Archive of Our Own ^beta

One time, when Muu was just a little girl, her pretty young teacher asked her to draw what she wanted to be when she grew up.

“A princess!” Muu declared immediately, hands up as though she might be lifted off the ground in delight. “I’m gonna be sooo beautiful, and wear really pretty dresses and all of my subjects will love me so much!”

The teacher smiled. “That’s wonderful, Muu-chan! Now, how about you draw it for me?” And then she got distracted because some other girl couldn’t get the lid off her paste, which was annoying, but Maman had already told Muu over and over that it made her look bad to the other parents when Muu couldn’t behave, so Muu didn’t cry or complain or do anything.

Besides, her picture needed to be the best out of the whole class, so Muu reached out for her sparkly colored pencils and her star-shaped glitter shakers and glue and set everything out so very perfectly for this very important work of art.

Before she could so much as finish drawing all the beautiful long curls of her blonde hair, the girl next to her shifted. “Umm… could I borrow your pencils?”

The poor dear! (Muu heard grown-ups say that around this girl a lot.) Unlike the rest of them, her family didn’t have any money, so they couldn’t even afford stuff like nice pencils; she had to make do with crayons. It was so sad!

Muu sighed with great sympathy, dragging the metal case across the table. “Of course, you poor dear! Take whatever you need. Except the pink because I need that,” she added, grabbing it up immediately.

“I don’t want pink,” the girl said, which was weird, but it suited Muu just fine.

She used everything at her disposal, even grabbing up the cutters to make some star and heart shapes out of shiny paper to add to her drawing. When it was done, she pointed out all the most important details to the pretty teacher with the long hair, from her multi-layered dress in three shades of pink to all of her subjects waving and cheering at her from under the balcony to the absolutely ginooormoous fork she was holding, a special piece of cutlery from which she would eat a huge mille-crêpes every day!

(Later, Muu would think back on this memory and shudder; that teacher must’ve been cracking up inside hearing a kid say something so unknowingly dirty…! But then again, would a bog-standard Japanese person even get that mille-crêpes are a kind of cake? How well do grade school teachers get paid, anyway?)

But while she was talking the girl beside her had apparently decided that the cutters didn’t have the shapes she wanted for her so very boyish superhero cartoon (Muu rolled her eyes and sighed when she realised what she was drawing). Instead, she had taken up Muu’s scissors made from real fancy-looking curly-wurly metal and not the dumb baby plastic the classroom had.

And so as Muu was speaking, turned away with better things to do, the girl suddenly squealed.

It was a weird, unusually girlish sound to come from such a quiet, dull little kid. But Muu barely even noticed all that. Instead, she turned on instinct, eyes wide and all in awe, because she’d just been talking about how great and perfect and sweet Maman’s cook’s mille-crêpes were, and now it was here—

But it wasn’t. There was just that little girl, dark hair over her eyes, finger clutched to her chest, sweater dripping with ink.

She looked at Muu like she was a monster.

Like Muu had closed those curly scissors ‘round her skin herself; like Muu had sunk one sharp little canine into that fleshy pad on her ring finger.

But before Muu could say anything (could she? Her mouth felt so wet) the teacher was cooing in concern and dragging the girl up to her desk to rummage around for band-aids. Muu followed on instinct, eyes as wide as that girl’s had been, until the teacher looked at her and frowned.

“Don’t do that!” Muu said.

“The band-aid?” Teacher glanced between them, frowning. “We need to, Muu-chan. She’s bleeding. Sorry – I’ll finish hearing about your drawing in just a moment.”

Muu bowed her head; behave, her maman’s voice rang out. But it felt strangely easy, as upset as she felt, because she didn’t know what it was that she wanted to do. Her eyes pricked when the band-aid went on, little wound covered, but she couldn’t explain why.

The girl kept staring at her. She didn’t cry – not even once.

Muu wanted her to, though.

For the rest of the day, she just felt so… strange. Like she’d eaten too much cake (the real kind, not mille-crêpes – she could never have too much of that) and was on a sugar high, but all she was doing was sitting there at her table. She kept wanting to look at the other girl, even though she wasn’t pretty or interesting. She couldn’t stop staring at her finger.

After school, that was the first thing she told her daddy once he’d picked her up in a hug like usual.

“A girl cut her finger! Because of my scissors,” Muu related proudly.

“Oh, no!” Daddy’s brow furrowed. “I guess your teacher was right about them being too dangerous, huh?”

Muu realised with sudden horror what he meant. “Nooo, you can’t take them away! I have to keep them! It’s not danger–us,” she stuttered, “– she was fine!”

“Muu-Muu…”

“She didn’t care! She didn’t even cry! She liked it!” Tears bubbled over. “It was so pretty! Like a ruby, or like a cherry! Why can’t I have fingers like that…?”

Daddy didn’t say anything for a few moments. “Muu-Muu…?”

“Please – I need to see it again! They’re my scissors, you can’t take them! It smelled so nice, just like mille-crêpes…”

Back home, her parents argued all through the night. And no matter how much she cried, Muu never went back to that school ever again.

It’s not a very complicated story. But Muu doesn’t like to think about it.

*

She got kinda mad when Daddy first told her she’d be going to an ordinary public girls’ high school – she has no idea how he got Maman to go along with that – but it ended up turning out pretty okay because Muu was just so very different from everyone else there. After years of being just another dime-a-dozen CEO’s daughter, suddenly Muu was the centre of attention everywhere she went; her soft, perfectly-maintained blonde hair attracted glances, and then her pristine brand-name handbags and accessories kept them staring.

It wasn’t hard to make a name for herself when the whole school knew her as the girl who’d lend out the latest in stylish French jewellery and cosmetics to anyone she liked.

It was a venerable orgy of activity from day one, even more so than she’d always anticipated of her debut as a high school girl. New accessories and make-up every day to show off her style (and oh, how it pleased her to see those fun-hating teachers scowl, knowing how Daddy and Maman would complain if they tried to tell her off!). Magazines with all the latest French fashions and styles, complete with co-ordination advice to any who’d politely request her services. And oodles of mille-crêpes in all its fluffy whipped cream and crispy pancake texture delights – because who could dislike a girl so positively oozing out ‘soft and delicious’?

It wasn’t long before even the third-years were succumbing to Muu’s irresistible charm. It was really sad how threatened some of them got; like, imagine being a grown-ass eighteen-year-old and picking fights with some fifteen-year-old kid!! Thankfully, most of them knew how to be the adults they (basically, anyway) all were.

But there’s always one, isn’t there?

It was so pathetic. Barely a month in, some older girl started this obviously dumb rumour that Muu was luring all these girls to her home so she could take advantage of them (and she did NOT use those words). It was super scary for a day or two, to the point that Muu almost wanted to go tell the teachers and risk getting her parents involved, but – thank God – Muu’s true friends stood beside her the entire time, and within a week it’d all blown over. Really, the only thing the whole incident really did was prove just how good of a person Muu was by comparison – she never even confronted the girl everyone knew had done it!

(And if she’d privately admit to taking some satisfaction in the way her friends totally shut down Takane and turned her into a laughing stock? Well: Muu’s only human, isn’t she?)

Once that rigmarole was finally over she took her absolute best of the besties – the ones who hadn’t believed that disgusting story even for a second – and treated them to a full-on crêpes party at her home, with not just mille-crêpes but crêpes suzette and even Japanese-style crêpes with strawberries and ice cream, too! And what’s a party without some directly-imported-straight-from-the-hills-of-Champagne-itself bubbly? Daddy probably wouldn’t approve of her sharing it around, but what – is she supposed to just drink it alone?! Besides, this is her culture! Muu’s had to grow up all her life without ever really knowing her mother’s home country; would he really try to take this tiny little comfort away from her?!

But to her surprise, the other girls all coughed and spluttered at the taste.

“You really drink that…?” Yui asked in what sounded perilously close to the wrong type of awe.

“You must have a really mature palette…!” Ai added, and Muu could tell she was trying to save face, but it didn’t make Muu’s cheery grin feel any less forced.

“Only now and then,” she demurred, very consciously taking only a teeny sip this time. The liquid bubbled on her tongue, but the specifics of the taste seemed to slip away the very moment it trickled down her throat. “It’s normal for kids in France to drink from a really early age, and my maman… she really wanted me to know my home, you know?”

That got everyone cooing over her again, about how difficult it must be to feel so separated from her own culture, and Muu got a little bit teary and everyone laughed (‘you really are such a cake, Muu-chan!’) and it was all okay, in the end.

But that night, Muu engraved the incident into her brain like metal plating. Cakes don’t drink wine – not even dessert wine – like a bottle of Coke at McDonalds.

And Muu is a cake.

That’s not the only term for it, obviously. There are old-timey phrases like ‘carnivores’ and ‘prey’, or ‘teeth’ and ‘meat’ (so gross!!). Her health teachers had spoken, with stern faces and gritted teeth, about ‘people with dietary requirements’ and ‘atypical taste receptors’. Back in France, they used ‘Vampires’; more and more often, in Japan Muu has heard the term ‘Christians’. Reporters gravely describe terms of abuse hurled at victims like ‘spit-swallowers’ or ‘mouthfuls’, or activists reclaiming one or the other in pride.

But those are all too explicit; too gorey. Delicate young ladies can’t be expected to sully their mouths with such language. The current euphemism – her parents call it the modern one; apparently each generation or so reinvents its own – is ‘forks’ and ‘cake.’

And Muu loves cake.

She always has – ever since she was a little girl, dressing herself up in Princess dresses with as many frills and bows and ribbons as a strawberry-strewn birthday cake. She exemplifies the qualities of a good cake girl (and all good cakes are girls, sorry not sorry): she’s sweet, giving, easygoing, and entirely defenceless. Not all girls are lucky enough to be cakes, but it’s agreed by everyone – everyone at school, at least – that if any of them are one, it’d have to be Muu.

That’s part of why they’d all come to her defence so quickly, after all. Muu had wondered aloud through her tears how anyone could even come up with an idea like that, of luring girls to your house for nefarious processes? How any sensible people could even understand the way forks think? And it had proceeded logically from there: the older girl herself must be a fork, projecting her own secret, salacious desires onto a poor, innocent cake like Muu.

She’d never told anyone she was a cake. They’d come to that conclusion all on her own, simply from knowing and observing Muu every day. And why shouldn’t they? Didn’t Muu flawlessly act the part of a cake every day, all the time? Would a plate – or, God forbid, a fork – even be able to keep up an act like this for so long?

They wouldn’t, because forks are gross and evil and manly and controlling and cruel, and Muu is the exact polar opposite of all of those things. She’s not a fucking predator – she’s a victim!

So it doesn’t matter that Muu likes spicy foods, or can’t tell when food’s gone off, or can down the iconic drink of her own home country without spitting it out. It’s just some weird paranoia, like somebody’s going to ‘test’ her someday by giving her something to eat and pretending it’s something else and catch her out. But who would do that to someone like Muu?! And even if they did, it would be fine. The thing with forks is that they can’t taste food at all, but Muu can. It’s just – sort of faint, sometimes. Completely different.

Still. She imagines in her head how it would go, how she’d keep her eye out for dirty tricks like that or anything similar, and if worst came to worst, how she’d cry and admit to having a cold but not wanting to worry anyone – no, that–that she’d had some childhood injury to her nose, and she was really self-conscious of the shape and it was so cruel for someone to draw attention to that. And that isn’t really true, but Muu also isn’t a fork, so if she really couldn’t tell how something tasted there’d have to be some sort of reason for it, and why not this one?

She’s fine. It’s only been two months and already the whole school (except one girl who’ll probably transfer soon, anyway) loves her. She should be on top of the world. She practically is a princess.

There’s another girl in her year who catches her eye sometimes, like she’s staring. But, at least here at the beginning, Muu doesn’t like to think about that, either.

*

It’d be nice to believe the Incident was entirely over now that the ringleader had been put down, but Maman has taught her well: for every pot-stirring bully you’ll find at least a dozen followers. In a lot of ways they’re even worse since they’ll split and try to make new deals at the first sign of trouble and are usually the ones actually getting their hands dirty wrecking stuff.

So while the dust settles on this year’s new social order, Muu extends her focus to all those who kept suspiciously quiet through the ordeal. It’s not an overly big school; as she’s been assured over and over, everybody knows everybody, a state of affairs Muu is well used to among this country’s elites. There is no such thing as ‘keeping out of it’ when lives are at stake – all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to stand by and do nothing, right?

It’s not hard to pinpoint this new class of enemy – they stand out precisely because of how hard they try not to do so, at least on the surface. Muu can forgive girls who are clumsy at curling their eyelashes or who make an earnest attempt with knock-offs, but the ones who seem to actively revel in not acting or dressing the way popular girls do just get on Muu’s nerves. They’re always so lonely and bitter, like they’re too scared to even try to look good or make friends, and so invent these fabulous stories where the popular girls are actually the sad and mean ones. It’s such a shame because – like Muu always says – they almost always really could look super pretty if they tried! And Muu is totally happy to lend them some cosmetics if they’re ready to learn! But they don’t want to learn. They want people to look at them and flinch away in disgust, because they hate other people, and want everyone else to be as self-hating and miserable as they are.

And that particular swathe of failed girldom finds their self-appointed chief in no time at all.

Muu’s first meeting with Rei doesn’t quite go the way she planned.

She was so ready to make friends, too! Because Rei had been telling people off for spreading that gross rumour, apparently, even though they’d never even talked to each other, and Muu just isn’t one to let such loyalty go unrewarded. They’re in different classes so Muu had to wait ‘til after school, and then even longer for Rei’s basketball practice to finish up (gross and boyish, but like, it could be worse? probably), and, like, when Muu had taken so much time out of her day to meet with a nobody like her, she’d expected the girl to be pleased about it?

“Hi, there!” She offers, accompanied by her sweetest and most earnest head tilt. “You’re not an easy girl to have a chat with, Rei-chan!”

Instead, Rei just… sort of stares at her. And not in a good way.

“...hm?” Muu swallows, inwardly cursing her so-called ‘best friends’ who’d left for home already rather than wait with her. “Is there something on Muu’s face…?”

“...nah.” Rei shoulders her bag; she’s all sweaty and it’s…

it’s gross.

“Just… not used to being called that, I guess.”

Muu swallows again, on instinct. “Well! I’m sorry to hear that. But don’t be afraid to come hang out with Muu anytime you want, okay? Since a little birdie told me that you stood up for me last week, when I really needed someone, and…” she gazes deep into her eyes, full-force cake mode activated. “I just… feel like I can really trust you, Rei-chan.”

Rei does not look very trustworthy right now. She sighs a little (how rude!!) and scratches at her neck; she’s still breathing heavily after her training, and it’s all just so dirty and moist Muu feels a little sick.

Finally, Rei says: “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

Muu wants to cry with relief. “Right?! I’d never even talked to her before… it honestly really scared me, like: what kind of school did I get myself into, here?!” She titters cutely. “But pretty much immediately people rallied around me, and I’m sooo grateful. I can’t imagine what I’d do without you all!”

Rei nods. “Cool.” But then, her gaze shifts. “But… it seemed sorta overkill, what you did to her back.”

Now, Muu can’t swallow at all. “What do you…?”

“I talked to her.” Rei adjusts the strap of her backpack; her fingers flex, long and pale. “It sounded like she really believed you were a fork. Which is dumb, but…”

“Obviously!” Muu blurts out, trembling hand to her chest. “How could anyone ever think that of me?! It was so obviously just slander, right from the word go!”

She’s tearing up and everything and she can tell Rei has noticed – is watching, like a deer in the headlights, at her every slightest movement – but Muu can’t sense even the tiniest crack in her composure.

“Even if it was, I don’t think it’s right to send people death threats, or tell them to kill themself.”

Muu splutters. “I-I never did any of that! I don’t even know her accounts, or-or her email address!”

“Your friends did, though. Right?” Rei’s gaze pierces through her like a knife; how could anyone think it’s right to just stare at a person like that?!

“If they did,” Muu says, because nobody ever said as much to her, so plausible deniability is on her side, and she is very happy to keep it that way, “it was only because they were trying to protect me. Y’know, like you were. So if you’re blaming me, then you’re just as guilty of what people on your side were doing.”

Finally, Rei’s brow creases. Something in Muu surges, a dopamine hit nothing else could beat: she’s done it. She gotten to her.

The stench of sweat still hangs in the air. Muu’s mouth is watering, as damp as the hair at the nape of Rei’s neck, and she has never felt so thirsty.

Rei turns – running away because she knows Muu’s right. “I don’t think so.”

“Fine then,” Muu snaps, straining for the last word. “See if I care. I don’t need your help, anyway. Not like you need mine.”

She smirks at Rei’s uncomprehending expression (she really has no idea how thin and dull her ends look, does she?) and, with great effort, flounces away.

She doesn’t tell her friends what happened when they ask about it later; to be frank, the whole thing is suuuuper embarrassing. It’s much easier to just say that Rei was really cold and unfriendly, like she thought she was better than Muu, which is basically the gist of what happened, anyway.

“You’re better off not making friends with girls like that anyway,” Ai adds slyly. “Sports clubs are all full of lesbos.”

“Probably forks, too,” continues Sayu.

“She already said ‘lesbos,’” crows Yui, and then they’re all giggling and falling over each other and for a few, wonderful moments none of it seems to matter – Muu has her true friends right here, and as long as they’re around, it feels like nothing could ever go wrong.

*

And that’s what she convinces herself that night, applying her moisturisers and delicately combing her soft hair a hundred times. Rei is a nobody. Muu has no reason to give her so much as a second thought.

She breaks mere seconds after arriving at school the next day.

Rei’s also a first-year, but she’s in class E, all the way down the hall. There really shouldn’t be much reason for them to be crossing paths. Besides, there’s no way Rei would be getting dropped off in the parking lot like Muu does (in a chauffeur, no less!); judging by the state of her uniform, she’s roughing it on the train for sure.

And there she is: coming in from the school’s back entrance on the way from the train station. Muu doesn’t process what she’s seeing for a moment, like she’s still just imagining it in her head, hallucinating her walking through the gates, and in that long moment, Rei turns and looks at her.

They lock eyes; Muu’s stomach twists unnervingly.

And then Rei, without a single fleck of change to her expression, looks away, her stride unbroken.

Muu’s heart thumps. She’s breathing in and out too deeply, and for a moment worries that she’s having some sort of a panic attack. But no: as Rei falls out of sight, the feeling fades, and Muu is left just standing there with her hand on a closed car door and feeling very, very stupid.

“Mademoiselle?” The driver asks and Muu springs into action, huffing and pulling on her backpack.

“It’s nothing. Thanks as always, Monsieur Chauffeur!” she cries out, loud as always, but when she walks off she does so very deliberately not in Rei’s direction.

Maybe it was that weird moment of weakness that triggered it, but from then on, it just keeps happening. Muu searches for her unconsciously in any crowded room (plain dark bobs and creepy yellow eyes) and even when she doesn’t, she learns to recognise a particular tension in the back of her neck, hairs standing on end, or a weird little sniffle in her nostrils, all of which definitively mean that Rei is there, somewhere, in the vicinity – a sixth sense Muu would be perfectly happy to do without.

