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A blue-eyed crow perched outside the window. Ijichi didn’t see it. Instead, he was watching the door.
The crow tipped its head. Mei Mei closed her eyes. Her cursed energy carried through the bird, lending her the corvid’s sight through the library window and everyone inside.
Through a crow’s eye, the world took new colors. The boy by the window seemed to twitch. His hair set aglow through inhuman eyes, the black turning as purple as the feathers on a bird’s wing. The buttons of his custom uniform ran down his jacket like a gakuran. The second hand shook on the clock’s face like Ijichi’s hand did on his pen, neither steady.
“He’s a small thing,” Mei Mei spoke like a thought, the words barely passing from her mind to her tongue. “When they carry themselves like this, they’re nearly hopeless.”
Her bird’s eye traveled, the direction tilting all the more. They rose from their branch, to fly beside the window and stand straight against the glass.
The black haired boy checked the clock, then his pamphlet. Her crow couldn’t understand the words, but it could see the indents along the page where the printer pressed ink in before it faded a while ago. The paper crumpled, the edges damp and creased from the many times he must have handled it before. Regardless of what her crow could know, Mei Mei knew the words instantly.
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The flier was old, the color faded. Mei Mei hadn’t posted them in over a year. The only reason this boy would have one is if he’d gotten it from someone else.
How he had it, Mei Mei hadn’t asked. She got his name, asked if he was on campus, and set the conditions and the time. Once she’d had the logistics for where and when, it made more sense to wait until she was on the clock.
The ‘where’ was chosen on campus, at the library. The ‘when’ was set for four, today. The money was promised, and the money was decent.
The same clock in the corner ticked away. The artificial light bounced off the lenses of Ijichi’s glasses, the glare reflecting off the window. He scratched his pen behind his ear.
It was odd, Mei Mei thought, that someone like this would call her. Normally, a bespectacled, sunken-faced nerd wouldn’t need a tutor, at least not academically.
“He wouldn’t be much use, like that. Nearly hopeless,” Mei Mei added. “But, he’s in uniform. He can pay. That’s use enough.”
On her own, Mei Mei couldn’t see through the door. What she would have done alone didn’t matter. She had never been alone–and as long as she had cursed energy, and a servant in the sky, she wouldn’t be.
Ijichi put his pen down. He checked the clock, then his notes. The nervous dash of his eyes and the fidgeting told Mei Mei all that she needed to know. Past the point of what she needed, Mei Mei saw a polaroid fall out from the pages of Ijichi’s notebook to the common table below. A face and a brown bob Mei Mei recognized was distorted through the gloss, smiling with a cigarette between her lips. The spec of a beauty mark that could have looked like a stain smudged under the picture’s eye.
Her thoughts clicked in understanding, the full picture of the library and the boy inside it coming into view. He hadn’t said a word to her, or even seen her at all, yet Mei Mei already understood the point of this.
Ijichi flipped a page in his notebook. He held his pen under a shaking grip, writing something down. Only after he’d finished did he notice the picture. He scrambled to grab it, almost flailing, as a light blush found his cheeks.
The second hand twitched. The time turned to four, the billable hour kicking in.
Mei Mei bowed forward. Her cursed energy set through her crow. The crow raised its beak to tap the window.
The rap scratched on the window. The sudden knock made Ijichi snap up in his seat.
“Shoot–!”
Ijichi’s eyes turned to beads. His arms stretched across the notebook and the photo, clumsily covering the pages with himself.
While he was startled and scrambling, Mei Mei walked in. She loomed behind his back, her own bending with a bow, until she could whisper in his ear.
“Ah, is that what we’re studying?” she teased. “I did think it was strange, you calling for help yourself.”
“I’m studying sorcery,” Ijichi said, still nervous. “So, if that’s what you mean–”
It wasn’t.
