V1C12 - A "No Mask" Zone

*haah* *haah* *haah*

We were lying there breathing.

If I had to say...

"Someone would misunderstand if they saw us."

She took the words right off my mouth.

I turn my head to my right and look into her eyes and smile.

"Agree. It was my first time and yet to think I would make a girl this sloppy."

I gave a cheeky reply.

"But surely you could have gone longer. I am the tiniest bit disappointed."

She returned my serve as if not to be outdone.

Well played.

But...

"I guess if we practice daily, I might be able to meet your expectations some day"

I still had enough in the tank not to lose.

"Ugh, well played. I lose this round. But why did you call me a weirdo?"

As if to not let me gloat in my victory, she diverted attention to a relevant question.

"Hmm, I suppose the first time I saw you you were only practicing launches and it looked kind of so I guess it settled in my mind."

"Haah, I guess first impressions are important"

She chucked and seemed to be enlightened with some truth.

"By the way, can you give me your phone. I need to contact my parents. They would be worried if I haven't returned home in this rain."

I remove my phone from my pocket and hand it to her.

I got up and cleaned the dirt off my clothes.

Hmm...

It started to rain heavily a while ago.

It did look beautiful, but the night sky before it was cloudy was even more so.

The pink horizon which slowly got purple as one looked up until it achieved a dark blue colour and then finally faded into black.

In the middle of it cut a whole plethora of stars that shone brighter than ever.

One thing I am thankful for in this world is letting me able to witness these sites.

Oddly the...

*poke*

"Huh?"

I look back as I am interrupted from my thoughts.

"Did you not hear me? I called you out pretty loudly."

"Ah sorry. I was in deep thought"

"About what? Kids our age don't really have much complicated to think about"

"Well, I was thinking about the stellar night sky and admiring the different shades of pink and how they got blocked by the clouds. Kind of left me sour"

"Hmm the night sky did look good but I did not take you fro one to have such thoughts. By the way, I am Akane Tachibana."

She removed the hoodie off her head.

She has short grey hair, pretty much a boy-cut, green eyes.

Her body was pretty sleek too, I guess as expected of an athlete.

I had heard of her name though.

"Yuuta Kazama. We go to the same high school."

"Huh? Then why haven't I seen you in school?"

She seemed puzzled.

Is she not self aware or what?

"I mean, I pretty much don't appear anywhere while you are into your athletic activities everyday after school."

Oddly she was doing too much practice for athletics.

That is even by my investigation standards.

I labelled her a special case when I was categorizing female students into possible female lead types incase she might have something to do with the plot

I mean one can never be too healthy but this girl seems to be overdoing it even by abnormal standards.

But who am I to advice her, I mean probably she's been already told to limit it and yet she hasn't.

Either way, none of my business.

"Anyways do you want to sit down and listen to music? It seems the rain should take some time."

"Sure."

We go near the wall and sit down to pass out time making small talk and music until the rain ends.

✎﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

The next day I come to the riverbank after dinner.

But today I look over to where Tachibana is and raise my hand to wave at her.

She looks at me and waves back before going back to her activities.

I sit down and start wondering about Yukishiro and Kaneko.

For fucks sake the mere imagination of their stupid faces as they're ignorantly spreading sugar pisses me off!

Anyway I visited Todou to get more knowledge about them but since there wasn't much time during the break,

I guess it's better to invite her out of school and slowly get all the info.

Hmm...

Its better not to get misunderstood by her as if I'm interested in her so I need to keep my lines and wording straight.

Well I guess that's the plan for now.

.

I open my phone and start searching for interesting content.

Ah its time for another Trump interview.

It is 2016 so it is going to get heated up in the elections.

As for the winners or losers, who cares.

I'm here to watch memes being created live.

I will farm the shit out of these to get worthless Karma (Reddit Internet points) and reach the top1% in 6 months.

I suppose this might be the only 1% that I can possibly be part of.

As I am immersed in the possibility of being part of something worthless, Tachibana climbs the stairs and walks over to me.

"Hello Kazama"

"Yo, Tachibana. You completed exercise early today."

She sat down before responding to me.

