Work Text:
April 17th. D-Day – Endings
The scent of spring is sweet as it carries in the wind, brushing his bangs back and forth in front of his eyes.
“Will she miss me?” Junpei asks as he takes a small step forward until his toes are just brushing against the edge of the ledge. There’s no answer, although he can hear the distant sound of some of his classmates shouting together as they play soccer in the field until the end of lunch break, and it makes his stomach churn as he looks up at the sky.
It’s blue. A brilliant blue, like cobalt smeared with cream.
“Ah. I wish I could have eaten some cream bread one last time,” he huffs out, watching his breath curl in front of him. The air is still cold, even as the weather slowly warms as they approach summer.
“Do you want some? I packed three ‘cuz I feel like I never really get full off of bread, you know? Hey, watch out!”
Junpei whirls in surprise at the voice right behind his ear, letting out a sharp yelp as his foot twists and sends him careening off the ledge. As the sharp jolt of falling sends his stomach lurching, he can’t help but watch in slow motion as his hand stretches out on reflex, scrambling for purchase in thin air.
It’s just a second of freefall, but he realizes it in that moment.
I don’t want to die.
–
March 2nd. D-47
His hands tremble as he lifts up his bangs, trying not to vomit as he takes in the damage. The wound’s been cauterized, so it isn’t as if there’s much for him to do at this point. Still, he can’t help the way his knees give out as he slides down the bathroom wall.
“Fuck,” he says, voice muffled in his legs. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fucking, fuck! Why? Why me, why me? What did I do, what did I ever fucking do?”
He screams until his voice runs hoarse. It doesn’t make him feel better at all.
–
“Shit, I’m sorry! That was a close call,” a voice says above him, and that’s when Junpei realizes that the world around him is black because his eyes are scrunched closed, but he’s still very, very much alive.
The air is sharp in his lungs as he heaves in gasping breaths, the ground is hard and rough against his back, and the weight above him is heavy, pressing against his whole body.
He blinks his eyes open slowly and sees golden eyes staring down at him, blown wide open in concern and alarm. When he blinks, they narrow into squints as the boy above him smiles, standing upright and holding out a hand.
“Man, and here I thought I was going to be the only one to discover this cool hideout, huh? I guess it’s better to share it with a friend than have you haunt the place as a cursed spirit, though.”
Junpei’s eyes are drawn to the dimples that draw across the boy’s cheeks as he smiles, hand still outstretched between them. After a second of deliberation, Junpei hesitantly reaches out with his right hand and finds himself tugged up into a sitting position as the pink-haired boy settles in beside him.
There’s a soft rustling as he digs around in a paper bag for a moment before resurfacing with a shouted, “Aha!”
Junpei watches as he pulls out three little buns, holding one out.
“Tada! Cream bread,” he says, shaking it until Junpei takes it with timid hands. “It’s fresh! Or at least, it was fresh this morning. Good stuff. I’m Yuuji, by the way. Itadori Yuuji.”
“Junpei,” Junpei answers, following suit and taking a small bite when Yuuji chomps down beside him. “Yoshino Junpei.”
–
February 21st. D-55
Snow falls lightly around him, and he hopes that the cold will chase out the pain before the numbness of the moment fades.
Around him, the blanket of snow muffles any sounds that might slip out of his mouth as he tugs himself upright and checks his ankles and legs before deeming himself fit to walk.
It’s cold, as he drags himself home. He realizes too late that he’d left his coat at his desk, three floors upstairs. He’s in no state to climb that far, though, and resigns himself to crawling home before the snowfall increases.
–
Junpei tries to catch his breath as he scrubs at the dirt on his uniform with sweaty, bruised hands. Now that the footsteps have gone, it’s all he can do to crawl over to the fence and lean against it. The wires dig into his back, but the sting helps clear his head from the dull throbbing that’s spreading across his stomach.
He doesn’t know how long he sits there, staring numbly at the sky until his eyes fall closed but he stirs when a shadow blocks out the sun, flinching back as he squints up at the figure.
“Junpei? What are you doing out here?”
“Yuuji.” His name falls from Junpei’s lips like a whine and he can’t help but curse how pathetic he sounds as he curls his arms around his legs halfheartedly.
Junpei looks up from his knees when he feels warmth press against his side and turns to see Yuuji settling in beside him, backpack in his lap as he digs around for something.
