Chapter Text
Am I a villain in your story?
***
You try not to sweat when he sits next to you in this class. It is not his beauty that does you in—although there is plenty of it to go around—but the smile that never quite reaches his eyes.
"Good evening, Misaki. How are you tonight?" He asks. "It's awfully hot this evening."
How does one predict that their night business classes will become torture? If you had known about meeting him, perhaps you would have waited to get this extra certificate for work.
But, now, there is no time for regrets.
You swallow the grit in your throat. Your father liked hunting, although it was a highly regulated in Japan. He had taught you young that you should be wary of a predator who stares you straight in the face. He never told you why, but it sure sounded wise.
"I'm fine. It is quite hot," you reply politely enough and yet his stare is the thing that's scorching you. Your fingers are already working at the clip that holds your hair back. The lecture room has a decent fan and you would actually love to keep your hair up. But it is too risky when he comes. With your hair back, your throat is exposed to him. Skin beneath those green eyes don't stand a chance. Your long hair falls like a curtain to shield you from him. It will be your greatest asset in class. His smiles falters for only a half second as he watches you. You find a way to make a joke of it. "Although I need to go to the hairdresser soon. My hair has grown so long that it becomes too heavy on the back of my head. I'm sure you understand that problem."
It is always better to pin the attention back on him. Can he feel your heart racing? Can he feel how different it is from your other classmates, who often sneak glances at him from afar?
He has long glorious locks. His hair is never frizzy even in the relentless humidity. He touches the red lock that frames one side of his face, but the gesture is almost an afterthought. His movements are so strange, but you never dare to voice that aloud. It's better like this. You made your first mistake when you met him and let the chill of his gaze sink in too deeply. He has been chasing you ever since.
"Perhaps I should cut mine as well," he says. He is off handed, so casual that it makes your teeth hurt. You force your bemused smile to stay on your face despite the fact that there is a blizzard of unsettled emotions inside you.
Things hadn't always been this way. You were not a careful woman.
That had been your first mistake with Shuichi Minamino.
And God, you were still paying for it.
It was two months ago.
***
"It's drinks," Sakura had argued fiercely. "It's not like I'm asking for your kidney."
Knowing you, you would probably give your old college friend your kidney. Drinks with your new classmates though? Your eyes shift past her shoulders to see the loose group of classmates that collect at the entrance of the building. You are all in a business course that meets twice a week. Mostly everyone in the class is age twenty-three and above, a wild mix of characters that's unlike the typical educational system you grew up with. You hadn't known night classes really existed until your company decided to hand over a promotion.
It had taken everything to grit your teeth together when your mildly sexist boss looked at you up and down to ask, "I mean, are you sure you can handle this and your job?"
You said icily that you could.
And you had been sure of that until the redhead walked into the room. Sakura catches you staring and wiggles her eyebrows, mistaking your wary look for interest.
"Super cute, right? Thinks he's like in architecture of something. He was a genius who skipped university to take a job with the family company or something."
Her words are like a hammer driving in the nail to your coffin. You can practically hear the smack of metal through splintering wood. Your throat constricts. It's harder to breathe.
If you can just get through tonight though... You can let Sakura or one of the pretty women in this class cozy up to the redhead. Judging from their looks, they're more than willing to take on that task for you.
"Fine." It's such a simple response and it seals your fate. You march with Sakura to the door. She floats like a butterfly into the group. Some of the older students, proper salary men and women who are just desperate for sleep, have broken off. Your group is ten. Maybe, you wonder hopefully, a bar can't handle your whole group. Maybe you will get separated. It was a miracle that Sakura ended up in a different company but the same business course. You could leave her to deal with the redhead. Scheming in your head, you chat idly as you trail behind *him*. He speaks casually to the man next to him. You are not fooled. The creeping chill in your stomach and the twist of your insides... they have never lied to you.
And this beautiful god of a man? He seems like the type to have secrets.
You hate secrets.
Sakura links your arm with hers. The group finds a bar. You curse the fact that this bar is more than willing to find a drinking room for you.
"How lucky," the owner says with a smile as she waves everyone in, "Our other group cancelled. You can take their room. They were supposed to be twelve."
Oh, yes, how lucky. You bite your tongue until you nearly draw blood. The metallic tease of it is somehow soothing.
It is possible that you may be a psychopath, you realize. He hasn't uttered a word to you yet. He just took the seat next to you in class because it was open. You went all rigid even during his polite introduction when everyone in the class went around to introduce themselves.
