Work Text:
From the moment he was put into this world- ( put- not born, not raised)- Mitsuba has not chosen a single thing for himself.
His first shuddering, unnecessary breath; pure instinct rising to the surface. His deal with a boy who has black holes for eyes and a wicked grin made for biting; signed out of fear. The powers of school mystery number three; forced upon him.
It’s fitting that his Yorishiro was chosen for him too.
“It’s a piece of your heart,” Tsukasa had told him, with a light touch pressed into the black-and-red seal on his cheek. “Something that matters .”
If Mitsuba didn’t fear for his short, underwhelming life- he would have told Tsukasa this: there is nothing that matters to me. I don’t own anything aside from my limbs and this too-large heart in my chest- and even these things don’t belong to me.
For the same reasons, he doesn’t tell Tsukasa about the gardening book either- tucked safely beneath his coat, all wrapped up in the end of his scarf. A gift, given to him. Something Mitsuba owns. The boy who gave it to him was strange, for lack of a better word. Shock of blonde hair, eyes bright enough to hurt, painfully tacky taste in accessories. A boy who stared at Mitsuba like he’d seen a ghost, called his name, refused to let him go. Mitsuba didn’t know hands could feel so warm- feverish, almost. Like static electricity in the air.
He was weird. No concept of personal space. Probably bad at identifying people too, because there’s no way Mitsuba would forget an earring that bad if he’d met him beforehand.
But the book was a gift. It’s rude to return things like that. You put up a long-suffering smile and do not voice your displeasure, or people give you weird looks and Mitsuba is not sure how he knows this. Just another one of the borrowed pieces he’s been made from.
When Tsukasa leaves him to settle into his boundary and his powers, he finally pulls the book from its hiding place. Mitsuba is pretty certain that it didn’t have a black-and-red seal plastered on the front cover beforehand. He picks at it experimentally, and swears he feels every bone in his ribcage shifting along with it. (It’s a piece of your heart. Another thing chosen for him.)
He understands why he was given the book only three pages in, because his name is written there. Mitsuba Sousuke- the one Tsukasa mentioned. Mitsuba Sousuke, the boy who clung to life as a half-ghost, whose soul, voice and face became a part of Just-Mitsuba.
Though he’s only listed as a photographer, there’s little pieces of Mitsuba Sousuke littered throughout the book- a bag with a bunny keychain tucked neatly beside the flower beds, a slight blurriness to one of the photos like he tripped with his camera, a silhouette in the panels of the greenhouse. That’s who the boy- Minamoto- called out to. That’s who he saw standing in Mitsuba’s place.
Mitsuba feels no connection to the boy between the pages of his Yorishiro. A name and a face he shares, little more than that. Mitsuba Sousuke is only a part of him. A fragment of soul, shoved into the cracks of the body made for him to exist through. (Exist- not live. Important distinction. Tsukasa made this very clear.)
Mitsuba is a boy made of spare parts. When he looks down at his hands- his claws stolen from school mystery number three- he thinks he might want to be more.
-
He hides the book, the one thing he owns, where Tsukasa will never find it.
Deep at the bottom of his boundary, a long, long way down. Not even he knows how to retrieve it.
-
Getting used to his new powers is a steep learning curve. Mitsuba leaves more than one corner of his boundary in ruins with the hard exoskeleton of his scarf, tearing down walls, shattering mirrors. At the very least, the extensions of his body no longer twitch like dying insects when he walks- that always made him feel sick to his stomach.
The boundary always remakes itself after a while, walls knitting back together, mirrors unshattering. The collateral is the least of his concerns. Tsukasa, the way he tugs on Mitsuba’s scarf- sometimes his hair, too- is his biggest worry. Constantly puppeteering him into wreaking havoc, like he’s a fun, dangerous toy he just got his hands on.
Mitsuba is terrified of him- he’d stop crying and tell Tsukasa that he’s not a doll to throw around by one stitched-on arm, if he could get past the stop crying stage. But Tsukasa made him, and Mitsuba has no doubts that he could un-make him just as easily.
He’s got things to do, before that can happen.
-
The role of school mystery number three is observation. Keep an eye on the school, exist in all its dark corners, maintain a quiet omnipresence behind every window in every classroom. When people turn around with the feeling that they’re being watched, he will be there.
Mitsuba takes this as an excuse to be nosey.
