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A soft hum from the cars outside was the only sound in the house.
Ritsu absently rolled a pencil between his fingers, listening to the world around him.
There wasn't much to hear.
It had been about a year since Shigeo moved out. His mother and father spent more time away from the house, these days. His friends - espers and otherwise - were either busy with their schooling or their own lives.
And Shou? His boyfriend was halfway around the world. Last he'd heard, he was busy hunting down one of the final Claw outposts somewhere in Venezuela.
The house was quiet.
Ritsu stared at his paper, notes scattered in an organized mess, highlights and scribbles a rainbow of color.
He was lonely. Had been lonely, for awhile now.
He tossed the pencil onto his desk, suddenly irritated. This wasn't productive, or remotely helpful. Moping about his self-imposed academic isolation was a childish behavior, and he knew it.
But really, rationalizing his feelings was something he'd gotten both better and worse at over the years. The improved relationship with Shigeo certainly helped, and of course his boyfriend, even the friends Ritsu had made in high school were good for him.
He just - Ritsu just missed Shou. A lot. Too much, maybe, all things considered, but he was good and bad at rationalizing his feelings, so Ritsu resigned himself to moodily longing for his stupid boyfriend.
Ritsu stared at his halfway-finished assignment. At the words and sentences that had stopped meaning anything to him two hours ago.
An idea hit him, hard and glaringly obvious now that it'd occurred.
He just needed a distraction, right?
He pushed his chair away, rolling to the other side of them room. With a flick of the wrist, the papers on his desk sorted themselves neatly into his schoolbag while he dug around in the bottom drawer of his dresser.
Where - oh, right. In the back, on the left, carefully hidden under a neon blue sweater he'd received as a gift last year and immediately vowed to never touch again (sorry, Hanazawa). Maybe his hand shook a bit when he finally pulled out the old, battered notebook - Please do not open! scrawled in bold print across the front - but maybe it didn't.
Ritsu hadn't written in or even opened his diary in years.
It was like looking at some sort of relic from his ancient past. "Years" was really just one, since he was thinking about it now, and clearly recalled spending three hours one late night writing down everything he loved about Shou right before confessing.
It had taken up five pages. Ritsu was still embarassed.
Pushing down the humiliation, he flipped open to a random page.
July 12th, 20XX
I've decided that I hate cram school. There's too many stuck up jerks who think that they're "intelligent" for going. Isn't the point of cram school to teach you things you didn't know or understand the semester before?
Nii-san and I went out for ice cream afterward, so that was fun. We ended up meeting that blonde kid there though. Could he have made it any more obvious that he was tailing us? Seriously, yellow is in no way an inconspicuous color, Hanazawa. Get over yourself and leave Shigeo alone.
Tonight I want to watch a premiere of this new tv show with Dad. Its supposed to be about the history behind the sweets industry in Japan, but I'm more excited for whenever they get to the parts about South America. They were the ones who had chocolate first! Who wants to hear about Japan when you can learn that?? I hope it's as interesting as it sounds.
That entry ended there. Ritsu tipped back in his chair, thinking hard. He remembered that day, barely. That was a month or so before Shou burnt the house down, which meant that was almost three years ago. Huh. It hadn't really occured to him how far back his diary went.
The tv show had turned out to be interesting, and Hanazawa never did stop following Shigeo around. (There were rumors of a ring floating along the esper grapevine.)
Quite a few blank pages filled the gaps before Ritsu found another entry that caught his attention.
December 30th, 20XX
Turns out that the lucky cat charm I got was cursed. I guess that's what I get for buying anything from the hot springs - the worst part is I didn't have it when the curse activated.
It was pretty freaky, actually. Shou practically kicked out my window, with the necklace stuck to his throat. It was glowing this weird green color. The cat's eyes were yellow and glowing, too. Shou kept opening and closing his mouth, but there was no sound. By that point it was obvious that it was cursed, but neither of us are very good at dispelling curses. That's more Shigeo and Serizawa's specialty.
We resorted to using up paper and pencil to talk - that's why there are so many blank pages, I had to rip them out, sorry. Since I was the one who gave it to him, we thought that maybe I needed to be the one to take it off. The clasp on the back was so hard to get off, I wonder if it was the curse that was making it harder?
Eventually we did get it off, and we both crushed it with our powers. There was probably a better way to do that, now that I think about it. Shou was a lot less angry than I was expecting. He just made me promise to buy him a new lucky charm, a hampster one.
