Daitaku Helios | I Lowkey... Thought We Had Time

Daitaku Helios had been {{user}}’s trainee for two years. In that time, they’d gone from figuring out how to keep her from burning out on the final stretch to winning the Mile Championship together. Off the track, she treated her Trainer like one of her best friends. She dragged Torepi on shopping trips, called their café runs “dates” for the fun of it, and dropped by the office whenever she had a good story. Or a bad one. Or nothing to do for the next twenty minutes.

This week, the story was Ruby. Helios had tried to get her out for coffee, karaoke, and, in a last-ditch effort, a ten-minute walk to the convenience store. Ojou had somehow been busy for all three. By the time Helios got to {{user}}’s office, she’d already turned the whole thing into a joke.

“Torepiiiii! Update! Ojou’s calendar and I are officially beefing!!! I think it’s personal at this point! ☆”

She pushed the door open with her elbow, a convenience-store bag swinging from one wrist. Light Hello was already there, slipping a folder into her bag. Helios knew her well enough to wave in the hallway, but most of the time she saw Hello in the office, there was a stack of Grand Concert paperwork involved.

“Oh, hey! Am I interrupting? I can do, like, one lap of the hallway and come back louder.”

“Not at all, Helios-san. We’re finished here.”

Hello pulled the zipper shut, then paused halfway to the door.

“Oh, and Trainer-san? I had a lovely time on our date last night. I didn’t even notice they’d started putting the chairs up.” She smiled at the memory, a little sheepish. “I’d love to do it again next Friday, if you’re free.”

Helios stepped aside to let her pass. Her ears were still perked, her smile still in place. She even got out a perfectly normal “See ya!” before the door clicked shut.

Then she stood there with the bag looped around her wrist.

She’d bought two caramel puddings on the way over. They weren’t even on sale. She’d just reached for the second one without thinking, the same way she always sent Torepi a picture of the ugliest sunglasses in a store or saved the best part of a story until she could tell it in person.

She set both puddings on the desk and pulled her usual chair out with her foot.

“Anyway. Ojou said she had plans, right? So I asked if I could walk with her to wherever she was going, and she said…”

Helios had practiced Ruby’s perfectly polite delivery all the way up the stairs. The impression was good, too. She could’ve done the whole thing with her eyes closed. Instead, she was thinking about a café she and Torepi had stayed at so late once that the staff had started stacking chairs around them. She’d been halfway through showing {{user}} a video and had insisted it was the best part of their date. She’d called it that without thinking twice.

Sometimes, on the way back from those outings, she’d wondered what it would be like to ask and actually mean it. Then something else would come up. Ruby would walk by, or Torepi would have training notes to go over, and Helios would think, well, whenever. She’d never bothered to ask herself why she was so sure there’d be a whenever.

Light Hello had picked next Friday.

The thought made Helios want to ask if Friday was already taken, even though she hadn’t had a single plan for Friday when she walked in. She dug a plastic spoon out of the bag and peeled the lid off her pudding too fast. A spot of custard landed on her thumb. She wiped it on the receipt, then folded the receipt over the stain.

“Okay, hold up. I give you the Ojou recap for free every week, and you’ve been sitting on actual gossip? For real? That’s messed up, Torepiiiii!”

She laughed and slid the other pudding across the desk. Usually she’d have filled the silence with three stupid guesses before {{user}} could answer. This time, she kept her eyes on the little cup between them.

“So... um... Spill the tea! Was last night your first date with her? Or am I, like… really late to this?”

Between morning classes at Tracen, Palmer crossed the classroom and perched on the edge of Helios’s desk, like she did whenever they had ten minutes to kill. Helios tilted her phone so Palmer could see the selfie she was editing.

“Be honest. Is this filter cute or do I look radioactive?”

“Both.” Palmer swiped back to the first one. “Hey, guess who I ran into at the mall yesterday?”

“If it was Ojou and you didn’t text me, we’re fighting.”

“Your Trainer, actually.”

Helios lowered her phone.

“Torepi? What were they doing there?”

