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One month into the start of the semester, a red-haired girl sits down next to Gin during the 9am lecture. She’s not completely next to them, respecting the bubble of space around them, but close enough that, compared to the way the rest of the students are spread out, it’s clearly intentional.
She’s new, Gin thinks. They haven’t seen her around, and there are very few girls with hair as red or as long as hers in their university, so there’s no way they simply missed her. Besides, they’re observant. They always have been.
Over the course of the next week, they find out that the girl’s name is Montgomery, she’s a foreign exchange student, and that she has absolutely no qualms about arguing with the professor. It’s a common experience to walk into the lecture hall and find her already at the bottom of the stairs gesturing wildly with papers in her hands as if she’s about to physically fight him.
Their professor is old, and it’s true that he prefers to teach the more traditional views of literary criticism, but he’s well-known in the field and he’s also the only one in the university who teaches the intro course for first-years. It’s not like they have other options, so Gin has never bothered to say anything. After they get their credits, they’ll move on and learn with someone who might actually acknowledge critical theory developed after the sixteenth century.
Montgomery does not have these reservations. Two weeks after she first joins the class, they enter the room to find her deep in discussion with him, rolling her eyes exaggeratedly.
“That’s not how this works,” she groans, and if it weren’t for the fact that she’s addressing a professor she would sound almost as if she was complaining. “If we go by that route we ignore so many other things that could count into this. You can’t just pretend that the fact that she clearly has a disconnect with her gender is totally irrelevant! It changes everything!”
“Montgomery,” he says stiffly, a frown etched into his voice. “It is impossible to take into account every single possible variable. You are here to learn the basics, not to overcomplicate your own work by bringing in unnecessary things. This has nothing to do with the novel and you ought to accept that.”
"Ugh,” Montgomery says passionately. “No, I won’t.” Then she sniffs and spins around, her elaborate skirt flaring out to reveal a similarly elaborate petticoat, and storms off back to her usual seat, somehow managing to make the act of sitting down and opening her laptop incredibly confrontational.
Gin can respect her for that, at least, because she clearly has her opinions and she sticks to them.
When they sit down in their own chair, near-but-not-too-close to her as always, she shifts over to give them an apologetic glance, saying, “Sorry for causing a scene. He just makes me – ugh, not important. Sorry.”
It’s okay, Gin wants to say, but they doubt she knows sign, so they settle for shaking their head in hopes that she’ll understand. Her brows raise, most likely at their lack of verbal response, but she only shrugs and turns back to her notes.
Regret snaps through them for one brief, strange moment, at the fact that her attention is no longer on them. There are things that they won’t compromise on, either, and talking is one of them, but they can’t get the feeling of her eyes trained on them out of their head.
After that, Gin starts seeing Montgomery everywhere. She’s there in the mornings at the same cafe that they frequent, talking up a storm with Naomi at a speed they can barely comprehend. Naomi follows along far more easily, though, hands gesturing in response as the two of them chat, iced drinks half-finished on the table between them despite the chilly weather.
They don’t even know how she knows Naomi. They only know her through a series of convoluted relationships, seeing as her brother is their brother’s boyfriend’s best friend. Gin gets inevitably dragged along with their group hangouts once in a while, and Atsushi always looks so excited to see them come along that they never really have the heart to refuse.
There’s something wrong with that boy, seriously. There’s no way a normal human can be so nice.
Naomi is nice, too, but in a sharp, witty sort of way that had drawn Gin in. She’s fiercely protective of her brother, in a way that they don’t quite understand but they do respect. Ryuunosuke has never needed their protection and, similarly, they have never needed his, so though they offer it to each other willingly it’s not quite the same as the Tanizaki siblings’ near-obsessive overprotectiveness.
But when she isn’t around her brother, she’s a little more relaxed, a little quicker to trade barbs with them and a lot more willing to flirt in their direction with a wink and a smug grin.
She’s pretty, too, in a very neat, proper way at odds with her personality, and though she’s nothing like Gin themself or any of their past relationships it had been enough for the two of them to get drunk and fall into bed with each other at one of the upperclassmen’s parties that always get out of hand.
It had never gone any further than that, and they suppose they’d simply mutually decided to remain as friends. They appreciate that at least there’s never been any awkwardness between them.