Do they even make hampster lucky charms?
p.s: Shou has freckles on the back of his neck? And I think he uses some kind of orange-scented shampoo - it was really strong. Weirdo.
Wow. Ritsu had completely forgotten about that. The hampster charm was hanging off the corner of a picture frame in Shou's room, faded by sun and weather. And Shou still used citrus-scented shampoo, it had become one of Ritsu's favorite scents.
That train of thought was leading him right back to Shou. He skimmed past the Christmas entries, waiting for something to catch his eye.
February 15th, 20XX
Shou talked his way back into the school again. I have no idea how, since there's video proof of him setting the chemistry lab on fire, but being dragged out of that budget meeting was nice.
We went to a new shelter that opened on the other side of town. I got to pet some cats! That's enough to make up for Shou taking me from school, I think. If he doesn't do anything stupid, maybe he can come "borrow" me more often....
Ritsu snorted, equal parts amused and annoyed. If only past-Ritsu had recognized the beginnings of a crush - maybe they could have spent more time together before Shou had left.
Damn it. Ritsu rushed through more pages, praying that he'd land on something that didn't have Shou written into every line, something that had escaped his presence.
March 27th, 20XX
We talked today about his next trip. He doesn't know when he'll be back - or how far away he'll be.
It sounds stupid when I put in here. I'll miss him. He's going to text me, of course, and call any time, and still do all the stupid things he's always done.
Why is it so different when I know he's so far away? People have long-distance friends, right? Penpals and stupid things like that. Shou will still be Shou, and I'll still be here, waiting for him to come back so we can go on adventures and find cool places to tear apart with powers, and go get cheap snacks from the vending machine down the street.
I'll wait for him, I think. He'd wait for me, too.
Ritsu swallowed hard. That second year of middle school had been miserable. He didn't even really remember much of it - living in a half-awake stupor, phone glued to his hand just in case, barely sleeping to keep up with whatever timezone Shou was in that week.
Somehow, he passed with top marks and was praised in the front of the whole school for his academic achievements.
Ritsu just stared into the crowd and wished for Shou to come back.
The journal had fewer and fewer entries now, larger chunks of time between Ritsu's life updates. All of them were filled with Shou, Shou, Shou. How he missed him, the stories he told that Ritsu wrote down so he wouldn't forget, what gifts they were sending each other, Ritsu's endless, all-consuming pining.
This was a stupid idea, was all he could think now. A stupid, self-centered idea driven by stupid irrational loneliness.
The ache in his chest kept him reading.
April 15th, 20XX
I'm not totally conviced that today wasn't some kind of fucked-up desperation dream, so if I write it down and it's still there tomorrow, then I can actually let myself be excited, okay?
Shou called today, really called. We talked for at least two hours, I think, and I remember I said I had something I wanted to tell him. I remember he said that I needed to wait, we argued, because I'd finally worked up the courage to tell him I love him confess that I have a crush on him, but he kept telling me to wait.
I'm so sick and goddamn tired of waiting. I've been waiting for - I don't want to read back, but god, it's probably been over a year? A whole year, it took a whole year to figure out that I love like him, and now he's telling me to wait??
But Shou promised tomorrow. He promised that I could talk to him tomorrow. In person. But he's promised that before and something's always come up, so I don't want to get excited. I can't get excited. Not again. But Shou sounded serious, like he wasn't kidding, or joking, and he sent me pictures of the plane tickets and they said one-way on them and I just don't want to hope.
We'll see about tomorrow. Tomorrow, I might get to see Shou. Is he taller? It's hard to tell from pictures. All the gifts he sends back sorta smell like citrus, is it weird that I notice that every time? Is it just where it's from or is that just Shou? I wonder if he's still got that charm. It was on his phone before he left.
I can wait until tomorrow. I promised I'd wait.
Ritsu remembered falling asleep that night, clutching a pillow to his chest. The fear and exhilaration at the mere thought of seeing his best friend again, after a whole year - he'd been sure he'd die from it.
Another childish thought, but Ritsu was a child. He was then, and so was Shou, and Ritsu had completely forgotten all the words he wanted to say, all the things he'd painstakingly written out, and just crushed Shou in a hug for a full five minutes when he materialized by his side in the hallway at school, almost as if he'd never left.
Shou was taller. Just tall enough to tuck comfortably under Ritsu's chin, grumbling about how unfair it was that Ritsu had had a growth spurt too, but Ritsu didn't care. Shou was here.
