[Log] Tachibana An & Kamio Akira

[bana_an_na]

Who: Tachibana An & Kamio Akira
What: Kamio and An have a heart to heart.
When: Somewhere mid May
Where: An's apartment
Rating: PG

After reading Kamio’s conversation with her Brother, An knew that they really needed to talk. Somehow she knew that more than one topic would pop up but she really needed to make him understand how she felt and maybe she needed to understand where Kamio was coming from as well.

She knew the things he did or said was always coming  from a good place but even so she still felt her stomach summersault. Their friendship meant so much to her that she was worried how after talking things would turn out.

Letting out a sigh, she hugged her pillow and and looked through her phone, eyeing  the hour Kamio would be arriving soon.

Ever since they were kids, An-chan made Kamio nervous. Now he wasn’t just nervous; he was nervous. His excitable mind Tarzan-swung from possibility to possibility, each vine weaker and more anxiety-inducing than the last.

But Kamio Akira didn’t run away from the things that scared him, especially not when it came to his friends. He must have done something wrong. In his mind he sort of understood what he did wrong. It was just difficult to hold back when finally someone would understand.

That’s an excuse, he told himself as he shifted his weight from foot to foot outside of Mikiya Manor. Instead of making any further excuses, he texted An to inform her about his (somewhat early) arrival.

The vibration from her phone and notification of a message made An sit up. The name Akira flashed and she got up with another sigh  rubbing at her face once before slipping on her shoes and opening up the door for her redhead friend.

As she went downstairs she tried to stay calm and not think about it too much, she didn’t want to make Kamio more nervous than he probably was with some sort of weird face or something she said. Finally, she reached the entrance and opened up with a small smile, “ Hey~”

Kamio probably jumped a foot when An opened the door, even though he had texted her to do just that. He attempted to smile, then grimaced a bit, and finally settled on what he hoped was a neutral expression while shuffling on by her. “Hi, sorry I’m early,” he rubbed the back of his head apologetically.

Her smile grew , Kamio really was nervous. “It’s fine, it’s not like I was doing much anyways.Just waiting for you. ” She mentioned as closed the door behind them.

Nodding agreeably, Kamio added his smile to try and mitigate the nerves stirring his stomach like a big pot of soup. “Well. Um. I’m here,” he laughed and awkwardly brought his hand back down to help remove his sneakers. After he put them aside, he asked, “Do you want to talk in your room?”

Maybe she was the one who was trying to calm her own nerves down. “Yeah, let’s do that.” An wanted to give Kamio some type of reassurance but was finding it increasingly hard to not feel awkward.

Once they were in her room she set herself down near the small fridge she had gotten when she’d moved. “Do you want anything to drink? I can make some tea or coffee.”

Kamio shook his head and folded his legs beneath him to sit neatly on the ground near her bed. “Nah, just you,” he very much doubted that he would manage to not spill it anyway. “Is everything okay with you?”

An gave him a nod and and settled herself down on a floor pillow. Her eyes went up to look at Kamio and somehow she was having trouble saying what she wanted to say.  “ I...I’m fine, I just wanted to talk with you about a few things..” She paused and took a breath, “ Like recently with my brother and how you’d tell him why he should watch out for Niou-Senpai. It’s not about him, it’s in general? I can take care of myself and if you don’t see me mad then you shouldn’t either. I don’t need to be defended or protected.”

Somehow this was all sounding not like she had wanted it and it made her frown, “You’re my best friend, and I know you care about me but ...it annoys me when you do that sometimes.” An still wasn’t all too sure about what she said but she wanted to hear him out as well.

It didn’t come as much of a surprise. Kamio borrowed the courage to look An in the eyes while she explained her feelings and he had to admit that it somewhat hurt. He just didn’t understand how it didn’t upset An to be talked about in such a way. It didn’t feel good to be called the bad guy when Niou was the one doing disgusting things without anyone calling him out on it.

A voice in his head told him why -- he just didn’t like the answer. He balled his fists under his feet and looked down at the ground.

“I…” he bit his lip. This wasn’t about him. Or well, it was, but it was mostly about him overstepping. “If that’s...how you feel...”

Delete his online account? No, he needed that for advertising. Not talk to Tachibana-san? An-chan would never ask for such a thing. “I won’t talk to or about Niou-san anymore.”

