Lollipop

When Kiryu Yume closed his math reference book, the sky outside the library windows had only just begun to darken.

He slipped Sakayanagi Arisu's note back into his notebook, stuffed it into his bag, stood up, and glanced toward the borrowing area.

Ichinose Honami was still sitting beside Shiranami Chihiro, the two of them quietly discussing a problem.

He did not go over to say hello and left the library through the side door.

There were barely any people left in the hallway. The setting sun poured through the western windows, staining the floor orange.

When he reached the stairwell, his phone vibrated in his pocket. Morishita Ran's message had only three words: Come downstairs.

By the time Kiryu Yume reached the first-floor lobby, Morishita Ran was already waiting beside the vending machine.

Her short dark-blue hair had a thin golden rim in the sunset. Her blue-violet hooded eyes were half-lidded, as though she had waited long enough to grow a little bored.

When she saw him, she pushed herself off the vending machine. "Cola flavor. You said you'd treat me."

"Hold on. I remember you saying you'd treat me." Kiryu Yume walked over and stopped in front of the vending machine, his shoulder less than a fist's width from hers.

Morishita Ran tilted her head to look at him, her blue-violet hooded eyes sweeping upward. "I was going to. But after thinking about it, you lost a round of Rubber-Band Flicking. One thing at a time—you're still the one treating."

The corners of her lips curled slightly as she spoke, more deliberately than usual.

Kiryu Yume stared at those upturned lips for half a second before shifting his gaze back to the vending machine screen. "You just made that logic up, didn't you?"

"I came up with it on the stairs." She tapped the cola-flavored lollipop on the screen. The machine clunked, and she unwrapped the candy and popped it into her mouth, using her tongue to push the stick from the left corner of her mouth to the right.

Kiryu Yume bought one too. The two of them leaned against the vending machine side by side, each sucking on a lollipop.

Through a layer of uniform fabric, Morishita Ran's shoulder brushed faintly against his upper arm.

Kiryu Yume felt the slight warmth from that point of contact, but kept his eyes on the vending slot without turning his head.

For a dozen or so silent seconds, the vending machine's hum filled the space between them.

As he lowered his head to bite his candy, his gaze inadvertently swept over her calves. Morishita Ran's legs were slender, the curve of her calves slight; from knee to ankle, they formed a clean, crisp line, her skin glowing faintly warm beneath the sunset.

Her skirt hem fell just above her knees. As she stood there, a barely visible line of muscle showed along the front of her thighs.

She was not wearing stockings. Her bare legs looked smooth and warm in the orange light, the contours of her ankle bones distinct, while her Achilles tendons cast long, narrow shadows in the sunset.

Morishita Ran suddenly moved. She pulled the lollipop from her mouth and pointed at him with its stick, turning slightly as her knee lightly bumped the outside of his knee. "What subject were those notes you copied in the library?"

The contact was so light that it could have passed as an accidental bump while turning around.

Kiryu Yume glanced at where her knee had touched him, then brought his gaze back to her face. "History. I didn't do well last time."

He had expected something like, "Then you really should study."

Morishita Ran merely put the lollipop back into her mouth and mumbled, "Then you should pass next time."

Her shoulder did not move away, nor did her knee.

Kiryu Yume bit his own lollipop and turned to look at her. "Why are you saying that too?"

"Who else said it?" Her blue-violet hooded eyes slanted toward him, and the lollipop stick swayed gently at the corner of her mouth twice.

Her tone sounded casual, but after she asked, the stick's movement paused for a beat.

Kiryu Yume noticed that detail. Rather than answer her question, he asked, "How did you get so good at Rubber-Band Flicking?"

Morishita Ran shifted the lollipop to the other corner of her mouth, one cheek puffing out slightly. "Practice what? I just played with them a lot, so I got used to it."

The way she said it was as casual as when she flicked eraser crumbs. Her wrist made a vague motion through the air, as if the flicking gesture was so ingrained in her muscle memory that she did not need to think about it.

Kiryu Yume turned to face her. She sensed his gaze but did not turn around, only shifted the lollipop to the other corner of her mouth again.