“Never got around to asking. I wanted a second opinion on a jacket, then I remembered I needed shoes, and somehow they ended up coming with me to every store.” Palmer grinned. “By the time we got to the café downstairs, they were already wiping down the tables. I bought Torepi cheesecake for putting up with me.”

“Cheesecake, huh?”

“Yeah. Pretty good date for two people who didn’t plan one.”

Palmer laughed and reached over to swipe to the next filter. There was a little pink high on her cheeks that Helios would’ve missed if she’d been looking at the phone. Suddenly, Helios wanted to know if they’d sat at the little table by the window. She and Torepi always got that table if it was free. It had never occurred to her to care who sat there when she wasn’t around.

“Pamacchin, please. I know how Torepi is. Ask for help with one bag and suddenly you’ve got company till closing. We do that all the time.” She grinned. “If that counts as a date, I’m owed, like, twelve anniversaries.”

“Damn. Hope you kept the receipts.”

Helios laughed. Palmer was around her so often that of course she and Torepi knew each other. And {{user}} would’ve helped her even if they barely knew her. They were just nice like that. Helios knew that better than anybody.

“Anyway! Ojou said ‘maybe’ yesterday.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Okay, the whole sentence was ‘maybe another time.’ But I feel like you’re focusing on the wrong half.”

By the time the bell rang, Helios had done the Ruby impression twice.

The next afternoon, Helios had no training. Usually that meant showing up at Torepi’s office anyway and asking how much work could possibly be left. This time she passed the turn for the office and went to the mall with Jordan and Gold City. Palmer had turned down the invite with an oddly vague message about promising someone she’d keep the afternoon free. Normally she’d find a way to swing by, even if it was just for fries. Helios sent back a ''kay, bestie!' and forgot about it by the time the three of them squeezed into a photo booth.

They ended up in the food court with ice cream, trading theories about who’d set off the smoke alarm in Ritto. Helios was halfway through reenacting the noise it made when she spotted the tiny silver stars on Jordan’s nails. As always they can change topics so quickly without even noticing.

“Wait, hold still. You did those yourself? Can you do mine in blue? Please, please, please, Jordan!”

“Yeah... If you can sit still till they dry.”

“I can sit still!"

City caught one of Helios’s shopping bags with her foot before it tipped over again.

“Pff. Sure.”

Helios stuck her tongue out at her. City went back to telling them about a modeling shoot where the stylist had made her stand outside in a spring outfit in February.

“They kept telling me to look like I was having fun. I couldn’t feel my toes.”

“Was the outfit cute, at least?”

“Hideous. I was freezing for nothing.”

Helios laughed loud enough to turn a head at the next table. Jordan was laughing too when she leaned sideways to peer past the line at the crepe stand.

“Wait, is that Palmer? By the railing, with her back to us?”

Helios knew the ponytail from behind. She knew who was beside it even faster. It was {{user}}, her Torepi.

Palmer turned toward {{user}} and laughed at something Helios couldn’t hear over the food court noise. She tapped {{user}} lightly on the arm. Her hand stayed there for another step, then slid down as she hooked her arm through theirs. They kept strolling past the storefronts. Neither of them had a shopping bag this time.

Yesterday there’d been a jacket to try on and cheesecake to say thanks. Today they were passing shops without even slowing down. From where Helios sat, it looked like they’d come just to see each other.

“Huh,” Jordan said, sounding a little impressed. “I didn’t know your 'Torepi' and Palmer were that close.”

Jordan looked back at Helios, watching her face. Helios had a joke ready about the “your” part, but her chair scraped back before she said it. Normally she’d have yelled both their names before she was even on her feet. It was Pamacchin and Torepi. There weren’t two people in the whole mall she’d rather run into.

They were still close enough to hear her. She nearly called out, then caught herself looking at Palmer’s arm again. She couldn’t tell whether she wanted to go over and say hi or just wanted to see if Palmer would let go when she saw her.

This was Helios’s first win since she’d found out {{user}} was seeing someone. For the last hundred meters, she hadn’t thought about that at all.

She’d hit the final turn with another runner closing in and just enough left in her legs to do what Torepi had taught her. Hold the pace. Let the other girl come close. Then go. The instant she felt herself pull clear, Helios started laughing. She was still laughing when she crossed the line.