WIth Kamios reaction, she felt even more frustrated with herself, “ It’s not that you can't. I don’t want to tell you what to do..” She ran a hand through her hair and sighed, “This isn’t about Niou-Senpai.” Even though most of the times that she found herself clashing was when it was him since she didn’t tend to have problems with anyone else. “I think I know where you’re coming from but I don’t get mad because I know he’s doing it on purpose and yes, it’s childish but I’ve known him for a while now and if he says things sometimes out of shock value and I don’t give that to him.”

An did want to clear up that at least, “I do get mad sometimes, please don’t think I don’t...I was very angry when he was being rude to you.”

Kamio was starting to think that maybe she really didn’t understand where he was coming from at all. But it wasn’t like he had ever properly explained it. For a long time he sat there quietly, figuring out his words in little taps of long, pale fingers that skittered on Mikiya floors.

“I--” he looked at An-chan, blue eyes huge as he tried to gauge if she would be cross with him for disagreeing. “When we were bullied. Before Tachibana-san came. A lot of people accepted it as just the way things were. It couldn’t be changed because they were just like that. It was on purpose. It was normal for them and just had to be accepted…”

Kamio took a deep breath and prepared to stand up to the person he liked. “If he’s someone you’ve known for a long time, if he’s your friend and he’s important to you, I think it’s more important to challenge him instead of making excuses for him. I am sorry that I said something to Tachibana-san, partly because it upset you, but mostly because that challenge should come from you.”

He released his fist. “...Maybe part of that is what you were trying to tell me all along. I don’t know. You’re my friend -- a person that I cherish -- and I want to protect you and respect you I just…” now blushing, he darted his eyes toward An’s curtains, which tousled lightly in the summer breeze.

Her throat felt dry as she waited for Kamio to speak. She thought this would somehow be easier but she was wrong. When he finally spoke, she listened, An really did want to understand herself why Kamio did what he did.

Maybe she had been immature when she got mad at Kamio for bringing it up to her brother. She knew that what Niou said sometimes was questionable and yes she let it run, she more than anything deflected it. Sometimes they weren’t nice things and she knew that because she truly believed that he didn’t mean any of it. Maybe it was up to her to find that out.

Biting her lip, she balled up a hand. “ It’s- You need to understand that it’s not like that...They’re two completely different situations..What you see on social media is one thing and then another in person. What happened to you guys wasn’t right and I know that but they’re different..at least to me.”

Somehow she could feel her heart in her ear drums as she continued trying to explain herself , especially when Kamio was really trying to be a good friend. The way he was blushing didn’t go unnoticed to her, “You just what? I know you care about me and if I saw you being bullied I’d step in if you couldn’t handle it yourself…”

“If he can treat you with respect in person, why can’t he treat you with respect online?”

Kamio knew this wasn’t any sort of cut and dry case of bullying. The cast of villains and heroes weren’t set in stone but, if he were entirely honest, it didn’t really look to him like An-chan could handle it, or was even trying to handle it at all.

“I know that they’re not the same -- I’m not -- I’m not trying to make this about me, I know it’s not,” he paused for a second, clearly needing to regroup and dig little half moons into his calves with blunt fingernails as if it could contain the words bubbling up inside of him. “But the way you’re talking about him. The way you did talk about him. If he’s your friend you shouldn’t have to explain to people ‘oh he doesn’t mean it’ and ‘oh, he’s not really like that.’ Because on some level -- to throw you under the bus like that and enjoy doing it -- he is.”

People could be bullied by friends, too.

“I don’t want to tell you how to feel,” he breathed deeply and peered at her from behind the curtain of hair made messy by his chaotic thoughts and motions. “That’s just how I feel, An-chan. Maybe it’s different to you, but I think if our situations were reversed, you might feel the same way I do.”

Because An-chan also had a strong compulsion to protect others. It was something he very much admired about her. Probably An-chan was doing that right now, trying to protect their friendship by confronting him about this. He looked at her balled and ready to fight fist and then into her eyes. “Can…” he put a hand on her clenched fist and tried a smile. “Can you start by telling me what would make you happy? That I might be able to understand.”

An had no real way of answering his question, she still hadn’t figured out what was going on in Nious head half the time.

She wanted to say that they weren’t exactly friends, coworkers yes but at the same time internally An wasn’t even so sure about her feelings but she knew even though it was hard for to accept that maybe she did feel something more for the older boy? She wasn’t if it was a crush or what but it made her ears feel warm.

