Chapter Text
It’s another bad day. There’s been a lot of them lately, and she can feel that there will be a lot more coming. It’s beginning to feel like she’s trapped here, in the never-ending cycle of her parents fighting, her dad leaving, her mom getting drunk, acting like nothing was wrong, more fighting over the phone, her dad spending too much of their money, more fighting, all consuming.
“Why don’t they just get fucking divorced already? They obviously hate each other,” Tsubomi laments, laying in the grass at Ankle Park next to Emi. She roped her new friend into skipping last period, because she was too selfish and didn’t want to be alone. But she also couldn’t stand being in school for another second.
Emi is listening, but not looking at her, and Tsubomi feels grateful. If one more person looks at her with pity she is going to actually explode. Emi is drawing something on a sheet of notebook paper, and Tsubomi gets up, leaning into the other girl’s space so she can look. Emi pulls it away. “Nuh uh, it’s not done. And maybe they don’t divorce yet cause it hasn’t occurred to them. My parents fight sometimes, and I asked them once and they said that they wouldn’t even think of it. But I don’t think my parents fight as much as yours do, sounds like.”
Tsubomi sighed, and pulled her fingers through her tangled hair, picking out some pieces of grass that had stuck in it. A young couple, maybe in their early twenties, sat on a bench in front of them next to the playground, making out. She wrinkled her nose and looked away. “I’m pretty sure they’ve thought about it. Dad uses it as a threat all of the time. Each time he leaves mom figures that’s it, but then he comes back. Sometimes when Dad takes me out on drives or to get ice cream or whatever he’ll tell me that he’s going to. That he just has to get a good lawyer and then we’re out of there. I think he thinks I’d go with him.”
“Would you?” Emi continues scribbling, but pauses for a moment to look at her.
“I don’t know. He doesn’t drink as often as mom, but every time he gets mad at her he throws stuff and then just leaves. If I went with him would he leave too, if I made him mad?” She presses her arm over her eyes to alleviate the building pressure there. She doesn’t want to cry right now.
And she really doesn’t know which parent she would want to go with if they do finally follow through and divorce. She didn’t want to have to make that decision, cause wouldn’t whatever parent she didn’t choose hate her?
Emi starts talking, interrupting her train of thought. “I did some research, partially when I was scared my parents were going to do it, and then for a character in one of my stories, and usually the mom ends up with full custody, unless she’s like unfit to be a parent. And then the divorce lawyers will work out a schedule of when you would have visitation with your dad. But some situations are different and custody is like half and half where you spend one week with one parent--”
“So I don’t get to choose?” In some ways, that came as a relief, but at the same time, it made her feel like goods rather than a person, the last apple in the supermarket, fought over by two hungry adults. She felt trapped again. Hopeless. Even if her parents divorced and stopped fighting, she’d have to be tossed back and forth between them, fought over like an old weathered tug of war rope.
“I don’t think so. Maybe when you’re older. I think it depends on the situation.” Emi stops drawing and scrutinizes her work, before ripping the sheet out of her notebook and handing it to Tsubomi. She takes it, and looks it over, a small grin starting to brighten her gaze. Emi isn’t an artist, but it’s cute; the lines are shaky and unsure, charming, somehow full of life. It’s a drawing of Tsubomi, lying in the grass, a flower in her hair, her eyes lost in the sky. She looks happy. She looks like who Tsubomi wishes she could be. .
“Can I keep this?” She pulls the notebook paper close to her chest.
Emi shrugs. “It’s really not that good. I don’t draw much. But suit yourself, I guess.”
Tsubomi doesn’t say, well, it’s not like anyone has ever drawn me before, no matter how good or bad it is. It’s lovely. Instead she folds it into her bag, inside of her binder so it won’t get bent. She gets to her feet. “I want to go to the creek. It’s hot today.”
Emi follows suit, grinning at her. “Race you?”
