「Calc.」ShinAya oneshot

 Things couldn't get any more normal than this. 

His old semi-gel slowed to a stop on the ruled pad's smooth surface, hovering over the last line of an unfinished song. He stared at it, a tiny crease forming between his eyebrows, at the drabble of words that had spilled out of his pen. His foot stopped tapping out a rhythm. 

"Whattheheckisthis . . . "

A skirt-pleated hip bumped against his table, making one of his scattered pens wobble and drop to the floor. He glared at the girl who had just averted her gaze. As the classmate stepped to the side and disappeared from his view, he adjusted in his seat and tore off the paper, crunching the sheet to form a ball in his hand.

There was a silent "Oh" and Shintaro turned, locking eyes with his other female classmate to the left. A girl sporting a red scarf was staring at him incredulously, her dark brown hair contrasting with the window view outside. She bit her lip as if expecting to be scolded.

"What."

It was a statement, not a question, the first of words they had exchanged for the day other than an ignored "Good morning, Shintarou-kun" from her. He held her stare until she seemed to realize he wasn't going to say anything anymore, and she turned away with an embarrassed blush. 

"Well . . . " she hesitated, fiddling with the edge of her muffler. "That was a good line, why did you crumple it up?"

He raised an eyebrow. "A good line?"

Her head bobbed a little.

Shintaro rolled his eyes, picking up his pen and placing the ball in front of him. "You don't have any taste in song. The whole thing was just too sappy."

"It was not!" Without a warning, Ayano's hand shot out and grabbed the paper ball from his desk.

"Hey! Give it back!" He reached for his lyrics but she had turned her back on him, deeply immersed in his song. She didn't seem to have any intention of returning it. 

An annoyed exhale escaped from his nostrils as Shintaro cupped his cheek with a knuckle. She knew he wrote about random things: songs, poems, and sometimes even stories, and was always pestering him to show her his writings. Never had anyone been interested in his drabbles. Except Ayano. He could bravely show them to the whole class, on the internet where he could hide behind a username, or even to his sister, but he knew deep inside his heart that he'll never find the courage to show them to the primary subject of his works. 

Lifting his chin, he told her, "Like I said, it's a mess of sappy junk. They don't mean anything at all." Shintaro stared at her backside expecting a retort, a criticism, anything but praise. He stared until the contrast of her black-uniformed figure against the brightness of the window burned into his retina.

She wasn't supposed to see it.

But it was too late now. 

"Are you done yet? It's just an eight-liner, you can't possibly read that sl--"

"Will you still keep this?" Ayano asked weakly. Her voice seemed to coming from somewhere distant.

"The paper's already ruined anyway, so I've got no more use for it. Why?"

Her shoulders began to shake and Shintaro thought she was crying. But then he realized what she was doing when she faced him again.

"Here," Ayano said, placing the paper crane on his desk. The wings were wrinkled from where his hand had crumpled it, but somehow she had maintained its proper shape.

"So that you won't have to throw it out, meaning you'll have to continue it!" She smiled her summery smile.

Shintaro negated it with a bored expression. "And if I don't?"

"W-well . . . I'll h-help you then!! C'mon, tell me what's this song all about. We'll finish it together."

"What makes you think you can finish it? Anyway, the whole idea was mine, so you're practically clueless on the subject."

He really was an expert in hiding his true feelings.

"We can continue it if you'd just tell me the subject, Shintaro-kun. There's no harm in trying."

He gave her a sharp glare that hurt his eyes more due to the window's brightness. "No way. This is basically MY privacy."

Ayano's smile faded, as a defeated exhale escaped through her nose. She sat back in her chair. 

"You know, Shintaro-kun, the world's not just what you see with your eyes. Sometimes you have to look what's beyond, or behind it. Because not everybody hasn't experienced a life-changing pain unlike--"

"If you're trying to sermon me again about those kinds of stuff, I SWEAR I'll shut up." He copied her stance and stared at the blackboard, where there was still no sensei standing in front of it. "I've had enough your useless reflections."

He could almost see his words stabbing holes in her heart, but for now he didn't really care anymore. She was the one who always tried to be closer to him.

Well, that's what she asked for by talking to the one named Kisaragi Shintaro.

The wrinkled paper crane sat abandoned on his desk, its gray shadow growing longer with every silent second that passed unceremoniously between them. He wished the sensei would hurry up and dismiss the class. He was itching to go online and check the top uploads list on a certain music-sharing site.

"Those lyrics you wrote," as Ayano restarted a conversation, "I don't really think they were that sappy."

"Hmmerm."

"I think the proper term is 'soulful'". 

"Uh . . . right."

Out of his peripheral vision, he noticed her quick glance at him before turning back to the front. "And whoever that song is dedicated to," she continued, "is a really lucky person."

Shintaro couldn't help but supress a smile. He met her eyes, and for a few seconds longer than usual, he held her gaze.

"Yeah . . . " he said finally. "A really lucky person."

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 (AN) Basically the song that Shintaro "wrote" was Calc.