Yuki Nekoyama's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

One boy remained. Hiro Takeda drew cats. Yuki was almost sure. But knowing a name meant nothing if she never saw his hand at work. She needed proof. She needed to watch him sketch. The problem was simple: they shared no class, no club, no place to sit near him without a reason. So the next afternoon she went where anyone might turn up. "The mall," she told Raven. "People sketch there. Maybe I'll catch him." It was thin. She knew it. Raven walked beside her through the glass doors, flat as ever. "You won't find him by wandering," she said. She said it the way she said everything true and obvious. "I have to try something," Yuki said. They passed a fashion window. Two blank mannequin forms stood behind the glass, one male, one female, posed like a matched pair. Yuki slowed to look. Then she stepped back and hit someone. "Whoa." A hand caught her shoulder, steadying her. Yuki turned. Kai Ravencroft grinned down at her, purple plaid loud in the bright store light. Of all people. Kai, the senior everyone circled, the one Yuna guarded like a prize. Yuki's stomach dropped. She wanted the floor to swallow her. "You're the ghost," Kai said. "You leave every room I walk into." Yuki's face went hot. "I—wasn't watching where—" "Clearly." He nodded at the mannequins. "You two shopping for a boyfriend? He's a little stiff." Raven didn't blink. "He's your type." Kai laughed, real and loud. "Brutal." He fell into step with them, hands in his pockets. Yuki didn't know how it happened, but suddenly he was just there, walking with them like it was normal. They drifted past shops. Kai pointed at a cat plush in a toy window. "That's you," he told Yuki. "Grey. Suspicious. Wants to leave." She almost smiled before she caught herself. Raven picked a hideous yellow hat off a rack and put it on him. He wore it three stores. Yuki forgot, for whole minutes, why she'd come. She was watching for Hiro. Instead she was laughing at Kai balancing the plush on his head. He kept finding her eyes and holding them a beat too long. "You should come around more," Kai said, quieter now. He'd stopped joking. "You always slip off before I can talk to you." Yuki looked at her shoes. "I don't do crowds." "I'm not a crowd right now." He said it plainly. It landed harder than any joke. Then his friends called from the food court, and the moment broke. Kai handed the plush back. "Later, ghost." He was gone into the noise. Yuki stood there, warm and confused. She had come to catch Hiro drawing. She hadn't. She'd found nothing about the notes. But something had shifted. She'd told herself Kai was out, just a name off a list. Now her chest wouldn't settle. Raven watched her sideways. "That look," Raven said, "is a new problem."