autorejoin | Memory Writeups for AFD

It sure doesn't seem like he is. Instead of looking up at Katou, he takes out a pencil and starts taking notes in the margin of his workbook.

"I said no," he replies mildly, still not making eye contact.

Katou glances back at the teacher, decides not to push his luck too hard. "We'll try this again after class," he informs Kira before sauntering out. Might as well get to his own class, Katou figures, though there was a vanishingly small chance he'd even pay any attention at all.

Kira doesn't lift his head, but his eyes do track Katou to the door, and then the shadow of his body moving outside the glazed windows down the hall. Will he honestly be back? Time will tell, he supposes.

In any case, he doesn't leave the classroom after the bell rings. Almost like he's testing to see if it was a lie.

Class was every bit as boring as Katou had known it would be. Annoying, too, with getting in trouble for showing up late. Whatever, at least he'd shown up this time. You'd think he'd get at least some credit for it. Teachers! Who understood them?

Anyway, he had not forgotten his promise— threat? nah, more like a promise— to go back to Kira this morning. So he walks right back over to the classroom, and is... actually pretty surprised the guy stuck around. Huh. Didn't he have any activities?

"So," Katou says from the doorway. "How about that cigarette?"

Kira sets down the book he's been reading as Katou marches into the doorway, asking about a cigarette. Kids look up from their respective circles in groups of twos and threes. At least he's not the only one curious.

I'll be damned. Whoever heard of a golden-haired shadow?

"Depends. How about you give me something first."

Katou raises an eyebrow at the comment. "You got anything in mind?"

He's kind of curious where this kid's going with this. At least he's interesting. He'd halfway expected that either Kira would ignore him, or else he'd beat him up again.

"You could start with a name, dummy."

Considering that, you know. He only knows him as The Punk with the Lighter.

Katou lets out an honest laugh at that. Somehow, he hadn't been expecting that request.

"The name's Katou," The Punk with the Lighter informs Kira. He considers throwing his given name in there for only a brief moment before pushing the idea aside. It's not like he ever uses the damned thing, anyway.

Even from a young age, Kira was an uncannily perceptive child, and it doesn't skip his notice that "Katou" has only given him his family name, and not given one. He taps his pencil against his desk, using his index finger to see-saw it over his middle, as he considers bribing Katou for it: the cigarette for his first name. But that's a pretty cheap trade. He can do better than that.

"This is a little much for just a cigarette, don't you think? You were the one who dropped it, after all, Katou-kun. Why should I replace it?"

The hilarious thing is, Katou wouldn't have taken that trade. Not that it's difficult to find it out, it's not like no one in the school knows it, but— he hates it so much.

"Because I wouldn't have dropped it in the first place if it weren't for you," comes the response. Honestly, Katou's not even dead set on it— he wants the cigarette, sure, but he's more interested in the guy he's trying to get it from.

Kira is not convinced at all by that answer, or by the tough-guy persona Katou's trying to wear. But this is interesting. He can play along a little, for a distraction.

"All right. You want your cigarette so bad... meet me after lunch, during break. Behind the bike racks."

Katou tilts his head to the side for a moment, considering that. "You've got yourself a deal."

He has no idea what Kira's planning. If it's a beatdown, it seems like a pretty elaborate way to do it. Shit, maybe he'll actually give him the cigarette.

"See you then!" And then he's sauntering out of the classroom again.

It's not a beat down. Kira is sitting in the shade of the covered bike racks on an empty space on top of the parallel bar people chain their bikes to. His chin rests in a hand propped up by his elbow on his knee; the other hand idly flicks his zippo lighter open, closed, open, closed.

"You're late," he says as he catches sight of Katou. There's an unlit cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.

Katou raises an eyebrow at that assessment. "Right, by a minute," he drawls, stretching out the last word. "Shit, give a guy enough chance to walk."

Now he's halfway wondering if Kira even bothered to eat lunch before showing up. Whatever, it's not his business. "Got my cigarette?"

Sometimes Kira skips his meal, yeah, and today was one of those days. It wouldn't be a problem if he could just eat the cafeteria food, but his dad is still strident about this issue. It's just weird--having your dad pack your lunch for you, knowing it's supposed to be your mom that does that instead. And thinking that all of your classmates have to know it, too. He knows that it hurts his Dad, sees it in the way his skin wrinkles at the corners of his eyes when Kira refuses to take it or doesn't eat it. But it's one of the few things that he does that upsets his father that's not intentional.

So, yeah. Kira's chosen to go hungry today. So what? It's not a thing he'd expect anyone to understand, so he doesn't talk about it.

"Maybe don't walk so slowly next time," Kira responds, digging into his pocket, getting out his carton of smokes. "Yeah, I've got your cigarette." He lets one dangle between his fingers. "But only if you're gonna let me borrow a light this time, for real."

