Yuki was standing by the fence at the back.
Takeshi saw her the moment he rounded the corner of the training field and stepped into the strip of ground behind the wooden structures. The tag floated above her head.
[YUKI TACHIBANA]
[Life: 100%]
[Sanity: 80%]
[Confidence: 60%]
She looked at him the exact moment he saw her, and she said nothing. She simply waited as he closed the distance between them.
Takeshi stopped a few steps away from her.
The daggers were not visible. She had her arms crossed and her back leaning against the fence in a posture that, in any other situation, might have looked relaxed.
The chat appeared.
[he's here]
[he made it on time]
[miracle]
[now it gets good]
[shhh let's listen]
Takeshi ignored the messages.
The silence between them lasted several seconds. Yuki stared at him without looking away. Takeshi held her gaze because looking away right then seemed like a terrible idea.
Yuki uncrossed her arms.
"I thought you weren't going to come."
She began.
"Here I am."
Takeshi replied.
Yuki nodded slowly. She looked at the ground for a moment and then back at him. She took one breath, her shoulders rising and falling visibly.
"I like you, Takeshi Fujimoto."
She said it straight, without a long preamble or any beating around the bush. The words came out with a firmness that didn't match what Takeshi had expected from a confession, if he had expected anything at all, because up until that moment he hadn't fully processed that this was what was going to happen.
But Yuki had called him here, and now she was standing in front of him telling him she liked him.
Takeshi didn't answer right away.
Yuki continued.
"I've been thinking for a while about how to tell you. That's why I called you here."
She paused briefly.
"I want you to be with me."
The chat exploded with messages, but Takeshi didn't read them. His brain's resources were occupied with something else.
He calculated.
'If I reject her, the daggers come out.'
The version of Yuki that crossed a classroom without saying a word and decapitated him with one clean motion was the same person standing in front of him now, except now the daggers weren't there and the confession was on the table.
'If I accept, what happens?'
He had no information on that. He didn't know if it would deactivate some kind of danger or just postpone it. He didn't know if Yuki with an affirmative answer was less dangerous than Yuki with a negative one.
'But if I accept, it'll buy me time…'
In that time he could look for the god and get more information, as well as figure out what situation he was in before making decisions that had permanent consequences.
Takeshi opened his mouth to respond, but he couldn't.
It wasn't that the words wouldn't come out, but that the ones that did come out weren't the ones he had formed. His mouth moved on its own, with a voice that sounded like his own but was saying something he hadn't decided.
"No."
His own voice said.
"I'm not interested."
Takeshi felt something like panic rising from his stomach. He tried to speak over what had just come out, tried to add something, correct it, soften it in any way, but he couldn't. His mouth wouldn't respond.
'What the hell is happening!?'
Inside his head, the deity's voice appeared with the same calm tone as always.
"A romance without conflict is boring. The audience will thank me."
Takeshi tried to answer her inside his head, but he couldn't do that either.
Control of his mouth returned to him a second later, but the damage was already done.
He checked the stats.
[Life: 100%]
[Sanity: 40%]
[Confidence: 20%]
Yuki's expression had changed. It wasn't sadness, nor was it the face of someone who had just been rejected and needed a moment to process it. It was something colder than that. Her eyes stared at him with a fixed intensity they hadn't had before, and her arms, which had been loose at her sides, moved slowly.
"I understand."
Yuki said in a flat voice.
The daggers were summoned.
Takeshi took a step back. He looked at the daggers, looked at Yuki, and calculated the distance between them, then the distance between himself and the corner of the training field, only to reach one conclusion.
'I'm not going to make it!'
[that's it]
[AGAIN]
[someone count how many this makes]
[five with this one]
Yuki took a step toward him.
Takeshi braced himself to back up and then heard footsteps behind him. Quick, direct footsteps coming from the corner of the training field. He turned on instinct.
Aoi Mizuhara rounded the corner and placed herself between Takeshi and Yuki in a single movement. She stopped with her feet apart and her body oriented toward Yuki, her back to Takeshi. She wasn't carrying any visible weapons. She simply stood between the two of them, arms loose at her sides, eyes fixed on Yuki.
The tag floated above her head.
[AOI MIZUHARA]
[Life: 100%]
[Sanity: 90%]
[Confidence: 100%]
The chat reacted.
[AOI]
[Aoi showed up]
[didn't expect her here]
[I did]
[FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT]
Yuki stopped and looked at Aoi. Her expression didn't change.
"Move."
Yuki said in an icy voice.
"No."
Aoi replied.
Aoi's tone wasn't aggressive, but there was no room for negotiation.
Yuki looked at Aoi for a moment. Then she looked at Takeshi over Aoi's shoulder and back at Aoi.
"This isn't your business."
Yuki said.
"You made it my business when you pulled out the daggers."
Aoi replied.
The tension between the two was visible. Yuki had the daggers in her hands and kept staring at Aoi with that cold expression. Aoi hadn't moved from where she had stopped. Neither of them said anything for several seconds.
'Shit, what do I do now?!'
Yuki raised the dagger in her right hand.
Suddenly, a voice came from the corner of the training field.
"What's going on here?"
The three people in the strip of ground turned their heads at the same time.
An adult woman was standing at the corner of the field, a folder clutched under her arm. Her hair was tied back and she wore a faculty uniform. Her eyes went straight to the daggers in Yuki's hands.
"Tachibana."
The teacher said in a flat, direct voice.
"Put those away. Now."
Yuki lowered her gaze to the daggers. She looked at Aoi and Takeshi, then slowly made the daggers disappear without saying a word.
The teacher looked at the three of them in order.
"All three of you, with me."
No one answered.
The teacher was already turning toward the building, expecting them to follow without giving them the option not to.
Takeshi looked at Aoi's back. She was still standing in front of him without having moved from where she had stopped, while Yuki stood a few steps away with her eyes still fixed on him.
In the end, he followed the teacher.