Poor guy, you haven't even given him a chance. This is your heart talking.
Run the fuck away. This is your gut. You love food and the idea of intuition, so your stomach rarely leads you astray.
Your classmates arrange themselves. You smile playfully at Sakura as you place her closer to her beautiful prize. Thankfully, he took a seat across the table and one person down from Sakura, but distance gives you comfort.
You ease into the beer. It flows nice and cold through your lips. The night goes on. Sakura, you find, has moved her place. When did that happen? You drank your first beer too fast. She switched places with another woman to get closer to the redhead and now, she's asking her target for a light for her cigarette.
He politely shakes his head. He doesn't smoke. You see the slight pang of disappointment in Sakura's face. She always loved a bad boy and the barely touched beer in front of the pretty man bodes badly for her. You snicker to yourself and turn to your other classmates, a young man who shares a similar taste in books.
"I find thrillers to be my favorite," you tell him. You have already forgotten his name. Maybe Arata? A nice normal name with a boring face that didn't inspire bodily stress. "I particularly like an unexpected villain.”
Arata leans forward. He is on his second beer, but he's already said that he has a girlfriend. You likely won't have to worry about him unless he turns out to be a crazy pervert after five beers. "An unexpected villain?"
The room quiets just as he asks it. Eyes prick the back of your neck. You had turned your back on Sakura and her new conquest. A stupid decision really. You grit your teeth and muster up a smile as the others dive back into discussion, although the woman across the table leans forward, seemingly intrigued. You pray the redhead isn't listening.
"Yes, like a well-written woman who ends up being the murderer," you explain as Arata pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Or a crazy child or something."
"What wild taste," the woman adds, chiming into your conversation. You can tell from her eyes that she means you no harm. She likes that you've said something interesting. It's so hard to cut through the bullshit at these things. "I read a story once where the child ended up murdering the father of the family. It ended up being that he was possessed by a demon or something." She taps her chin, the shiny gloss of her lips catching the light from the bar. "You know, I can't remember the name of it..."
"I wish you could," you confess to her. You like the weird books.
"Demons," Arata snorts until he nearly guffaws. His cheeks are pinker as he nears the end of his second glass. "What a load of crap."
You are not so sure, but you don't say it. That's too weird, far stranger than admitting to liking villains that go beyond slighted man. You don't want anyone to know that sometimes you feel shivers you can't explain after passing graveyards.
But when you turn to grab your beer, a pair of green eyes connect with yours.
This is your mistake. He is perfectly aligned so that you should just be casually meeting his eyes. He's positioned himself to be open to all of the room though, which strikes you as odd. It's like... like he's putting on a play.
Is every classmate an audience? Sakura misses his stare at you as she lights her cigarette, clearly successful in her search for a lighter among the party.
He smiles gently at you. It is overly kind and cold at the same time. It is like a lamb with sharp teeth. You grip your glass as your throat dries up.
It is already too late. A second has passed. Nobody else sees it. You try to smile, but it is half-hearted, and you force yourself away from his look. You have to because if you stare at him any longer, you’re afraid that you’ll open your mouth to scream and never stop. How does nobody else see?
This is your downfall. You have not convinced him that he has done a good job at performing. He fools everyone but you.
And you know this, because that night, he lingers outside with a few stragglers as everyone leaves. He is not the straggler type. Sakura is stubbornly trying to play both this pretty boy who gives you the creeps and another handsome fellow, a brunette whose name you failed to catch. She slyly asks the brunette about his plans for the fall, leaving you to deal with the redhead.
Red. You try to blot out images of spilled blood and gushing fruit being squeezed in a powerful fist.
"I overheard your conversation. Your name is Misaki, right?" he asks casually.
You nod numbly. "Shuichi, yes?" Your voice comes out steady at least. He really is too pretty up close. His eyes are hard to look at even at night. They were like glinting hard gems underneath the fluorescent light of your classroom earlier today.
What did those eyes see?
"Yes," he nods and smiles easily, as if the memory of his name pleases him. You wonder why your skin is screaming to get away from him. He is an enchanting sight with all the promise of a ticking time bomb. You are pulled like a moth to his light and yet, your stomach stands its ground. Your insides cramp. "I quite enjoyed your take on unconventional villains."
Unconventional. He words your fondness even better than you did.
