Chapter Text
alone.
every time he saw you, you were always alone.
he wasn’t quite sure when he first began to find himself keeping an eye out for you in the overly crowded halls of the way too big school building. he guesses it was when he first saw you scurrying into school one dreary cold morning draped in an oversized hoodie, baggy jeans, and an old pair of battered converse. to anyone else’s prying eyes, you just looked like any other teenager who had overslept and threw on the closest articles of clothing they could find. in a way this was an initial thought of his but when he looked closer he couldn’t help but notice the way your hair was strategically laid on your neck and neatly tucked into the hood of your jacket. his watchful gaze couldn’t ignore the way your arm went to clutch your side when you went to pull open the door of the girls bathroom.
*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*
to put things quite frankly, inumaki toge was an observer. it’s all he’s known in his 17 years of life. he’s selectively mute and has been since he was six.no one really knows the exact reasoning behind it and his parents gave up on trying to get him to speak a long time ago, and because of this they had to find ways to work around their son’s sudden mutism and find other ways to communicate with him. his mutism often put unnecessary attention onto him by his peers that would only worsen as he got older.
up until he was ten, toge and his parents communicated through notes and a few silly made up gestures for every day objects and situations. it wasn’t until toge’s tenth birthday that his father finally cracked and signed him up for japanese sign language classes. toge soaked up all of the information he learned like a sponge and it didn’t take long for him before he was able to communicate with sign language entirely.
as toge got older and entered middle school, that’s when things began to change. he often found himself being the center for jokes and incessant teasing by his peers which only got worse when he began to crawl back into his shell and eventually stopped communicating completely. it all happened due to his father one day upping and leaving. at first he didn’t know why he left and he would often blame himself for not being good enough for him, and as a naive kid he held onto the idea that one day his father would come back and he could prove himself to him that he was enough. unfortunately all of his hope quickly disappeared when one day he was walking home from school to see his father parked in a car on the street with his arms around a woman he had never seen before. due to the shocking situation playing out in front of him, his feet remained planted on the concrete. his feet felt as heavy as lead. he tried to move and he wanted so badly to run home to his mother’s arms and cry as he felt betrayed but he just couldn’t look away. it was like a bad car accident that you want so desperately to look away from but just couldn’t due to wanting to know what would happen next. his feet didn’t begin to move until he saw his father, the one who was the driving force that got him his sign language classes—the same classes that helped him open up to his parents, kissing the lips of a woman he had never seen before.
he didn’t realize his teeth had found refuge in the skin of his lip until he tasted the metallic taste of blood in his mouth as he ran home with the hot, sticky, humid summer wind sticking to his skin like a melted popsicle on a hot summer day.
he hated his father. he felt so lost and confused. how could he betray the family he had like that for someone else? how could he throw all that away and abandon his one and only child and discard them as if they’re some old wadded up receipt that’s stuck on the bottom of his shoe? it angered toge to know his father could do such a thing and it left him feeling hurt and angry.
from that day forward, every time toge tried to communicate using sign language he couldn’t find it in him to ignore the bitter taste in his mouth every time he attempted to communicate. toge would always find himself being reminded that his father was the one to get him the lessons which helped him so much. and eventually day by day, toge found himself using this form of communication less and less. his mother felt helpless when she found her quiet toge crying in a ball under his comforter when she returned home from a long shift at the hospital, the scene before her had her instantly wanting to take all feelings he was feeling and put them on herself.
although toge was hurting, he was also stubborn and didn’t initially open up to his mother about what had caused his rare crying outburst despite her efforts to get him to sign to her. she had to practically beg him to when he refused to eat and go to school after four long harboring days in the inumaki household.
when toge finally cracked and told her, she felt terrible. she never wanted him to find out that way. she was going to explain it to him as best as she could for a child his age to understand, but with her long shifts as a nurse, time was fleeting and even she wasn’t 100% healed from the wounds caused by her husband. how could she explain to her heart in human form that his father left due to having an affair?
