The clock above the chalkboard seemed frozen.
Kousei clearly had pushed himself too hard last night. His head felt like a waterlogged sponge, and his eyes weren't any better.
Maybe exhausting himself exploring stamina-reducing magic wasn't a great idea…
The bell's ringing was an assault on his ears. It irritated his headache, and he jolted in his seat, trying his best to blink away his fatigue with a grimace.
"Whoa, you good? You look like you're about to fall over."
The voice was a familiar honeyed sound. Probably because it was the voice of his only real friend in this life.
Aika Kiryuu plopped herself on his desk, her golden eyes appraising him as they always did.
He winced as he saw the usual mischievous glint in her eye tempered by concern.
"Aika," he rasped, clearing his throat. "Just tired. All-nighter."
She sighed, and he almost winced again. He hated making her worried.
"Let me guess. More research?" She frowned down at him. "Kousei, your brain will turn to mush if you keep staying up all night. I thought we moved past this phase." She whined a little, then glanced around before leaning down in a conspiratorial whisper. "Plus, everyone already thinks you're a delinquent. You're only making them feel right about their stupid assumptions when you sleep in class."
Kousei slowly blinked, his grimace giving way to a confused expression.
"A delinquent? Me?" He tilted his head. "But I'm, like, a model student… I've even got nearly perfect grades…"
Aika stared at him for a moment, then let out a snort. "You're kiddin', right? Kousei, have you seen yourself?" She gestured vaguely at him. "The constant scowl, the muscles and height, the bronze skin… Haven't you ever heard the saying 'the nail that sticks out gets hammered down'?"
Kousei stared at her, genuinely puzzled, his brow furrowing. He'd always seen himself as a rather reserved nerd. The idea that his physique warped his asocial behavior into looking like a common thug was something he'd never considered.
It was a bit ridiculous to think that way while being born and raised in Japan, but the amount of people who approached him in this lifetime could be counted on one hand.
The amount of people he willingly approached himself? …None.
'Maybe this is why? I suppose an asocial person who looks wildly different from you would be kind of… intimidating.'
"Huh," was all he said in reply.
"Anyway," Aika continued, steering them back. "Magic. All-nighter. You were saying?"
A faint, tired smile touched his lips. While he'd never hidden his desire to interact with the supernatural world, she was one of the few people who asked him about it. And of all those who did, she was one of the very few who didn't judge.
She just accepted that this was his hobby and moved on.
That was one of the many reasons he enjoyed her company.
"It was worth it this time," he replied, his voice low.
He began packing his bag. His grimoire, disguised as a worn leather notebook, sat on the desk. Aika, ever curious, reached out and flipped it open.
"Let's see what cosmic revelation kept you up this–"
She stopped. Flipped a page. Then another. Her playful smirk vanished, replaced by confusion, then dawning alarm.
"Kousei… where is everything? This… you had years of notes in here. Theories, sketches, everything." She looked up, her voice tight. "Did you lose it? Did someone trash your stuff? Who did it?"
He met her worried gaze, the exhaustion in him fading a bit as a surge of triumph filled him again. He let a slow, deliberate smirk grace his face.
"I got rid of it."
"You… what?!" Her concern was laced with a fierce, protective anger. "You've been researching this since we were kids! Even for you, that's way too crazy! Why the hell would you–"
"I don't need it anymore, Aika." He cut her off, his dark blue eyes filled with mirth. "What do you think that means?"
For a moment, she just stared at him. He knew exactly what was going through her mind. She had been there all the last decade, watching him from the sidelines as he never gave up hope. To just one day erase all of that hard work in a single night for seemingly no reason whatsoever? To do so, with a smirk on his face?
Well, there was really only one conclusion she could make.
Her gold eyes widened, the confusion evaporating slowly. Her lips parted.
"You mean you… actually…?"
His grin was bright, unburdened, and just as real as the magic he attained. "Yup."
"Holy shit," she breathed. The color drained from her face, then rushed back. She slammed the blank book shut and leaned in, her voice a frantic whisper. "You're not messing with me? What is it? Can you make fire? Read minds? Turn invisible?"
He barked out a short laugh. "Too many questions. I'll show ya. I'll meet you at your place."
Her shock immediately pivoted. A slow, sly smirk replaced her awe. "My place? All alone?" she drawled, leaning back and crossing her arms and wiggled her eyebrows. "So, the magic thing is just a new, elaborate scheme to get me alone, huh? 'Come on, baby, I'll show you my wizard staff,' is that the play?"