Katou, on the other hand, always greedily eats his meals. It's not that his parents don't feed him— usually, at least— so much as he's a growing boy who can never seem to eat enough. (It's cafeteria food because of course it is, though his mom does sometimes try to make him lunches. He usually tells her he's not fucking interested, and his dad hits him while his mom tries not to look like she's about to cry. She does that a lot.)

Anyway, when he hears Kira's request, it's— Easy. Startlingly so. He digs through his pockets for a moment before pulling out his lighter and holding it out.

"Sure, why not," he says casually. Is this seriously all it would take?

It's not that Kira's not hungry, mind you. His body is already starting to go through some heavy growth spurts. But he has an unnatural amount of self control, the kind that you can only get from being a supernatural being. And he also knows that if he goes around the station arcades after school and looks cute, there's usually some obaasan or another willing to feed him taiyaki and other odds and ends. (Pretty soon, it won't be obaasan feeding him but high school girls and young women. But for now, anyway, this is the arrangement.

Kira makes the trade, easy, lighting up after handing over the cigarette. "I'm surprised you came alone. I could have jumped you again, you know." And here he thought he was the only kid around here who didn't have any friends. It's pretty curious. "You hate everyone, or something?"

Katou waves a hand dismissively. "I don't hate everyone," he says, though most people is implied in the way he says it. Which is true, generally speaking. Most people pretty much fucking suck.

He takes a drag of his own cigarette. "Anyway, I figured maybe you were coming out here to kick my ass, maybe not. Didn't have anything to lose either way. Worse that happens, I get banged up again. Best case, I get a cigarette. Somewhere in between the two, maybe I'd kick your ass this time."

Though he's perfectly aware how likely that last option isn't.

"I was interested to see which way it'd be. Less fun if there's other people following me."

"You're a pretty strange guy, not caring if you'd get a cigarette or get beat up. You look like a gorilla whaled on you already. Anyway," he says, taking a drag on his cigarette and then letting it go, "the only reason I beat you up yesterday was because you started shit with me."

Well. Not the only reason, but the primary: Kira is a lot of things, and people like to call him a thug, but the truth is that he doesn't go out and start fights, most of the time. Usually they find him just fine, between his own luck and Setsuna's.

"Anybody who starts shit with me or mine, I end it. That's all."

Two fucking gorillas whaled on him. Kira and— But he's not actually bothered by it, if he's going to be honest with himself. Not Kira, anyway. (The other, though, that never stopped bothering him. Not my father.)

"That's fair," Katou says agreeably, because he means it. "Gotta respect a guy who won't take anyone's shit." Not even his own. "You're kinda different from how I thought you'd be."

Kira is not a gorilla, he is an ancient, undying spirit in the body of a thirteen year old boy. And unlike Katou's dad, he's not a sadist who gets his jollies on beating Katou.

"Yeah, I kind of got that from yesterday. You thought I'd just be some kind of doormat you and anybody else could walk all over, right?"

True, being an undying spirit is infinitely better than being Katou's dad. At least the sword's not an abusive prick.

"Basically." Katou nods, takes another puff of his cigarette. "Truth's more interesting than fiction, though."

Who would think that the guy with high scores also goes around pissing off his teachers, smoking, and apparently being able to beat the shit out of people? Shit, why hadn't he paid attention to this guy sooner?

"It usually is. Although sometimes truth is just as strange as fiction." Or, stranger; for just a moment Kira tries to entertain what Katou's--or anyone's--reaction would be if they knew the whole truth.

But the fiction--the fiction, the reason that Katou probably hadn't paid attention to him before now--that's what keeps him safe.

"So what now? You got your cigarette. Or are you going to try to play it off that you're waiting around for another one?"

Katou flat-out wouldn't believe Kira's truth, not as a thirteen year old whose life experiences, though decidedly unpleasant, were still mundane. Though he believes in spirits— not that he'd fucking tell anyone that— he wouldn't believe that this guy was just a sword in a meat suit.

Who'd want to waste part of their eternity as a thirteen year old in school?

At Kira's question, Katou shrugs. He hadn't actually planned farther than "Get a cigarette out of this guy," as far as "He seems interesting to me" goes.

"I dunno," he said honestly. "I was gonna hang out with Youji and a couple of the other guys after school, if you wanted to join us."

Of course he wouldn't. But even if he did, it would be dangerous for the both of them: risking attracting Heaven's or medical professionals' attention. Kira can't afford to end up locked in a psych ward somewhere. So either way, it's lose-lose to tell him.

Kira cocks his head slightly at the invitation. "You're asking me to hang out with you and your friends?" It's... been seven years since the last time anyone asked him, genuinely, to do something like that. He can't help but feel a thread of suspicion. "Is this some kind of a prank?"

Memory Writeups for AFD

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