Almost Friends

[Kira & Lee Norris]

Um...
Really good question. Her smile faltered, and her brow furrowed. She should know this. It was basic; she learned most of this when she was what? Five? Six?
"Lee would know."
Automatically, she turned, and looked over towards him. To her surprise, his eyes met hers immediately, and for a second, he looked really embarrassed.
Kira's eyes widened slightly as she beckoned for him, and he got up obligingly, a little too stiff, a little too flushed...
He'd been watching them.
What for?
"Hey, Kira, is there something wrong...?" Lee asked her slowly, his eyes flicking to Arihant and back again.
"No," she said absently. "Oh. Well. Yes. I mean... Arihant wanted to know something."
Lee's eyebrows shot up. "What?"
"Are my shadow powers miscellaneous powers or mind powers?"
His mouth opened for a couple of seconds, then, suddenly, a laugh escaped. "Is that it, Kira?"
"Yes," she said slowly.
"Oh," he shook his head. "Right, sorry. Er... hang on. Didn't we learn this when we were like... five?"
She dropped his gaze, her skin flushing slightly. Well, she guessed Arihant wouldn't be under any delusions about her expertise anymore, would he?
Lee smiled over at Arihant. "Miscellaneous, because the shadows were already there to begin with; they're not something she has produced with her mind, or some inanimate object. She doesn't control them with her mind... it's more like... they came to her."
"Yeah. Something like that." Kira kept her head down as she spoke.
"It's not the best explanation," Lee said slowly, "I bet you could ask Professor Monart about if you're really interested. I'm Lee, anyway," he held out his hand. "Kira's cousin."

[Arihant]

Holy Christ, he was such an idiot. How had he managed not to noticed the brown-haired man staring at them throughout their entire conversation? Was this what happened when he came to Orchid? All his years of carefully cultivated self-preservation and common sense just disappeared when he looked into a pair of blue eyes?

He sickened himself, sure, but that was OK. It wasn't like that wasn't an emotion he was entirely used to, and anyway, he had just made one mistake. On the other hand, he hated himself for the reaction he had when Lee came over.

He didn't know what it was, but something about him... well, to put it frankly, it intimidated him. And to put it even more frankly, he was scared. At least, he was pretty sure that that was what it was. His entire body stiffened, his eyes widened, and he could feel his heart beating in the back of his throat.

And all because someone came over to talk to him. Someone who went to the same school as him. Someone who wasn't remarkably taller than him, wasn't overbearing, didn't look malevolent in any way. Someone who was his age. Kira's cousin.

And he was effing terrified. What in the hell was wrong with him?

"Hi," Arihant said, but it sounded more like some kind of strangled grunt. He shook the hand briefly, then glanced quickly back at Kira, who he imagined would be rather perplexed by his horrendously weird reaction. Her expression didn't really encourage him greatly. (Granted, he couldn't think of an expression that would have encouraged him at that point, but that didn't change the effect it had on him.) He could tell what he was going to do next, and the rational part of his brain was already preparing for the mortification.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, reaching for his violin. "Sorry, I've just remembered, I have to-"

Have to what? God, he was so bad at lying. He was realising more and more that his survival over the past few years had not been due to any remarkable skill of his other than his ability to fade into a background. That was it. That was what his life was based on. Insignificancy. And of course, here, when everyone was so incredible, so special, when life was brought into blazing technicolour, his desire to fade into a grey haze that no one would pay heed to only served to make him the more conspicuous.

Another reason to go.

"- have to go see Nurse Gornray," he finished, praying that neither of them had been in the hospital wing when he'd seen her yesterday. He couldn't remember for the life of him. "She said there was something- something I didn't fill in on the medical part of my entrance form."

OK, so they clearly didn't buy that. Just get out of there. Get out before you make an even bigger idiot of yourself, you gormless cretin.

"Bye," he said, and left quickly- maybe too fast? He didn't even know how normal people acted anymore... Of course, he hadn't even the faintest inkling of what was normal here. He just knew it wasn't him.

He ran away swiftly and with a minimum of sound once the door swang shut behind him with an earsplitting creak. Running was easy. Free. Thoughtless. Careless.

If only I could be, he thought, as he registered the burning that was spreading across his cheeks.

[Kira & Lee Norris]

Arihant...
He might as well have slapped her, or so it felt.
"You liar," she muttered, sinking down into the chair.
"What?"
"Nothing, Lee," she said shortly, looking up at him.
He folded his arms, watching her with a strange expression on his face. "Why did he really leave?"
"I wish I knew."
"I did it, didn't I?"
"I don't know, Lee."
"I did it," he said, this time, to himself.
"Are we going to play chess again?"
Lee looked down at her, raising his eyebrows. "Do you want to play chess again?"
Kira sighed. "No."
"Well, then," Lee said, his face now curiously expressionless as he turned away. "There's your answer."