Kousei's grin dimmed and he cringed. "Please don't," he said, voice flat. "You know why we can't go to my house."
The teasing light died in Aika's eyes like a match under water.
"Right. Sorry," she muttered, the flirtatious act dissipating like smoke. "Forgot. My bad."
His house was… hostile, to say the least.
Both of Kousei's parents had typical Japanese features. Kousei, however, had brown skin, a mess of dark brown hair, blue eyes, and a physique that spoke of a different lineage entirely.
It was fairly obvious that he was born of an affair.
Sadly, however, his mother died in childbirth. And Kousei theorized it was that day when his father began to hate him. Whether it be because his dad blamed him for his mother's death, or whether he was just angry about the obvious affair.
It didn't matter, though.
What mattered was the reason Kousei's dad didn't put him up for adoption. In short? To leech off him. His mother had left behind a significant amount of money to take care of him. A trust fund, of sorts. By staying as his guardian, his father was able to live comfortably without a job for years on end, using that money mostly for himself.
Bringing Aika in a house like that was unthinkable.
"Your place is safe," Kousei insisted. "Quiet. And I know your parents don't care if I come over."
Aika nodded with a shrug. "Fair enough. But you're buying snacks. This is a historic occasion; it requires junk food." She tried to resurrect some of her earlier levity, but it fell a bit short.
He stood, slinging his bag over his shoulder. "I'll be over at six-thirty," he said, already turning for the door. He paused in the doorway, looking back over his shoulder at her, a glint of mischief in his tired eyes.
"And since I'm sure you're dying of curiosity… Here's a sneak peek."
He lifted a hand, fingers poised in a snap. Before she could question what he meant, his fingers came together.
Snap.
The edges of the notebook seemed to blur, then dissolve into countless shimmering, golden motes. They hung in the air for a breathtaking second, a miniature constellation of magical light, before winking out of existence.
The desk was empty.
He watched Aika stare silently at where the book once was. But right when she finally was about to look up, Kousei quickly left the room.
-=[DxD]=-
Aika's room was a mess. A weirdly controlled chaos, not one where it was genuinely dirty. Shelves of shonen manga and hentai, clothes strewn about in a corner, with a single bed shoved against the wall.
The late afternoon sun streamed through the window, lighting up the room.
And in the center of the floor, cross-legged on the plush rug, sat Kousei.
His breathing was deep and measured as he sat there. Aika sat on her bed, legs swinging as she stared, the chips in her hand forgotten as her mouth was left slightly agape.
A hazy shimmer of white energy clung to his form, like heat rising off asphalt. Tiny motes of it would occasionally peel away from his shoulders or fists, winking out of existence upon getting too far.
"…Huh," Aika finally said, the word soft with disbelief.
Kousei jolted out of his focus. The shimmering aura dissipated like mist. He looked up at her with a smirk as the pressure in the room abated.
"So?" He asked. "Whatcha think?"
Aika blinked, setting the bag of chips down on her bed with a mechanical motion. She walked over, sitting down on the floor in front of him, letting out a long, shaky breath.
"Honestly?" Her voice was uncharacteristically small. "I was still trying to convince myself that this was just a ruse to get in my pants. That everything so far has just been, I don't know, a trick of the light or something." She took his hands into her own, staring down at them as she squeezed. "I… I guess you really found it, Kousei."
Was she overwhelmed? Or… sad? It was hard to tell, but…
Kousei shrugged, squeezing her hands back. "We can get in each other's pants later if you really want to," he said, his tone casual. "But first… y'know. Magic."
He snorted as he watched her brain short-circuit.
Then her head whipped up towards him, eyes wide. All her bravado, her shameless teasing built on a foundation of virginity and too much late-night anime, evaporated. Her face flushed a deep scarlet.
"Wait… really?" she blurted out.
Then she squeezed his hands tightly, as if to keep him in place. "No take-backs!" she yelped. "You said it! That's a verbal contract! You can't take it back!"
She grinned, a goofy, unfiltered expression of pure delight, a tiny bit of drool threatening at the corner of her mouth. Kousei almost chuckled at the day-dreaming she instantly fell into.
For all her perverted antics, Aika was still just a hormonal virgin at heart.
Snap.
Kousei's fingers snapped sharply an inch from her nose.
"Focus, Aika."
