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“Micchan?”
The way Ginis’ sharp claws had felt caressing his face like he were a trophy, oddly comforting and alluring in its touch but also the slightest bit unsettling with the scrape of them along his jaw. But it had been the most contact he’d had in years so he’d welcomed it every time.
“Hey...Micchan…!”
He craved the contact again. He craved anything at this point, he just wanted to be around somebody. A body… Someone who could understand his self loathing. And Ginis was one that could. With such a soulless body he’d been in control of. Misao didn’t want to be in control of his anymore. He kept making mistakes and being yelled at for each of them, if another being were in control of his actions then he wouldn’t necessarily be the one at blame, right?
“...Micchan!” He felt a force on his shoulder.
“Hey--” the voice invading his thoughts was suddenly cut away as he spun around to shove away at it. He needed space. He needed something...
But as he tried chasing his thoughts on, to continue down the path they were going, his brain had registered a familiar face he’d pulled away from. His heavy breaths suddenly catching in his throat.
He barely recognized his own voice as he heard himself speak, “Yamato?”
He wanted to turn his head to look back at his newest acquaintance but couldn’t physically bring himself to. Was that Yamato he pushed away? Did he hurt Yamato…?
He listened to the sound of rustling leaves but couldn’t tell what motion caused them to shift. “Hey...” he heard again but at a more timid tone and at more of a distance. “Micchan...where are you going?”
Where was he...going? Blinking his eyes and lifting his head one way to the next he came to realize that he had somehow made it outside. When did that happen? The last scene he remembered being in was in Atelier Mori, surrounded by… Surrounded by…
He felt his own hands over his head. “I don’t know,” came his automatic response. He didn’t want to remember what had set him off. Who had set him off. He wanted to forget what he’d done or said to his newest friends. He wanted to go back to someplace he couldn’t hurt anyone. But he wasn’t sure where that was. He wasn’t sure where his body was going to take him...and he wasn’t sure he even wanted to know.
“I don’t know,” he repeated, quieter, more to himself than anyone else if they were still listening.
More leaves crunched softly behind him. “I...I’m sorry if we’d said anything rash back there… If I’d said anything… I didn’t mean to hurt you. I never mean to hurt you, Micchan.”
Those lies again, huh, spoke a voice in his head. A hazy image of a wolf manifested against his thoughts. If they really didn’t mean to hurt you then they would never say anything in the first place.
He keeps calling you that stupid nickname, too, another voice perks up, louder. Sharp teeth clack together as it continues, It’s like he’s trying to persuade you into thinking he still wants to be your best friend. Stupid boy doesn’t know when to quit and admit the truth that you’re unlikeable.
He sniffled as he waited for the inevitable third one to break in the final word. What’s the point in talking to him? The final voice booms from the back of his mind, emanating nearly physical vibrations through his core. Just move on and let us take you where you’d feel more accepted. You’re already on your way. So just keep going…
Leaving one hand to scratch his head at an attempt to stifle the invasive sounds picking at his brain, Misao curled his other into a fist and lifted his leg forward to scrape his shoe along the dirt path he’d been unconsciously following.
But before he could put the effort to drag his other foot to follow alongside it, he caught the pounding of footsteps coming up next to him and flinched back in his tracks. Looking up at the source of them he managed to see Yamato nearly fall in front of him, but he threw his arms up and away from him to gain his balance. Now he stood sturdy directly in front of Misao, all of his limbs held apart to make a barrier as big as his body could manage, and his fiery eyes bore into Misao’s so he felt forced to look into them. How they managed to hold such intensity for a man so carefree Misao might never come to understand.
“Please,” Yamato tried to reason. “Please talk to me, Micchan. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
You’ll just hurt him again. Misao clenched both of his fists. “I…” he began, but he wasn’t sure where to start. Wasn’t sure where he’d end up even if he did.
“Even if you think you’d hurt me,” Yamato spoke again, as if the other voices in Misao’s head weren’t just his own imagination, “I’d at least have the peace of mind to know your feelings are genuine. I want to know what you’re feeling. How we make you feel.”
He doesn’t want to know that.
Yamato loosened his stance the barest amount but he still stood his ground, his stare unwavering from Misao’s own. “I want to help you, Micchan.”