Still, seeing her and Montgomery in a cafe booth is frustrating, for some reason. It makes no sense to them that Naomi might already be so close with a girl who’d only transferred in about a month ago, and it makes even less sense for Gin to be so upset about it.
They’ve always kept a level head and they’re not about to change that now. It’s really, truly, just humiliating. They don’t even talk with Montgomery, anyway. They’re probably never going to see each other again outside of classes.
Junichirou takes their order with a smile, though there’s a touch of shadow underneath his eyes and a slight unruliness to his hair that leads them to ask, “Rough night?”
“You have no idea,” he answers with an exaggerated groan, stepping to the side to start making their drink. The cafe is quiet enough this morning that he’s been left in charge of both the cash register and the actual drinks, which they don’t envy at all. “You’re so lucky that you’ve got legacy nepotism.”
Gin doesn’t think anything about their situation with Dazai is lucky, but they’re not about to argue the point right now. They’re not close enough with Junichirou for that, anyway, and even if they were it’s not exactly something they like to bring up on early mornings before classes.
“Sigma had me working the evening shift at the casino last night,” he continues, “and I got home so late. It was so bad.”
“I thought you liked working at the casino,” Gin says. He’s got a talent for it, certainly. Despite the fact that he’s not quite on Sigma’s level, who loves her casino so much she practically lives there, he’s still good enough that watching him as a dealer looks like the cards are disappearing.
Though, if his complaints are to be believed, he’s not usually allowed to do card tricks when he’s acting as the house. The ambience should be the same, however.
“I do, I do,” he replies, but there’s a whining undertone to it. Gin glances at him pointedly. He sighs, shoving a cap on their drink with a little more force than needed, and slumps. “Look, I love Sigma, she’s a great manager, but she’s also so strict about work hours. I said I could take evening shifts and she scheduled me for what was basically nighttime. I had classwork, too, and no time to complete it…”
“Sounds rough,” Gin signs blithely, very much aware of their status of interning at Verlaine’s lab and not working two jobs. The look that Junichirou gives them lets them know that he is fully aware that they’re gloating about it. In their defense, it’s only a little bit.
It’s both his best and worst trait that he’s always been good at picking up on what they’re saying even when they don’t actually talk; it comes from practically raising Naomi from when she didn’t speak, either, until she only started doing so several years ago. Maybe that’s also why they liked her so much. Kinship, or something.
It doesn’t really matter. It only means that they both understand them when they sign instead of talking, which is more of a relief than it should be, and that Gin only needs to raise their brows at him for him to understand exactly what they’re saying.
“I’m not talking to Sigma about it, I don’t want her to be disappointed in me,” he says, and pushes their drink across the counter.
“That’s sad,” Gin says, and then, seizing the opportunity, “who’s the girl your sister is talking with?”
Junichirou looks up. “Oh, that’s Lucy. American transfer student. She’s been friends with Atsushi for a while, apparently – they met when she visited Japan a couple years ago or something.”
“Friends with Atsushi?” How had they not met her before, then? Or at least heard of her? They certainly know far too much about Atsushi himself from their brother.
“Yeah,” Junichirou says, and then glances at her, wincing. “She’s kind of an honorary member of the group.”
That explains it, then.
There’s really only one group that Junichirou could be referring to. One that he’s a part of, no less, and so are Naomi and Atsushi, but they find those three as perhaps the only partially-tolerable ones. Their brother is allowed to do whatever he wishes, and if dating Atsushi is part of that, they’re not going to stop him. But personally, they never want to get anywhere near the older members of the group, and that includes avoiding all information they might overhear.
If they never see Dazai Osamu again, it will be too soon.
They don’t hate him. It’s clear that Ryuunosuke still looks up to him, even if the man himself does seem to acknowledge how incredibly awkward and fucked up that is, and it’s made so much worse by the fact that he has never been anything but kind to Gin.
And, of course, they can’t forget the fact that the only reason the two of them are here now, alive and learning at one of Japan’s best universities, is entirely due to him.
They don’t hate him, but they don’t like him, either, and it’s easier for them all if they never speak to him again. They don’t want to be close to him; it was enough of a stupid idea to let the Tanizaki siblings into their life.