They take off across the grass, stumbling down the trail until they come to the bridge and the open area in the woods next to a small glade. The creek slows here, and is a couple feet deep. Tsubomi quickly drops her bag, tears off her shoes and socks, and rolls up her leggings until they sit above her knees, just below the edge of her skirt. Emi crashes into the clearing, almost tripping over a root sticking up awkwardly in the path. She pants, her hands on her knees. “There’s a reason I do softball and not track.”
Tsubomi grins at her. “Oh come on, it wasn’t that far.”
Emi snorts out a laugh. “Says the cross-country star.”
“I’m not that good. Certainly not a star. But whatever. Do you want to get in the water?” Tsubomi steps across the pebbles, liking the way they dig into her feet. They are warm from the mottled sunlight slipping through the trees. Flies and midges buzz in the air above the pillow-soft water, and she watches them lazily.
Emi is next to her, taking her socks off. “I might sit at the edge and put my feet in. God, I haven’t played in the creek since I was little. Like 2nd grade, maybe?”
Tsubomi turns to her, before looking at the ground and stepping in. The stones are slippery, covered in a thin layer of algae. She sits on a rock sticking up in the middle of the creek, and watches the water gliding around her legs. “Really? I come here a lot. It’s quiet. And people don’t usually bug you if you’re sitting in the middle of the creek.”
Emi joins her, sitting on the other side of the rock and leaning her back against Tsubomi’s. She can feel the vibration of her friend speaking. “By people do you mean your parents? Or boys, confessing their undying love for you?”
The black-haired girl scoffs. “Ha ha. But yeah, I guess. Really everybody. Here people can’t feel sorry for me. And I can’t do or say something that makes me a horrible person.”
“I don’t think you’re a horrible person.” Emi’s weight recedes a little, and she looks over her shoulder to see Emi staring at her incredulously. “Why would you think that?”
Because I am. She doesn’t say. “I’m not a good person.” My mom says so. “I get angry at my parents, all the time, and at all my classmates, for not caring, and sometimes I think I hate everyone, and I wish they’d just go away. I’m not nice.”
The weight is against her back again. Emi sighs. “Well if that makes you a horrible person, I’m pretty sure I am too. Probably everyone is. It’s okay to be mad at your parents. My mom tells me that a lot. That it’s okay if I get mad at her and dad sometimes. Sometimes they get mad at me too, and it’s okay. They say it’s just part of having relationships with people.”
Tsubomi mulls this over, staring into the swaying understory above her. A pygmy woodpecker starts rapping a soft rhythm against a small trunk. There’s worse things though. Things that if I told you, you probably wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore. “You don’t get it.” Is all she mutters, kicking her feet in the stream and watching the sparkling arc of water it creates.
Emi pushes against her, and then leans her head back on her shoulder. “Explain it to me then. You have failed to convince me thus far that you, Tsubomi Takane, are a horrible person.”
She leans forward, so Emi stops leaning on her, and picks a stone from the creek bottom, looking it over in her hands. She doesn’t know if she really wants to admit this or not. But she’s held it in for so long, and what if Emi is right, what if she really isn’t a horrible person, a horrible daughter, friend, student, etc.?
“My mom says I am,” she starts, voice quiet and a little shakier than she’d like. “Every time I talk to her, or say what’s actually on my mind, or that I just want to do my homework, she makes me feel like, like I don’t care about her. Like if I don’t listen to her vent about my dad, I’m just, I suck. There’s other things too, like she doesn’t like what I wear, my grades are never good enough, she always tells me I should have never quit piano and I’ll never get anywhere with cross country. She acts like nothing I do is ever enough, and my older sister, Maru, was a great daughter, who always listened to her, or whatever. So yeah, I’m horrible.” She doesn’t realize she’s crying until the drops hit the surface of the creek, making little rings that immediately get swept away and disappeared by the current.
Emi is quiet, and Tsubomi feels herself tense up. She was right. Now Emi won’t want to be her friend anymore. She should have just kept her mouth shut.
But then a shadow is overtaking Tsubomi’s reflection in the creek, and she looks up to see Emi staring at her, looking angry. She purses her lips.
