until your breathing stops (ayano x budo)

chapter two

Taro lies in bed, wide awake.

He can't sleep, for he is haunted with visions of flinty grey eyes and silky black hair, of a girl who's stare was cold enough to freeze hell.

He sighs, holding his palm to his flushed, warm cheek, a delirious smile on his face, imagining what could be—

Then his phone buzzes.

???: Ayano Aishi. An interesting choice.

Taro: Who are you? Why do you have my number?

???: I could be your strongest ally... or your worst enemy.

Taro: Cut to the chase. What do you want from me?

???: I go by Info-Chan. I'm willing to offer you information about your new flame.

Taro: I've heard of you. Everything you deal comes with a price, yeah? And it's usually nothing good.

???: I see my reputation precedes me.

Taro: It does. Delete my number.

???: Wouldn't you like to know what I have to say first?

Taro: Fine. Talk.

???: I saw how you looked at Masuta when he spoke to your kouhai. You want to eliminate him, do you not? What if I could tell you who else could pose a threat to your pursuit of Ayano, and how to get rid of them?

Taro: ...

Taro: What's it gonna cost me?

-

Ayano only slept because she had to.

If it were up to her, she wouldn't need to sleep— it was a waste of time. Instead, she turns on her desktop, and considers calling her parents. Her cursor hovers above the video chat icon, before ultimately deciding that it would be unwise.

Her mother, after all, would pose some... intrusive questions.

Instead, she opens Kaobook. Her timeline is rather uneventful— Sakyu Basu and Midori Gurin have both posted useless questions, and Musume Ronshaku is gossiping, so there was nothing to see. She was about to shut off her PC and go to bed...

Except the "Friends" icon in the corner had just lit up.

You have (2) friend requests!

Sleep could wait.

She clicked on the icon, wondering who it could be— she wasn't exactly popular, and never really posted on social media, anyway.

Budo Masuta sent you a friend request!

Taro Yamada sent you a friend request!

She should've known that Masuta was going to be one of them— she had pegged him as the persistent type, and it appeared that she was right.

Yamada, however, was a mystery.

Ayano instantly recognized him as the boy she'd bumped into that morning, but why was he sending her a friend request? He seemed like a longer— she'd never seen him before, and he only had a small handful of Kaobook friends. Why reach out to her?

She was probably reading too much into it. She approved both requests and went to bed.

-

The next morning was ordinary, as always. She woke up at six, made her bed, got dressed, ate breakfast, and set off for school, arriving at seven. There was no running into random boys on the street, so it had been a normal day thus far.