She jerked back, blinking rapidly. "R-right! Sorry! Magic!" She shook her head as if to clear it, the blush still high on her cheeks. Her eyes landed on his grimoire, which he'd left open on her floor.
She scooped it up, her eyes scanning the lines of self-written text. She read it twice, her brow furrowed in concentration.
Kousei waited patiently, a raised eyebrow.
"Okay," she said, her voice steadying as she slipped into her more serious mode. "So, it's an internal energy that boosts your physical condition. The aura is just a visual side effect. You can't shoot it, you can't make a fireball with it…" She tapped the page. "Kousei, I don't think this is magic."
He raised an eyebrow. "What else would it be?"
"It sounds like Chi. Or Qi. Whatever. You know, life energy. From martial arts movies and wuxia stuff."
Kousei considered this, his head tilting. "I know what Chi is. But what's the functional difference? It's an esoteric energy that defies conventional physics. That's magic."
"Magic is more… magical," Aika insisted, gesturing vaguely. "It's waving a wand and saying a magic word. This is… I don't know, punching so hard reality just gives up trying to compensate. It's more…"
"Physical, I get it." Kousei finished for her. "But chi is just a physical subset of magic, isn't it?" Kousei countered. "Those xianxia protagonists you're always complaining are too OP? They use chi to fly, summon swords of light, blow up mountains and shit. If that ain't magic, then nothing is."
Aika opened her mouth, then closed it. She scrunched her face, clearly wanting to argue, but having no rebuttal.
"...Fine. Reinforcement Magic it is," she conceded, waving a hand in dismissal. She looked from the book to him, a new, greedy sparkle in her eyes. "So. You can make yourself stronger. Is that it?"
He shrugged. "So far, yeah. But I was hoping to get your help with something regarding that."
He held out his hand, palm up. The warm, crackling sound filled the room again as the hazy white aura flickered to life.
"Spells," he said, his blue eyes gleaming. "I want to create actual applications beyond just this. Turn this brute-force energy into a toolkit."
Aika's mind, now fully engaged, latched onto the first, most glaring problem. "Okay, let's start small first. Your biggest problem is the efficiency of it. A single minute of usage is a trash-tier mana pool. We need to fix that."
Kousei nodded, letting the aura fade. "Agreed. But besides trying to increase my reserves? I don't know how. It feels like a hyperactive dog. The moment I open up the 'door', so to say, it just desperately bursts out of me."
"Hm… And you can't control the flow of it at all? Like, after it's out, I mean." Aika asked, leaning forward.
Kousei wiggled his hand in a so-so motion. "Not really? Once it's out it's just… out. Trying to stop it from leaking feels like trying to hold my breath underwater. Sure, I could extend it past the sixty second mark, but it starts to hurt both physically and mentally."
Aika hummed, chewing on her thumbnail as she stared at the ceiling. The room fell into a thoughtful silence, broken only by the distant sound of the TV in the living room. Kousei watched her, respecting the process. For all her crude humor and crass remarks, Aika was no idiot.
Her eyes suddenly lit up. "What if you're thinking about it wrong?"
"Huh?"
"What if, instead, you think of it like a pressure valve? The energy wants to burst out, right? You fighting it is building up pressure so much that it begins to hurt, and then you have to shut the whole thing down." She leaned in, expression sharp. "What if, instead of fighting it to the breaking point, you just… crack the valve open before it hurts. Let a little pressure out deliberately, then clamp down again."
Kousei's brow furrowed. That did make sense. "Like letting out steam so the boiler doesn't explode."
"Exactly!" She grinned brightly at him. "Go on, try it. Hold it steady, and the second you feel any strain, let it run wild. Then, after a few seconds, clamp back down."
With a nod, he stood up and closed his eyes.
He reached for the door within and pulled. The familiar, roaring power surged out of him. He latched onto it, clenching his will, trying to keep the aura perfectly contained. The white aura shimmered around him, dense and bright.
For half a minute, it was steady.
Then a dull ache began to build behind his eyes, a small tremor in his muscles.
'Now.'
He relaxed his mental grip on his aura. As if it was just waiting to be unleashed, it erupted out of him in a shockwave, making Aika's hair flutter. Almost immediately, the strain vanished, but it was replaced by an instantaneous, massive drain on his stamina.
Grimacing, he clamped down again, densifying the aura once more.