Mei Mei’s hand stretched across his collar, brushing a wrinkle from his jacket. “If it was academic, a teacher would ask, not you. This makes more sense,” she spoke to herself. “You need physical guidance.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because, you asked for help with something. That’s your ‘something’.”
A shudder passed down Ijichi’s spine. His posture straightened against her, too startled to pull back. A wave of warmth crept down his neck.
When Mei Mei first made those flyers, there had been far more students she’d been brought in to help. Not all of them needed guidance. Nanami, Gojo and Geto all hadn’t–though the last of them might have benefited in retrospect, Mei Mei didn’t know what she could have done.
Utahime had been the first to be genuine. She’d asked for, and was given, extra guidance for combat. Ieiri had been best served being taught not how to study, but how to cheat–a fact that would stay between them. Haibara, the poor thing, had been too dumb to cheat, and needed every bit of academic help the school could pay for.
The boy before her was yet to be determined.
Ijichi gathered his books and pages in his arms, holding them tight to himself. His voice shook with the rest of him as he scrambled to speak.
“Thanks for sorry. I–” Ijichi’s stutter stopped abruptly as he realized the mistake. “I mean, thanks for coming. Sorry I wasn’t clear!”
“You don’t need to apologize. No need.” She was still getting paid, after all.
Ijichi lowered his head. “I want to apologize,” he said. “It’s appropriate.”
Mei Mei didn’t. She stared on, smiling. “Do I look like I’d care for appropriate?”
A second passed in silence, then ten. If he’d wanted to stare blankly for two hours, that was still fine with Mei Mei. She got paid by the hour, no matter how Ijichi chose to use it.
Ijichi pulled up his collar.
“My studying’s fine. What I need help with is practical application,” he admitted. “That’s what I’m struggling with.”
Mei Mei tucked her hand under her chin. Her eyes closed in contemplation. Whether she was looking or not, she could see an opportunity.”
“Hm. It’s more expensive to use me physically.”
“What do you mean?” Ijichi asked, unsure.
Mei Mei brushed off the desk, clearing his notebooks aside to find room to perch and sit above him. “What’s your stipend, then? ¥150,000 a month?”
“I. Uh. Excuse me?”
“¥100,000? They do short-change the first years, don’t they?”
“No. Not that. I need my notebook to study.”
“You’re going to study practical application with words? What’s so practical about paper? Unless Yukichi Fukuzawa’s on them, notes aren’t practical for playing the field.”
Mei Mei gripped the desk’s edge, allowing her to sway. She craned towards Ijichi, drawing close enough to smell soap.
His skin flushed, his posture condensing as he squeaked. “Do you mean ‘in the field’? Like for field work?”
Again, Mei Mei didn’t answer that.
“Five thousand an hour. That’s the updated rate. I’d make more on a low level exorcism. It’s fair.”
Mei Mei stretched her leg. The side of her shoe tapped Ijichi’s thigh. He gulped.
“What’s that?” Mei Mei asked. Ijichi tensed all the more.
“Yes. Senpai.”
“Senpai? You’re not a kouhai, right now. You’re a customer, Kiyotaka-kun.”
Mei Mei drew out the name long enough to watch the sound creep through him. His back curved with a shiver.
“How do you know that? I—“
She knew how to use a student directory, that’s how she knew his first name.
Before Ijichi could finish asking, Mei Mei stretched farther. She set a hand on his shoulder, feeling through the uniform to the form of him below.
“You’re tense,” she said. “You won’t win any girl over that way.”
“I, what?” Ijichi sputtered. His shoulder scrunched under her grip.
“…Or win a boy, for that matter.”
“I meant combat training. Not—“
“This is combat training. Confidence is confidence. Either one, if you doubt you can win, you’ve already lost.”
Mei Mei let her hand stray. She stretched back deliberately, to find the cord for the blinds. She pulled them shut, and watched the strands turn.
“Do you think you could win her?”
“Her?”
“Her.”
