how to love . ootori

vi.

"This is stupid." Nagako found herself muttering- again- as she took note of the cheesy fake rain, and the even cheesier basketball uniforms that each twin had on.

"So I've heard," Kyoya trailed, pausing long enough to count tallies in his notebook. "Eleven times, if I'm correct."

Upon finding out that the new girl- Renge Houshakuji- was not Kyoya's bride-to-be, and in fact had never so much as met him before, there was a sense of relief that flooded her long enough to tag along with the group for the filming of their movie. She knew exactly where the relief came from.

It was silly to imagine that earlier in the day, Nagako was denying any feelings she could possibly have had for the boy leaning lazily on the wall next to her. All it took was to see a wistfully delusional girl by his side for her to flame with some sort of unrequited rage, and for her brain to be overtaken with a tidal wave of 'what-if's.

But she was in high school, after all, and she knew something like this was bound to happen. She also was certain that this little something was bound to go away soon, which was enough to let Nagako hang around the seven people she'd taken a liking to.

"Fine." She corrected, "You're stupid. I know you weren't keeping tallies in that stupid book."

He wore the lazily enforced half-smile that was always there when he spoke, the same one that always made Nagako feel just a bit out of breath. His eyes flitted up to meet hers for a moment, and the grin grew as his pen dutifully scratched across the book's blank page.

In the background stood Tamaki, brooding and in character as Renge practically pooled over him and the rest of the club-- save for Hani, who had messed up his role only moments before. Mei waited patiently by her, taking opportunity in the small moments of silence to direct Renge in the right direction.

"You've caught me." Kyoya said, indifferent to her and everything going on. "But I suppose now is as good of a time to start as any." Nagako kept her eyes locked firmly on him, a soft furrow in her brow when an unfamiliar paper in her face obstructed the view. "You've been reset to three, Uyeda-san."

It read: 'The amount of times Nagako Uyeda has said stupid when in my presence.'

"Wow, I didn't know you were an advocate for wasting paper, Ootori-san. Jokes on you, anyways, there are tons of synonyms for stupid--"

"Four."

"--For example, dumb. This film project is dumb and you are dumber." She hummed happily when his pen-clad hand didn't make any move to mark his paper. His mouth down-turned just enough to resemble a think line, as it always did when he was about to contradict her.

"Butt in if I'm wrong- as you always do- but dumber isn't a wo-"

"You're wrong, Kyoya! " She exclaimed immediately, her voice wavering slightly at the mention of his first name. She hoped he wouldn't notice. "It's the comparative adjective for dumb."

The raise of his eyebrows told her that he definitely caught it.

"Comparative?" He questioned, only a bit curious, "That was four syllables, Uyeda-san. Are you feeling alright today?"

This garnered a laugh from the shorter girl, and surprisingly Kyoya found himself biting back the faint trace of a smile. With the notebook now back to its starting position, perched in his hand, he trained his eyes on the page with four tally marks and paid particular attention to his neat scrawl of Nagako.

Only sometimes, thinking about her for too long would make him dizzy.

"You're one to talk, with your high-and-mighty vocab. Someone might think you're--" Again, Nagako was cut off (something she was getting awfully sick of) by a voice that was, suddenly, not in the background at all.