Only thing he’ll help you with is your own demise. Misao’s hands began to shake.
“I’m…” he tried again, voice straining to stay even, “frustrated.”
Yamato didn’t react, as if he was expecting the answer. He stayed quiet.
“I’m frustrated...that…” Misao bit his lip out of habit before speaking up unprompted. But Yamato had asked him to speak his mind, so he continued. “That whatever I try is...not good enough.”
He had to gulp and then take a breath of air. He already wasn’t used to this. He wanted to run away. To turn around from Yamato and his eyes that could see all the truths within his soul. He’d seemed to already know what Misao was thinking, so why should he even say anything.
So why shouldn’t he just go on and say what they both knew.
Misao looked back into Yamato’s eyes as directly as he could muster. “You and the Zyumans are my first good friends since I can remember, and I want to prove to you how good I can be.” His lip began to waver. “I want to provide you all with the things I can do and to show you the extent of my abilities, to...I guess, prove to you that I can be a good friend…” His eyes began to form tears. He crossed his arms over himself. “But whatever I do, every little thing that I do for you guys, it isn’t as good as it could be. But I’m trying ! I’m trying, and I wish you could all see that, and I wish someone would acknowledge that!”
His knees buckled underneath him and he fell to his knees, breaking his stare. He inhaled before he started to weep and shouted, “I just want to know if I’m good!!”
He finally collapsed, slamming his arms to the ground along with his head. For a second he thought he registered the ground being wet, but had it been raining? Or was that from his own tears… Misao didn’t have the capacity to care in the moment.
The only sound that filled the air was the choked sobs from Misao’s throat, and he was embarrassed that Yamato was staying around to listen. Was he even still there? Misao didn’t want to look. He could be alone right now for all he knew, crying to himself for no one’s ears to hear except maybe the fauna around him. Not that they could care or respond to him either.
And then he felt a pair of hands pick him up.
Misao resisted for a second or two but quickly discovered the energy in his body had been sapped, probably from crying and maybe just thinking way too much. So he let the hands carry his limp body forward, not completely lifted off the ground, but only so far to reach someone else’s lap.
He recognized the color red out of the blur of his tears, so he guessed it was still Yamato. Then he heard a soft shushing and concluded it definitely was. Yamato was so good to him, and he never understood why. Why was he the only person who went out of his way to be nice to him?
Misao thought he heard an “I understand” from above him, but shook his head to dismiss it. That probably came from his own thought rambles. How could Yamato possibly understand his situation?
But then he heard, “I do,” a little clearer this time. There was something touching and rubbing his back. He wanted to imagine it was a hand. It was comforting. “And I’m sure all of the Zyumans do, too. But for me, at least, I know where you’re coming from.”
As Yamato spoke, Misao found himself curling into him. The warmth from his body was too inviting to shy away from, so Misao welcomed it, for now. “The rest of them did live in a different world from us, to be fair. I kind of took it as though they weren’t used to their kind behaving in this way, and they don’t really know how to handle it. They are mostly animal, after all.”
The sound of Yamato’s heartbeat was calming. Misao closed his eyes and focused mostly on the rhythm of it but still listened to his words. “But I’m human just like you are. I’ve gone through plenty of pains and losses in my life, and none of it was easy to deal with. And I was lucky I still had my uncle for support through most of that.”
He felt fingers brushing his hair now. He held his grip more firm around Yamato’s waist, not completely registering how or when his arms ended up there in the first place. “But it seems to me that you’d had it especially tough. You barely even had a single friend before us, right?”
Misao made a sound, but before he could let out a coherent answer Yamato continued. “But we’re here with you now. You’re not alone. As much as you may feel that way, we’ll always be around to support each other now. Because we’re a team.”
Misao’s head was suddenly coaxed upward, and his eyes landed on Yamato’s face again, but Yamato’s gaze lost nearly half of the intensity it had moments before. But it was still there. Just more gentle and...welcoming. Genuine. “We let you into our team willingly because I saw that you were suffering. I didn’t want you to go through any of that any longer than you should have. I risked a lot for you, Micchan. And it was worth it, now that you’re one of my best friends.”
Then Yamato provided him with a smile that was so warm Misao swore he felt himself melt. He wanted to cry again. A hand cupped his face. “I wouldn’t trade you for the world...Micchan…”
He sniffed away a tear. “But I am The World,” he thought aloud to himself.