"And you—" You stop yourself before the question can fire out of your mouth. You had wanted to ask, "And you're one of those villains, aren't you?"
Instead, you settle on, "And you came from your father's company?"
His nostrils flair for a second. Prey picking up blood. You're sweating straight out of your shoes, a pair of worn sandals with a kitten heel. It's hard to tell if it's the heat from the late summer or him.
It's him, your gut says.
Your heart says that frigid women never catch a man, but you're not sure that your heart has done the necessary calculations here. He is beautiful, yes, but he is dangerous. There is something lurking beneath his performance.
"Yes, my father's company," Shuichi replies easily. "It's wonderful to know that this course will have interesting classmates. I must confess that I was afraid this course might be filled with ancient salarymen for the entire year."
You have to spend a year with this motherfucker.
It's either heaven or hell. Your body is at war, undecided on what.
A deeper part of you realizes that it is both: pain with pleasure.
"I'm happy too," you say.
This had been your second mistake. You lied.
***
Even now, when he sits next to you today, you think that you are smarter. Not smarter than him but getting smarter, at least.
Everyone is part of his audience. That’s the key. You wonder if that’s his whole life.
You become great at maneuvering around him. He has a pattern that you figure out during the end of the second month. Summer fades to early fall and he turns out to be predictable like the seasons. He goes out for drinks precisely three times a month. He favors Tuesday evenings. He shows up just enough to make everyone happy, but not enough to satisfy the bleeding hearts who still pine for him.
Sakura was thankfully over him after a few weeks. She met someone from work.
When you casually ask her about her old redheaded crush, she can't explain why her flame for him died so fast.
You think you can.
How can you fall in love with someone when they're wearing a mask?
You puzzle that during class tonight along with the number of mistakes you have made around this beautiful bastard. There were the first two in the initial meeting, ones that you often turned over in the depths of your mind during hot baths. Why couldn't you just have smiled correctly the first time? Why hadn't you just said something coy instead of lying?
Of course, you worry that you were making all this up. You are too bored at work. The pretty man next to you, who was once a beautiful boy, is just a regular person underneath it all. He suspects nothing about your feelings, because he was normal. The only going through his mind must be, Wow, what the fuck did I do to this woman for her to be this frosty with me?
He had given you distance after the first meeting. The next few weeks after that bar trip, you had avoided sitting beside him at drinks until fate struck her mighty blow one night. She was a cruel mistress. You failed to wriggle from her grasp.
***
You found yourself next to him on his left side. It is awful because you must turn and show off your right side to engage with him. You prefer letting your hair fall on the left side of your face. There is no shield against his all-seeing eyes.
Shuichi smiles politely and asks you about your hobbies. You manage to inform him that you enjoy literature, yoga, and visiting bakeries on your days off. The last one is a lie. You weren't even sure why you told it. It just feels better… like an extra thick sweater to wear over your psyche around him. He tells you that he enjoys gardening and photography. You try to imagine him in a gardener's hat, but it feels all wrong.
Sakura asked you after that night what happened between you two. You told her the truth.
"Nothing."
It was your third mistake. You failed to realize what you'd done.
***
Two weeks later, Shuichi had brought a box of sweets to class. He says his mother stopped by this bakery yesterday and told him to bring it to class. They have dinner every Monday night, a fact which causes every woman but you to let out an adoring sound.
"Mignon. Classy and French," Sakura says when she sees the box and grins at Shuichi. "I go there all the time, but I can never get Misaki to go with me. She doesn't like sweets much." She means it as playful ribbing—a blissful way to include her friend in conversation—but his eyes are on you before you can stop the strangled little sound your throat produces.
Because at that moment, he knows that that you lied.
Had you imagined the slight rise of the corner of his lips? No, it had been there.
He knows. He knows you know.
***
And now, here you were, sweating with your hair down and praying that your deodorant has lasted through the day.
That's the worst part about him. You still want to be attractive to him because he is very, very pretty. You used to collect dolls as a girl. He might be nice to add to your collection. The thought of him as an inanimate doll soothes you. You imagine returning to your childhood home in the countryside and placing him on your shelf with the other beautiful faces. It would feel much better, to have him there and not here.
The professor calls for a break. There are a few people out sick tonight. Many get up to use the bathroom. You zone out. Shuichi shifts in his seat next to you and suddenly, his elegant finger taps your paper.
Your eyes drift down. Without realizing it, you had written, "To love someone without a mask?"
