Chapter Text
By the time Kagami heads downstairs two days before her birthday, it’s almost eight a.m. Her expression now is carefully controlled and stoic, but in her room as she got dressed, she let herself smile and laugh a little with the thought of her birthday.
As her hand trails the rail of the stairs, she flexes her fingers. She knows that her mother won’t tell her happy birthday when the time comes. The woman hasn’t done that since Kagami turned six and learned things the hard way, as a little girl seeking someone to celebrate with. Every year around her birthday, Kagami’s hands still ache from the slap.
Even so, Kagami can’t help but feel giddy and almost happy—she’s so close to being an adult, to being… well, she doesn’t know, actually. It’s not like she’ll be any more free than she is now. She tells herself that she’s just happy to have this in common with the other children her age. To be old enough for some undefined rite.
(In her head, there’s an empty space beside the word ‘adult’—there’s no goals, only thoughts that she refuses to let cross her mind in the day-to-day. Maybe get an art degree. Maybe open up commissions for drawings. Maybe buy a small cottage on the edge of a small town. Maybe start a garden. In the silence of the night, she lets herself fantasize about having an art degree, about having commissions, about having a small cottage to herself, about starting a garden of lavender and peaches. She doesn’t let herself think about the hows, only the maybe I’lls.)
When she steps into the main living area of the Tsurugi house, she sets aside the thoughts of her birthday. The house is silent but for the whirring of the technology lining each room’s walls, but she steps towards her mother’s office. Her mother is usually there at this hour. On the other side of the door, Kagami hears voices, and she doesn’t reprimand herself as she puts her ear to the wood to listen. Her mother doesn’t tell her things, anyway, unless it's at the last minute, and this makes it easier for Kagami to handle new changes. If she knows about things ahead of time, she can prepare for those things.
“Yes, this is a suitable age for her,” her mother says on the other side of the door. “She’ll do fine—she’s a Tsurugi. Félix, however—”
“Félix will do what’s necessary,” someone else says through a speaker. After a second, Kagami puts a name to the voice—Gabriel Agreste. Chills run down her spine as she presses closer to the door, willing them to reveal what they’re talking about. “You know that. All we have to do is give a command.”
“Fine, then,” her mother says dismissively. “And how will we reveal their relationship to the media?”
Relationship? Kagami thinks, her brows drawing together in confusion. What relationship do I have with Adrien’s cousin?
“They’ll reveal it to the media on their first date. We’ll instruct them to say to any reporters that they began working together with the alliance between our companies. They interacted some over the past year and grew to like each other.”
Oh, Kagami thinks. This—
Kagami’s mother taps her shinai on the ground in impatience and interrupts Kagami’s train of thought. “And how does this serve our purpose again, Gabriel?” her mother says with a sigh. “Why can’t she pretend to be in a relationship with Adrien instead? He’s nicer and more polite.”
Yes, Kagami agrees. I do not like Adrien’s cousin.
“I have other plans for Adrien,” Gabriel said, “that do not involve Kagami. But this will serve us by showing to the media that the alliance between our companies is a positive one, and it will also show investors that our new technology can bring people together.”
This is for their business? Kagami thinks in frustration. Why are they bringing Adrien’s cousin and I into it?
“Fine,” her mother says, sighing again. “As you say. What day would you like for them to sign the contract?”
Kagami can tell that her mother is nearly finished with this call. She turns away from the door, but listens carefully to Gabriel’s cold response.
“Nathalie should have the contract drawn up in two days. We can meet then.”
Her mother makes no other comment than a simple acknowledgement, not even bringing to light that her daughter’s birthday is in two days’ time. What did I expect? she thinks to herself, trying not to let the responding wave of sadness settle into her skin.
With careful, quiet steps, Kagami makes her way towards the kitchen for an already-prepared breakfast, fighting the whole way to keep her expression from slipping. Her hands sting with an echo of a slap.