He overhears two girls hiding out in the bathroom, gossiping about a classmate and her new boyfriend in the year above. He lurks unseen as a group of teachers discuss the worst exam answers they’ve ever graded. He gets incredibly invested in the drama of a highschool first year trying to confess to her best friend.
News about the festival comes from the mokke, who heard it from number four, who heard it from number seven. Just as the humans have Tanabata, the supernaturals of the school and beyond have this. It’s easy to get there through the mirrors, and Mitsuba soon finds himself lost in a crowd that sways and cheers and makes bright music into the night. The stars crowd close, larger than life- like he could leap up and touch them if he tried.
With no money to pay with and no real plans of where to go, Mitsuba does what he does best, and he observes .
There’s shooting games to win prizes at, food stalls selling candies and baked goods, slips of bright paper to collect and make wishes upon. As much as Mitsuba has his own dreams, he doesn’t collect a single one. He doesn’t even know how money works around here.
Instead, he uses the tail end of his scarf- an exercise in control, breathe steady, no sudden movements- to steal a candy apple from one of the stalls, and settles on a bench just out of reach from the crowds. A taiko drum strikes into the night, the warbling notes of a flute fill the air, and Mitsuba hurts his teeth biting into the apple a little too hard. For his first festival, it’s not too bad. Could be better- the candy apple is almost sickeningly sweet and he’s pretty sure you’re supposed to do these sort of things as a group, but Mitsuba will take what he’s given with little complaint.
“This sucks.” He speaks with his mouth full. (Little complaint is not the same as No complaint. He’s starting to figure out what makes him Mitsuba, and being Mitsuba means he always has something to kick up a fuss about.)
Then he sees Minamoto.
Here, he looks a little softer, a little more relaxed- carrying an armful of food, a weird little fox plush sitting in the hood of his outfit, a paper crown around his head to parade as a ghost. He laughs at something the boy next to him says; number seven, Mitsuba recognises. He’s fooling nobody with that infuriatingly alive smile of his. The fox plushie bites him, then. Not a plushie at all.
The duty of school mystery number three is observation, so it’s not stalking when Mitsuba follows them around the festival at a distance. He wants to know why the soul that is just a part of him seems to think this exorcist boy is someone he should know.
(Why Mitsuba feels like, for some reason, he’s someone important to him.)
All he gathers is that Minamoto is an Idiot. Capital ‘I’ and everything.
He spills food on his trousers and only succeeds in making it worse when he tries to wipe it up. He keeps walking into stuff and talks with his hands so enthusiastically that he smacks both number seven and Yashiro (Mitsuba remembers her too) more than once. When Yashiro gets stood on by a bull of all things, Minamoto just stares at her with a dumbstruck expression rather than actually helping.
Mitsuba observes for a little while longer, as number seven and Minamoto argue back and forth about what to do with their unconscious friend, the fox biting him every time he jostles a bit too hard, making a scene that’s embarrassing to watch. And Mitsuba finds that he wants. Wants the bickering, the shared food, the experience of visiting a festival with friends. Even if it does end in one casualty and multiple bite wounds.
(On the way back to his empty boundary, Mitsuba decides this: he wants to be human.)
-
There’s a sword at Mitsuba’s neck, held by a boy who looks like Minamoto Kou but not.
“School mystery number three,” Not-Kou says, with lightning under his tongue. I have a name, Mitsuba doesn’t tell him, too afraid for words. “There is no place for you in this world.”
Not-Kou’s eyes are ice-blue, staring down at Mitsuba like he’s an insect that crawled out from between the floorboards. There is no place for you in this world . (Mitsuba knows this- has been reminded of it more times than he can count on both hands. There are humans and there are supernaturals and then there is the strange, lonely place he has carved out between them. Mitsuba knows there is no place for him, he doesn’t need a blade at his throat to tell him that.)
Besides, the way Not-Kou is staring- barely blinking- kind of gives Mitsuba the creeps.
The lightning-sharp edge of the sword inches closer, then Natsuhiko starts yelling.
-
Mitsuba has never been to a tea party before, so he’s not sure what he should have expected.
From the look of it, the whole event has been in the works for a long while- cakes spread out across the table, balloons hanging from the ceiling, iced tea and party hats scattered around the room. Tsukasa floats in the background, but he gets preoccupied by the cake pretty quickly so Mitsuba can just about pretend he’s not there.
