Chapter Text
Michieda Shunsuke was born with a strange gift.
Well, not really a gift, per se — more of a certain predisposition that has been passed down every other generation or so from his mother’s side. Micchi's mother is a gentle, unassuming and –aside from her fangirl tendencies – painfully normal woman such that those who didn't know wouldn't have guessed that she was actually descended from a powerful line of shamans dating back for centuries. They had stopped their practice, though, sometime during the Meiji era for reasons that have been lost to time. Their specialty: mending holes in the fabric between worlds.
Now Micchi doesn't have the slightest idea about mending physical holes, much less astral ones, but for as long as he could remember, he could at least see them and, sometimes, the barriers between worlds grow thin enough that Micchi manages to catch glimpses of alternate lives beyond the world he actually lives in, like photographs taken through an antiquated camera.
Those worlds, those lives are so varied, Micchi tended to get lost in them, especially when he was younger. From prosperous kingdoms to apocalyptic landscapes, from princes to paupers and mermaids and elves, Micchi has always seen enough to keep himself occupied for days on end.
As a child, he even used to talk about them rather openly – those fascinating worlds, those other lives – only to get strange looks in return, especially from adults. His teachers would always reassure his parents that nothing was wrong with him, that it was normal for children his age to have an overactive imagination, but it wouldn’t hurt to give Micchi an outlet — some sport or martial arts, perhaps, to keep him occupied — but his Mom quickly figured out what was happening.
"Shun-chan," he remembers his Mom telling him one night, a strange expression on her face. "My precious, precious Shun-chan. You really should stop telling people that those other worlds are real, okay?”
"But they’re real!” Micchi insists, tears of frustration beading at the sides of his eyes. "They feel real, those different worlds, those different me's. You know they're real, right, Mom?"
His Mom doesn't say anything, just smiles sadly at him before leaning down to place a kiss on his forehead and tucking him in to sleep.
Barely hours later, at 3:27 am of the 27th of March before his seventh birthday, Micchi meets Him.
—
The first time Micchi meets Him, he is chasing the fireflies that had suddenly appeared in his bedroom through one of the cracks in the barrier between worlds. It was a rare thing to see – fireflies in spring – and Micchi has always been a curious child so naturally, he just had to follow the fireflies to see where they came from.
The sand underneath his feet is fine and cool when he steps through the crack in the barrier between worlds and the wind on the other side smells strongly like the sea. Looking around, Micchi is surprised to find himself on an unfamiliar beach, the light of the crescent moon and an infinite number of stars reflecting off the water's surface. It is the first time he has been here – this beach, this world – but for some reason, Micchi feels a strange sense of belongingness, as though he weren't the intruder he actually is and this is somewhere he is supposed to be. The fireflies are nowhere in sight though and Micchi wonders if he’d gotten lost.
“Hello,” someone calls to him and Micchi jumps, looks towards the sound of the voice to find someone walking towards him. The boy is tall, probably around the age of the sixth or seventh grade kids at the school Micchi goes to. He is wearing a wide brimmed straw hat and his clothes looked too thin and threadbare to keep the chill out. The cold does not seem to bother him though as he walks towards Micchi, a thin branch clasped in his right hand.
“Hello,” Micchi says, not entirely sure if he should respond. After all, his Mom has always warned him against talking to strangers and this boy from another world definitely counts as the strangest stranger who has ever talked to Micchi. Something tells him it is okay though, makes him want to continue talking to this boy, probably the same curiosity that brought him here in the first place.
“I’m not from here,” Micchi chooses to inform the boy, a part of his wanting to know how the other will react, if he’s the same as all those other people in Micchi’s world whom he chose to open this part of himself to.
“I know,” the boy from another world responds, before squatting down and starting to poke at something in the sand with his stick. “I am though. My father’s a fisherman.”
Micchi frowns, puzzled at this strange boy’s strange behavior, crouches down beside him.
“I said, I’m not from here,” Micchi repeats, just in case the boy didn’t hear.
“And I said, ‘I know,’” the boy replies patiently. “Now hush. I can’t talk while doing things at the same time.”
Micchi’s frown deepens at being brushed aside but can’t help but become curious. “What are you doing?" he ends up asking, making the boy sigh before stopping his movements.
“Nothing special. Just looking for stars,” the boy says simply before continuing with his poking.
