O-O-O-Of course I-I-I-I’ll dance with you!

"This is easier than I thought."

"Mhm." The girls leaned against each other, lounging on a sofa, in a room further inside the culinary class.

"The hardest part is the wait!" She accidentally hit Bless. "Sorry, sorry!"

"You remind me of a child…"

"I am a child!"

"… A younger child."

"I am a younger child!"

"… A toddler."

"Bless!" Lydie Heung's legs flailed, hanging over the sofa's edge.

Classmates walking past had every reason to look back twice. Some lingered, wondering if one of their ingredients somehow contained the remnants of hallucinogenic mushrooms.

It wasn't a secret that Muraoka Rii was Lydie Heung. Everyone in the school knew her true identity, it was a basic coverup. The media knew she went to Wakabayashi School, and Muraoka Rii was purely an aesthetic commodity.

Everyone in the school thought Lydie Heung chose her name, but Miteki Bless knew her parents had chosen it for her. Rather, they were imaginative.

Miteki Bless loved the name dearly beceause she frequently met with Muraoka. Albeit, if she had to answer honestly, she preferred the name Lydie.

The less she knew, the more she loved, the more she loved, the less she knew!

On paper, it was fine. On the tip of her tongue, it was satisfactory.

The girls passing and going, taking two looks were understating their reactions. The one time Muraoka Rii came in handy.

When she enrolled into the school with her birth-name, her classmates had not respected her much. They would drill into her boundaries, grinding their sweaty skins against hers. Asking personal questions forgetting that she was a human too.

Once she started going by Muraoka Rii, something clicked for them. She stopped being treated as a doll.

Word around the halls, she became an icicle too beautiful to de-hang. The school wished she had more fiestiness and less restraint, to be as blazing as Lydie Heung, the version of her they'd see on stage. Of course, the wished collapsed on deaf ears, and the school was left to get comfortable with Muraoka Rii. A Lydie Heung they couldn't defang.

"Are you going to choke me to death?"

"No!" Lydie Heung went on a long, rambling, incoherent rant.

"So many words just to say, 'no, that's wrong!' Are you serious?"

"Are you laughing at me?"

"I hope." Bless leaned her head into the cushions. The day had tired her, and her nap to replenish had depleted her further. "Still, anyone would know choking someone… is bad."

"Choking you has world-ending consequences!"

Bless closed her eyes, her silky eyelashes brushing against her bottom lids and eye bags. "Does anyone else know how silly you are?"

"Skyla?"

"Oh!" Miteki's abrupt movement instinctively made Lydie Heung move. Since the movement was unconscious, her brain didn't rationalize where to move. She tilted her forehead, then back, two instinctive movements in a row. Her nose bumped into Bless' temple, and bruised easily.

A red-nosed reindeer.

"I've seen Skyla around here. She invited me to a concert once…" Miteki Bless didn't know Lydie had hurt herself. She felt something touch her, but it was so soft she thought Lydie was caressing her.

Lydie Heung eyes were teary and blued, oscillating inside her sockets. She looked harmed and wronged. She sniffled without saying anything.

"..? Are you jealous?"

Lydie Jealous Heung: …?

"U-Uh. Yeah, I'm jealous!"

Since earlier, she'd been trying to find an excuse to bring up the task paper again.

"Remember how I said the tasks were jokey-jokers?" She put all her weight on Miteki. Her set of hair and head underneath Miteki's head, her chin hovering above her collarbones.

Their eye contact was strained in this uncomfortable position on the couch. From Lydie's eyes circulating between Miteki's and the students passing by.

She cleared her throat as a method to scatter the lingering students, and to incite Miteki into replying. Killing two swans with one villager.

It worked.

The students scattered away hurriedly, hands covered in yeast or drying soap, aprons with frosting residue and cookie crumbs.

"Yes."

"Can you tell me the last objective?" Lydie was being purposefully vague, blinking up at Bless.

Miteki Bless lightheartedly scoffed, playing along. "I wonder?"

"You wonder."

"Do I?"

Lydie Heung frowned. "You do. I play the games here, not you. Okay?"

"Hmmmmm… What games?"

"Ugh! Miteki, you know I can act spoiled, right?! I'm a woman of many faces."

Woman? What happened to you saying you were a child? Is this another one of your faces!?

Plus!!! I can act spoilt too.

Either way, whatever Miteki Bless thought, she kept to herself. "O.K. I suddenly remember now…"

Lydie Heung's frown saw through her. Bless, you are a bad actress.