Sayu catches on worryingly quickly. “Are you okay, Muu-chan?” she asks in a hushed whisper during assembly, and Muu’s startled jump certainly isn’t going to be diverting her attention. It gets worse: “You keep glancing over at that girl…”

Muu shrugs, ducking her head down with a flick of her hair. “Aww, Sayu-chin – I can’t get anything past you!” She forces a giggle. “It’s just – she kind of smells, don’t you think…?”

It’s not what she means to say – she’s just panicking and blurting out the first thing that comes to mind. But it sort of doesn’t feel… wrong. That’d explain why she can always tell where she is, right? Even when she’s not looking?

Sayu’s eyes widen and she whips back to look at Rei, then back at Muu. “Y-yeah, now that you mention it…!”

“I just have this really sensitive sense of smell,” Muu continues rambling.

“You poor thing!” Sayu’s eyes crinkle; finally, Muu lets down some of her guard. “And I’m always wearing so much perfume… you need to tell me if you’re not feeling okay, got it?!”

Muu giggles and nods, to Sayu’s hmph! of approval.

And then the teacher hisses their surnames in a whisper, and they both straighten and shut up, but not before they exchange one final little giggle.

Still: Muu doesn’t like that she’s already tied herself to Rei like that. Her anxiety grows; now, whenever she finds herself unwillingly locking eyes with Rei across the school (always cold, always unmoving, like some creepy moving statue; who can tell what she’s thinking?!) she worries that one of her friends will notice. She devises excuses incessantly: Rei looks like someone she used to know, or Rei keeps showing up near her and she doesn’t know why, or even just breaking down and admitting how much their one conversation terrified her to her core!

But they’re all fake. At least, they dance around the real truth: Muu can’t stop thinking about Rei.

It’s not like that. Obviously. Muu’s not some sort of perv: she’s an executive’s daughter who’ll probably follow her maman’s footsteps in modelling or something, and they’d never let women like that hang around half-naked girls all the time. She’s even fantasised about meeting her own fork someday; what girl hasn’t swooned at the thought of such a devoted, all-consuming love, being devoured by a man who literally can’t live without her?! And yes, of course things are different nowadays – cakes have rights and aren’t all expected to submit graciously to their husbands, and there are more and more male cakes or female forks coming out, and Muu would never (in public, anyway, unless opinions change) say she had anything against all that.

But she’s normal, is the thing. It’s all well and good for songstresses or eccentric fashion designers or whatever to be of the ‘wrong type’, but not Muu. She just… couldn’t be.

It’s not very easy to explain why. It’s not as though Muu has ever really actually been bullied, recent events notwithstanding. Maman can be strict, but Muu has always made her proud and been rewarded for doing so.

There has just always been a… belief in Muu, for as long as she’s been conscious of herself as a person, that if anyone could ever peer right down deep into her soul – see it splayed out like a diagram in a textbook, plunge their hands in and feel the texture of it between their fingers – they would despise her.

It’s not her job to question that. Frankly, she’d rather not know why she feels so strongly about this at all, ignorance being the best defence and such. She simply needs to ensure, through whatever means possible, that everyone around her has enough reasons to love and support her that they’d stick by her side no matter what.

And that allows for no weaknesses. No ‘abnormalities’, and no weird obsessions with incorrigible do-gooders, either.

No matter that Muu has started to find herself lingering after school, staring forlornly over at the basketball courts. No matter that she once spied a sweater left in lost property and couldn’t stop wondering if it was Rei’s.

She just has to work all the harder at what she can control.

(She steps up her diet. She doesn’t have much of an appetite nowadays, anyway.)

*

The next few weeks have the Kusunoki household in a flurry of activity, just as it is every other year around this time: July 6th, and a certain young mademoiselle Muu’s birthday.

She’s been preparing for this day since before she even entered high school, even if only in wild daydreams of visions even her family’s generous finances could not afford. She might not be American as so many uneducated Japanese assume but she can’t deny a healthy respect for their so-called ‘sweet sixteen’ celebrations.

And this party is about so much more than the music or the lighting or the dozens upon dozens of treats that shall be offered for the taking in the party room (so many so that it makes Muu a little sick just to think about it); the most important matter – the one she knows will either make or break her entire high school career – is but one singular list she has full control over.

It’s terribly old-fashioned to hand out physical invitations; Muu does it anyway, and it’s as much about the nod to tradition as it is a further expression of her aesthetic sensibilities. And most importantly at all, she needs to see the smile on each girl’s face as she hands them over their personalised little envelope – and the crestfallen frowns when she locks eyes briefly with the others before swiftly moving on.

(Muu’s not a sadist; she doesn’t enjoy hurting people. She just enjoys…when she’s capable of it, maybe. No – never mind.)

Predictably, that event does not go off without a hitch.

She hears about it over a lunch – a girl had burst into tears upon realising that every single other person in her class had received an invite except for her. Muu purses her lips a little when she hears it, because what else had she expected? But deep down, a part of her thrills at it – this chance to explain her reasoning; to give the girl a chance to change for the better.

Her besties follow diligently to the girl’s classroom, all too aware now of how quickly these things can spiral. There’s a crowd around her as well, but thankfully it parts immediately as Muu approaches – not supporters, then; just on-lookers. One’s holding a phone at a suspicious angle. Muu allows it.

The girl is sniffling, and it’s a little unfair trying to make Muu look like the bad guy, here. “D-did you just forget about me? I-I know we’ve never really talked, but w-when I saw all the invitations, I got so excited, and then...”

Really? Muu shrinks a little. “Emi-san…” she murmurs, fidgeting with her hair. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Her eyes widen immediately. “Oh…! Thank you so much--”

“But…” Muu purses her lips. “Unless I’m wrong… aren’t you… still friends with Morisawa-san…?”

Emi’s mouth stays open. “I… y-yes, we’re best friends…”

“Then… I’m sorry. But I just wouldn’t feel safe with you attending…”

Scattered gasps – but to Muu’s intuition, they’re not mad at her.

“B-but why-”

“Don’t act dumb, okay?!” Muu stamps a foot, sincerely frustrated. “You know what Morisawa-san said about me wh-when that awful rumour went around! You know that’s not okay, right?!” A few more sniffles; two can play at that game, Emi-chan. “B-but if you’re still acting all friendly with her, it’s like you’re saying it is okay. Like she never did anything wrong. You know that, right?”

She wonders if Morisawa is anywhere nearby; Muu can’t see her. Some best friend she is, huh?

Emi gapes at Muu as though she’d punched her in the stomach. “O-of course I don’t think that! But – but she was just confused and thought it was a fact, she didn’t realise it wasn’t true-”

Yui cuts in, then. “So she just spread it? Without knowing anything?”

“She thought people were in danger—”

Muu places a hand to her chest. “Because of me…?” She chuckles a little, sadly and disbelievingly. “And-and you’re crying because… I didn’t want to invite you to my party…?”

There’s a commotion coming from behind them – someone trying to push through. Muu flinches immediately, scared that Morisawa’s shown her face after all, but it turns out to be much worse than that.

Rei’s already glaring daggers the second they lock eyes. “What’s this all about?”

Emi bursts into tears again before Muu can get to. Unbelievable!

“Nothing whatsoever to do with you,” Muu says quietly, crossing her arms. Her throat really is tight, like it hadn’t gotten the message that this isn’t the time; she always feels strangely energised when she’s standing up for herself like this, but the moment Rei showed her face it tripled into a deeply unpleasant burst of overactive nerves.

Rei glances back and forth between them. Muu opens her mouth again to say something – she can’t think straight right now so she doesn’t know what – but Ai gets in beforehand, almost shoving Muu behind her in her haste.

“Would you just leave already? Muu-chan is one hundred percent within her rights to decide who gets to go to her own birthday party. And you are most definitely not invited.”

“That’s right!” chimes in Sayu, and what else can Muu do except offer a thin smile and nod her agreement?

Emi is still crying. “I know that!” she squeaks. “I just…”

Rei’s eyes lock back onto Muu’s.

It’s so hard to breathe. Muu feels paralysed – like prey pinned beneath her sharp gaze. She’s still never even once seen her smile, has she? Never seen her surprised, even a little bit?

It’s something primal. Something as terrifying as it is terrified.

She watches Rei swallow. Notices her gym uniform. Stray strands of hair, broken off from her split ends at her shoulders. Parts of her, in hyperfocus.

Ai makes another movement forwards and Muu wants to yell at her but doesn’t. “Hasn’t Muu-chan been put through enough already this year?!”

Finally – unfortunately – Rei’s gaze breaks. She turns briefly to Emi, who only shakes her head. Visibly, Rei sighs.

“...fine,” she says, and then leaves.

Muu practically falls over onto Sayu’s back.

“Oh my god, Muu-chan – are you okay? You look white as a sheet…!”

It’s all too much. Muu’s been trying not to overdo it – trying not to seem stupid and childish and overly emotional just like Maman sometimes says – but when the energy flees her all at once, there’s nothing Muu can do but cry.

Her friends take care of her. They always do. And when the bell rings and everyone shuffles away, it’s Emi who’s left standing alone.

Muu thinks: good.

*

The party is perfect: Muu looks gorgeous, everyone is having an amazing time, and apart from one early kerfuffle with the éclairs (Muu definitely specified strawberry, not caramel), it all goes carries off like a dream.

So why does Muu feel so out of it?

When she’s standing and talking to her guests she feels restless, but when she moves to the dancefloor she feels slow and sluggish. She hasn’t been eating much lately – keeping herself fit for the photographs, obviously – but that’s nothing new. But where she’d normally reward herself for her dieting with as much delicious French cuisine as she could stomach, it all just… tastes sort of bland and unsatisfying.

She should be blaming it on the chefs, but everyone else is gushing about how nice it tastes and even Maman had offered her approval, so… is it just Muu who can’t seem to enjoy it at all?

Eventually she complains of a headache (earning herself much sympathy, for which she is extremely grateful) and heads into the kitchen for a painkiller, but it’s no better inside, swarming with chefs still pulling together the last of the desserts. She dances around at the edges but she doesn’t actually feel much pain, per se, so it’s probably not a good idea to take one anyway, right? And instead wanders off further into the house.

It’s quieter, here. Her shoulders sag with relief. She travels further, out to the front door; now that everyone’s come and nobody’s yet going, it’s empty of life. The fresh air against her cheeks feels rejuvenating, almost like she’s getting something from this wind that she wasn’t from her food. The scent of flower and sugar, however vague. She closes her eyes and focuses in on it gladly.

For all her normal hyperawareness, it isn’t until she hears the clang of the front gate that she realises she’s not alone.

It takes a moment to process the scene: for Rei to be standing there, outside Muu’s own childhood home, out of her uniform in casual clothing, feels for a single hysterical second like a wild hallucination Muu should not at any costs admit to seeing. But Rei sees her, too, and pushes the gate open, and Muu is storming over before she can think absolutely anything at all.

“What are you doing here? How do you know where Muu lives?!”

Hand resting on black iron, already through the gap and onto the footpath, Rei raises an eyebrow. “You all but drowned the school in invitations.”

“They were hand-delivered,” Muu protests, crossing her arms.

Rei shrugs. “Not everybody cares about not littering.”

“Well, you still shouldn’t be here. You weren’t invited.”

“No,” Rei agrees. “I came here to talk to you.”

Muu freezes, heart turning a somersault in her chest. Even just being in Rei’s presence is making her feel so much more alive, like she hasn’t in weeks – like she’s a real person, as little sense as that makes.

She looks her over. Rei clearly isn’t dressed for a party and Muu would be sending her home even if she had earned herself an invite. Her outfit is the definition of comfort wear: a plain white tank top and gym shorts, sneakers and a dorky-looking baseball cap. Muu would die before letting herself leave the house in such a state. But the worst part of it all is that she doesn’t look entirely bad in it. Her legs are long and toned, and Muu’s vision keeps jealously flicking to that little cleft of cleavage at the neckline of her top; aren’t Westerners supposed to be the ones with big chests?! How come Muu never got those genetics?!

Rei’s still breathing a little heavily; did she run here? It’s making Muu pant a little as well, like some sort of bizarre sympathetic response.

“...talk to me?” Muu repeats coyly. But then she’s reminded of the situation – Rei is here, at her house, on her birthday, and takes a step back. “W-why?” she barks out. “We’re not friends.”

“I know.” Rei’s expressions are as infuriatingly inscrutable as ever. “You made that very clear the last time we talked.”

Muu flushes; right – that time she’d arrived to so generously offer a position within her posse to Rei, only to be the one to get rejected herself.

“So?” She crosses her arms. “What is it, then?”

Rei’s fingers are still curled around the bars of the gate and Muu worries for a moment that she’ll suddenly swing it straight at her face. “I don’t think you realise how badly some of your actions are affecting the other students.”

Muu sighs so deeply it turns into a groan. “This again…? I already told you: Muu doesn’t want to hurt anyone. At least, not anyone who doesn’t deserve it. I’m just trying to protect myself!”

“And you think Emi-san is a threat to you?”

“Yes!”

Rei stares at her. Muu stares back, equally uncomprehending. Does Rei honestly not understand how this all works in high school?

“She’s honestly really cute, in an old-fashioned kind of way,” she explains slowly, as though speaking to an alien who had recently beamed down in the disguise of a 15-year-old girl. “She wouldn’t have any trouble at all getting people to feel sorry for her. So, what exactly d’you think would happen to me if Morisawa decided to get back at me for calling her out? It doesn’t even need to be the fork thing again, it could be anything. Emi-chan could make up whatever she wanted and people would believe it immediately, no question.”

She’s rambling now, but she’s had a long time to think about this and she knows she’s totally the winner of this argument. “Also like… you seem to be forgetting that Emi-chan started this whole ting with by siding with Morisawa to begin with. Am I supposed to just let that slide? Just sitting by and doing nothing is the same as saying that what they’re doing is okay. That’s why bad people act the way they do – ‘cause people like you keep them from facing the consequences of their actions.”

“Has she even done anything actually bad yet?” Rei asks, eyebrows raised. “Like, what makes you so convinced she would even do any of that at all? Having a friend doesn’t mean you’ll make things up that aren’t even true.”

Muu huffs, tightening her grip on her arms. “You poor dear,” she murmurs.

“Most people don’t do things like that.” Rei’s eyes narrow. “Do you?”

“No!” Muu blurts immediately, heat rising to her cheeks. “Obviously! Have I ever spread a rumour about someone like that, ever?!” Her throat is getting tight again. “Like you seem to keep forgetting, I am the victim!”

“Emi-san hasn’t come to school for a whole week,” Rei continues without sympathy. “People are saying she’s transferring.”

“Well, good!” Muu shrugs, tears pricking at her eyes; why does Rei have to keep pushing at her like this?! “She’ll be better off away from me – or isn’t that what you think?!”

“It’s not just you,” Rei says, and Muu gasps. “Your friends are—”

Muu laughs hollowly. “You really do think that! You really came to my own fucking house to say that to me, that people are better off without me – on my birthday!”

“That’s not what I said.” Rei’s brow is wrinkling just a little, and it gives Muu a thundering boom of satisfaction to see even that little seam at the edge of Rei’s stoicism.

“It is. It literally just happened and I heard it.” Muu stamps her foot again, and her distress isn’t a lie, but – god, it feels so fucking good just to let it all out against her, without having to pretend. “You actually fucking hate me and I have no idea why!”

Rei’s gritting her teeth. Muu can tell – has stared at her enough to know the shape of her jaw at rest, the angles of her shoulders.

“I thought we could have a proper conversation without your friends around,” she attempts levelly.

Muu shakes her head. “I have no interest in communicating with somebody who just won’t listen to me no matter what I say.” She holds herself up as tall as she can; one more trait she failed to inherit from her maman, and for just this once, she regrets it. “So I’m going to have to ask you to leave, now.”

Rei’s hands tighten on the bars. She’s still on Muu’s property, technically. “I don’t want to have to report you to the principal.”

“Leave. Now.” Muu’s eyes feel scarily wide. “Leave, or I’m going to scream out for help.”

“Don’t do that.” Rei’s breathing is quickening again and oh, God is this good. Muu doesn’t want to, now – wants Rei to stay here, under her sights, to pant and cry and sweat out all her nerves—

Muu opens her mouth, just to see what will happen.

She sees it in slow motion. Rei’s other shoulder raises, and then her arm, and then her hand. It reaches towards her. Muu flinches, but she’s too slow – and it’s not a slap.

Rei’s hand presses against her face: heel on her jaw, fingertips just beneath her eye. The palm of her hand right up and over Muu’s mouth.

Muu breathes in.

One time, on a holiday back to Maman’s home in Nice, Muu had gotten so drunk she felt like she could feel the world moving beneath her. Another time when she was little she got so sick with the flu they had to give her the heavy-dose medication, and she still remembers with a shiver how vivid and real her dreams had felt.

The difference is that, those times, the effect had come on only gradually.

This is instantaneous.

It’s a cyclone of sensation, thick and psychedelic; Muu’s hands both come up and grip hard at Rei’s wrist, keeping her in place, pushing that soft skin against her mouth. It’s better than anything Muu’s ever felt before – better than orgasms, better than laughing with her friends because she feels so happy and loved she could die, better then custard made with real vanilla between layers of crispy sweet pancake.

It’s right here, banging up against her teeth through her lips and cheeks. Sweet chocolate in human flesh. Until now, she thinks, she’s never really smelled; never known that humans could take in so very much just from their nose and rudimentary exterior taste buds. Is this what other girls talk about when they sigh and take for themselves one extra little treat because they just can’t help themselves? Muu always could. She thought they were all pretending.

Her tongue darts out, not even intentionally – her mouth is just so wet, and her lips so dry – but it touches just once against Rei’s inner palm, and she wants to faint where she stands. It’s like licking whipped cream straight from the whisk. And that’s just the outside. What would it be like if – what if she could actually –

“Muu-chaaaaan?”

Muu leaps as though she’s been shocked, almost falling over as she backs away; before her, Rei stares open-mouthed, panting.

She thinks: It’s supposed to feel good, right? Being devoured.

Rei has never looked so shaken, possibly ever in her life. Muu can’t even appreciate it. She shoves the gate forward, ignoring Rei’s screech as she’s briefly pressed between the bars. “C-coming…!” Muu calls back over her shoulder, and thank God Rei needs no further direction to get the hell out of there.

This can’t be happening to her. When the girls who’d wandered over looking for her approach, Muu still hasn’t got her face on; can’t think of anything at all except ‘oh my god’ ‘what the fuck’ and ‘she’s a cake.’

“You look so flushed!” Ai says innocently, pressing a hand to Muu’s forehead. Muu almost groans aloud, but it doesn’t feel the same – not even a little. Just more grey, unscented mush. “Do you have a fever?”

“Maybe…” Muu murmurs, allowing herself to be caught when she totters. “Sorry for worrying you all… I just… need to lie down, I think…”

This cannot be real. Muu isn’t a fork; she’s not gross, not predatory, not some aggressive dumbskull man preying on poor innocent little girls. She doesn’t even like girls like that at all.