It’s the sight of a small cream cake, topped with a bunny decoration, that deals the final blow. Mitsuba swallows hard around the lump in his throat, then takes a bite out of the cake before he can do something as embarrassing as crying genuinely.
Fake crocodile tears are one thing. Crying for real over a few balloons and a welcome banner would just be awful.
Sakura eventually settles down beside him with a cake of their own. Mitsuba has always liked Sakura the most- they’re almost painfully cool, with their sleek hairstyle, painted nails, ability to silence both Tsukasa and Natsuhiko with a choice few words. Mitsuba thinks he might want to be friends with them, if supernatural beings are allowed such things.
Everything comes down to little details with Sakura. Their party planning book that’s no less than ten years out of date. The way they tap their fingernails against the table edge when Natsuhiko gets a little too rowdy. The minute shifts in their expression, small tells as to how they’re feeling- Mitsuba has learned a few of them through observation, and a the rest through Natsuhiko’s advice, because as much as he seems to drive Sakura up the wall sometimes, Natsuhiko is about as supportive as they come.
(Mitsuba also likes Sakura because they have things in common. Tsukasa’s presence woven into their half-lives. An existence that is not quite human. Things that not even Natsuhiko could understand.)
“You can stay as long as you want,” Sakura tells Mitsuba, perched underneath the party decorations, water pooling around their shoes.
Mitsuba stares back, through Sakura and their quiet surprise, through the banner in three different languages, through the mirror and into the boundary where he was cobbled together from missing parts against his will.
Here, Sakura has given him a choice.
-
Mitsuba is used to staring out of mirrors. Now, he stares into one.
It’s not just the present which school mystery three observes- from the moment the school was built and filled to its shores with supernatural life, the mirrors have been watching. Sakura doesn’t tell Mitsuba to stare into the past- they’re not Tsukasa, they always give him a choice in these things- but they’re the one who gives him the hint.
Why not try looking at your own reflection, for once?
So he does. Stares into the mirror and sees the face of another boy staring back. Pink hair, pink scarf, that mole on one side of his face. Wide eyes that cry more often than they should, a perpetual blush that never seems to go away. When he moves his arm, the body in the mirror moves too, but it doesn’t feel like it’s his own. Not solely his. (At least he looks cute. He’s still got that going for him.)
And then, very suddenly, it’s Mitsuba Sousuke who stares back.
He takes his first steps through the school gates in the middle of spring, followed by his mother who tells him to just be himself, who ruffles his hair embarrassingly, then curses under her breath because she left her lunch at home and now she’s going to be late. Mitsuba Sousuke is a liar who dodges his mother’s advice like it’s the plague, and walks into class with a demure smile on his face. One that’s not himself at all.
Mitsuba watches as the boy who came before meets Kou for the first time- an angry kid with an umbrella clutched to his chest even though it’s sunny outside. He watches as Sousuke sits directly in front of him, and spends the rest of the day trying to think up a conversation topic that doesn’t start as what’s up with the umbrella, loser?
Mitsuba watches as the seating plan changes three weeks in, and Sousuke is moved across the classroom without talking to Kou once.
Mitsuba watches as Sousuke joins the photography club, as he learns things from his seniors, as he snaps pictures of a dead crow he found on the lawn and then deletes them out of fear of looking weird. Sousuke cared a lot about things like that; fitting in, finding his place. They’re more alike than he cares to admit, in that sense.
Mitsuba watches as Sousuke sits quietly next to his mother during a parent-teacher meeting; some dull conversation about being quiet and studious but maybe needing to contribute a bit more. Middle school is a time for making friends, forming connections. Sousuke lies that he’s managing just fine. Mitsuba kind of wants to reach through the classroom window and shake him- because here is a boy who could have had everything, but threw it all away for the sake of seeming nice.
Mitsuba watches as Sousuke moves classes, and still finds himself glancing towards where Kou used to sit by the window.
Mitsuba watches as Sousuke’s last day at school goes exactly as normal. He sits across the room from Kou in maths class and doesn’t say a word to him. He eats lunch by himself. He hurries out of the gates under an umbrella to shelter from the snow, and he never comes back.
(Not as a human, at least.)
Mitsuba watches as Sousuke makes a deal with Tsukasa, for the first time. He watches as it comes back to haunt him in the form of the bent-neck boy, who looms over the middle school entrance like a nightmare.