~*~
Two days later, Kagami has heard nothing from her mother about Adrien’s cousin and the relationship they’ll be pretending to have. She can’t help but feel angry about this—somehow more angry than about her birthday being the day she’s to be signed away to the boy. Something inside of her simmers as she dresses—“formally,” at her mother’s command—in a solid black dress that reaches her knees, a red cropped sweater, and red heels. The dress and sweater have TSURUGI emblazoned on the bottom sections in large silver letters. As she brushes her hair and pins it back from her face, she considers her mother and Gabriel Agreste’s words.
It had seemed, from the way they had talked, that Kagami and Adrien’s cousin would be entering into a fake relationship as a couple borne from the alliance between Tsurugi Industries and Agreste Fashions. Kagami assumes that her and Adrien’s cousin will have ‘gotten together’ after her mother and Gabriel’s newest technology—which she still hasn’t been told about, as most things go between her and her mother—was tested and approved.
But even that confuses her and makes her more frustrated. She decides to try and not think about it as she heads downstairs to the small house reserved for business matters where she, Adrien’s cousin, her mother, and Gabriel Agreste will be signing the contract tying her to Adrien’s cousin indefinitely.
When she arrives, her mother isn’t present, but Nathalie, Gabriel’s assistant, and Adrien’s cousin are there. In Nathalie’s hands is a tablet where Gabriel is connected and working quietly on the other end. Neither male looks at her or talks to her as she sits in the chair across from Adrien’s cousin, but Nathalie gives her the smallest smile and nods her way.
“Happy birthday, Ms. Tsurugi.”
Kagami stares at Adrien’s cousin, who is pointedly not looking back at her, and nods her thanks to Nathalie. “Thank you.”
Kagami carefully notes Adrien’s cousin’s formal attire of a black vest over a white dress shirt, both of which are tucked into black slacks. He wears black loafers and his hair is eerily reminiscent of Adrien’s in both color and general shape, although Adrien’s cousin’s is more clean lines and refined elegance than Adrien’s artfully messy layers.
No other words are spoken until Kagami’s mother arrives two minutes later. At her arrival, Gabriel looks up from his work and Nathalie slides a folder onto the table from her lap. Adrien’s cousin makes no move, nor does he shift at all to acknowledge Kagami’s mother. Nathalie opens the folder and passes the single sheet of paper over to Kagami. Three signatures are already laid out at the bottom—with an ‘x’ for her mom—and it makes her want to throw up, how she’s the last to know and the last to sign and the last last last person. Everyone at the table—minus her mother—stares at Kagami as she picks up the pen and scans the document quickly.
The gist of the contract is that she’s agreeing to be in a fake relationship with Adrien’s cousin for an undecided period of time, to lie for her mother and Gabriel Agreste when asked about this relationship, and to not reveal the nature of the relationship or its fictionality… ever. (Again with the lies.)
“Just sign,” her mother commands, irritation littering her voice.
Gritting her teeth against her frustrations, Kagami gives into the sudden swelling ache to obey and signs the document quickly. She slides it back to Nathalie, who takes it with one hand and puts it back into the folder it had come from.
Gabriel speaks as Nathalie does this, his voice cold and unfeeling even through the video call. “You both will tell the press that with how close Agreste Fashions and Tsurugi Industries have become over the past year, you two have gotten to know each other and grown close. Over time, a romantic relationship developed. You will say anything else necessary to keep up the fabrication while avoiding anything that may shine Agreste Fashions, Tsurugi Industries, or their products in a negative light. Is that understood?”
Kagami doesn’t say a word, even though, in her head, she’s questioning this. Why does it matter what Adrien’s cousin and I do? That doesn’t make sense—how could it help you? But she nods anyway, watching from the corner of her eye as Adrien’s cousin does the same.
“Yes,” they both say, their voices similarly devoid of emotion.
Gabriel Agreste nods. “Very well, then.”
“You two may go back into the main house to become acquainted with one another,” Kagami’s mother says, firmly dismissing them both.