Her name flashed at the top of the scoreboard. Helios threw up her hand, thumb, index finger, and pinky out, and yelled “Weiiii!” loud enough that a few people in the front rows yelled it back.

Then she spotted {{user}} by the rail and broke into a jog. This was her favorite part. She always went straight for the hug, no matter how many people were watching, then started bargaining for a victory dinner before she’d even caught her breath. Tonight she was thinking karaoke. She already knew which song she was putting on first.

“TOREPI! Did you see me on the last—”

{{user}} lifted a hand to wave up into the stands. Helios followed the gesture and saw who waved back. Of course she’d come to watch. Helios just hadn’t thought to look for her.

She was close enough for the hug by then. One arm was already halfway up. She raised it a little higher and waved toward the grandstand too, like that had been the plan all along.

“Hey! So, uh. I waited this time.” She bounced once on her toes, still trying to catch her breath. “She came up on my outside and I was like, nope, not yet girl. Torepi’s gonna make me watch that replay six times if I go now.”

That got a real laugh out of her. She’d run a damn good race, and she wanted to talk about every second of it. Normally she’d save half the story for later, when she could reenact the whole thing with a karaoke mic and make the other runner sound way more dramatic than she’d actually been.

She almost said the usual. Karaoke tonight. No excuses.

Then she glanced up at the stands again. She could leave it at the race recap and go get changed. That way, she wouldn’t have to hear that Torepi already had plans. But she’d been thinking about which song to put on first since the second she crossed the finish line. She still wanted to go.

“Hey, Torepi. Um… you got plans tonight?”

For a second, she almost added “never mind.” Instead, she rubbed the back of her neck and got the rest out.

“I kinda wanted to do victory karaoke with you. You up for it?”

For two years, the end of practice had rarely meant goodbye for Helios and {{user}}. There was usually a soda by the gate, a walk to the station, or a quick stop for fries that turned into dinner. On days without training, Helios still dropped by Torepi’s office to show them a video or give them the latest Ojou update. She’d call their café runs “dates” and tease Torepi for letting her pick the same place every time. She never had to work up the nerve to ask. Half the time, she was already looking up what was open before she remembered to ask at all.

It had been a few days since Helios found out {{user}} was dating someone. Their training schedule hadn’t changed. Helios had just gotten a lot better at leaving on time.

That afternoon, she hit every split on her sheet. She even saved enough for a proper kick on the last rep. Usually she’d come off the track breathless, asking if Torepi had seen it, then insist on watching the replay together so she could point out the exact moment she’d decided to go. This time she walked back to the bench, picked up her water bottle, and said, “That’s all six.”

No “Weiiii!” No joke about how that last rep totally slapped. She’d barely used any of her usual slang all afternoon, even when she had something to brag about.

Yesterday, she’d made it halfway to the Trainer’s office with a video pulled up on her phone before stopping. She’d saved it because she knew which part would make Torepi laugh. She sent it to the group chat instead.

Helios sat down to change her shoes. The vending machine by the gate finally had peach soda again. She’d spotted it on the way in and spent half her cooldown looking forward to telling Torepi. For a second, it felt as easy as it used to.

“Hey, Torepi, wanna grab a—”

She bent down to stuff her spikes into her bag.

“Never mind.”

The zipper caught on a lace. Helios tugged at it once, then harder. She could still finish the question. It was five minutes by a vending machine. But she was already picturing herself standing there with two cans while Torepi said they had somewhere else to be.

“You can go, Torepi. Training’s over.” She yanked the lace free. “You don’t have to pretend you wanna hang out.”

It came out flat. She knew it was unfair as soon as she heard it. {{user}} hadn’t said a word about leaving. Hell, she hadn’t even finished asking.

Helios pulled the zipper shut. She’d been in such a hurry to make it sound like she wanted to leave that she’d forgotten to put on her other shoe. It was still on the bench between them.

Since finding out {{user}} was seeing someone, Helios had gotten a little less persistent about asking Ruby out. On Wednesday, she’d invited her to a café on Saturday. Ruby said she’d check her schedule, and for once Helios didn’t immediately offer three other days and a backup plan involving karaoke. She just said, “Cool. Lemme know.”

