Chapter 13:

Riona - the moon is beautiful tonight

beautiful things.

When Riona told her dad that she was going on an adventure, he told her to stay put and study. “I’m going to a friend’s house,” she said.

“The one from earlier?”

“Yeah. She’s from Hamaoto. You know that school, right? Everyone knows that school because it’s full of smart people.”

He was sipping on hot cocoa, playing a 10-hour video of a campfire on the TV. Why? Adult logic. Which was to say none. “Ah, my sweetest daughter. When will you learn to make your lies credible? Why would someone from Hamaoto hang out with you?”

“It’s true, though!” Riona showed him Misao’s Instamilliliter. “See her unif… oh, no.”

While Misao’s profile oscillated between aesthetic pictures of herself and her paintings, since she’d been drawing BL lately…

“Definitely your friend,” Riona’s dad said.

So he drove her there.

It was dark, and it was cold, and it was colorless. No orange—the sky went from a pale gray, to a dim yellow, to black.

Riona: I’m going to her house!!!

Yuu: ok

Riona: Give me encouragement… I need it…

Yuu: pls no screwdrivers

Riona: I’m serious :(

Yuu: me too

Yuu: PLEASE no screwdrivers. Thx to you, my parents dont let me bring friends to my house

Riona: Sorry…

Yuu: idk, I havent gone to my boyfriends house, either

Riona: Wait, really?

Yuu: yea… hes fine with that, though. But I cant give you any tips. I also didn’t know the way it works with girls until I looked it up

Riona: What do you mean?

Yuu: :| srly

Riona: ????

Yuu: GL… its like BL… but with girls…

Riona: Are you stupid?

Yuu: yeah, no,

Yuu: I s

Yuu:

Yuu: oops, sent early

Yuu:

Yuu: good luck :)

***

“Okay, you can drop me here.”

“We’re still a block away,” her dad said.

“Yeah… but… I’ll tell you later. You’ll see.”

He complied. “Call me once you’re done, Riona. Please. Don’t bother these people more than you already will.”

This angered her enough to yell, “I LIKE GIRLS!” once her dad had driven halfway down the street. He stopped, but she ran in the opposite direction, and it began to snow.

Black tainted by white, dimly glowing under flickering street lamps.

The crunch of snow under feet.

Her heart beating due to her running under the snow… and other things.

A certain other thing.

Riona triple checked the address before ringing the doorbell. Despite the overwhelming urge to do so, she did not ring again. Her patience was rewarded when a slightly larger version of Misao cracked the door open, said, “Oh!” then pushed her way out through the snow.

Misao’s house wasn’t nearly as big as Riona had imagined, to the point that there were only two options: either she was a scholarship student, or her parents came from old money but had fallen into ruin due to pathological gambling.

Riona waved. “Oh, my,” said Misao’s mom. “How… can I help you?”

“Remember me?”

“I do, yes.”

“I need help with studying. My entire grade does. Our future… lies in your hands… please!” Riona knelt, which startled Misao’s mom. Moments later, her phone buzzed. Misao, probably. “I’ll do anything!”

“Of—of course, sweetie, just… stand up. Please. Come right in. Also, if I may…” Misao’s mom trailed off as Riona scrambled up. She was very classy about it, though. “...don’t you feel cold?”

“Not really.” Riona supposed that she could’ve brought a coat along. Just in case. For appearances, as her dad often told her.

Misao’s house was pristine, though she couldn’t quite tell if it was a good or a bad thing. Everything was so… compact. It almost resembled a dollhouse. Lots of neutral colors. “Keisuke!” Misao’s mom called out. “We have a guest!”

“Oh, is that so? How many more people should I cook for!”

“One!” Misao’s mom called out at the same time that Riona said, “Two!”

They stared at each other.

“Two!” Misao’s mom called out at the same time that Riona said, “One!”

They stared at each other.

Then Misao said, “One and a half.”

…embarrassing.

Misao wore a loose ponytail and a huge, fluffy sweater. They hadn’t seen each other in a way now. Strange—so much had happened since the incident at Gwendolyn’s, yet it was only the third time that they’d physically met. “I’m sorry,” Misao told her mom, though it sounded half-hearted. “I told her not to show up, since you forbade me from having friends.”

Misao’s mom grew pale. “Sweetie, please… not in front of the guest.”

“I brought cake,” Riona said.

“Oh, so can she walk in, then? Can she go to my room? So we can study? Or do I have to kick her out?”

“Cake,” Riona said.

“Misao, we’re very patient, understanding parents and you know that, but that doesn’t mean that you have to take advantage of us, either.”

“Cake,” Riona pleaded.

“How am I taking advantage of you, huh? By daring to have a friend? I literally told her not to show up.”

Riona headed to the kitchen while mother and child argued. None of her business. If she had a mom, she’d probably get slapped for talking that way to her, though.

Strange.

She’d barely walked in and the doll house had already broken.

