what you're given, what you live in

That evening Nao calls at the same time that Sakura does, both their names flashing a second apart right as Ren steps into the basement convenience store.

Sakura texts, a split second later: WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU ASSHOLE. CALL BACK

Ren looks good. He always looks good, but someone’s styled his hair since she saw him this morning, pushed back so his stark cheekbones stand out, and the almost obscenely sexy pout of his mouth is impossible to ignore, evil in the way that it makes the simmering rage of Hakaze’s thoughts grind to a halt.

He scowls half-heartedly when he catches her staring. “Quit it,” he says. “It was for a magazine.”

“I thought you were on an unofficial hiatus, Prince.”

His eyes sharpen. He’s like a knife, cutting a tall, pale figure in the middle of the faded aisles. Hakaze wonders what she must look like as well: in this rickety old chair that her disgraced group paid for, in the middle of claustrophobic rows of dead plants and expiring candy bars. She was texting some of her contacts in PR, but a lot of them have either switched careers or companies, moved on while she was stuck here.

The thought makes her teeth chatter, makes her give Ren a shard of a grin that’s mostly teeth when he says, “It’s from an old contract. I signed on as ambassador for five years.”

“So rumors of Neonite’s death are greatly exaggerated. At least as far as you’re concerned.”

He gives her another of those looks, that seems to strip past the surface of her smile, even past the sheen of anger that she can feel coating her like an oil slick; she has the brief, stricken thought that he’s adapted to her, that his annoyance is no more real than her teasing is.

“They told us last night. It was wrong of them to sideline Harua like that.”

So he knew, when she saw him. A rush of hot anger that follows throws her off, badly. It wasn’t as if he owed her anything.

“Planning on doing something about it, Prince?”

“I don’t foresee it having any impact on my career whatsoever.”

Her hands clench, and she sees his eyes drop to them. She puts them under the table. “Isn’t that a little cold? Harua has a lot riding on this.”

“His album will be just as popular if fans wait for it longer.”

“How are you so sure it’ll release at all?”

Apparently this is too many questions for her prince; he glances away from her and scowls again. For a moment, she thinks that's it: he's done, and she can stew in the murk and gloom of her thoughts in peace.

Then he exhales, slow and deliberate, like he’s decided something.

“Was the place you got lunch from any good?”

“Huh? Yeah, it was alright.”

He takes a deep breath. Nervous in a way she's never seen him before.  It makes the grind of her thoughts halt, the parallel lines of reasoning she's trying to make sense of all divert towards him instead, like roads leading to Rome.

“Would you like to come have dinner with me?”

The music in the convenience store is quiet, one of their older songs almost drowned under the whir of the vending machines: her own voice, painfully young, sings may a love like mine never find you again. The air conditioning is cool on the back of her neck.

The riptide of his words is dangerous, his pace is dangerous. He probably didn't intend for it to sound so much like he's asking her out on a date: Hakaze needs to get a fucking grip. Maybe get the furious beating of her heart checked out.

Hakaze wants to sit in this chair until the whole world moves on, forgets about her and her fury and her grief.

But her prince’s eyes are so careful. He hasn’t taken a single step away from her. "I can explain," he says. "You don't have to hear me out. But I'm not just saying this to be an asshole."

She heaves a sigh. "I'll believe it when I hear it," she says, and tips out of her chair, her stupid rusted throne.

His shoulders go slack with relief. “I wasn’t sure you’d say yes.”

“How did you even know we went there?” she asks, as they wait for the elevator.

“You were behind me,” he says. “I’d never seen you outside the building before. It made me. Curious.”

His ears are red. He's staring pointedly ahead, as if not making eye contact will hide it. 

“Well, I saw you too. Your Prince image with your fans is crazy, how come you're so mean to us?"

Is that what she means? She can't tell. She remembers being stunned still, when she realized he was smiling and flirting, the beam of his incredible focus turned towards those girls. She doesn't begrudge them the fanservice, she doesn't think. 

It had just bothered her, like a persistent itch. That's not what he's really like, you know, she'd wanted to tell them. The real Ren has a personality that could strip paint off walls. You haven't seen anything.

“It’s natural,” he says, with something like exasperation. “You have to keep your selves separate. You can’t give all of yourself to anyone, and to try is inefficient. Especially as an idol.”

“That's a healthy approach, Prince. I thought you'd find that dishonest."

He ponders this. Hakaze keeps noticing a lot of things about him, but maybe it’s this pottering pace of his conversations that throws her off most of all: he thinks about everything he says the way she’s only seen grandpas do, a kind of unhurried gravity that impresses her despite herself. She didn’t even think it was possible for an idol—someone whose worth was defined by the illusions that they sold—to be so sure of themselves.

“It’s the opposite, actually,” Ren says at length. “For most of the world, Ren Mikazuki is a fairytale they tell themselves about the ideal man, that I am the embodiment of. It’s no more dishonest than hope is. That there’s someone good and handsome and perfect in the world, who cares about you specifically.”

Then, he shrugs. "With the people in my personal life, I act like myself."

She hums. She finds this logic neat and appealing and utterly alien. He might as well have told her he could breathe fire. As for herself, her stage persona is –was—a glittering extension of her personal life, and vice versa; and in both versions, she lies profusely. It’s a habit, a necessity, a social expectation—there was no such thing as an honest pop idol. 

His method of selective honesty comes with a comfort of setting boundaries that Hakaze couldn't dream of. In the end, all she ends up saying is, "So the people who know you don't get the Prince treatment, because they have the unspeakable delight of having you in their lives?"

A ghost of a smile. "I'm very good-looking as well. I'm sure that helps."

Ren stands beside her in the elevator, and she can hear his soft breathing. The material of their jackets rasp together and it feels too intimate. Hakaze thinks of the fanfiction title: trapped in an elevator with an idol who hates me!

The doors slide open.

Ren steps out, then turns back and waits for her. His hands are in his pockets. His eyes are bright.

She follows, a quiet tension tightening in her chest. More and more, the question rises: why did he tell me any of this? And its twin: why is he even here? 

More and more, she finds that she's gathering pieces of him like seashells on the sand, and can't help holding the to the sun, examining their pearlescent glow. It had happened so gradually that she didn't notice when her arms were full, and the weight and shape of every new thing she learned about him was both familiar and unexpected. 

She resents him for the burden. It doesn't matter that he carries hers, too, and that he knows a version of her that's even rawer than the sides she shows to Nao. It feels like the weight of these random run-ins of theirs have built and built till they gained momentum, and no matter how much Hakaze drags her feet, she moves forward anyway.

Case in point: 

Ren is waiting for her outside the building. The streetlights catch the styled dark-ash of his hair, his eyes dark and serious and lovely. His brow is unmarred by scowls for once, and it makes him look younger, sweeter, almost, and when she raises and eyebrow he takes one hand out of his pocket and offers it to her. "Your grand highness Asshole," he says, with perfect seriousness.

Hakaze's ears ring with the sudden realization that she's fucked. "Your majesty the Emperor of Cringe," she says, and the way her heart gives an unforgivable skip when he laughs is proof that something's gone seriously wrong.