Chapter 5 — The Alliance

Chapter 5

Kenzou names the group by Wednesday, not Friday.

He announces it at lunch like a press release. He has clearly been thinking about it since Monday. He stands up slightly, not fully, just enough that everyone can tell he feels this moment deserves elevation, and says:

"The Rooftop Alliance."

Everyone looks at him.

"We eat on the roof," he explains. "We are an alliance."

"We are not an alliance," Kaito says.

"We literally are."

"An alliance implies a shared strategic objective."

Kenzou points at him. "Lunch. Lunch is the objective."

Yuma puts her hand over her mouth. Hori is already laughing, warm and full, the kind that makes you want to know what she finds funny because it seems worth finding. Kurenai looks at the sky like she is asking it for patience.

I eat my food.

"I think it's sweet," Yuma says when she recovers.

"Thank you Yuma," Kenzou says with complete dignity.

"We are not calling it the Rooftop Alliance," Kaito says.

We call it the Rooftop Alliance.

The city below us is normal on Wednesday. Sky a little grey, wind coming from the east, someone's music from a window four floors down that none of us can identify but Kenzou spends ten minutes trying.

Hori leans over and steals one of my noodles from my lunch box without asking.

I look at her.

"You weren't eating it," she says.

"I was going to eat it."

"You were looking at the city."

"I can look at the city and eat."

She tilts her head. "Can you though."

I look at her for one second. She is smiling. Not the practiced warm smile she aims at the whole group, something smaller, more specific. Like she finds me specifically funny and has no plans to explain why.

I look back at the city.

She steals another noodle.

I let her.

Across the roof Kaito is watching this exchange with the expression of someone who has noted something and placed it in a folder he will not open in front of me.

Kurenai is also watching. Her expression is different, less like filing, more like confirming something she already suspected.

I eat what is left of my lunch.

"You know," Kenzou says to no one in particular, looking out at the city, "I heard another school went missing."

The roof gets slightly quieter.

"Missing how," Yuma says.

"Like gone. The whole second year class. They were supposed to do some kind of trip and just." He makes a vague gesture. "Nobody came back."

"That's an urban legend," Kaito says.

"My cousin knows someone who went there."

"Your cousin knows someone at a school that doesn't exist."

"I'm just saying what I heard."

Hori is looking at the city. Her expression hasn't changed. Warm, easy, present. She picks up her water bottle and takes a sip.

"That's scary," Yuma says quietly.

"It's a rumor," Kurenai says. "Schools don't just disappear."

"Yeah," Kenzou says. He doesn't sound fully convinced. "Probably."

The music from four floors down changes to something slower. Nobody names what just shifted in the conversation. We eat and talk about other things and by the end of lunch it feels like Kenzou said nothing of consequence.

I mark it anyway.