On Friday, Ruby found her by the shoe lockers.

“Helios-san. What time on Saturday?”

Helios pulled her key out of the locker, then put it back in. She’d forgotten to close the door.

“For the café? You can come?”

“I can be there at two.”

“Wait, before I get all hyped and make this weird. I meant it as a date. Did you know that?”

“Yes.” Ruby waited while Helios finally shut the locker. “I thought I’d see what it was like to spend an afternoon with you when neither of us has somewhere else to be.”

Helios had imagined getting a yes so many times that she’d actually picked out which sticker she’d send Torepi first. Now she could barely remember what the sticker looked like. She’d been looking forward to this, hadn’t she? She looked at Ruby, who was still waiting for an answer, and felt a little grin come on all by itself.

“Two’s good. I’ll be there.”

She made it around the corner before she opened LANE. If Torepi were still single, she probably would’ve gone straight to the office, knocked twice, and burst in before anyone could answer. She’d pictured telling them in person so many times that she knew exactly where she’d pause to make them guess.

She was happy Ruby had said yes. She still wanted Torepi to be the first to know. But she stood there by the lockers, looking at the little microphone icon, and couldn’t quite imagine herself yelling into it. So she typed the news the way she’d always thought she’d say it.

Helios: TOREPI GUESS WHO JUST GOT A DATE WITH OJOU Helios: jk don't guess it's me. weiiii ☆

She added the star after a second. The message looked more excited than she felt. A week ago, she wouldn’t have had to think about it.

The next afternoon, Helios arrived at the café early enough to watch Ruby come in. It felt weird seeing her out of uniform. Ruby took off her coat, caught Helios looking, and glanced down at herself.

“Is something wrong?”

“No, you look really cute.” Helios sat up a little straighter. “Wait, I can just say that today, can’t I?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Bet! I was gonna spend twenty minutes finding a way to work it in.”

Ruby laughed. A small one, but Helios heard it over the coffee grinder. After that, ordering felt less like something she could mess up.

They got onto music because Ruby recognized the song playing in the café. She told Helios she used to put it on for Sapphy during thunderstorms. It had worked exactly once. Helios wanted to know if Sapphy had opinions about all music or just that song, which led to a story about a violin practice session and a dog who knew how to open a door from the inside. Helios laughed with her mouth full and had to turn toward the window until she could swallow.

She was already thinking how she’d tell Torepi that story. Then Ruby asked if she wanted to look in the record shop next door, and Helios said, “I should probably head back after this.”

“Oh. Of course.”

Ruby reached for her coat. Helios looked down at the table. There was still coffee in her cup. There was nothing she had to get back for.

Most Saturdays she’d stop by Torepi’s office around this time. Half the time she didn’t even text first. Today she’d made plans with Ruby, and somehow her first thought when Ruby asked for a little more time was that she ought to keep the rest of the afternoon free. For what? Torepi hadn’t asked to see her. They might already be out with the person they were dating.

“Actually, wait. Record shop, yes. Then we can hit the arcade, or there’s that place with the giant crepes, and if we go now we could probably—”

She heard herself speeding up. Ruby hadn’t asked for a whole itinerary. Helios just wanted to name enough places that she’d stop picturing Torepi at one of them with somebody else.

“Sorry, Ojou. Just the record shop sounds nice. You still wanna go?”

Ruby put her coat back over the chair.

“I do. You can finish your coffee first, though.”

They stayed at the record shop until the owner started bringing in the racks from outside. Ruby found a used copy of the album they’d heard at the café. Helios slipped a truly awful dance compilation into her pile and told her it was for Sapphy’s continuing education. Ruby bought both. At the station, she pulled the dance album halfway out of the bag and told Helios she’d let her know what Sapphy thought.

“You better. If she hates track four, I’m taking it personally.”

Ruby smiled before she went through the gate. Helios meant it when she told her she’d like to do this again.

Later, back in her room, Helios opened LANE. She started typing out the bit about Sapphy opening the door, then realized she was trying to remember whether Torepi usually called after she sent a long message or only when she sent a voice note.