She looked towards her floor trying to find new words for what she wanted to say, “ Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn’t because maybe you’d feel the same way as I do. There’s plenty of possibilities...I know you don’t like what he says, I know you say something because you think it’s wrong and  sometimes even I know it is but I try and not give him room...I don’t know how to explain it..” She said almost lost.

The warm hand that appeared on her fist made her jolt and look up to Kamio. And he was smiling at her and it made her stomach turn to knots. “Why...Why are you like this? When I’m not a good friend, I don’t want you to do something to make me happy not when It’s like this-Not when I don’t deserve it...You’ve always done so much for me. ”  Sometimes she felt like Kamio put her on pedestal, the red head was far too kind and in some ways she felt like she took advantage of him for that.

Kamio wasn’t entirely sure when they stopped talking about Niou and when they started talking about their friendship, but he absolutely could not abide An-chan thinking that she wasn’t a good friend.

“Why am I? What?” Kamio blinked, shaking his head once, then twice to try and follow. “What do you mean, An-chan?”

He released her hand, but it was to scoot quickly and clumsily into better range of sight and lean into her eye level. “Hey --” because that sounded abrasive, he tried again. “You’re a great friend. My days are better when you’re in them and for that you deserve everything you’re willing to put up with from me.”

Kamio paused, frowning. “Okay. Maybe not all the things. Like you didn’t deserve that time I tripped into your lamp, or accidentally got my hair in your cake frosting.”

Her eyes darted away when he came to look straight into them but she found some courage to look back into his blue eyes. They shined  in a way that only spoke the truth but she still felt guilty either way

At Kamio’s rambling it did manage to make her lip turn up slightly,  “I really don’t have to put up with much...I think it’s the other way around.” An finally unfisted her hand and brought her fingers up to comb away his hair so she could see both of his eyes clearly, “I think I should be honest with you..” If he really was her friend, she had to be honest with him.

An’s gentle touch had him blinking rapidly and wanting to back away -- out of surprise more than anything else. But her words stilled him because, at the end of the day, he wanted An-chan’s honesty, no matter what that meant.

“Okay,” Kamio said. “Then be honest with me. I’m listening.”

She brought her hand back to sit into her lap and looked away. An always hated to hide things, especially when it involved her feelings, she would much rather just let people know how she felt but somehow telling Kamio was hard.

Taking another moment she let out a breath, “I think I might like Niou-senpai.” It was hard to admit that, especially when she herself was trying to process and accept it.  Niou wasn’t exactly the person she would choose to like but she did and An couldn’t change that.

Looking back to Kamio she tried to read his mind, She at least knew it was something that the red head wouldn’t be happy with in more than one way.

Kamio blinked. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again and pressed his lips into a line. Gears almost visibly went click-click-click in his mind and his hands, for once, were entirely still.

No, it wasn’t something he liked. But it wasn’t for him to like or dislike.

“That…” he said slowly, still digesting. “Makes a lot of sense.”

Her stomach sank as she listened to Kamio’s response. She licked her lips and tried to find something to say but no words came to mind especially when she was trying to figure out how it made sense. Did she really let him slide because of it? An wanted to think differently.

The hands tapping against the floor articulated Kamio’s scrambling thought process. He chewed his lips and made the gargantuan effort to stuff his pride and feelings into the jar they belonged in.

This wasn’t about him.

Kamio took a deep breath and stared directly into her eyes once more. “Look, An-chan. You’re my friend. I care about you and I support you, no matter who you like, even if I don’t really like them very much.”

Instead of continuing to stare at her, he shifted to budge up next to her and jostle her shoulder with his. “If he hurts you, you can give me permission to run him over with my moped anytime.”

Even with all of the words of support that Kamio was giving her there was this sense of guilt that she felt.  

Her lip twitched as she she tried to smile but instead presses her head against the red head's shoulder once he sat next to her.  “ You're too kind, Akira-kun.” She let out a breath, “ That said I'd be very sad if you ended up in prison...I don't even know if he likes me so it just might be me with these silly feelings.”

“Hey,” Kamio scowled down at her, as if personally offended by the last part of that statement. But then he rested his head on her hair and grumbled, “Well. First of all, I think you’re amazing and he’d be dumb not to like you.”

To Kamio, that much was a given.

“But even if he doesn’t, your feelings aren’t wrong. Or silly. Don’t think like that,” he tapped his finger very close to her hand. “It’s a pretty amazing thing, to be able to feel that way. I think I’ve enjoyed myself and come to understand a lot of things that I wouldn’t have otherwise by feeling like that about you.”