Mei Mei’s hand strayed across the desk. With deliberate fingers, she slid the photograph away from the stray notebooks, flipping the photo until Shoko’s face showed clearly.
“This her. Ieiri. Could you win her?”
“Ieiri is a thoughtful senpai,” Ijichi said nervously, and honestly. “Why would I win someone?”
“Then you mean ‘no’.”
“No. I mean, she’s not someone to win. People don’t–”
“Everyone has a cost to win them. If you don’t know it, you haven’t paid enough to see it. Attention or cash. Either one. It’s not just girls. All people want someone who knows what they’re worth. That worth should be enough to be worth their while,” she uttered. “You pick the price of you before the market gets to say.”
Mei Mei picked up the picture. The polaroid twisted between her fingers as she tipped the corner to her chin.
Dim as the room was with the shades down, Mei Mei could see Ijichi well enough. She hovered at the edge of the desk, leaning in.
“Right now, you’re telling me I’d find you in the clearance bin at a flea market. A curse would sense that doubt. A partner, too.”
Mei Mei’s eyes trailed across him, skimming the surface. His bangs stuck to the sweat on his forehead in clumps, his shoulders still trembling. It was pathetic, in a way; endearing, in another.
She let the picture down.
“You can be expensive, if your body told me you were. Handsome, if your lips said it, too.”
Ijichi stepped back like a recoil. His hands stayed at his side, his back stiffening in his stutter. “Why would I–”
He didn’t finish the sentence before Mei Mei turned off a light.
The stripes of overhead lights turned dark on one side of the room. New shadows found his face. The frame of his glasses cast new rectangles under Ijichi’s eyes. Dim as the room had become, the last lights beside the door cast just enough of a haze to see.
The silver of her hair shone closer to steel. The color in her eyes left completely, her purple gaze turned black while she took in the sight of the underclassman.
Mei Mei kept still.
“Because, that’s the lesson today. So, tell me.”
Ijichi’s shoulders scrunched down, his posture crumpling in the wake of her. His words sounded as wilted as the rest of him as he choked back. “Tell you… what, exactly?”
“That you’re handsome.”
The suggestion turned Ijichi quiet. What shaking carried through him, or doubts turned his pale cheeks pink, Mei Mei couldn’t see clearly. She stared through the shade, regardless.
“Pretend that I’m Ieiri,” Mei Mei said, just as calm. “Tell me what you’re worth. Say you’re handsome.”
There was a second’s pause, like a skip on a record. His voice wobbled like a needle on that record player, digging into a scratch. “I’m. I wouldn’t say that to Ieiri-senpai.”
“Then don’t say it. Show it.” The answer felt so simple, Mei Mei couldn’t help but add a question in turn. Her eyes slanted down, to find Ijichi’s outline in the darkness. “Why not tell her, if it’s true?”
Ijichi started to say “it’s not–” He started. He didn’t finish. Before he could, Mei Mei cut in.
“You think that little of yourself?” her voice raised like it was a question, yet she didn’t leave the words to linger as one. Instead, she whispered knowingly. “If you do, so will everyone else.”
Mei Mei brushed a finger down his cheek, each potential print tracing the indent of his cheekbone so lightly, she barely touched him at all. Even so, she felt him tremble like the small thing he was.
“Practical application,” Mei Mei uttered like a hum. “That’s what you want to learn?”
Ijichi didn’t manage a word. His answer came as something else, an echo of intention that barely turned to a peep. It wasn’t a refusal, so Mei Mei turned off the last light.
The switch tipped under her finger. The lightbulb disappeared. If the boy wasn’t right in front of her, Mei Mei wouldn’t have known where he was.
Her finger left the lightswitch. Her hand rose through the dark, to tap the next edge of his bones under his skin. Soft and shaken as the rest of him was, his jaw seemed sharp against her thumb. She tipped his gaze to meet her direction, knowing full well he couldn’t see.