He'd vented the pressure of his aura, but he'd also wasted a huge amount of energy doing it. After three cycles of this, he was panting, more drained than if he'd just let it slowly come out of him like normal.
Letting the aura die, Kousei stumbled and fell back onto the floor, shaking his head. "No good. The venting wastes more energy than the pressure saves."
"Damn," Aika muttered back, biting her lip. Her eyes narrowed as she watched the last motes of white light vanish into the air. "Hm…"
Kousei didn't really have any better ideas, so he simply sat there and took measured breaths, trying to regain his stamina.
Eventually, she spoke up once more.
"Those little sparks of energy fading…" she murmured. "That's why you're losing energy, right? Keeping it clung to your body builds up pressure because those motes want to escape… and they can't."
"Yeah..." Kousei answered slowly, not seeing where she was going with this.
"Maybe… maybe it's because it's life energy." She spoke her thoughts aloud, squinting in thought. "Aristotle said life is movement, and all that, right? Stagnant water rots. So what if instead of trying to contain it, you just… let it run in a circle."
He blinked. "What?"
"You were venting the pressure out into the room. That's wasted energy. But what if you vented it, like, along yourself?" Her hand made shapes in the air. "You release a pulse of pressure, but direct in a loop. The energy is still moving, but it's not escaping, it's just running along your body with the rest of the energy."
She locked eyes with him, her golden eyes blazing. "Yeah, that's it! Open a pressure valve that feeds right back into the system, letting any restless motes of energy tucker themselves out and join the rest of your aura!"
That…
That was so simple. How had he not thought of that?
Without another word, he stood back up and focused.
Reaching inward, he opened that door once more, letting the warmth overtake his body. She was right. Some parts of his aura would slowly get almost impatient, leaving his body. While other parts remained in place.
Eventually, it would all leave his body and leave him drained.
'Life is movement.' He repeated mentally.
With a deep breath, he tightened his hold over his aura, causing it to densify and cling to his skin. Immediately, the pressure began to build.
He imagined a wall. A barrier where the aura wasn't allowed to leave but could be anywhere else.
The effect was immediate. The pent-up energy within his aura raced along inside itself, like little restless fish in a sea of energy, racing along the river of his aura. As long as it was moving… he didn't lose energy.
Of course, it wasn't perfect. His control on his own aura was difficult, such that some motes still escaped.
But this…
Slowly but surely, the hazy white aura stabilized. It grew dense and cohesive, clinging to him like a second skin. The constant drain on his stamina eased dramatically, replaced by a steady, sustained focus.
He could work with this.
His eyes flew open. The clock on the nightstand told him he'd been standing there for far longer than his normal sixty-second limit.
"It works…"
Before Aika could respond, he crossed the space between them in two strides. He grabbed her by the waist, lifting her off her feet with effortless strength and spinning her in a giddy circle.
A loud laugh burst from him, one full of pure joy.
"You're so fuckin' smart, Aika!"
Aika squealed, clinging to his shoulders, her own laughter bubbling up in response to his rare, uninhibited delight. As he set her down, the momentum brought her flush against him. They were both breathing heavily, the electric thrill of discovery crackling in the air between them.
His laughter faded into a breathless, wide-eyed smile.
The excitement simmered, turning into a different, more primal heat as they panted a little.
Kousei's hands, still on her waist, tightened slightly. Aika's breath hitched, biting her lip as she looked up at him. Their eyes locked, an exchange happening between them.
Words weren't necessary.
Aika's bravado was entirely gone, leaving only the vulnerable teenage girl behind. She gave a tiny nod.
He leaned in, and the last barrier between friends shattered.
Surprisingly, the kiss wasn't clumsy. It was hesitant at first, for sure, as they explored this uncharted territory between them. But then it deepened, fueled by a long-suppressed fondness that suddenly had no reason to be restrained.
His hands slid up her back, pulling her closer. Her hands tangled in his unruly curls.
When they finally broke apart, both were breathing heavily. Aika's face was flushed, her burgundy eyes wide. "So… 'later' is now, huh?" she whispered, clearly trying and failing to be a confident tease like always.
Kousei didn't answer with words.
He kissed her again, surer this time, walking her backward until her knees hit the edge of her bed. She fell onto the mattress with a soft gasp, pulling him down with her.
The grimoire faded into motes as the last of his carefully maintained control unraveled.
The only magic left in the room was the urgent spell of touch and the rustle of sheets; a natural next step in a chemistry they'd been ignoring for years.