She doesn’t remember much of the rest of that day. She’s taken inside and laid down, given glasses of water to drink and cold compresses on her head, while a seemingly never-ending chorus of party-goers rotate through to pay their respects. And then it’s just her and the housekeeper and a headache and a terrible, unspeakably immense, sensation of loss.

How could Rei do this to her? She asks herself, over and over, when hazy sensations of frustration and regret coalesce into something resembling communication. She’d had it all – everything she’d ever wanted. It had been perfect. And now it’s gone, and it feels like she’ll never, ever have it again.

I never wanted this, she thinks. And the ‘wants’ and the ‘don’t wants’ mix and blur without ever losing their edges, a kaleidoscope of tastes and sensations, until the only thing Muu can picture anymore is the dark of Rei’s wide, orange eyes when Muu’s tongue had parted from her.

*

She drags herself to school the next monday on the mantra that Rei’d be just as horrified of anyone finding out as her.

The class fairly swarms her with worries and well-wishes, and, you know, they’re not wrong – it really was a literal tragedy for Muu to find out about all of this on her goddamn birthday, wasn’t it? So their sympathy is greatly appreciated, even if she wishes she had a better lie to tell than ‘I just had a quick-acting flu, apparently~!’

She doesn’t tell a soul she saw Rei that day.

Nobody can ever fucking know.

Despite being more aware of her than ever – as hard as it is to believe that’s possible – Muu barely notices Rei at all for a while. It’s more sense than Muu’s seen from her yet by far, but as she picks at the gorgeous bento boxes her household chef passes to her every morning, she can’t help but wish she’d… stay nearby, somehow. Just enough for Muu to smell her.

Only once do they lock eyes at lunchtime. Muu and her friends are at their usual spot, a picnic table close to the primary classrooms, and all of a sudden, Muu feels it. She almost chokes, mouth filling with something almost like flavour as her head whips around. Rei’s simply crossing the courtyard – must’ve been no other way around – but she looks at Muu as well, and there it is.

Rei looks… hungry.

Muu swallows. It’s not enough. She should be too far to tell – she isn’t sure – but Muu could swear that Rei’s eyes follow her throat all the way down.

“What’s up?” Yui asks, and the spell is broken. Muu coughs a little, food still stuck in her back teeth.

“N-nothing…”

Sayu looks behind her. “That Rei girl again…?!”

Muu tries to swallow a second time. It doesn’t work.

“You said one time that she kinds smells…”

Muu can still smell her. It’s lingering, lighting up the courtyard in transparent colour. Muu is trembling.

“Yeah,” she croaks out, before a cough. “It’s… it’s really strong.”

“That is vile.” Yui looks for her again, horrified, but she’s out of view. “You could smell her even from here?!”

“She has a super sensitive nose,” Sayu explains. “It’s really tough.”

Yui and Ai sigh. “You poor thing…!”

Muu shakes her head. “I-it’s not…” But what else could she even say? They can’t know she wants this. “Well, it’s… I didn’t want to say anything behind her back…”

“Wait – is that why you got sick at your birthday? Because there were so many people and smells and stuff around?!”

“You put on all of that just for us, even though you knew it’d make you sick…!”

Muu smiles weakly, shoulders finally sagging. “You guys know Muu too well…!”

If only that could be the end of it. But Rei can’t avoid her forever. And every single time, like clockwork, Muu finds herself salivating like a wolf before a rabbit.

She forces herself to eat, hoping that’ll dull the sensation of hunger, but when food touches her lips all she can think about is smooth, pliant flesh, offered ready for the taking.

Rei enjoyed it, back then. She’ll come to Muu again, she decides. Promises. Pleads. Rei will break first. And then, Muu will at least be able to… contain the damage. Keep it clean.

She may or may not be going entirely crazy.

One Thursday (the day she dreamt of plucking Rei’s fingers off one by one and woke up tasting shortbread), when she’s finally heading home after a conversation with a teacher, she overhears a bucket overturning and water splashing the floors.

Muu keeps walking.

*

The moment the knock reverberates through the house, Muu knows.

“I-I’ll get it…!” she calls out quickly, skittering towards the front door. She knows she’s being stupid – she should tell the housekeeper she’s being harassed or bullied or whatever and doesn’t want to see whoever’s on the other side – but she hasn’t eaten since breakfast.

She just wants to look. Just to smell. Just once.

Outside the door, Rei is dripping wet and furious.

Muu jolts as though shocked, freezing up where she stands. Her heart has never pounded faster, and for a terrifying second she’s convinced this is the end for her.

“Today,” Rei says, with a chilling coldness that sends shivers up and down Muu’s spine all at once, “a group of girls dunked a bucket of water on me. Shouting that I needed a bath.”

They can’t do this – not here, not where her parents…!

Muu forces herself forwards, clumsily flailing at Rei’s wrist amidst the shaking. “O-outside…” she squeaks, head low, and after one agonising moment, Rei follows her.

Muu leads her around the side of the house, near the fence; stupidly, she keeps thinking to herself that she should be leading Rei into a trap – something like a pitfall, or even a fucking bear trap, just to see that blood burst out of her like chocolate – but of course she doesn’t fucking have anything like that. She’s not a serial killer.

But despite her fear, Muu feels healthier than ever. It could just be the adrenaline, kicking in to punch and kick and run far, far away from here, but Muu doesn’t even consider that. Rei really did come right up to her.

“All right. Now can we talk?”

Muu keeps her head low. She can’t look at her right now. It’s too… She licks her lips, remembering so very vividly the softness against her skin from last time. It’s all too much. She doesn’t know if she’s about to die or if Rei is, but either way, she can’t stop trembling.

“Well?” Rei’s arms are crossed. “Would you happen to know anything about that?”

“N-no.” Muu shakes her head. “Like I keep telling you – I don’t control them. I have no idea.”

She doesn’t think about the noise in the hallway. She isn’t normally still at school by that time, anyway – this was a once-off, just ‘cause her last test score was kinda low. There’s no way Rei could know she overheard. And besides – by that time, it had already happened. What was Muu supposed to do? Put all the water back in the bucket?

Rei remains impassive. It stresses Muu out soooo much when she does this – just doesn’t smile or frown or react in any way at all, like she’s made of stone. “So you don’t know anything about me being called ‘stinky’?”

Muu flinches; Rei notices. “I-I, well…” She sniffles. “I can’t control the way my nose reacts a-around you… and people noticed, and, well, I couldn’t exactly tell them that y-you were a cake, could I?!”

Rei’s hand hits at the wall behind Muu; she almost screams. “You didn’t think to claim I use too much deodorant? Or some scented fabric cleaner or whatever?”

She really didn’t think of that. But it’s so hard to think straight when Rei is leaning so close; when Muu can practically taste the spittle out of her mouth. “I-I could… tell them I think… that’s what it is instead…”

Rei leans in even closer. Their noses are almost touching. Muu’s brain is flooded with instincts: jump her. Push forward. Do it now, before she recognises the danger.

“And why…” Rei mutters breathily. “Should I believe you…?”

Muu whimpers.

She can’t do this anymore. She’s too weak.

Rei’s mouth is right in front of her – the easiest way in.

Muu launches for it, all inelegant bumping of lips and teeth, and the second her tongue touches it – the inside, so moist and gooey and rich and creamy and heavenly-sweet – it’s like an explosion goes off inside of her.

Is this what food is meant to taste like? When girls cry as they shove ice cream into their mouth because they can’t control themselves? When boys dive in head-first, sauce absolutely everywhere, like dogs more than people?

Muu’s been so fucking patient. She didn’t know.

She’s clutching at Rei’s shoulders (when had she done that?) but Rei isn’t fighting back. She’s moving her lips against Muu in something like a kiss, as frantic as Muu feels, pushing herself further and further.

She’s like a beast. Not a vampire, sultrily sucking two points at Muu’s neck; more like a wolf, destroying everything it touches and shaking its head to scatter its victim to pieces. She runs her tongue along Rei’s teeth, the inside of her cheeks, her mouth, taking her in more and more, swallowing like she hasn’t tasted water in days. Rei follows, thrusting her own tongue into Muu’s mouth in some messy pseudo-sexual display. Muu closes the seam of her lips over it, digging her teeth just barely into the pliant flesh, and Rei moans so hard Muu is already seeing stars.

There’s so much here – such an abundance – but now that it’s all spread out here before her, she needs to taste more. She pulls aside Rei’s head to suck at the sweat on the back of her neck; it’s still damp from that prank earlier, fat globs falling from Rei’s hair onto Muu’s arms, and Muu feels a sudden pang of regret that it had happened – imagine the bounty she could have gotten here, unfiltered by other sources, in this swarthy summer heat.

She licks over and over, some faint tether to humanity begging her not to injure Rei too badly to be covered up. She nibbles at the low hairs at her nape, strings of pure delicate sugar, and when she can’t bear any longer, bites cown into the skin of her neck.

“Oh fuck,” Rei breathes out, clinging almost too tightly for Muu to properly manoeuvre. “This feels so – fucking good-”

Muu can’t speak –her head is a haze of unadulterated sensation. She feels like a kid on a sugar high in a candy store; like she’s been blinded and deafened and now, suddenly, her senses are working. Now that she’s started the attempt, she needs to taste Muu’s blood, not as a hickey but as real, liquid sustenance down her throat.

It isn’t easy. She presses her teeth in over and over, snagging at her fangs and crushing with her front teeth. This always seemed so much easier in Twilight. But Muu hasn’t any pin-prick instruments on her; if she needs to get inside, she’ll have to tear her way through.

At last, it bursts forth. The skin itself is already in her mouth, refreshing as the thin-sweet peel of an apple. But that little ruby gem is all her heart’s desire.

The taste is indescribable. It is, maybe, what the word ‘taste’ was devised for: a singular experience all over her tongue and all through her mouth, and even down her throat as she swallows. It would be an insult to Rei to call it ‘sweet’. No, this is the true essence from which all other sweets derive. It is life-force, and Muu laps at it as she would from the fountain of youth.

Too swiftly the flow dribbles out; Muu laps at it in vain several more times, searching down every last little fleck, and only then does she pull back enough to look Rei in the eyes.

She’s flushed as though all that blood had redirected to her face. Muu moans just imagining it, the sheer quantities of wetness she could drown herself in if she cracked that skull wide open.

And Rei’s eyes are dark and narrow, mouth parted, panting just as heavily as Muu.

She kisses Muu fiercely, lips sealed together to contain the saliva within. Their tongues and mouths intermingle, fluids traded back and forth until Muu could swear she’s absorbed as much of Rei as she has of her own. Still Rei holds her even tighter, and if Muu died right now from suffocation she wouldn’t regret a single thing.

She does, eventually, start coughing. Rei pulls away to pat at her back, then help her crouch down in the grass.

Muu’s so light-headed. She can barely tell where she is, save for Rei’s so-warm hand curled around her own.

“Are you okay?” Rei asks, and on tottering heels, Muu hugs her.

“Yes,” she giggles, and though she doesn’t see it, for the first time since knowing her, Rei smiles.

It doesn’t take long for Rei to overbalance and fall on her butt. Muu laughs, and Rei smirks a little bit, and this is surely the best Muu has ever felt in all her life.

“So, like – how does it actually feel, for you…?” Muu asks, once they’ve settled down against the wall, Muu snuggled up all nicely against Rei’s chest.

Rei shrugs a little. “It’s… hard to explain.” She scratches at her neck thoughtfully. “I can’t imagine enjoying it with anyone else. It should be painful, and it kind of is, but… in a good way.”

“Masochist,” Muu teases with a flick of her tongue.

Rei’s eyes follow it, her hand twitching. “Don’t tempt me,” she murmurs, and Muu shivers deliciously.

But that draws her attention to her shoulder, which she flexes a little.

“Does it hurt…?” Muu bites her lip. It’s hard to look at: partly because she still can’t process actually doing that to someone, and partly because… she shifts a little in her seat, averting her eyes.

“Nah. Besides – don’t they say saliva is an antiseptic? Not that I’m sure if it’s true...”

Muu’s pretty sure it’s just a myth, but… “Let’s just pretend it is true. At least for today.”

“Can do.” Rei pauses. “But, in that case… what’s it like for you?”

Again, Muu shivers. The memory is just so… intense. She wants to be doing it again, right now. But that’d be too eager, right…? She should wait. Like a good girl. That’s what Maman would say.

...and Maman is most definitely never finding out about this.

“It’s… the most wonderful thing imaginable,” Muu breathes out sincerely.

Rei stares back, eyes almost twinkling. “What do I…” She huffs. “This feels like a stupid question, but… they always say cakes taste different to forks. Not like meat, but more…”

Muu nods rapidly. “Yeah, yeah! It’s hard to explain, um, since I think my taste hasn’t ever been all that great… But it tasted like everything everyone says about desserts and pastries and chocolate and sweets, all wrapped up in one, but better…!”

She sits up a little in her excitement. “And everything is different! Like, your mouth – obviously it’s like a drink, I mean…” Ugh. She’s not going to say the word ‘spit.’ “But it just tastes so… refreshing – like I could drink it all day and never get sick of it! Whereas, I tasted a little of your hair…” Is that also gross? No, she can’t think about this. “And it was like… pure sugar. Perfection.” She grabs at Rei’s arm. “And your blood…”

She sighs dreamily. Rei chuckles a little.

“Just… no words. Five stars. Six stars. So rich and deep and beautiful…” Mouth watering again, she holds up Rei’s hand, squinting. “Why are your nails so short? What am I supposed to do with this…?”

Rei replies dryly, “I hadn’t quite expected a charged encounter with a fork. But they need to be kept trimmed for basketball.”

Would it be extremely weird to ask Rei to keep the clippings for her? She sort of wants everything. Maybe if Rei fell asleep she could cut off a little of her hair; just the split ends she’s better off without, anyway. Or maybe she could just anaesthetise her and keep her body in a freezer to snack on whenever she liked.

Kidding! She’s kidding.

“Oh!” she suddenly remembers, scrambling for her pocket. “We should totally exchange numbers!”

Rei looks a little incredulous. “Really…?”

“Well, yeah! I mean…” she backtracks suddenly, flipping her hair. “F-from the way you talked it sounded like you really wanted to do this again, so I thought… but like, no big if you don’t.”

“I do.” Muu squees internally. “Just…” But Rei apparently overcomes whatever internal conflict she’d had, because a moment later she shrugs and takes out her phone, too. “...sure. Why not?”

“Okay, sending mine… Oh!” Muu gasps, head darting down. “Is that a little fishy on your phone…?!”

Rei jerks her hand back suddenly and, to Muu’s delight, she actually looks a little embarrassed. “Oh,” she says dully. “Um… my mom bought that for me, so… She’s a marine biologist.”

“That’s sooo cute!” Muu gestures impatiently with her hand and Rei sighingly raises the phone again. “Awwww – it’s kinda sparkly and everything! Who’d’ve thought you really are a girl, Rei-chan?!”

“Thanks,” Rei says, though it doesn’t entirely sound like she thinks that was a compliment. “But, uhh, if we really are going to do this…”

Muu would prefer to talk about the sticker, honestly. “Yes?” she asks sweetly.

Rei’s eyes narrow a little again. “I would really, really prefer it if you could tell everyone I don’t actually smell bad.”

Oh. Muu’s smile fractures. “I- It’s not like I can control them, or…” But Rei’s face is hardening and the last thing Muu wants is for her to go back to that stone mask always wears – or for her to decide it isn’t worth being eaten by her, after all. “...I’ll say something. I promise.”

Rei sighs, shoulders relaxing. “Thanks.”

Muu’s head ducks. “I really don’t want anything bad to happen to you,” she mumbles down at the grass. “I’m not sure why everyone always thinks stuff like that about me…”

Rei puts a finger under her chin and tilts her head back up.

It’s hard to concentrate when there’s such a fragile digit so close to Muu’s parted lips.

But Rei just looks at her, deep in her eyes, and then huffs. And then she drops her hand, pushing herself up to standing.

“Hey… wait.” Muu spins around in place, blinking up into the sunlight. “You were just about to say something, weren’t you?!”

Over her shoulder, Rei calls out “See you later, Kusunoki.”

“Tell me already! Geez!” Muu groans. “And at least call me Muu-chan!”

She gets grass stains all over her nice school skirt that day – and worse, a teeny flick of red against her sleeve.

But Muu has spares. Nothing can damper her high today.

*

She’s kinda scared about going to school the next day, in case now that she’s tasted blood she won’t be able to get near Rei without some sorta feral urge overtaking her, but to her immense relief it seems like her hunger really was satiated the previous afternoon. When she spies Rei from behind on her way to her classroom, she doesn’t feel nauseous or super drawn to her or anything. Just… really, really happy.

It’s a little nice, having a secret that makes her feel good about herself for once. She actually has a… well, not a girlfriend. Even if they had sort of made out the day before. But it wasn’t about kissing, it was just ‘cause her mouth tasted so good and Muu is apparently that kind of biological human who can’t get enough of it, and…

Muu’s not gonna think about labelling it. That’s kind of the trendy, modern way to do things, anyway, right?

She remembers her promise, but it’s hard to find the right time to bring it up. It’s not like she can be all ‘sooo just so you know guys, but, that Rei girl who’s always staring at me? She actually smells good, if anything. Really good.’ That would be weird as hell, right? There’s no way that’s what Rei expects her to do. So she waits for the right opportunity – a break in the conversation, or a natural segue.

It comes at lunchtime. Muu and co. are sitting in their usual spot, and just like last time, Rei happens to pass by them. (Or maybe it wasn’t a coincidence? Rei’s a lot slyer than she pretends to be, Muu thinks sometimes.)

As soon as they spot her the girls burst into giggles.

“What’s up…?” Muu asks tentatively, trying to feel this out.

“It’s nothing.” Yui sips at her tea very smugly. “Just… is our little stalker smelling a little bit less bad today than usual, by any chance?”

Her eyes flick behind Muu; this time, Rei’s stopped by a tree to rummage through her bag. Dirty faker, Muu thinks with consternation.

“Umm…” She licks her lips. She really should’ve planned this – but how could she when she instead could’ve been thinking about Rei’s pink shoulder spreading like a blooming flower beneath her? “Can I just say something…? I sorta…” She stirs her own drink, sweating under the heavy gaze of her friends. “Never really… meant to imply that Rei smells, like. Bad. More just… a lot. Like, deodorant, or something.”

Ai’s eyes narrow. “Did she say something to you…?”

“No!” Muu’s heart pounds. “No, like – apart from that one time I told you guys about – and then that other time with Emi I guess, if that even counts – we’ve never even talked! I don’t get why everyone keeps acting like we’re besties or rivals or something…”

The rummaging sound has stopped. Hopefully that means Rei’s about to leave.

“It’s less that you’re rivals and more like she keeps on harassing you,” Sayu points out. “Once could be a coincidence but twice is a pattern.”