Kagami doesn’t waste a moment in standing, pushing her chair back in, and leaving the small house for the main house. Behind her, quiet steps follow, presumably from Adrien’s cousin. She doesn’t stop to turn around as she marches through the sliding door of the main house, but leaves the doors open behind her as she makes her way to the sparring room. Her mother had made Kagami this room before she could even hold a rapier.
Once she’s inside the sparring room, Kagami falters and her face falls. She suddenly feels ashamed and the echo of that eleven-year-old slap makes her fingers tremble. Expect nothing from no one on this day any longer, her mother had said all those years ago. It’s shameful.
I expected nothing, Kagami thinks, but I hadn’t prepared for this .
Behind her, someone steps through the sliding door of the sparring room. Adrien’s cousin comes into view as he crosses the room towards the rapiers, muttering a string of angry curse words along the way.
Kagami isn’t familiar with half of the words he spits out, but she’s turning away to leave for her room and some time alone when he comes towards her with his arms in the air. She freezes, not thinking at all about how much she doesn’t want to talk to this boy, and then—
“What?” she says after a moment of his silence. If she looks at her emotions closely, she’s almost— almost—nervous. She’ll be spending who-knows-how-long with this boy, yes, and he could be anything, but she’s Kagami. She doesn’t let her nerves show, no matter how frayed and tender they may be.
“They just want us out of the way!” he cries, a crazed look in his eyes. “Doesn’t that bother you?”
Kagami tenses. “Of course it bothers me,” she says icily, and against her will, tears well up in her eyes. It’s my birthday, she thinks, and the thought is small, but its hurt fills an expansive space within her chest. But I have to keep it together, she thinks. My feelings aren’t for him to see.
“Why?” he says, pulling at his hair and staring at her still. “Why do they need us out of the way?”
“I don’t know,” she says flatly, and blinks her eyes quickly. It’s my birthday, she thinks. Maybe a new form of torture is my ‘present’.
Adrien’s cousin steps closer to her, and his whole body is shaking as he lets go of his hair. “You want to know why?” He doesn’t let her respond. “They want us both out of their hair, and figured, why not kill two birds with one stone?”
“It doesn’t make sense,” she says, staring back at him with something steely and unforgiving in her gaze. It’s my birthday, she keeps thinking, like a child not slapped on her sixth birthday and a child not reprimanded for wanting celebration. It’s my birthday, she keeps thinking, like it will matter to anyone at all other than her. “I don’t understand how us being in a relationship fits with the reasons they gave.” I have to keep it together, she thinks, clenching her jaw tight and standing taller. I have to.
Adrien’s cousin grins at her as he steps even closer, and he looks maniacal. She’s almost afraid—she has to spend how long with this boy? Pretending to like him? She hopes he has good acting skills. “It doesn’t have to fucking fit with their excuses—face the facts! They don’t want us,” he says quietly, and there’s a second where his face flashes with hurt, like he surprised himself with his words.
He’s goading her, she thinks. But then again, is he? The hurt looked real to her. I can’t give in and let go, though, she thinks. “I don’t have to face any facts,” she says, her fists clenching tightly. It’s my birthday, she thinks again. (“They don’t want us,” he’d said.) Tears threaten to spill over and roll down her cheeks as she blinks furiously. I have to keep it together!
“You’ll be angry about it later—confused, too,” he says, with his mouth pulled into a thin line as he stuffs his hands into his pockets. His entire demeanor has changed with these words, and it confuses her. Is this a game? she thinks. “Why not get it out now?”
The thought crosses her mind that perhaps he’s been acting this whole time.
But still, she doesn’t see where he’s going with this. It’s my birthday it’s my birthday it’s my birthday—why on my birthday? She doesn’t turn away, but she gives in a little to his pushing to voice some of her earlier questions. She lets her emotions slip the slightest into her voice. “It should make sense! Won’t people question us? What are we supposed to say?”
She’s still keeping it together, though—just barely.
