Chapter Text
This was like, a million times worse than stage fright.
Honestly I could not remember the last time I was nervous on stage even.Getting on stage with Black Cherry the first few times was scary, especially after all the contractual obligations, but since I started being more faithful to my music style I had no reason to be scared anymore. I was damn confident on stage now.
I supposed the last time I was even nearly this scared was my first performance. My dad, as distant as he was due to his career, pulled me on his massive stage and let me play a song for everyone. My first performance was unannounced to a sold out stadium of rock elitists who missed the golden days of rock, shelling out hundreds to see my sellout of a father. I was twelve and I shook the whole time but it was the day that started everything for me. The people ate me up. They loved me.
Pulling my mind out of those memories, I tried to focus on not looking like a space cadet. "So like, what did you guys do today?"
"Eh, Taka did this whole community service thing. We all had to get around and clean up the school grounds and shit. He made me clean up the dugout. Which is stupid, cuz only the reserve corps kids use that field and I'm too good to play with them so it isn't like I even made the mess in the first place." Leon let out a really, really long sigh. I had never met him but this Taka dude seemed really exhausting and sort of had a bone to pick with Leon for him blatantly writing off Hope's Peak dress code. "What did you guys do though? You don't gotta deal with the freakin' Ultimate Moral Compass so your day was probably more interesting than mine."
I pursed my lips, recalling the day. "Yeah, Ms. Chisa isn't that strict at all. She just picks a student every day to host a class on their ultimate so that everyone gets time to practice and we all get a learning experience out of it. Kaz got picked and he taught us how to change oil in a car but I totally forgot it all."
Leon looked sort of dazed for a second, then shook his head. "Huh. Uh, yeah."
I blinked. "Yeah what?"
"If you like, need someone to change your oil, I know how to do it. You shouldn't worry about stuff like that." I was really freaked out. Leon was cool, and I pretty much was coming to terms with the massive huge big ol fat crush I had on him, but he wasn't really a selfless dude. It wasn't really his speed to be offering help on something like that.
I could only laugh at it though. It was cute that he offered. "Dude, I have a chauffeur. Rich dad, remember?"
"Fuck, yeah. I didn't forget I just wanted to be nice or whatever." He sort of just looked away from me and kept walking on, carrying my books for me.
And while that was sweet of him to do it was my crisis for the day. I was absolutely determined to hold his hand today and it was gonna be a real big challenge to do so when he always insisted on carrying them for me. If he didn't do that I would be able to ride my normal adrenaline train and just snatch his hand and play it off all cool but that wasn't an option.
"I'm assuming you know how to drive then even though you're too young to?" I nudged him.
Leon smiled and looked quite proud of himself. "Yeah, my mom is American and thought it was really stupid that we can't drive until we're eighteen here and my dad just let her teach me." He looked back at me, "I can totally take you for a spin sometime!"
"I like living, but thanks!" Leon seemed like the type of guy to get really bad road rage and probably could barely drive anyways since he was only sixteen, but I really did wanna ride with him one day.
The baseball star went all quiet for a second, but laughed it all off after a moment. "Yeah, probably shouldn't involve you in illegal stuff anyways since you're gonna be mega mega famous when you graduate. Wouldn't ever wanna fuck any of that up for you. Or like, something like that anyways."
He was vaguely talking in circles and sort of unconfidently which was again, not something I was accustomed to with him. Both of us were acting sort of strange but at least I knew why I was all nervous. Maybe he had a bad day? One day he explained to me how nasty dugouts could get and cleaning all that up on your own was probably a massive hassle.
I upped my pace so that I was ahead of him, walking backwards. "Hey, you're acting weird."
"And you always act weird so I don't see a problem. Maybe I'm just picking up after you since I'm around you more now."
I crossed my arms, still walking backwards. "Nah, you're acting like you had a bad day sort of weird. Did something happen?"
He rolled his absolutely gorgeous eyes at me. "Yeah, nah, you're reading into it too much. Don't worry about it."
Pouting now, I puffed my cheeks up. "You shouldn't lie to your friends just to look cool ya know. I thought you trusted me!" I sighed dramatically, making the most over the top expression I could make by resting the back of my hand against my forehead, "and to think I thought I was a valued friend to you, Ibuki's all offended and might cry."
I had never seen him with eyes that big. "Hey, no, fuck, don't cry! Literally nothing's wrong I just…," he paused, looking for words, "... I had a weird day but it wasn't bad. I'm just really tired from cleaning all that up. Please don't cry."
If I had known he was gonna get that worked up over me jokingly being dramatic I would have never done it. Fuck! "You can take a nap in my dorm if you want!
"R-really? That would be nice." He gave me that million dollar grin. My heart melted.