Ai nods. “You don’t need to keep defending her. Everyone knows what a nice girl you are, and she’s just taking advantage of that. Because she knows you can’t stand up for yourself.”

Muu squirms. Before yesterday she would’ve been overjoyed to hear all this, but right now it just… makes her nervous. She really wishes she could see what Rei’s doing behind them, or if she’s left already when Muu couldn’t hear. “It’s not like that,” she insists. “We literally just don’t know each other. I’ve forgotten all about those times, and so should you. I just don’t want everyone to keep…” she searches for the word. “...associating us. Together.”

There comes a loud, jumbled thunk, as of a bag hitting the ground.

Muu can’t stop herself looking. Rei’s already picking her bag up again, and when she raises her head, she looks angry.

“Were you eavesdropping?!” Yui cries out immediately.

Rei doesn’t respond. Just stalks off, hands tight and bloodless against the straps of her bag.

Seriously?! Muu watches her go in disbelief. Why is she so mad? Hadn’t Muu done, like, exactly what Rei asked her to do?

What exactly did she expect to happen, here?

“Oh my god,” Ai says. “She is actually a genuine fucking stalker.”

Muu’s hands hit the table. “Can we all just stop talking about Rei for one minute, please?!”

Which is fucking stupid because they literally haven’t talked about her all day, or the last few days, either. Yui and Sayu share glances, but Muu’s beyond caring.

“Whatever.” Muu tugs up her own bag, quickly shoving her things back into it. “If even my best friends can’t respect my boundaries…”

Thank god but that startles them all back into their proper roles, cooing and apologising and promising not to keep worsening Muu’s anxiety by talking about it at all.

It’s good that nobody has any idea that Muu and Rei might have something like an actual positive relationship together. But if people get the idea that Muu is her primary victim or whatever, she won’t be able to avoid getting dragged into any drama Rei instigates around herself. The further Rei’s reputation falls, the riskier things get for Muu, too.

It makes her uneasy. So much for getting to be happy, for once. Just fuck her, right?

*

After a long period of hesitation and re-writing, Muu texts Rei that evening.

Hey! 💖😘 You seemed a lil upset earlier today. Is everything okay?? 😮😮😮

She glares down at the screen for a long while after that. Maybe she should’ve been a bit more apologetic, but… for what? If Rei’s going to be super irrational like that, she should have to explain herself. Muu isn’t meeting her halfway just to get beat up for no reason.

But the minutes fly by and still no response. Eventually, over half an hour later, she gets a read receipt, but ten minutes after that, it’s still radio silence.

Muu purses her lips, fuming a little. They’ve made out once and already she’s getting the silent treatment?! That was her first ever make-out! Her tongue-kiss virginity! (Not actually her full first kiss, not since that time with the son of the fake flowers guy back in middle school, but it still counts, right?!)

She’s too indignant to resist double texting.

Hey!! I know you saw that. Why are you ignoring me?! 😭🥺

She kicks her feet against the bed in impatience, frowning deeply into her pillow, but only a couple of minutes later, Rei finally responds.

Do you seriously not understand why I’m mad?

Oh, so it’s like that, then.

Well, Muu did what you asked her to, so…? ??

You told them we were ‘nothing.’

What would you prefer Muu said? That you’re a cake and the whole school should come and try to eat you????

Rei can’t be one of those activists types who want to be ‘open’ about their predilections to ‘combat stereotypes’ or something, right…? If so, she can ruin her life all on her own. Muu is not going to be joining her.

She really, really doesn’t want it to be that, though. Just the idea of someone else trying to sink their teeth into Rei makes her see blood red.

Rei’s response this time takes a little longer.

So it’s all a secret, then?

Yes <33333

Muu drops her phone onto the pillow. Like… she knows she outranks Rei in the grades department (because, yeah, she’d checked last time exam scores went up, so what?), but she hadn’t thought she was this stupid.

(Not that her grades have been so hot lately, but that’s a whole other story.)

It’s just: yes, it would be nice if they could just openly meet up to make out and feed and whatever, but the world just isn’t like that. They’d be crucified, the both of them. And who knows what kinds of perverts would come for Rei in that case. This is all really even more for her benefit than Muu’s own – doesn’t she get that?!

The poor dear: she puts so much effort into playing the hero, she forgets to look after herself.

Besides that… summer break is coming up very soon. And maybe Muu is being a bit too greedy, but now doesn’t seem like the time to play hard to get, even if she wanted to.

More importantly: you can come to my place next week if you’d like...~😚🍰

Okay, maybe that last emoji was a little too much. But it made her giggle. Oh, how wonderful it will be to taste her again…!

She’s a little more patient now that they’ve got this thing sorted out, but Rei must be working on her homework or something, because Muu is almost to bed by the time she responds.

Sure.

Faker. Muu knows she must be grinning into her screen just as much as Muu is now. Just you wait and see who’s little miss Stone Face this time…!

*

It ends up taking longer than Muu expected to set up an actual meeting time with Rei.

School might be out, but that doesn’t mean Muu’s responsibilities disappear. She and her friends had all promised to see each other practically every single day during the holidays, after all, and she’ll be expected to host some parties and other such gatherings with those who came for her birthday. Her maman spies her one morning, lying on her stomach on the fluffy rug and mulling over all the upcoming guest lists, and offers Muu a rare sincere smile of approval.

It heartens Muu, even as her stomach starts growling its displeasure. It’s not like this is the first time she’s foregone food for the sake of a greater good.

So by the time Rei finally shows up at her house – with an invitation, for once – Muu is kinda starving.

And judging by the way Rei’s eyes glint, Muu’s not the only one who’s been waiting too long.

Those eyes widen as they step into Muu’s house and she remembers, after not having thought about it for surprisingly long, that Rei is poor.

“Daddy runs a company,” she explains, with a tug to Rei’s hand that she hopes is more ‘cutesy’ than ‘overeager’. “And Maman used to be a model. So we’re pretty well-off!”

“It’s a big house,” Rei observes.

But Muu really doesn’t want to linger here long: Rei doesn’t exactly look like one of Muu’s normal friends, and the fewer opportunities anyone has to question her, the better. “Come on! I’ll show you my room.”

There, Rei also spends way too long just standing and looking around. Muu jiggles, trying not to look impatient. “So…”

Rei hums. “It’s very girly.”

Muu smiles. “Thank you!” And then waits.

So does Rei.

“...um.” Rei rubs the back of her neck. “Sooo… what’ve you been up to?”

Muu sighs – and not only for one reason. “I’ve been swamped! Honestly, I love my friends to the moon and back, but sometimes it feels like I’m seeing them even more now than I did back at school!” She giggles, though; it’s not like she’s really mad at them.

“Ah.” Rei’s eyebrows raise. “Makes sense. When you said ‘next week’ last time, I thought that’d mean… next week.”

It’s really unfair for Rei to be grilling her like this when she’s just standing there, all sparkly and dripping with sweat. Muu can’t believe how patient she’s being.

“Yep – that’s just how things went!” She shrugs. “I was planning on hosting the party this week, but Yui and Sayu were just sooo excited to go to this cute little bistro place Maman’d told me about.”

“Huh. Didn’t realise you held a party.”

“Just a small one. Like… thirty people? Plus extras.”

Why is Rei still just standing there?! Is Muu gonna have to walk over to her and just chomp down?!

“So…” Muu repeats, nonchalantly sitting down on her bed. “It’s been… too long, huh.”

Thank God, Rei sits down next to her. “Yes.”

Another pause.

And then, finally: “Er...did you want me to start it?”

Muu jumps. “W-well, yeah! I mean…” She sits up a little straighter, looking at Rei in a very charming and attractive way. “If that’s… what you want, Rei-chan…!”

“I just thought the fork was supposed to,” Rei mused. “But, okay.”

Muu grumbles a little. “J-just because Muu’s a fork… maybe…” but then Rei is kissing her, and nothing else matters at all.

And holy fuck, Muu had entirely forgotten how good this is.

Instantaneously her muscles relax so far she almost melts directly into Rei’s willing mouth. Her hands fumble for the back of her head, holding her in place, and Rei makes a little sound that Muu is just barely collected enough to catalogue for later satisfaction.

Like this, it’s so obvious why forks are usually men. Thrusting her tongue into Rei feels so much more obscene than it should. Already Muu’s craving more; some primal part of her wants to go deeper, further, squeezing herself into this small opening and eating Rei from the inside out. She wants to bite at the inside of her cheeks without the thick barrier of skin and sup the blood straight from the source.

Rei clutches at her here and there – at her shoulders, her waist, her arms – but she barely feels it. Rei is surrounding her, or the other way around, and it’s like the most beautiful dream. The scent is everywhere, magnifying the taste Muu is prying out like pearls from an oyster, and Muu wishes she could have Rei like this in her room forever.

It almost feels like forever already. Unlike last time, there’s no clear stopping point and no moment of satiation, and when Rei finally pulls away, so breathless it’s hard to speak yet still gasping at the time, Muu is disappointed.

“I’ve gotta get back,” Rei mumbles as she rummages through her bag. She takes out a bottle of water and takes a long few gulps of it; Muu watches her throat move, already thirsty again. Belatedly, she realises that she never offered Rei anything to eat and feels a bit bad. But she works so hard to remember to do things right in front of all her friends and followers – isn’t it okay to slip up and be the normal Muu around Rei?

“Sorry to bolt,” Rei continues, and Muu suddenly realises that she’s leaving now.

“Wait!” she blurts out before she can stop herself. Rei pauses on her way to the door. “Aren’t you gonna… I mean…” Muu pouts a little, lost for words. Rei had seemed so relaxed and talkative last time.

Rei grimaces. “Sorry. I promised a sempai from the basketball club something this evening.”

Muu goes rigid. “Which sempai?”

“Yamada.”

Muu doesn’t know much about her. She already dislikes her.

“...what did you promise?”

Rei tilts her head a little, pausing. “...are you jealous?”

Muu swallows thickly, flushing. “W-well… I just didn’t know you had, like. Y’know…”

“Friends?”

“You don’t go out much,” Muu retorts defensively. “And you always seem so shocked at all the socialising I do.”

“Because most people only hang out with the people they actually like.”

Muu thinks that sounds like an extremely dumb and short-sighted idea, but: “So… you like Muu?”

She smiles coyly, hands at her lap. Rei seems amused, which bugs Muu a little, but she can forgive it.

“Speaking of which…” Rei pulls her backpack on. “Whenever your oh-so-busy social schedule allows… I guess I’ll see you.”

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you dodging the question…! And let Muu show you out!!”

Still. Knowing that Rei had for all intents and purposes admitted to liking Muu – not just putting up with her so she can get her rocks off or whatever, but actually to the point of maybe considering her a real friend liking her – relaxes Muu’s nerves greatly.

It’s good to know that Rei won’t pitch a hissy fit just because Muu has a lot of other friends also competing with her attention. Even if Muu really doesn’t like the idea of her meeting up with this so-called Yamada.

But when Rei leaves her sight, the whole world feels so much more… grey and boring.

And already, she’s feeling just a little bit hungry.

*

She makes up some lie about her maman needing her help for work stuff that day – Maman’s technically retired now but she’s still super involved in the modelling world, and it’s not completely out of the ordinary for Muu to tag along with something – and is almost disappointed when her friends don’t push it further. They go out to the beach the next day, and then a party the one after that, and then they spend the day shopping and sampling cafes, and Muu has to keep reminding herself that this is supposed to be the high point of her life. She’s a pretty, popular high school girl making the most of her youth with her friends during summer break, for crying out loud! Isn’t that what half of all pop music is all about?!

But once again, she can’t stop thinking about Rei.

It’s so annoying. It’s always good to be keep your eyes open, obviously, but her friends trust her implicitly right now and she’s got Rei herself wrapped around her little finger, so what even is there to be so worried about? She asks around about Yamada, and makes some mysterious frowny faces to make it clear Muu didn’t start it if things ever come to that. But she seems just like any other boring basketball team member with no other friends.

More practically, it’s getting harder and harder to wave away her eating habits.

If there had been any trace of ordinarily-functioning taste buds left in her they’re well and truly gone by now, burnt out by the sheer overload of sensation Rei gives her. Even the textures all seem so boring and monotonous compared to the crunching of bones of the pliancy of skin beneath teeth. (Not that Muu’s done any actual crunching. But she keeps waking with that sense of hard resistance and cracking relief lingering in her jaw.)

It’s just… unpleasant. Sometimes nauseatingly so. Compared to Rei’s mouth even authentic Italian-made strawberry gelato tastes like toothpaste, while veal française fills her mouth like rubber chicken for dog food. She’s not sure what’s worse: when she can remember how good this food all is and has to sit back and watch while her friends groan with every mouthful now denied her, or when she’s surrounded by rot at every angle and can’t even imagine what it’s meant to look like anymore.

She pretends to eat as much she can, and when that’s not possible, makes remarks about summer bodies and swimsuits revealing all. It’s true enough that her stomach could stand to be a little flatter and her thighs a touch skinnier, but even by week two Muu’s chest is starting to shrink, her cheeks becoming bonier and less cute. She can tell the girls are starting to notice (except Ai, but she’s never been the smartest) but aren’t sure how to bring it up. Muu knows how this must look from the outside, but that’s honestly a relief: it’s like night and day, the sympathy she’d get for having an eating disorder versus being outed as a fork.

But maybe that’s all why Muu hasn’t been enjoying herself lately – she’s just so tired so easily these days. She invited a bunch of friends for a garden party and allowed herself a glass of white wine because of how hard she’s been trying lately, but she’d barely even finished that much before she got a headache so bad she needed to lie down.

It was a bit of a relief in one way, though. She never forgot how the girls looked at her when she downed that champagne earlier in the year. It was probably worth it, just to make sure they forgot all about that.

Which is why she actually ends up rearranging a few things so she can see Rei again sooner. Ever since their last meeting her memory has stalked Muu, beaming down like the sun from overhead – a constant, uncomfortable reminder of how much better she could be feeling.

This time, it’s soooo much harder to play coy.

“Upstairs?” Rei asks. Muu nods rapidly, which makes Rei laugh, which spouts a burst of embarrassment in Muu’s chest. She leads the way silently, begging Rei not to make her ask for it again when they get there.

She doesn’t, pushing Muu up against a wall as soon as the door is closed behind them.

She feels feral. Not like as a joke, or as a metaphor for sexual desire in some cheesy romance novel, but actually, beastially out of control. She nips at Rei’s lips repeatedly, frustrated at how long they take to go red and raw, barely keeping her teeth out of the way when they kiss. Sense-memories of bones splitting swimming in her head, she grabs at Rei’s hands – she hasn’t clipped them, thank god – and pulls at the ends of her nails, chewing victoriously on the little scraps she uncovers.

She sucks hickeys into Rei’s neck over and over, first to bring the blood close and then just because she can, because it’s beautiful to see those dark shapes pulsing with life and sweetness, because Rei is her cake and she can make her look however she likes; because Yamada needs to know the situation even if nobody else can. She nibbles at the ends of Rei’s hair, travelling higher and higher, because it’s so good but her stomach feels so damn empty.

“Ouch,” Rei mutters when Muu pulls a little too hard at her hair.

“S-sorry…” Muu mumbles. But she needs more. She yearns for something solid – a proper weight on her tongue that she can grind with back teeth. She finds herself cataloguing the body in her arms: where could she take a proper bite out of without anyone noticing anything amiss? Her ear could pop off pretty cleanly, right; isn’t that what Van Gough did, for a girl?

And Rei’s breasts are so big. She can feel the sports bra beneath her shirt, constraining them in tight, perk packaging. Muu wants to tear it off with her teeth and just plunge in, chewing on the swell of it like mochi. She imagines them just growing smaller as she eats before growing back up.

Rei should get pregnant, she thinks, and start lactating. How could Muu make that happen?

She’s drinking so much she almost doesn’t want any more. What is a cup of coffee without a biscuit to dunk into it? A fizzy drink without a salty-sweet snack? She’s refreshed and water-fat; now, she needs to eat.

She closes her mouth around Rei’s fingertips. Rei lets her, probing Muu’s tongue with a light moan. Some predatory instinct seizes Muu, teeth snapping shut like a trap and then biting down. Hard.

Rei’s moan transforms to a gasp, and then a weird little shriek – the sort of sound Muu would never expect to hear from her. It’s so difficult, between the haze of delight at shredded skin and relief to hear that outburst of weakness and panic, to remember that there’s a line here at all. In that moment of hesitation, Rei pulls her hand back and presses it to her chest.

It’s bleeding. A lot.

Muu reaches for it shakily, but Rei hesitates.

“Um… I think I.” She swallows, staring down at it. “Might need… actual medical attention.”

Muu stares.

That means doctors, she realises dizzily. Which means questions. And all of a sudden, Muu is herself again, sitting on a bed with a girl she just bit so badly she might need stitches.

She staggers to her feet, suddenly terrified. “A-are you okay?!” she squeaks stupidly.

Rei glances at her and seems to relax a little. “Not quite sure,” she says.

She starts to display her hand again but Muu, stomach churning, spins around. “D-don’t show me! I can’t look!”

“What? Why?”

“Muu’s – not good with blood!”

Rei remains silent for a few moments. Muu bites her lip.

“...is that an excuse, or…?” Rei asks slowly.

“W-who do you think I am?! It’s not like I see blood and injuries and stuff every day!” Muu pouts, squirming. “I mean…” And: yes, the thought of all that blood sounds really delicious. But what if it’s all gross and mangled?! Muu’s a fragile maiden! She wouldn’t be able to handle something like that without fainting!!

Rei hums. When Muu takes a peek, she’s got her phone up and is typing something one-handed.

Muu’s chest tightens. “You better not be calling an ambulance.”

“Glad to hear you’re so concerned about me,” Rei murmurs dryly, taking another glance at her finger. “Yeah… it’s actually already starting to slow. That’s good.”

“Of course it is.” Muu sits back down, panting in relief. “It’s not like I could bite all the way through it…”

“Do you have a first aid kit somewhere?”

“Probably…” Muu groans, ducking her head to her knees. “I can’t believe you scared me like that! I thought something terrible had happened…”

Rei pauses again, looking at her. Muu squirms again, feeling unfairly judged.

“...I’m all right,” Rei says very simply.

Muu nods. “Good.”

Rei reminds her: “The first aid kit…?”

“Oh, yeah.” She’s really not looking forward to how she’ll be explaining this. Or – she realises with a heavy wince – the large blood stains already forming on her nice pink bedspread.

...she wonders absently if she could just… hide them. Just in case.

Which makes her also wonder: shouldn’t she be getting a jar or a bottle, or something? Or just…

Rei’s staring at her again.

“Um…” Muu swallows, the faint aftertaste of Rei only making her crave more. “You’re not… gonna not let me near your fingers anymore, are you…?”

Rei looks down at them.

There’s blood all over both of her hands. It’s so thick it’s dripping – big vivid-red drops of life, falling wastefully into the carpet.

In the movies, blood always seems so dark and dangerous. But it’s actually so… colorful. Cheerful. Almost innocent.

Before she can make any kind of choice about it, Muu’s taking Rei’s hands into her own and pulling them towards her.