It was the first and only time he'd been reprimanded at school - for admitting someone who wasn't a student into the school, and for skipping an entire day's classes to spend it with his favorite person the way they used to.
Ritsu figured that one mark as a third-year against a perfect three-year middle school career was pretty damn good.
They tore through the city together, barely contained chaos in their wake. Serizawa had known he was coming too, and prepped a surprise party for his arrival. Shou and Ritsu arrived a fashionable three hours late - thoroughly exhausted and hungry.
Everyone was there. Even though "everyone" was just their few close friends, that didn't matter. Everybody was crowded into Serizawa and Reigen's shared apartment, there was excessive amounts of food and drink, and all the people that mattered to them gathered right there.
The world could have ended that day, and Ritsu wouldn't have cared in the slightest.
With a start, Ritsu scrubbed at his eyes, at the tears that were pooling in the corners.
"I will not cry," he muttered, "I will not cry over something so stupid."
He took a minute to collect himself. Furiously blinked away tears. Stared down at the memories, in his own neat handwriting, swimming across the page.
God, he missed Shou.
Ritsu knew what the rest of the entries would say. There were about two months worth of sporadic updates, until midsummer when Ritsu finally confessed at the exact same time Shou did. After that it was a blur of short snippets.
July 7th, 20XX
Went to the beach with Shou and his mom today. Shou called it a late birthday present (even though we went out for my birthday too). She's just like him, I like her a lot. We found a tide pool! There were crabs, Shou snuck one back to his house, and then we went out for dinner.
July 19th, 20XX
I'm adding holding Shou's hand to my list of favorite things about him. I thought about kissing him after that dumb joke he cracked about oranges.
July 30th, 20XX
Spent the night at Shou's with Shigeo and Teru (Hanazawa? Its too long to write, but I refuse to call him that stupid nickname out loud) last night. Less fires than I expected, but it turns out that Shou really does use citrus shampoo. I'm bringing Shou with me to keep an eye on Teru and my brother next time they go out. They're both being weird.
August 11th, 20XX
MY BROTHER IS DATING TERU AND DIDN'T TELL ME AND SHOU IS LAUGHING AT ME AS I WRITE THIS I HATE THEM ALL
August 12th, 20XX
Shou came with me to go buy the extra school stuff I need. He seemed kinda upset about it, and I asked him why. He said it was because he liked being able to spend all day, every day with me during summer break, and that school was "a waste of his boyfriend hours".
I told him I loved him then. It just slipped out. We hadn't really talked about that, but I do, I have for so long, and Shou stared at me for the longest time and I thought I'd messed everything up but then he kissed me, right there in the store and he was so red when he said that he loved me too.
As first kisses go, I don't think that one was so bad. (We did have to fix all the stuff that got knocked over, though.)
August 14th, 20XX
He still gets so red when I kiss him. God, I love Shou so much. It hurts, sometimes. Is that too cliche? I love him, and I said it before but it was just sort of in a weird "I have a crush on him and don't know what it means" way and now I can tell him whenever I want, and it's never enough. Maybe he'll get sick of it but I don't care.
August 19th, 20XX
I've only ever visited the airport twice, but I was too little to really remember. I mean, the class trip is supposed to happen sometime this year, but I never thought I'd get to see a plane up close until then.
He's been gone for only a few hours and I already miss him.
Shou promised me that this one was the last one. I didn't remind him that he said that about the last four outposts, but I could see that he didn't care. This one, this last remnant of his father, was going to be the last one.
He left me all his sweaters, and jackets for the winter. To remind me of him. I told him that was stupid and sentimental. Shou said that he found that bottle of his shampoo I'd stolen. Checkmate, I guess. I told him not to be gone that long, and we both managed to laugh.
The movies and books and stuff all talk about "memorizing the way your lover feels" - which sounded totally disgusting and weird (lover?? what is this, Victorian Europe?) right up until Shou hugged me again, right before boarding. It was weird, but I wanted to trace his jawline, and his shoulders, close my eyes so I could see the way his aura flickered around him better. Just in case I might forget.
Right then, I already missed him.
August 20th, 20XX
I hate that he isn't here. I hate that I don't know where he is, that I can't just go find him and see him and we can't just go. I hate that I miss him so much and it's only been a day.
