Work Text:
Hifumi was a soft boy with soft edges. He played loudly, but never violently. He spoke with overflowing excitement and pushed his way roughly into shallow elementary school friendships. He ate his lunch politely and scrambled back to playing without a hint of that fragility. He ran as fearlessly as he rambled but always stopped dead when faced with the consequences of tripping into the dust and scuffing his favorite shoes or dirtying his softest yellow shirt. He was a child like any other but penned in damp watercolor, absent the lines society tended to help children draw. He was vulnerable, but his excitement buried his weakness from view.
It was too much for some children. The way he seemed to disregard their space and push through their barriers. The way he could speak until he was forced to pause for gasping breaths. The way he got attached with breakneck speed. Even the way he toyed with his hair, fixing it each time he caught his reflection, seemed to draw some ire. He wasn't ostracized, but there was a line between the other boys and himself. He was the odd one out, even he could deduce that. It was scary feeling like future friends were slipping out of his grasp. In later years those moments would eat at him, but when the obstacle was in front of him and not far behind he knew he'd be okay. He had two precious friends who wouldn't leave him behind, and so he was happy.
His first friend was Doppo. He was shy, and a little bit mean, and always had messy, unbrushed hair. He pushed their classmates away, ever the angry child, but Hifumi couldn't be deterred. Even when he was mean he held himself with a delicate, slumped posture and stared down at his feet. Hifumi saw he was shy, and he only looked shyer the grumpier he got. It made him giggle.
He liked that Doppo listened- Well, he was too busy talking to notice if Doppo was really listening, but he did like listening to him talk in turn. He'd share quietly about his favorite TV shows, manga, books… always things a little too hard to be popular with the other children. When he did like something that caught on in class, he always knew more about it than anyone else. Hifumi thought he might know more about Detective Conan than anyone in the world, in fact. He had the same brimming passion as Hifumi, but he showed it quietly. So Hifumi could tell he liked him just much, but quietly.
His other friend was his teacher. A nice lady who dressed as a teacher should. Spoke as a teacher should. Her hair caught the shine of the sun in the window when Hifumi stayed inside with her during recess. She treated him differently than the other kids and was more patient than adults usually were with him. She'd help him with tests and homework, or just listen as he rambled. She saw with wiser eyes than his that the other children were being mean, even if he didn't see it. She told him when they were hiding things, when he should avoid people. He always knew he could trust her.
Combined with the black spots in his memory, all those details made him shiver.
Hifumi spent blissful years ignoring those holes chewed haphazardly into his psyche. It's hard to notice something that isn't there, and even harder if you never speak about it. He didn't speak, and it became an invisible fact of life, like the nose he couldn't see between his eyes. But his eyes focused back to that point eventually. Inevitably, forcefully, pushed into place with searing pain far worse than the dull sting that came from crossing your eyes.
It was his first year of high school. He was age 14, pressed against the mattress in the thick darkness of a windowless bedroom.
His first real girlfriend, an upperclassman, slid her hand under his shirt. He felt his body tingling, his heart racing. He was scared, but he didn't know that yet. Or, maybe he did, but he pushed it down. He knew he'd have to wait for it to subside, for the eroticism to overpower the nerves.
But, if it did, he didn't remember it.
“Wow, Hifumi-kun~”
She was happy? What did he… He felt her skin, sticky with sweat, press against his chest. He felt himself squirming underneath her and heard his heart pounding, but his body was just as foreign as her flesh. His head spun as he tried to claw his way back to reality from behind his own eyes. He struggled to conjure a suitable explanation to push his own worries away. It was probably exhaustion, that's it.
She continued to speak to him, but he could only focus on trying to remember what had happened. Anything.
He remembered someone else's face, interspersed with short flashes of reality. Sometimes a flash of her eyes. Maybe a hand on her thigh. But, mostly, it was the grainy impression of the dimly lit walls and ceiling. Panting continued throughout. He twitched.
