infinite_reflection | It's To Be Expected

It all could've been avoided with a little more warning. When one of his friends dropped back Kota didn't pay much mind. Not until he heard his name being yelled and turned to see a fastball hurtling towards his face. He ducked, dropping to one knee as the ball sailed by over his head, and had only a second to breathe before he heard glass shattering behind him. His heart sunk as the whole group went silent.

The pitcher was the first one to speak, glaring at Kota. "Why the hell didn't you catch it?"
That sparked the whole group into arguing about who exactly was at fault until Kota stood with a sigh and turned toward the door of the house. "C'mon, Kuwata-kun. Let's just get it over with."

But the teenager hurried away, protesting his innocence the whole time as the rest of their friends followed after, not wanting to get caught up in this either. "Shit," Kota muttered, steeling himself and knocking on the door. Hell, he'd rather be taking exams than standing here right now.

As she reached the final boss, Seiya paused to flex her wounded hand. Leaning back to grab her tea, the glass of her bedroom window shattered, causing her to shriek. A baseball thudded to the floor, rolling under her bed. Seiya's eyes widened as she jumped up, the knock on her door sending her further into a panic.

Turning the corner, she tied her hair back, opening the front door. "C-Can I help you?" Her appearance was disheveled, as if she'd just seen a ghost.

His carefully planned apology was forgotten the instant Kota saw the girl. Her reaction, so far from the anger he'd been expecting, threw him, and he hesitated for a second. "Well, the baseball, but uh..."

He heard himself and stopped, smiling slightly as if inviting her to laugh at him. "Hang on, I messed that up." He took a breath and bowed. "My friends and I were fooling around and we broke your window by accident. I'm very sorry."

Kota looked up. With his apology over, true concern crept into his voice. "Are you alright?"

Watching him, she massaged her hand, working the under used muscles. Her brows raised as he mentioned the ball, causing her to glance back towards her room. "Oh that was you!" Bowing back, Seiya wandered to where the ball had landed, scooping it up before handing it over to him.

"I'm..." Her brow furrowed. There were many ways to answer that question. In general, no, she wasn't fine. But in terms of her shattered window, well, she could tape it up no problem. "I don't know how to answer that. Thanks for apologizing, though. It's nothing some cardboard can't fix." Despite questioning herself, she flashed him a reassuring smile.

This wasn't going at all like he thought. But instead of being a relief it's almost...frustrating. Kota considered himself good with people (whether that's true or not) and her apparent refusal to act like he expected made him frown slightly as he took the ball back, wiping it off on his uniform jacket to get rid of any stray glass bits.

"Are you sure? At least let me help clean up or patch the window or something." He didn't really expect her to take him up on the offer, because it was a rare person who'd let a stranger into their house, especially one that had just vandalized it. That was until he noticed her hand. "You're hurt."

There was no way that could be from the glass, right? There was no way he had argued with Kuwata long enough for her to clean and bandage herself before opening the door.

Looking down at her hand, she bit her lip. "Oh yeah, it was just some glass." Wait, that sounded a lot like she'd cut herself on her window. "It's not from the window or anything."

Seiya blinked at his offer, "Oh sure, come on in." Turning down the hall, she kicked a stray laundry pile aside.

"Excuse me," he said as he stepped inside - seriously, who did this? - but shrugged as he closed the door behind him. If this whole thing was going to be bizarre, then he'd just go with it. At least it promised to be interesting!

"So why aren't you mad at me?" he asked as he followed her, stepping around the clothes. "I thought I was going to be sitting through a lecture about how kids these days don't have any respect for other people."

"I'm not that much older than you." She laughed, holding the door to her room open. "You want a broom? I'll hold the pan." Retrieving them from the hall closet, she returned to his side.

"I'm Seiya by the way. Seiya Yamada."

"Well yeah," he agreed. "I expected it to be a grandmother that opened the door. Don't ask me why." He took the broom from her without comment or complaint; after all, with an injured hand she might have trouble with the broom.

"I'm Kota Satou. Do I get to say 'nice to meet you' when we're meeting like this?" He grinned at her, his earlier anxiety fading quickly.

"Pfft!" She stifled a laugh, getting on her knees while holding the dust pan steady. "I dunno, it's a meeting we'll always remember, right? Also I am a grandma. Respect your elders, Satou-san." Seiya stuck her tongue out.

"Yes, Grandma, I understand," he said with mock contriteness before he couldn't hold back his own laughter. Despite his light-hearted banter, he's being diligent in getting every tiny piece of glass around. Who knows when her floor was last this clean.

Then again, it might help that she could easily track him down and chew him out if she stepped on a shard later.

"I think that's all of it."

"Good job!" Seiya disposed of the scooped up shards, hands on her hips. "Now I won't sue you." she joked, grabbing an old sheet and hanging it over the hole.

"That'll be fine, right?"

Kota looked it over, then shrugged. "Good enough to keep the rain out, at least. Least it's getting warmer. Do you have tape or something? As long it we secure it enough, it should be okay."

So he figured.

"Oh yeah good point." Seiya dug through her bedside drawer, producing some duct tape. Fixing the sheet, she grinned at her handiwork. "Done and done. Looks good to me!"

He laughed quietly. She certainly seemed easy to please, and that had been relatively painless. Maybe today was lucky after all.

"Well, I still owe you one," he said. "But don't make me pay too much, okay?" He grinned shamelessly. As long as he could get away with the (half-serious) joke, he'd go for it.

"Oh you owe me your life now." Seiya flopped on her bed, picking up the controller. Unpausing her game, she began to go at the boss full force.

