Work Text:
One day Mitsuba and his best friend Tsukasa were eating lunch in their classroom at school. Lots of their classmates were sighing sadly in depression, they wanted to eat lunch with the two great friends too but Mitsuba and Tsukasa were having so much fun laughing and talking about many things that they didn’t notice. They were eating typical foods that humans enjoy, for example rice and vegetables cooked to delectable perfection that had a simple yet gourmet flavour. They were just two normal alive human middle school students in every way except Mitsuba had a more effortless captivating allure than other middle school students and Tsukasa was loud.
All of a sudden the pinker more graceful boy gave a light gasp of wonder, he had an idea! “Why don’t you come round my house after school today Tsukasa-kun?” invited Mitsuba charmingly.
“That would be lots of fun” cheered the delicate pinkette’s best friend.
“Okay I will see you after school” smiled Mitsuba pushing a lock of silky hair cutely from his eyes. His eyes were naturally pink (not like he had a disease they were just pink) and they always shone sparklingly like two expensive diamonds and most people were jealous of his unique innocent look, also his eyelashes were pink and fluttered softly. They were long.
After school the two best friends walked to Mitsuba’s house. On the way they talked and laughed together about many things, they shared jokes and discussed interesting topics. Mitsuba lived in a big house with windows and a door like if you search for pictures of a house on the internet. In the garden thousands of stunningly beautiful rare flowers bloomed exquisitely and as they walked down the road to the house a sweet perfume met them that complemented Mitsuba’s natural fragrance. The house was pink.
“Wow Mitsuba-kun your house is pink” exclaimed the shorter boy in a loud scream. He was so impressed he stopped walking and stared at it for a couple of minutes! His mouth was open!
“Thank you” blushed Mitsuba happily.
The two human friends walked inside Mitsuba’s pink house. It had all the normal things humans need, like beds for sleeping and a place to wash, you could choose the bath or the shower. It even had a room just for eating food. This was called the dining room and it had a big table that was designer and antique, and twelve chairs with red velvet cushions for parties. Mitsuba had lots of parties with all his friends but Tsukasa was his best friend.
“Shall we have some snacks” suggested the older more elegant boy generously.
“YES” agreed the smaller boy. He was screaming because he was happy. He was so happy he gave his best friend Mitsuba a hug! They hugged for ten minutes. Then they ate some delicious snacks and drank real orange juice squeezed out of exotic real oranges. Mitsuba and Tsukasa agreed the orange juice was tasty and refreshing.
“Hmm what shall we do now” wondered Mitsuba, holding his chin as he looked up thinking hard with intelligence and charm shining softly in his naturally pink orbs.
“Let’s do some colouring” uttered the louder boy loudly.
“Got you Tsukasa-kun!” laughed Mitsuba with a cute chuckle. “I knew you would want to do some colouring so I have some colouring books for us already! Let’s do some colouring!”
“HOORAY” shrieked Tsukasa gratefully. “You’re so thoughtful Mitsuba-kun! How did you know that I would want to do some colouring?!”
“Because we’re best friends silly!” teased the pinker boy.
“That’s true” uttered the short brunette. “You’re so good at being best friends Mitsuba-kun!”
“So are you Tsukasa-kun” said Mitsuba. They smiled at each other feeling appreciated, they also felt valued.
First Mitsuba coloured a picture of a boat and Tsukasa coloured a picture of some trees. Then Mitsuba coloured a picture of a mountain range and Tsukasa coloured a picture of a box with kittens in it. Some of the kittens had vampire fangs or moustaches after Tsukasa finished colouring them and the two best friends giggled. Then Mitsuba coloured a picture of a temple and Tsukasa coloured a picture of an aeroplane. Mitsuba was better at staying inside the lines and his colour choices were more tasteful and harmonious but he enjoyed seeing what the smaller golden-eyed more boisterous boy would come up with next. Tsukasa had a big imagination! He coloured in the aeroplane so it was on fire!
“There are no passengers in it” Tsukasa advised shoutingly.
“Good because that would be dangerous!”
The best friends laughed. Mitsuba’s set of colouring pencils had every colour you can imagine and three different shades of pink.
“This one’s you” clamoured the noisier boy. He had coloured in a picture of two birds on a branch. One was black and one was three shades of pink! It was Mitsuba!
“And that one’s you!” concluded Mitsuba with a soft gasp. He pressed his slender artistic hands to his cheeks!
“It’s us” yelled Tsukasa with a nod.
The two best friends shared a warm chuckle, their eyes meeting gently over their colouring books. Their eyes were naturally pink and gold. Mitsuba’s were more breathtaking but Tsukasa’s were nice too, they were gold like they were made out of real gold. Also they were big but not in a cute way. But Tsukasa was Mitsuba’s best friend so he was cute on the inside and that’s where it counted!!!
“Mitsuba-chan? Hey, earth to Mitsuba-chan.” Natsuhiko’s leaning over the table, peering down into Mitsuba’s face. He waves a hand until Mitsuba realises he’s there, and then Mitsuba starts in fright and slams his notebook closed and glares at him. “You wanna get out of here?” Natsuhiko offers.
“No,” Mitsuba says. “Unless you’re asking if I want you to get out of here, in which case yes, thank you, that’d be—”
“Just for a little walk,” Natsuhiko says. “A stretch of the legs. Change of scenery. You can do that spooky little trick and get us a couple of free drinks out the vending machine, how about it?” He wiggles his fingers: the spooky little trick is Mitsuba phasing his arm through the vending machine’s glass front. “C’mon, let’s get out of here for a bit.”
“But I don’t want—”
“You do,” Natsuhiko says. He’s doing his friendly but firm voice, more insufferable even than most of his usual voices. “Think about it, Mitsuba-chan. Think a little harder. I think you do.”
