.
It hadn’t been too difficult to find thanks to the signs, despite the masses of students moving through the corridors at Salt Middle School, their laughter bouncing off the whitewashed walls. After he’d passed through the two other first-years’ classrooms the one reading “CLASS 1-3 CROSSDRESSING CAFÉ” had sent a tingle of foreboding down Shou’s spine.
He doesn’t even have to look for a familiar crow’s nest of black hair among the strangely dressed boys. Shou could turn off the lights in the room and he’s sure he’d still be able to find Ritsu from his aura alone, sharp as dry ice even in the dark.
Shou begins to raise his arm in greeting, but stops when he catches the expression on Ritsu’s face.
“Suzuki,” Ritsu says, eyes thin.
“Hey,” Shou replies, tucking his hand back into the pocket of his jeans. It doesn’t occur to him to hide the path his eyes take, roaming up and down the maid uniform clinging to Ritsu’s frame.
The dress is a matte black broken off by a white, cheap-looking apron and white lace around the sleeves and collar. The skirt reaches down to Ritsu’s knees only to be joined by a pair of tall black socks, leaving his knees and arms exposed. Shou isn’t sure what the thing on his head is for, but it’s wrinkled and askew and makes the maid uniform look even more obviously store-bought than it already does.
Ritsu still fills it out better than most of the other boys in his class, being taller and slightly broader across the shoulders than the average thirteen-year-old.
“I thought I told you not to come,” Ritsu says, voice audibly strained under Shou’s appraising gaze.
“I’m not very good at following orders,” Shou says as he locks eyes with Ritsu again. “Especially not without a good reason to.”
He doesn’t move out of the way even when two third-years try to walk past him, their giggles stuttering to a halt.
Ritsu’s lips grow thin in barely suppressed anger. Without a word, Shou glances down at the frilly edges of the dress and tries to think of something suitably asinine to say about it, but before he can get a word out Ritsu has turned on his heel to check on the inventory of drinks and snacks by the teacher’s desk.
That’s when he realises Ritsu might actually be angry with him.
For a moment Shou thinks he can feel the blood coagulate in his veins. He remains frozen in place, brain rebooting as he tries to reassess the situation and adapt. He’d expected annoyance, sure, even harsh words; Shou has relished in taunting people before with or without good reason and is used to bearing the consequences of that, but he wasn’t prepared for this cold and unmistakable rejection. As Ritsu turns on his heel and ignores him, Shou realises he’s miscalculated.
Here, in the real world far from collapsing buildings and torture devices—here in school, he doesn’t actually know Ritsu at all.
Shou pushes down his insecurity and carefully chooses words harsh enough to hide it.
“Aren’t you going to offer me something to drink?”
Shou puts his hands in his pockets, posture slumping. He can tell the effect he’s having on Ritsu immediately—he freezes as if preparing for a blow, and the people around him stop to stare as well. The air around him ripples like heat haze for just a split second, and despite himself Shou feels a swell of delight through his misplaced anger; Ritsu’s powers are still so new he doesn’t tend to use them instinctively. It makes him want to prod and tease to see how much further he could take it.
Ritsu finally turns around—Shou can’t tell if it’s because of his request or because the tension between them is enough to make the rest of the room collapse into murmurs. Shou is making it worse and he knows it, which only makes him angrier at himself.
But it’s easier to take out on Ritsu.
“I’m a guest, you know,” he continues, rubbing it in slowly. “Isn’t that what maids are for – looking cute and serving?”
For a brief moment the words hang in the air as if they were solid. Then Ritsu turns to another boy in uniform with droopy eyes and thin hair.
“Takahashi-kun, can you take Suzuki’s order? I need to write down the last order in the inventory.”
“Don’t bother,” Shou says and aims a dismissive wave at Takahashi-kun, whose eyes had widened considerably when Ritsu addressed him. “If Kageyama has anything to say to me, he can tell me himself.”
“You said you wanted to order something; I’m too busy to take your order. If you’re not here as a guest you have to leave.”
Shou is about to reply when Ritsu turns his back on him and walks toward the end of the classroom.
For a brief moment he considers following him, but the room has gone suspiciously quiet and it occurs to him that causing more of a stir might actually get him thrown out. With so many teens running amok in one place there must be teachers on guard duty, right? Shou might not have gone to school in years, but he thinks he has a pretty good idea of how institutions work by now.
