Work Text:
Chiyo’s normal greeting as she comes home from work or lunch or class or something is: “Hey Mikorin, have an okay day?” It doesn’t mean anything. She’s usually doing something as she’s asking it, taking her coat off or putting away groceries. He wonders if his expression crumbles minutely- probably. But too fast to catch in a fleeting glance. He’s gotten good at controlling himself over the years since his mess of childhood, adolescence.
Sometimes he doesn’t answer her at all. She’s often already off on some tangent about her own day, the guy who sits next to her in Line Drawing who can’t quit smoking so he’s always stinking of cigarettes and throwing her off, some person she’s called at her part-time work who’d tried to proposition her instead of listening to her spiel on toner. Sometimes he gives a noncommittal hum that’s more affirmative than not. If something actually happened in his classes, he’ll give her the story without actually addressing the real inquiry. Have an okay day? Are you okay? On bad days, the question scares him. Not that she knows. He knows that she doesn’t know. He knows.
Sometimes he wishes he could answer honestly. He wishes he could cut her off and say: “Actually no, Chiyo, I haven’t had an okay day in years now, and sometimes it feels like I’ll never have an okay day again.”
But it’s not worth it. Mikorin doesn’t want to bother her.
…
He’s been writhing in insecurity since the day he was born. He doesn’t want to talk to the other kids. Kids are scary. He just wants to grasp onto his mother’s long skirt and never detach. His father, however, is not happy letting him do that. Former baseball player, star student, prince of his high school, no, his father is not happy letting his son stick to the outskirts of the playground.
“He’s still maturing,” says his mother. “Give him some time.”
His father does not listen. So it goes like this: talk to three kids on the playground, Mikoto, or no dessert. Make friends with the daughter of my business partner, Mikoto, or you’re sleeping on the floor. Every time you stutter, Mikoto, you’ll get a slap of a ruler to the hand.
He’s gotten good at swallowing fear and letting it fester, poisonous and rotten in his stomach until it explodes.
It starts little. When he feels the breath get all stuck in his throat and his stomach twist and groan, he can pull himself out of it by literally trying to pull himself out of it- focusing on the dull ache of yanking upwards on a handful of hair. Any tears creeping up behind his eyes, and he digs his fingernails in red crescent moons on his arms or thighs. If he’s shaking, he begins to scratch, leaving white trails behind or tiny beads of blood when he presses down hard. Nothing serious. Nothing noticeable. Not then.
His second and third year of high school are like an oasis in the desert. His dad has stopped coming home as often, always busy at the office. His mother has become a source of anxiety over the years too, always hovering and coddling when men don’t need their mothers, shouldn’t want their mothers, but she’s become busier with social engagements and other events. Their pressures are gone and instead he has Kashima and Nozaki, Sakura, even Hori, Wakamatsu, Seo.
But everything truly becomes better with a single daring text message.
He feels a little guilty for pretending to be a girl because he’s a man, he has to be the manly man but it’s to make her feel comfortable. He doubts that she would respond if she knew there was some second-year high school boy creeping on her somewhat erotic drawings. But she’s just so talented and he feels like he needs to tell her, needs to compliment her, because the internet can be a scary place for an artist.
help
He blinks at it a few times, confused but mostly concerned. However, it’s quickly followed up with another.
sry for earlier still not used to txting & made a mistake. thx for always giving feedback.
And just like that, just like that, walking there next to Nozaki in the hallway, Mikoshiba Mikoto is utterly wrecked.
im mayumayu
…
“Going to the track to run for a bit,” he calls out. Chiyo is watching the latest episode of the Let’s Love! anime, popping chocolate candies in her mouth and dabbing at her eyes with tissues. He knows this from experience rather than actually seeing it; she’s slouched down far enough on the couch that all that pops over it are the tips of her two big bows. “See ya, Chiyo.”
“Farewell, Mikorin!” she answers, in the dramatic voice she learned from Kashima. She pauses the screen and flops over to stand on her knees. “I shall not forget you! Come back to me! Come back soon!”