Then Yamato stopped in his tracks and let out a chuckle. Misao looked at him quizzingly, and the chuckle turned into a barking laugh. The hand on his back gave him a few pats as Misao tried to connect the dots still scrambled in his mind. “Yeah, that’s true! You are!” Yamato said through soft giggles.
Misao couldn’t stop himself from smiling. Each time Yamato grinned it was contagious, and he found himself thinking (not out loud this time) that he wouldn’t trade Yamato for anything either.
“Yamato…” Misao began to say, but before he could even figure out where his train of thought was even going, he felt something on his face. His cheek. Yamato’s face was suddenly very close.
Then he pulled away before Misao could even register it as...wait, was that a kiss from-- “Uhmm…” Yamato considered, tilting his head in thought. “Would it be too cheesy at this point to say that you’re my world?”
His grin went from bright to sheepish in seconds, and Misao was glad he was given time to even process what had even happened. Yamato was holding him at half of an arm’s length now, but Misao was having trouble making himself look anywhere away from Yamato, as much as his body wanted to. It’s as if his spirit were suddenly taken over by a deer’s and he was currently in fight or flight mode.
Misao provided him with a very intelligent “uh” and barely anything else, and maybe now Yamato’s warmth was a bit too much to deal with right now.
“I can...give you time to think. If you weren’t ready for that…” Yamato peeled his eyes away from Misao at last, and loosened his grip to stand up from where he had been holding onto Misao, but the man who had been declared his world didn’t want to let him go that easily.
His grip on Yamato’s shirt steeled and Yamato nearly lost his balance, but he was close enough to the ground that only his knees bumped on a stray pebble that barely hurt.
“Sorry,” Misao started. He mentally slapped himself to get all his mental gears back into working order. “I… That was just really sudden… I wasn’t expecting that now , but…” Although his mind felt more coherent, now he’s lost focus in his sight and found himself glancing from Yamato to the ground every syllable. “I didn’t... not like it…”
His face was heating up and he knew that Yamato could tell. He noticed every little thing, every little action people made, and Misao was simultaneously embarrassed and jealous of him for that. But it wasn’t something he hated.
And just before Misao’s thoughts could convince him that this was all some insane dream, he saw Yamato’s eyebrows raise, and he let out an “oh” after a beat. And then he found one of Yamato’s hands timidly take one of his. “Then you wouldn’t mind if I--” Yamato’s eyes shifted down and then up again, “--did it again?”
Misao vigorously shook his head, and so suddenly that he thought he was about to gain a headache, but Yamato’s free hand held it steady and barely brushed his hairline as he leaned in again. Misao closed his eyes before he made contact with his cheek again, and then felt the same lips move to his other cheek, then his forehead, and then lightly brush his own lips.
Yamato hovered there until Misao opened his eyes in a silent question, and then he heard him whisper, “I treasure you, Micchan.” He kissed him. “I love you.” Another kiss.
Misao kissed him back, but barely so, because he felt like the gravity in his body had inverted and he was about to float away. He didn’t know where his head was anymore, but his body still recognized Yamato in front of him, touching him. Loving him, with both words and actions. It was all so much.
All he could gather himself to say back was Yamato’s name and suddenly he felt tears running down his face again. He wanted to punch himself.
Yamato pulled himself back gently, asking if he was okay and if he was hurt, and Misao kept shaking his head to free his face of tears with little progress. Then he realized he didn’t want to worry Yamato about him anymore and that he was being stupid, so he gulped his sobbing down to return Yamato’s words with his own “I love you, too.”
Misao provided him with the best wet smile he could muster in the moment, and he found himself adding, “I always have.”
Seeming to be on autopilot again, Misao felt his arms stretch outwards and around Yamato, pulling him into a tight hug. Yamato reciprocated it instantly, and Misao felt himself shaking again. Only it wasn’t from his sobbing. His tears had ceased, for now, and all that was left for his body to handle was genuine love and acceptance from his first best friend the world had to offer. Misao knew this wasn’t fake or pretend, and he wanted it to last the rest of his life.
And if he heard a couple “aww”s somewhere in the distance… Well, he could worry about that later.