Chapter Text
teruhashi kokomi is perfect.
everyone either wants her or wants to be her. everyone says "oh, wow!" when they see her in person. she is, undoubtedly, an angel in human form, and everyone and anyone who sees her loves her.
well.
not everyone.
for some reason, not toritsuka reita.
for a long time, he never understood what was wrong with him. not only could he see ghosts, but he wasnt interested in most things an average teenage boy would be interested in, like sports, or girls. mostly girls.
he only discovered the issue the first time he got an ad for gay porn on a porn site.
somehow, he had no idea that relationships could work that way. maybe that came as part of growing up in a temple? but, then again, here he was, in the temple, watching porn.
of course it led to about a million different google searches. "why are men hot", "what does gay mean" "how to tell if youre gay" "am i gay quiz" "am i gay buzzfeed" and things like that.
he asked the monks about homosexuality at dinner that night. they said it wasn't bad for just anyone, but forbidden for buddhists. he didn't tell them how he felt.
he asked a friend of his about homosexuality later.
"hey, kimura?"
"what's up, toritsuka?" the boy responded. toritsuka noticed himself watching his lips as he spoke. he wondered for a moment if his green eyes seemed to shine so brightly because of this new discovery.
"do you think it's possible for a man to love another man?"
for a moment, the boy was silent. now, toritsuka wishes he never said anything. "nah. my mom said all that stuff is wrong."
toritsuka sucked in a breath. "agreed. i can't believe there are people like that out there."
"good to know we feel the same about this!" was his response. suddenly, the glow in his green eyes and the shine of his deep red lips seemed to dull slowly in toritsuka's eyes.
it seemed everyone he deeply cared about hated the idea of gay people. so, toritsuka would convince them all, absolutely every last one, that he was straighter than a ruler.
he would make them believe it, even if it wasn't true.
--
teruhashi kokomi is perfect.
this is a fact. she's beautiful, kind, caring, smart and doesn't care about anyones faults. she's simply a perfect human.
or is she?
when teruhashi kokomi was 11 years old, she had a best friend named murakami aoi. the two had been inseparable since they were babies. they did everything together, and they were considered the most loveable friendship. murakami aoi was not perfect like teruhashi kokomi, but this did not matter. all that mattered was that they liked each other's company, and were wonderful friends.
one day, a girl told teruhashi murakami aoi was a lesbian.
"what's a lesbian?" teruhashi asked.
"you don't know what a lesbian is?" her classmate responded, in almost a concerned voice. "it's a girl who dates other girls. and i think she has a crush on you, teruhashi-san! you probably wanna stop hanging out with her."
teruhashi was confused when she walked home. what was wrong with being a lesbian? even if teruhashi wasn't, the way other people felt about themselves shouldn't matter to anyone but them. it seems like something personal... maybe she'll ask her mom.
big mistake.
"where did you hear about this?" her mother asked with wide eyes.
"at school. a classmate told me aoi is a lesbian."
"oh, dear, that's no good. you musn't hang out with that girl."
"but why?"
"if that's true, it's very wrong. the only relationship any woman should ever be in is with a man, and the only relationship any man should ever be in is with a woman. never anything but."
"oh..."
in the days following, people seemed to distance themselves from murakami. teruhashi didn't want to, but she did, because her mother said to. one day, she saw a group of girls pushing around and beating up murakami, calling her a bunch of words teruhashi didn't want to know the meaning of. she ran up to the group and told them to stop.
"teruhashi-san... why are you defending her? you're not... one of them, are you?"
"n-no, but—"
"then you shouldn't care."
teruhashi looked from them to murakami, and back to them. she shakily took a breath, bowed lightly, and walked off. murakami screamed her name as she walked away.
when she got home, teruhashi ran to her room so nobody saw her crying.
the very next day, murakami aoi was not at school. it was revealed to her that her family had moved away to nagano.
from that moment on, teruhashi convinced herself she'd make the world believe she was straighter than a ruler.
because that was what was true.
...right?