“I don’t know if…” Rei mutters, but she never finishes that sentence.

It’s so good. Slick, thick chocolate, coated around glossy-fresh fruit. When Muu reaches the bite, she hesitates, hollowing her mouth to keep her teeth well away, but can’t resist kissing it, lapping flicks at the slowing blood-flow.

No jar, then. She ate it all.

Rei’s eyes are dark. Muu can’t quite read them.

“C-can we…” Muu licks her lips, and then the residue from her own fingers. “K-keep...going?”

Rei looks away. “I want to, but… I should get home.”

Muu swallows. She looks away. “...okay. I guess I’ll show you out, then.”

The front door is deja vu: Muu barely feels any different from when Rei had first arrived.

“I’ll see you, then,” Rei says with a half-hearted wave. “When you’re not busy.”

The dread dwarfs Muu like a tidal wave. She’ll have to go through all those parties and things again? Before she’ll be able to get any more tastes of Rei?

“M-maybe I’ll tell them all I’m sick,” she says without thinking. “I’m sure we can… meet more often.”

Rei’s eyes widen a little. Is it just Muu, or does she look a little… happy?

“All right.” She nods, ghost of a smile gracing her lips, and Muu feels almost rejuvenated again. “In that case I’ll see you soon, hopefully.”

“Y-yeah! Hopefully…!”

Muu waves. Even before Rei disappears, Muu’s already imagining their next meeting.

*

Things don’t get much better.

Increasingly, she makes excuses to avoid going to events. Since she’s going to so many fewer she really tries to stick them out and never leave early, but it’s not just tiring; increasingly, she finds herself incredibly bored doing nothing but talking and watching people eat and drink all day. She can’t do anything too physically involving, and even shopping or looking at cute things doesn’t interest her very much.

She only wants to think about Rei.

What Rei’s doing right now. Where she is. What she’d say about what Muu’s doing. Muu even finds herself watching a little basketball when it comes up on the TV at home and enjoying it, imagining what position Rei plays and whether she sweats as much as the professionals seem to.

When Yui introduces her to a guy from another school who knows Yamada, Muu leaps at the opportunity.

“What d’you wanna know?”

“Just, um…” Muu thinks. “Everything.”

At the quirk of the guy’s eyebrow she giggles.

“Sorry. I can’t explain. It’s just… really, really important.”

He shrugs, eyes flicking up thoughtfully. “She’s pretty good, honestly. At basketball. I don’t know much about women’s pro leagues, but she might have a shot at it.”

“Okay…” Muu frowns. Is that what Rei’s into? Sporty, manly girls like her? “And how would you rate her, looks-wise, do you think? Like, does she dress okay outside of school?”

The guy laughs, a little mean. “Why? You scopin’ for a girlfriend or something?”

“Umm, obviously not,” Muu snorts, face red.

“I was gonna say! I didn’t think Kusunoki was into that kinda thing…” When Muu pouts fiercely he laughs again and shifts closer. “Hey – that just means all the more for me!”

She hates guys like this – all arrogant and pushy. But that jibe had hit a little too close to home. It’s her own fault for getting all fluttery the second she heard something Rei-related. So she puts up with him for a little while longer, ignoring the way his hand on her knee only makes her think of blood-drenched bite marks and bedrooms.

It’s doable. It’s totally doable. Muu is handling everything as they speak.

It doesn’t matter that she’s always tired, keeps bailing on her friends (sometimes not even because of Rei – just to lie around at home) and can’t tell any of them what’s going on with her. Rei knows all of it, anyway. Sees her darkest, most humiliating self, and still likes her. That’s all Muu needs.

If only she could just sew herself to Rei and stay inside her all the time.

She’s starting to lose perspective on how many of her daydreams are even weird anymore. Couples are supposed to be two halves of one whole, aren’t they? Eternally enjoined? Like Rei’s internal fluids, digested and absorbed and intermingling with Muu’s own.

On their second-last meetup, Rei brings that all to Muu’s mind.

Muu’s leaning up against her, playing with her hair. “How come you never wear make-up? Honestly, your face is actually soooo pretty! You could be super popular if you tried!”

Rei raises an eyebrow. “Would you want that?”

“Nope.” Muu taps at Rei’s nose sweetly. “I rather like having you all to myself! So maybe I should make you over myself some time, just in here. My clothes wouldn’t be a perfect fit but I’m sure I could find something…!”

“No thanks.”

“I wasn’t even finished yet…!” Muu pouts. “C’mon – all girls want to be cute sometimes!”

But Rei just stops and looks at her, all expressionless and difficult. Stone face, Muu mutters internally and suppresses a giggle.

“Muu-san,” Rei finally says, “would you consider going to the aquarium with me?”

The way she says it confuses Muu first; since when is Rei so formal? And when she sits up, her shock deepens, because Rei’s actually sort of… averting her eyes. Like she’s nervous.

Muu wants to agree immediately to whatever got Rei to make a face like that.

Instead, she hesitates, humming a little while she puts her words together.

Rei continues first: “I know you said this is all secret. But aquariums are pretty dark. And I don’t think many high schoolers actually go there, nowadays.”

Except on dates, Muu thinks.

“So it should be fine. I think.”

Rei’s brow twitches a little. Is she squirming under Muu’s close attention…?

Muu needs to stop relishing in the moment and actually think about this question, stat.

“And you wanna go ‘cause your mom is a marine biologist or something, right?”

Rei finally looks back at her properly. “You remembered.”

Muu shrugs. “Knowing about people is important! You should try it sometime.” A thought: “Wait, is your mom gonna be there…?”

“Oh, no. I mean, she works out the back, anyway. But I wouldn’t… yeah.” Rei glances away again, and it’s super cute. “I mean, they know… something. But I haven’t told them your name.”

Muu relaxes a little. “Good!”

Ugh, this is so unfair. When Rei keeps on using those big puppy-dog eyes on her, how is she supposed to say no?!

“...okay,” she concedes, and is immediately rewarded with a surprised smile and a little squeeze around her waist that Muu enjoys very much.

“But you owe me, okay?” Muu protests with a little giggle, as though she’s not enjoying herself too.

Rei’s eyes are dark caramel. Delicious. “Thanks… Muu.”

Muu jolts a little. She can’t even remember the last time somebody called her that, without even a -chan, apart from… well, apart from her dad.

This whole thing is seriously revitalising Muu of all her lost energy. She clambers up onto Rei’s lap, wrapping her arms around her neck.

“Well… if you really wanted to thank Muu…”

Muu’s not entirely sure what she just agreed to, but right now, she knows that it was entirely worth it.

*

The morning of, Muu regrets everything.

Sure, okay: it’s mainly dark inside an aquarium. But they still have to get there in the first place, and there are still a bunch of really bright and lit-up parts!

She’s done a preeetty decent job of distancing herself from Rei over the summer, she thinks? But she definitely brought up Yamada wayyy too much, and it doesn’t take many leaps of logic to get from her to other members of the basketball club, especially if Rei’s doing favours for her on any kind of regularity (which, for more than one reason, she sincerely hopes is NOT the case).

Either way, her being out in public with Rei outside of school would be mega-weird. She’s already thinking up excuses: maybe they’re cousins? Or their parents are dating? But their family circumstances are just so wildly different nobody would ever believe it. For once, she regrets publicising so widely her massive house and exorbitant income.

It’s just… not normal, however you look at it. Why would a girl like Muu even want to sneak around with somebody like Rei?

It’s so very inconvenient, Muu thinks, how much Rei obviously loves her.

Still. She dresses up nicely, because things would have to be considerably more dire for Muu to not at least put in some effort into her appearance. She’s not sure what Rei’s into, looks-wise, but she decides to play it a bit cooler and go with high-waisted shorts rather than a skirt because it’s less obviously date-ish for outsiders and is maybe just a teeny bit closer to Rei’s usual style?

Even though she planned it all out well in advance, the dressing takes longer than expected because Muu is actually starting to not fit into her clothes very well anymore. She can always buy more, but she should’ve done that back when she first noticed – it’s too late now, at least for today. At the very least she tries to pick a more conservative style of top. Her bony, masculine chest is really starting to depress her.

And to top it all off, a hat. What? It looks pretty cute, and it matches the outfit. And if it helps hide her identity when she’s standing around in the sun (especially with her shiny blonde hair tucked away in a cute bun), so much the better.

Because of all that, she’s fashionably late. Which she might as well have planned to save herself standing around trying to meet strangers’ eyes. It’s a good start, and she’s beginning to wonder whether this might work out okay after all when she finally sets her sights on Rei by the front-counter line-up.

She looks… good.

It’s not, like, a proper movie-style makeover thing, because she’s still recognisably Rei: still boyish, still comfy, still so effortlessly cool in a way Muu could never hope to imitate. But, well. Decades of boy bands have proven that men are capable of looking just as good as girls even without the benefit of lace and frills, and she firmly believes that Rei’s current fit could earn her just as many screaming fangirls.

Rei smirks a little, and Muu genuinely isn’t sure if she’s wearing all those embarrassing thoughts right on her face or if Rei’s just… being herself. Even after all this time, Muu still can’t tell what’s going on in that girl’s head sometimes.

“Hey,” Rei greets, openly looking her up and down; Muu takes a moment to preen a little, even as she really wants to just grab her and dig in here and now. “You look good.”

It’s not much of a compliment, especially from a girl, but Muu will take it. “Thanks!” she says sweetly. “You look really cool! I’m, like, toootally jealous of how well that shirt fits on you.”

Maybe it’s her current woes weighing on her but it’s a little hard not to stare at Rei’s chest right now. She wouldn’t have thought a simple t-shirt could emphasise them that much. She’s not even showing much cleavage! It’s the first time she’s been so enamoured with a part of Rei that isn’t eating-related, and it’s a little disorienting.

“I can see,” Rei drawls, and Muu’s eyes snap back up in embarrassment.

“I-I didn’t mean it like that,” she protests, twirling a lock of hair with a huff. “You’re such a boy sometimes, Rei-chan…”

Rei chuckles a little, which is unfairly fair. “Well, then. Shall we…?”

Muu hadn’t expected how long it’d take just to get into the place to begin with. She even considers cutting to the front with her credit card in hand, but when she mutters that plan off-handedly Rei just points out how many of the people ahead of them in line are kids and, well, Muu doesn’t want to look like a total jerk.

It’s still really nerve-wracking, though. Even Rei seems to be feeling it, huddling close to Muu and keeping her voice low. Which also isn’t helping the part of Muu which has gotten really used to expecting food whenever she sees Rei these days. God only knows how she’ll handle herself at school.

...and, okay: that’s actually a really scary thought. Let’s not, right now.

When they finally make their way inside it’s such a relief Muu almost falls over onto Rei. It’s not only dark but nice and cool inside, which is great because Muu would really not be able to handle clinging close to Rei for hours if she stayed all sweaty like that.

But it’s also lovely to see the way Rei’s eyes light up. “Look at this,” she breathes out before Muu can even get her bearings. “Clownfish… well, I guess they’re some of the most well-known fish, ever since Finding Nemo. Makes sense to start here.”

“Ooh, little Nemos!” they really are cute, all vivid orange and white. “So they’re actually clownfish? But they don’t look like clowns at all!”

She expects Rei to laugh at her but she actually just hums. “You’re right. I’m honestly not sure why they’re called that. I’ll have to ask my mom later and text you.”

“Orrrr I could just look it up right here…?” Muu teases, holding up her phone. When Rei frowns a little, Muu laughs. “Noo, stop – it’s really cute how much of a mommy’s girl you are!”

Rei rolls her eyes a little. Score one for Muu!!

As they wander through the exhibits Rei continues her commentary; honestly, Muu’s never seen her so chatty. She teases her about that, too – ‘I bet you’ve never said so many words in a single day before!’ – but secretly, she enjoys every minute of it. It’s just so special, knowing she has this side of her that only Muu gets to see.

Because Rei had invited her especially. And Rei only does that sort of thing with people she really likes.

While they’re cooing over the seahorses Rei finally hits back. “You know, you keep calling me a ‘mommy’s girl’ as if you don’t bring up your own ‘maman’ any chance you can get.”

Muu snorts. “Okay, fair – but that’s totally different. You two are actually really close – more like I am with Daddy.”

Rei glances back at her. “You’re not close with your mom?”

“Oh – we are! I guess.” She shrugs, unsure how to explain. “It’s just… I don’t know. I guess I can’t really imagine bothering her with questions about her work and stuff, you know? She’s, like, super-duper important, even now.”

“You’re her kid, though. Isn’t that even more important?”

Muu snorts. “Aww – look at you, talking like you just stepped out of a cheesy family comedy or something!”

Rei frowns a little; so cute!! “I don’t think what I said was unrealistic. That’s just, like… normal.”

“Mm, maybe.” Muu shrugs. “It’s okay, though. I’m used to it. Maman isn’t, like, mean or anything; so long as I get high grades at school and uphold her reputation or whatever, she’s fine. It’s not like she’s constantly bugging me to follow in her footsteps or take on the family business or whatever.”

She’s not sure what to make of the way Rei looks at her then. Muu likes garnering sympathy, and even pity is preferable to disgust or dislike. But it’s always a bit unsettling to get a reaction when you weren’t expecting it. It makes her nervous, which makes her head get a bit dizzy and achey, which is a problem when Muu is already sorta low-key like that all the time, now.

“It’s fine! Really.” Muu forces out a casual laugh. “You’re looking so gloomy, Rei-chan – it’s totally not cute!! Let’s get back to all these adorable little fishies, and you can tell me all about them.”

She remembers, belatedly, that she’d meant to not say Rei’s name aloud here. Whoops! Her head really is getting foggy today…

Which is why when she suddenly jumps and grabs at Rei’s arm (even though that’s the exact worst possible thing to do right now), it takes her a few seconds to process what’s wrong.

“I-I saw someone,” she mumbles in a hiss, eyes widening as she speaks because oh, fuck, she really isn’t sure.

Rei drops her voice too. “Who?”

“I don’t know!” Muu begins to turn her head and then suddenly whips back, turning into the wall and ducking her face from view. “I couldn’t tell, but I thought – for a second –”

She’s not sure what she thought. She’s starting to panic, hands trembling.

“Are you okay?” Rei’s voice comes as if from far away, but her scent at Muu’s side rings with dissonant safety. “You look really pale.”

Muu groans. “I’ve just, like, had a killer headache all day, and this is so not helping…” she whines, as much to herself as with any actual expectation of help.

“Do you need something to drink?” Rei takes out a drink bottle from her bag but Muu shakes her head rapidly. “Then…”

For a moment, Muu doesn’t hear anything except her heart in her ears. And then Rei grabs at her wrist, pulling her down the hallway. ‘Thank god,’ Muu thinks: ‘she’s getting me away from the danger.’

But then, in a darkened corner behind a tank of colorful tropical fish, Rei kisses her.

Muu freezes in place, torn between equally powerful instincts to lean in and pull back.

The latter wins out.

“What are you doing?!” she hisses, covering her mouth.

“You’re obviously dehydrated.” How is Rei acting so calm? That act of hers is really starting to piss Muu off. “I thought you’d prefer this.”

“I literally just said I saw somebody,” Muu snaps. “What if they followed us?!”

Rei looks to the side; whether to avert her eyes or check for onlookers Muu isn’t sure. “They won’t be able to tell why we’re kissing.”

“Like that’s so much better.” Muu crosses her arms. “I feel fine. Stop trying to play the heroine.”

“Because you just…” Rei grunts a little, and it shouldn’t be so hot seeing her mask crack in this way. “Whatever. Fine, I won’t touch you.”

They’re a lot quieter after that. They don’t have too much more to see now, anyway. Muu feels a little bad by the time they reach the gift shop – she shouldn’t be discouraging Rei’s instincts to take care of her, even if they are hideously naive and impractical.

“So… that’s it.” Rei shrugs a little, hands in her pockets.

Muu makes herself smile. “Not all of it – the gift shop is the most important place of all!” Well, okay: most of the stuff in here is just cheap touristy trash. But some of it is really cute touristy trash! She immediately sets to cooing over some adorable little penguin keychains and imagining her and Rei twinning, though her mood falters a little when she remembers how painfully obvious that would be.

“I’ve seen it all before. You can take your time, though, if you want.”

And then Muu gets an idea. “What’s your favourite thing in here? C’mon, you love all this marine life stuff – there’s gotta be something here you can’t help staring at whenever you come through!”

Rei hesitates a little but Muu sees the way her eyes flick towards a corner, so that’s where she heads.

“Ooh – they’re so pretty!” This is the grown-up section, obviously: proper jewellery and figurines fill clear glass cabinets, all crystal-dotted fish brooches and gorgeous pearl and calcite earrings.

“I should’ve figured they’d be your kinda style.”

“Well, why wouldn’t they?” She gazes adoringly at a cute little turtle made of emerald and then turns to Rei with a smile. “You have really great taste sometimes, Rei-chan!”

Still – most of this stuff is pretty blingy. Probably not what Rei was thinking about. “So, which one’s your fave? One of those clownfish?”

It’s a little insulting how surprised Rei gets whenever Muu remembers something about her; Muu isn’t an idiot! “You’re close, but…” She crouches down, gaze focused on a little metal sculpture. “My favourite character was always Dory, actually.”

Muu giggles. “I bet you watched that movie a bazillion times when you were a kid, huh? ‘Look, that’s what mommy does!’”

“I don’t think I have ever sounded that high pitched. Ever.” But Rei’s lips are quirking, and after earlier, it feels like an especially big victory.

Muu claps her hands. “Okay, that settles it. You can have it!”

She stands immediately to signal for a shop assistant, but Rei takes a few moments to respond.

“...wait, what?”

“I’m buying it for you!” Muu tucks her hands behind her back, smiling sweetly. “Don’t you know that’s how I treat my friends? It’s the least I can do for somebody who’s been so kind to me!”

“You really don’t need to,” Rei says, which is still all well and good and according to script.

“But I want to.” She meets an employee’s eye and smiles, gesturing at the cabinet. “Besides, this way I’ll make sure you can’t stop thinking about me.” She winks.

But Rei keeps frowning. “It’s way too much. I wouldn’t feel comfortable accepting it.”

Why is she making this so difficult? “Come on – there’s no way you’d be able to afford to get it yourself, right?” The school bars students from having part-time jobs, so even that’s not an option.

“I don’t need it. I can see it anytime I come here.”

“And now you’ll be able to see it anytime you come home. Which I’m pretty sure happens more often.”

Rei’s still being all gloomy and irritable while Muu swipes her card and it’s really starting to get to her. “It’s just a present. You can throw it away if you want,” she says as she drops the surprisingly-heavy little figure into her hands. “Whatever. Muu’s just trying to be nice!”

The heat hits them like a wave the second they step outside. For a moment it’s hard to breathe and Muu leans up against Rei, the solidity calming even despite her extra bodily warmth.