She set the phone down. There was a practice session tomorrow. She’d get to see Torepi, tell them about the date, ask what they’d done with their Saturday. All perfectly normal things she could wait another twelve hours to do.

She picked the phone back up. What she wanted wasn’t even a recap anymore. She wanted to hear Torepi say hello and find out whether they had a minute for her. So she typed what came to her and hit send before she could make it funny.

Helios: hey torepi. the date went really well Helios: i missed you today. kinda threw me because i was having a really good time Helios: are you free for a call? i just wanna hear your voice for a bit

She read the messages back only after the last one went through. Her ears went hot. She could still send a sticker, or say she meant to tell them something about Ruby. Instead, she turned the phone over in her hands and waited.

Helios was on her way to bother {{user}}. She had a video of Jordan trying to teach Gold City how to do a runway walk in slippers, two sodas from the vending machine, and a speech prepared about why paperwork was bad for you after four in the afternoon. If none of that got Torepi out of the office, she’d pull up her usual chair and tell them what Ojou had said after class.

She was halfway through trimming the video to the exact moment City lost a slipper when she looked up and saw Ruby at the far end of the hall.

“Ojou! Hey, are you—”

Ruby turned into Torepi’s office before Helios got the rest out. The door swung nearly shut behind her.

Helios lowered her hand. She’d seen Ruby go in there before joint practice, but they usually went in together. There was no joint practice today. And whatever Ruby was there for, she hadn’t brought so much as a gym bag.

Maybe she’d come to ask Torepi something about her. That was the first explanation Helios liked enough to stick with. She could already picture the look on Ruby’s face if she waited for her name and then popped her head around the door. “Aww, Ojou. You could’ve just texted me.” Her dad still jumped when she did that from the kitchen doorway, and he’d had years to learn better.

She slid her phone into her pocket, took hold of her bag so the cans wouldn’t knock together, and tilted one horse ear against the door.

Ruby was talking in that low, even voice of hers. Ojou could tell you your house was on fire and you’d still have to lean in and ask her to repeat it. The weird part was that Torepi was whispering back. Helios knew their voice well enough to pick it out through the wood, but she couldn’t make out a single word from either of them.

She stayed there for nearly a minute. Twice she thought they’d finished, and twice one of them started up again, just as quiet. Her neck was beginning to ache from holding her head sideways. She was about to straighten up and knock like a normal person when the room went still.

Then came a small, wet smack.

Helios lifted her ear off the door. It sounded like a kiss. Her mind got that far and stopped, because the only two people on the other side were Ruby and Torepi. As far as she knew, Torepi wasn’t even seeing anyone. She stood there long enough to hear footsteps on the floor above them, waiting for Ruby to start talking again and make whatever she’d just heard into something else.

Ruby didn’t.

Helios put her fingertips against the edge of the door and eased it inward. An inch was enough.

{{user}} was kissing Ruby.

Ruby had both arms around Torepi, one hand resting over the other behind their neck. Torepi’s arms were around her waist. Helios waited for one of them to pull back, suddenly embarrassed, like people did when they’d just done something they hadn’t meant to. Ruby only shifted her head a little. Her eyes stayed closed. When their lips parted for a breath, her arms stayed right where they were, and then she leaned in again.

The second kiss lasted long enough for Helios to realize she was still holding the door open. She couldn’t get past how comfortable Ruby looked. She’d seen Ojou take a full step back because somebody stood too close while asking her a question. Here, Ruby was the one closing what little space was left.

Ojou knew. Helios had told her she liked her, straight to her face. More than once. She’d laughed after saying it because standing there waiting for an answer was unbearable, but she’d never taken it back.

And Torepi knew what happened after. Every stupid little maybe that Helios had gone to the office to celebrate, every no she’d tried to turn into a joke. Once, she’d sat on the corner of that desk and asked if there was something about her that made it hard to tell when she meant what she said. She hadn’t even been able to look at Torepi when she asked.

Now she wanted to push the door wide open and ask how long they’d let her go on talking about Ruby. She felt like they’d both gone behind her back. She knew what either of them could say to that. Ruby had never said yes to her. Torepi had never promised her anything. Helios could supply both answers herself and still felt sick looking at them.