“We’ll lie to them like we’ll lie to everyone else, Kagami,” he says, and he stares at her with a steely look in his eyes, like he’s already thought this through. Like he’s already had to answer these questions for himself. She almost doesn’t realize that this is the first time he’s said her name, too caught up in trying to unravel his mind games.
“I don’t want to lie to everyone,” she says, louder now, even if only marginally so. I’m keeping it together, she tells herself.
“Don’t take it up with the adults, then,” he says carefully, thinly, raising an eyebrow at her.
And then she isn’t keeping it together—she’d thought, for a moment there, that perhaps he understood. She’d thought, for a moment, that she could hold herself together and play along, just a little, in his sick game. She’d thought she could do it without her facade slipping.
But she was wrong. He doesn’t know at all the things she thought he did. “You don’t know anything about how these things work, do you?” she says loudly, and her hands ball into fists. She’s angry, now—too angry to hold her already escaping emotions back. She had made the mistake and slipped an inch with her hold on them, and now it’s costing her. Her body feels so uncontrollably hot already, even as the air conditioning blows through the doorway of the room and through her pinned hair, messing up what small perfections she’d still had. She feels pressed on all sides, and almost claustrophobic with the feeling of being alone. What little she thought she might have had in common with this boy—there was nothing. “We can’t tell them anything—we can’t say anything, we have no choice in any of it!”
Adrien’s cousin’s mouth widens into a mocking smirk and his eyes blow manically wide open. He laughs sardonically, a hand over his mouth. “Ooh,” he coos with a raised brow, “the princess is yelling! Call the knights, alert the queen!”
He is goading her, then. The hurt from earlier must have only been a show. This must have been his goal—to see how mad he could make her. But Kagami’s already lost too much control to keep herself from snapping.
The next thing she knows, she’s crossing the gap between them and is shoving him to the ground until he’s beneath her and she has his wrists in one hand over his head. In these movements, her dress has ridden up her thighs and her hair has come undone from her pins and her clothes are sure to be wrinkled from this, but she doesn’t care. All she knows is that she’s winding back to punch him in the face and wipe away that stupid smirk and those awful words he’d said (that were horribly, awfully true). He should be taught a lesson for goading her like this. (Something within her grieves for her loss of control. Why had she given in, just that small bit? Why hadn’t she held herself back more? Why hadn’t she tried harder?)
(But she knows the answer. First it had been the thought of not being wanted. Then it had been her trying to connect with him, and then—then, his betrayal. The understanding that she had been played. The understanding that she had fallen for his tricks.)
But she’s made a mistake—though it’s not her fault for not thinking he’d know it. His knees are pulled up behind her, just in range. With her knees on either side of his hips and her feet splayed behind her in those awful, awful heels, she’s wide open for a counter attack as he slips his ankle around one of her calves. At the same time, he rips the wrist under her thumb from her hold and grabs that upper arm in his hand, pulling it down and close to him. As soon as her forearm is at his chest and her calf is trapped, he thrusts his hips quickly upward and to the side and uses the momentum to flip them over so that he’s above her now. Above her head, her wrists are trapped by his hands, which are held about a foot apart.
Startled as she was by his sudden counter, she doesn’t struggle as he adjusts quickly so that he now sits heavily atop her stomach. His ankles are carefully pulled up close to her hips so that she can’t pull the same move on him, she notes with frustration.
Still smirking, Adrien’s cousin leans over her, his blond hair mussed and falling into his line of sight. His shirt and vest have come haphazardly untucked from his slacks, and in the time since they left her mother and Gabriel, the topmost button of his shirt has come undone to expose a shadowed collarbone. He’s not perfect, either, she notes. He hasn’t kept it together. Somehow, it only makes her more bitter, and her mouth twists sourly. How far we’ve both fallen, she thinks.
“Did the princess not like that?” he murmurs quietly, tilting his head in a condescending manner.
A long moment of silence passes as she glares up at him in defiance.