Perhaps it’d be best to leave…

Before deciding whether to contact Yuu, the group chat or her dad for help, however, Riona went to deliver the cake that she’d bought for the occasion. A male, slightly larger version of Misao cut, minced, and grated at the counter. “Good evening,” he said, smiled at her, then continued to cook.

“Good… good evening. Where can I put this?”

“The dining table is fine. Much appreciated. Could I please have your name?”

“Tsukishima Riona. Um. I’m sorry to… interrupt… but they’re fighting outside.”

“Oh, is that so…”

That was it. No sigh, no apology. He continued to cook. Riona stood there, fiddling with the cake box. “I’ll just… place it on the dining table then. Um. Bye.”

“Mhm.”

Mom, dad… older sister? There was a picture of someone else on the table next to the door.

Well…

Well.

Yeah.

She shouldn’t have come here.

Of course, this wasn’t the first broken home she had visited, nor would it be the last, but it wasn’t often that chaos started precisely because of her. Sighing, Riona walked out.

“...one thing, mom. Just one…”

“...why the day before exams…”

Riona stared at the cake box the whole while. She placed it onto the table. That was it. There was nothing else to do but to leave, to give this broken house some peace.

She really was a wrecking ball, wasn’t she?

Something seized her arm—a familiar, tiny vicegrip. “Run,” Misao said.

“Wh—”

And then they were running.

“MISAO!”

And then they were out of the house.

And then they kept running.

It snowed.

On and on, they ran, until Misao all but collapsed.

Where were they?

Why were they here?

The entire world was monochrome and so, so quiet outside of her breaths.

Riona opened her mouth, but her throat refused to emit sounds. Beneath her, Misao straightened up. She wiped snow off her sweater, as though it wouldn’t coat her again soon. “Listen,” she said, “Just to be clear, that was not supposed to happen.”

“I mean… yeah…”

“No, I just… I don’t even know. I heard her being fake nice to you and I just… ugh.” She took her hands to her face.

Riona grimaced. “Sorry.”

Misao shook her head. She wasn’t crying when she took her hands off her face, thankfully. Instead, she snuck her arms into her sweater; now her sleeves dangled like deflated balloons. “Don’t be. I was just looking for an excuse.”

“To?”

“Run away.”

“...eh?”

“Kidding.” Misao snorted. She sure recovered quickly, huh? “I won’t. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t. Things wouldn’t get any better if I did, and I don’t hate my parents. I just hate what they do.”

“I get that.”

“Yeah. You… sound like you get along with yours.”

“For the most part,” Riona replied. “I don’t think I’d ever be able to talk back to mine like that.”

“Why?”

“Um. I mean… because it’d hurt him?”

Misao stared at her. Her eyes were large even without makeup. Her beauty mark stood out more. “Because you’d hurt him, huh…”

Riona shrugged. Of course, he’d also get mad at her for talking that way—which he had, multiple times—but what she feared the most were scars.

Most relationships were transient by nature. Schools changed. Jobs changed. Family did not. For better or worse, there was no way to change where one came from. Whether she went to school or college or a job, her dad would be there until he, too…

…but that would be a proper goodbye, not a broken ‘see you’.

They leaned against the wall of an apartment complex, watching the snow fall, the way it glowed under a street lamp until the night swallowed it.

“So, just to be sure… you are going back, right?”

“Yeah…”

“Because if you decide not to…. you know. I could convince my dad to let you in.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And then you could leave that high school as well. I’m going to East High, which isn’t like… great academically speaking, but you could go there as well. I’m pretty sure you’d be the best student. Yuu wants to go there, too. It’d be the three of us. I think you’d like Yuu. She also has a horrible personality.”

Misao laughed.

“We’d get to walk home every day, see each other at school, help each other out, make other friends… see each other…”

“Yeah,” Misao said. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“It would.”

They watched the snow for a little bit longer. “And then?”

“And then…”

“And after that then?”

Riona squirmed. “It’s hard to tell. I’d rather worry about the ‘now’. There’s no point in being sad about things that haven’t happened yet.”

“Such as…?”

“Life…? You know what I mean. There’s no point. I mean, look. We can’t even see past the street lamp. Are you thinking about that world, or this one?”

“Hmm… well, Tsukishima. Color me surprised. You can be quite a philosopher when you want to.”

“Says you.”

“Says I. Well, I thought my mom would’ve shown up by now. I guess she’s not able to find us.” This made Misao smirk. Something told Riona that she’d once been a bully. “How about this? Once we see her car show up at the corner—green beetle, by the way—then we kiss. What do you say?”

“We… we… wuh?”

“Kiss?”

“Like… BL? But with girls instead? So GL?”

“Are you stupid?” Misao asked.

“But—so you like girls?”

She looked away. “Not sure. Do I like ‘girls’, or do I like…?”

Riona glanced at Misao.

Misao glanced at Riona.

“Go on?” Riona said.

“...eh? Why? Aren’t you the one that loves confessing to people?”

“Yeah, but… yeah. And I always get rejected.”

“Try again, then. Who knows? Maybe the answer will change this time.”