His girlfriend giggled at his little movement and ran her hand across his body. Each finger felt like an insect prodding at his stomach, trying to break through to the meat underneath. He could barely understand the palm that connected them as anything but a pad of disembodied skin. It was all just flesh, intrusive and sticky. He felt paralyzed. Pressure built up as she talked in some frequency he couldn't pick up. It rung painfully against his ears, but he felt himself nodding along to things that slipped out of his mind seconds after he'd supposedly responded. Her hand wouldn't stop moving. He didn't have respite, he was pinned underneath her. He couldn't get out. He couldn't get her hand off. He needed to--
He must have pushed her off of him because he wasn't on the bed anymore. He remembered doing it, but it had been so easy to overpower her it didn't feel real. The terror that had built didn't match her size, her strength, but it wasn't fading. She looked at him with stunned confusion, probably a result of having seen her boyfriend nearly slam himself against her idol poster to get away from her. Now, he clung to the wall, staring at her with wide eyes, silent. She stared back with equal silence and shock, but he was sure her gaze was a thousand times more piercing than his. He wished she'd turn away and forget about him. He already felt like he was melting into the walls. How she was still staring at him, he didn't know.
“I have to… to go.”
That's all he could think of as his body flitted into a panic. He searched what he could see of the floor for his clothes. She must have said something, and he must have said something because she was holding his shirt out to him. Actually, maybe he didn't say anything. She had said something… She hadn't said anything nice. Whatever it was, she wasn't happy. He wouldn't be happy either. He had imagined he would have said that and then escaped without exchanging another word, letting this moment dissolve in an instant along with their relationship, but things continued at a horrifically mundane pace. He couldn't bring himself to run out the door, so he walked shakily out, trying to ignore her eyes on his back. They felt just like her hands.
It was terrifying to forget things moments after they happened. But, as he scrambled down the stairs and pushed his way through the door, he was thankful he didn't remember what had just occurred anymore. He hoped he'd forget every remaining detail soon. He gripped his bike and felt his hands shaking. Even with walls separating them, he felt hands running along his skin. He saw flashes of things in his head. He kept leaping forward in time and missing chunks of the route home. But, he kept going. He was still fast, unstoppable, his body tightened and moved forward without his mind.
Ultimately, the only person who saw his weakness was the girl he'd just abandoned because he could step through the door of his home and some switch would always flip. He was calm and charismatic to each member of his family despite his heart continuing to race. They cornered him in mundane places, but it felt like a barrage. He heard an automated version of himself speak as he sunk deeper into his own terror. This always happened when he was stressed. Wait- Why had he felt like this before?
After using every last drop of his energy navigating mundane small talk, he collapsed into his bed and cried. Heavy crying, interspersed with breaths so short and light they made his head feel spotty, cavernous. His body was exhausted, pushed far past its limit by the hyperventilation, and his mind could only keep moving forward for so long. He was left, eventually, laying near catatonic save for the twitching, repeating a single thought to himself. Not out loud, as far as he could tell, but layered over and over in his head.
I wish I was pretty.
It didn't seem to relate to much of anything, in hindsight. But it felt tied to everything. It was the only thought that kept adrenaline running through him. The only thought that kept him from slipping back into blackness. It made him giddy. Though giddy was mostly just a strange smile spread onto the face of his limp, sobbing corpse. Sometime that night, his memory faded out, but it felt like he slept for days before his alarm woke him up for school.
In fact, he wondered where the week between that night and the date his phone showed him the next time he woke up went.
Hifumi still tried to like girls. With more fervor, even. His frenzied love always saw him gravitating towards older women.
It wasn't hard to find people who were interested in him. If he walked around the red light district for an hour or two he could bump into a few new girlfriends. He didn't even have to lie about his age. His soft face was a draw, they always called him cute.
Cute was nice, at first. Cute was exciting. But it quickly became degrading. He was a purse dog trotting alongside them, an accessory. When he was alone with them, he felt like less than a dog. More like a child. But, he didn't scramble away and slam against the wall at least. He just let the details slip away and hoped the buzzing in his head would give way to the addictive, tantalizing numbness.