Also, that entire group of friends is incredibly, impressively obnoxious. It’s exhausting to be near them.
“I see,” they say. Junichirou winces again at whatever the look on their face might be.
It doesn’t matter. They take their coffee, shoving the straw through the cap a little more aggressively than normal, and nod to him in goodbye.
When they push the cafe door open to leave, Naomi and Montgomery are still talking. It’s not like it matters, though.
The ice in the coffee leaves them uncomfortably cold as they drink.
“Hey!”
Gin pauses, turning around, to be met with Montgomery rushing over towards them, waving something aggressively. “You forgot your phone,” she says, skidding to a stop with a wheezing inhale, before sticking her hand out – phone included – in their direction.
They look down. It is their phone, actually, which they take and drop into one of their pockets silently. At least they’d gotten it back before they’d gotten too far from the hall, because that would’ve been an absolute nightmare to try to fix. They nod in thanks, and then turn to leave.
“Hey, you’re Ryuunosuke’s sibling, right?”
Gin groans, turning back to face her and nodding again. Montgomery beams, holding her hand out again. “I’m Lucy! Nice to meet you,” she says, “well, officially, anyway. We’ve been sitting next to each other for weeks now.”
They stare at her. Her smile doesn’t waver. “Gin,” they sign, even if she isn’t going to understand.
She squints at their hands for a moment, before asking, “can you do that again? More slowly, though.”
Gin scowls. They’re not some sort of circus attraction for her to watch, and though they’d tried to not judge her too harshly for being friends with people like Dazai and Edogawa, their opinion of her is steadily dropping.
“Gin,” they sign again anyway, though their movements are much sharper than usual. “My name. Idiot.”
Montgomery pauses again, then says slowly, “Gin, right?” At their look, she blushes, waving her hands in front of her in embarrassment. “Sorry, that was probably wrong! I’m not very good yet.”
“You’re learning sign language?”
“Um,” she says. “Yes? I think that’s what you’re asking me? I talked to Atsushi and he said that you don’t talk. So. I was wondering why you never said anything to me.”
They haven’t said anything to her because they don’t like talking with strangers, sign language included. If they really need to, they’ll make Tachihara or their brother translate for them, but they’re not in the habit of making small talk with other students that they’ve never met.
Still. There are very few people that would decide that the only proper response to getting ignored is learning an entirely new language. Montgomery is either foolish or insane.
Then again, with the company she keeps, she’s probably both.
Their lack of reply seems to make her even more anxious, because she adds, “Sorry if this was like, presumptuous of me or whatever. Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
Gin sighs. She clearly means well, and they can’t hate her for that, even if she’s certainly far too outgoing for them. “It’s fine.”
“Really?” she asks, but relief breaks over her face like a wave. “I’m glad.” She’s entirely too genuine. It’s horrifying. “I’ll see you around, then?”
That’s even worse, but they can’t bring themself to turn her down quite as harshly. “Okay,” Gin signs, and tells themself that it’s just because they don’t think she’ll understand anything more complicated.
Lucy grins, sharp and wide and bright, and nods to them before disappearing back around the campus hallways in a flurry of tulle and patchwork skirts.
There’s something wrong with her, Gin decides, and turns to leave as well.
Tachihara has no sympathy for their plight. He’s gotten worse since he started dating their brother and Atsushi. Ryuunosuke probably thinks that his bluntness is appealing, or whatever, seeing as he’s exactly the same, and Atsushi is just a bleeding-heart enabler to both of his boyfriends.
“So the girl wants to make friends with you,” he says, raising a brow. “And you are not okay with this.”
“I don’t need more friends,” Gin says, scowling. “I don’t even need you.”
“Ouch,” he says, but it’s more from reflex than anything else, his amusement visible. If their friendship could survive a codependent high school situationship that ended abruptly when they both came out, he’ll be able to handle a couple of harsh words. Sometimes it’s kind of funny to think about their relationship. It’s true that he may be possibly their closest friend now, but there was a solid couple of months where they physically had to be kept apart in order to avoid attempting to murder each other.
Of course, there’s also the fact that he’s kind-of their ex and that he’s now dating their brother. If he doesn’t make it awkward, then they couldn’t care less, but it’s funny in a messed-up sort of way.