Over at the broadcasting desk Sakura is sitting in the chair and Tsukasa is floating in the air beside her, his arm wrapped tight around her shoulders. He’s speaking into her ear so quietly that Mitsuba wouldn’t know he was speaking at all if he couldn’t see him very slightly in profile, his mouth moving, his expression dead and neutral; Sakura listens, and nods. Sometimes she replies in a voice which is only a murmur. They’re talking business.
“Come on,” Natsuhiko says. He pats the top of Mitsuba’s head; he ruffles his hair. He doesn’t have the grace to look ashamed of himself when Mitsuba smacks his hand away and immediately begins removing every single one of his hair accessories so he can fix himself up perfectly again: untouched by Natsuhiko again. “I really think you wanna get out of here, Mitsuba-chan. Sooner rather than later. Trust your worldly-wise senpai to know what’s best for you, why don’t you? Let’s go and rob a couple of vending machines.”
Sakura lifts a padded headset down from its hook on the wall. Out of nowhere, Tsukasa’s radio appears. They’ve finished talking business. They’re about to start doing business.
Mitsuba puts his notebook away into a pocket; he puts his handful of loose hairpins into his other pocket. Reluctantly, he goes to rob a couple of vending machines with Natsuhiko.
One day a new supernatural arrived in Kamome Academy. His name was Mitsuba and he was a frail supple youth who looked exactly like a human, most people wouldn’t even guess he wasn’t a human because he looked exactly like one. He had clear glowing skin and his eyes always shone like pink lightbulbs. After he arrived in Kamome Academy he walked around and looked at various things for a while.
All of a sudden a ghost jumped out!
“I WILL KILL YOU” menaced the ghost in a growling voice, doing a scary pose.
Mitsuba screeched nervously. He knew the ghost was a ghost because the ghost was see-through and nobody dressed like that these days, the ghost wasn’t on trend like Mitsuba. Mitsuba was wearing an oversized pink cardigan which engulfed his slender frame and emphasised his cuteness, it had delicate scalloped edges on the cuffs and a pattern with some small pink leaves on the pockets, and he was wearing school uniform but the trousers had a more flattering cut with a leg-lengthening effect. “No don’t kill me!” shouted Mitsuba anxiously. He fluttered his eyelashes over his gorgeous pink eyes which were shimmering with tears cutely.
“No I will kill you” uttered the ghost meanly.
“But that would be wrong” cried Mitsuba pressing one hand over his heart because of his feelings.
“Why would it be wrong” frowned the short ghost.
“Because...” spoke Mitsuba with entrancing crystalline tears glittering in his eyes “I don’t want to die! I want to live! There is so much to see and do in this wonderful world and I want to see and do all of it, oh please don’t kill me. I am too young to die I am but an innocent virgin.”
“I never thought about it like that before” whispered the ghost confusedly, he gripped his cap thinking hard. It seemed like his whole way of life was changing in that moment as he pondered heavily about Mitsuba’s emotional words from the heart. “But...... you are right I suppose. It would be bad if I killed you now I know you don’t want to be killed.”
Mitsuba bawled with tears elatedly. He had reached the ghost’s cruel heart with his brave honest words, he had changed the ghost forever and made him become good like Mitsuba! “Let’s be friends” encouraged Mitsuba joyfully, he clasped the ghost’s hands in his hands. They were holding hands.
“All right my name is Tsukasa” agreed Tsukasa. “But I’ve never had a friend before because I used to be just a nasty scary ghost who hurt people all the time until you taught me hurting people is bad. You will have to teach me all about friendship Mitsuba-kun.”
“My name is... Mitsuba” explained Mitsuba. “The number one most important thing about being friends is you don’t hurt your friends!”
“I would never hurt you Mitsuba-kun! You’re my friend” exclaimed Tsukasa nicely. “I would be such a mean ghost still if I hadn’t met you, I wouldn’t understand that hurting people is wrong and unkind especially you. I’m so lucky to be your friend.”
“And I’m lucky to be yours” retorted Mitsuba warmly. The two friends shared an understanding smile their lips curving upwards happily in friendship. Also they were still holding hands because they liked it. That was the beginning of Mitsuba and Tsukasa’s best friend adventures and many more were to follow!!!
Tsukasa appears in the boundary with no smoke and no sound and no warning; no hello for Mitsuba, either. “Where’s my wheelbarrow?” he demands.
“You broke it,” Mitsuba says. Surreptitiously he flips his notebook closed and even more surreptitiously he pushes it behind his back, through a mirror, stashing it securely out of sight for equally surreptitious later collection. “The other day, Tsukasa-kun – remember when you and Natsuhiko-senpai went sledding together?” Tsukasa’s stare is blank. Mitsuba perseveres. “You went down the main staircase in it, you crashed. The wheel came off. That was when Natsuhiko-senpai broke his ankle, that’s why he’s wearing a cast this week; that’s why he was using crutches, till you broke them. The wheelbarrow wasn’t supposed to be used for—”
“The wheel came off?”
“The big one at the front,” says Mitsuba. Tsukasa’s stare remains blank. “When you hit the turn; you didn’t swerve in time, the wheel came off right before you crashed through the railings—”
“Then where is the wheel?”
Mitsuba doesn’t know. “But we could make a new sled, if you want,” he hastens to add, “I bet it wouldn’t be hard, even if the wheelbarrow’s no good anymore. There must be tons of other things we could use for—”
“I’m not interested in sleds,” Tsukasa says impatiently, as though he didn’t spend the majority of his waking hours last week – which were, as usual, the same as Mitsuba’s waking hours; Mitsuba rarely gets to have sleeping hours unless Tsukasa decides that he wants sleeping hours – informing everyone around him at the top of his voice about how he and Amane used to go sledding and how good he was at sledding and how he had to have a sled to go sledding again, immediately. But sleds were last week’s thing. Tsukasa’s over that now. He’s moved on. “I need to do some digging, I need to move some dirt around. I need a wheelbarrow.”