Mitsuba watches as Sousuke argues with Kou, calls him important, takes that photo up on the rooftop with the clouds stained pink and spring turning the world around them rose-gold. All the things he could have done when he was alive but didn’t- because Sousuke didn’t understand that he had the whole world in his hands until it was forcibly ripped out of them.
Mitsuba watches the way Sousuke stared at Kou when the other wasn’t looking- stained pink, rose-gold, heart beating fast- and he knows. That fragment of soul rattling in his chest, it knows too.
He doesn’t realise he’s broken the mirror until the glass slices into the flesh of his palm, and he bleeds supernatural black over the cracked frame and shattered rock behind. Sousuke’s face splits in two, and Mitsuba decides that he hates him.
(Envy. That’s another feeling he’ll have to get used to.)
-
Number four’s painted world is every one of Mitsuba’s dreams, brought to life.
He makes fun of Kou, fits in with his friends, slugs through a tedious maths class and everyone looks when he writes down his answers on the board. He cleans the pool, gets into a stupid water fight, sits on the edge with Yokoo and Satou to drink soda and talk about meaningless things. They just have to hold out for a few days at most, and then this will become their reality.
Who cares if it’s a fake world, when it’s everything they’ve ever wanted?
( Almost everything. Kou still talks to him like he’s Mitsuba Sousuke, the one who no longer exists. It’s a small price to pay for his wish to come true.)
Of course, it’s Kou that ruins it. Stupid Kou with his stupid habit of being perceptive only when nobody wants him to be. He sees through Mitsuba’s plan like it’s a two-way mirror, and Mitsuba is the one standing on the wrong side.
He’s not happy. Nobody is ever happy with the hand they’ve been given- Sousuke never took his chances, Kou stares a life where everything is right in the face and says he doesn’t want it. They could be Sousuke and Kou again, rather than school mystery three and the Minamoto clan’s second-favourite son.
Mitsuba can pretend, so why can’t—
-
(“How about I die too, so we can stay together forever?”
When Kou falls, it’s not with Sousuke. Mitsuba is the one he reaches out for.)
-
That night where the stars fell leaves an unsavoury taste in Mitsuba’s mouth. It follows him- slowly, quietly, dangerously- a reminder of how willing Kou was to place his life in Mitsuba’s open hands. He’s an idiot, for being so selfless. So willing to throw away the very thing Mitsuba has spent his short, miserable existence longing for.
Mitsuba feels angry. (Among other things- because he cannot quite move past the surprise in Kou’s eyes when he found himself plucked from the air. Here is a boy who was prepared to die, that night.)
Anger can’t explain why Mitsuba feels a spike of panic at the sight of Kou out on the rooftop, his fingers trailing out into the open air. It’s earlier than usual; the sun still half-mast in the sky, leaving Kou’s ridiculous hair spun with gold. Peaceful, if not for the oddly calm look in his eyes.
Mitsuba never thought of Kou as the sort to be a cause for concern around tall buildings and sheer drops, but there’s only so much the mirrors can tell him. As much as Kou might wear his heart on his sleeve, he’s not entirely see-through. Even he must have his secrets.
Mitsuba holds his breath, exchanges concern for nonchalance, and strides out onto the rooftop. “It’s way too early to deal with your dumb face.” He announces, loud as he can, anything to make Kou step back from the edge.
Kou blinks, dazed, for a second, before sticking his tongue out childishly. “Good morning to you too, stupid.”
At least he looks fine. There’s none of the terrifying determination he wore that night haunting the back of his eyes this time. Mitsuba still treads carefully as he slots himself against the railing beside Kou.
“Some of us need our beauty sleep,” Mitsuba complains. (A lie; Mitsuba doesn’t think he requires sleep, and he wouldn’t need it to stay cute even if he did.) “Classes don’t start for hours. ”
“School trip,” Kou tugs on his earring sheepishly. “I kind of read the time wrong and showed up an hour early.”
Mitsuba snorts at that, an ugly sound that he doesn’t mind Kou hearing, for some reason. “Does Minamoto-kun not know how to read?”
“Shut up, I can read just fine,” Kou shoves him in the arm good-naturedly, before his grin slips just enough to be noticeable. “I just have a lot on my mind right now.”