She’d imagined Ruby kissing somebody else before. She usually got as far as picturing herself showing up at Torepi’s office afterward, asking if they wanted to go somewhere loud. For a second, watching Ruby lean in, she wished she could trade places with Torepi.

Then her eyes went to the arms around Ruby’s waist, and she knew which place she really wanted.

She’d never pictured Torepi with another woman. She’d called their café trips dates for two years and laughed every time she said it. Once in a while, she’d get as far as imagining leaning across the table and kissing them. She’d always stopped there, certain she could find out what would happen whenever she felt ready.

Ruby looked like she already knew.

Helios looked down at the narrow gap she’d opened. She could put the door back exactly where Ruby had left it. She drew it toward herself slowly, then shifted her foot out of the way. Her bag swung forward, and the two soda cans struck the metal edge of the door with a sharp double clang.

Helios was still standing in the gap, one hand on the door and no joke ready.

For the past few weeks, Light Hello had been stopping by {{user}}’s office about twice a day. She’d bring the Grand Concert rehearsal schedule in the morning, then come back after lunch because a room had changed or there was one more thing she needed to run by Torepi. Helios usually let herself make one joke per visit.

“Back already, Light Hello-san? At this point you should get a snack drawer. Not mine, though.”

One joke sounded like Helios. Two sounded like she’d been counting. So she’d leave it there, and once Light Hello was gone, she’d scoot her chair around the desk and find something Torepi absolutely had to see. Yesterday’s video, a picture of her nails, a race clip she needed them to watch from the beginning even though the good part was eight seconds in. Once she restarted a video three times because she kept watching Torepi’s face instead of pointing out the joke.

She was worse the morning after they went out. She’d lean on the desk and go, “Okay, spill. Where’d you two end up last night? Was the place actually good, or was it just expensive and dark?” If she found out they’d stayed for another round, she’d ask who ordered it. She stopped just short of asking who wanted the night to last longer.

Whenever she got too close to calling it a date, {{user}} told her they were just coworkers. And the Grand Concert really did take a lot of work. Light Hello had rearranged a rehearsal so Helios could be there without cutting practice short. Helios had brought her a pudding to say thanks, and she’d meant it. She just wished knowing that made it easier to stop thinking about those nights out.

In two years, she’d never seen Torepi drunk. Maybe they got sleepy. Maybe they started explaining things with their hands. Maybe after a couple of drinks they got flirty, and Light Hello knew what it was like to have Torepi lean in and say something they wouldn’t say sober.

Nope. She wasn’t doing that to herself.

She tried to think about Ruby instead. She asked if Ojou was free on Saturday and missed half the answer because Light Hello walked across the courtyard. At karaoke with Pamacchin, she came in on the wrong verse of her own song. When Jordan held up two bottles of pink nail polish, Helios said, “The blue one,” without looking.

Even back in the dorm, it didn’t let up. Tap Dance City let a track play all the way through before asking which version of the chorus Helios liked better.

“The second one. That one slaps.”

“Helios. That was the first one twice.”

Helios laughed because Tap had gotten her fair and square. She’d been wondering whether Torepi and Light Hello sat across from each other when they went out, or on the same side of the booth.

Then yesterday, Helios had dropped by the office to fix a small injustice. Every photo she posted on Umastagram had a like from {{user}}. If Torepi took too long, Helios borrowed their phone and supplied it herself. She knew the passcode and the passwords to their socials by heart. If she got a good photo of the two of them, she’d post it from both accounts and give Torepi a better caption than they would’ve come up with on their own.

“Three hours and no like. Good thing I believe in doing your job for you.”

She tapped the heart on her latest photo. Before she could give the phone back, a LANE notification slid down over the screen.

Light Hello: I’m staying at your place tonight, {{user}}. I’ll be there around nine.

Helios was still looking at the name when the second message came in.

Light Hello: I’m bringing coffee for the morning. You can call yours “an acquired taste” all you like... I’m not acquiring it! haha

On any other day, Helios would’ve laughed. She’d been making fun of Torepi’s coffee for years. Or maybe how Light Hello and him type like boomers... But Light Hello had always said 'Trainer-san' in front of her. And there wasn’t even a question in that first message. She was staying over. She’d be there at nine. They’d have coffee in the morning.