“I can try to help anyway,” Mitsuba offers. “Do you want some help with digging, Tsukasa-kun? Or looking for the wheel? I expect if the two of us work together it’ll be much easier for you to—”
“No,” says Tsukasa, and disappears again.
One day a dangerous huge monster kidnapped Mitsuba and took him to a secret hideout, it was smelly and dark and there was dirty stuff on the ground. Mitsuba wept softly because he would never get the stains out of his exclusive designer leggings, they were pink and cute.
“My best friend will save me” whimpered the gentle boy bravely yet vulnerably. “You had better let me go now before he arrives or you’ll be in big trouble.”
“No one can beat me” jeered the hideous monster boastfully. It was so ugly you can’t even imagine it, it was just disgusting. It highlighted Mitsuba’s fresh youthful attractiveness in contrast.
“My best friend can beat you” asserted the tearful pinkette, tears were flowing like a stunning natural waterfall from his captivating pink eyes.
“I will kill your best friend and mutilate his body” laughed the monster happily.
“Please for your own sake let me go” begged Mitsuba. He was sobbing because he cared so much about the lives of others, his heart was gigantic like his sex appeal not that the innocent pure-hearted boy had any idea the world saw him in that lecherous way. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you because of me!!!”
The monster was just about to sneer a loathsome reply when Mitsuba’s best friend arrived!
“I AM HERE TO SAVE YOU” affirmed the younger boy ragingly as a crack of thunder boomed in the smelly hideout. It wasn’t real thunder it was a ghost thing, it was really scary.
“Oh no you didn’t say your best friend was TSUKASA” quivered the monster, trembling all over but not cutely.
“I knew you would save me” breathed Mitsuba gratefully as his eyes joined his best friend’s eyes and a deep bond of connection stirred them in their souls. It was friendship.
Then Mitsuba closed his eyes because the next bit was gross. He put his hands over his adorable shell-like ears too, even the power of friendship could not tame Tsukasa’s dark and savage instincts in fact if anything it made them wilder where Mitsuba was concerned.
When Mitsuba opened his sparkling eyes once more the monster was gone. “What’s that pile of dog food on the floor?” he mused with a thoughtful frown.
“That is the monster” revealed his short friend bloodily. Mitsuba screamed a bit but only because he was surprised, afterwards he embraced Tsukasa with his arms and they enjoyed a warm tender hug for several minutes now that Mitsuba was safe again.
“You didn’t have to hurt the monster” remonstrated Mitsuba.
“Actually I did because it hurt my best friend” Tsukasa said snarlingly with a scary face. But Mitsuba wasn’t scared because Tsukasa always protected him, they were best friends.
“Thank you” Mitsuba murmured softly holding his best friend’s gaze.
“Thank YOU” quipped the more bloodthirsty boy smilingly, “for being my best friend!!!”
And the two friends laughed and laughed.
A thud and a pop and a squelch, and gloopy black stuff explodes all over Mitsuba’s notebook and he lets out a shriek of fright, kicking over his chair and leaping to his feet. Tsukasa, sitting on the table with a hand smeared in supernatural guts, is laughing uproariously. No one else is laughing. Sakura and Natsuhiko are watching on in mildly revolted sympathy. The big fat beetle-looking thing on the table isn’t doing anything and won’t ever again, because Tsukasa just smashed it to pulp with his fist.
“You could have warned me,” Mitsuba says accusingly, to the other two over by the desk.
“The kid told us not to,” Natsuhiko says. “I figured you’d spot him, anyway. You were in a world of your own, Mitsuba-chan; how didn’t you notice him creeping up?”
“’Cause I’m quiet... as... a... ghost,” says Tsukasa, lifting his voice up louder and louder with every word so that the last one is a deafening yell. “You got guts on this, Mitsuba,” he adds, at his ordinary volume; he’s picked up Mitsuba’s entrail-smeared notebook. “What is it?”
Mitsuba’s own guts feel as though they’ve just exploded too. “It’s nothing,” he says politely. A hot crawling itch is burning in his shoulders, always the first sign that his body’s easily panicked supernatural self-defence system wants to burst into action. Attacking Tsukasa would be the exact opposite of self-defence. “Can I have it back, please, Tsukasa-kun?”
Tsukasa’s already opened it. “It’s got my name in!” he exclaims, and whips his head around in excitement. “Sakura, it’s got my name in!”
“Perhaps you should return that to Mitsuba-kun,” says Sakura.
“Tsukasa, Tsukasa, Tsukasa, Tsukasa, Tsukasa,” says Tsukasa, stabbing his finger to every Tsukasa he finds; he turns the page. “Tsukasa, Tsukasa, Tsukasa, Tsu—”
“Tsukasa-kun, please. Please,” says Mitsuba. He’s looking frantically past him at Sakura, at Natsuhiko; he widens his eyes and makes his expression desperately pleading, which he’s entirely aware maximises his adorable qualities to such a degree that no ordinary being can resist him anything he asks for so long as he keeps looking at them like that. “Please, Tsukasa-kun, it’s very boring. You won’t like it. It’s just some, some homework – I thought I’d pretend I was going to school, like a normal human, so I’ve been pretending to study, writing out my homework, it’s very embarrassing for me and it’s not even a little bit interesting for you, Tsukasa-kun, so please could you – please, Tsukasa-kun, please, could you just... Will you—”
“You’d better give it back, kiddo,” Natsuhiko says. “It’s not nice to look at people’s private things. You don’t want Mitsuba-chan crying about it, do you?”
Tsukasa reaches for Mitsuba’s arm and vanishes them together. Mirrors and mirrors: they’re in Mitsuba’s own boundary.
“Please don’t read it,” says Mitsuba.
“I’m going to read it,” announces Tsukasa.