Mitsuba once again feels all too aware of the drop in front of them. Four floors of nothing but empty space and sunrise warmth, followed by solid concrete below. Humans are fragile things. It would take less than that to break them. Mitsuba’s heart doesn’t belong to him, but it still does something nauseating inside of his chest at the thought.
“Minamoto-kun, can I ask you something?” Mitsuba steps cautiously, like he’s walking on shards of broken mirror. Kou nods, confused. “Why were you smiling when you jumped out of the window that night?”
After staring at him for what feels like hours, Kou finally responds.
“I guess I was just happy,” he tugs on his earring as he speaks, a nervous habit. “I thought I’d finally be able to understand you a little bit more.”
“Y’know, most people just ask questions when they want that sort of information, idiot.” Somewhere overhead, a seagull calls out towards the skyline, and Mitsuba leans out to face it. He doesn’t know if he could look directly at Kou without wanting to cry, or hit him, or something equally humiliating. “You’re the human here, start acting like it.”
“Doing whatever I can to help others is part of my job, though,” the light catches his raiteijou’s sharp edges when Kou jostles it quietly. “I might not be super powerful like Teru-nii, but I thought if I could at least do one thing, then-”
“If a friend asked you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?” Mitsuba cuts in, before the awful ball of feelings in his chest can rise up and suffocate him. Kou frowns; seriously considering the question. “ Don’t answer that.”
The response earns Mitsuba another shove in the arm.
Kou’s gaze doesn’t shift away from the gulls and their looping flight patterns, the blocky silhouette of the cityscape waking up in the distance- and Mitsuba terrifies himself with just how much he cares. Just how accustomed he is to Kou’s warmth at his side. Even now, the weighted silence between them is not uncomfortable.
“It’s what I was raised with, to do whatever it takes to help others,” when Kou finally turns to face him, Mitsuba can see a scar on his forehead, a pale slice of flesh just above his eyebrow. (A reminder of a time he failed, one he’ll always carry with him.) “That’s just what it means to be an exorcist.”
“Wow,” the gulls overhead call again, and Mitsuba shuffles a whole two feet backwards, pulling an ugly expression. Anything to avoid acknowledging the elephant in the room. “ Someone never got over their eighth-grade syndrome.”
And because it’s Kou, he gets it. For all that he’s stupid and selfless and a mess on the best of days, Mitsuba has never had to force pretty words of encouragement around him. He just has to be himself . (Not Sousuke. Not school mystery three. Just Mitsuba.)
“I’ll be fine,” Kou assures him, loud and clear. “I promised that we’d learn to be humans together, and a Minamoto never goes back on their word.”
I’m not falling this time- he says wordlessly. There’s no need to catch me.
Mitsuba lets out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding.
-
“You know,” Kou says later, once the sky has faded from pink to blue and the sun skims the rooftops. “I still have the camera, if you want it back.”
Mitsuba stares, disbelievingly, and immediately revokes every misconception he had about Minamoto Kou understanding him. Anger curls up fiercely in his stomach, and disappointment, and longing from a piece of soul that is only a part of him.
Kou seems to take his silence as an invitation to dig the hole he’s in deeper. “I mean it’s kind of wrecked right now, but I can probably get it-”
“I don’t do photography,” when Mitsuba replies, it’s a terse, angry thing. Kou’s expression shifts into something like a kicked puppy- all wide blue eyes, mouth slightly open- and Mitsuba almost feels bad for him.
Almost.
Taking photos was Sousuke’s thing. Sometimes Minamoto Kou looks at Mitsuba, and sees the ghost that once lived in his place. (Perhaps it’s an easy mistake to make, but that makes it hurt even worse.)
“I’m not him,” Mitsuba rises unsteadily to his feet. On any other occasion, the sight of Kou shocked into speechlessness would almost be hilarious- now, he just wants to get out. Kou understands more than most- he always has done, in every possible way- but there are some things that not even he can grasp. He doesn’t know what it feels like to live with a heart that is not his own, a face that is a hand-me-down, a soul cobbled together from missing parts.
If Kou handed him that camera, would Mitsuba know how to use it? Would his hands sit precisely upon the dials like muscle memory that never belonged to him?
( Ship of Theseus- one of Sakura’s strange books had read. How much of a body can you replace, before it becomes an entirely new person?)
“You’re not him,” Kou affirms, but his words falter as if he’s not quite sure.