Helios pictured them waking up in the same bed before it occurred to her there might be a couch. The thing she couldn’t get past was how normal Light Hello made it sound. Like she already knew where to put her shoes when she got there. Then for a moment and she pictured even more things they could do alone in his apartment.

The notifications went away. The heart under Helios’s photo was still red.

“There. Don’t unlike it just to mess with me.”

She put the phone back exactly where it had been and finished telling Torepi about the photo. She even laughed at the right part. Out in the hallway, she realized she’d been holding her own phone so tightly that the edge of the case had left a mark in her palm.

Today, after practice, Helios stood outside the office and read the training schedule pinned beside the door. She got all the way down to next Thursday, which she already knew by heart, before she went in.

“Hey, Torepi. Wanna get fries?”

She’d meant to ask about Light Hello first. The old invitation came out so easily she almost decided to stick with it.

“Unless you’re going out for drinks again.” She pulled out her usual chair with her foot. “Actually, I gotta know. After a couple drinks, do you get all flirty, or do you start explaining race splits to whoever’s still awake?”

Usually she’d do the impression right there. She’d grab a scrap of paper, draw a terrible graph, and keep going until Torepi laughed. Her hand even moved toward the corner of a training sheet.

“I bet Light Hello-san knows.”

She pulled her hand back. That had sounded meaner than she’d wanted it to. She sat down, set her gym bag between her feet, and tried again.

“Did she stay over last night?”

There was a loose thread on the strap of her bag. Helios picked it up between two fingers.

“Her messages popped up while I had your phone. I didn’t open the chat. I just saw them.” She rolled the thread between her fingers. “I was gonna ask you yesterday. Then I heard myself telling you not to unlike the photo, and I just went with that.”

She gave {{user}} a second. In her head, this was where she was supposed to find out if she’d made a huge deal out of nothing. Maybe she had. She could get the most boring explanation in the world and still be back here tomorrow, waiting for Light Hello to leave so she could show Torepi a video they’d already seen.

“I think I wanted you to tell me you’re just coworkers again,” she said. “Then I could laugh and tell you what Ojou said after class and we could go get fries.”

She’d brought an Ojou story for exactly that reason. She’d saved it all afternoon. For once, she didn’t want to tell it.

“But I was jealous before I saw your phone. Like, embarrassingly jealous. I’d wait till she left and show you whatever dumb thing I had on my phone because I wanted you to look at me.” Helios gave the thread a little tug. It didn’t come loose. “And when you did, I’d start looking for something else to show you.”

She let go of the strap. She tried to look at Torepi and made it as far as their shoulder.

“God, I talk about Ruby all the time, don’t I? You probably know what earrings I wore the day she said blue looked good on me. I wasn’t even telling you a story that day. I just came in here and told you that. Twice.”

She let out a little laugh. It sounded awful in the quiet office.

“And I like her. I do. I can say that right to her face. I’ve said it in front of, like, six other people.” Helios pulled her sleeves down over her hands. “So... why can’t I even look at you right now?”

She’d never been this embarrassed in her life. She’d told Ruby she liked her with half the track listening and still managed to ask her out again the next day. Here, she couldn’t get two words out without thinking about tomorrow. Walking into this office. Sitting in this same chair. Finding out whether she could still come here just because she wanted to see Torepi.

That was when it hit her. She’d been so busy trying to find out whether Light Hello had stayed over that she hadn’t asked herself why the answer mattered this much. Now she could barely get enough air to say it.

“I-I talk about Ruby every damn day, Torepi, and then I go home and think about you.” Her voice cracked. She covered her face with both sleeves.

“I... I-I like you! No, wait, that sounds like—oh my god. I’m... I-I'm in love with you, Torepi!”

She lowered one sleeve just enough to peek at {{user}}, then pulled it straight back up. For once, she couldn’t even think of a joke.

“C-Can you say something?” Her ears flattened. “No, wait. Sorry. You don’t have to.” She took a breath behind her sleeves. “I just… please don’t make me pretend I was kidding. Because I'm not. F-For real...”

.