Backlash

Hayami felt a rift. The howling winds, its cavernous depths, the echoes of rocks falling into the abyss below her feet, and Akira stood on the other side of that rift.

Ever since her visit to Grandma, things were turning frosty.

Every banter she used to initiate conversation would remain unreciprocated. As for every banter he’d strike up, it would go uninitiated in the first place.

She would go so far as to play Kindred Temptations 2 only three times a day just to try and get a reaction out of him. Even her husbandos couldn't cheer her up when her real one… fake one?... Whatever he was, acted like a stranger.

So she’d been planning an attack for long enough now.

If the mountain wouldn't come to Muhammad, or in this case, if the Idol wouldn't come to the peasant, she would simply have to force the issue.

It was during P.E. time, obviously. It was when they were forced into close proximity. Naturally, people didn’t dare get in between whatever she and Akira had going on, so he was ripe for the taking.

“Yoohoo? We’re up!” Hayami called out, waving a badminton racket.

Akira didn't wave back.

“Earth to Prince? You done sulking yet?”

“Serving,” he muttered.

“Oh, you’re serving alright.”

Akira didn’t find the joke very amusing. He hit the shuttlecock.

She fumbled the return, stumbling back, and near-immediately lost the point.

Well, she was kinda in the red for P.E. as a subject anyway. There was no way she was saving the grade that was about to come despite her training with Hina.

She waited for the insult to come her way.

But instead, Akira walked toward her with his hands out. The entire class seemed to watch on with bated breath.

“Elbow up.”

Hayami started at how close Akira's voice had become; he'd approached her without a sound, and her body loved it so much that every hair on every skin pore rose. She glanced over her shoulder with a questioning look and could only bring herself to say, “creep.”

They sat together on the bleachers when the next pair took the court. Akira stared straight ahead, drinking water in small sips.

Hayami was the first to break.

“Ugh, what’s wrong with you, dummy?”

This situation reduced Hayami to saying ‘dummy’ like an attention-starved tsundere. She was better than this!

“How have the roles reversed…?” she muttered.

“Once this period ends,” he suddenly said, “meet me in the supply closet. We’ll continue our lessons there.”

“Why not the class, like usual?”

“I’ve been experiencing performance anxiety lately.”

“What???”

“You being trapped by your Uncle… I’ve been losing sleep over it,” he recited flatly. “I would really like a confined space to focus.”

“Anxiety and Akira may alliterate, but a contradiction it definitely does make!” she hissed. “You love the spotlight. Why are you lying?”

“Wow. You are just so observant,” he chirped. “But gosh, why do you always have to make things so difficult? It would be just super if you just listened for once. That would really make my day.”

“Oh, excuse me!”

“I mean, I’m just thinking if you actually wanted this whole ‘getting good at socializing’ thing to end, because it feels like you don’t. Maybe I just want to see if you get flustered when we're alone in the dark. Is that what you’re afraid of, Hayami, hmm?”

Soon, the school bell rang.

“Try not to follow me or be seen near me. Count to sixty before you leave the gym.”

He walked away without looking back, slicing through the crowd of students like a shark through water.

Hayami bristled as she watched his retreating form. Were those viral videos about ‘male menstrual cramps’ real after all?! Maybe that explains his crazy mood swing!

She shook her head as she got up. She needed to think this over.

\\

Hayami figured it out.

“It’s something about Rocketblast, isn’t it?”

The darkness of the supply room made things more foreboding than they needed to be. But what other conclusion could she draw?

“Hina, the Sports Carnival, my apartment—footage probably leaked from that, right?”

“It did. Now your family gets no money.”

“Good. But that’s not the point…”

“You’re right.” He took out that stupid binder from his backpack. “This is.”

He flicked past the tabs for ‘Posture’ and ‘Public Speaking’ until he landed on a page marked with red ink.

‘Lesson Four: Setting Boundaries’

Hayami didn’t need to read the text to surmise what he was getting at.

“Hayami, you’ve become more confident,” Akira began. “Respecting yourself means knowing you have value to add to other people’s lives. That’s good. However…”

He tapped the page.