Mitsuba is glad for the puddles left over from the previous night’s rainfall, as he steps into his reflection and disappears.
-
Mitsuba doesn’t like number seven.
Hanako- Kou calls him. ( Nuisance, loser, toilet-bastard are also things that Kou calls him, although Mitsuba has seen them playing cards together, pushing and pulling in a way that seems more than enemies. )
Mitsuba calls him Crazy Knife. A danger to his health, with a face that’s far too close to Tsukasa’s for comfort. Even without the same sharp teeth, it’s unsettling to witness.
However here, in the bathroom long after school has passed, Hanako looks altogether more human. He’s removed his hat, leaving his choppy hair sticking up at the back, and if not for the seal on his cheek, he’d look just like a student who got held back late in detention. Human. Normal.
He narrows his eyes toward the mirror that Mitsuba observes him through. “I can feel you watching me.”
In his surprise, Mitsuba topples straight out of the mirror, almost falls into the sink, and lands ungracefully on the bathroom floor. Not his cutest moment, by far.
“What d’you want, number three?” The tired note haunting the back of Hanako’s voice is unfamiliar. Mitsuba struggles to reconcile the sound of it to the face he shares with Tsukasa. Leading the seven mysteries must be an exhausting task- or perhaps there’s more going on. (It’s not like Mitsuba has ever seen Hanako do any work beyond causing trouble.)
“It’s number three’s job to observe the goings on in the school- I’m working right now so-” the flash of Hanako’s knife from between the closings of his gakuran jacket is enough to have Mitsuba scrambling back towards the mirror. “And keep that thing away from me! How could you threaten someone like-”
“Stop trying to become human, Mitsuba.” In the low-light, Hanako’s expression is terrifyingly unreadable. There’s nothing Mitsuba can do to stop the shudder that passes down his spine.
As Hanako’s words hang like lightning in the air, Mitsuba feels the skeletal ends of his scarf twitch instinctively. “You think I haven’t heard that one before?”
“It won’t work for you.” Mitsuba gets ready to protest, but Hanako cuts him off again. “It won’t work for any of us.”
That one- that’s new. An add-on to the same tired old phrase Mitsuba has heard from ghosts and exorcists alike. “Don’t waste your time wishing for something you’ll never reach.”
(From the way Hanako stares quietly at the moon hanging low and full and bright in the sky- Mitsuba thinks he must know the feeling personally.)
-
He still doesn’t like number seven- but it’s hard to hate him entirely after that.
Not when they hold something in common.
-
Mitsuba knows that Sakura is not good.
None of them are in the broadcasting club- Mitsuba included. He may have had this role forced upon him, but he was still the one who chose to stay. He knows what they do with the rumours- how they twist them into strange shapes, leaving a trail of contorted apparitions in the doorways and stairwells. Mitsuba knows the second-hand pain of being remade unwillingly, yet still he joins them.
With Tsukasa residing over them, with Sakura spilling dark rumours down the radio channels, Mitsuba knows the broadcasting club will never be good .
Despite this, he feels comfortable with them.
Natsuhiko is annoying and more than a little bit airheaded. He talks too much about the pretty girls and guys in his class, ruffles Mitsuba’s hair to mess up his neat ponytail, addresses him like he would a little brother. Mitsuba supposes, if apparitions could have siblings, then Natsuhiko is the closest he’s going to get. It’s easy to observe what siblings mean through the mirrors; it’s the easy bickering about what’s for dinner between sisters that never agree, it’s the twins in the middle school first year who pull ugly faces at each other in the corridors, it’s the crying girl behind the greenhouse being consoled by her older brother.
(Not that Mitsuba would ever admit those feelings out loud. Natsuhiko’s incessant Mitsuba-chans are bad enough as it is.)
Sakura is calm, the opposite of Natsuhiko’s loud enthusiasm. Though, the poetry they write speaks volumes where their words fail. They showed their notebook to Mitsuba once, with a conspiratory smile and a promise never to show Natsuhiko or Tsukasa or anyone else, ever. Even Sakura can tease when they feel like it. Mitsuba swore on it, as Sakura poured him a cup of tea and let him read through pretty, terrifying words that kept him up three nights in a row.
“You’re, like, the only person here that I respect,” Mitsuba confides in them once, playing with the ends of his scarf as Sakura searches for new rumours to whisper life into. “Even if you do give me that look sometimes.”