Eventually, the adrenaline dissolved. The pain was too much. He was back to where he'd been that night with his girlfriend, but now it ran even deeper through his veins. It was inescapable.
He couldn't look at a girl anymore. He could feel them staring through him. Imaginary, covetous hands ran along his sides. They could always slip under his uniform, he didn't have a defense from his own mind. He had no barriers. He tried to hate them, to look at them with disdain, but it didn't work. He tried to love them, to let them control him completely, but that didn't work either. What he had built up had eroded thanks to his own efforts, his desperate clinging to the vague memories of that elementary school room. His frantic clawing toward his nebulous goal; Be pretty.
He wanted to transform it into something good, but he'd just salted his wounds. All he had now to keep himself safe was Doppo's arm.
He often laid crying in bed, skipped classes to hyperventilate in the bathroom, avoided eye contact in the halls. Keeping his head down was all he could do to preserve his memory of the day. Make eye contact with the wrong person, and it would disappear.
More often than not, the day disappeared.
People would tell him about things he didn't do, conversations he never had. His phone would be full of texts he was sure he didn't send. Sexy, flirty, put together.
Doppo usually snarked at him, playing a perpetual straight man role regardless of how excited Hifumi was. In class, and in the halls, he was angry, combative, and occasionally violent. When he slipped, he was anxious, spiraling, shakey. But, when Hifumi panicked, Doppo was quiet and controlled. He let him cling to him and hide behind his back. He took the brunt of the bullying for the way they became suspiciously inseparable because he let Hifumi use him as a shield.
He must have understood something even Hifumi didn't, at that point.
Doppo and Hifumi leaned against the cement wall of the roof access stairwell, hiding from the damp and oppressive summer heat by clinging close to its shadow. This spot was off limits and the weather should have deterred them, but it was the best place to hide from the world. They clutched day old yakisoba bread and a delicate bento box, respectively.
Hifumi always made himself lunch. It was relaxing. It made him feel present, letting himself run through each step of a recipe. He always made sure to make enough to share, of course.
“Doppo, that looks grooss! Stop bringing stuff like that! Look-” He popped the bottom layer of his bento box off and forced it into Doppo's hands. “I brought allll this fow you ~”
Doppo fumbled with the container, flushing slightly at the cutesy arrangement of the food. How long was it going to take him to get used to it?
“Stop making me food! You probably failed your English test because you stayed up all night doing this instead.” Despite his protest, he shoved the head of Hifumi's bear-shaped rice ball into his mouth with the pair of cheap chopsticks Hifumi had already broken for him.
“Doppooooo!! Don't talk about tests when I'm eating!” He pouted and waved his chopsticks in his face. “Besides, I made these this morning, I went to sleep super early~”
He tried to lean on Doppo's shoulder and had to wobble and flail to keep himself from falling to the cement floor when he pulled away.
“Just eat your food and stop making things up! You were texting me all night.”
Hifumi giggled, only half listening, but when it finally hit his ears, he froze.
“What?”
“Yeah! You… don't remember that?” His tone shifted from angry to something Hifumi couldn't quite read. It was pensive and much quieter.
Doppo pulled his cheap, clunky cell phone out of his pocket, the cute tanuki charm Hifumi had tied onto it for him bounced and hit the plastic as he tapped the keys to get to his texts. He turned it around and showed Hifumi their conversation. He'd expect Doppo to be staring at his lunch, grumpy, avoiding eye contact and only half present, but his gaze was firmly on Hifumi. He seemed to be anticipating his reaction.
Hesitantly, Hifumi took the phone.
His stomach turned as he clicked through the messages. There were hours worth, barely comprehensible and panicked. Some of them were gibberish. Numbers that hadn't been tapped into characters, kana interspersed between random kanji. Occasionally just words repeated over and over. Things like “it hurts” and “I'm scared”. His head spun as he tried to process it all.