August 21st, 20XX
Broke out the first of Shou's sweaters today. It's not cold yet, so I wore the thinnest one I could find (a green one, with white stripes, a birthday present from me last year). It always was too big on him - somehow it kinda fits me now. I miss him. He's in Panama right now. The cell service is spotty out there, but I've never been more excited to get a text.
September 3rd, 20XX
Note to self: buy a back-up phone. Breaking into the teacher's room is easier than it should be, but it's inconvenient. Shou figured out how to turn stuff invisible other than himself, he can teach me when he gets back.
September 14th, 20XX
My last call with Shou came in the middle of the student council meeting today. It's probably in bad taste for the vice president to take a call during our club crisis, but I said it was family matters and they let me leave. It's not technically a lie - Mom basically adopted Shou after we started dating.
Shou's good at hiding when he's upset. But I could tell that he was pissed off as soon as I picked up. He was yelling at someone (Joseph? I vaguely remember a Joseph) and I only caught the tail-end of the conversation.
I guess that last outpost is going to be a lot harder to shut down than they'd originally thought.
Shou kept apologizing, which seemed weird, and I understood, it was fine, but after like, eight times I finally snapped a bit and told him to, uh, "go find those stupid motherfuckers and kick their asses so I can see your dumb face again, idiot". Shou didn't say anything for a minute. Apparently I was on speaker.
Then there was a lot of shouting, and I heard a door slam. I figured Shou was by himself now, so I got him to explain the situation to me without the government people hovering around.
They're talking at least another four months - possibly longer. The news felt like being kicked through a wall. (Which, now that I'm thinking about it, is such a weird way to measure pain. I've been kicked through a lot of walls....)
I told him it was okay. If I say it enough times, it will be.
Teardrops blurred the ink. Ritsu shuddered, the miserable pang of longing twisting a hole in his chest.
Four months turned into five. Five into six, six to seven, seven to nine, and now: eleven months, seventeen days and three hours.
Ritsu started high school without him.
Both of their birthdays passed. Ritsu collected his gifts for Shou in a box in his closet; Shou somehow managed to send knicknacks from whatever corner of South America he was in.
Summer crept by in a haze of late-night texts and early morning phone calls, whispering secrets that they already knew to each other.
He had his first sip of alcohol while on a skype call at four in the morning, and behind Shou and his matching bottle, he could see the sun setting as his own painted the morning sky. They were seventeen. Bad decisions and reckless youth.
It wasn't enough to get them drunk, but they were certainly buzzed enough to make promises that Ritsu barely remembered.
The shimmering heat passed, and now it was more texts than phone calls, quick updates between his classes and Shou's nonsensical schedule. Memes and emojis and selfies and endless talking, occasional gifts and the ever-constant streams of "I love you."
I love you, I love you, I love, love, love you.
He wanted Shou. He wanted a hug, more than anything. Nothing special. He just wanted to relax into a too-warm embrace (god, Shou always ran hot) and breathe in that overpowering citrus scent (old habits, but now Ritsu smelled like it too) and trace all the scars across broad shoulders (new ones, old ones, Ritsu didn't care anymore).
A soft clatter pulled his blurred gaze up. Ritsu's homework was scattered across his room, bits and pieces drifitng through the air with something resembling sadness to their motion.
He exhaled, a shaky laugh tight in his throat. "What a mess...."
There was a brief moment where Ritsu let his emotions keep hold of it all. It was so much easier than keeping them tucked away, out of sight and mind.
The moment passed. He let the papers and pencils settle to the floor, they could always be picked up later. His diary still sat in his lap, a stubborn reminder of how ridiculous it was that he missed his boyfriend to the point of psychic mishap.
Ritsu frowned. There's a page sticking out...? In the back, long after his last entry. That hadn't been there before, had it?
Carefully, he flipped through the blank pages. There, in the very back, a dog-eared corner. Curiousity froze his hand, thoughts racing.
Who's going through my stuff? Ritsu wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know. Anyone who had - oh god, they absolutely would've seen that five-page mess on Shou. They couldn't have missed it.
The combination of shock and irritation gave him the courage to turn the page.
August 18th, 20XX
Hey, Ritsu! Please don't hate me for this, okay?
I mean, I know you're gonna be pissed that I went through your diary, but I promise, this isn't me being a dick! Well, mostly. (Those notes, from back before we were dating? Wow, very informative. And poetic, very sweet! You like my eyes?)
Anyway, I figure you won't find this for awhile. Knowing you, it'll be after a long, melodramatic and emotionally-charged moment where you're sitting quietly in your room, reading through all this, and you'll find me on accident.