"Mhm, mhm. Enlighten me."

"Your concert."

"Yup!" Lydie snapped her fingers. "That one's not a joke. With an added clause!"

Miteki Bless' face turned green. "That's not excitable."

"Join me on stage tomorrow. What's not excitable about being on stage?"

That is excitable. In the bad way.

"Did I make you angry?" Miteki Bless honestly had to ask.

Remarkably, despite her blank face, the way she twirled her hair made her look small and squeamish.

Lydie Heung didn't falter because of this, instead, it motivated her to be 10¹⁰ times more adamant and pushy.

10 billion percent of her went into this message. "I want your SleepyTalk. Your measurements. Your weight. Your decided stage name. What time you can arrive?"

"But are you angry-"

"No. I want to crystallize our friendship before tomorrow ends."

The way she wants to do that… eccentric is an understatement.

It brought the question, swinging it over and over again, "Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?"

A pendulum of whys, knocking and rolling eachother over, echoing hits and incoming swings.

Miteki Bless chose to be quiet.

The pattern of quietness so far, has made Lydie speak over it with patterns of her own. It could be because Lydie Heung was interested in her.

Lydie Heung would cling onto the first thing that interested her in a projected world of disinterest. Miteki Bless couldn't blame her, she was the same. She'd hold any hand that reached for hers.

The quiet rat gambit worked, the piece landing on the speaking-square.

"You are the only one who can save me. I've been told that this was the case, since the second I was born in this world."

Shown. She mentally corrected.

Her weight had never been put off Miteki's. Her body covered the entirety of Bless' body as she spoke.

Bless Miteki was burning up. This level of contact was uncomfortable. Her body cramped with heat, burnt with sweat. Her sweat was gasoline, Lydie's weight was a box of matches.

Flick, flick, flick, went Lydie's lips. "Miteki Bless is the only one who can save me."

Miteki Bless squirmed underneath her.

"I don't get it. I have to be honest, it feels like you're joking with me. I'm asking seriously—did I make you angry or not? This… it's like part of your bit from earlier? Are you testing out the part of it you could never do? For fun? Boredom? Am I boring you?"

Remaining over Miteki's body, Lydie Heung propped herself up with the help of Miteki's shoulders. "No. No! No, and no. I'm serious. Believe me. It's hard but believe me…"

"Can you explain everything to me?"

Lydie Heung bit her lip and looked conflicted, her eyebrows raised and slanted. "In two days I can tell you. As long—as long as you stay with me tomorrow."

"… Is it required that I dance on stage with you?"

"No, that's something my individual will wants." Lydie Heung said truthfully.

Miteki Bless had so many reasons to doubt her. Someone who lived her everydays purposely distanced from everyone who could interact with her.

If she could describe it simply, Lydie Heung was a 5-page essay, with only 4 pages published because the missing page was censored to erase history.

"How much am I missing?"

"Do you want a scale?"

"Whatever gives me an accurate representation of how many questions I need to ask."

"You're missing information on the grand-scale of the world."

"Don't use metaphors." That was far from a an accurate representation. Grand-scale of the world and it gave her nil.

"That's the only way I know how to say it. Anyhow else—and it'd be a lie."

Miteki Bless looking her up and down made her feel a sudden insecurity. Body overlapping body, it felt that she should be the one ashamed. The feet traversing in a sofa-revolving world around them certainly told her she should be ashamed. The anxiety was more tingly than stage fright. The tap-tap-tapping of feet interfered with their intimacy, intensifying it simultaneously.

Under Miteki Bless' scrutiny, Lydie Heung's veins running through her balled hands on Miteki's shoulders pulsated, electrifying.

"Huu… Will you dance, dance with me?"

…

"…"

…

"Miteki-san?"

Bless' arm was weighted by gravity, as it arduously bent itself onto the hand on her shoulder. The sofa's cushion was like slimy quicksand, blocking the trajectory from her lap, covered by Lydie's knees, to her shoulder, covered by Lydie's soft padded hand.

The warmth of her blood electrocuted Lydie.

"I…"

Lydie Heung shut her eyes.

The answer she expected was a no.

… An unfinished sentence, who knew it could be this overwhelming?

The hand untouched by Miteki was straining itself. Curiously, the one held by Miteki was calmed and still, snuggly and comfortable.

"… will dance."

Instantly, Lydie's eyes opened, fluidly.

"What was that?!"

"I will dance!"

Lydie Heung hit her once.

"Hey-"

Hit her twice.