Usually, when he found strange messages on his phone it was just flirting. This was something else.
The only respite was the messages from Doppo spread out between the rambling. They began annoyed and confused, but as the barrage continued he switched to simple, comforting messages. They were short, probably typed with exasperation or urgency. Hifumi paused on one text; “It's okay.”
He took a deep breath and snapped the phone shut, passing it to Doppo. It had barely hit his palm before his cutesy smile returned.
“Huh? I don't remember that at all…” He giggled and tried to signal the conversation should just end. “So weird~”
“You've been saying that a lot lately, y'know.”
“Huh?”
“You… you've been forgetting stuff all the time.” Doppo's tone was awkward and unnatural. They both had the habit of trying not to be too sincere, and when his facade did break it was usually with explosive anger or anxiety. This was just quiet and cautious, spoken through a dry throat. There was a tiny wobble suppressed behind each word. It made Hifumi nervous.
“Ahh… Sowwy, sowwy~”
He didn't want to think about this. He knew Doppo knew that he could always see past his smile. It would be comforting that he cared enough to push through the facade if the topic weren't so terrifying.
He had gone silent now, but the furrow in his brow signaled to Hifumi that it wouldn't be long before he blurted something out.
“I'm… worried about you.”
Hifumi's lips parted just slightly, frozen before the syllable he wanted to form. He couldn't think of any words. His stomach hurt. That's all he knew.
“It's fine~” The words caught in his throat and Doppo raised an eyebrow at him. He looked down at his lunch with a weak smile. He wished he could disappear but, for once, he didn't. He just sat silently, trying not to let his hands shake as he picked at his lunch. He wasn't hungry anymore.
This wasn't serious. It didn't matter.
“You should come over tonight… I'm not dropping this.”
He never thought he’d think about turning down an invitation to spend the night in Doppo's room, but he had definitely considered it. In the end, the opportunity was too irresistible to give up. If he wasn't so scared to hear about how insane he was, he'd be jumping at the chance to have Doppo comforting him. Part of him was definitely eager for the opportunity.
Sitting here on Doppo's bed clutching a pillow, shrinking into himself, he didn't feel very eager.
“It just… happens… y'know~?” He laughed, tugging on his newly bleached hair. He'd gotten in trouble for it earlier today. He played the memory of the teacher snapping at him on repeat to keep his mind off this .
“No. I see you do it, it only happens when you're freaked out.”
“You… you see me do it?”
“Yeah. You freak out and start acting different and then… You tell me you don't remember it later.”
“Different-”
“You stop bringing lunch, and you usually get all flirty- I mean in a different way than usual- like, I keep trying to tell you not to get with strangers and you keep telling me you don't remember .”
“Stop-” He opened his mouth to speak, but Doppo kept going. His heart was pounding.
“And you barely remember anything from when we were in elementary school. When was… when was the last time you remember remembering anything?”
“How am I supposed to remembering FORGETTING something!?” Hifumi pushed past Doppo's anxious rambling with such force he nearly shouted. He never got mad, but he couldn't think. His hands were shaking as they clawed at the pillow.
Doppo winced and turned away, tugging at the sheet and balling it up in his fist.
“Sorry… Sorry… That was a stupid question. I know. I'm messing this up. I always mess stuff like this up. I want to help. I know it doesn't seem like it- Anyway, you're just getting more nervous. I can tell... and it's all my fault-”
Hifumi didn't wait for him to finish to tug him into his arms. He held him tightly until he went quiet and his shoulders relaxed. Eventually, his arms wrapped around Hifumi.
Both of their chests were heaving and Hifumi had to push his face against Doppo's shoulder to keep from crying. He couldn't chirp and cheer Doppo out of it this time, he didn't have the clarity. But, he could hold him.
“I don't want to be crazy, Doppo…”
“I…” Doppo went silent for a while, then suddenly he squeezed Hifumi into an even tighter hug. “I'm crazy. So I don't care if you're crazy. Everyone already hates us anyway, so who gives a shit if you're crazy?”
