Ink Stained

95: mad chiasa*

狂った千朝

Everything had changed now, but...nothing did.

The only real difference was that before no one knew anything. Now someone did, but at the same time no one really knew anything at all. It was frustrating in ways she couldn't quite fathom.

What is this? What is this? How does this work? She kept wondering to herself, revolving in a roundabout state of constant denial before forcing herself to come to terms with the fact that she'd told Shin literally everything that had been going on for the last few months, and the worst case scenario hadn't immediately happened.

How does the world keep spinning when everything is falling?

It was an miracle, too, that she managed to so expertly conceal the pure wreck of nerves she was come Monday. She felt like she was a live wire, all the rubber stripped away. Granted, she did have practise with perfecting a poker face over the last few months, keeping her secrets hidden from the light for so long that it was almost second nature to keep how she was really feeling hidden away.

The impending meeting that Shin arranged between them with Kouta, Shiori, and Kanou made it increasingly difficult to remain calm even on the outside, though.

She was slowly driving herself crazy with how many times she rehearsed the story she would tell them, forcing herself to remember that she would leave nothing out. Nothing except Kuniumi, at any rate. Only Kanou needed to know about that, at the moment. It was difficult enough to tell Shin about Kuniumi, and she'd felt so incompetent and useless when she couldn't even answer the most basic question about Kuniumi; who was she?

Shin returned to school as a Math teacher, and that gave her some relief. They acted as they normally did around each other, a mere student and teacher, but Shin kept her in his sights as much as he could, smiling vaguely to himself when he caught her blushing after noticing him watching her. With the cold logic of academia at all sides, she reverted back to an odd state of suspended incredulity over everything that transpired since her birthday. The way Shin closely watched her only made her more aware of every little thing he did, of every little way things had changed.

Shiori staring pointedly at her the entire day didn't help matters at all. Kouta had told her that Pai and Shin wanted to talk to her, him, and Kanou that evening, but none of them knew what it was about. Kouta guessed it might be something to do with the subtle shift in tandem he saw between Pai and Shin, but he didn't think it enough to warrant the thunderous look on Shin's face as he'd asked Kouta to free up some time so they could talk.

Pai used Natsume as a literal human shield the whole day, who (with terrifying expertise) manhandled Shiori away from Pai whenever she saw the two together. Aoi noticed something was up, and when Natsume couldn't be there – during lessons, for instance – she and Shuusei distracted Shiori long enough for Pai to make a break for it. They made a scarily good team doing it. She was more grateful than words could say at how they helped her without question.

She refrained from mentioning that Natsume had been right about her and Shin the entire time. Doing that would be working counter to the protection she needed against Shiori that day. It was deceptive, but necessary for the day.

Astoundingly, as the two girls sat doing their homework in the living room while Kouta watched TV, Shiori managed to keep a hold of her mammoth curiosity. She kept stealing glances at Pai as they shared a table and worked on quadratic equations and English, but Pai staunchly ignored them all.