Mitsuba lets Tsukasa read it. What else can he do? He sits on the floor and watches while Tsukasa reads the evidence of all of Mitsuba’s most embarrassing and heartfelt daydreams. In his imagination this humiliating reveal has happened a dozen times before, obviously, and though the details vary the overall sequence of events is always the same. First, painful but necessary, comes the mortifying discovery – Mitsuba’s secrets exposed, the shocking truth of his heart revealed... but then, in the aftermath, a shared understanding always begins to emerge; a surprising new closeness always develops between them. New ideas begin to take root in Tsukasa’s mind, encouraged by his discovery of the ideas which have all along been in Mitsuba’s mind, and Tsukasa starts thinking hard about something he’s never given much thought before.
And at last, like sunshine after rain, a brand new and far more glorious happiness is born from the darkness which came before. Brought together by the truth, Mitsuba and Tsukasa’s friendship ultimately blossoms into something much, much more: best friendship.
Mitsuba’s imagined that. Mitsuba’s imagined a lot of things.
“Who’s the younger boy?” asks Tsukasa.
It takes Mitsuba several tries to get his voice to cooperate; it wants to hide fearfully burrowed down inside his throat. “That’s, um. You.”
“Me!” Tsukasa echoes. Is he angry? He’s laughing, but that doesn’t mean he’s not angry; that doesn’t mean anything. “I’m way older than you, Mitsuba! Wa-a-a-ay older! You only started existing a tiny little while ago, didn’t you?”
Mitsuba tries his best to keep his mouth shut. “But it’s sort of – I was imagining,” he finds himself helplessly attempting to explain instead, “if we were humans, then – um, some of my, my stories... They’re set in a world where we’re humans. And I thought – in that world, if I was like the other Mitsuba... Then I thought I would be older. If I was like him. If you were alive. Because – you’re much smaller than me, so... I just imagined it. But I can change it,” Mitsuba says swiftly, “I can get rid of that part, I can get rid of the whole notebook if you—”
Tsukasa shakes his head. He keeps turning the pages. His hands are still smeared with ghost guts. So are Mitsuba’s stories, now. “This is all fake stuff,” he observes, apparently as mystified as he is intrigued.
“It’s – well, I imagined it,” says Mitsuba, “so it’s all, that’s what it is. Just stuff I imagined.”
“Why isn’t it about Amane?”
None of Mitsuba’s extensive daydreams of discovery ever anticipated that question. None of Mitsuba’s many pre-prepared answers or excuses or explanations are equipped to answer that question. “Because... it isn’t,” he tries, casting about unsuccessfully for anything better to say. “It just isn’t.”
“But why not?”
“Because – I just, I wanted to write about us. To imagine us.”
“But why not Amane?”
“Um. Well, I suppose... I just wasn’t thinking about him,” Mitsuba ventures. He’s watching Tsukasa warily, waiting for any kind of reaction, to make sure he’ll know straight away if he ought to be saying something else instead. “Um. None of it’s real, Tsukasa-kun. It’s just imaginary. It’s not – you probably think it’s weird, it is weird. Do you think it’s weird?”
“It’s weird that you didn’t put Amane in,” Tsukasa says frankly. He returns to reading. He isn’t yelling or ripping out the pages or laughing or calling Mitsuba rude names; he’s just turning the pages, studying them curiously, seeming still sincerely puzzled by the absence of Amane. He’s sitting on the floor too, slouched back against the railings, and his knees are sprawled open so wide that Mitsuba can see up his hakama; Mitsuba can see his inner kimono. It’s not like Mitsuba’s looking: it’s just there. It’s hard not to see it. It’d be more pervy if Mitsuba tried not to see it, because that’d be like admitting he thinks there’s something pervy about him seeing it in the first place.
Tsukasa’s still reading. “You’ve never worked in a florist’s,” he remarks.
“No,” Mitsuba says meekly. “But I just thought it might be nice if I did.”
“You should make Amane a florist, too. It’d be better like that.”
“What? My story? You think my story would be better?”
“Stories are boring if Amane’s not in them! When I write stories they’ve always got Amane in.”
Mitsuba, already startled to be receiving creative advice from Tsukasa, is yet again so badly startled that his voice squeaks out in shock: “You write stories? Tsukasa-kun? You?”
Tsukasa confirms it with a fist punched into the air. No wonder he hasn’t reacted badly, if he does it too! And perhaps everyone does it – perhaps Natsuhiko writes about Sakura, and Sakura writes about a world without Natsuhiko; perhaps everybody does this, ghosts and humans alike, and Mitsuba’s just too sheltered to have realised it before. Perhaps he’s been embarrassed all this time over nothing.
And the fact that Tsukasa is willingly disclosing such personal information to Mitsuba: doesn’t that suggest he’s already feeling closer to Mitsuba? That their friendship has already, perhaps, reached a new level of intimacy...? Tsukasa has learned he has more in common with Mitsuba than he ever thought, and already he’s reassessing their relationship in light of that. Tsukasa is seeing Mitsuba through new eyes. Their connection is growing stronger by the moment, probably.
“Then would you maybe, um... would you like to share your stories some time?” Mitsuba dares to ask him. He’s near breathless with terror of his own boldness. “We could read each other’s stories, or – or we could just talk about our ideas, we could—”
“You can’t read them,” Tsukasa says. “I don’t write them down! I write them in my head! Like this!” And as soon as he’s said it he freezes in place, staring up towards the distant spiralling ceiling of the boundary.
Several minutes pass in silence.
Tsukasa relaxes again. “Like that,” he explains.
“You just wrote a story?” says Mitsuba. “In your head?”
“Yeah!”
“What was it about?”
“Amane!” And, fast enough to make Mitsuba jump, Tsukasa’s there beside him. He flings himself flat on his stomach and slaps the notebook down in front of Mitsuba, open already to a brand new page. “You write one too, now,” he says commandingly. “Write a new one! I’ll watch, I’ll help you. I’ll give you tips.”