The sun filters through the windows above them, bathing them both in warm golden light. In any other context, this situation could be taken another way—a way of soft touches in the shadows, gentle looks, and mouths hungry for the touch of another’s—but even as he stares down at her with his gaze softening just the slightest and his hands relaxing above her head, Kagami feels no attraction to Adrien’s cousin.
And she spits on him.
“What the hell?” he cries, quickly turning his head into one arm to wipe the spit from his face. As he does this, Kagami kicks off her heels and sneaks her knees up behind him, planting her feet firmly on the ground.
When Adrien’s cousin looks back at her, it is with disgust and frustration. “That was so gross,” he says, his lips curling.
Kagami takes this as her chance with a sickly sweet smile—she jerks her arms down from beside her head and pulls them as close to her body as she can manage (and without holding Adrien’s cousin by the legs to her) as she simultaneously thrusts her hips upward and to the side as hard as she can. While she does this, she curls her head to the side she didn’t shove him towards. Adrien’s cousin flips over in the air above her, landing with a loud grunt on his back. His head has landed beside hers, but the rest of his body is splayed out on the ground behind her. His arms and hands, having been twisted in the whole ordeal, lay limp in the direction of her wrists.
Turning to look at him, she smiles the slightest bit. She’s gotten him back, and that smug smirk has been wiped off of his face.
~*~
That evening, Kagami eats dinner with her mother. It’s a quiet affair, and nothing is said about Kagami’s birthday or what her mother and Gabriel discussed after Kagami and Adrien’s cousin left.
As Kagami is finishing her meal, though, her mother speaks up. “Are you liking Félix?” she asks flatly, with no ounce of emotion or care in her voice.
“I don’t like Adrien’s cousin,” Kagami returns, just as flatly. An undertone of anger thrums in her voice, however.
“You’ll grow to like the boy,” her mother says, with no room for alternative.
Kagami doesn’t speak until she finishes her meal. She asks to be excused when she’s done, and takes care of her plate before going to stand beside her mother. Not looking at the woman, she says, “May I go up to my room, now, Mother?”
Her mother nods, and Kagami turns quickly and heads for her room. As soon as she’s out of her mother’s earshot, Kagami’s running up the stairs and down the hall, but her heavy breaths aren’t due to the movement.
She closes the door to her room behind her and sinks low to the floor, taking deep breaths as Tatsu instructed her to do several years before.
“Tatsu,” she had asked, a hand on the door and a hand over her heart. “I can’t breathe—I need to get out of here.”.
The car didn’t slow, but Tatsu’s calm and steady voice came quietly through the speakers. “Miss,” they said gently, “are you feeling anxious?”
Kagami hadn’t had words for it—“I don’t know, Tatsu, I—I just… I made a mistake, at the competition. You know Mother won’t like it. She’ll be angry.”
Tatsu didn’t say anything for a moment, and silence filled the air, suffocating Kagami.
“Breathe in,” Tatsu said finally. “One, two, three, and hold.” She held her breath, and her body trembled. “Now exhale—one, two, three, and hold.” She followed along dutifully, even as her body shook and she felt like she would throw up.
Tatsu continued counting, having her breathe in and out like that until she felt better.
“Thank you, Tatsu,” she had whispered several minutes later, curling into the side of the car and leaning her head on the window.
Kagami follows along with the memory, counting along with Tatsu and breathing like they had instructed. She does this until she can’t hear her mother’s words. As if I could like that arrogant boy, she thinks to herself. All he wanted today was to stir up trouble. Nothing more, nothing less. I don’t like him, nor do I have to.
Kagami goes to sleep that night wanting to cry, but being unable to. Her birthday has been awful—she was forced into a relationship with an arrogant boy who cared nothing for her feelings or thoughts, she was goaded mercilessly by said arrogant boy, and then she was told by her mother that she would grow to like the arrogant boy.
~*~
To make matters worse, the next day, Kagami is required to go on a date with the arrogant boy, act like she loves him, and lie to everyone around her. Kagami hates lies. It is only because of her mother’s commands and the thought of making a mistake that has Kagami dressing nicely and practicing ‘loving’ expressions in the mirror to the examples of her manga.