"A decidedly interesting thing to make note of during a class on supply management," he says amusedly. You turn to him, eyes widening slightly. His voice teems with an edge you have never heard. It is gone as soon as his bright face looks at you. He has yanked you from behind the protection of your hair fortress. What a wily creature. "I must wonder though... is it a question of if it's possible to love someone like that or if it's simply wise to love them?"
"Possible," you say as fast as gunfire. It is best to no longer lie to him, you decide. He is too clever for this.
For the first time, his coy smile is laced with true satisfaction. It makes your stomach do a worried flip. He has won something, but you don't know what.
"And what do you think the answer is to such a question?" He asks innocently. All his stupid questions are innocent. Damn him to all the layers of hell, if such a place existed. You are on the edge of your seat like a quivering doe. Why couldn't you have wandered off to get a stupid canned coffee?
There is nobody around you. Only Arata is in the class at the front with the teacher, asking a question about something on a slide.
Does it truly matter if you answer honestly?
The curl of his lips suggests that falsehoods are not wise. You swallow and wonder how such angelic looks can contain such dark mystery. It is best not to find out. You may not be able to face what is underneath the cloak he wears.
"I think it's not possible," you reply, nice and blunt like an unsharpened blade. "You can never get close to such a person. How are you supposed to love a shadow?"
He stares at you for one second longer than is acceptable. Or, maybe that's your paranoia talking. You wonder if a trip to a psychologist is in order for you. Clearly, you are making things up in your head.
"Perhaps you're right." His answer is short. He eases into his seat and stares up at the front of the room. His eyes do not leave the professor once during the rest of the class. When the evening is finished, he deviates from his schedule. He does not stay for drinks despite it being Tuesday, even as Sakura playfully calls out to him from down the hallway. You can hear her voice. She trusts him, an unwitting audience member who has bought the act.
"Not staying tonight?”
You cannot hear his reply, but you see Sakura shrugging as she walks in.
"His loss. More beer for us," she tells your classmates who agree to go out for drinks. You try to put the conversation with Shuichi out of your mind. You go to the bar and laugh with your classmates. Arata seems genuinely interested in today's lesson, sometimes managing to find a clever way to circle back around to supply management chains.
You walk home alone since Sakura lives in the opposite direction. A podcast plays in your ear. You listen to a man who is successful talk about how to be successful.
"You've got to stay on your toes," the man advises you. "Be ready for anything."
You get to your apartment complex. When you walk up to the third floor, there is nobody around. Your upstairs neighbor will be smoking on her balcony. You unlock your door, throw your shoes off, and waltz into your small apartment.
Red greets you.
A red rose on your balcony. It is the most beautiful, heart-wrenching thing and it turns your blood to ice. You cannot stop the pull of its call to you. You press your face against the glass of the sliding balcony doors until you realize that you're being foolish since you can just open the damn doors.
The rose is sitting there. Just sitting there.
You glance to the side and up above. Your neighbor is still smoking above you, but she's an older woman with a healthy sexual appetite for men if the paper-thin walls tell you anything. She's certainly not dropping any flowers on your balconies.
"I live on the third floor," you tell Sakura when you call her. Why are you calling her? Your voice sounds panicked, even to you. It’s hard to chat with shaking hands. "Someone would have to be in my apartment or climb to my balcony to leave it."
Sakura yawns on the other line. "Your neighbor probably had a bouquet from one of her lovers and just liked accidentally dropped it. Or the wind carried it. Seriously, you sound deranged. You're usually the one telling me to logic my ways out of problem." She sighs. “Don’t worry about it.”
The petals are far too pristine. This was a gift.
Or a warning.
But you suppose empathy from Sakura can't be expected when you have never told her about your strange dealings with Shuichi. Or that he has a love of gardening. You glare down at the traitorous gorgeous bloom, as red as his hair underneath your classroom lights. Well, one of you didn't lie about their hobbies, if it was him...
And you don't know why, but you stamp that flower into the ground until it's nothing but an ugly pulp of a thing staining the stone outside your apartment. You clean it up with bleach because the red petals managed to leave a tiny stain. Such a powerful flower. You bury the destroyed flower in your trash under a takeout container and vow to take it to the incinerator within your building the very next day.
Sleep does not come easily tonight. You dream of a silver-haired man dashing through a forest, blood red roses, dark laughter, and all the terrible mistakes you have made.