“Honestly, Tsubomi-chan, it sounds like your mom is the horrible person in this scenario. You are nice, you are kind. You’re my friend, and I don’t stay friends with horrible people, not anymore. So that means you’re not horrible.” She leans closer, taking Tsubomi up into a hug. It’s warm, and Emi smells like cut grass and mud. Her arms hang limply at her sides, but she feels herself leaning into the embrace anyways.
“I don’t know,” she mumbles.
Emi leans back, her hands on her shoulders. “Well I know--” she shoots back, before promptly losing her balance and cascading backwards into the creek with a high pitched squeal and a large splash.
The other middle schooler sits dumbfounded in the water, up to her chest, her hair slopped wetly across her face. She glares at Tsubomi as she starts to cackle, pointing. “Shut the door and go up the stairs.”
Tsubomi laughs harder, before standing and offering a hand, which Emi takes, and nearly pulls Tsubomi in as well getting up. Once properly standing, Tsubomi keeps holding her hand, leading her out of the creek, before letting go and grabbing their things. They walk barefoot through the forest, quiet, amiable, until they reach the grassy field and both sit with their legs stretched out, hoping to dry in the sun. Emi looks like a drenched cat. “Good thing my phone was in my bag.”
“Ha, yeah,” Tsubomi responds. She wonders if they are done talking about what they had been talking about earlier. She hopes so. She hopes as they lay in silence, soaking up the weakening afternoon light, that Emi will just forget about it.
“So,” Emi starts, and Tsubomi shuts her eyes. No such luck. “Have you, um, talked to any adults? About how your mom makes you feel?”
Tsubomi shakes her head quickly, and then, realizing that Emi isn’t looking at her, sits up. “No. And if you’re about to tell me I need to see a therapist or some shit, can it. I’m not crazy.”
“No one said you were,” Emi looks at her quizzically. “I just can tell you aren’t believing me when I say you’re a good person. I don’t really know how I can make it better. But I want to help. Maybe you could talk to my mom? She gives really good advice.”
Tsubomi shakes her head. “I don’t want to bother her. It’s fine. I’m fine. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
Emi murmurs her ascent, and they are quiet for a few luxuriously long minutes. Emi is slowly drying, and digs through her bag and shares a pack of M&Ms with Tsubomi. They eat quietly. Thoughts are swirling through Tsubomi’s mind so fast, and she can feel that blanket of despair starting to overtake her again. She feels like crying again. God, she’s been so weepy lately, over nothing.
Maybe Emi is right, and she should talk to someone about this. “Hey,” she breaks the silence. “Um, if I went, and maybe, if I went and talked to the school counselor, would you go with me?”
Emi’s brown eyes are clear, they are kind, and best of all, they don’t pity her. “Sure,” she says simply. “Let’s go tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. She can do that. It feels like a life preserver has been thrown out to her, and she grabs onto it from the pitch and pull of the waves that were threatening to drown her. It’s a chance, a possibility that maybe something will change.
***
Mob feels guilty about missing school on Tuesday, but also grateful that she looked pale enough that her mom had no issue convincing her to stay home. She wasn’t sure if she could handle going back quite yet. She knew it would be nothing like the world that Mogami had put her through for six months, but that didn’t stop the build up of anxiety that gave her a cold sweat every time she thought about returning.
She was still in Ritsu’s room, curled up on the floor, her comforter pulled over her head. It got stuffy, so every few minutes she’d lift up the blanket a little to let some cool air in. She slept off and on, dreams interspersed with nightmares that she couldn’t remember when she’d wake. Mom checked on her a few times, leaving her glasses of water, which she sipped from hesitantly, but refused the offered soup, saltines, bread, pocky, her mother asked about.
It was difficult trying to even string together how she felt about what had happened. Really even what exactly had happened. She knew Ritsu wanted to know what was going on, but how was she supposed to talk about it if she was so overwhelmed by it that she couldn’t even summarize it properly?