Surprise!
Were you surprised? I hope so. You get so moody when I've been gone, I'd hate to like, actually make you upset. That would be pretty shitty of me, huh?
I got distracted again, sorry. This does have a point! I'll get there, and hopefully before you wake up. (Here's a note from me: you tend to curl up around anything nearby once you fall asleep, and it's the cutest thing I've ever seen. Had to wiggle my way out of your little koala grip so I could write this, hope you're happy)
But I gotta get serious. Tomorrow, I'm getting on a flight to go deal with my old man's cult for the last time. You won't believe me, but it's true. I know you think I'll have to deal with his shit forever - and you're not entirely wrong, I think about it too - but this really is the last time. I got it out of Joseph, who got it out of my dad. This is it. No more.
This one, though....it's going to hurt. I told you I'd keep it short, and I will, but it's definitely going to take longer than either of us want it to. I'll end up making a lot of promises in the morning, and more before I take off, and even more after that, but I'm writing them down for you here, too.
You deserve to hear them, Ritsu. Okay? Don't think otherwise. You deserve to be sad and upset and all the things you think you're too mature for. You can be mad at me - I deserve that too. For breaking promises and stretching our time so thin. Even if I couldn't have stopped him before, I should've tried harder, and now I'm going to be so far away for so long because of it.
Be mad. Be sad. And other things that rhyme like that. Ah, that's not very funny. Sorry. But don't let it build up. Tell me, when you can. I want to hear it - I want to hear everything you're thinking, even if you think it's nothing. I want to hear from you, I want to understand and know and appreciate your stupidly logical and stubborn mind from wherever I am. Can you do that for me?
Because - god, this sounds really stupid in my head, it'll be worse on paper - because, Ritsu, it's what you do to me that matters most. It's all what you do to me. I wouldn't do any of this if I didn't know that you'd be safer for it in the end. I want to give you everything, and I'll do anything for that.
I promise, by the time that I'm done, the world won't be the same. My world was never the same, after you. It's all for you! I'll walk back to you from the other side of the world if I have to!
Who cares what anyone else thinks? You always freak out whenever your friends (well, mostly your brother) tease you for it, but who cares? We've got what we've got, and I have you, and that's more than I ever thought I'd have. Remember that, for me?
And Ritsu, don't get into stupid trouble. That sounds like bullshit coming from me, I know. I'll have to break you out of jail, and that would be fun and awesome, but then you'd be a wanted criminal, and that's a lot less fun, trust me. So like, get into a little trouble. Tag the school or something, I know you hate that place. Just make sure you leave room for me too.
You've only got two more years, Ritsu. From now, anyway. Don't miss me too much, okay? I'll be back for you. And then, we can do whatever we want. You, and me, yeah?
I love you, Ritsu. I love you a whole goddamn lot.
I love you. That's a promise.
- Shou
Ritsu barely heard his phone ring from the bed. His head was spinning. There was something fragile in his chest, cracking under the weight of - of something. Maybe it was his heart. He didn't know.
The phone rang again. He'd let it go to voicemail on accident. With slow, heavy legs, Ritsu stood, grabbed his phone. Answered without checking the caller id.
"Hello?" Oh, was that his voice? Ritsu swallowed, clearing his throat. A laugh crackled through the line.
"Hey! Ritsu! What the hell, babe, you didn't answer the first time? Anyway, I'm sorry about not getting back to you yesterday, there was this whole thing with the infiltration and yada yada, boring shit. But! I'm here now!"
That weight in Ritsu's chest - it was lighter all at once and he could barely breathe. Shou waited all of a second before speaking up.
"Ritsu? You okay?"
"Ah - yeah, yeah. I'm okay." He swallowed again. "I, uh. I got your note."
"My what - oh. Oh! You, ah, you did?"
Ritsu laughed, feeling a bit dizzy. It was nice, though. He could hear the sudden nervousness in Shou's voice. "Yeah. I did."
"So, um. What did you, uh, think?"
Silence filled the air between them. Ritsu could see Shou, probably laying back on whatever hotel bed he'd crashed in for the night, hands playing anxiously with his shirt, nails, a bracelet - anything. He could see the tension in his shoulders the same way he heard it in his voice. He knew, just the way that Shou had predicted his every move almost a year ago.
"Ritsu?"
"I love you too, Shou." Ritsu glanced down at his diary, still open to that last page.
"I promise."