Okay, she managed to smile there even if he was frowning at her.  “If only it were that easy..” She mumbled as she listened to the rest of what the boy had to say.

It was that confession that made her remember why she had felt some guilt. An was quiet for a moment and looked towards his finger. “I..I know…” Knowing about his feelings and for so long made her wonder if sometimes she was taking advantage of him. “Which is why I’m saying you’re too kind to me..even after all this time…” A sight escaped her lips, “You know...I’ve never really liked someone before so this is all new to me.”

“I’m not really, though,” Kamio said, slowly. “It’s not like I’m not honest with you, or like we never disagree.”

And, for the most part, he liked to think that he treated An-chan as well as he did his other friends.

“I’ll tell you this because you’re new at it and I’m your senpai,” he said, his pale cheeks turning somewhat pink for the effort to get through to her. “Liking someone doesn’t mean they owe you anything. Maybe something will come of it and maybe something won’t but beyond that, it’s how you feel about it. You gotta value your emotions, An-chan...it’s…” he shrugged, unable to say it any other way, “the rhythm of life.”

That much was true, they did have their disagreements and what not.

Now she felt like the coward, here was Kamio being completely open about how he felt and being almost philosophical. Her smile picked up and she moved her body in way that allowed her to Kamio a hug, a sort of awkward but one all the same. “I’ll try, Akira-senpai,” At least she would in her own way.

Kamio draped an arm around her back, returning the half hug with equal warmth. Not at all secretly, he hoped that something nice came of her feelings for Niou. Even if it wasn’t him, he wanted An-chan to be happy.

“Good,” he said, digging for his encouraging captain voice. “How long? Have you liked him, I mean.”

Pulling back from their hug, An pressed her head back against her bed and thought for a moment, “It’s pretty recent..So not very long.” It was something that even she was still trying to wrap her head around. One day things just clicked. “I’m still not sure with what I want to do...maybe it’ll just go away with sometime..” That’s not how it worked. She let out a sigh, “ Or I make a list of reasons why I shouldn’t like him and stick with that.”

Although Kamio didn’t think it worked quite like that, he offered a listening sort of nod.

“You’ll end up listing the reasons you like him, probably,” he pointed out gingerly. “You could also just...ride it out. See how you feel and decide if you want to tell him or not.”

“That’s what I was thinking...I don’t know if I want to tell him or not.” There were plenty of reasons why she didn’t want to, they did work together after all and An didn’t want to make things awkward for them both.

Kamio shrugged, which probably wasn’t the most helpful gesture. “You don’t have to know. You’re a strong person, An-chan. Eventually if you want to tell him, you will, if you don’t, you won’t.”

Part of him hoped that she would hold him accountable for his behavior first; he wasn’t sure that Niou would ever act decent with the leverage of An-chan liking him. Although for An-chan’s sake he hoped that the crush was returned, if Niou did like An-chan, he had a pretty awful way of showing it. Which, he admitted, seemed pretty Rikkai-dai.

Kamio was right, in the end it was up to her and for now the best thing she could do was wait..at least that’s what she felt.  “Guess time will tell..” She mumbled once and then pressed her her head back on to Kamio’s shoulder, “ I’m sorry...about all this. I just wanted to be on the same page as you.”

He breathed deeply, giving his emotions a moment to run the gamut before he dropped his head lightly atop An-chan’s. “Don’t be sorry,” Kamio said. “I never want you to apologize for being honest with me. Okay?”

“Okay~” She said nodding against him, “Only if you’re honest with me...and if give me a ride on your moped or Tachibanana-san or whatever you want to call it” She laughed lightly. A ride sounded like a good idea right about now.

“Hey!” Kamio laughed, giving her back a rub. “You’re the one that named it! Take some of the blame.”

Either way he was happy to hear An-Chan’s mirth again.

“But we can, yeah. That sounds good.”

An gave Kamio a look that feigned pure innocence, “I don’t know what you’re talking about..” It didn’t take long for her to let out another laugh before deciding to get up and extend her hand out to the redhead, “Let’s go then...We can get some snacks while we’re at it.”

Kamio gave An-chan his hand, but mostly came up on his own power.

“Anything you want,” he promised and gave her hand a squeeze before letting go. “As long as you time me. I can get around super fast without speeding.”

Mostly without speeding. Maybe a mark or two over, barely.

“Just as long as you’re careful, I don’t mind at all.” Her friend obsession with speed always managed to amuse her.

.