“What look?” Sakura asks, humour living below their words. Raised eyebrows, as if they’re judging every choice Mitsuba has ever made. He’d throw a fit about it, if Sakura wasn’t so effortlessly cool that their quiet scrutiny feels justified.
“ That look! The one you’re giving me right now!” Mitsuba slams his hands into the table. Sakura laughs into their teacup.
“Would you like some tea, Mitsuba?” They ask. Three taps of their long fingernails against the teapot, the smallest raise of their eyebrows. I’m enjoying myself- Mitsuba knows that one loud and clear.
-
“I’m not going to tell Tsukasa,” Sakura promises, when Mitsuba creeps back into the broadcasting room with the taste of freshly made omelette on his tongue and a bit of eggshell still stuck in his hair.
“It’s none of your business,” Mitsuba quips back, but he’s quietly grateful. Sakura is bound to Tsukasa just as much as Mitsuba is- that’s another thing they share.
Spending time with Kou has become embarrassingly common, in recent weeks. Some days Mitsuba just observes as Kou goes about his day; failing his maths tests, getting into trouble with Yokoo, exchanging lunch items with Satou. Things friends do. Sometimes Kou spots him in the window and gives him this sad, awful look, one that makes Mitsuba shudder so hard that he has to leave.
(He doesn’t run away from the fact that it makes his second-hand heart swell in his borrowed ribcage. Mitsuba runs from a lot of things- but stupid boys with stupid earrings are not one of them.)
Other days, it’s just the two of them. Ghost and exorcist sneaking into empty classrooms- practicing cooking, scaring the birds, chasing each other around the schoolyard because Kou flicked him in the forehead hard enough to hurt and Mitsuba is hungry for revenge. Kou doesn’t laugh quite so bright nowadays, though, no matter how fast Mitsuba chases him. As much as Mitsuba hates to admit it, the hollowness behind his grin is concerning.
He watched mirror-footage of Minamoto Kou from the year before as a reference point- the loud, unshakeable kid who kept announcing himself as an exorcist prodigy to teachers and students alike. He still laughs like a firework, but there’s something missing from it now. Some days, Mitsuba peers through the mirror in the classroom projector as Kou stays behind after class, hugs his umbrella close to his chest, and hunches over as if the weight of the world is his own to carry.
They never spoke about that conversation on the rooftop again. Kou keeps Sousuke’s name like a closely guarded secret as they bicker and shove and he pretends that things are as they always were.
( I’ll get you out of there- Kou tells him once. He’s selfless like that- always making things his own responsibility.
With what power?- Mitsuba says in return.)
When he comes back to the broadcasting room late, Sakura never tells, and they never ask either. Mitsuba is grateful.
-
It’s sometimes hard for him to tell whether these feelings are phantom pains- or something entirely new.
-
They meet on the rooftop again by sunrise, after the severance is over and the world has been stitched together the way it once was. Pink early-autumn skies, the cityscape stained golden. It’s too cold to be out on the roof- even the seagulls are huddled in their roosts, but Mitsuba only complains a small amount when Kou hauls him up the stairs by his sleeve. He’s seemed worn down lately, as if something had shifted in the time between the night Mitsuba woke up with his fingertips turned to shattered glass, and the morning he stepped out of his boundary right as rain again.
Mitsuba sometimes wonders how Kou’s heart fits in his chest, when it’s filled with so much stuff. He cares too deeply about too many things. Mitsuba hates it.
“Sousuke is gone,” Kou tells him, as the sun crests above their town, the mountains to the west and the distant sprawl of Tokyo to the east. Something cracks at the back of his voice, something that he’s been holding in for a very long time. The most broken thing Mitsuba has ever heard to come out of Minamoto Kou’s mouth. “He’s not coming back.”
There’s a selfish, bitter part of Mitsuba that wants to tell him; took you long enough to notice. He’s been gone for months. Stop clinging to his ghost.
But there is a time and place for Mitsuba’s usual attitude and this is not it. Kou has never been anything but shamelessly honest- it’s Mitsuba’s time to return the favour.
“I’m still here, though.” He replies.
Mitsuba has never seen Kou cry before- but there’s a first time for everything.
-
(And Mitsuba might not be human, but he has a lot of things to call his own now.
His hands aren’t empty any more.)