“Yeah, okay, Chiyo,” he says, flashing her a grin. He catches her cheery wave as he closes the door to their shared apartment. The moment fades. He leaves the grin behind on the welcome mat and slips on a baseball hat and shades instead.
He actually goes to the track when he tells her he’s going to the track about one in three times. Enough that, should she somehow ask about or information gather, he’d have made an impression there. Not that she would do anything like that. Paranoia comes along with insecurity and anxiety, meshing together in fog that permanently clogs up his head.
Today is not actually a track day. He lopes along the sidewalk and makes a right turn instead of a left. He takes a train to the other side of the city.
It’s never crowded at Mayu’s judo matches. Mikoto usually sits in a back corner, trying not to draw attention to himself. If Mayu has ever seen him, he mostly likely hasn’t recognized him. He has to take of his shades in the indoors, but he keeps his baseball cap firmly over his fire-engine hair. If Mayu has recognized him, then he’s never cared enough to call out to him. Mikoto is perfectly happy to keep it that way.
He watches Mayu on the sidelines as the other members of his club take their turns. When Mayu fights, he has to screw his eyes shut. He doesn’t know why he does this to himself. He hears Mayu win, because Mayu always wins. And then he leaves, fast, head down, putting back on his shades as soon as possible to hide the way they’ve gone shiny and wet.
He walks aimlessly, listlessly, until he feels like he can control himself again.
When he gets back, Chiyo has fallen asleep on the couch, her bag of chocolate candies spilling on her stomach and making soft snoring sounds. He picks off the sweets and puts on a blanket before retreating into his room to actually try and get some work done.
…
Him: how’d you learn to draw?
Her: practice. rlxing
Him: what else do you like to do?
Her: sleep. judo.
Her, an afterthought: u?
Him: i really like flowers. gardening, and i draw them too
Her: qt
He has to ask Sakura what that last text means, and he almost dies at the smirk on her face when she tells him. She nudges him in the shoulder and teases, “My little Mikorin has got some game even when he’s a girl.”
Him: i tried acting today. i don’t think i’ve ever been more awk
Her: sure u were cute
Him: hardly
Her: i thnk ur a qt
Her, an afterthought: :)
Him, after spontaneously combusting: i think you’re cute too
Kashima thinks that it’s all absolutely hilarious. She often pickpockets his phone and reads the texts aloud in a sing-song tone, accompanied by fake kissing sounds and ruffles of his hair. Not in public though, just when they’re hanging out at one of their houses. Despite her usual impression, Kashima is not totally unaware except in matters that pertained to a certain ‘Hori-chan-sempai.’
Him: another good drawing
Her: thnx
Him, after a longer than usual pause: no prob
Her: u ok?
Her, a follow-up: u seem quiet.
Him: just a tiring day. hs can be hard.
Him, being honest: fam can be hard too.
Her: just txt if u need anythng
Her: im here for u
Him: you’re incredible
Nozaki seems like he’s worried about it. His brows furrow slightly whenever Mikoto stops working to answer a text message quickly. But Mikoto always gets his flowers done in plenty of time, so Nozaki doesn’t bother to say anything. If the editor is happy, and tanukis are far away, then Nozaki is happy.
Her, initiating the conversation for once: can i see some of ur drawings?
Him: sure. i mean, don’t get excited
Him, sending a picture: here
Her: u should be more confident
Her, after a long pause: youre the one whos incredible
What did someone like him ever do to deserve her? The guilt begins to fester and seethe under his skin. How does he tell her that he’s being lying to her? Lying all this time about who he is. He wants to believe that she won’t hate him for it. He wants it so bad.
Her, after nearly a year of back and forth: let’s meet
Her: i have some stuff to tell you
Her: i hope you won’t hate me
Him, young and stupid and condemning himself: i could never
The date for the end of his world is set for the following week
…
He rubs scar cream into the marks on his stomach every night. They’re thin and barely noticeable unless they hit the right light, but he continues the routine in hopes that they’ll just disappear forever one day. Chiyo’s seen them; it was hard to avoid, living together. He had a story made up just in case. He spouts some gruesome shit about a construction accident during his last trip home when he’d been helping out his dad. It’s gory enough that Chiyo just shudders and swallows it, demands that he be more careful next time.