Strongly pulled her hand under Miteki's back, and…

Hugged her.

"In the future, you will understand how good this choice was… you will understand how helpful you are."

"…" Miteki Bless struggled to find the words.

At the same time, she was ecstatic to be hugged.

At the same time, she was begging to be let out from off the sofa.

At the same time, she had this self-imposed obligation to put her current thoughts into words.

They were jumbled and ragged, unable to be contorted, alchemized into tangible sentences.

As her brain cooled down, Lydie Heung jumped off. "You can go home early. You're… tired. Sorry, it's my fault afterall."

She was hitting all the beats.

Suggestion, concern, accountability pushed in one sentence.

"Also, since you're my hero… if you get into conflict, be careful." Telling Miteki Bless of all people to be careful when alongside conflict, seemed out of touch and ignorant. That meant Lydie Heung was pointing at something else.

"As my hero, I don't want you to end up killing someone."

…

She thinks that lowly of me?

Miteki Bless couldn't reply, not having it in herself to yell as Lydie Heung ran away, saying, "I'm going to check on the coffee jelly!"

But the jelly wouldn't be ready until an hour later—

Miteki Bless sat upright for a few seconds, rubbing the space between her hairline and forehead—so, her forehead—taking the time to breathe. She successfully calmed her heartbeat and slightly got rid of the heat clinging to her.

She ran, testing her breathing skills, double-checking her light headedness. No one wanted to fall down in dizziness, getting up after finally being unclamped from someone too touchy and clingy.

She ran into the freezer room, where Lydie Heung should've been. Finding it empty, she ran into the rest of the 15 rooms inside the kitchen.

Storage, stoves, bakery, candy farm, apothecary, utensils, cooking books, lounge…

The odds of them narrowly missing each other were low. Lydie Heung had either lied about checking on the coffee jelly and left the kitchen, or she had checked on them briefly and left right away.

Though it was more likely she had lied, since the freeze time was an hour away, Miteki Bless didn't want to think about it.

She ran around the school, looking for her.

She checked the cafeteria, neighbouring class sessions that were going on, the clubroom, the field and track, the gymnasium, the Ayashi-side.

Out of breath, she sat on dirt-cold asphalt. There were many areas she hadn't checked yet.

Marked by unfortune, her next class started when she pronounced the end of her rest.

Oh, well. Optimistic, she knew Lydie Heung would be in her next class. She didn't care if she was told to go home early, she wanted to talk with Lydie.

At door 106, she wiggled the door lock after trying to slide it open. She had a key and could unlock it with a breath, but she opted for knocking.

Knock, knock, knock.

She heard a light breath inside, followed by a rumble. A teacher she didn't recognize opened the door.

She wasn't alarmed. Another unfamiliar face, that was every teacher inside the school. The hand few she bothered remembering were less than 3 fingers.

She swept a disinterested gaze over her, "Why's the class empty?"

"Oh! Good afternoon, Miteki-san. Muraoka-san told me to cancel it… You didn't know?" The teacher hugged a clipboard to her chest, a finger on her lips, suggesting real confusion.

"Why are you acting confused? Since none of my classmates are here, you must've told them at least 5 minutes before culinary class ended. You should know I wasn't there if you announced it in every room. And if you didn't know, then you are not a diligent teacher."

Miteki Bless left. That insignificant teacher's opinion did not matter to her.

If she said she was wrong, she wasn't.

She said it now, she was right now.

"Good afternoon, though." She said in the distance.

Miteki Bless had been wondering what would happen during/to the election class.

It being cancelled made sense. But she thought, at least, the class would change into something else on the spot.

If she could choose classes last minute, she'd have changed it to a profession class. She was fascinated by the career possibilities. She knew what she wanted to be, yet, the thought of others being great at jobs she wouldn't consider nor gravitate towards was fun to think about.

She sighed, pondering about the things she could do with so much free time.

On usual occasions, after school she'd stay at least 1 or two hours to help with student council business. She was doing more than she needed to do—she got enough points just being onboard the student council. From time to time, she would call her mother on days she was sure traffic at the hospital was low, in order to check out clubs and test out her rusty hobbies.

The clubs she favored were kyudo, calligraphy, music and art. Nothing special, nothing extragavent.

She tried the theather club and the idol club, promptly pushed out on the same day.

If she could, she'd like to try them again.

Today wasn't the day.

Not only did she want to take advantage of her free time to rest, she wanted to surprise her mom by baking a cake.

Maybe a seafood boil, if she had enough time to go around the village.