“Fine, I can wait,” he says, before sliding into a chair at the empty table next to him. He looks at Takahashi, who stares back as if Shou might burst into flames if he let him out of his sight.
Shou grins and waves at him again.
“Get me a cola, wouldja?”
Apparently they have colas, because Takahashi manages to squeeze out a “Coming right up,” before reluctantly turning around and following in Ritsu’s footsteps.
Shou places an elbow on the table and sprawls, throwing a nonplussed look at the girl from the next table who’s looking at him with mild disapproval. When he waves at her too she leans over and whispers something in her friend’s ear.
Shou wonders if Ritsu is popular – he’s certainly handsome enough to be, despite his attitude – and if those girls are a couple of his fans. That’s how middle school works, right? He doesn’t really know, having missed out on public school for years and still not about to enroll in one before New Year’s.
Takahashi returns with a lukewarm can and a look of trepidation. If he has any protests when Shou hands over 20 yen he doesn’t voice them.
“Nice straw,” Shou comments, rolling the hot pink straw between his fingers. Takahashi shrugs and mutters something that sounds like ‘whatever you say’.
Feigning indifference Shou leans back in the chair, stomach churning with things other than anger now. When Ritsu called him he’d been more excited than he cared to admit; their interactions since his old man’s supervillain scheme blew up in his face have mostly been limited to texting.
He’d looked forward to seeing Ritsu again in a situation less tense. To have a laugh and a connection as real and solid as the punches they’d thrown.
The classroom isn’t packed, but there’s still a fair amount of people around, Shou notes. Mostly students and their friends, one or two with a parent. Everyone seems to be in high spirits from the first-years’ crossdressing scheme, high-pitched squeals mixing with mocking laughter. Shou raises the can and presses the straw between his lips, taking a long sip. The carbonated liquid feels like swallowing a thousand dull needles, and when he puts it down again, the fluttering sensation in his stomach doesn’t go away.
The girl at the other table is still whispering into her friend’s ear.
He had been excited to come here, until Ritsu had told him that he didn’t know how Shou had even found out about Salt Middle School’s culture festival, but that he was under absolutely no circumstances welcome there. He’d shrugged it off and buried any wounded feelings under a shroud of confidence.
Not that that had made any difference once he arrived. Shou takes another long sip and puts the can down a bit more forcefully than he means to.
Two matching giggles carry from the next table over, and he briefly considers spilling the girls’ orange sodas all over their uniforms. He doesn’t understand the rules of this place; every laughter from the corridor and scrape of chairs against the linoleum floors prods at some hidden spot in him, tender like a bruise. Some childish part of him thinks it’s monstrously unfair; school festivals are supposed to be an opportunity to show family and friends around, to transform the tedious corridors and classrooms to the students’ liking.
But Ritsu still walks briskly between the tables without throwing a second glance at him.
Shou watches Ritsu as he moves from table to table, acting curt with classmates as well as customers, the former of which seem quietly resigned and the latter either blissfully unaware or bemused. Ritsu walks as if he can’t wait to get away from whoever he’s interacting with at the moment, spine straight and shoulders stiff. Shou is fairly certain he’s using his power to prevent the beverages from spilling.
His skirt sways violently from side to side as he thunders across the floor. It’s almost mesmerising in its intensity.
At the end of the day the dresses were barely worth mocking. They’re hardly indecent; what Ritsu is wearing is a standard maid uniform, if a cheap and ugly on. Which makes sense; if you’re buying a bunch of dresses for a class of middle school boys who are more likely to burn them in a ritual fire afterwards than ever wear them again, you want to spend as little money as possible.
The result is quite pathetic. Most of the boys appear to struggle with the knee-high socks and have to choose between stopping and pulling them up once in a while or walking around with bare legs. Ritsu seems to be the only one to do neither; Shou has seen him stop to pull up his sock only once, but mostly they stay in place. The thin, black material seems to cling to his calves like a second skin.
Shou is suddenly reminded of Ritsu having mentioned being a pretty good sprinter at some point.
Where Ritsu’s socks end a broad stripe of bare skin can be seen, before the skirt that reaches just above his knees starts. When Ritsu walks that stripe grows a little broader as the skirt sways back and forth, concealing and revealing with every step.