“Lucy’s chill, y’know,” he continues, and Gin snaps back to the present. “Atsushi introduced me.”
“Also, that. Why am I the last person to find out about her?”
“You’re not the last person,” Tachihara says, visibly hesitating. “But. Well. You go around talking about how you don’t want anyone new in your life. Which, by the way, is sad as fuck, but also not the point. Everyone kinda figured there’s no point.”
Unsaid goes the fact that she’s apparently friends with Dazai, which rests heavily in the air between them. They can see it in his eyes, and they’re sure he can recognize the look on their face just as well.
“And now there is,” Gin frowns, because Tachihara wouldn’t bring her up if he thinks that there’s “no point” to it.
He shrugs and reaches up to fidget with the new metal piercings poking through his ear, dragging his tongue over the older ones on his lower lip. He’s always messing with them or getting new ones, honestly. It has to be some sort of problem. “She’s in your class. What am I gonna do, ditch my own and sit between the two of you? If she wants to be friends with you, then that’s what she wants. She’s fun, you don’t worry about her.”
“She’s learning sign language,” they say, because that’s the part that’s been bothering them. “That’s stupid.”
“That’s actually really sweet, what the fuck,” Tachihara says. He’d be cooing if he was that type of person. As it is, there’s enough admirable surprise on his face to make them gag.
“No it’s not, it’s creepy. And tell Atsushi to stop snitching.”
He raises his hands in the universal gesture of surrender and shrugs again. “I’ll tell him, but don’t hate on him for it, c’mon,” he says, and then pauses, meaning that he’s absolutely going to push the issue. Gin groans. “But seriously, why are you so against just talking with Lucy?”
Because the fact is that they’ve carefully ensured that their circle of people has remained the same, or at least remained tolerable, for the past six years of their life. What they need is reliable, because of a decade of bouncing around foster houses who take one look at Ryuunosuke’s anger and Gin’s silence and give them back up just as quickly.
They’ve long since learned to ignore it. There are lines in this world that they won’t cross and they will not speak if they don’t want to; Ryuunosuke fights like it’s the only way to survive and there is no point in anyone trying to talk him down from it.
They’re more comfortable now. He lets himself be softer now. It’s taken years for them to get to this point; they are not going to be the one to fuck it up.
There are very few people who saw them at their worst and stuck around anyway, and those are the people that they still call their friends. Tachihara is one of them. So are Higuchi, and Hirotsu-san. Atsushi pulled himself in, holding onto Ryuunosuke as strongly as he could, and they’d accepted it.
They don’t need more. More is uncontrollable. An unknown variable, so to speak, and it is human nature to fear the unknown.
Tachihara knows this. Tachihara knows all of this, so they don’t say any of it, and they only sign, “She’s annoying. I’ve never met anyone louder.”
There’s a knowing glint in his eyes, but he doesn’t call them out on it, only sighing dramatically and changing the subject.
Gin tells Tachihara that they don’t intend to speak with Lucy again, but the girl refuses to adhere to it at all. They take to arriving at class minutes before it starts in order to avoid the conversations they can tell she’s desperate to start.
She’s persistent, but at least she hasn’t yet started physically chasing them down the hallways just to talk, and that’s their only respite.
They don’t really have anything against her, not personally, but she’s unpredictable, and loud had been the kindest descriptor they could have given Tachihara.
It gets to the point that they begin contemplating whether or not they should just give up and let her talk their ear off if it’s really what she wants. It’s not like they need to put in any effort to be a good listener, because hopefully if they make it clear enough that they don’t care she’ll stop doing it as much.
Still, when they don’t immediately leave the room after class finishes, taking the time to pack their things up properly and text Tachihara to order them the coffee that he owes them on his stupid app, the way Lucy’s grin widens is almost enough to make them regret it.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
They look up at her, frowning. “Cafe.”
“Oh, me too!” Lucy says, beaming. Gin swallows down the urge to ask if that was really true or whether or not she spontaneously decided to follow them there. “We can go together.”
They shudder, but there’s no way for them to shut her down without seeming unnecessarily rude, and while they normally wouldn’t care, she does remain one of Atsushi’s closest friends, and they like him enough to try to avoid it.