“…You run the risk of asking too much of yourself and others. That’s an obstacle a lot of people tumble over. Trying to force a connection where distance is need—”

“Akira, just stop,” Hayami cut him off. “Stop treating me like I’m an idiot.”

Akira’s finger hovered over the binder.

“Maybe you want to complete your Lessons now that people are bullying you online, that’s true,” she continued, stepping closer to him. “But please stop this charade. Rocketblast has come down on you, haven't they? You need to keep a distance from me because otherwise they’ll punish you, right?” She crossed her arms. “Just admit you’re scared of losing—”

“No,” he snapped, the binder slamming shut. “I’m trying to keep them away from you.”

Hayami laughed.

“How noble! The Prince protecting the peasant. W-We both know you’re more selfish than that, Akira. And I’m not someone who lets other people decide for her! If I want to take the risk, that is my choice!”

“It’s not a choice if you don’t know the game!”

Akira stepped forward, looming over her, his face twisting into a sneer.

“You think we’re friends? You think anything I’ve been doing up to this point has been sincere?”

He let out a sharp breath.

“Nothing mattered, Hayami. Every interaction, every conversation, meant nothing. I knew I was destined to be in a relationship with someone else the moment I set foot in this school. I knew exactly what I was doing when we had those heart-to-hearts, and yet I did them anyway. Because you know why?”

He gestured vaguely at her.

“Your costuming, those pep talks, the late-night snacks, me spying on you, all of it; I was just leading you on so I feel entertained! Your ridiculous request to be a functioning human being. I mean, who does that? I only cared because you had that video, that’s it! In the end, you are just my plaything. You were a fling I used to entertain myself with before I made it big, while you sit there and rot away.”

He huffed and huffed after that. He felt the burn at the edge of his eyes and the tears forming.

Akira waited for the slap. Perhaps he wanted it. He certainly felt he deserved it.

But Hayami never gave him the satisfaction.

Instead, Hayami stepped closer. She looked him dead in the eye, and said, “You can’t say nothing we did mattered to you. It can’t be true. None of what you said required you to walk thirty minutes in the blazing sun to watch me perform rituals from a religion you’re not even familiar with.”

Akira flinched.

He backed up until he hit the shelf behind him. He let out a breathless, desperate chuckle, trying to summon the courage to respond.

“Are you… coming on to me?” he stammered. “One last kiss in the closet before I leave your life forever?”

“No! I just want to know why you’re lying to me!”

The shout shattered him.

Akira grabbed his own hair, sliding down the shelving unit until he was crouching.

“I hate what you do to me!” he exploded. “I hate that I know I am doing something stupid and yet I can’t do anything about it! I hate that you’re in the way! I try to go left, you’re there. I try to go right, you’re there.”

He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

“Your sheer presence has blocked every path. I can’t breathe in here. I can’t think. I need—I need out.”

He scrambled up. He threw the door open and stumbled into the hallway, blindly running for the exit.

He burst through the double doors and spilled out into the courtyard.

The sky had opened up. A summer guerrilla rainstorm was rolling around, and he didn’t even care.

He ran. Didn’t matter how far he went, he just needed to get away. Away from her, away from the stares, away from everyone!

Because for the first time in his life, he wasn’t sure if he was making the right choice!

He settled on the sand, on the far side of the athletes track, behind the sports storage room.

Then he heard splashing, which made him turn.

It was Hayami.

She had walked out into the storm. No umbrella and nothing but the clothes on her back.

Her hair was soaked, strands covered her eyes, and she coughed from the pain of keeping up with the peak of human performance.

Akira stared at her, water streaming down his face. “Why, Hayami? Why run after some asshole like me.”

“You’re right. Your ass doesn’t deserve this.”

Hayami looked at him. She looked just as crazy and just as intense as he felt.

“I just… I-I don’t… I don’t really know,” Hayami admitted blankly. She must have looked ridiculous. Water streamed off her uniform and into the mud. “I just knew that if I let you walk away thinking you were right, I’d regret it for the rest of my life.”