Chapter Text
“Action”, as described by the Transtheoretical Model theory, in the behavior change study, can be defined as the moment the person going through a changing process, makes specific changes to their behavior to switch it for the better [1].
After spending his last ten years or more going back and forth between the pre-contemplation and contemplation stages (sometimes even attempting a jump into the preparation stage) Tamura eventually decided to prepare and take a concrete step to at least attempt at bettering his life.
First things first: he needed to get rid of everything that was dragging him down. In his case, that was reduced to mere two nails that for different reasons were keeping his miserable coffin sealed: the club and his parasocial relationship with Yaguchi.
It was about time to realize it: the whole Yaguchi crush was nothing but a huge, massive delusion he was tricking himself into again and again. A stranger was eventually nice and concerned for him for mere two seconds and he read way too much into it. He let his need for care, understanding and appreciation edificate a castle of lies and illusions that were bringing nothing but misery and frustration. Just because his life was miserable, he didn’t have to drag Yaguchi to hell with him. He probably did too much damage already, hence, he had to step back.
Although genuine, his feelings were never going to be reciprocated. Loving someone means wanting that person to be safe and happy, even if it’s not with you. He would probably always love Yaguchi, but din’t want to pressure or cause him any stress.
The sooner he closed this chapter, the better both of them would be living.
The second significant turning point, although far more pleasant to let go, was probably going to turn into a major pain in the ass. Tamura would lie if he tell he’d never thought about leaving the club, on the contrary he had been dancing around the idea for a while now.
However, as days went by, his fear of being rejected by people outside of that sick little circle kept him anchored in this agony. He tried to hold on, swallowing all the negativity down. Except it wasn’t working anymore, it never did actually, he was just becoming more aware of it.
Since Akemi’s sourness would be a though one to defeat, Tamura decided to start his journey towards the change with the emotionally heavy, probably scot-freel trail of “breaking up” with Yaguchi.
Easier said than done: if possible, he felt even more nervous than the time he tried to confess and failed oh so spectacularly.
Tamura waited for the weekend to come around, when most of the other students were already visiting their hometown. He knew Yaguchi wouldn’t leave since the football club was still training for the last matches of the year. He had to wait for him to come out of practice and stop him along the way, hoping he wouldn’t punch him in the face.
The first attempt didn’t go as planned: Yaguchi wasn’t walking alone, Tamura chickened out and decided to try the following day. This delay wasn’t helpful at all since he let his anxiety rule on his decision, hence procrastinate another entire day hoping to avoid the suffering for a bit longer. Overthinking was the key as dreadful and unlikely scenarios kept playing in his head, eventually bringing him to desist in his plans.
It didn’t matter how he planned it: there was no way he wouldn’t come across as some kind of creep, at least not more than he was appearing already. Also, despite his rational side knew that was the right thing to do and that it would not preclude him and Yaguchi to become friends or something more at some point in the future, he was scared to take that step. Losing that small, microscopic piece of relationship he developed, even if one sided, even if delusional was causing him much more stress than expected. Deep down he was still fiercely hoping that the spark within them would ignite.
The procrastination loop kept on going for days. Tamura was about to reschedule again when a spark (not the one he hoped for with Yaguchi but the one in his head) went off: he had never given him the replacement shirt he bought after their first meeting.
To end it all, he had to go where it started and close the circle.
Tamura bought an extra school cardigan way back at the beginning of the year and was planning to give it to Yaguchi on a special occasion. Special occasion that never was defined and hence never came, at least not until this exact moment.
He opened the last drawer in his wardrobe where the cardigan have been meticolously preserved: on top of the trsnspaernt plastic wrap, a blue stationery paper had been attached with some clear tape. Tamura strapped it away and set it aside. He then put the shirt inside a plastic bag and then just waited for the end of the soccer team trining session to come to and end to eventually face Yaguchi for what coulf have been the last time.
He was so anxious he didn’t notice the note accidentally gluing itself on the bottom of the plastic bag.
Yaguchi left the gym and was walking towards the dorm building. He was alone, minding his own business. That was the right moment to act: Tamura walked over to the three lined path and when he was at a reasonable distance, heart throbbing in his throat, he took a deep breath (so much so he was about to faint) and called for his school mate’s attention:
“Hey Ugly! Good job at making yourself look so lewd on the stage the other day!”
Performance anxiety stroke him yet again. Straight in the face. He needed to be careful.
Just as expected, Yaguchi glared at him, he looked very close to punch him in the face. Luckily, he just retorted back, not even bothering to mask the annoyance in his voice: “What do you want? I’m tired I want to go to my room.”
Tamura swallowed down and looked away for a second, he was physically trying his best to form a coherent sentence that didn’t sound like an insult as he always did around Yaguchi: “Sorry…I mean you did good up there.”
Yaguchi sighed, his annoyance never leaving: “Thank you. Now I got to go.” he tried to cut it off but Tamura wasn’t even finished and called him back.