She’s not quite that awful. When Gin picks up their bag and starts walking towards the exit, she doesn’t actually say anything, only humming lightly under her breath, a melody that flows up and down like waves.
“You are in music?”
“Huh? Oh, not really,” Lucy says, shaking her head and hopping over a puddle in the crack of the sidewalk. “I just sing sometimes. I’m not majoring in it or anything.”
Gin hesitates before asking, “What do you major in, then?”
“Art and a minor in theatre,” she answers, and they really should’ve seen that coming. It’s written all over her. “I’d like to go into puppetry, I think. Or dollmaking. I know someone who said he might help me find someone to apprentice under.”
“I think you’d be good at it,” Gin says, and it’s more honest than they’d been expecting. It does suit her. Judging purely off her clothes, she’s certainly got the meticulousness and attention to detail that such a profession would require, and if there’s anything they know about her is that she’s creative enough – vivid enough – that she would excel at it.
“You think?” Lucy asks, and beams. “Thank you!”
They look away. “You’re welcome.”
“What about you, then? What are you majoring in?”
“Biomedical studies,” they sign slowly, pausing. “To go into medical research.”
She doesn’t say anything for a long moment. It’s unsurprising. There’s really not much about Gin’s appearance that makes it obvious, after all, and the fact that they never talk makes people assume they’ll study a quieter field of research.
But they have their reasons for it, and they’ve always been rather good with knives, so they refuse to be deterred from their study at all. It’s a difficult field to pursue, but they’re doing well. They have to.
“That’s really admirable of you,” Lucy nods finally. “I think you’d be good at it, too. You’re really smart.”
Gin’s never been more grateful for the mask they’re wearing right now, hoping it’s enough to cover how warm their face is. It’s not like they’re starved for compliments, but there’s something about how confidently she says it that’s unexpected. After all, they’ve barely held a proper conversation before, and yet she’s still declaring how admirable it is after just a second of talking.
There’s just something about Lucy, in general. She’s bright and loud and kind and nothing at all like what Gin had been expecting.
“Thanks,” they say, and hope she doesn’t notice their pause at all.
It’s like that conversation breaks some sort of dam, because Lucy stops all of her prior hesitation after that. The seats kept as a barrier between the two of them in class vanish as she claims the one next to them more often than not, practically brightening each morning when she walks into class and spots them already there with their bag left next to them.
They could move it. They could tell her off. She’s eager, but she’s not rude; if Gin really didn’t want her to sit next to them then it would be easy. And yet the days pass, and they still don’t say a word, and then it gets to the point that it would feel odder to not hear her voice beside them during class.
She may have called them smart, but she’s just as quick-witted, keeping a scathing commentary running, albeit quietly so as to not draw too much attention. It’s fascinating to listen to. They don’t know how on earth they could’ve ever considered her to be shallow – her flightiness comes from the fact that there is simply so much going through her mind constantly.
“Do you think his wife left him,” Lucy says one day, squinting at their professor. “Because I wrote a paper on how everyone should get divorced and he almost failed me.”
“It wasn’t because you wrote it the night before?”
“Ugh, you’re so mean,” she whines, “it wasn’t that bad of an essay! I should’ve gotten at least a couple more points.”
“If you say so,” they say indulgently. She’s cute like this, resting her head on her hand and absentmindedly twisting a strand of red hair around her finger.
Gin pauses. Reflects back on the past couple of weeks. When they look down, they realize that Lucy’s merely centimeters away from leaning her entire body on them, and there are already parts of her braid coming loose and falling onto Gin’s own skirt.
The realization clicks into place. Very calmly, they shove it to the back of their mind, because it’s not something they want to think about right now, and turn back to their homework.
It takes another twenty minutes, Lucy half-asleep on the desk, of the only noise being their pencil scratching against their paper before she groans, forcing herself awake blearily, and breaks the silence.
“Hey,” she says, shifting over to look up at them without having to lift her head off of the table, “do you want to go to this new dessert spot with me? Atsushi says they have the best dango.”
They’ve heard of it, because he took Tachihara and their brother there, and they’d both agreed it had not been terrible. Still, the idea of going to such an ideal date place with Lucy – especially after newfound revelations – feels strange.