When the house alerts her that it’s time to leave, Kagami sets the manga in her hands on her bed, puts her phone in the pocket of her skirt, and makes her way downstairs and to Tatsu, who is waiting patiently outside the house. Kagami doesn’t see her mother on her way out, but puts the worry out of her mind as she steps into the car. Tatsu begins to drive towards the arranged meeting place once she’s buckled.
Kagami wears a short-sleeved black blouse tucked into a dark red skirt embroidered with silver roses. She wears a pair of simple black sneakers and her hair is tucked behind one ear with a silver rose clip. She assumes that she should look put together for a date and feel pretty—and she is, and she does, but she doesn’t want to be. Not for the arrogant boy who goaded her until she fought with him on her birthday, at least.
“Tatsu,” she asks, looking straight ahead at the seat in front of her, “how long do I have to be with Adrien’s cousin today?”
“For at least an hour and a half,” Tatsu replies, calm as ever.
Kagami keeps in the huff of displeasure she feels rise within her at his response. She looks away from the seat before her and glances out of the window at her side.
“You do not like this,” they sense, likely through her rising blood pressure.
Kagami takes slow, deep breaths in and out, but doesn’t respond.
Tatsu doesn’t laugh, but there is certainly amusement in their voice when they say, “You are adjusting my perceptions of your feelings on Félix. You do not like the boy?”
Kagami doesn’t respond, but continues breathing deeply.
Tatsu doesn’t push her, and for this Kagami is glad. She doesn’t need her anger and frustration with Adrien’s cousin brought up right before she’s supposed to pretend to be in love with the boy.
“How much longer until we arrive?” Kagami asks, making efforts to keep her voice even.
“One minute, Miss.”
“Very well,” Kagami says. “Thank you,” she adds on quietly.
The minute passes by quickly, and then they’re outside of the park where the date is to take place. Before she can open the door, though, Félix is on the other side, opening it for her and offering her a hand. Kagami doesn’t look at him for a long moment as she takes his offered hand and exits the car, saying goodbye to Tatsu in lieu of saying hello to Adrien’s cousin.
The arrogant boy is wearing a simple black vest over a thin red dress shirt today. Both articles are tucked neatly into a pair of dark blue, almost black jeans, and he wears simple black sneakers, as she is. But the worst part about what Adrien’s cousin is wearing is that Kagami has the especially violent urge to make the very neat and very pristine boy messy, as she had done on her birthday.
Félix, unbeknownst to Kagami’s thoughts of all of the ways she can make him pay for his arrogance, brings Kagami’s hand up to his lips and plants a soft kiss on her knuckles. Oh, so we’re playing like this today, Kagami thinks sourly as she smiles up at him. Félix smiles widely at her in return and leans close to her face, cradling her cheek in one hand and whispering into the very, very miniscule space between their lips—“When you smile at me, try to look like you don’t want to smash my face into the sidewalk, Kagami.”
She notes that he’s said her name again and that he is very, very close before she realizes what he’s said. When she does realize what he’s said, she gives him a biting smile and slides one hand up the underside of his bare forearm to pinch the tender skin there. In return, he gives her a chaste kiss at the corner of her mouth, lingering for a few seconds there (she assumes for the press watching them).
“I hate you,” she says with a carefully pleasant smile when he pulls away, “with a burning passion, you should know.”
“Don’t worry, darling,” Adrien’s cousin says with a knowing smile. He pulls his hand from her face and instead reaches for her hand, which he holds firmly as he leads her into the main entrance of the park. “I know.”
For the entirety of their ‘date’, Kagami and Adrien’s cousin talk about things of little importance. Things of little importance include how they ‘met’ and ‘got to know each other’, discussion on Gabriel and Tomoe’s new technology and what it might be, and, perhaps the most boring and awful topic of all, the weather. They talk about the weather for an overwhelmingly long twelve minutes before Adrien’s cousin insists that they talk about something else just as inconsequential: what Kagami’s mother and Gabriel could possibly be doing with Kagami and him out of their hair.