“Long day, huh? Man, I think I totally bombed my algebra exam today,” Yuuji sighs. There’s a frown on his face, but it brightens up quickly as he finds what he’s looking for, pulling out his phone and a particularly tangled pair of earbuds. “I swear I put it in all straightened and some earbud goblin tangles it while I’m not looking!” he whines, shaking at it aggressively. That only serves to further tangle the wires together as he pouts.
Pain forgotten for a brief moment, Junpei giggles as he reaches out a hand and takes the offending object. He swallows thickly as Yuuji leans in closer to look, ignoring the way his hands burn where they briefly touched and how his neck prickles when Yuuji’s breath brushes against his shoulder.
Junpei’s quiet as he works, focusing solely on separating the wires, the right earbud looping in, up, down, and around until finally he’s left with two clean strings.
“Here you… um, here you go,” Junpei says, turning to hand Yuuji back his earbuds only to falter when he registers how close they are. Yuuji is so close that Junpei can feel his breath brush against his chin and he feels his eyes fluttering shut on impulse, only for Yuuji to settle back and plug the jack in with a shout.
“Yes! Thanks, Junpei, you’re the best,” Yuuji says as he fits the right earbud in his ear. “I was working on this playlist earlier this week, you gotta tell me what you think.”
Junpei blinks down at the offered earbud in confusion for a second before looking back up when Yuuji wiggles it a little in front of his face.
“Oh, for me?”
Yuuji just laughs and tucks the earbud into Junpei’s left ear. Junpei freezes, forcing himself to tamp down a shiver when Yuuji's finger traces the shell of his ear. Soft music trickles in, accompanied by the calm falsetto of a woman.
As Junpei sits there, listening, he feels something in his heart unclench. It’s barely noticeable, but already he feels lighter, as if he could float with no more shackles or chains on his ankles, weighing him down.
They sit there together for a while like that, grass tickling his legs where his ankles are exposed. The last song plays and ends on a single whispered note, before the playlist is looping back again, repeating the opening notes of the first song.
“What’s it called?” Junpei asks, twirling the end of the earbud between his thumb and forefinger.
Yuuji shrugs. The chain-link fence behind him rattles as he leans back against it, adding percussion to the acoustics of the guitar. “No name, yet.”
“It’s untitled,” Junpei muses.
“Hm?”
“Untitled,” Junpei repeats, louder this time. “Untitled freefall.” He tucks the earbud back in his ear again. He thinks back to that day they first met. If he closes his eyes and lets the grass and dirt fade away, focusing only on the burn of the sun overhead, he thinks he might feel whatever it was he’d been chasing that day on the roof.
With no name, no friends, nobody to care, he’d just wanted a chance to jump with no wings or safety net.
An untitled freefall.
Yuuji turns to look at Junpei with that idiotic grin of his taking up half his face as usual. His eyes squint together and his nose scrunches up and Junpei could probably count all thirty of his teeth, but most of all, he’s beautiful.
“You’re always so good at this kind of stuff, Junpei.”
Junpei stares at the ground and wills the tears in his eyes to dry.
It’s hard to look at the sun for too long.
–
February 8th. D-62
Junpei quickly learns not to stare at the sky anymore. No matter how blue, how beautiful, he learns to keep his head down, watch his feet, and swerve around shit that’s thrown his way.
He misses it, sometimes. Looking up and seeing a bird, running forward to chase a butterfly, smiling at his neighbors as they pass him by.
Now, it’s just tiles. Black, white, blue, black, white, blue, black, white, blue, bathroom, check that nobody’s following him in, black, white, blue, black, white, blue. Fall onto the toilet seat and stare at his feet until the bell rings. Black, white, blue, black, white, blue, black, white, blue.
–
“Whatcha watching?”
Junpei startles, tripping over himself and falling flat onto his ass in the middle of the aisle. He rips his earbuds out of his ears as he scrambles up, scratching at his neck where Yuuji’s voice tickled him.
“Shit, sorry,” Yuuji says, eyes wide as he helps Junpei stand back up with one easy tug. “Didn’t mean to scare you so bad.”
“It’s fine,” Junpei says, wrapping his earbuds around his phone to shove back in his pocket. “Probably shouldn’t have had my volume so loud in public.” Should’ve been paying attention. Just in case.
“Hmm,” Yuuji hums, staring around at the boxes of cereal around them. “What were you watching, anyway? Must have been captivating to draw you away from your shopping.”