“...so,” Muu says softly in what she hopes comes across as low and seductive rather than raspy. “Just let me send a text and my driver’ll be right over for us…”

“Oh.” Rei definitely averts her eyes this time. “Actually… I was planning on staying here. My mom’ll be coming over for her shift in an hour, so…”

“Are you serious?” They just went through all of that – over an hour of walking, in close proximity to Rei’s soft, sweat-prickled skin – and Muu isn’t even going to get a bite out of it?!

“I tried to feed you earlier.”

“When we were in public! Obviously that’s not an option!” Muu fidgets with the strap of her bag over her shoulder, a little panicky. “You’ve, like, gotta know some sorta employees only section we could duck into, right…?”

Rei frowns. “It’s not like I work here. Or did you want me to explain this to my mom…?”

Muu doesn’t dignify that with an answer. She can’t believe she just spent thousands of yen for a girl who’s just going to let her starve.

“Y’know, I’ve been thinking.” Rei’s rubbing at the back of her neck but the only pleasure it gives Muu is schadenfreude: yeah, you’d better be feeling anxious right now. “Would it be possible for me to, like… save some of my body for you, for later? Like, keep some of my spit in a jar? Maybe if you mixed it with normal food, you’d be able to eat more.”

Muu shivers – with disgust, obviously. “W-what if someone caught me with that? Some random little bottle of weird water?”

She can’t. She absolutely positively cannot stoop to that level, no matter how bad things get. It would be so absurdly obvious – like keeping a smoking gun on her person 24/7. And how is she supposed to even get that stuff on the food without anyone noticing?!

Muu can handle this without resorting to desperate fucking measures. She is handling it. Things are fine.

She closes her eyes; this sunlight is really not fucking helping her headache. “Th-the car… um, it has tinted windows. You don’t have to come back with me, but maybe if…”

This is so stupid. Like Mr. Chauffeur isn’t going to tell in an instant what she’s doing in the back. But so long as she never gives Maman a reason to ask him any questions, it’s gotta be fine, right?

Rei sighs a little. How lucky, having the luxury to just stand there and wait around while Muu is practically dying. “...okay.”

Muu wilts, staying upright only thanks to Rei’s hot hand against her back. “Thank you, Rei-chan…” she whispers, even pressing a little kiss to her collarbone while nobody can see.

It’s still not enough.

She was worried that it’d be super awkward and uncomfy, making out on leather seats with a grown-ass man barely a metre and thin divider away. In reality, it’s over in almost an instant, as far as Muu can tell. One second she’s there, drinking like camel in the desert, and the next the car is stopped and Rei is pulling away.

“We’re here, Muu.”

Muu wants to cry. “Can’t you stay just a little longer…?”

“Sorry.” And she sounds it, but apparently she isn’t, or she wouldn’t be leaving. “I already promised my mom—”

“So what about your mom?!” Muu snaps, nails pulling against Rei’s dumb little cropped jacket. “Could you shut up about her for five minutes?! You’re with me now! I need you!”

Shit. Muu ducks her head immediately. How psycho does she even sound?

As Rei carefully pries herself away, Muu sniffs.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles between tears. “You probably hate me now, right?”

“I don’t.”

“You do. You’ve been hating me all day.” Muu curls over into herself. “And now it’s almost time for school again and I’ll have to see you every day and I won’t even be able to… to drink or eat anything…”

Rei kisses her. Muu takes it, clutching on tight. Like she can stop her from ever leaving.

“Don’t go,” Muu whispers.

Rei huffs against her. “Like… stay over? Won’t your parents—”

“It’s f-fine. I have friends sleep over all the time. That’s not weird at all, for girls.”

For some reason, Rei is still hesitating. Muu hiccoughs.

“Do you really hate Muu that much…?” she asks weakly.

A moment later, Rei fumbles for her phone.

“A-are you texting your mom…?”

“Yeah.”

Muu cries in earnest now, forehead against her shoulder. “I’m s-so sorry for saying I don’t care about her. I do. Muu cares so much…”

Behind the barrier, Mr Chauffeur finally finds his voice. “Madamoiselle Kusunoki…?”

“I-I’m here…!” Muu rubs at her eyes; ugh, she must looks so ugly and blotchy right now. Rei is a saint for putting up with her in this state. “My friend’s just, um, sending a text…”

They spend the whole night in her room. She tells Maman they’d rather eat snacks and play games upstairs than attend dinner, which of course she doesn’t care about, but Daddy narrows his eyes.

“You really are eating up there, aren’t you, Muu…?”

If only he knew. She kisses his cheek. “I’m having the chef make mille-crêpes,” she reminds him. “How could I ever resist that?”

It’s not enough. It’s never, ever enough.

When she’s drunk her fill of Rei’s cheeks and tongue, biting hard enough to elicit sharp gasps of her neck, Muu doesn’t want to stop. It’s Rei who pulls up her shirt, unclasping her sports bra, but even sucking at that pink little nub doesn’t satiate her.

There’s so much more, further down. Muu can feel it against her thigh.

She’s never seen it so close up before, this part. Never really considered the drips, or the sweat, or the substance held between folds of flesh. She’s not trying anything in particular against her, just pushing in as deeply as she can, but the wetness and Rei’s moans paired with hers grow in equal amounts.

She’d thought she was hungry enough not to care anymore, but she does: this knowledge that Rei feels good because of her – because Muu is devouring her, like a man would his wife, like a carnivore would its prey, like Rei’s whole body exists for nothing more than to become part of Muu’s and sustain her – makes her wet between her own legs, too. She thinks it, over and over: mine. Mine.

And she doesn’t even care if she says it aloud.

It’s like finally taking great gulps of breath after struggling for hours underwater. It’s like falling onto her mattress after more than a day straight on her feet. It’s everything wonderful in all the world: the cotton candy at childhood festivals, that first sip of celebratory wine when she won that award in grade school. It’s better than all of them put together and it’s not even close. How could anything else matter when Muu is capable of feeling this good?

They go on and on and on for hours. Until Rei is whimpering she can’t take any more, and then even further. It’s a swirling vortex of sex and sensation and pleasure that never once feels part of this earthly everyday world. Only when Muu physically cannot raise her head anymore does she stop, boneless and instantly almost asleep at Rei’s side.

Still, she holds on to consciousness for one more thing, grasping tightly at Rei’s hand.

“Thank you,” she tries to say. But she’s not sure if that part comes out, either.

*

Muu is so busy even the next morning (one more taste before she leaves, and she can savour it so much more when she’s not desperate and starving) she doesn’t pick up her phone until Rei’s out the door.

Huh, she thinks, seeing that unusual single notification marker. Why didn’t Yui go through the group chat?

> Sorry to bother you, Muu-chan, but I have something important to ask. Did you happen to be at the aquarium this afternoon?**

Muu goes instantly, entirely cold.

*

She freaks out for way too fucking long how to respond. Obviously she’ll deny it but what’s her alibi? She can’t say she wasn’t feeling well because that’ll invite soooo many questions about why, and already Muu is panicking over how many times this summer she’s left places early or not even shown up when she could’ve just forced it and pretended to be enjoying herself. She needs to have something good – something that’ll explain everything weird that’s happened so far – but she’s so scared she can’t think straight and the longer she waits the more she becomes irrevocably suspicious.

She sends eventually: ‘No way!! Muu’s been soooooooo busy catching up on all this summer homework 😭😭 (please save me!!👋)’**

Absolutely screw Rei for not taking this seriously and kissing her in front of that fucking bitch Takane as far as she knows. Just for that, Muu’s not even gonna send her a heads up – let her find out when the whole school’s staring and judging her for being a lesbo, and that’s if they’re lucky.

But, wait: if Muu doesn’t warn her not to, will Rei slip up and let on that they were there together?! No way – Rei’s naive as hell at times, but she’s not that stupid, right?

This is the absolute, dead-end worst. She only just finally got to eat her perfect, eternally loving girlfriend, and for once in this entire year she actually felt okay with her life. Of course the universe just had to go and ruin everything.

The thing is, that call for help about homework wasn’t entirely feigned: between all her socialising and this stupid unintentional mega-diet tiredness, she’s barely even started on it. Her maman would not be happy if she knew, and normally that’d be enough to of a reason to buckle down and get it done stat, but she just can’t sit back and isolate herself after an incident like this.

She spends every minute of the day making it up. Memes sent to the group chat, helping Sayu with her newest boyfriend woes, and even heading out in the afternoon to help Ai choose some new autumn make-up. Nobody says a single word about Rei or any aquarium, but Muu isn’t reassured in the slightest. The one who’d sent that horror-movie-like text had been Yui, and she’s barely said a word since Muu’s nonchalant reply.

And when she finally tries to actually focus on her homework that Sunday it’s all too difficult. Her test results before the break were already kinda lacking and now she’s really starting to feel the effects of that previous lack of educational attention. Not only is she making up more than a month of homework all at once, she’s barely even thought about any of this since it first came up in class – if she’d even heard it in the first place, in between all her Rei preoccupations.

Rei. It always seems to come back there, huh.

The girl in question texts her the night before school returns asking how she feels about it. What a joke; like Muu’s not already in agony, and all because of her. But even now, even after that amazing night, she can’t bear to push her away. Already she’s dreaming of meeting up with her again.

‘Can’t wait to see you 😘’ she sends eventually.**

She almost wants to skip the first day of school entirely. Maybe then she’ll be able to finish up the homework somehow, or at least it’ll be less obvious when the teachers pull her aside to talk to her.

But she can’t possibly risk everyone getting together to talk about her when she’s not there. She’s already given them all more than enough opportunities.

She needs to show herself – for damage control, if nothing else. And if she’s just going crazy and letting her imagination run wild? If Yui really did believe her frantic text – trusts her as much as she always promises she does? Muu’s have to find a way to reward her, too.

*

She can tell something’s off the second she steps out of the car: too many glances her way, curious and questioning. She’s out before she can think twice, heart pounding in upsettingly validated adrenaline.

She finds Sayu first. “What’s going on?” she asks breathlessly, eyes wide in what she hopes to hell reads as confused concern.

Even Sayu isn’t meeting her eyes. “Sorry…” she murmurs, fidgeting with a delicate straight-cut forelock. “We were talking just yesterday but, um, I only heard this morning…”

“Heard what?” It’s finally happening. Muu’s life is over.

“Please don’t get scared!” Sayu attempts. “I’m sure there’s a really good explanation… but, um—”

Muu holds herself as still as she can while Sayu tells her what she already knows.

“Someone… saw you… with Rei-san at the aquarium. And we’re all just really confused…”

Muu’s heart speeds even faster, like some part of her still hoped this was all a big misunderstanding. “B-but I wasn’t – why – who’s saying that?”

Sayu shakes her head sadly. “It was an anonymous source…”

“And you believed that?!”

“There’s a photo!” Sayu protests; Muu’s blood drains even deeper. Thank fucking god she didn’t repeat that she was never there just now. But she’s already lied to Yui.

“H-here…”

It’s blurry and dark, of course. But Muu recognises the colour of Rei’s hair, and the shape of her hat. She’s worn that hat around her friends on multiple occasions. How unspeakably stupid could you actually get?

They’re standing close, in the photo. You can’t see their faces.

“Is… is that…”

“That’s the only one. That I’ve seen, anyway…”

Muu swallows thickly. Tears fill at the corners of her eyes, and she lets them, mind racing. “Y-you’re not spreading that, right…?”

“Of course not!” Sayu’s eyes are so wide and innocent. “I wanted to talk to you first – get your side of the story…”

“First,” Muu repeats, sniffling. “S-so you are planning on it. Showing everyone, until she finds out.”

“That’s not what I meant…!” Sayu’s tearing up, too, now. Good. “Muu-chan, is there something going on…? Please – if you can tell anyone in the world, you can tell me!”

Muu doesn’t know what to do.

“Or…” Sayu sniffs as well, hand firm against her chest. “D-do you not trust me…? Have you already told this all to Y-Yui-chin, or Ai-chan, or-”

“No!” They must be creating a scene, right? Muu doesn’t know if that’s good or bad. She doesn’t know anything. “I just… I d-didn’t want her to think I was t-telling people about her, or…”

The words are just coming out of her. Her mind is nothing more than a blinding white blank sheet of panic.

“About Rei-san?” Sayu takes her arm, and then when Muu raises it, her hand. “What’s she doing? Is she stalking you again?”

Muu nods a little. It’s not – not an agreement not, just an acknowledgement nod, she thinks?

“I-I… um.” Muu’s tongue is all tangled up.

“What’s wrong?!” Ai comes rushing up, Yui right behind her, and Muu’s eyes screw up even tighter because it’s got to be her – Yui must be the one spreading this shit all around – and she deserves to know exactly how badly her actions are affecting Muu.

“That Rei girl’s been stalking Muu again,” Sayu explains quickly. “But she told her not to tell anyone – not even us.”

That’s not—

Ai’s eyes go extra-wide. “Holy shit. I knew that girl was a creep but this is next level!”

Yui’s pursing her lips. “Why is she so obsessed with you? Have you ever done a single thing to her, ever?”

“No!” Muu protests loudly. “Obviously! What would I even have done?!”

“Is it, like…” Ai’s eyes flick to Muu and away, and she drops her voice. “A lesbo thing?”

Muu shrugs, face heating. “I-it’s not really that bad, I just…”

Yui hisses, “Did she touch you? That’s disgusting!”

“And she got you all cornered in those dark little hallways!” Sayu adds. “You had nowhere to run! Oh, Muu-chan…”

“I-it’s not like that!” Muu squeaks, so hot she feels like she’ll explode. “She never, ever touched me like that, I swear!”

“Then what is it?” Yui asks, just a little pointedly, and this is all so fucking unfair – what is Muu even supposed to say?

“I-I think she-” it’s all just pouring out, like a waterfall, like tears, like fresh blood. “She, um… w-well… you guys know I’m… I-I’m a cake, right…?”

Sayu and Ai gasp. “I fucking knew it.”

Yui just glares. “She’s a fork.”

And Muu didn’t say that. She just—

They have to believe she’s a cake. Muu herself always wanted to be one, and she really thought she was one, for a while, because if anyone could be one it’d have to be Muu – isn’t she just the prototypical sweet, cute little cake?!

And Rei – wouldn’t she prefer to be a fork, all things considered?! She’s in the basketball club, right – isn’t it helpful to come across as sort of, aggressive or intimidating or whatever? Isn’t that part of the game? And she kept trying to stand up to Muu and tell her how to treat her friends, or whatever the hell that all was back then – maybe if she’d been a fork and Muu really had been a cake she would’ve got whatever it was she wanted!!

It’s just better this way! It suits them soooo much better than what’s really been going on! Would anyone even be surprised, Rei being a fork? She’s already an outcast here! Would it even change anything in how she’s treated or in how people see her at all?

And Muu’s opening herself up to danger, too. Even if she’s not really a cake (like she should be, honestly), if people believe that she is, they could go after her. Isn’t that better than them knowing Rei is actually a cake? And not to mention, if they try to test her or whatever, it’ll completely fail. And then they’ll give up and it’ll all be okay.

But, no, they can’t test her, because then they’d realise Muu was lying. So they won’t. They won’t because it makes too much sense for them to doubt it, and they’ll believe Muu, because she’s only ever been the victim, only ever been weak and kind and inoffensive and because she’s done so many nice things for people and made everyone like and admire her, and this is all okay, she is handling it, things are going to turn out fine.

“Yeah,” Muu says.

Ai swears again. Sayu claps a hand over her mouth.

“You need to go to the police,” Yui says firmly.

Muu’s eyes bug out. “No way! Absolutely not, please, it’s really not that bad at all, she never actually hurt me—”

Ai cuts in, “so she tried to? Muu-chan, stop making excuses for this freak!”

Muu jumps, but Sayu and Yui both nod their heads.

“If she’s tried to do this with you, I guarantee she’s tried to do it with other girls, too,” Yui says. “Or if not yet, she will.”

“That’s right! If you don’t do something now, all you’ll do is leave her free to go after the next victim! That’s, like, basic feminism!”

“I-I know,” Muu says in a squeak. “But I just – please, please promise me you won’t do anything. I d-don’t think she’ll do anything again, this is all just a big misunderstanding, and I d-don’t want anyone to get hurt. Ever.”

Sayu’s crying again. “Muu-chan, you’re such a nice person…”

“Promise me,” Muu insists, clenched fists trembling. “P-promise me you won’t do anything b-bad to her.”

The girls exchange glances.

“...okay,” Sayu says finally, and Ai and Yui both nod. “We promise.”

“But don’t think I’m about to forgive her just like that!” Ai protests.

Muu just nods. Sayu comes to her side, rubbing her back. “Do you wanna take this class off…?”

“I’m fine. Really.” Muu tugs out her handkerchief, blowing her nose. “This is just… ugh. I completely had no idea this was going to happen today…”

“We just wanna keep you safe, Muu-chan,” says Ai.

Yui still hasn’t said anything else. She’s still frowning, arms crossed. Looking at her.

“I know,” Muu says weakly. “I know… ugh, you don’t even know how relieved I am to have you guys…” She forces out a little laugh. “It does feel a little better to finally tell you…”

The girls coo over her on the way to class, patting her back and offering their own handkerchiefs. A few other girls come over, too, and Muu waves it all away, but it’s only a matter of time before the story gets out.

When she reaches her designated seat, school day finally beginning, Muu thinks: I’m sorry, Rei-chan.

I tried.

*

For a few hours, things are unnervingly normal. Classes pass by without incident (save for Muu’s embarrassing homework failure, but at least she has an excuse locked down if anyone asks), and at lunchtime the girls try to take her mind off what they talked about earlier. By the end of the day, it’s almost possible for Muu to forget it happened at all, and she tells herself this is probably the end of it.

She tries to send Rei a text about it, but can’t think of a way to word it all that won’t make Rei hate her.

Rei’ll be fine, won’t she? She’s a tough girl. She can take care of herself.

She gets her first message from Rei on the way to school the next morning. Seeing the contact name her stomach plummets, and she immediately sets her phone to keep details hidden until she unlocks it. She only saw a glimpse of her text, but Rei just seemed innocently confused.

If it’s about what Muu thinks it’s about… there’s not much point in responding now.

She’s rigidly tense as the car pulls up near the school and sure enough, there she is, standing arms crossed by the drop-off point. Muu seriously considers calling in sick then and there.

But, when she sees the way the other students walk wide berths around her, Muu feels… guilty.

She’s shaking, sick to her stomach, when she steps out of the car. Rei comes closer immediately, getting to the point.

“Did you accuse me of something?” she demands lowly.

“W-why do you assume it was Muu…” Muu mumbles. She can’t be the only person Rei’s pissed off at some point, right?

Rei doesn’t flinch. “What did you say.”

Muu’s whole body is shaking; she grips tightly at her bag, eyes flicking towards passing students and wishing beyond hope for Ai or Sayu to appear. “C-could you not… talk to me at school, please…?”

This time, Rei does flinch.

There’s a pit in Muu’s stomach and she just feels so confused. It’s not like there was any other option, right? And isn’t this all exactly what Muu’s warned her about, all this time? What’s Rei expecting her to do, exactly: throw herself onto the heap and become just as much of a pariah as Rei apparently wants to be?