They ache sometimes, like phantom memories. He absently rubs them through his shirt as he swallows another bite of the pasta he’d cooked for them.
“Nozaki called today to see how we liked the latest episode,” Chiyo says cheerily through a mouthful. Her legs are too short for her feet to rest completely on the floor. Just her toes, pointed elegantly like a ballerina’s, her thin bones poking out. “He wants to make sure that they’re keeping its pure essence of innocent romance. His words, not mine.”
He offers up a smile, but it’s more stretched than usual. “I’ll watch it soon. I feel bad for falling behind.”
“The flowers aren’t as good as yours. You were seriously incredible at the symbolism,” she chirps, and he can’t help that his shoulders shudder for a split second. She peers a little closer into his face, chewing on her lip. “Hey, you got a test coming up or something?”
He loves her so much. He loves her more than he could if he were in love with her. His parents are still sort of under the impression that they’re dating. His mother, in her phone calls, keeps mentioning how her friends’ children are getting married. She spends a lot of time praising the planner or the florist, dropping names left and right and pausing after each as if expecting him to be writing them down. But, as nice as living with Chiyo forever sounds, he can’t.
“Oh, don’t tell me Mikorin is pining after a cute boy?” she says, dragging out the last syllable. He scoffs at the playful glint in her eyes and takes his plate to the kitchen. Suddenly he’s got a heavy weight on his middle that he tries fruitlessly the shake off. “Come on, come on, give me the details, Mikorin! I have to make sure I approve!”
He can’t. Mayu’s next match is also on a day that he has no classes.
…
are you alright?
did something happen?
i know you weren’t expecting me to be a guy
please just text me back
you said you wouldn’t hate me, mamiko
Mikoshiba Mikoto has been wrecked again. He has been obliterated. He has been slaughtered.
He looks in the café window where they were supposed to meet and there is Nozaki Mayu, staring into a mug of coffee, knees bouncing like he’s nervous, like Nozaki Mayu gets nervous. Mikoto doesn’t come back to those details until later, because Mayu has got a single daisy stuck behind his ear. The daisy matching the one contrasting against Mikoto’s shock of red hair. Mayu shifts like he’s going to look up, and Mikoto dives away, hides around the side. He throws the daisy to the ground. He crouches down and tries to breath. He digs his nails into the hollow of his collarbone.
He sits there for hours, until the café closes, feeling the vibration of each new message in his pocket, staring at the daisy in the dirt, and ignoring the blood sticky on the front of his shirt from where he’s torn up his skin.
Be a manly man, Mikoto, be a prince, Mikoto, make me proud, Mikoto, or you’re no son of mine.
He doesn’t want to go home at that moment. His usual retreat is Nozaki’s apartment, but it suddenly seems dangerous. Hori or Wakamatsu could be staying over (he’d found out about them at this point, been upset that he hadn’t been told, and doesn’t that tantrum seem silly now) or, worse, Mayu could have retreated there himself. He whimpers even thinking of that situation. Kashima is always a possibility, but he doesn’t want to trouble her, stress her out. She’s not good at comfort or at emotions off the stage. So he dials the last option in his phone.
“Mikorin!” Sakura squeals. He can picture her plopping on her bed, fidgeting back and forth in excitement. When she sits with her knees pulled up to her chest, she looks like a doll. “How’d it go? Was she pretty, was she funny, did you hit it off, why-?”
“Chiyo,” he says.
She cuts off, and he feels horrible for having ruined her good mood. His voice cracks as he says her name a second time. He is dangerously close to crying. He is desperately swallowing back that sob insisting on creeping up his throat. She sighs, and he wraps the fondness in it around him like a blanket.
“Oh sweetie,” she says. “I’m coming to pick you up.”
…
Chiyo’s got her hair up in a ponytail, no ribbons. She’s studying intensively, pressing her pencil hard between her eyebrows. She has no idea where he goes. He never told her what happened that day at the café. To be fair, she never asked.
“I’m going to the track,” he tells her. She waves him away. He repeats his usual routine of duplicity.