“There’s no point in tutoring you, if you won’t listen. Won’t learn…”
Mei Mei let her words drift. She felt the pulse under her thumb, like an apology was rising through Ijichi’s veins–like the slightest tap on his shoulder would have sent him sinking to his knees in the deepest kind of bow. Mei Mei pushed him up before he could fall, holding him in his place.
“Kiss me,” she said. “That’s your first lesson.”
“Why–”
“Because, then, you’ll know you can.”
Mei Mei let the thought fall. A breath passed between her lips. Her hand drifted under his jaw, to his neck, loose and light enough to let him feel the carelessness to it.
“You asked me to help you. This will,” Mei Mei told him. “You won’t be in your head, alone, with the next pretty girl.”
Ijichi’s pulse skipped. She could feel it in the tremor against her. He bubbled with his nerves, the start of a sputter. “But–”
“Touching that’s out of your price range. Trust me.”
The word turned on her tongue, an unseen smile vanishing in the dark.
Mei Mei followed Ijichi’s shaking arm, first to his wrist, then his fingers, until her hand could mirror his own. Her fingers pulled into the crevices between his, to hold him still. She guided them both towards the center of her chest, then guided him to tug the silk of her tie.
“Right here. Take your time,” she beckoned him, knowing full well she’d be paid for the hour.
Ijichi leaned slowly. Hesitantly. Every centimeter that he’d nudged towards her, or held where she’d lead him, he’d second guessed only to worry again. Mei Mei felt the shake so clearly, she let her other hand steady his shoulder.
“You can do it,” Mei Mei urged, again. “Be good to me.”
A part of her expected the underclassman would lose what little nerve he had at the suggestion. Instead, he’d bristled. His grip pulled on Mei Mei’s tie, exactly where she’d guided him to, to bring their faces that much closer. His lips pursed into a kiss through the dark.
His clumsy lips found her face–more specifically, her nose. He barely brushed her. Her crows pecked for longer.
“Close.”
“I’m sorry, senpai.” Ijichi’s feet left the ground, his posture turning stiff as he gulped back. “Close to what?”
“This.”
Mei Mei’s hand brushed his shoulder, to anchor her elbow across his neck as she guided Ijichi’s lips to find her own. Her arms wrapped tighter to him, to guide him by the bend of his cheek to linger against her, his lips on hers, parting gently, without any rush to leave.
If she’d done this for her own sake, there would’ve been more urgency to it. To start with things for her own sake, on a fragile boy like this, could’ve shut him down completely.
Mei Mei waited against him, until the shake inside Ijichi centered in his chest, enough to feel his breath flee him. Then, she pulled back.
“That wasn’t terrible,” she mused. “You’ll do better next week.”
“I–”
“Will see me next week. Same time, same place, same pay. You’ll learn.”
Mei Mei stepped back. She turned on the dimmest light, to let the library come in view. Whatever color the books had, they were practically pastel compared to the deep blush crawling up Ijichi’s neck. His face burned all the way to his ears, innocent and stained, as she leaned back in.
Ijichi’s lips parted, ready to speak. Before he could, Mei Mei purred into his warm, blushing ear. “What else are tutors for?”
While the rest of her leaned in, Mei Mei reached her hand across the table. Her fingers slipped between the pages of Ijichi’s notebook, to find the gap between them where Shoko’s picture had been tucked away. She pressed her lips to the gloss of the image, kissing it, too.
“Next week. Same time.” She didn’t say it like a question.
Her lipstick stained the picture, leaving a red imprint behind. The thin red lip line left a smudge on the picture’s cheek.
Mei Mei stepped into the doorway. Her ponytail swayed, brushing her back. Her bird stayed watching through the window, blue eyes unblinking.
Her own turned over her shoulder, glimpsing back to see him stare.
“Study hard, Ijichi. You’re a good student, aren’t you?”
Mei Mei’s heels clicked as she walked out the door. She didn’t wait for an answer she already knew. If she came back, he’d be waiting.
She always knew how to find a mark.