“Looking for stars? In the sand?” Micchi asks, giggling. “But isn’t that silly? There are so many stars up in your sky, see? Why do you insist on looking for them down here?”
The boy stops his movements and Micchi thinks he might have said something out of line but then the boy looks up at him, eyes crinkling into twin moons before smiling at Micchi.
“Why?” The boy says, looking straight into Micchi’s eyes. “Because maybe the stars that are found shine infinitely brighter than any star in the night sky.”
The next day, Micchi wakes up with a slight cold and asks his parents for a telescope, the sound of ocean waves still ringing in his ears.
—
On the 27th of March before his thirteenth birthday, Micchi meets Him again, this time on the top of a cliff overlooking a lush green valley. The boy, who is now a young man, is wearing a pure white sleeveless tunic and sandals, like someone out of Micchi’s Greek Mythology story books. Behind him is a weird contraption that looks like makeshift wings crudely held together by pieces of twine and wax.
“Oh, it’s you,” the other says, looking surprised to see Micchi, before his features relax into a familiar smile. “I never thought I’d meet you here.”
Over the years, the two of them have met countless of times and Micchi has gotten to know different versions of this boy… this young man in so many different worlds but no matter what world they ended up meeting in nor who He ended up being, He always seems to manage to recognize Micchi.
“What are you doing?” Micchi asks, unconsciously echoing the question he had asked Him the first time they met.
"Oh," the young man says. "You came just in time. I was about to test my latest invention.”
Micchi has indeed met many different versions of this young man but, though most of them have been dreamers like him, it is the first time Micchi has met an inventor. He looks at the makeshift wings behind the other and frowns. He doesn’t know much about science or machines but His invention didn’t resemble any working aircraft Micchi has seen.
“Are you sure it’s, I dunno, safe?” He asks the young man from another world who just laughs and ruffles his hair.
“Honestly? I have no idea,” the other says, rather flippantly considering what it may imply.
“Then why do it?” Micchi asks, thinking that this is one of the stranger versions of the older boy that he has encountered so far. “Aren’t you scared? What if you—“
“What if I fail?” His companion interrupts him, as though he already knew what Micchi is driving at. “Well, sometimes, not knowing is actually scarier than doing something you think is scary.”
“Huh?”
“I mean, isn't there anything you really, really want to do that scares you?"
Micchi, to be honest, is scared of a lot of things but nothing scares him more than being right.
“But what if it doesn’t work?” Micchi insists, tears starting to form because why doesn’t He seem to understand that Micchi is just worried about him? “What if it doesn’t work and you crash?”
“But what if I don’t?” The boy, who is now a young man, counters easily, looking at Micchi with a familiar smile and Micchi is reminded of the planet he once visited that had three suns in the sky, thinks that none of those suns were ever as dazzling as His smile that day on that cliff in the middle of nowhere.
"What if, instead of crashing," the young man continues excitedly and yet sounding infinitely wise beyond his apparent age. "I grow wings and fly?”
—
A couple of days before Micchi’s thirteenth birthday, Yamada Ryosuke’s Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo Neo begins airing as a drama series on TV and suddenly, he understands.
Micchi decides to send in his resume to Johnny’s the next day.
—
On the 27th of March before his sixteenth birthday, Micchi almost decides to give up on his dream of becoming an actor.
He had sent has sent his application to Johnny's several times now, just like his Mom had apparently done since he was a baby, but he had never been called in for an audition.
It is kind of disheartening, especially since Micchi is slowly approaching the age when Johnny's Juniors start thinking about their debut after having been training for years.
He passes by the Shochizuka Theater sometimes and can't help but glance at the posters featuring any number of Kansai Johnny's Juniors, wondering just why he couldn't measure up.
"Isn't it just a matter of preference, though?" Someone suddenly says and Micchi is startled to find a strange girl standing beside him, looking at the same poster.
Micchi blinks to make sure she isn't a hallucination. His classmates have always said that there is something about Micchi's aura that usually make people nervous to approach him at first – like some sort of melancholic prince better viewed from afar – so Micchi isn't really used to random strangers walking up to him to start a conversation, especially pretty strangers with gentle smiles who seem to have things all figured out.
"Huh?" he asks intelligently, making the girl laugh.
"Sorry," she says. "I don't normally strike up conversation with random strangers but I have seen you around here several times now and couldn't help but think that you were made to be on the stage."