“You want me to write a story...?” Emotionally, creatively, interpersonally: he and Tsukasa are crossing so many new and overwhelming frontiers at the same time that it’s difficult for Mitsuba to keep up; his world is spinning in a dozen bewildering directions. “Just – like that? Right now?”
“I’ll help!”
“But—”
But what? What, exactly, does Mitsuba think he’s about to say? That he doesn’t usually engage in the creative process under conditions like these? That he’s not comfortable producing his works with the pressure of an audience? That all of his pieces are more private and personal than Tsukasa perhaps realises, and he prefers not to share? Tsukasa is actively inviting him to spend time together – to engage in a fun, creative hobby together! – and Mitsuba really wants to say no to that?
It’s not that Tsukasa is never friendly; it’s just that his friendliness is unpredictable and unreliable, and much like lightning, in that his friendliness rarely strikes in the same place twice and is capable of causing catastrophic amounts of damage for everyone involved. But Tsukasa’s temper has been calmer for longer than it ever usually is, while he’s been absorbed in Mitsuba’s stories; Tsukasa has been holding up his side of the conversation normally, the way Mitsuba likes best, listening to Mitsuba and answering Mitsuba and saying things to Mitsuba which make sense based on what Mitsuba said last, instead of just yelling or running off or throwing things into the air and laughing about it.
If Tsukasa wants a story, then Mitsuba wants to write him one. If this is the path to friendship, then Mitsuba’s taking it without hesitation and he won’t look back.
Mitsuba picks up his pen. “What should I write about?”
“Amane,” says Tsukasa.
“Well – I think, probably... I can include him,” says Mitsuba, carefully, “I could find a way to include him, I expect, but the main plot—”
“So long as it’s got Amane in it’ll be fine,” Tsukasa says. “Mitsuba, c’mon! Write it! Let me see it!”
Tsukasa’s excited! He’s eager! He’s waiting – for Mitsuba! Only Mitsuba can deliver what Tsukasa wants right now! Mitsuba has never felt more powerful, nor more aware of the terrible dangers of power. The higher he climbs, the farther he might fall.
But he has his pen. He has a ready stockpile of daydream material from which he can draw story-writing inspiration. He has an unprecedented boost in hope and confidence; he has Tsukasa waiting keenly for his story. He also has some important subliminal messages to convey about the joy of friendship, being nice, and holding hands.
Mitsuba gets to work.
One day Mitsuba and Tsukasa
“—and Amane,” Tsukasa interrupts, jabbing his finger into the space right after his name; Mitsuba’s pen skids off into a hasty squiggle to avoid him. “Put Amane’s name next, Amane’s there too. Make Amane be there too.”
“I’m getting there,” Mitsuba says. “But that hasn’t happened yet, Tsukasa-kun. I need to set the story up first.”
“Set it up with Amane in it!”
“I will! I will, I promise – but not yet,” Mitsuba insists, feeling braver than ever with the urge to be true to his own creative vision. “You’ve got to wait and see. You’ve got to let me build up to it first. ...Will you move your finger, please? I can’t keep writing if you’ve got your hand in the way.”
One day Mitsuba and Tsukasa were at Mitsuba’s house musing about what to do with some thread they had that day. The thread was a gift from an old man they helped cross the road who was so grateful he cried but he didn’t have any money so he gave them lots of different coloured rolls of thread instead, he was poor. It wasn’t much of a gift but the old man’s happy sobs were all the payment the two gentle-hearted best friends needed anyway. They also had their pictures in the newspaper and on the internet because everyone was impressed with how kind they were.
“Hmm what shall we do with all this thread” puzzled Mitsuba with an intelligent frown.
“What about
“—catching flies,” Tsukasa butts in eagerly, knocking Mitsuba’s pen off course in his enthusiasm to smack the page and make his point. “You can do that with thread, if you’re careful. You got to make sure the wings don’t get ripped off when you’re catching them or else they just lie there, you can’t get them to fly again, but you can get them in this sort of harness, if you do it properly. You can fly them like a kite! Now Amane comes in,” he instructs Mitsuba, giving the page another few commanding prods, “and he’s got loads of flies on strings, he’s holding them, he’s got them all like this—” He demonstrates: one securely clenched fist, like someone hanging on tight to a clutch of balloons. “And then Amane’s like, Tsukasa, d’you wanna go and catch flies, and then me and Amane go and catch flies, we catch millions of them and then—”
“That’s not what happens,” Mitsuba says sternly.
“Why not?” says Tsukasa.
“Because it’s not! That’s not the story.”
“It should be,” says Tsukasa. “When’s Amane coming in?”
“You’ve got to wait and see.”
“Wait and see Amane.”
“Yes,” says Mitsuba. “Yes, that’s just it. Some important plot points need to happen first.”
“What about making friendship bracelets” proposed the very loud brunette friend with inspiration, he raised a finger cleverly to show he had an idea.
“Friendship bracelets!!!” screamed Mitsuba in surprise happily “That’s a good idea Tsukasa-kun, because we’re friends. Yes let’s do that.”
After that Mitsuba and Tsukasa made friendship bracelets.
“What’s one of those?” asks Tsukasa.
“They’re bracelets,” Mitsuba explains, “a sort of bracelet you make yourself, and then you give them to your friends.”
“Why?”
“Just as a sort of present, mostly. To show that you’re friends. So then everyone else knows you’re friends, too. And then everyone else is jealous because they didn’t get a friendship bracelet from you; they know they’re not your best friend.”
Everything Mitsuba knows about friendship bracelets he’s learned from eavesdropping conversations through the mirrors of various girls’ toilets – not Hanako’s, ideally never Hanako’s, he prefers to stay as far from Hanako as it’s possible to get – and then from further secretive online research when Natsuhiko has allowed him to use his tablet unsupervised. If Tsukasa has questions, Mitsuba has answers. Mitsuba also has daydreams. Mitsuba has several extensively fantasised scripts he’s ready to act out in real life at any moment in order to make his friendship bracelet daydreams a reality, just as soon as Tsukasa unwittingly says the word.