She’d been in hell for six months. That was a start. Decay. It had smelled bad, like rotten milk, all the time. There was always a voice in her ear, Mogami’s voice, that whispered things, things that she didn’t believe were true, about the world around her. Things about her, and how others wouldn’t care about her, were using her, would never respect who she truly was, on and on and on.
She shuddered, curling in to her blanket further. Mob wanted it to all just go away, to forget that it had ever happened, that Mogami’s attempts to change her had nearly succeeded. She couldn’t get the feeling of the boy’s neck off of her hands, she thought, feeling her hair start to lift with the horror of the memory, how he’d gasped for breath, eyes rolling back, going limp…
There’s a light knock and Mob sits up quickly, throwing the comforter away from herself. The door opens and Mom peeks in, smiling at her when she sees her awake. “Hey, Shige. Reigen-san has stopped by, he brought your backpack since you forgot it at the office yesterday. Do you feel well enough to talk to him for a minute?”
Mob nods, drawing the comforter back, and pulling it over her shoulders and over her knees, which she holds close to her chest. Mom smiles softly at her before opening the door wider and heading back downstairs. Reigen walks in, looking around the room with his usual aloof nonchalance. He has Mob’s bag, and sets it down beside her. He’s been to the Kageyama’s a few times for dinner, but he’s never been upstairs, Mob realizes.
Reigen is about to comment something about the room, so Mob cuts him off before he can do so. “This is Ritsu’s room.”
Reigen sits on the bed. He’s wearing a purple scarf. He never wears scarves. “Why are you in Ritsu’s room?”
Mob shrugs, before responding, “I didn’t want to be alone last night.” It’s true. And the reason she hasn’t really wanted to return yet is because her room is the same as it was for that six months. Empty, mostly. Full of voices that she didn’t want to hear.
Reigen gestures at the bag. “I put a couple outfits in there. You don’t have to keep them if you don’t like them, and there’s more to choose from that I brought to the office,” he scratches his head absent-mindedly. “I just thought it might cheer you up a little.”
The bag sits a foot away, and Mob stares at it blankly. It was nice. You say thank you when people do nice things. “Oh. Thank you, Shishou.” She doesn’t feel like she has the energy to get them out right now.
“Oi, Mobbu, listen. About yesterday--” Reigen starts, his hands starting to move about nervously, until Mob interrupts him.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Shishou,” she says, and the words come out surprisingly firm. “I’m...I’m still figuring it out,” she continues, softer.
Reigen nods. “That’s okay Mob. That’s fair. You take all the time you need. But you know you can talk to me about it if you want to. Or talk to Dimple, or Ritsu. Especially Ritsu, he knows something is up, and he just wants to help you.”
Hmm. Obviously Ritsu had reached out to Reigen when he couldn’t get an answer from Mob. She feels a little spark of annoyance at that. Her little brother was so smart, but also so impatient. She needed time, she just needed time, and he had to be okay with that.
She grabs her pillow and lays back down, not meeting Reigen’s gaze. “Okay. I’m tired, I think I just want to sleep now.”
Reigen gets back up, murmuring, “Alright Mob, get some rest. That’s an order,” he jokes, laughing a little at himself. “I’ll see you Thursday.”
Mob just hums in response, which is a lot less polite than she usually likes to be, but she can’t work up the energy to give a proper goodbye. She closes her eyes and lets herself drift off.
She’s woken again when Ritsu gets home. She can tell he’s trying to be quiet, tiptoeing around her and softly opening his books at his desk; he has homework to do, so Mob should go back to her room. She starts to get to her feet, grimacing at how stiff she’s gotten.
“Hey, Shige.” Ritsu turns around, offering a small smile. “You’re awake.”
Mob nods. “I’ll get out of your hair. Sorry I’ve been in here so long.”
Ritsu shrugs. “It’s okay. You don’t have to go. How are you feeling?” He appears a lot calmer than he did yesterday, or even this morning, more calculated, as if hyper aware of every word and expression he is making. Robotic. Unnerving.
