Chapter Text
"There she goes again
The girl I'm in love with
It's cool we're just friends
We walk the halls at school
We know it's casual
It's cool we're just..."
—Jonas Brothers, "Just Friends"
︵‿︵‿୨୧‿︵‿︵
~Seiya~
The thing about first days is that everyone pretends not to care while simultaneously dying inside. I'm somewhere in between. I care enough to check my reflection in the vending-machine glass three times, but not enough to fix the loose tie that's been hanging like a lazy question mark since morning. It's fine. I'm fine. New uniform, new school, same chaos.
The halls smell like floor polish and nerves. Desks squeak, shoes click, people laugh too loudly—like they're auditioning for the role of "cool first-year." I sling my bag over my shoulder and try to look casual about not knowing where I'm going. Which, of course, is when someone collides with me at full velocity.
Something cold explodes across my chest.
"Ahhhh! No, no, no—!"
Brown liquid cascades down my uniform like a chocolate-scented crime scene. A short girl with twin space buns stands frozen in horror, clutching the empty carton of milk like it's a weapon she didn't mean to fire.
"I—oh, my gosh—I'm so sorry!" she blurts, bowing so fast her golden hair buns wobble atop her head. "I wasn't looking! I was reading and walking, and that's—bad—oh, no, it's on your blazer—!"
I blink down at her. She's tiny, sunshine-bright, and apparently powered entirely by panic.
And she smells like sugar.
"It's fine," I say, laughing despite myself. "I like chocolate."
"You like smelling like chocolate milk?" she asks, blue eyes wide and blinking up at me.
"Sure. It's a bold statement." I tilt my head, pretending to think. "Maybe it'll start a trend."
She stares at me like I'm speaking Martian, then bursts into a laugh that's half-squeak, half-giggle. The sound hits me square in the chest. Something loosens there—something I haven't realized is wound tight.
"I'm Usagi," she says quickly, still holding the dead milk carton like evidence in one hand while extending her other. "Tsukino Usagi. And, I ruin things."
"Kou Seiya," I answer, wiping my blazer with a napkin from my pocket. "And, I guess I get ruined by things."
Her eyes widen again—big, blue, ridiculous. "That's—! Oh, no, that sounded flirty! I didn't mean—"
"It's okay," I say, grinning. "I am flirty."
She blinks, processing that. Most people do a double take when I say stuff like that. They see the long hair pulled sloppily back into a low ponytail, the half-tucked shirt, the grin that could go either way, and they can't tell what box to put me in. Usagi just tilts her head and studies me like I'm a puzzle she's excited to solve.
"You're funny," she says finally.
"I'm wet," I correct.
"Oh!" She jumps. "Right! Let me—uh—help!"
She digs through her bag and produces what looks like half a pack of tissues and one glittery sticker. "Sorry, it's all I've got," she says, handing them to me.
I take the tissues. "I'll treasure the sticker."
"It's a bunny," she murmurs while smiling sheepishly, shrugging. "Because, y'know—Usagi."
Of course it is.
We end up in the hallway by the window, blotting my uniform and laughing every thirty seconds because she keeps apologizing for things that don't need apologizing for. I tell her it's just a blazer. She insists it's "the principle of the thing." She talks fast—like she's scared silence might swallow her—and I find myself wanting to keep her talking just to watch her expressions.
"So, what were you reading?" I ask, wringing out the edge of my sleeve.
She hesitates, blushing, then pulls out a glossy volume. "Oh, erm…Sailor V. It's my favorite."
A manga. Figures.
I take it from her hand and flip through the pages. "You read during class, too?"
"Sometimes." She pouts. "It's educational! Teaches courage, friendship, and laser tiaras."
I laugh so hard I almost drop the book. "Laser tiaras. Got it. I'll add that to my study goals for this term."
She grins like I just passed a secret test. The sunlight shifts through the window, catching the flecks of gold in her hair, and suddenly the hallway looks like it's been dipped in warm honey.
Huh. That's… new.
︵‿︵‿୨୧‿︵‿︵
I almost convince myself Usagi Tsukino is just another passing face in a hallway full of them.
It's been about a week since the Chocolate Milk Incident—eight days, to be exact (not that I'm counting)—and I still catch faint whiffs of the scent when I open my locker. It's become part of the legend now: Seiya Kou, victim of dairy-based disaster, courtesy of Usagi Tsukino. The nickname "chocolate milk" followed me to gym class. I pretend to hate it. (I don't.)
We haven't really talked since then, not properly. Just a few smiles in the corridor, a quick wave during lunch. Each time, she looks surprised to see me, like she didn't expect for me to wave back. Like she thought she imagined the whole thing.
So, when I walk into our shared homeroom one gray Wednesday morning and see her already there—hair buns perfectly symmetrical, uniform slightly wrinkled, halfway through a frantic retelling of some manga plot to the girl beside her—I hesitate.
She catches me in the doorway. Her eyes light up. "Seiya!"
There it is, again—that voice that sounds like it's never learned how to be anything but happy.
I grin. "Hey, Tsukino."
Her smile tilts into something soft, something that makes the noise of the room drop away for a second. "You remembered," she says, like it means more than it should.
"Hard to forget a name that literally hops around yelling 'sorry!' at full volume."
