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Takemichi might have thought himself the cleverest, most talented liar the world had ever created, but he wasn’t as good as seemed to be. All it really took was a bit of noticing. The key to everything was that Takemichi assumed that no one bothered to look his way or check in, that everyone simply had better things to do than worry themselves over him, but those kinds of assumptions didn’t apply to his friends. Yamagishi would watch as his gaze lingered just a little too long on everyone when they went their separate ways. Ever the silent observer, he squirreled away the instances where the blonde was just a little too captivated by mundane things.
There were times that he spied Takemichi reaching out—fingers half curled and face painfully hopeful—before he tucked his hand back into his pockets. He would lean in towards Takuya when he was speaking softly, but he would always keep his distance. It was like there was this film, a line in the sand, that he couldn’t cross. Takemichi held himself away from everyone, yearning for touch—based on his expressions—yet never being able to commit to it.
Takuya himself noticed it too, but in a completely different dimension.
“Have you noticed that Takemichi seems real weirded out after everything?” he asked one day, eyes trained on Yamagishi as he waited for his soda to vend.
“Well, duh,” Yamagishi had hissed. “He’s seen some shit, you know? I mean the guys in Toman have always been more his friends than ours, but… that shit with Draken and Baji? And the shit he’s stirred with the Black Dragons too? I’d be pretty freaked out if I were him.”
The young boy just sucked his teeth, nodding along silently. Yamagishi didn’t need to be a genius to tell that Takuya wasn’t convinced, or that something was missing, because despondency like this wasn’t normal, even for the younger boy, who was prone to bouts of brooding. The bespectacled boy offered his drink to his friend, a knowing expression on his lips.
“But…?”
Takuya scrutinized him, really taking Yamagishi’s Whatever The Fuck He Was Looking For, before dropping his shoulders in a sigh. Takuya practically tore the can from his hand, downing half of it in a single sip like a shot, and handed it back all with practiced ease.
“I’m worried about him!” the younger grumbled. “He’s scared of us!”
This gave Yamagishi pause. “What do you mean?”
The younger seemed like he regretted even speaking, but as Yamagishi’s mother liked to tout— you can’t unfold a paper. And if there was anyone who wouldn’t let something go, it would be Gang-dex.
“I mean, haven’t you seen him? He gets freaked out everytime someone so much as bumps into him,” Takuya frowned. “I grabbed his arm the other day in the hall and he pretty much threw his backpack at me. And it’s not just me either—Akkun’s in on it too.”
Slack jawed at the contradiction, Yamagishi’s soda sat painfully neglected within his fist.
“But he always tries to grab you guys?”
It came out like a question, but Takuya recognized it for what it was. “Uh? No?”
“UH? Yes! It’s so fuckin’ pathetic, he does it all time. Like, winds up to poke you or trip Makoto, but then he doesn’t.”
For about three days afterward, they were insufferable. It became the group’s best worst-kept secret. It was just Yamagishi at first, then Akkun and Takuya, then Makoto (who was kinda pissed it took them that long to point it out to him. He wasn’t very observant, but that didn’t mean he didn’t care). And so they decided to do something about it—or at least try to figure out how to do that.
And the best way to do so, of course, was to do an experiment.
The first trial was very simple: see if Takemichi was just That Way, or if he hated them. It was the easiest thing to prove, while also being the great underlying assumption no one wanted to look in the eye. And Yamagishi was clever, okay? He knew you had to have a strong foundation before you started trying to build your case—he had to check all his bases first.
And so when they were lazing about Takemichi’s place on a rare afternoon of laziness, Yamagishi took one for the team. He “left” his jacket at home. The whole time they walked from school and back to the blonde’s place, Yamagishi was racked with shivers so strong he nearly tripped. The guys really just made fun of him the whole time up until Takemichi offered to give him one of his sweatshirts when they got to his place, and Yamagishi practically broke into a sprint.
The rest of the guys showed up to Yamagishi practically swimming in a red sweatshirt of the blonde’s, his whole being fitting neatly on a single couch cushion as he curled into a tiny ball to conserve warmth.
“I get that it’s cold out,” Makoto snickered. “But I think you’re being overdramatic.”
Yamagishi flipped him off bitterly as he weighed the pros and cons of unfurling to grab the tv remote. “You can shut your ass up, because it was literally snowing and I didn’t have a jacket. So. Shut.”
The chorus of laughter that greeted him reminded him why he was doing this, and might just have warmed him up enough to snatch the remote and turn on the TV. Slowly the boys filtered in, finding their places around the living room, and throwing plenty of elbows to assure a seat on either the couch or the chair. Unusually one of them ended up on the floor, but with how cold it was, no one wanted to be subjected to the hardwood—even if there was a fluffy rug overtop of it.