He does everything the same way. The exact same way that he’s done it every time before. Except, he stops on his way out the door. He stops for a second, and he looks back at Mayu, because he just likes to hurt himself like that. Mayu runs a hand through his hair, and then he glances up from where he’s looking at the floor. He glances up, and he glances straight at Mikoto.
They hold gazes for a second, and then Mikoto bolts. He gets as far away as possible before he dares cast his eyes behind his shoulders. Nobody is following him. Mayu probably couldn’t even recognize him from that distance. It’s just his paranoia acting up again, making him fidgety and prone to dramatics.
Except he returns to the apartment to the sound of Chiyo’s phone ringing. Except she picks it up and lights up when she hears who is on the other end. Except she exclaims: “Mayu!”
And then worse: “Mikorin?”
And then even worse, she sees him at the door and continues: “Yeah, he’s right here.
And suddenly, he’s found himself with Chiyo’s phone pressed to his ear, listening to Mayu’s low voice say, “Hey Mikoshiba.”
“H-Hey Mayu,” he stutters. He reaches up habitually, almost unconsciously, to slap the hand holding the phone.
“I realized that I didn’t have your number,” Mayu says, slowly. Mikoto is honestly a little floored that he’s actually speaking in complete sentences. He turns away from Chiyo’s inquiring eyes. “So I called Sakura.”
“Did you need something from me?”
Mayu is silent for a long time, and Mikoto can infer the unspoken, do you?
“It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? You still doing judo at university?”
The silence this time is unimpressed and unconvinced. Mikoto wonders if he’s just digging himself into a deeper hole. Wouldn’t be the first or five hundredth or thousandth time. “You know what you’re studying yet?”
“No,” Mayu answers evenly.
“Well, maybe you should try art, you were always g-” Mikoto cuts himself off because oh shit. Mayu’s silence gets a confused edge. Chiyo’s eyes on his back too. Mikoto rushes to cover up his mistake, fix it, hide it. “I mean, I-I’ve heard it’s, uh, relaxing. Y-yeah. Good for someone as lazy as you.”
He slaps his hand three times.
“We should get lunch,” Mayu says abruptly. “Can you give me your number?”
He can’t walk out of the room now. He couldn’t feasibly walk out of the room to begin with, not while using Chiyo’s phone, not while talking to Mayu of all people. He tries desperately to find the words. There must be some words, some explanation that will keep him from being found out by either of them. Be vague, Mikoto, or no dessert. “Ah, actually, I’ve lost it. Careless, I know.”
“Your phone?” Mayu clarifies.
“Yeah, yeah,” Mikoto answers. He gives himself one last slap on the hand just as good measure. “I’ll get back to you on that. Lunch sometime would be good.”
Mayu is silent. Mikoto shifts from foot to foot, still aware of Chiyo at the table. “You wanna get back on the phone with Chiyo?”
“No.”
“Well then, I’ll see you Mayu.”
“Bye.”
And he is left with the blessed sound of the dial tone. He affixes his face into something resembling normal, and then he turns back to Chiyo. “He wanted Miyako’s number for something. I don’t have it any more- I must have lost it last time my phone broke down.”
“Weird,” says Chiyo oddly, and he’s hit with the horrible sinking feeling that she’s not convinced. “You’d think he’d ask his brother first. Nozaki still has her number.”
“Maybe Nozaki didn’t pick up,” Mikoto offers, shrugging.
She nods a little slower than usual, still watching him warily. She loves him too, and so she knows him more than he is comfortable with her knowing him. He stays steady. He doesn’t break her gaze. That’s how a man stands up for himself. As much as they love each other, he’s just not ready to get into this with her yet. He lets out a silent breath as she turns back to her studying without another word.
…
His suicide attempt isn’t much of an attempt. It happens in his first year of university when he feels like he’s drowning under all the new pressures, when he’s still suffering from the sharp, stabbing part of the Mayu fallout. He still gets a text occasionally. They’re almost surreal now that he knows it’s Mayu- the full sentences and correct grammar is so out of character.
put up a new post. hope you like it even if you hate me.
new flower shop. thought of you.
please tell me if you’re alive at least
They’ve been tapering off. He gets about one a month now instead of the several each day. Instead of the hundreds that used to go back and forth, before he knew it was Mayu.