Mob takes a quick assessment of herself. “Better. Um. Tired, still. Kinda nauseous. Um. Did you wanna talk?” She thinks she can now, at least a little bit. She should at least tell her little brother something. He deserves that much.
The younger esper straightens quickly, nodding and moving to his bed. Mob joins him there, sitting across, blanket still draped over her shoulders. They are both silent for a few long moments as Mob gathers the words. “I uh. Yesterday we had a job with a really wealthy client. His daughter was possessed, by a really powerful spirit who used to be a famous esper. Like on TV and everything. But he possessed Minori-san, and a bunch of psychics tried to exorcise him, but it didn’t work, and I tried, and it didn’t work.”
Ritsu watched eagerly, nodding for Mob to continue when she started to trail off. She continued. “I figured out that the spirit, Mogami, was like, holding on, I guess? Inside Minori-san’s head, so he could only be exorcised from the inside. So I did that. Or tried to. I made myself have an out-of-body experience and went into her mind, or his mind, or something. He was controlling it. While I was in there, he made me forget about the real world, and he told me bad things, and it smelled bad all the time, and you didn’t know me there, and Milk was killed, and I almost killed someone. I almost died.” Her rambling stuttered to a stop.
Ritsu’s eyes had gotten wider and wider as she went on. “Wait wait wait, so this spirit basically made like a whole world, and you had to live there but you couldn’t remember anything? How long were you in there for?”
Mob shudders a little. “Um. Physically, like thirty minutes, I think. But it felt like months. I think Mogami said six months or something like that.”
“Jesus christ. And I didn’t remember you?” Ritsu narrows his eyes, frowning.
“We weren’t brothers there. I didn’t have any family there. I lived alone.”
“Who’s Milk?”
Mob felt pressure at the back of her already puffy eyes. “A cat. Minori and her friends. Um.”
“Killed it,” Ritsu finished for her.
Mob nods in response. “I don’t think I want to talk about it any more today.”
“Okay.” Ritsu gets up and sits closer to Mob, pulling her into a tight hug. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. Thank you for telling me. Also if Mogami is still around I’m going to fuck him up, okay? Like next level of hell shit.”
That makes Mob laugh a little. “Please don’t. I don’t want him anywhere near you.”
They continue sitting there for a while, neither really wanting to pull out of the hug. Finally, Mob does, still looking troubled. She thinks Ritsu is probably satisfied now that she has at least told him something, but now that she’s started the momentum she wants to tell him. She doesn’t want to hide it anymore, not from him.
“Um, Ritsu, can I tell you something else? And can you promise not to tell Mom and Dad, or um, anyone, really?”
Ritsu nods, eyes narrowing in concern. “Anything, n--Shige.”
“I want to be called Mob. And, I’m, I’m still figuring it out, but I don’t think I’m a boy.” She takes a shuddering breath, and finally meets Ritsu’s eyes. “I’m still feeling it out, but for now I want to go by she/her pronouns. It feels...better. More me. That’s what’s been going on lately, and why I had the sweater, and have been doing my own laundry. I’m sorry I lied that one time. The sweater wasn’t Emi’s.”
Ritsu doesn’t look surprised. “Oh, okay. Thank you for telling me. And I get it, about the sweater. You weren’t ready to talk about it yet, and that’s okay. I support you no matter what, got it?” He pulls Mob into another hug. “I love you, nee-san.”
Mob returns the hug, feeling relieved, so very, very relieved. She’d told Ritsu when she felt she was ready, and he was okay with it, didn’t think she was being weird or something. She’d figured it would be fine, but felt so much better now that she had done it. It felt like she was floating a little, and as she pulled away she realized they were both off the bed a couple of feet. They both looked down and at each other and laughed, and laughed.
***
Emi squeezed Tsubomi’s hand as they walked out of the counselling office. Tsubomi had talked about her mother and father, and her own self-esteem issues. The counselor had listened attentively, and offered her own thoughts, about how her mother was treating her unfairly, and the language she was using was abusive. Because confronting her mother wasn’t really an option at this point, they talked about coping strategies instead, and having a safe place to go to when things got bad. Emi volunteered her house, and after a little bit of hesitancy Tsubomi agreed.