Hifumi mustered a quiet laugh and nuzzled into his neck. It was sort of freeing to hear that. His laugh faded and time slipped away in thick silence. He felt words catching in his throat, building up until it was tight and dry. He whimpered out a half-formed syllable and felt Doppo stiffen. He pressed himself back into the crook of Doppo’s neck. Suddenly, a soft hand slipped onto his back, clearly trying to coax him into speaking.
“I’m… scared.” His voice came out hoarse and cracked. He felt tears welling up in his eyes as the shame of hearing himself speak weighed on his chest.
“It’s…” Doppo inhaled sharply and made an amateurish attempt at a deep breathe, “It’s going to be okay.”
Neither of them were particularly confident that was true, but they held onto it. Hifumi clung to Doppo, balling his shirt tightly in his hands and pressing his face into his neck as if he was the only thing keeping him tethered to the ground. A shaking hand pressed against his back and, immediately as fingertips began to bunched the cloth of his shirt, he felt himself begin to cry.
Then, he woke up.
He was dazed at first. Light streaming through a window caught his attention before anything else, likely because it was both waking him up and giving him a pounding headache. It took a moment for him to feel the arms wrapped around his waist, or to feel the breath on his neck. His heart nearly stopped when he realized Doppo was snuggled up to him, limbs lovingly entangled and pressed close against him. Occasionally, he’d nuzzle into Hifumi’s hair or mumble something nonsensical. All Hifumi could stand to do was lay there, red-faced, taking in each little movement and wondering what the hell happened that Doppo was holding him like this. He could never convince him to cuddle like this! He always had to be the one to spoon him .
After something like a decade of laying there, paralyzed by his own excitement, Doppo began to stir. He pulled away slightly, and it took all Hifumi had in him not to immediately throw a fit at the centimeters of difference between them.
“Morning…” Doppo mumbled, trying half-heartedly to tug his arm out of Hifumi’s death grip.
“Morning morning~!”
“You sound cheery…” He made a show of being exasperated by Hifumi's excitement, but his usual grumpy voice was tempered by hesitance.
“Mhm~” He turned his head to awkwardly nuzzle at Doppo, prompting a groan. Much to his shock, he didn't break away when he got extra cuddly. It was strange, but he wasn't going to question it.
“So, I guess you don't remember last night.”
Hifumi froze and Doppo quickly moved to hug him a little tighter. He was precise in his movement, he'd probably seen it coming.
“You cried a lot. And you told me… stuff.”
“S...Stuff?”
“Uh… I didn't understand a lot of it. You… seemed so scared.” Hifumi had flipped over to meet Doppo's gaze and found that it was beyond nervous. He spoke without a shake to his voice, but the grim expression on his face was a new kind of disconcerting. “Something… bad happened to you. I don't really know what.”
He felt dizzy looking it Doppo's eyes and hearing himself described by someone else. There was something terrifying about knowing he had to hear this from him, and couldn't just draw it from his own memory. Doppo hadn't even outlined the crime, but he didn't believe it. Everything swam in his mind and collided roughly, and the end result of the chaos was a numbness that seemed to leak from his soul into the recesses of his body and even to the marrow of his bones.
“...You called me Dokkun.”
“Do… Dokkun?”
“That's what you called me when we were kids.”
Hifumi blinked, then exhaled. Unable to draw any thoughts from his mind he pressed his cheek against Doppo's chest. He shut his eyes tight enough to see sparks and wrapped his arms around him so one hand clung harshly to his shoulder. He had the vaguest notion that Doppo could see him, but he didn't feel real. Had he the clarity, he might expect Doppo to shake, or apologize, spiral down as he usually would if he sensed something so uncomfortable.
Instead, he just felt his grasp on him tighten. They held onto each other silently, listening to rhythmic breaths cut with occasional sniffles or exasperated sighs and whimpers. Each time one of them made a sound, the other prepared to hear them speak, but it stayed quiet. Neither of them knew what to do. But, they could hold each other.