But it’s not really about the stress, about Mayu, or even about the fact that he’s still struggling with coming to terms with the fact that he- Mikoshiba Mikoto, the manly man, the prince- is gay. It’s something that’s been building his whole life. A desperate lonely emptiness. It all comes down to a bottle full of pills, he decides. The pills have been there all along. The answer to his unformed question.
But Mikoto is too cowardly to go through with it. It’s not bravery, despite what all the shrinks say, it’s not even regret. It’s bone-chilling, mind-numbing fear that whatever’s over that edge won’t make him feel any more complete. That there will be nothing but blackness and coldness, nothing but nothing. He doesn’t even know what nothing looks like.
So he drinks some chemicals that make him throw it all up again. Everything’s cleaned up by the time Chiyo gets home from class. Mikoto is watching TV on the couch, like nothing even happened.
He mentions to her later that night that he thinks he likes guys more than girls. She just nods, smiles, and kisses the top of his head.
Maybe it is bravery that he never tries the pills again. Or maybe it’s only resignation.
…
“Mayu was very confused when I sent him Miyako’s number,” Chiyo says. She’s in her pajamas and her hair is up in one of those towel turbans. It almost takes the bite out of her words. “Or at least I assume he was by the question mark he sent back.”
“Did you clarify what it was for?” Mikoto asks, trying not to give anything away. His voice breaks. He’s lost. He pushes anyway. “Mayu’s forgetful.”
“Mikoto.”
He doesn’t speak. She rubs at her eyes, and he realizes that the wetness on her face might not entirely be from her shower. When she sighs, it catches in her throat. “Mikoto. Did you have an okay day?”
He is twenty years old. He has not spoken directly to his father since he left for university. He keeps the sleeping pills in the back corner of the top shelf of the medicine cabinet. He still slaps his own hands when he stutters. He goes to every single one of Mayu’s matches, Mayu who he has probably been in love with since he first got that one response from an anonymous internet artist. Chiyo stretches out her arms, and she doesn’t look so ridiculous anymore. Everything’s gotten less funny as he’s gotten older.
“No,” he says. He hugs her waist and lets her thread her fingers though his hair. “No, I didn’t.”
“Oh sweetie,” she says and, for once, Mikoshiba Mikoto is not too ashamed to cry.
There’s no long confession, no detailing of his tiringly tragic past. She’s figured out who Mayu is, he’s pretty sure. He’s pretty sure she’d had an inkling for a long time. The track story hadn’t been as convincing as he’d thought it was when he still ran out of breath climbing two flights of stairs. Maybe he hadn’t wanted it to be convincing. His subconscious has never been entirely on the same page with the rest of him.
“I just want you to know I’m here for you,” she says after they’ve both calmed down. They’ve sat down at the table, across from each other. She’s still stroking his knuckles with his thumbs. “I know I can be chatty, but just interrupt me, okay?”
“You too,” he says back, and she smiles a little sadder than he would like. That’s a problem for another day. He has to fix himself before he can fix whatever’s wrong with her.
…
Mikoto: im sorry
Mikoto: this is uncalled for
Mikoto: i know you’ve probably forgotten all about me
Mikoto: but if you haven’t, can we meet?
Mikoto: i’ve never hated you. but you can hate me. i’d understand.
Mayu: i could never
…
Mayu’s waiting in the café with a daisy tucked behind his ear. Mikoto can see him through the glass. This could go horribly wrong. He has no idea how Mayu will react, if he’ll react as badly as Mikoto did all those years ago. But he thinks he owes this to the both of them. Standing here, with a daisy to match, it feels like his world is beginning to pick itself off the ground and is getting to work on rebuilding. Whether Mayu becomes a part of that is up to Mayu. Mikoto doesn’t feel like either answer will wreck him.
He walks up to the door, takes a deep breath, and lets the jingle of the bell usher him into the next step.