Muscles stiff creating a single stone unit, Tamura stood rigid, shoulders hunched over, eyes on the ground while nibbling at his inner lower lip and fidgeting with the hem of his shirt in a desperate and useless attempt to calm down a bit: ”I-I’ve been all over you for so long…”
As these trembling words escaped his mouth, Yaguchi was fast to catch and try to shield what was coming by cutting him off. He rolled his eyes: ”I told you already, I like someone’s else an-”
“I know, I know!” Tamura abruptly cut him off, somehow triggering his interlocutor’s curiosity, now Yaguchi was giving him all the attention: “I’m not here-it’s not…” Tamura looked away as if he was talking towards the pine tree at his back: “I bother you…a lot…” his breath was getting heavy as if he just run forty miles: “I…hoped you would… you know…” he stuttered, frantically pointing at Yaguchi and then himself, meaning he thought they would eventually end up together: “…but at the play…I mean…fuck!“
Despite having tried his little speech in his room for a million times, talking to the actual Yaguchi proven to be way harder than repeating the same three lines in front of the mirror. Tamura stiffed up, the best way was to pull it all out, and so he did in almost one single word sentence:”You don’t like me, you dont want me around. I won’t bother you anymore.”
Now that he said it, Tamura felt way lighter. Yaguchi however was confused “Oh.” he managed to breath out, a thin crumb of disappointment could be heard in the distance. He then stood silent, not really knowing what to say in that surreal situation.
Reading this silence as dissatisfaction, Tamura hurried and pushed a bit more, this time calmer but with a hint of sadness pouring out of his mouth: “I know I’ve been pestering you and…well, you probably hated it. I cannot turn back time but I think I owe you for the tomfuckery I did around you. If you ever need something, I don’t know, homework, money or punching someone in the face, come and look for me.”
Yaguchi was honestly at a loss of words, he wasn’t fully understanding what was happening but he decided it was better to just dunk his head and accept it. He had never been broken up, much less so from someone he wasn’t even dating.
At that point, Tamura took the plastic bag he had been holding behind his back and gave it to Yaguchi. He kept his eyes to the ground, his face still flustered: “I know you don’t recall it. But I am so fuckin’ sorry I ruined your shirt with my stupid blood.” . He was so anxious he forgot all that interaction should have started with the shirt, but it ended up the other way around. Better late than never, besides this was supposed to be the formal closure to his circle of delusion.
Yaguchi stared at the bizarre offering dangling in front of his eyes, unsure whether to accept it or not.
“You can throw it in the garbage or use it as a toilet paper, I don’t care. It’s just fair that I pay you back.”
Hesitantly, Yaguchi decided to accept the offering, it didn’t cost him much and it would just end together in the amorphous pile of clothing over what was supposed to be his desk.
He muttered a “Thank you” and since the awkwardness was reaching an unbearable limit, he had to end it there: “I guess I’ll save it for this winter…” Tamura was still blushing, avoid any kind of eye contact with him. Even though he would die rather than admit it, Yaguchi wasn’t left completely indifferent by the sight “…so, see you around then?”
Tamura eventually looked at his direction, nodding: “See you around.” And with that, Yaguchi made his way towards the dorms.
Tamura watched him walk away, It was hard but in the end not impossible. He felt the knot on his throat rise. Not a good sign, he knew this would have made him feel emotional but that was too soon.
Not really wanting to be seen around in that estate, Tamura ran towards his bedroom: he was going so fast he missed to notice someone coming in his direction and crashed.
“Woah, senpai, are you ok?”
A strong hand gripped around his arm preventing him to fall and probably break his hips against the cold hard pavement.
Looking up, Tamura noticed it was Kashima holding him alongside a very concerned Toono.
“Dammit! You kids shall watch where you’re going!” he muttered as he stood up rubbing the small of his back.
“We weren’t the ones running around like the Flash” scolded Toono and Tamura just waved him off.
“Are you okay, were you hurt?” Kashima, as per usual, was overly concerned.
Tamura playfully slapped his hip “Nah, I’m still intact!”
Despite the rough meeting, Tamura was grateful he run into them, at least he could hope to lift up his spirit with the only two friendly faces from the club.
“It’s nice to finally see you out, are you feeling better?” Toono was sincerely happy and relived to see his friend out and loud as always. Even though, he could not pinpoint what exactly but there was something different about him.
Tamura shrugged, fighting with each and every fiber of his body to suppress the heavy sense of sadness that was clogging his lungs.
“Ups and downs.” he bit his inner lip swallowing down the pain, for a second his instinct kicked in, as he was about to pull up his usual facade of a smug buffoon because he didn’t want his friends to feel worried for him. However, this was not an ordinary day, nor an ordinary period for him. He was having a hard time managing his emotions, harder than usual and, with all of these events happening all together in quick sequence, he wasn’t sure he could pull up the act for much longer.
On the other hand, never in his life did he feel so lonely. It was nothing new, despite all the people he surrounded himself with, he never felt like he was actually in company. For the first time in quite a while he had two people in front of him being genuine, actually worried and with no hidden agenda behind their concern. Facing this alone was heavy, maybe sharing with someone could help him out better.
After glancing around at the students hurriedly climbing back and forth from the stairs, Tamura looked at his kohais straight in the eye, his tone calm but almost pleading: “Actually, there is something I want to talk about with you. Why don’t we move somewhere less fucking crowded?”