Micchi sighs. He usually isn't comfortable about telling people about his worries and frustrations, mostly because he doesn't want to burden them, but something just tells him this girl wouldn't mind.
"I actually have been trying – to get into the Kansai Johnny's – but I have never been called in for an audition."
"Oh? Then have you ever thought about doing theater?"
"Theater?"
"It might be a bit too late for this," the girl says, handing Micchi a leaflet. "But hi, I'm Fukumoto. Fukumoto Riko. I'm part of the Sakurazuka Theater Troupe. Would you like to join us?"
—
That night, when Micchi slips through another crack in the barrier between worlds, he doesn't expect to find himself in a Japanese courtyard from what looked like the Meiji era.
Granted that he arrives at these worlds at random but it is the first time he is seeing such a familiar sight.
It appears to be also spring in this world and Micchi couldn't help but marvel at the sakura tree in the middle of the courtyard in fully bloom.
"Young detective? When have you– Oh, it's you."
Micchi turns around and sure enough, just like clockwork, it is Him. This version of Him has long, platinum blond hair tied at its base of his neck, wears a kimono as befitting the time period, but Micchi definitely recognizes Him.
"Hello," Micchi says, bowing slightly by reflex, the regal manner by which the Him of this world carries himself making Micchi feel that he has to. “Were you expecting anyone else?”
“Perhaps,” He says, joining MIcchi in his admiration of the fluttering pink blossoms. Looking at the Him of this world, Micchi thinks he kind of understands what his classmates mean and if there ever were someone who can be considered the epitome of a “melancholic prince better viewed from afar,” it probably was Him.
“Ne,” Micchi finds himself asking though, surprising himself by thinking he could be this person’s Fukumoto-san. “Who do you remember when you think of spring?”
“Who?” He smiles and, strangely, Micchi feels that it isn’t something He is used to doing. He doesn’t look away from the sakura tree, though, as if afraid something were to happen if He so much as blinked or looked away. “Would you believe it if I said that person weren’t someone of this world?”
Micchi is confused. He hasn’t really met or even heard of any barrier-crossers like himself. “Like me?” He asks, making the Him of this world finally look at him.
“Someone exactly like you,” He says mysteriously. “But not. That person… Whether it were by some miracle or a cruel twist of fate, the impossible happened and for that bit of time, maybe I allowed myself to believe that there were such a thing as happiness.”
“You look so sad though?” Micchi says, feeling his heart hurt for this version of Him unlike any other.
“Regret does that, yes,” He says, smiling sadly at Micchi. “I just wish I took my chance while I had it."
—
The next day, Micchi shows up at the address on the leaflet he’d been given by Riko and takes his.
—
On the 27th of March before his seventeenth birthday, Micchi thinks he might have a little bit of a crush on Fukumoto Riko.
For the fifteen year-old Micchi who almost wanted to give up on his dream, Riko handing him that leaflet had been the turning point.
Granted that Micchi was still under training, had only been given minor roles so far, but joining the theater troupe opening up a whole new, exciting world filled with possibility and opportunity and Micchi will forever be grateful to Riko for it.
He wonders, though, when gratitude turned into fondness into heart-fluttering feelings that Micchi supposed were what having a crush on someone was supposed to feel like, if any of the shoujo manga he’d been reading lately were anything to go by.
—
“Ah, is that how it works?” the Him that Micchi meets when he slips through another crack in the barrier between worlds later that night is one of the most unassuming, painfully ordinary versions of Him Micchi has met so far — a high school student who, based on what Micchi could gather from his room, seemed to do sports and like manga and had a pet dog who takes one sniff at Micchi before walking out of the bedroom leaving the two of them alone.
“I don’t know,” Micchi says, munching at the crackers He had laid out for them, a bit frustrated and yet thankful that he had managed to find someone who is like some sort of friend that he could talk things like this through with. “I mean, I do get these heart fluttering feelings whenever I’m around Fukumoto-san — I mean, she is really pretty and kind and gentle and smart — but I dunno, is it really supposed to be this easy to figure out you’re in love with someone?”
The Him of this world pauses, as though remembering something, before reaching for his phone and Micchi has to wait for him to finish typing away at his phone before getting his reply.
“Sorry but I just realized I forgot to reply to someone,” He says. “Anyway, I really don’t think I’m the right person to talk to about these things.”
“Huh?” Micchi asks. “But aren’t you already dating someone?”
