Work Text:
I.
Kamome Academy is daunting at night. In coiling shadows, lingering regrets come to life where the moonlight’s gentle reach does not extend. Among them, a lost, nameless soul—weak, a vague outline in the darkness of night.
It shivers in the crevices of numbered rooms, agonizing with the rest of its kind through the long hours of twilight until morning descends upon the school grounds once more, bathing it in warm light.
“Hey, have you heard?”
The rumors inform it, solidify it. A hand reaches out with a trembling voice, fragile as the form it’s shaped into.
“Do you remember me?”
II.
Mitsuba finds that his years in junior high were as dreary as they had been in elementary school; days spent drifting through the hallways, through lectures, and making idle talk. While he had friends before, he finds himself with none now, when the lunch bell rings and his corner of the classroom is empty.
The weight of a camera in his hands is reassuring. He finds solace in the idea that, even if he cannot consolidate himself in the memories of those around him, he can at least leave behind some in the form of film sealed into an album.
III.
Even in death, he feels as though floating, insignificant in his existence. He longs to be seen, but beyond the Far Shore, the only shape he assumes is a shadowy outline, featureless and nondescript. Lingering at the school entrance, his eyes search for the swing of an open locker before reaching out, grasping hold of the nearest thing. A voice, one that Mitsuba never fully registers as belonging to himself, rasps, “ Do you remember m— ”
The last thing Mitsuba expects is for a golden staff to swing full speed into his head, and of all things, to make solid contact.
IV.
Mitsuba centers the viewfinder on every little thing. Every so often, the shutter shuts with a decisive click, followed by several more.
Kou peers over his shoulder with an impatient huff. “Do you need to take that many photos?”
“If I take enough, then maybe I’ll take the right one.”
“Speaking of that...” His eyes stare right through him, “What is the right photo to you?”
Mitsuba levels his gaze with Kou, finding himself at a loss for an answer. He turns away, fingers fumbling with the buttons atop his old camera. “The type that’ll help me pass on, stupid.”
V.
Kou stays with him at school sometimes, long after Mitsuba’s done taking pictures for the day. They always end up on the rooftop, basking in the orange glow cast by the ephemeral sunset.
“Are you really an exorcist?” Mitsuba asks once.
The answer comes seamlessly, without a beat. “Yep.”
“Why haven’t you exorcised me yet?” Question by question, an interrogation.
Bright, blue eyes, blinking.
“Who knows?” Kou looks to Mitsuba like he’s the one with the answer, uncertainty seeping into his features. His voice drops, “Maybe I thought I could save you. Somehow.”
That’s a pretty big somehow .
“I see.”
VI.
Only in death does Mitsuba have a stronger appreciation for life.
He wishes he could have cherished his time alive longer, even if everyone he knew was an ass. Instead of staring enviously across the room at Kou and his close knit friends, Mitsuba should have joined them.
It’s too late for regrets, though, Mitsuba thinks to himself. Sitting there with his fingers intertwined in Kou’s, he starts to consider if he would actually do it all over, even the dying part, to get to where he is right now.
A huff of a laugh escapes him. Of course not.
VII.
Of all his years in junior high, Mitsuba hadn’t made a single close friend. He wonders if that’s why he never took any pictures of other people.
He leans over the rooftop’s railing, his camera lens focused on a flock of birds. After a few photos, he lowers his camera to his chest. There are countless photos on it, but no real sentiment behind them.
The right photo, huh?
He lifts the camera up towards Kou, who turns at the shutter sound.
“What did you just take a photo of?”
“Mmm,” Mitsuba hums noncommittally, “Something important to me, I guess?”
VIII.
Bent-neck boy.
Mitsuba would cuss Tsukasa out for the dumb name if he could. A cacophony of distorted voices whisper into his covered ears, of all the things he is and is not. Just when he thought, just for a second, that he would have been okay with passing on to the afterlife so long as Kou kept him in his memories—
The radio broadcast comes to a close, and Mitsuba’s head feels light as his eyes slide shut. A dull silence envelopes him like a soft, comforting blanket.
Maybe this is how it should have been from the start.
IX.
A distant voice calls to Mitsuba from the void.
Mitsuba— stop—
It shouts, it calls. Mitsuba wants nothing more than to stop, but his body won’t heed him, and now his only wish is to be saved. His new form feels like a thin sheet pulled over his senses.
He doesn’t register Hanako’s knife until it’s already through his chest, and it draws him back into reality.
“Mitsuba!”
Kou’s arms are the last warmth Mitsuba feels before the cold, as he thinks sourly to himself that he wants to live, even if only for one person.
Perhaps, in another time.
X.
Kou Minamoto feels like the center of the room to Mitsuba, his silence in his loneliness betraying his usual boisterous nature. Even without that damn traffic-safety earring, there’s a strangeness to him that sets him apart from his peers, unlike Mitsuba, who seems to blend in seamlessly.
They are two outcasts in the classroom, completely silent and off to the side in solidarity, every lazy morning of a time that was to become merely a distant memory.
Swiveling around in his seat, Mitsuba manages a smile. “Good morning, Minamoto.”
A toothy grin as piercing, teal eyes stare back. “Morning, Mitsuba!”