She gasps, mock-offended, then laughs, clutching her notebook to her chest. "That's so mean!"
Haruna hasn't arrived yet, so the room's still half chaos—bags thumping against desks, a few boys tossing paper balls. I slide into my seat two rows over, but her gaze keeps flicking toward me, curious, amused. Every time I glance up, she's already looking.
By the time Haruna does walk in and calls for quiet, my tie feels too tight and I've forgotten what subject this even is. Attendance starts, names drone by. When mine comes up, Usagi whispers across the aisle, "Hey, Seiya—your tie's still crooked."
I glance down, feigning surprise. "Fashion statement," I whisper back.
"You and your bold statements," she mutters, rolling her eyes. But, she's smiling when she says it.
Haruna keeps reading names, chalk squeaking on the board. Outside, the wind rattles the windowpanes, but somehow everything feels warm.
Usagi bends over her notebook, doodling tiny hearts in the margins, and I think how weird it is that a person can feel like sunlight in the middle of a fluorescent classroom.
I don't know when she became the one person I look for when I walk in. But, I do. Every time. And, for the first time since school started, I don't feel like a guest in someone else's story.
I feel like maybe—just maybe—I've found the beginning of mine.
︵‿︵‿୨୧‿︵‿︵
When lunch rolls around, I've convinced myself I'm not looking for her. I'm just… wandering. Casually. Aimlessly. Pure coincidence that my feet take me behind the gym, where the cherry trees are starting to shed petals like pink snow.
And, there she is.
Usagi Tsukino, sitting cross-legged under the biggest tree, sunlight tangled in her hair like she personally offended the gods of perfection and they forgave her anyway. She's got a carton of chocolate milk in one hand and a manga balanced on her knee, completely oblivious to the chaos of the rest of the school.
Of course she's drinking that again. I should've known she'd double down on the brand that nearly ruined my blazer.
I creep up behind her, trying not to laugh at the concentration on her face. She's mouthing dialogue to herself, eyebrows scrunching like she's fighting invisible villains.
"Boo!"
She shrieks—an honest-to-god squeak—and nearly launches the milk into orbit. "You!" she gasps, spinning around to glare up at me, straw still in hand like a tiny sword. "You're a menace, Seiya Kou!"
"And yet," I say, dropping down beside her with all the elegance of a falling tree branch, "you still hang out with me. So, who's really at fault here?"
"I like my lunch not ending up on someone's shirt, thank you very much." She sniffs dramatically, like that settles the moral score.
"Sure you do." I grin, plucking the milk carton from her fingers before she can react. "Mind if I—?"
"Seiya, don't—!"
Too late. I take a sip. Sweet. Cold. Ridiculous. "Still worth it."
She gasps like I've committed some sort of sacred crime. "You're impossible."
"That's what my teachers say, too."
Her cheeks puff out, a tiny flush creeping up her neck. "Do you ever stop talking?"
"Not if I can help it."
And, just like that, she laughs—bright and uncontrollable, the kind that bubbles out without her permission.
Something twists pleasantly in my chest. There it is again—that weird ache, the one that started the moment she said my name like it meant something.
This girl is trouble. Absolute trouble.
We end up eating there together, sharing her extra pack of pocky sticks and trading stories about our first week. She tells me about getting lost on the way to gym class, about accidentally calling a teacher "Mom," about how she's sworn off caffeine after spilling an entire can of coffee on her homework. I tell her I play guitar, that I'm joining the music club, and she immediately demands a performance.
"Maybe later," I say, teasing. "When I'm famous."
She gasps, eyes wide. "You're going to be famous?"
"Obviously. And, when I am, I'll dedicate my first song to you."
"To me?" she squeaks. "Why?"
"For destroying my favorite blazer. Tragic inspiration."
She swats my arm, laughing so hard she drops her manga into the grass.
After that day, it's like the universe keeps tossing us together on purpose.
We bump into each other everywhere—in the library, at the shoe lockers, waiting in line for lunch. Once she trips over my bag and nearly faceplants into my desk. Another time, I reach for a textbook at the same moment she does, and our hands brush. She apologizes like she's broken a law; I pretend my heart doesn't just hiccup.
By the end of the second week of the new term, everyone assumes we've known each other forever. The whispers start—tiny, curious, harmless things. People see us walking home together, laughing too easily, and they connect the dots that aren't there.
Or, maybe they are, and I'm just afraid to look too closely.
We're in the cafeteria when someone finally says it out loud. "Are you two, like… dating?" a girl asks, eyebrows waggling.
Usagi chokes so violently on her onigiri that I have to thump her on the back. "W—We're not dating!" she wheezes, eyes watering. "We're friends!"
"Exactly," I say smoothly, though the word feels strange in my mouth. "Just friends."
The table laughs, and the moment passes. But, Usagi still looks flustered; cheeks pink and eyes wide like she's not entirely sure why the question rattles her so much.
She won't meet my gaze, and I pretend not to notice.
Friends. Yeah. That's what we are.
It should feel simple. It should feel enough.
But, as she leans across the table to steal a piece of my omelet, grinning in triumph when I let her, I realize that "friends" feels a lot like standing too close to the sun—warm, dazzling, and just a little dangerous.
And, I already know I'm the kind of idiot who'd rather burn than step away.
︵‿︵‿୨୧‿︵‿︵
à suivre...