“World domination, I think,” Adrien’s cousin says, leaning back on the bench where they’re sitting now and crossing his arms. He looks over at her as he says this, with a slight smile on his face—for the press, of course, who, surprisingly, haven’t approached them yet. “Their product has already been finished, they’re just waiting for the right time to reveal it to the public. What do you think they’re doing?”
“I refuse to think about it,” Kagami says quietly, looking away from his smile that feels all too real. And then, suddenly, she’s angry. No—she’s sad. Or she’s both.
“Why?” he pesters, leaning closer, and still smiling. Why does it look real? she thinks.
“If I think about it,” she says, looking over at him from under half-lidded eyes and raised brows, “I may not like the answers I find.” I should have something like this be real, she thinks sadly, angrily. Someone should smile at me like this and mean it.
Félix’s smile falls, and his gaze softens. It feels like a trick. “That’s the point,” he says. (Last time his gaze softened, it was a trick. She shouldn’t relax, like she is, at this.) Suddenly, she’s not thinking about how cheated she feels to not have this—to not have love—be real. Suddenly, she’s forgetting that this isn’t real, and she’s opening up to the arrogant boy who goaded her into a somewhat violent altercation on her birthday.
She does her best to harden her stare at him, but she doesn’t do it very effectively. “I’d like to ignorantly believe that I’m wanted,” she says as dryly as she can, to mask the emotion and hurt behind it, “rather than have to consider that I’m not.”
Félix leans away as a flash of understanding crosses his face. (Stop relaxing at this, she tells herself. She doesn’t stop.) “That’s fair,” he says. She feels a moment of hesitance from him, and then he asks, “Do you like ducks?”
Her shoulders fall, and she finds she’s completely relaxed now. “I do,” she says lightly, relishing in this question and the chance to not think about—well, anything. “They’re messy, but they don’t stop to feel bad about it.”
“I like them, too,” he says, just as lightly, and takes her hand in his own. For the press, obviously. (The press she can’t see. Obviously.) He runs his thumb over the calloused skin of her palm, and she’d be angry about how fake this is if she hadn’t forgotten about it in the midst of this show of kindness and compassion—and also how it feels, to have someone hold her hand like this.
The rest of their date goes like this, too: they talk about the unimportant, but they don’t talk about the gravitationally unimportant (like how much they’re unwanted by their guardians). They talk about things like ducks, and different types of clouds, and the best type of park activities. Félix holds her hand the whole time. When their date is over, he walks her back to Tatsu, and pretends to kiss her goodbye—but he doesn’t really pretend, and he actually presses his lips to the corner of hers in that same chaste way as before—and he tells her that he enjoyed being around her (and she doesn’t know if he means this at all, but she pretends that he does when she responds in kind with a not-so-pretend smile), and he opens the car door for her and holds out his hand for her to hold while she gets in, and he waves to her with the softest look on his face, like he knows what he’s doing or like he really likes her.
And Kagami, with all of this, she really can’t help but enjoy it while it happens, even as she thinks about it later, for hours and hours into the afternoon, about how fake it really was and how none of it must have meant a thing to him (and none of it should mean a thing to her, but that’s the thing, it almost really kind of actually did mean everything to her).
And Kagami, with all of this, she really can’t help but think about the way he kissed her, all soft and sweet, and how it felt, to have his lips press into the skin beside her mouth, and how it almost felt kind, the way that he did it and had his hand pressed gently to her cheek. And she really can’t help the redness in her cheeks and the strange, giddy feeling in the bottom of her stomach at just thinking about it. And she really, really can’t help but replay both of his kisses, again and again and again, far into the late hours of the night where she falls asleep to the feeling of him being so close to her.
(But she’s still angry at him for goading her on her birthday, and being so arrogant. His kisses don’t count as apologies, no matter how sweet they feel to her.)