She misses her opportunity, and when she tries to dart away Rei has recovered enough to grab at her wrist.

“Muu,” she says, and Muu can’t see her face, but she has never heard Rei’s voice sound like that before. Not even that night.

But she said it too loudly, so: “P-please don’t… use my first name…”

Muu tugs her arm loosely – not enough to break even the weakest of holds. But Rei pulls back as though stunned.

I’ll talk to you later, Muu thinks desperately. On the phone. Or Rei could come to her house. Wouldn’t that be nice?

But not here. And so Muu scurries off.

*

Everyone’s talking about it.

Muu feels eyes on her everywhere she goes, and she’d thought she’d been through this all already what with the Takane Incident, but this is a whole nother level. It’s… thrilling, in a weird and almost embarrassing way, to feel those blank stares and know she’s not the one they’re knitting their brows about. But more importantly, unlike last time, Muu really isn’t sure what’s going to happen next.

She tries to keep her head down, which she rationalises as making her look more wounded and victim-y, but really it’s just… a lot. Not even halfway through the day she’s already all tensed up all over, her shoulders aching from her constant hunched shoulders. She can practically feel Maman coming up behind her and giving them a tap; good posture is indispensable, she would murmur in the same tone of voice Muu’s hearing all around her this very moment.

When the lunch bell rings, her dread is almost overwhelming, but the girls who approach her invariably do so with upturned eyes and sad, sympathetic smiles. How is she holding up? Boy, that must’ve been so scary!

It’s a relief, but for some reason Muu’s stomach only grows heavier.

Especially when she realises the story is getting a bit… confused.

People seem to be in agreement that Rei lured her in to the aquarium specifically to target her, which isn’t really the truth, but is close enough that Muu doesn’t really know how to correct it. But then there’s a bunch of people claiming that Rei’s been stalking her for months, and Muu tried to tell people but nobody listened. Or that Rei’s been sending her vicious texts every day until Muu finally caved. She even overhears one girl suggest that Rei was feeding on her all the way through summer and that’s why Muu’s been so tired and withdrawn this whole time, but to Muu’s shame, her first reaction to that one is relief.

But despite her insistence that Rei never once touched her, that’s the one thing everyone seems to be in agreement on: something (at the very least, a forceful kiss or a crowding and grabbing) happened.your fault for looking so cute and edible?”

Muu swallows. Sayu rubs her shoulder.

“Don’t feel like you have to be okay with it just because she’s a girl, Muu-chan,” Sayu says softly. “In fact, that makes it even worse, since everyone at school knows you’re straight.”

When the school bell finally rings, Muu feels Yui’s eyes on her. At this point, she’s better off keeping her mouth shut, she thinks glumly.

But if there’s one positive coming out of this whole mess, it’s that Muu hasn’t seen even a trace of Rei since this morning.

She hopes she took the hint and just went home.

*

Muu rushes out as soon as school’s done claiming a headache that isn’t quite a lie; she receives a chorus of nods and pitying smiles that only make the pain stronger.

But away from the crowd she feels a bit panicky. What are they going to do without her? She takes out her phone in the car and brings up the group chat, but of course there’s nothing really specific in there, and it’s not like she can just bring it up again out of nowhere – not after lunch.

It’ll probably be okay. Right? She’s getting all stressed out here over nothing. They’re all just really nice people who love her. Rei’s probably not having the best time right now, but it’s not like they’re actually going to hurt her.

(A bloodied finger pops up in Muu’s memory and she shudders in her seat.)

It’s a relief to get home, and even more so when her dad welcomes her home cheerily like nothing is wrong. Muu smiles back, retreating up to her room in the hopes of getting a nap in before dinnertime.

She’s jolted awake by a knock at the door.

Muu knows. Deep down in her bones, Muu knows who this is, and that she is terrified.

She races to the windows, peering out shakily through the curtains; the angle’s bad, but she can just barely see a figure on the front step, small and alone.

Muu salivates.

Her phone vibrates; ‘Are you ready to talk now?’

Muu swallows thickly. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sends all in a rush.

Rei responds immediately: ‘So it was you.’

It’s hard to breathe. Muu cranes her head but she can’t see any extra detail of what Rei’s doing or what expression she’s making, and when Rei’s head turns to one side she ducks back down instinctively, heart in her throat.

‘I’m sorry,’ she sends again.

Rei doesn’t waste time. ‘Then tell them they’re wrong.’

‘I tried to tell them that nothing actually happened. I said over and over I don’t want this to become a big deal. I’m sorry.’

‘Do you seriously believe that would get them to stop?’

Muu’s eyes water. ‘I don’t know wat u want me to do,’ she punches in, taking twice as long due to her trembling fingers. ‘Ive been so so tired lately. U no I cant eat much. Its hard to think straight.’

And that’s not wrong, either. Muu’s been through so much these past few months – is it any wonder she isn’t responding at her best right now?!

Her heart pounds while she waits for a response.

‘Are you seriously asking me up to feed? Right now?’

Muu snorts, tears overflowing. ‘Well we’ll have 2 do it at some point right?’

Rei’s text comes quick: ‘absolutely fucking not.’

Muu’s shoulders shake, vision going white for a moment as she processes the language. ‘U dont have t2 be sso mean about it’.

And: ‘+ what do u mean ‘absolutely not’? Ur going to let me STARVE???’

It’s so hard to type through the sobbing. ‘i never onc sasi d u abused me’ Muu punches in, letting the typos remain because Rei deserves to know what kind of a state she’s putting her in. ‘I nveer said aannytihing like that a tall I literally CANT even do what ur asking me 2 do. also me fee/ding has NTHING 2 do w that WHATSSOEVER Ur literally just punishing m fr no reason when im already having a rlly shitty time and u know i need u and ur trying to manipulate me and ruin my LIFE purely bc of pettiness.’

When she pushes send, Muu doubles over and cries into her knees. What did she ever do to deserve any of this? All she wanted was to get through high school and have friends and be happy. Now, even Rei – the one person who’d found out her secret and stood by her no matter what – was ready to cast her aside like she was dirt.

Minutes pass and her phone remains silent. Finally Muu risks a peek out of the window again, but Rei is gone.

‘Where did u go?’ she texts in a rush.

‘Home.’

Muu almost chokes. She typed out several responses, deleting all of them.

Finally, she sends: ‘Then don’t expect sympathy when I starve 2 death.’

And then she flings her phone away, falling to the floor, and weeps.

*

The next morning, Muu looks awful.

She hides it as best she can with make-up, but with everyone already on high alert and eager for fresh gossip, there was no chance in hell they’d fail to notice the puffy redness of her eyes.

“Oh, no! What happened, Muu-Muu?!”

Her stomach twinges, begging for sustenance. Muu’s so tired of pretending.

“Was it Rei-san…?” Sayu whispers.

Muu nods.

There is an explosion of gasps and whispers; Muu bears it with dignity. What did Rei expect, exactly? What was she supposed to say when this happened?

Ai growls. “I didn’t see her anywhere at school yesterday. Was this afterwards?”

“But you went home immediately, right, Muu-chan?” Yui chimes in. “We all saw you off.”

Ai’s eyes widen. “She came to your house?!”

What else is Muu supposed to say?

The mood at school that day is even worse. Even the teachers are agitated, struggling to keep the students from talking all the way through class and mumbling darkly at one another during breaks. The eyes are inescapable; every moment of the day, from that first conversation with her friends to the ringing of the last bell, Muu can tell she is being watched.

Muu never explained what Rei did at her house – too overcome with emotion to elaborate – but that’s only stoked the school’s imagination to new heights. The first few times Muu hears that Rei assaulted her in her own home, she cringes, but the story shows up again and again.

If she’s being petty, she’s only giving Rei a taste of her own medicine, she tells herself. Besides: it’s still all just talk. Muu’s being denied something she literally needs to survive. That’s a million times worse.

She keeps bracing for the push-back – for Yamada or some other of Rei’s basketball club friends to stand up for their girl – but it never comes. At lunch, she even spies Yamada talking heatedly with a few other club girls, Rei nowhere to be found. It’s so unexpected Muu’s stomach twists: could it be that Rei really is an actually bad person, and Muu’s not her only victim?

But then she remembers the way Rei had talked about friends, and only socialising with people she actually wanted to talk to, and it all becomes so depressingly clear.

Muu was right all along. Without a high-value reputation, there’s nobody left willing to go to bat for her when she needs it the most. She took a risk, and now her flippancy is blowing up in her face.

Muu tried to warn her.

She does feel sad for her, though, at last. Rei really had believed in all the goodness of mankind and that people would believe in her just because she’s a basically nice person (present circumstances excepted).

And she had loved Muu just as much as Muu loves her.

However bad Muu’s feeling right now, Rei must be heartbroken.

After school, when Ai meets up with her outside her classroom, she grins mischievously.

“We’ve got a plan for tomorrow,” she whispers. “We weren’t gonna invite you, but you seem a lot less scared today. You up?”

“Plan for what?”

Ai raises an eyebrow incredulously. “For Rei,” she says like it’s obvious. “To show her what we really think of her.”

Muu swallows thickly. “I’m not… sure…”

“That’s okay!” Ai shrugs. “It might get a little messy. Yui thinks you should, but, like – it could actually be dangerous for you, y’know?”

Muu just nods.

“Think about it!” Ai chirps. “Also, like: can you believe Natsume-sensei is still expecting us to hand in that assignment this Friday?! How are we supposed to focus on literature when something is actually happening in real life right now? You at the very least should get an exemption.”

Yui and Sayu show up then, too, and it’s more of the same.

*

Muu isn’t sure what to expect. According to Rei, she’d once had a bucket of water dunked over her, but she’d never said who exactly was responsible, and that’s all assuming Rei was telling the truth to begin with.

Muu still hasn’t seen her since that time at her house. She misses her.

She doesn’t hear much throughout the school day, just Ai pushing something mysterious (and apparently fragile) into her shoe cupboard and hiding it back with a grin, and some mumbled exchanges about chalk during lunch.

Her apprehension grows by the hour – what if they do something really bad to her? Just for one thing, it’d mean Muu would never be able to feed from her ever again. And what would Maman say if Muu took part in something actually illegal?

But the others keep smiling at her, and Muu doesn’t think they’d involve her if things were going to be that bad.

She finds out at the end of the day once everyone’s left for clubs and home. Ai pulls her down the hall and into Rei’s classroom and holds out a stick of chalk.

“The basketball club has practice today so she’ll be busy for at least an hour. And I got a girl in her class to hide her textbook so she’ll have to come back for it.”

Yui smiles proudly. “It’s a good plan.”

“So… what are we going to do?” Muu asks, eyes flicking to the blackboard.

Sayu giggles. “Whatever you want, Muu-chan! We’ll all write something, so she won’t be able to pin it back on you. Let it all out!”

They aren’t the only ones here, either. There are a bunch of girls here she recognises from Rei’s class and a few more regular guests at her parties. They grin almost as one, vicious and righteous.

The wall is a blank canvas, intimidating in its expanse.

“I wanna start!” pipes up someone from Rei’s class, jumping to the front and setting chalk to board.

Yui’s eyes narrow. “Muu should get the first go. She’s the actual victim here.”

“No, please – go ahead.” Muu huffs a little, low and tired. “I wasn’t really sure what to say yet, anyway.”

A few step forward. Soon, everyone’s crowding around, swapping chalk back and forth and laughing over their messages.

‘Ugly.’ ‘Read the atmosphere.’ ‘Reeks of poverty.’ Some are long, some short. When Ai takes up a big blank space to write ‘Hanging or stabbing? Which will it be?’ Sayu gasps and bats her hand away, shoulders shaking.

“You’re so evil!”

Yui shrugs. “She’s not saying she’ll be the one doing it.”

Sayu writes ‘Gloomy make-up? It suits you!’

“Oh my god, yes,” agrees a girl from her class. “She’s been so annoying lately – all silent and cold and stuff. Obviously just fishing for sympathy.”

“I hate people like that. It’s so manipulative.”

‘You’re so disgusting.’ ‘Just notice that everyone hates you already~’ ‘Bitch.’

“Oh, wait.” Yui rubs out a bit. “We need this for the center.”

‘Why are you here?’

“It’s so fucked she’s still coming to school. She really doesn’t care at all if she traumatises Muu-chan all over again.”

“That’s probably why she’s coming. Looking for one last opportunity before the cops get her.”

“I’ll host a party the day she’s expelled, I swear to god. Even before all this happened she was so fucking annoying.”

“Right? I’m so tired of having to stare at her ugly sweat-stained uniform all day.”

“Why does this school even accept people like her? They always cause problems sooner or later.”

“Because they don’t care. Just look at how the teachers are responding to this actual predator walking around freely. They’re literally letting her into the girls’ bathrooms and everything.”

“Omigod, imagine going to the toilet and when you’re done and leave the stall Rei is like right there, just staring at you?!”

“I’d just punch her. I’m not even joking. It’s so fucking unacceptable, what she’s doing.”

Sayu gasps. “Oh, Muu-chan – did you get your chance yet?”

“There’s a space up here, in the corner!”

“Sorry for getting in your way!”

Muu stares up at it – the one blank space left on the insult-strewn wall.

They’re doing this all because Muu wanted it this way, Muu thinks. They rallied to protect her, no matter what. Even when she was at her lowest.

“It doesn’t need to be super creative or anything! Just let it out. It’s okay to be angry.”

Muu nods. This feels like a dream. Her body pulses, dread-excitement, joy-despair.

Reaching up, she jots down the only thing she can think of right now.

“’Acting like the heroine,’” Yui repeats.

“That’s how we met,” Muu murmurs. “She...kept trying to tell me what to do. Like I was the bully.”

Incredulous laughter rings out. “Are you for real?!”

“That’s so fucking ironic.”

“It’s not irony. It’s projection. All the worst people are like that. Every accusation is a confession.”

Everyone nods in agreement.

“Is that all…?” Muu asks quietly.

“Ooh, one more thing!”

Ai rushes out again. In the meantime, Yui squeezes a long line of text down the bottom.

‘Thanks for all the fun times we’ve had! These flowers are a present for you <3’

Muu doesn’t understand until Ai gets back. “Here!” A glass vase filled with two white flowers – the sort a class would put on a student’s desk in memorium.

“You do the honour, Muu-chan!” she declares brightly.

Muu takes it gently, turning to lean back on the teacher’s desk. They’re pretty.

Everyone’s looking straight at her – a whole audience of expectant eyes and knowing smiles, like what they’re doing is just so perfectly right and good.

It’s hard to swallow, let alone speak. They really all love her this much.

“Thank...you all,” Muu finally gasps, clutching tightly at the vase. “I don’t…really know what I’d do, without friends like you here with me…!”

This is okay, isn’t it? It’s not like Muu organised this all. It’s not like they’re actually physically hurting her. It’s not like Muu has any other option, now that she’s been pushed into this corner.

She can’t think straight. She’s so tired. She’s so grateful. She’s so lost.

But everyone is happy, here. When she walks down the lines of desks to the one pointed out to her (she’s never actually seen Rei in class, has she?), she feels like a holy woman carrying out some sacred ritual. She places the vase softly, nudging the flowers absently as she straightens.

Or like a princess, maybe. With all her loyal subjects.

For a moment, all it still.

Ai giggles gleefully and the spell is broken; the girls chat amongst themselves, squealing over how Rei will react when she sees it or taking photos to commemorate the moment.

Sayu nudges Muu’s shoulder. “You should probably head home, now.”

“Don’t worry!” another girl assures her. “We’ll record the whole thing and send it right to you!”

Yui brightens. “Oh, that reminds me. We should add you to that group chat, Muu-chan!”

Muu pouts a little. “How come I wasn’t already invited…?”

“It was for your own good!” Sayu’s eyes widened. “We wanted to take care of all of the hard stuff, and only let you in once we knew we could do it!”

“Plus,” Yui points out, “You did try to make us promise not to hurt her at first. But at least you changed your mind about that.”

Sayu takes Muu’s phone. Instantly, Muu panics.

“I-I can add myself…!” She grabs at it, unlocking it on instinct and then pressing it to her chest in fear of what’ll show up.

Yui raises an eyebrow. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing! I just…” How is she expected to think with everyone staring at her like that!? “I-I guess I’m still just a bit… on edge…” She glances at the door. “Can I leave now…?”

Sayu nods immediately. “Sorry about that! I’ll just send you an invite…”

Muu’s phone buzzes. Heart hammering, shoulders hunching, Muu unlocks her phone and taps the notification to accept it.

“Great! All done,” she breathes.

“Want me to walk you out?” Ai asks.

Muu doesn’t. But she nods.

“Thanks…” And then she forces a laugh. “Sorry! Ugh, I can’t believe I’m still this weird and jittery and stuff…”

“That’s just what happens when you’ve been through something like that!”

“Yeah, like – aren’t they called ‘flashbacks’? Even really little things can suddenly remind you of your trauma. It’s no wonder you’re getting those!”

Muu just wants to be gone. “Thanks, everyone. Keep yourself safe!”

“I don’t think I can promise that...”

“She’s not gonna start anything with like 20 girls on her. She wouldn’t have lured Muu-chan away like that if she wasn’t a coward.”

Muu and Ai walk through the quiet hallways in silence.

“...are you really okay, Muu-chan?” Ai murmurs.

“...just.” Muu closes her eyes for too long, almost stumbling over nothing. “Really… tired.”

Ai pats her shoulder. “Just leave the rest to us. You’re safe now.”

Muu forces a smile. “Thanks.”

They hug goodbye at the car (Ai offers to keep her company just in case Rei shows up again but Muu says she just wants to sleep, promising to call the police if she needs to at all), and then Muu’s gone.

She barely wakes up long enough to get from the car to her bedroom.

When she wakes again at 8 o’clock, she’s a little confused not to see anything new in the group chat. But she falls asleep again soon enough.

*

She wakes at five in the morning, head pounding like crazy.

The pain in her stomach is almost unbearable so she sneaks out of her room to slip into the kitchen and inhale half a loaf of bread. She knows in theory she should be getting more nutrients, but fruit and vegetables are just so juicy and mushy the thought of downing them makes her want to barf. At least if she focuses on the texture of the crust and the springy soft centre she can pretend it all still tastes like anything.

She should have taken Rei up on her offer of saving her spit. Now, even if she might someday manage to find another cake somewhere, she’ll never be able to taste Rei’s flavours ever again. It won’t be the same.

Her phone remains on her bedside table even when she comes back up. She doesn’t want to see it, whatever it is. It’ll just be taunting her. Especially if they make a dumb mistake and accidentally get her bleeding.

Or maybe Rei’ll be doing that to herself.

It’s not a bad idea. If Muu gets really desperate, at least some kind of blood’s gotta be better than nothing, right?

As the sun rises and Muu prepares for school, though, she starts to notice just how silent her phone is. She picks it up eventually, concerned it isn’t working, but everything seems fine. She just hasn’t gotten any new messages since she left school the day before.

She stares down at the screen, willing it all to make sense – at least, in a way that isn’t fucking terrifying. There’s the new group chat, and then the old one with her besties, plus a few individual ones, including Rei.