Shou doesn’t notice he’s staring until Ritsu’s legs disappear behind the teacher’s desk and he feels his eyebrows pull into a frown.
Strictly speaking he knows he probably shouldn’t be looking, although he’d be hard-pressed to admit why. He still stares when Ritsu emerges again from behind the desk, watches the swell of Ritsu’s calves curve down toward slender ankles no longer hidden by the boring black slacks of his gakuran. Shou observes quietly as Ritsu walks up and down the classroom with a pinched expression, white lace billowing lazily above the back of his knees and the soft-looking skin there, slightly paler than the rest of him.
Ritsu looks good, Shou realises, a flush of heat that he chooses to identify as annoyance flaring up within him once again. Getting embarrassed over an immature middle school ploy to gain customers for a school festival was stupid all on its own, but it’s not like Ritsu has any reason to be embarrassed when every other boy in the class was doing the same thing and he was the only one succeeding in making it look so…
Well.
The heat that’s been coalescing in his body seems to seep out through his skin, leaving his cheeks red. The tightness in his stomach twists and unfolds before coiling itself into a new kind of tension, but his head remains light and swirling with half-formed thoughts he doesn’t quite dare to make solid. He’s only wearing a shirt, but he can still feel beads of sweat break out on his neck.
Shou licks his lips and takes another long sip of the cola before averting his gaze, trying not to think too hard of the image that remains seared onto the inside of his eyelids when he closes them. The image of soft skin and white lace against silky black. The sound of tinny laughter and girlish giggles seems very far away beyond the wall of blood rushing in his ears, too loud for him to hear the squeaking of rubber soles on the classroom floor as they approach him.
“Are you still here, Suzuki?”
Shou opens his eyes and blinks at the legs that are suddenly obscured by a wreath of white ruffles and looks up to find Ritsu staring down at him. Up close he can see the pattern of the lace around his throat up close – a shabby and uneven rose pattern – and the dip above Ritsu’s barely visible collarbones. A wave of something he hopes is embarrassment washes over him.
Ritsu’s face, when Shou finally lifts his gaze enough to see it, is still pinched and displeased, but the grooves in his forehead aren’t as deep as before. He has girly eyelashes, Shou notes – long and dark under his furrowed brow.
“I bought a drink,” Shou says by way of explanation, shaking the half-empty can of soda.
Neither of them speak for a moment. The soda fizzes aggressively in the awkward pause between them.
Ritsu’s hair is even messier than usual. It clings to his forehead and the eyebrows that are still pulled into an apprehensive frown. The silence feels strained, like a rubber band about to snap at any moment.
Shou is about to apologise when Ritsu speaks again:
“My shift ends at five,” he says in a stilted voice. “So you might want to get some snacks while you wait.”
A sense of relief blooms in his chest so suddenly Shou catches himself off-guard. Before he knows it a smile blooms with it, and he’s leaning forward on his elbow and placing his chin in his hand.
“I dunno,” Shou says, still smiling. “I saw a takoyaki stand on the first floor. If you buy two skewers you get a free rice cracker. There’s like, three of them and they’re all competing.”
Ritsu blinks, and for a moment Shou wonders if he’s made another error of judgment. He feels like he’s teetering on the edge of a twenty-storey building; there’s the same addictive rush of tempting faith, of knowing that a small gust of wind could send him plummeting towards the earth.
But if he fell from a great height at least he could fly.
Shou has none of that comfort while waiting for Ritsu’s response, fingers curling into loose fists where they rest on his thighs.
And then Ritsu snorts; a short, undignified, and not entirely kind noise. It’s still enough for Shou to feel something tight inside of him begin to unfold.
“Wait for me outside, then.”
Shou is about to protest, because it’s cold outside at this time of year, but thinks better of it. The chair protests loudly as he scoots back and stands up before sliding the half-empty can of cola across the table to Ritsu.
“If you’re late I’ll be back to finish that,” he says. Ritsu just rolls his eyes.
If Shou’s heart is thumping loud enough for Ritsu to hear it, he pretends not to notice.
Before Shou turns around and walks out, he catches the twitch of a smile clinging to the corner of Ritsu’s mouth, as tentative as their friendship.