I nodded, "Yeah, of course! Ibuki would never let her friend-" just as I was in the middle of explaining how good of a friend I was, I backed up into someone. Pivoting, I turned to apologize.
"Hihi! Sorry about that! I'm not very observant sometimes. Are you ok?" She was a really pretty girl so I felt like, twice as bad as I did before. Her hair was short and a cute chestnut brown.
And even though I was the one addressing her, she was staring right over my shoulder at Leon for some reason.
"I-I'm really sorry! I'm so sorry." The stranger immediately bowed her head, "I didn't mean it like that."
I blinked. "Huh? I'm the one who ran into you. You shouldn't be sorry at all. Did I bonk your head? Oh no, I can help! I have an ice pack in my dorm!"
The poor girl looked like she was about to cry, and I surely must have hit her a little too hard somehow. "Nono, it's ok. I'm just gonna go now. I'm sorry. Just please forgive me, okay?"
"I already told you that-"
Leon cut me off and walked in front of me, blocking her off from me. "Look, it's fine. Just don't pull any shit on her."
Her expression somehow became even more meek. "I-I would never do that."
"Then you have literally nothing to worry about, okay? You shouldn't work yourself up over shit like this." He sighed, "I'll see ya later."
Bowing again to me, the stranger apologized yet again. "I'm so sorry. I'll leave you two be, I didn't mean it like that at all…. Bye!" She almost sounded like she was crying, but ran off before I could see her face.
Stunned, I watched her run. "What was all that about?"
Leon let out a very, very long sigh. "It's a lot to get into. Like, a lot to get into."
"Ibuki has very good ears, go for it."
He shook his head, "Some of it is pretty embarrassing."
We started waking off again, but I refused to let it go. "One time I forgot to wear shorts under my skirt during a performance and a dude got a panty shot of me and sold it to a huge magazine and my panties are just in a magazine forever. I doubt that this could be that embarrassing!"
Leon shot me a very concerned look. "That's not legal though?"
"Yeah no, it's not and they got shut down over it but it's still out there." It was super embarrassing, but I let most things roll off my pack pretty easily.
He grasped my books tighter. "I think it would scare you if I got into it, so I'd rather not."
"I handle haunted houses super well! I only scream like twelve times! You can tell me anything." To comfort him, I gently grabbed onto his shoulder. One step closer to holding hands!
I felt him tense up. "It's a lot more serious than a jump scare or anything like that."
"Well, I can be serious when I need to be. I can hear you out, ya know." Deciding that it would be creepy to let my hand linger too much longer, I let go. But not before making a mental note of how warm his body was.
"Shut up about it already, ok? I already said like three fucking times that I don't wanna talk about it! Damn, you dense or somethin'?" He spoke with more venom in his voice than I was ever used to hearing from him. I felt awful suddenly, and I wanted to cram everything I had just said back down my throat.
Before I was able to choke out an apology, he stopped walking. "Fuck, shit. I'm really sorry about that. I don't mean that. I think you're really smart and you're just really confused probably, and I'd be confused too cause you don't know anything about this at all and I don't mean to be half as defensive as I am but I really, really don't wanna scare you off from being my friend and I definitely didn't mean to cuss at you."
For once in my life, I was quiet. For one of the first times ever I did not know what to say, and did not sputter something random out to compensate for the silence like I normally would.
And it freaked him out. His face got all distressed and his words came out faster than normal. "Hey! It's ok, I'll tell you ok? Please don't be upset. I'll explain it all in your dorm, if I can still come in, I'm really really really sorry."
I tried my best to shake it all off. "Y-yeah. You can still come in, of course. And you're not obligated to tell me if it makes you that upset…"
"Well yeah, but like," he pursed his lips and looked much more nervous than I was accustomed to, "You're my friend right? So I can trust you with things like that. I don't mind."
My smile was small, but still there. "Yeah. You can trust me."
"It is really weird though. So sorry in advance for that."
The rest of the walk to my dorm was pretty peaceful. Being cussed at hurt for approximately six seconds before I let it roll off my back, just like most things. We made small talk and laughed it all off for the moment.
I pulled out my keys, heavy with various keychains and unlocked my door. Leon had very briefly been in my dorm before, but not really long enough to get accustomed to the surroundings. Since we were main course students we got completely decked out private dorms and I had decorated mine very densely. Various shelves adorned the walls with cryptic knickknacks and posters were plastered everywhere. It was visually a little overwhelming to anyone who was not me.
Of course, I locked the door behind us. As secure as the school was, reserve corps kids did get curious. "Welcome to my dorm! Feel free to take a seat wherever." I gestured off to the small living room area. I had a few bean bangs thrown on the floor and a particularly comfortable couch. My dad had given it to me so it of course fit our mutually shared tacky aesthetic, zebra print.