“It doesn’t have to be my house all the time, we can go to the park, or the library, too. Just call me, you know, if you need me?” She’d offered.
She thought it had gone pretty well, and the counselor wanted to meet with Tsubomi again the next week to see how things were going.
They entered the main hallway, and she let go of Tsubomi’s hand. “Are you okay? Do you think it went well?”
Tsubomi thinks for a moment, head tilted. “I’m good. I think it did go well. For some reason I thought that she might freak out or something. But I liked the coping strategy suggestions. I hadn’t thought of a lot of them before.”
Emi sighs a little in relief, glad that her friend thought it went well too. “Do you want to hang out with Tome and I after school? We were planning on getting ice cream and then wandering around town. We’re going to take some pocky over to Mob, too.”
The other girl nods. “That sounds good. Ugh, don’t look now, but I think Machiko wants to talk to you.”
Emi does look now. Over her shoulder, striding up the hallway, is Machiko. Her other old friends are in a clump against the lockers around 15 feet behind her, watching. Machiko’s expression is narrow and cold, and she sneers at Tsubomi before speaking to Emi.
“You left the group chat,” she states, matter-of-factly, tinged with incredulity.
Emi nods. “Yep, I did.”
That doesn’t seem to be the answer Machiko is looking for. “I didn’t say you could leave. You’ve been a really shitty friend lately, but whatever. I’m willing to overlook it if you say you’re sorry.” Machiko isn’t taller than Emi, but somehow she manages to look down on her.
Emi stiffens. She wants to get angry, tell Machiko off, that no, she was the shitty friend, but she takes a deep breath. “Machiko,” she starts, surprised at how even her voice came out. “I felt awful, being friends with you. I didn’t get to be myself, or do things that I wanted to do. You ripped up my story, something that I’ve realized is really important to me, which means that if you were really my friend, it would’ve been important to you, too.
“So I don’t want to be friends anymore. I deserve better than the way you treated me. I won’t make you apologize, cause I doubt you think you’ve done anything wrong, but just know that I don’t care what you think, or say, anymore.”
Machiko sputters for a long moment, her face reddening, scrambling for words. Finally she just mutters, “Whatever, asshole,” and turns back to her old friend group, where she says something to them and they all glare at Emi over Machiko’s shoulder.
Tsubomi leans in, muttering in her ear, as she grabs her arm and starts leading them away. “Just smile and wave, boys, just smile and wave.”
Emi has to cover her mouth to stop the laughter.
Halfway through lunch, a girl with a pink camera on her wrist and a notepad in hand comes and sits at the table, across from Emi and Tsubomi and next to Tome. She and Tome whisper to each other for a moment before the light-brown-haired girl leans forward with her camera hand outstretched.
“I’m Mezato, Salt Mid’s Newspaper Club. I’m looking to start a fiction column in the paper each month, and Tome-chan said your writing would work well for it.”
Emi shakes her hand hesitantly, locking eyes with Tome. She isn’t sure whether to feel surprise, happiness, or betrayal. It’s one thing for her to share her stories with her friends, but the whole school? Isn’t that a bit much?
Mezato continues. “You don’t have to submit your work if you don’t want to, but I’m just putting it out there. Additionally, you can use a pen name if you don’t want your name associated with it. It’s just got to be PG is all, really.”
Tsubomi elbowed her in the side. “You should totally do it.”
Tome nods enthusiastically. “Yeah, I wasn’t kidding when I said I really loved your story. People might actually read the newspaper if it was in it!”
“Hey!” Mezato swats her, and Tome ducks, cackling.
She looks at all of her new friends, and then glances behind to where Machiko and company are sitting. Machiko isn’t watching her today. No snide smiles.
She turns back to Mezato, pulling out her story from her bag and flipping through it until she could take out the first chapter from the paper-clipped stack. It’s worth something, worth reading. It’s important. She hands it over.
“I’d like that.”