Mitsuba waits, in case any follow-up questions might yet be forthcoming. They’re not. Tsukasa seems satisfied by the concept of two best friends publicly staking out their territorial claim on each other. He rests his chin on his folded arms, watching the page. He’s kicking his feet behind him. He’s waiting for more of the story.
After that Mitsuba and Tsukasa made friendship bracelets. Carefully and delicately they wove the strands of thread together in subtle artistic patterns which fascinated the eye and made everyone who saw them wish they had a best friend as good at making friendship bracelets as Mitsuba and Tsukasa. They were as good as if they had been bought in a shop, not just any shop but a special expensive shop just for friendship bracelets where you had to pass a test to decide if you were best-enough friends to be allowed to buy them. Mitsuba and Tsukasa would have been allowed.
Some of the thread colours they had were red, yellow, blue, dark blue, light blue, sky blue, aquamarine blue, green, other kinds of green, black, and white. They also had orange, brown, and purple. And of course pink. Lots of the colours came in different shades so actually there were many different sorts of pink, for example there was light pink, pastel pink, bright pink, dark pink, and a deep exquisite shade of fuchsia which brought out the vivid enchanting colour in Mitsuba’s eyes which was the same colour, which was fuchsia.
Mitsuba was making a bracelet with black and purple thread with some bits of gold expertly woven into it for an intricate and mesmerising luxury effect. Tsukasa was making a bracelet with many kinds of pink.
“That bit’s wrong,” Tsukasa says abruptly. He smacks his hand down against the page and Mitsuba, unable to skid his pen to safety in time, accidentally draws on him. Tsukasa doesn’t care; Tsukasa is utterly focused. “Mitsuba, change that, it’s wrong. Mine’s red.”
“In the story it’s pink,” says Mitsuba.
“No! I wouldn’t make a pink one! It’s red,” says Tsukasa, “it’s not pink. Make it red. Say it’s red.”
“But that’s not how it works, Tsukasa-kun. You’re supposed to make a bracelet the other person would like,” Mitsuba explains, “because they’re your friend; that’s why you’re making them a bracelet in the first place. So mine’s black and purple because you like black and purple, and it’s gold too, because – because of, um... your eyes”—this part said very quickly, and in a mumble which hopefully Tsukasa won’t care enough to listen to—“and yours is pink because I like pink. So that’s why it’s—”
“Mine’s red,” Tsukasa says obstinately. “It’s red ‘cause me and Amane like red, and I’m giving it to Amane. Change it so it says that.”
“You’re giving it to me!”
“Why would I give it to you? Amane’s my friend! Amane’s my best friend, he’s my best best bestest friend in the whole wide world, I’m giving it to Amane! And it’s red!”
“No! In the story you’re giving it to me! It’s my story,” Mitsuba says with stubborn bravery, “and in my story I say you’re—”
“Mitsuba,” says Tsukasa.
Tsukasa was making a bracelet with many kinds of pink, this bracelet was for Mitsuba his best friend of many years who he had shared many fun adventures with and enjoyed many warm enjoyable memories with. Tsukasa was also making a red bracelet, this was for his brother. He
“Twin brother,” says Tsukasa. “We’re twins. You’ve got to put that in.”
Tsukasa was also making a red bracelet, this was for his twin brother. He finished that one in a couple of minutes and put it away somewhere and then he spent way more time painstakingly crafting the heartfelt artistic design of the pink one for Mitsuba, this one was filled with all his thoughts of friendship. He had a nice smile while he made it and sometimes he quietly laughed a bit to himself.
“What are you smiling and laughing about” wondered the pinker boy unknowingly.
“I’m just thinking about all the unforgettable once-in-a-lifetime moments we’ve shared together as friends over the years” explained the livelier friend, he emitted a chuckle pleasantly thinking of the past.
“Wow Tsukasa-kun you will never guess what” exclaimed Mitsuba as he took a huge breath in shock at the stunning coincidence. “So was I. In fact I was just reminiscing some moments from our last summer holiday when as you will remember we took a fun trip to
Mitsuba lifts his pen from the page. “Tsukasa-kun,” he says, imploringly.
No response. Tsukasa has been inching nearer and nearer, watching Mitsuba’s pen more and more closely, and by this point he’s leaning all the way over the notebook. Mitsuba has a clear view of the back of Tsukasa’s head, and no view whatsoever of his heartfelt creative work.
“Tsukasa-kun,” says Mitsuba, trying again, “please can you move? I can’t even see what I’m doing, when you’re that close. I can’t keep writing with your head in the way.”
“When’s Amane coming?” Tsukasa asks.
“Soon,” Mitsuba promises, and at once wishes he hadn’t – but it’s very hard to resist the instinctive reflex to promise Tsukasa whatever he wants as soon as he makes it known that he wants it; it’s a matter of personal safety, usually. “Soon... ish. I mean, he’ll definitely make an appearance, I promised you Amane-kun would at least make an—”
“Make him arrive now.”
“But I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Well – because we’re at my house. I already said we’re at my house. Why would Amane-kun know where my house is? I can’t just write him showing up out of nowhere, that wouldn’t make any sense in the story; he doesn’t have a reason to arrive just suddenly out of the—”
“Make Amane just show up out of nowhere,” says Tsukasa. “Now. Do it now.”
“But we’re in the middle of a conversation,” Mitsuba objects, “we’re reminiscing, Tsukasa-kun, we’re about to talk about the trip we took last summer to—”
“Make Amane just show up out of nowhere,” Tsukasa says again. His voice has flattened itself. “Mitsuba, now. Now.”
All of a sudden while Mitsuba and Tsukasa were in the middle of sharing some humorous yet deeply touching anecdotes of friendship together the doorbell rang, DING-DONG DING-DONG! Someone was knocking and beating and punching the front door too in kind of a crazy way, it was scary.