She feels the sudden urge to send ‘I’m sorry’ again. But she’d always told Rei she had nothing to do with any of the bullying her friends got accused of. Maybe Rei’ll believe she had nothing to do with this one, either…?

The prospect of contacting someone is almost as scary as the alternative, but she does it eventually, on the logic that she’s obviously just getting into her own head with anxiety and so she’s better off just getting it over and done with sooner.

‘Sorry, Muu slept basically all day! How was everything?’

Is that vague enough to stand interrogation? Not that Rei or anyone else will see these texts, but suddenly Muu is feeling paranoid.

That paranoia intensifies when all through breakfast and even when heading off to school, Muu still hasn’t received a reply.

It’s definitely unusual. Muu herself has sometimes left people on read (what? She’s been sick!! sort of), but for everyone to be doing that? To not get even a single message all morning? Her imagination goes wild with the possibilities: that everyone’s been caught by the principal and had their phones confiscated, or Rei came back with her basketball club buddies and there was a huge fight, or… worse.

Nobody saw anything on her phone when Sayu grabbed it, right? Muu’s not even sure what they could have seen. Rei in her contact list? It’s not like it’s weird for her to exchange numbers with people she doesn’t know well. And Rei supposedly ‘lured’ her to the aquarium, so logically they probably had to have at some point.

So why does Muu feel like she’s walking straight in to a lion’s den?

By the time they reach school, Muu is seriously questioning her decision to come to school today at all. When the car pulls in, people stare; the windows are tinted, but Muu has made sure the whole student body knows that this classic, expensive vehicle belongs to her family.

It’s just her imagination that the mood seems totally different, right? Everything will be okay, right?

“Here you go, Mademoiselle Muu,” the driver farewells her, and it’s more on automatic instinct than anything else that Muu nods his way and pushes out the door to leave.

It wasn’t her imagination. Today, when people look at her, they drop their gaze and walk quickly away.

Muu is shaking, vision white as she strides into school. The nurse’s station, she decides. She can hide out there while she works out what on earth—

Yui, Ai, and Sayu are all waiting just inside the front doors.

Ai looks grim. Sayu looks tearful. Yui looks… just about as scary as she usually looks.

“Muu-chan,” Sayu greets her, but Ai cuts in first.

“Are you a fork?” Ai asks bluntly, arms crossed.

Muu bursts into tears. It isn’t difficult. It’s not even fake at all.

Sayu pats at her arm, but it’s a bit distant. Not the eternally comforting gentleness she’s come to expect from her bestie. Muu cries harder.

“And Rei,” Yui continues. She doesn’t even look surprised. “Is she actually a cake?”

Muu can barely speak. “W-why…” This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening this can’t be happening this can’t be happening.

Ai explains, “There’s a rumour going around since last night. Everyone’s saying you guys met up loads of times. That you wanted it.”

“Of c-course I didn’t,” Muu hisses in a croaked, cracked voice. “H-how could you b-believe-”

“We don’t!” Sayu says with wide eyes. “It’s just another mean rumour.”

Muu turns to Ai and Yui for their agreement. It doesn’t come.

“Isn’t it true, Muu-chan?” Yui asks quietly.

Muu wants to throw up. Right here, right now, image be fucking damned.

Ai’s averting her eyes. “It’s not like I don’t trust you, but…”

The bread pulses in her gut. Why of all days did she decide to binge?

“I can’t believe…” She’s unintelligible. It doesn’t matter. Nobody is listening.

Yui’s still just staring at her. There’s not a shred of uncertainty in those eyes. Muu has no clue how, not the slightest idea why, but she knows – that much Muu has no doubt of whatsoever.

“...c’mon,” Yui murmurs softly. Muu’s panic rises to life and death levels and she grabs out at Ai and Sayu’s wrists.

“Please!” she begs. “This is – this – this happened before, right? And you stood by me. We’re best friends. We’ll always be together!”

She can’t bear Sayu’s gaze. She wants to fucking scream and tear and gouge her eyes out rather than see them any more.

“Wh-why don’t you – who’s even saying this? Is it Takane again? Because-”

“It’s not,” Yui says.

“Wh-whoever it is, you just believe them? Over me? Your best friend?”

Sayu stares down at the floor. “You did… um, yesterday… tried to hide your phone from me…”

Muu’s eyes bug out. “What…?!”

Ai sighs. “You do sorta… lie a lot. Or keep things from us. Especially during summer…”

When she was sick? When she was being harassed by Rei, as far as they know, and struggling so fucking badly but trying to keep it to herself because she didn’t want anybody to get hurt?

She can barely breathe. Her eyes are on fire, tears scalding down her cheeks, throat quivering around the words she tries desperately to get out.

“I th-though we were friends,” she bites, and she means it to sound shaming and cold and cruel but her voice squeaks on every word and she’s just so incredibly, undeniably pathetic.

Sayu’s crying too, now. Even Ai’s blinking back tears, from when Muu can tell through her own. That really is how they see her now – as a fork and a dyke and some secret pervert who’d prey on an innocent girl who wasn’t doing anything wrong. They really, truly see her as the aggressor.

Just like Rei had done, once.

She pushes her way through, waiting for the grab at her arm and the cry of “Muu-chan!” but that doesn’t come, either. She just keeps walking, unobstructed, all the way up to the roof, where sit sits down and cries.

*

Things are

pretty bad

after that.

*

The nurse kicks her out after lunch. Muu considers skipping, but some fucking stupid, naive part of her wonders whether the rumour’s really spread that far. Maybe her friends all just suck.

It has.

She sniffles through class. Girls snicker behind her, muttering about the balls she had to show her face. (It’s school. Where else is she supposed to go?)

She doesn’t take in a single word until her name suddenly gets called out, right as the bell’s ringing.

“Kusunoki-san. I’d like to have a chat with you in the staff room before you leave.”

More mutterings. The teacher pretends not to hear. Muu follows dully, staring down at her shoes the whole way.

And of course, once they get there, they can’t juts get it over with. He sits down and picks up some documents from his desk, frowning down at them for several minutes before he continues.

“We need to talk about your grades,” he finally says.

Muu’s head flips up – this isn’t about the rumour?!

“O-oh…” He’s still looking at her expectantly. “Um… sorry. Muu’s been… sort of tired and busy, lately…”

He just keeps staring. Muu’s back hurts so much. Why does everyone keep doing this to her?

“I understand there have apparently been some goings-on in your personal life,” he says eventually.

Muu doesn’t even know how to respond to that. Goings-on…?!

“But I can only let things slide for so long. I’ve contacted your mother—” Muu’s head raises so fast her neck snaps “—and if I don’t see any improvement, we may have no choice but to resort to punitive consequences.”

Maman’s been called. She knows about her grades. Maybe even about the ‘goings on’.

If she cares about that.

“Kusunoki-san? Do you understand me?” Muu raises her eyes just a little. “This is a serious situation. You need to do something about your grades.”

Muu lowers her eyes. “Yes, sir.”

For another full minute he just sits there, looking at her. Only then does he sigh, returning the documents to the table and waving her off.

Muu left her bag back in the classroom so she heads back there. When they see her down the hall, a group of girls suddenly pour out and run away, squealing and cackling.

It’s pretty much as Muu expected. They’ve written on the backboard again. And they’ve upturned her bag, spilling the contents everywhere.

Feeling woozy, Muu reaches for the wall, flinching away when that brings her closer to the abuse scrawled there. Instead, she steps ahead to steady herself at the teacher’s desk. And then she sits down, head resting on the cool wood surface.

*

Maman pulls her into a lecture as soon as she gets home. Daddy is nice and tells her she can talk to them if anything is going on and hugs her when she cries a little, but it’s barely enough. Like mouthing at Rei’s neck when she’ll only feel thirsty again as soon as she’s left.

She won’t be able to take tomorrow off. Maman will never let that happen now. She’s made this hell for herself, and now she has no choice but to go through the motions of it, day after day.

That whole bleeding idea is starting to sound pretty nice.

*

Everyone is avoiding her.

Only the memory of Maman’s stern glare forces her out of the car and through the gates. It’s like walking into a burning building, stubbornly ignoring every last one of her frayed nerves screaming at her to leave.

Someone walking past jostles against her roughly. It could have been just because Muu’s staring down at the ground – maybe they didn’t even see her – but she hears the laughter behind her afterwards.

Another girl whispers “Should’ve known the foreigner would be the Christ-eater. Did you know that’s what they actually do at church? Unironically?”

“Can you believe I borrowed her lipstick one time? Like, eww! She was so totally getting off on all that, right?”

“Wait, is that why she was constantly giving out all that garbage her rich parents bought her? She just wanted heaps of cute girls to touch her stuff and leave traces on them without them ever knowing?!”

It only gets worse.

Everything.

*

She remembers what those girls from the other class said about Rei using the bathroom, so Muu waits until after school.

Maybe everything would’ve turned out differently if she’d just gone at home.

When she leaves the stall, there’s a whole group of girls there. They overturn a box full of cutlery over her head.

A steak knife narrowly avoids her shoulder. Cake servers batter her back and her hands where they shield her head.

“Cannibal,” one hisses. Lights flash in her face. “Disgusting freak.”

Yui’s among them. She kicks at Muu’s dropped phone and stomps on it.

“Oh, god – she’s crying. So pathetic.”

“I wonder how many girls she’s made cry? She never gave a shit about them.”

“That’s just what she does,” Yui says, sounding almost bored. “Anyway, let’s leave. Sayu’s still waiting on us.”

Muu slowly, slowly lowers her hands. She lies on the floor, cold tile against her cheek.

The door creaks again and Muu jumps, bracing again, but they haven’t come back.

It’s Rei.

Muu’s chest folds in on itself, twisting excruciatingly at the sight. The hope, the want, the pain, the fear – all mix at full volume into an indecipherable mess of sound.

Please, Muu begs with all her being. Please. Come save me. Like you always used to.

Be the heroine. Save me.

I love you.

Rei stares at her, stone faced.

She doesn’t smile, or reach out her hand. She doesn’t even glare at Muu hatefully.

She just turns away and keeps walking.

*

Muu’s been thinking about killing herself.

It sort of sounds like there’s no real other option. She’s fucked up everything. She’s a horrible person who nobody loves, and she’s not even useful to Maman anymore. She won’t have any presents to give out anymore, either, which she knows now was the only reason anyone stayed with her.

She’s ruined everything. She might as well give the world what it wants.

But Muu really is a coward. And the idea of dying – of the pain of killing herself – sounds scary.

Lying there on the cold tiled floor, Muu finally understands.

She takes up the steak knife, abandoning her ruined phone, and starts running.

*

She’s not very fit. If Rei were trying to get away from her, Muu would stand no chance.

She’s not, though. She’s just walking the path to the train station, bag jangling with every step, like this is any other day.

It’s no surprise Rei is better at enduring than her, though.

Rei’s instincts are good but Muu is resolute – a whole lifetime’s worth of it, expressed outwardly onto this poor soul unfortunate enough to have been placed before her. She grabs at Rei’s arm before she can pull away, panting so hard it feels like she’s breathing in smoke, words squeezing out only through desperate effort.

“I’ve g-got it.”

Rei isn’t running away, but she doesn’t move closer to comfort her. That’s okay. Muu won’t need that, soon.

“They want… both of us dead,” Muu wheezes. “Everyone. So why not… give the people what they want?”

Rei’s eyes narrow. She still doesn’t speak.

Muu licks her lips. Now that she knows what to do, it’s hard to wait. She’s impatient. “They all want there to be a predator and a prey,” she explains breathily. “They can’t understand… we’re both victims. Because we need each other.” Her eyes water. “They’ll never understand.”

Stone face.

“We g-go together,” Muu says. “It’s better that way. And then they’ll know.”

Rei’s eyes flick away. Muu holds on tighter.

Even if Muu weren’t wasting away the difference in strength is insurmountable. Even now, desperate in a way that distorts her to her core, Muu can’t prevent Rei from wrenching her arm out of her grasp.

“...do you remember what you said to me, Muu? The first time we met.”

Muu swallows. It’s all dry. She shouldn’t be letting herself lose water from her eyes. It doesn’t matter now.

“What?”

Rei’s eyes glow golden against the sunset. “That bad things happen because bad people are protected from the consequences of their actions.”

Muu thought this would be simple. She shakes her head. “You – you want revenge?”

Rei just looks at her. If Muu were thinking more clearly she might notice the slightest flash of pity.

But she doesn’t understand.

“...if people are going to hate me either way,” Rei says quietly. “Then I’d rather it be for something real. Not a lie.”

Muu’s brows knit. Her breathing quickens again, almost before her mind catches up, because it sounds like Rei’s saying something, but that can’t possibly be right.

Muu grabs at her again, and she’s so fucking hungry.

“You didn’t,” she whimpers. The tears are overflowing again. “Why…?”

“What else could I have done?” Rei snaps, but her face is contorting – she knows she did wrong, knows Muu’s blood is on her hands.

“You didn’t have to hurt me.” Rei’s still just standing there, defenceless. Muu’s fingers dig in deep enough to twist at Rei’s skin, burning red marks. A single, bloodied finger.

“Let go, Muu.”

Muu can’t see anymore. This is the end of everything. Nothing can come back from this. It’s all just too much too much too much.

“I love you,” Muu squeaks out, tinny and pitiful.

Rei scoffs;

turns her head;

pulls at Muu’s arm.

The knife slices through her stomach like butter.

Her eyes widen widen widen. Mouth dropping open in shock, almost comical on her oh-so-serious expressionless face. A sensation of profound, body-wide satisfaction; she means something to Rei. She can make her do this.

But her face is just the beginning.

The blood goes everywhere. Chest arms collar legs face hair. Eyes and mouth. Muu’s fed from her so many times by now, but that had been pinpoint – directed. With this, Rei’s whole body opens up and joins with Muu’s, top to bottom. She’s all over her. Absorbing into her skin, feeding her hair and nails. It’s all Rei. She can’t escape from her anymore.

Muu falls to her knees. The blood alone would be a banquet. But the wound in front of her – the gaping hole, connecting Muu’s outsides to Rei’s rich and wet internals – demands her attention like the most beautiful, gorgeous sight Muu will ever encounter. It’s something worth weeping at, worth religious devotion.

Her hands plunge in, clawlike and scraping, shovelling flesh and meat upwards. It’s baptism and communion all in one, redemption and transubstantiation and bacchanal, as profane and as sacred as humanity itself. The skin sticks in her teeth, the muscle chewy and thick, tendon stretchy like cheese – Muu does weep from it, wails matched only by Rei’s loud cries.

They are united as one being, sharing in this body, in this food, in this moment. Rei had said it felt good; this, their souls sewed as a chimera, is euphoria. Muu does not need to chase flirt run pretend convince. Muu isn’t thinking about where she is or who’s around her or her clothes the time her parents school friends world, nothing. The only thing that matters in this empty, shrinking universe is her and Rei and the body between her teeth.

She eats and she eats and she eats, gnawing like a dog and pulling parts off ‘til they snap. And all the while, Rei’s moans are heavenly music to her ears.

She eats. She eats.

She eats.

*

Muu wakes up slowly.

The bed is hard and uncomfortable beneath her. Beside her, a machine beeps in rhythm.

Her stomach feels queasy. She’s so heavy; even sitting up seems impossible. She places one shaking hand over her stomach, like she’s pregnant. That’s Rei, in there.

She feels dizzy. She takes her hand back again.

She turns onto her back, staring at the white hospital ceiling. She doesn’t have her phone on her – not that it’d work anymore. There’s no way to tell what time or day it is or where anyone is or anything else in the world. Maybe she really did ascend to some otherworldy dimension.

Then she wonders where the rest of Rei is right now and her stomach seizes up again.

Eventually, Daddy arrives. Before he says anything at all he comes in and hugs her, so tightly and for so long Muu almost manages to cry.

Muu’s suffering from malnutrition, of course, even after her last feeding frenzy. They got some into her via a tube. They might have to do it again if she can’t keep up the food intake on her own. But she doesn’t have any major injuries apart from that. Once she’s well enough to walk, she can leave.

Muu doesn’t care about any of that.

“Wh-what happened… to…”

Daddy pauses. Muu closes her eyes, breath hitching.

“...she’s in the ER right now,” Daddy finally says. “There’s a lot to fix up, but… it looks like she’ll make it.”

Muu’s mouth wobbles. Her eyes squeeze tight, just one tear spilling forth. It lands atop her clenched fist.

Daddy hugs her, and Muu cries.

*

The therapist smiles encouragingly. “Yes, that’s very normal!” she says, all soothing tones and disorienting calm. “People with Mantigorism such as yourself often describe their urges – especially when they show up for the first time, unexpectedly – as almost uncontrollable.”

Muu fidgets in her lap.

“Now, do you remember your breathing exercises? We’re going to try that out, right now. A lot of people with Mantigorism say it really helps them when they’re feeling those urges.”

She hasn’t been expelled. It’s easier for Daddy and Maman if the whole thing just gets swept under the rug so they made a deal with the principal. She’s changing schools and she’s taking this mandatory program: for her own mental health, apparently.

Muu presumes a lot of money changed hands, too.

She’s not… really sure what she’s doing here. Ever since that day, Muu doesn’t really feel like she’s alive anymore.

But Rei’s okay. So there’s something about this world that’s capable of goodness.

*

Two weeks after the event, there comes a knock at Muu’s door.

She isn’t sure what to do at first. Maybe it’s better if they never see each other again.

But she’s too weak to hold herself back. She flies down the stairs, catching Rei down the path, one hand to the wrought iron gate.

It’s getting windy now, in Autumn. Rei’s hair floats about her, as does her plain white shirt. Underneath, bandages flicker in and out of sight.

Rei just looks at her. But somehow, it doesn’t feel cold.

“...it’s a bit weird,” Rei says slowly, rubbing an awkward hand against the back of her neck. “Knowing that the best thing I’ll ever get to experience in life has already happened.”

Her voice is breathy and quiet; it resonates through Muu’s bones as though spoken directly against her neck.

Despite herself, Muu laughs a little.

“Y-yeah,” she murmurs. “Like… it’s only downhill from here, huh.”

Rei nods. “I guess you’re the only one who’ll ever be able to understand that.”

Muu’s been eating again, by parental enforcement. It’s still difficult, though. She’ll probably always feel hungry.

“I’m…” Muu swallows, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “Changing schools. Obviously. So… you don’t need to worry about, like. A restraining order, or whatever.” She tries to chuckle a little, like that’s a joke.

But Rei’s lips purse. “...nah.” She shrugs. “Wasn’t gonna do that, anyway.”

There are so very many things in the world, both good and bad. Good foods Muu will never get to eat again. Bad friends Muu still wishes she could take back, because at least that’s better than nothing. Love, even when it shouldn’t.

Muu doesn’t really understand anything anymore – doesn’t know where she is or what she’s doing or what the point of any of this is supposed to be. But when she looks at Rei, right now, she knows – and only she can tell – that Rei is smiling, just a little.