Junpei blushes at that, quickly reaching out for a box of generic corn flakes. “Just a YouTuber I follow. I got a notification that he posted a new video reviewing a movie I like.” He’d been completely distracted from his mother’s errands.
“Oh?” Yuuji asks, eyes scanning the shelves before turning to face Junpei when there’s nothing that particularly catches his eye. “What movie?”
“World War Three: Zombie,” Junpei mumbles. “It premiered April 16th.”
The day before we met, Junpei doesn’t say.
“Oh! That’s a prequel, right? To, ah, what was the title? Apocalypse something. Man, I was planning on watching it, have you seen it yet? Want to watch together?”
“Oh, um. Right now?” Junpei asks. He stares down at the cereal box in his hands. His mom won’t be home for a while yet… “I got the DVD release if you wanted to come over?”
“Yes!” Yuuji says, grabbing Junpei’s shoulder. “My grandpa chased me out of the house because I was being too loud so I ended up here because I was so bored. This must be fate or something, right?”
Junpei laughs as Yuuji trails him to the cashier, picking up milk on the way. It doesn’t take him long to check out, but suddenly Yuuji is pausing, before shouting a quick, “Be right back!” over his shoulder, only to reappear moments later with bags of popcorn and potato chips.
“It’s not really a movie without snacks, is it?” Yuuji asks, laughing as he pays for his items. “My treat since you’re hosting. Lead the way!”
All the way home, Yuuji reenacts some particularly gruesome scenes from the original Apocalypse movie, at one point even crawling across the dirt while Junpei holds his stomach and laughs.
Junpei is sure that people are staring at them on the street, but for the first time in a while, he isn’t afraid to be loud as he laughs. So what if they look, he thinks. Let them. I’m proud to be his friend.
Back home, the dark kitchen and quiet living room feel less cold, less empty with Yuuji just two steps behind to fill up the space.
The movie is set up quickly, and as they lean back in their seats, Junpei feels his stomach flip as Yuuji presses close to him, warmth bleeding into his side.
Junpei has always loved movies. Watching them for the first time. Watching them for the second time. Learning something new, seeing a new detail; a new interpretation and a new perspective gained with every viewing.
He’d been fully prepared that day, months ago, to watch this movie for the first and last time.
Today, sitting side by side with Yuuji, popcorn and chips spilling in between the cracks of the sofa cushions, Junpei knows that this will be the first of many.
–
February 8th. D-62
Black, white, blue, black, white, blue, classroom doorway, black, white, blue, black, white, blue, desk. Red and black smeared across a beige desk.
“Piece of shit”
“Die”
“Fucking loser orphan”
“Fuck off rat”
“Kill yourself”
He lowers his head until his bangs cover his tears. Until he can’t see the smiling faces of his classmates around him.
–
Building D, Apartment 304
Yuuji shifts from foot to foot, staring at the steel numbers screwed into the door in front of him. He can hear the slow shuffle of footsteps inside and then muffled beeping before the door swings open slowly, revealing an old man that could be his grandfather’s age.
“Um, hello,” Junpei says, bowing in greeting. “Is Yuuji home?”
The man huffs a sigh, before turning his head slightly to shout, “Yuuji!” With that done, he turns around slowly, leaning heavily on a cane as he walks back into the living room. When he turns back to see Junpei still hovering in the doorway, he rolls his eyes, beckoning him inside.
“Hurry up, boy. You’re wasting heat,” he grumbles, settling down into an armchair in front of the television.
Junpei enters, closing the door and standing in the foyer until the man grunts loudly. At that, Junpei hurries to toe off his shoes and sit gingerly at the edge of a scuffed up couch, sliding back as the worn cushion springs give too much under him.
They sit there in silence, Junpei staring at the ground, the man staring at Junpei. The old cuckoo clock above them seems abnormally loud as it ticks slowly by.
“So,” the man says, finally breaking the silence. “You’re Yuuji’s friend?”
“Yes, sir,” Junpei answers meekly.
“Hmph.”
Another beat of silence passes before Junpei speaks up again.
“You must be Yuuji’s grandfather?”
“Obviously.”
Before it can fall silent again, Yuuji’s grandfather is turning his head to shout loudly again, “YUUJI! DON’T KEEP YOUR FRIEND WAITING!”
Junpei flinches, startling as he hits his knee on the coffee table in front of him. At that, Yuuji’s grandfather turns to pierce him with a glare, before clearing his throat.