“Oh no I wonder who that could be” quivered Mitsuba, he pressed his hands over his naturally sensual yet adorable mouth anxiously.
“Don’t worry Mitsuba-kun I will go and see, you will be safe” uttered the smaller boy strongly. He went to go and see and it was............
“Amane!” Tsukasa bursts out, when Mitsuba stops writing. “Amane, it was Amane, put Amane’s name. Put Amane! Say it was Amane!”
Mitsuba is trying. He’s trying! He’s holding his pen very tightly! But now that the moment is here, he can’t shake the paranoid certainty that if he’s bold enough, foolish enough, to put that name to paper then an instant later Hanako will also show up out of nowhere to say a load of mean creepy things to Mitsuba and swagger around being weird and threaten to put a knife in him; Mitsuba can’t shake the feeling that Hanako will know. Even just saying the name aloud with Tsukasa feels risky enough, but Mitsuba does it anyway because he suspects that refusing might risk provoking Tsukasa, which is a far more realistic and immediate danger than the possibility Hanako might overhear him and come and say weird sex things at him in retribution.
But there’s a big difference between saying it in private and committing the evidence to paper. Invoking the name of Amane in writing seems dangerous. It seems like a very bad idea.
Though perhaps, thinks Mitsuba, as a fresh wave of creative inspiration surges through him, perhaps... there might just be another way.
“Don’t worry Mitsuba-kun I will go and see, you will be safe” uttered the smaller boy strongly. He went to go and see and it was............ the Honourable Seventh.
“Mitsuba,” says Tsukasa. He’s looking up to meet Mitsuba’s eyes. It’s not a warm and heartfelt look of friendship such as might stir Mitsuba’s very soul with the powerful force of their connection. It’s not that kind of look at all.
On second thoughts, perhaps there is no other way. Perhaps Tsukasa’s way is the only way. It usually is.
“Don’t worry Mitsuba-kun I will go and see, you will be safe” uttered the smaller boy strongly. He went to go and see and it was............ the Honourable Seventh, this was a nickname for Tsukasa’s twin brother because he was no good at studying and quite slow intellectually unlike Mitsuba who was sharply quick-witted so most of the time Tsukasa’s twin brother was seventh from the bottom of the class in everything. Really his name was Amane but no one called him that, they called him Honourable Seventh as a rude joke because he was not smart.
“That’s good,” Tsukasa says approvingly. “That’s better, now it’s got his name in. But in the story you have to keep calling him Amane.”
“But he’s got a nickname in the story,” says Mitsuba. “I just explained that, so actually in the story everyone’s going to call him—”
“You have to call him Amane,” says Tsukasa. “The story has to say Amane in it lots. That’s the most important thing about a story, how many times it says Amane in it. You have to use his name, Mitsuba.”
Mitsuba considers his options and finds them lacking; alternatively, he finds them terrifying. He scribbles out most of the last paragraph and hurriedly starts again.
“Don’t worry Mitsuba-kun I will go and see, you will be safe” uttered the smaller boy strongly. He went to go and see and it was............ Amane, this was Tsukasa’s brother who was his twin. Some people thought they looked similar but Mitsuba always knew the difference because of the ugly spiteful look twisting Amane’s face meanly which made him unattractive and not cute, he had no friends because he was weird and no one liked him. A couple of weeks ago Amane had been sent to prison for the rest of his life because of a crazed brutal savage attack he made on Mitsuba while screeching angrily about how Tsukasa was his best friend not Mitsuba’s, Mitsuba lost ten gallons of blood but luckily he survived and he didn’t have any scars or facial disfigurements or anything, his clear youthful skin was still shining and free of blemishes. Only the emotional scars remained etched deep into his tragic pitiful soul.
“Oh no what is HE doing here” whimpered Mitsuba nervously to his best friend. “Do you think he’s broken out of prison to come back and finish what he started............ by KILLING ME???”
“That’s just what I think” spoke the more boisterous friend sadly. “Amane go away, you can’t murder Mitsuba-kun he is my best friend. You are supposed to be in prison for your horrible disgusting crimes against Mitsuba-kun.”
“No I’m going to do even more horrible crimes now actually” affirmed Amane, he did a mad laugh and punched the door for a couple of minutes. After that he walked into Mitsuba’s house and
“—kisses me!” Tsukasa bursts out in rapturous excitement.
“No,” says Mitsuba.
“Yes! Why not? That’s what Amane’d do, he’d kiss me. Write that next,” Tsukasa commands, patting the page rapidly to show Mitsuba exactly where it needs to be written, “say ‘Amane kissed Tsukasa and it was super hot and after that they’—”
“But,” says Mitsuba, trying frantically to plot the safest route possible through the grotesque minefield which the conversation lying ahead of him has suddenly become, “that’s not... not in this story, Tsukasa-kun. That’s not a, a topic this story is, um, going to cover. That’s not what it’s about. That’s—”
“Why not?” Tsukasa demands.
“I mean, I don’t – that’s not, it’s not really... I haven’t—I don’t think Amane-kun would like it, if I wrote about that.”
“He would,” Tsukasa says. “He likes it! He loves it! He kisses me all the time! If you don’t put that in then it’s not realistic anymore.”
“But it’s not realistic!” Mitsuba says at once, seizing eagerly on this brand new potential escape route, “that’s just it, Tsukasa-kun, it’s not realistic at all! It’s just a story! It’s just my imagination, and in my imagination that’s not where this story is—”
Tsukasa snatches the pen from Mitsuba’s hand, scrawls KISSED TSUKASA!!!!!!! FOR AGES IT WAS SEXY in characters so energetically large and lopsided that the message takes up half the rest of the page, and drops the pen again.
“Now keep going,” he commands.