Lucy only needs to blink at them curiously before Gin gives in. “Okay.”
She beams. “Great! I’ll pick you up Saturday then! Wait, when are you available?”
They sigh. “Saturday works.”
“Tachihara I’m so fucked,” Gin says.
He laughs at them in response, swirling his straw in his monstrosity of a frappucino before taking a long sip. “So she definitely asked you out on a date.”
“Maybe not,” they try.
“Yeah, no. That place is, like, literally built for couples,” he says, making an obnoxious slurp. “If she didn’t then she's gotta be incredibly dense.”
“Don’t call her dense,” they say, frowning.
He points his drink at them in response, raising a brow. “See, this is what I’m talking about. She likes you and you obviously like her, what’s the problem?”
Gin sighs. There isn’t one, in all actuality. There’s nothing beyond their unreasonable paranoia, and the fact that they can acknowledge has to mean something, at least. Lucy is fun. Kind, too. They like spending time with her, and her determination means that she probably likes spending time with them, too.
But it still feels far too dangerous to risk taking that outside of the familiar environment of the classroom.
Tachihara leans forward, leaving his drink on the table between them, and says, “Gin, I’m being so serious, I think you’re making a mistake if you ghost her.”
“I wasn’t going to ghost her.”
“No, I know you at least considered it. Even if you don’t want to date or whatever, though I think that’s stupid – you two would be so cute together,” they smack him, and he raises his hands in surrender before continuing, “you just need to tell her that. But you ghost her and you lose a friend. Your, like, first new friend in years.”
He’s right in that they don’t want to lose her. Somehow, at some point, Lucy had managed to worm her way into the circle of people that Gin holds dear, and now they’re just as afraid of her straying than they are of her getting any closer.
“C’mon, Gin,” Tachihara wheedles, and he must see something in their eyes because he gets even more pathetic about it, leaning forward and poking their arm, “I’ll even help you pick out a cute outfit for your date!”
“Absolutely not,” Gin shoots down. Tachihara getting more involved will mean so will their brother and Atsushi, and they’re not adding any more people in this disaster.
“Fine, fine,” he says, falling back in his chair. “But you are going, aren’t you?”
“...Yes.”
“Ha, finally! Oh my god, I’m so proud of you, finally going to get some after forever.”
“There is something wrong with you, Tachihara, fundamentally.”
When they come down the stairs of the dorm to meet Lucy, she’s dressed in a vibrant pink-and-cream-colored dress, layered with petticoats and a teal underskirt. Her hair is braided back with ribbons of the same colors as well, accentuated by coffee brown bows and heels, and Gin has to stop to look at her.
She always wears clothes of elaborate styles, that she’d explained to them she makes herself, but there’s something about watching her waiting patiently on the street, clothes and hair illuminated by the afternoon sunlight, that makes it all the more beautiful.
She looks like an angel.
It’s then that Lucy spots them, face lighting up, and she waves excitedly. “Gin! Good to see you!”
When they finish crossing the street to meet her, she links her arm in theirs without any hesitation, already talking about some project or another. Gin watches her incredulously, at the smile that refuses to drop from her face, and laughs.
Lucy pauses, turning to look at them. “Your laugh is really pretty,” she says, and they flush. “No, seriously! Also, oh my god, you’re so pretty right now. Like holy shit.”
What Gin’s wearing – a white dress with a green sweater – is rather simple compared to her own outfit, and they tell her such. She shakes her head vehemently in response. “No, you look so pretty, please believe me,” she says, and they blush and look away.
“I wanted to dress nicely,” they say slowly, signs hesitant. They still won’t look at her. “For a date.”
Lucy freezes.
Gin freezes, as well, suddenly thrust back into that gaping pit of anxiety. Had they really misread all of the signs? They’d known never to listen to Tachihara, after all, why had they started now?
There’s one brief, yet everlasting moment, as if the ground itself had opened up to swallow them, before Lucy straightens, pulling Gin even closer to her, until they stumble directly into her side and are met with a faceful of red hair.
“And you look beautiful,” she declares confidently. “Then, let’s go on that date.”
Gin can’t help it, and they laugh again, shifting around to be able to hold onto Lucy. “Okay,” they say, linking their elbows together so they can sign properly. “Let’s go.”