When Takemichi finally walked in, all the proper seats had been snagged. Yamagishi caught his eyes lingering on the half a cushion next to where he was curled, so instead of letting the blonde sit on the floor in his own home for suck’s sake, he called him out.
“Takemichi, sit here and do the remote!”
The blonde did not flinch, but he did seem aware of the five pairs of eyes boring into his almost fidgeting figure.
“But you know I hate it. And! I’m too cold!”
Takemichi deflated, but he grumbled an assent, and made sure to sit as far away from the both of them as possible. Akkun’s narrowed glare found Yamagishi’s, and in a brilliant moment of just Knowing what his squint meant, Yamagishi flopped over into Takemichi’s space with a flourish. The blonde stiffened, but ultimately laughed it off. The movie was queued up in no time, and after forty five minutes of blankly watching the screen, the bespectacled boy found himself nodding off.
Hesitant fingers found their way into his hair, brushing through the long strands, and Yamagishi melted.
He woke up an hour later to a standing ovation—every one of the boys clapping at their loudest—which scared the shit out of him, but Takemichi didn’t look like he was pained so it seemed fine. They fooled around all evening, tossing popcorn kernels into each other’s mouths, blasting the radio, and even trying the pack of cigarettes Akkun had lifted off of an upperclassman. They didn’t have lighter, which Takemichi got flack for, but they were able to light them on the gas stove, and still got to giggle at each other when they inevitably choked on their first drag.
(And if Yamagishi noticed that Takemichi wore that sweatshirt more often, he didn’t say a word.)
Everyone got a test to run—Yamagishi’s hypothesis was proven correct (that Takemichi, in fact, did not hate them). Akkun’s test was to see if Takemichi was just nervous in public, or if it was an all the time thing. His results were a mixed bag, but they were able to make some sense of them: it was an all the time kind of thing, but it was more reliant on if he knew it was coming. Surprise grabs, fingers in his sides, or sudden shouts made him flinch, but when he knew where you were it was fine. If it was obvious you were coming in for a hug, or up to something overtly nefarious, he fared pretty well.
Makoto tried to figure out what the cause of his jumpiness was, which was a massive undertaking. It seemed like he was taking his experiment very seriously as a way to make up for his inattentiveness, because he invited Takemichi out to lunch and seriously asked him if he was doing alright. The crybaby obviously started blubbering right away, but Makoto actually got a bit out of him. The blonde had told him that he wasn’t sleeping well lately, and that he was really spacey all the time because of it. It wasn’t anything crazy, but it made sense.
Takuya took it upon himself to just initiate as much positive contact as possible—teasingly poking him when he started to drift, hip checking him in the kitchen, knocking knees and elbows at every table they inhabited. As averse to touch as they’d seen him be, after a few days of that treatment, he stopped pulling away. It restored a bit of the balance they’d had before, where Takemichi didn’t really understand personal space. It was slow going, but by god they were getting there.
When Akkun re-dyed his roots, Takemichi actually fell asleep at the counter. Where only a few weeks before he would’ve been fidgety with someone so close to touching him (as well as behind his back), he was now so comfortable that he’d just… conked out. A silent party ensued before he had to be woken up to wash out the bleach.
(Yamagishi wouldn’t tell a soul, but when Hina asked for him after school one afternoon, she proceeded to thank him. She told him that Takemichi had seemed so much happier lately, and it was all thanks to them. When he invited her to the next hang out, she came. She went to the next one too, and the one after that.)
Yamagishi held back tears one night as Takemichi essentially laid directly on top of him. He’d gotten pretty roughed up—knuckles split and weeping, just like his lips—especially with the clean hit to his head someone had managed. The blonde wasn’t concussed, but he wasn’t feeling too hot either. Everyone had walked away with a few more bumps and bruises than they’d intended—Hina included. When they all stumbled in, weary and barely on their feet, they simply collapsed onto the futons they hadn’t bothered to pick up that morning.
And Takemichi chose to drape himself across the couch, delighting in just having someone nearby. Yamagishi just felt so honored—so proud of how far his friend had come—when a grumbled sort of purr pulled him from his reflection.
“What?” he whispered.
Takemichi didn’t pick up his face from the cushion, just spoke a bit louder. “It’s your turn to do the remote.”
Yamagishi just wrapped a protective arm around the boy, hand already holding the clicker. He already knew to put in on the sitcom channel, which was always Takemichi’s late night choice of TV garbage. The contented sigh that was pulled from the blonde’s lips when Yamagishi gave him a bit of a squeeze had the darker haired kid grinning wobbly. Takemichi returned the squeeze.
Thanks for having my back, Yamagishi had said.
Takemichi’s response was just as sunny as he. Always.
After that, Takemichi seemed to warm up to stealing side hugs, ruffling hair, and annoying the shit out of them with endless play punches and games of footsie.
And it was…
It was nice.