“Rude rascal. Should treat his friends with more respect.”
Yuuji comes out of his room a few moments after that, apologizing profusely as he drags Junpei out of the house. “Sorry, got distracted by a game and I just had to finish up a level first. Gramps, Junpei. Junpei, Gramps.”
Junpei turns his head as he goes to see Yuuji’s grandpa still sitting there, staring at the black screen of the television. Upon a second look, he realizes that the lines on his face aren’t so scary as they are lonely.
“He seems nice,” Junpei says as they walk down the stairs.
“Gramps?” Yuuji asks with a loud laugh. “You’re the first person to call him nice. You should come over more often, I’m sure he’d like the company more than he wants to admit.”
Junpei does, after that. Sometimes, he’ll sit at the coffee table doing his homework in silence while Yuuji’s grandfather sits on that armchair, half asleep. Other times, he’ll set up a movie for Yuuji’s grandfather, a sappy rom-com that he pretends he doesn’t like but leaves him with tears shining in his eyes.
In all of his times visiting, Yuuji’s grandfather doesn’t yell once.
–
January 31st. D-70
“Just keep your head down and they’ll ignore you.”
Fat load of advice that was, Junpei thinks as he feels a milk carton explode against his back.
“Did you just look at me? The fuck do you think you’re looking at, bitch,” a voice hisses from behind him.
“How could I be looking at you, when you’re behind me?” Junpei mutters under his breath. He shouldn’t have said that.
He really, really shouldn’t have said that.
Later, as he looks at his bruised face in the mirror, washing food and blood out of his eyes, he realizes he doesn’t want to live like this anymore.
“Seventy days,” he tells himself. “Just seventy days, and then I’ll be free.”
–
Junpei shifts from foot to foot, tugging at the tight collar of his dress shirt where it suffocates him. His mother had managed to find one of his dad’s old suits buried somewhere in the back of his closet and now stares at him with a small smile.
“You look just like him,” she says, straightening out the wrinkles on his shoulders and pulling him in close for a hug. She smells like cheap perfume cloaking cigarette smoke and the curry they ate for lunch, and Junpei clenches his hand into a fist as he buries his face into her shoulder.
“I thought you said I looked more like you,” he says in a small voice. He’s not sure if she can even hear him, muffled as he is against her blouse.
She leans back with a sigh, shrugging lightly as she turns to fix her mascara in the mirror above their shoe rack. “Every day you grow up, Junpei, and turn into a man of your own. Let’s go now, we’ll be late.”
The drive to the funeral home is quick, trees blurring past on the side of the road into blobs of green against gray.
When they enter, Junpei’s mother reaches out to grasp Yuuji into a tight hug while Junpei stands to the side, staring at the ground.
After she’s finished making him promise to come to their house for dinner as often as he can, she moves to stand with the other adults and teachers after paying her respects at the altar.
“Yuuji,” Junpei says, and his voice is already cracking on the first syllable. “I’m sorry,” he says, even though it feels all wrong and terrible, and he hates how it comes out insincere, even though he really means it.
He hates having to be the one to provide comfort, after all those months of doing nothing but receiving from Yuuji. And now, he can’t even find words to help his own friend.
“Junpei!” Yuuji says, face breaking out into that huge smile of his. “What are you even sorry for? I’m glad you could make it.” He reaches out to tug Junpei into a hug, arms warm against his sides. “I’ll come talk to you after I’ve finished greeting the guests, okay?”
He shoos Junpei away, face still open and warm as he turns to smile and laugh in greeting at the next group of people that enter through the doors. Junpei nods and turns away.
He doesn’t comment on the way Yuuji’s hands trembled as he held onto him.
Junpei finds himself zoning out for most of the ceremony, staring out the window while a few people stand to give speeches. He doesn’t recognize most of them anyway, as he’s only really here for Yuuji, and the memories he built over the past couple months. By his side, his mother grips his hand tightly and he doesn’t have to ask to know she’s thinking of his father.
Outside, the breeze is warm although clouds cover the sky in gray, bringing in the dense, humid air of rain to come.
It’s only as he watches the tears finally fall from Yuuji’s face as he kneels in front of his grandfather’s gravestone that Junpei realizes something.
I want to live.
–
October 12th. D-Day – Beginnings
“Hello. My name is Junpei. Yoshino Junpei. I’d like to file a police report.”