"Also, if you turn your field position by like 20 degrees you're guaranteed to hit less houses."

He couldn't resist that setup, quoting a line from one of his mother's novels, complete with bow and over-the-top intonation. "If you require my life, then I offer it with pride."

He straightened with a small grin, satisfied with himself. "Besides, we weren't actually playing. Kuwata-kun just chucked it at my head and I dodged. Your window just happened to be in the way."

"Snrrrrrk!" Seiya giggled at his words, glancing over at him at the cutscene.

"Well my window deserves it then! Jumping in front of your friend's baseball and what not." It was all too amusing. Perhaps they'd become friends!

"Wanna play co-op?"

"Sure," Kota said, moving over to pick up the second controller and take a seat next to Seiya. "Just so long as you realize this is totally insane."

After all, as much as he was enjoying this, it was pretty absurd.

"Yanno, I get that a lot." She looked totally comfortable with it, setting up the game for two players. "You don't always hang out with the girls you nearly knock out, Satou-san?" Seiya began wailing on some enemies, smiling all the while.

Kota's focused on the screen at first - he wasn't familiar with this game, so he was figuring out the controls as he went along, but his character wasn't flailing hopelessly for too long. "Looks like you're a first, Yamada-san. Then again, I usually try not to knock people out in the first place. Turns out that most girls don't appreciate it."

Seiya covered him as he learned the basics, nose scrunched up in concentration.

"True. I, however, am flattered." Wiping out the first wave, she pumped her fist. "[GOOD JOB!]"

He laughed, at both her answer and her enthusiasm. "So you prefer the possibility of bodily harm instead of flowers? I'll keep it in mind."

But he put the controller down. "Damn, I hate to be a pain, but do you mind if I use your bathroom? Doesn't look like you need my help this early on anyway."

"Don't leave me on the battle field, soldier." She narrowed her gaze before laughing at herself. "Down the hall to the right."

Seiya grinned, guarding him on the second wave as he took care of business.

Kota half shrugged as he stood and walked out of her room, a kind of "what can you do?" gesture.

At least the bathroom was easy to find, and he was washing his hands when sudden movement in his peripheral vision made him look up, only to find his own disheveled reflection looking back at him. Normal enough until he reached up to smooth down his hair (when did it get so messy anyway? he wondered) and the reflection didn't mimic his movement.

Kota stopped in surprise, and the reflection smiled at him, beckoning him forward, its mouth moving in some inaudible phrase. Unthinking, Kota leaned forward asking, "What?" with his voice pitched loud enough to be heard over the still-running tap.

Seiya continued fighting, not thinking much of anything until she heard him speak.

"I didn't say anything!" she called back, pausing mid-fight as to hear clearer. "You okay??"

Seiya's voice startled him, and he glanced away for a minute, down the hallway. "Yeah," he answered hastily, shutting the tap off. He glanced back and the mirror, but this time the image was all him, including his slightly widened eyes.

Had he actually seen anything at all? Maybe he had just heard one too many rumors and his mind was playing tricks on him. He knew he was just trying to convince himself, because after all it was pretty harmless. The kind of scare that people would laugh at in a movie. ...He just couldn't quite forget the puzzle of what the image had been saying.

A mystery he was going to put firmly out of his mind, he decided, and walked back into Seiya's room. "Sorry," he said, reclaiming his controller. "You may have forgiven me for the window, but it looks like your ghost hasn't."

"My ghost?" Seiya didn't skip a beat, starting up their session. Normally she'd be completely focused on the television, however, her eyes were now on her new friend.

"What do you mean?" The gears in her head began to whirl as she bit her lip. Had something happened in the bathroom?

He'd meant for her to laugh, but that was just one more thing not going his way. "I wouldn't worry about it - it's probably just a goblin playing tricks." Kota looked over with a smile; maybe she just hadn't caught on yet. "And he isn't very good at it."

Because admitting that he'd thought his reflection was moving on its own would be so not cool. And it never happened anyway. Nope, never happened.

"I never had goblins before..." Seiya sighed, respawning after dying a gruesome death. "That'll teach you to disrespect your elders, Kota-kuuun~" she teased, brushing aside all previous doubt. He was just joking, it was fine right?

"You're outta luck. If disrespecting my elders gives them ghosts I'm going to do it a lot more often," he laughed. "But I'll make an exception for you, Yamada-san. I don't want to end like him." He gestured to the screen.

"Smart boy! Grandma Yamada is proud." She patted his shoulder, sniping down a few enemies. She'd make this respawn count.

"Thanks for playing with me, by the way. Hopefully I didn't guilt you into it."

"I'm not that nice," he said, like it was supposed to reassure her. "I thought it'd be fun, and I wanted to see what would happen next. You've been full of surprises so far, after all."

He paused for a beat, considering what he'd just said. "And it has been fun."

Oddly, it did reassure her. Swing her feet as her legs dangled off the bed, she seemed pleased. "Normally the surprises make people run in the opposite direction."

Finding that note a bit too sour to land on, Seiya changed the topic. "Do you go to Eizou? I haven't seen you before."

He nodded. "Yup, class 2-C. And I'm on the baseball team - try to act surprised." Kota shrugged. "Afraid there's not much more to it than that."

...There really wasn't much else to say, was there? It was vaguely depressing to be able to sum up a large part of his life in two sentences.

"Oh that's why! I'm 4-B." Seiya opened her mouth in fake surprise at his mention of baseball. "Nooooo waaaaaaay!"

Normally, a person would wonder why they had literally no friends their age, but Seiya couldn't care less. "I should come see you play where windows aren't involved."

It's To Be Expected

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