"Yes, I thought I did enough for today. What were you doing?"

*cough*

I almost choke.

Yeah I can't mention my dreams of accumulating worthless internet points.

"Well I was looking at the potential president candidates for the USA and..."

I start spewing about how a cough from a USA president could translate to a currency falling by a few points and told her I was checking the candidates' respective policies for Japan and the Far East.

"... and right now I was checking for Trump."

I gave a good explanation which was pretty decent for an amateur like me.

Of course I didn't lie to her, well technically I did tell her half of the truth.

"Ohh it's pretty interesting. You seem quite knowledgeable in stuff like this."

And yet hearing her answer I am a bit ticked off.

I don't really care whether she found it interesting or not, everyone has their own likes and dislikes.

But when you give that plastic smile...

"You know Tachibana, I am going to be rude here and say you should remove that mask of yours. I have already seen your true face. And this area, these stairs are a special place to me. I come here every day to relax and recharge myself. I remove my mask here and I come here so that I won't have to face people wearing their fake masks. So if you continue that I'll have to leave this place and have to find a new one which I frankly don't want to do."

Yeah, I went on quite a bit of a rant there.

But frankly I don't regret saying all that.

The whole day I have to wear a mask of Yuuta Kazama.

To be honest, I don't mind it.

But only one third of me is the original Yuuta.

So it does take a toll on me.

And if she comes in here wearing a mask, it gets stuffy all of a sudden.

It feels like someone took away the oxygen while I was diving in the ocean.

Sure I could rise up to the surface to take oxygen in but it would take a toll on me to get up there.

"I see I am sorry."

Tachibana thought for a while and genuinely apologised to me.

Her face looks sad as if she hurt someone terribly.

Fuck!

I might be an idiot letting my emotions get the best of me and direct my frustrations towards such a nice girl.

Any other person might have told me to fuck off or have called me a weirdo for being some kind of edgy emotional freak.

I mean it's barely been 24 hours since such a person became my friend and here I am causing her to have that painful expression on her face.

"No, I am sorry too. These days are taking a little toll on me and I released those frustrations on you. What I want to say is I am here to do simply what I want and not care about other stuff, and I wish for you to do the same. I will not laugh at- no rather I will laugh at you, I might also judge you too, but I will do what I want and so should you."

She thought for a while and looked like she had some realisation.

And then she smiled.

This time she gave a genuine smile.

Not like the shitty fake one she gave before.

But rather a beautiful and mesmerizing smile.

Looking at such a beautiful smile, I involuntarily smiled too.

We stayed still for a moment as we looked at each other.

"What are you looking at?"

She broke the silence.

"Your smile, your genuine smile is beautiful especially when I compare it to the one before."

I didn't want to be honest but I decided to stick to my policy.

I don't care how embarrassing it sounds.

Her ears were tinged red.

I don't want to get ahead of myself so I am going to label this as her getting caught off guard instead of having feelings for me.

I might have not had any girlfriend in my past life either but I wasn't dumb enough to take single complements to fall in love for someone.

I could talk about not being dense but no-one really sent me a sign and sadly nor did I make an effort to make my self worthy of being sent signs.

.

"But your smile, it looks..."

Yes go on, don't just stop there.

Praise this handsome me too!

"... well it just looks too awkward."

And I froze there.

My expression seems to have cracked.

Like glass barely standing after being firmly tapped by a hammer.

Looking at my expression, Tachibana started laughing.

Ugh, Yuuta why couldn't you fuckling leave me with a decent smile.

Kaneki Ken's fucking antics that Yuuta copied are showing up at the weirdest moments.

.

After a while Tachibana calmed down.

"I'm sorry Kazama, but that smile..."

She looked like she would let loose the laughter again.

"Don't worry, it is embarrassing for me but I prefer it more than you not laughing. Just let loose everything here."

After that Tachibana let her breath out and copied me and slobbered on the stairs like it was her own personal couch.

I feel like my personal space has been invaded, but somehow I don't mind it if its this person.

But it's a shame I can't touch her since she's a potential heroine.

I should tone back on the flirting.

I then lean back and start thinking about my future plans while admiring the night sky.