“Yeah,” He confirms, before smiling softly in a way that makes Micchi feel strangely jealous of whoever the reason for that smile is. “I don’t think I’ve told him properly yet so he’s been worried if we’re actually dating or not.”
“So?” Micchi asks, almost sulking. “How did you know that you like him?”
“I don’t,” He says, surprising Micchi. “At least, not yet, but even while I’m still figuring things out, I don’t think I’ll be satisfied with just leaving things as they are. You probably understand that feeling all too well right?”
The next day, Micchi asks Riko if she wants to go to the aquarium with him, you know, to thank her for everything she has done for him so far. Miraculously, she says yes.
—
On the 27th of March before his eighteenth birthday, Micchi is told he is going to act as lead in his first stage play. Romeo and Juliet — the tragic tale of star-crossed lovers that has enthralled audiences for generations across the globe. It isn’t exactly the stage Micchi had longed for when he was younger but it still was a stage and Micchi would take any chance he is given to perform on the stage he is slowly growing to love. He is just glad to have someone like Riko pay opposite him.
Over the past year, he and Riko had gotten closer but not in the way Micchi would have originally expected. The fondness for the older girl, of course, hasn’t gone away the more he and Riko spent time together but the heart-fluttering feelings did, so much so that it doesn’t take much for Micchi to ask Riko once during their biweekly K-drama marathons why she wasn’t dating anyone.
Riko blinks at him, as though it were the first time that she is seriously considering the question, before shrugging and saying that, if at all, she’ll probably be marrying her art anyway and until the time she meets anyone who makes any other option seem more appealing, that’s how things will be.
Micchi sighs at unexpectedly unromantic answer. “Ah, and here I was hoping we could bank on your experience for RomiJuri, Fukumoto-san,” he whines, making Riko laugh before chucking a popcorn at him.
“If I had any experience, do you think we’d be sitting here watching a lifetime’s worth of K-dramas to prepare for the play?”
—
That night, Micchi slips through a crack in the barrier between worlds and finds himself stepping onto the famous bridge overlooking Naka Meguro in Tokyo. It is night time and yet not even the darkness could take away the beautiful sight of the Naka Meguro sakura in full bloom.
“They’re pretty, aren’t they?” Someone says and Micchi looks to his left to find Him — or at least a figure he assumes to be Him, couldn’t really tell with the mask and the hat blocking off his view — leaning on the bridge, looking out towards the falling sakura.
“Yes,” Micchi says. “I’ve never been to Tokyo before but they say the sakura in Meguro-ku are the prettiest in Japan.” A pause. “Too bad I had to come here at night though. In the daylight, they are probably all the more breathtaking.”
Micchi’s comment manages to draw a chuckle out of Him for some reason, making Micchi look at him questioningly.
“What?” Micchi asks.
“Nothing,” He answers. “It’s just… I kinda like the the night sakura more.”
“But,” Micchi protests. “Won’t they look more beautiful if you can see them more clearly?”
“Ah, but that’s just because you don’t know their secret,” He says.
The secret of the night sakura? MIcchi can’t say he has ever heard of it and he tells Him so, making Him laugh yet again.
"The secret of the night sakura? Well, someone once said that if they turn invisible, it means you have met the right one.”
"But I can see them?" Micchi says.
“Maybe it's because you haven't met your right one."
His knowing tone irritates Micchi for some reason.
“And you?” He fires back. “Have the night sakura ever turned invisible for you?”
The man just smiles, eyes crinkling into familiar twin moons as he looks at Micchi. “Maybe the next world you meet me in, you'll understand,” he says mysteriously, not answering Micchi's question.
—
The next day, Micchi wakes up and feels like he understands a bit more about love.
—
On the 27th of March before Micchi’s nineteenth birthday, Riko tells him she will be moving away to Tokyo.
In some alternate lives Micchi had seen, he and Riko had ended up together but those Micchis are different from this Micchi who, after his initial feelings have passed, realized he could only ever see Riko as a friend or older sister.
Really, sometimes Micchi thinks that's just too bad, but weeks later, when Riko sends him a message about having to reschedule their weekly video call because she had an audition with a certain "Suzuki-kun," Micchi couldn't help but smile and wish them happiness because in most of Riko's other lives, the person who Riko ends up with was a certain “Suzuki-kun.”
—
For some reason, that night, for the first time since the 27th of March before his seventh birthday, Micchi doesn't meet Him.
—