"Shit, this is really cool Ibuki." And just as I suspected, he was in total awe. I was proud of my eye for decor.
I flashed a very confident expression, "Mhm! I cannot stand boring rooms."
Crashing onto the couch I got comfy, taking up a huge amount of space. Granted I was small so it really wasn't that much space I supposed, and there was still plenty of room left for him to sit if he wanted to sit there. I hoped he would sit there.
He set my books down on the coffee table and fortunately my wish came true, and he plopped into the space next to me. Unfortunately he didn't get too touchy or close, but I could still feel his body warmth and that was enough to make me blush.
"Uh… so like, about all that." Leon got straight to the point. I noticed his voice was shaky, which surprised me. Surely it wasn't that awful, right?
I was quiet, and as attentive as I was capable of being.
A sigh escaped his cute lips. "See it's like really fucked up, so you gotta promise me again you won't be mad or grossed out."
I made a cross motion over my heart, beaming. "Cross my heart and hope to die, I won't be freaked out."
Leaning forward and rubbing at his knees, he explained the situation. His expression was intense, switching between absolutely mortified and hurt as he spoke. "So that girl is my cousin, Kanon. I'm pretty close to her just cause she sort of goes wherever I go, which would be fine and all but it… doesn't just end with that."
He paused, clearly searching for words. "She's always been really obsessed with me, the whole following around thing has been a thing my whole life ya know? And if it was just that it would be whatever, it's okay to be attached to your family but…" His voice trailed off.
"She's like. In love with me."
I cocked my head, "Like romantically?"
"Yeah."
I let that sink in for a moment, and fortunately I was able to not react as if that was the strangest thing I had heard in a long time. Knowing I would feel awful if I made him feel guilty for something he genuinely had no control over, I offered as much comfort as I could. "Well, why would I be upset with you for that? That's probably really hard to handle."
He groaned, "God, you have no idea. The whole reason she got all apologetic is because she has a tendency to follow me around if she sees me with a girl too much, regardless if I'm dating them or not. Takes it as a threat or whatever. I probably could have seen her coming but I was too busy looking at you… 're books!"
Hehe, I caught onto that. I would have snapped back with a flirty comment but sort of caught on that the situation was a little too intense for it. "Well, she's gonna have to get used to it. Cause I like being around you."
"You too." He leaned back further in my chair, getting more comfy now that it was off his chest. "I was really afraid to tell you all that. It's really weird." Those pretty blue eyes stared up to my ceiling, "I mean objectively it seems like I should just write her out of my life, but she's family and I do care. I wanna help her not be so obsessed with me but the more I try, the more she takes it the wrong way. I don't really know what to do about it."
Pursing my lips, I offered up the only advice I knew to give. "You know, there's only so much you can do. It's sort of her journey to move on from it, right? You can help, but you can't fully help someone until they accept that they want help. Until then… you can't blame yourself for her inability to change right now." My voice trailed off, and I coughed, "Well, something like that. Ibuki really doesn't know much about the human psyche or anything deep and complex like that! Not my speed at all."
"You know what my least favorite thing about you is?"
My heart sunk into the floor. "H-huh?"
Suddenly, I was overwhelmed, and my little challenge to hold his hand went to a whole new level. My heart picked up right off the floor and was suddenly sky high, because holy shit he wrapped his arm around my shoulders. He was so warm and so strong and I could hardly keep my composure in the slightest, I almost didn't care to even try to keep it together and probably would have ended up squealing if he did not speak again.
"You write off how smart you are all the time. You're probably better at reading people than anyone I've ever met. You should do that less. I dunno why you do it, cause you're real smart. Silly, but smart." His voice was so calm and comforting, even if the words themselves made me a little uncomfortable. My persona of being constantly upbeat and carefree meant a lot to me. It wasn't even really faked, but I did hide how emotionally attuned I was sometimes to keep people cheered up.
It wasn't something I was prepared to address though, so I offered up a little distraction. "Hey, you totally ruined my day."
"H-huh? How?" Suddenly that cool expression faded into panic, eyes wide as ever.
Since he had just pulled the same move on me with getting me all worked up before sliding a smooth move on me, I figured it was time for payback. I was finally gonna achieve what I had planned to do all day. I rode the adrenaline, reached across his body and snatched his hand, interlocking my fingers with his. His hand was calloused, even more than mine. It was veiny too, and just as warm and comforting as the rest of his body was proving to be.
Looking him in the eye, I gave him the prettiest little wink I could offer. "I wanted to hold your hand today, and then you fucked up my plan by getting all bold and skipping to putting your arm around me."
He blinked, shocked for half a second. But that precious little smirk took over again. "Well, then I guess I'll try to fix it by not letting go."
I squeezed his hand. He squeezed back.