Tōkan looks up and watches his friend walk from the door to the rooftop over to where he is and sit next to him, leaning back and staring at the sky. "Hey."

"Not feeling like school today?"

"—oh, so the miasma didn't touch you? Okay, that's a lot less bad than it could've been."

"Miasma?" He reaches for the pack of cigarettes and Tōkan offers him it and his lighter.

"It was kind of funny. I was walking into school and towards class and there was this... bubble. No one wanted to get too close to me. Unreal." Puff puff exhale.

"...no, no miasma. Couple of people were looking at me a bit funny but no one was shunning me actively like that. Holy shit."

Shrug. "It's irritating, and most irritating of all was how it just kinda happened all of a sudden. I'll need to eventually figure out what to do about it but..." He forces a grin. "It is rather despair-inducing for stuff to happen like that with no warning."

"What... would a warning have looked like?"

"Tami-chan telling me that her boyfriend was acting kinda grumpy, and Ishiyo mentioning later that she'd seen him and Karato having an argument the other day. Naoko passing me a note in class. Taro stealing nervous glances between me and Takuo. Hōji yelling at me earlier, she's really not the kind to bottle things up and I have no idea how this managed to just suddenly explode."

"...dude you're kind of scary." He puffs deeply from the cigarette and blows it out. "Maybe she just kind of decided it in the heat of the moment?"

"Nah. Doesn't fit."

"What doesn't fit?"

He takes a deep breath and shrugs. "Dunno. Could try to think about it but a lot of this shit is kinda subconscious, you know? When stuff fits it clicks. When the little models of people I have in my head start saying the same things they said in real life, when everyone makes sense. Everyone doesn't make sense right now."

The door out opens again and two girls poke their heads through then start walking towards the boys. "Hey," says the taller one.

"—hi, Naoko-chan, Tami-chan. What are you two doing here?"

"Vibe's off downstairs," says Naoko, sitting down on the floor. "Feels like someone's died."

"...dunno that I'd say that, but... yeah. Kinda."

...why does he feel like crying. This is so fucking stupid. Ugh he's having the same problem Inori does with processing his emotions in public, isn't he?

He leans back and shuts his eyes so that they won't see it if a traitorous tear escapes an eye, and blows some smoke up to the heavens. "Not gonna lie, I'm really happy the two of you are here."

"Why?"

"Kinda thought I'd have no one left in my corner other than Subaru."

"Bullcrap, Kokonoe," grumbles Naoko, opening her bag and grabbing two bentō boxes out of it. "You're not gonna find me kissing the ass of Hirune fucking Hōji and her cronies."

"She's got cronies, now?"

"Seems like it, yeah. Kind of funny that she used to be your crony. What even happened back then, you haven't been together in months and now there's the thing with Yamada and then Friday..."

"—she and Karato tried to rape a middle schooler having her first heat and Inori ran into them and beat them up, I was mad at them, they kept making excuses."

"You're... dating the guy who beat them up? Damn."