“No I’m going to do even more horrible crimes now actually” affirmed Amane, he did a mad laugh and punched the door for a couple of minutes. After that he walked into Mitsuba’s house and KISSED TSUKASA!!!!!!! FOR AGES IT WAS SEXY
But Mitsuba was in another room hiding and didn’t see so it was okay. He gulped and trembled pitifully feeling vulnerable like anyone could take advantage of his helpless young body as he listened to Amane stamping crazily nearer. Amane had no delicate natural light-footed grace in his movements, he was like an elephant. He
“—comes out to play with me,” Tsukasa cuts in, ablaze with enthusiasm as he smacks his hand to the page again, “put that next, me and Amane go out to play somewhere. You can choose where! Choose the park! Say we go to the park, Mitsuba, say that next, and we play running around and we play climbing trees and we play—”
“But Amane-kun’s about to try and kill me,” says Mitsuba, “and anyway, he’s just escaped from prison, so the police are probably following him. And that’s not how the story—”
“Say me and Amane run away from the police! Say that now, write that next. And then we go to the park and—”
“But he’s trying to kill me!”
“So let him kill you! And then we go to the park and—”
“No! This is my story, I’m not going to be killed in it! You’re going to save my life, Tsukasa-kun,” Mitsuba tells him passionately, “Amane-kun’s going to try to kill me but you’re going to jump in front of me and protect me, you’re going to say that you’d never let your best friend come to harm; you already promised me in the story that you’d—”
Tsukasa snatches the pen again.
Amane had no delicate natural light-footed grace in his movements, he was like an elephant. Amane Amane Amane AMANE HAD A KNIFE a massive knife he stabbed Mitsuba loads right in the head and blood came out everywhere and Mitsuba was dead. Amane KISSED TSUKASA they kissed loads it was sexy then police came but Amane and Tsukasa killed them all with bombs they had hand grenades they looked like THIS. Bang bang bang all the police were dead they had blood on them. then Amane and Tsukasa went in a police car to the park they put the sirens on WAHH WAHHH WAHHHHHHHHHHH THEY WENT FAST Tsukasa was driving he was driving seven million miles an hour then they went on the swings and Amane Amane Amane AMANE AMANE A A A A MA MA MA MA MA NE NE NE NE A MA NE
After a few frozen minutes of staring down at the page, Tsukasa relaxes. He lets go of Mitsuba’s pen. He rolls onto his back.
“Finished,” he announces.
“Finished?” says Mitsuba. He’s transfixed by the illustration of a hand grenade: frenzied, ink-smeared, its shape uncannily like a pineapple.
“Finished!”
And for a while Tsukasa has nothing else to say. His hands are folded on his stomach. He’s quiet, he’s peaceful. He’s gazing dreamily up towards the boundary’s far-off ceiling.
So what if Mitsuba’s fictional self lies dead and murdered, stabbed repeatedly in the head with a massive knife only to have his mutilated remains then ignored in the disgusting erotic frenzy of Amane’s sexual urges? So what if most of Mitsuba’s notebook pages are now ripped and crumpled from the aggressive enthusiasm of Tsukasa’s writing style? So what if Mitsuba’s story wasn’t even really his own story by the end, and so what if Tsukasa didn’t pay anywhere near as much attention as Mitsuba would have liked to the subtle, important messages about their friendship which Mitsuba sprinkled in so carefully throughout?
None of that matters. Mitsuba and Tsukasa have spent the afternoon engaged in friendly and creative teamwork, and no one got hurt and no one cried and Tsukasa had fun and Mitsuba expressed his feelings: this afternoon has been an immense success. This has, quite likely, been the first step on a path which will lead Mitsuba and Tsukasa inevitably towards best friendship anyway, now that they’ve already begun to bond on a much deeper and more personal level than before through the power of a shared creative pursuit. The story Mitsuba wrote didn’t end up being Mitsuba’s own story, but that’s for the best: it was their story.
“That was a good story,” Tsukasa says at last, reflectively. “I liked it! We should write another one. I’ll do the pictures, next time.”
“We should,” Mitsuba says eagerly. “We should, definitely, I liked it too. I actually have a lot of other ideas we could use for a sequel, Tsukasa-kun, if you’d like to talk about some possibilities, we could think about—”
“Amane,” says Tsukasa. “The next one’ll be about Amane.”
“But you and me will be the main characters,” says Mitsuba.
“Me and Amane will be the main characters,” corrects Tsukasa.
“Well, but – I’ll be in it too,” Mitsuba says. Uncertainty lifts his voice up into a question. “I will be, won’t I? Tsukasa-kun? Because I’ll be the one who’s writing it, so I will be in it, I’ll be part of—”
“You won’t!” says Tsukasa. “It’s gonna be a story about Amane, so you won’t be in it. It’ll be about Amane! I don’t wanna read a story about you.”
“But I’ll help you write it,” Mitsuba says hopefully, “I’ll help you come up with the plot, I’ll plan it all out with you, and we can—”
“No! I’ll tell you what to write,” says Tsukasa. “You just write it.”
Either Mitsuba agrees to take dictation for Tsukasa on his vivid and often unnervingly graphic Amane-themed fantasy life, or he doesn’t. Either Mitsuba sidelines all of his own creative energy for the sake of obediently following Tsukasa’s instructions, or he doesn’t. Either Mitsuba wants to spend as much quality time with Tsukasa as possible in the hope of nourishing their precariously budding friendship into something much more wonderful and meaningful and real, and much less volatile and terrifying and upsetting, or he doesn’t.
Mitsuba picks up his pen. He summons his confidence. “Ready when you are, Tsukasa-kun,” he says boldly.
“Not now,” Tsukasa says, with an impatient wave of his hand. “I’ve done enough stories today, it’s boring now. Some other time.”
Mitsuba puts his pen back down again. “But we could—”
“I’m gonna go and look at Amane,” says Tsukasa, and vanishes.
Mitsuba puts his confidence back down too.