From this angle, he could see that her eyelashes were longer than they usually seemed, and her blue-violet pupils had become a little more translucent in the western sunlight.

"So who do you usually flick during breaks?"

Morishita Ran's blue-violet hooded eyes finally turned to him and rested on his face for about two seconds.

She leaned the back of her head against the vending machine's side panel and looked at him with her head tilted. "No one before. Desk edges, pencil caps, erasers themselves—whatever I saw, I flicked. Today was my first time flicking a person."

"And you were that accurate on your first try."

"I'd been aiming at you for days." Morishita Ran said it as naturally as she had said "cola flavor," as if stating a fact that needed no lead-in. "I wanted to flick you from the first day I sat behind you. I just held back until now."

Kiryu Yume froze for a moment, then lowered his head and laughed softly. The lollipop stick trembled twice at the corner of his mouth. "You held back for days just to flick me four times in class today?"

"More than four times." She pulled the lollipop from her mouth, lowering her blue-violet hooded eyes to look at the half-finished candy in her hand. "Every day in class, watching the back of your neck sway around, I wanted to flick it."

Kiryu Yume stopped laughing and noticed that after saying it, a faint blush had risen on her cheeks in the sunset.

She tossed the lollipop stick into the nearby trash can and brushed the sugar crumbs from her hands. Her short dark-blue hair slipped down from behind her ear, covering half her face.

He reached out and tucked that strand behind her ear. When his fingertips touched the rim of her ear, her shoulder drew back almost imperceptibly, and her earlobe visibly reddened another shade in the sunset.

She did not dodge, nor did she look up at him.

"Then why didn't you flick me sooner?" Kiryu Yume withdrew his hand and tucked it into his uniform pocket, rolling the lollipop around in his mouth.

Morishita Ran finally looked up. There was a faint glimmer in her blue-violet hooded eyes. "Because I didn't know if you'd get mad after being flicked. If you got angry and tattled to the teacher, I wouldn't have anyone in the front row to look at anymore."

Kiryu Yume crunched down on his lollipop. "Do you think I'm the kind of person who tattles?"

"Now I know you aren't." She pulled another lollipop from her pocket. This one was not cola-flavored, but soda-flavored. She unwrapped it and held it to his lips, the end of the stick lightly touching his lower lip.

Kiryu Yume opened his mouth and took it. Soda flavor burst into tiny bubbles over his tongue.

Morishita Ran watched him bite down on the candy, her blue-violet hooded eyes narrowing for less than half a second. "You got flicked four times in class today and didn't dodge a single one. Then you learned it after being taught once, and you didn't get mad either. This one is your reward for making it through the first day."

She clasped her hands behind her back and leaned her shoulders slightly backward, the tips of her short dark-blue hair brushing the vending machine panel. "Rubber-Band Flicking continues tomorrow. I'll use a double-strand rubber band—it'll hurt more than today. Don't glare at me then."

Kiryu Yume bit the lollipop stick until it tilted upward. "You've talked quite a bit more than usual today. Is it because you're happy you finally got to flick a person, or because the lollipops taste good?"

Morishita Ran's blue-violet hooded eyes narrowed. Then the corners of her lips lifted for an instant before flattening again. "Both. And when you got flicked, you even asked me how many I had left. That was more interesting than I expected."

She tugged her bag strap higher and walked two steps toward the stairs, turning halfway around.

The sunset shone directly from behind her, outlining her silhouette with a fine golden edge. The light passed through a small section of her skirt hem, while the Achilles tendon behind her calf stretched into a slender shadow against the backlight.

She stood within that play of light and shadow without leaving right away, as if waiting for him to say something.

Kiryu Yume bit down on the soda-flavored lollipop and lifted the bag that had been leaning beside the vending machine. "I'll take the double-strand rubber band tomorrow, but you'd better be ready too. I said I'd get you back."

Morishita Ran did not answer, but the curve on her profile showed just a little before the sunset fully disappeared. She turned and went upstairs, her footsteps gradually growing softer and more distant in the stairwell.

Kiryu Yume stood there with his bag in hand. The soda bubbles on his tongue were still popping one by one, and the tips of his ears felt a little hot. He blamed it on the sun being too strong.