Chapter 5: Yanami Anna, Large Pet.
....
Yanami Anna was staring at him with the focused, liquid-eyed intensity of a creature that had identified food in its near future and was monitoring the situation closely. Blue eyes. Unblinking. A faint thread of anticipatory moisture at the corner of her mouth.
"Sure," Kihara said. "Since you're the one who suggested it, you're paying."
"Absolutely, leave it to me!!"
She thumped her chest with both hands for emphasis. The laws of physics responded as they tended to when someone thumped their chest with enthusiasm, and the wide sleeve of her uniform shifted enough that Kihara caught a glimpse of pale pink fabric underneath.
He thought for a moment, reached into his bag — technically the dimensional pouch, retrieved in the manner of someone finding something in a normal backpack — and draped his uniform jacket over her shoulders.
Yanami Anna tilted her head. "What's this for? I'm not cold."
He pointed to his own armpit, then said, with no particular context: "Pink suits you."
"Pink..." The confusion moved through her expression in sequence — puzzlement, processing, realization — and then the pink steam began rising from the top of her head in a steady column, and her hand came up to grip the jacket at her shoulder, and she asked in a voice considerably smaller than her usual register: "...Does it really?"
"Normal girls like pink things, don't they. If it were black, the white shirt would probably show through from underneath. Better to avoid that."
The cold water of practical explanation landed on the warmth of the moment with precision.
Yanami Anna's composure snapped back together. She rolled her eyes at him with the practiced elegance of someone who had been doing this for years. "I know that much myself, thank you. I don't need the tutorial."
A pause. "But... thanks for noticing."
She told herself it was fine. He had been paying attention to her — specifically, carefully. That alone was enough to carry her through the next several hours in a state of mild private happiness.
The happiness, apparently, did something to her appetite. Her stomach, which had maintained its position of it's not dinnertime yet, no for the entire school day, abruptly reversed its stance and began making its opinions known.
She put on the jacket properly.
Then she remembered something, rummaged in her own bag, produced a pair of plain non-prescription glasses, stood on her toes, and fitted them carefully onto his face. She wiped a small bead of stress-sweat from her forehead.
"That was close. Almost walked into public with you undisguised again."
The previous incident had been educational. One subway station exit, one crowded commercial plaza, three hours of not being able to move in any direction while a significant number of his fan following expressed their enthusiasm. She had been approximately twenty minutes from fainting by the time they extracted themselves.
Since then: glasses in the bag. Standard procedure.
They took the subway to the city center and located a place called CRUNCH CRUNCH FRIED CHICKEN, which had the specific energy of a restaurant in its first week of operation that had decided the best opening promotion was buy one burger, get one free.
The smell hit them at the door — fried oil and something sweet underneath it, the particular combination that bypassed the rational mind and went directly to the part of the brain that made decisions about lunch. Yanami Anna's eyes lit up. Her feet stopped moving.
She was still standing in the entrance staring at the menu board when the line began forming behind her.
Kihara took her by the arm and moved her into the queue.
Even for a new opening, the turnout was impressive. Ten or more people ahead of them in their line, three other lines running parallel to theirs, all of them moving at the pace that lines moved when the cashiers were doing their best but there were a lot of people who wanted discounted burgers.
"What do you think I should order?"
"You're paying. Get what you want. I'm not picky."
"That's exactly what I was hoping you'd say."
She snapped her fingers, started swaying lightly from side to side, and began reciting her planned order to herself in a low running murmur, the scent of her shampoo mixing with the warm sweetness drifting from somewhere that smelled like red bean pastries.
Kihara rested his right hand on top of her head and moved it gently back and forth.
She stopped swaying and settled into it.
Just like patting a golden retriever, he thought, with the fond detachment of someone who had arrived at a comfortable classification. She's basically a large pet who thinks about food eighty percent of the time. Should probably update her designation accordingly.
He was entirely unaware that Yanami Anna, from her position under his hand, had concluded that his spontaneous affection was the natural result of her own irresistible charm. This was incorrect. The actual reason was that she gave off very strong golden retriever energy and his hand had acted on instinct.
The line moved. His hand moved with it.
Fifteen minutes later, they reached the register.
"One teriyaki burger, one rice burger, one tempura shrimp burger, fried chicken pieces, croquette, fries, red bean pie — " she paused for breath — "and one cola and one iced oolong."
The cashier looked at the order. Looked at Yanami Anna. Looked at the order again.
"Miss, that's quite a lot. You might not finish it all."
"I'll finish it."
"Understood. That comes to 9,967 yen. All burgers will come doubled with the promotion."
She swallowed once, hard. The mental image of herself eating the food had been vivid and satisfying. The inside of her wallet was delivering a different kind of information. She turned to Kihara with the stiff smile of someone conducting rapid damage assessment.
"So... Kihara-kun... my funds are slightly insufficient at this time... would you possibly be willing to cover the gap temporarily...?"
The hand that had been resting on her head shifted. It found her left cheek. It pulled, gently but with intent.
"Ow!"
"Consider it a loan. Next time you tell someone you're treating them, check your wallet first."
"Understood. Yes. Completely."
She avoided the cashier's eyes — she could feel the amusement from here — and moved with Kihara to the pickup area with the studied focus of someone who had decided that looking at the floor was an excellent use of the next ninety seconds.
Three trays. Stacked. Fully loaded.
They found a small two-person table near the window, set everything down, and had barely settled before Yanami Anna picked up a fry, dragged it through the ketchup, and extended it toward his mouth with the ceremonial gravity of someone presenting an offering.
"In gratitude for Kihara-sama's generous funding of this meal, I present this fry as the first tribute. Eat."
"I covered nearly ten thousand yen and I get one fry?" He tapped the table. "I want the beef cheese burger."
"Words are cheap. Open."
She leaned forward slightly to close the remaining distance, and the tip of the fry found his mouth, and her fingertips made contact with his lips for the half-second it took to complete the delivery.
Her heart performed a maneuver she had not asked it to perform.
She withdrew her hand, reached for another fry, dragged it through the ketchup, and put it in her own mouth with the quick focused motion of someone with a different objective in mind. The fingertips that had touched his lips touched her own lips on the way past.
An indirect kiss, she thought, with the specific quality of happiness that came from something going unexpectedly right. That just happened. That's something that just happened.
The feeling lasted approximately four seconds before her stomach issued a reminder about priorities.
Left hand: teriyaki burger. Right hand: fried chicken piece. Full deployment.
She ate the way she always ate when she was happy — with the total commitment of a person for whom this was a whole-body activity, cheeks puffing out with each bite, small sounds of enthusiasm escaping at intervals that she made no effort to suppress.
Kihara watched her from across the table. He had been planning to say something several times and kept not saying it because watching her eat was, he had concluded, a more enjoyable activity than whatever he would have said. He ate his share of the four-person spread. She ate hers. Together they cleared all three trays completely.
"Urp~ I'm full."
"I've told you this before and I'll tell you again — wipe your mouth when you finish eating. You had bread crumbs from this morning too, didn't you."
He reached across the table. His thumb found the corner of her mouth and moved across it in a single slow pass.
Her eyes went soft and narrow, the specific contentment of someone being tended to by someone they trusted. The reflex was entirely automatic — the words were already moving before the decision to say them had been consciously made.
"I love you, Kihara."
....
Thank you for reading.