her first thought was her son’s perception of her changing— did he think she was weak? worthless? it was all she could think about as she stroked toge’s platinum hair as he held tightly onto her waist, drenching her scrubs with his salty tears. it felt as if he was holding onto her for dear life, holding onto her he as assurance for himself that his mother would continue to always be there for him—as if one wrong movement and she’d wiggle free and she too would leave him. it was a pivotal moment in their relationship that would only bring the two closer than before and for the next few years up until toge began high school it was simply just the two of them taking things day by day as mother and son.
when toge was fifteen and entered high school that’s when he gradually went back into his shell. it was in his first year of high school where the teasing and subtle bullying seemed to worsen. his peers would joke and pick on him for his mutism more and more and would joke about the oddly discolored patches of skin around his mouth now that they weren’t under the watchful eye of their school teachers. at first it was somewhat tolerable for him—he was used to it as he had been quite the buzz around town since he was little. but as time went by and he began to see everyone else around him forging connections with other people he couldn’t help but feel jealousy bubbling up inside of him which made him green with envy. he often wondered to himself was he good enough? he truly was trying his best! he couldn’t help but felt stupid. it was silly of him to think anyone would ever look at him normally with how he is and his appearance…his own father left him and if his own father of all people up and left him then surely no one his own age would care to befriend him. and once fifteen year old toge came to terms with that he went back into the lonely little bubble he was used to his entire life.
inumaki toge simply succumbed to the loneliness.
it was easy for him to do— to be alone. he always was a quiet kid. his thoughts rampant in that platinum haired head of his. it wasn’t until the day before winter break of his first year of high school when a new student appeared. this student was quite the enigma. not much was known about him except for the name he gave when people spoke to him. he introduced himself as panda. he had black and white split dyed hair and was tall with a rather loud and outgoing personality that made the students around him snicker as he boisterously went around to introduce himself. most of the students just sent him judgmental looks already deciding unanimously to cast him to the side without giving him a chance.
“what a weirdo..”
“panda? is he serious!”
“and to think i was going to warn him about inumaki-kun up until he opened that big blabber mouth of his! how pathetic.”
those were just a select few of the many things that were said about panda as he made his rounds around the judgmental classroom. in a way this atmosphere only entertained the new student. he found it funny that already at age fifteen these kids could be so damn judgmental with the lack of life experience they had.
what piqued panda’s interest the most as he walked around the room was the platinum mop of hair that he saw facing the window. whoever that hair belonged to was on a completely different planet and could care less about the loud reactions of the students. the boy was so spaced out he didn’t even hear the loud footsteps of the boy walking towards him.
panda tapped no, poked inumaki’s arm in order to get his attention. that poke got his attention alright and all inumaki could do was stare at the dark brown eyes staring directly into his.
“hello!” panda said while giving inumaki his biggest and brightest grin, making sure to flash him a cool pose as he did so. inumaki cringed slightly, letting his internal monologue get to the best of him by accidentally making a face of disgust at the poor new kid who was expectantly waiting for a response. inumaki immediately felt bad at his change of facial expression and he couldn’t help but mentally slap himself because of it. one thing about inumaki-san is that she didn’t raise her son to be disrespectful to people. if her son wasn’t going to verbally speak then so be it! but that certainly wasn’t an excuse for rudeness and because of that she instilled in him to at least be polite and respectful. hearing his mother’s voice in his head, inumaki (although laced with anxiety) shyly waved back to panda.
the interaction between the two was quite the spectacle to the now quieted classroom who were all sitting on the edge of their seats waiting to see what would happen next. the students newly found entertainment was quickly cut short when their teacher stepped into the classroom.
“ah you must be our new student.” the teacher said as he was placing his papers down on his desk he couldn’t help but glance at the calendar and see that the student was starting right before the winter break. he was a little confused but hey someone like him was the LAST person who should go around judging people when he was constantly late to his own class.
after surveying the room the teacher couldn’t ignore how unusually quiet his normally noisy classroom was and how thick the atmosphere felt. his loud and laughter filled classroom was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. when he followed the students line of vision he could see a clearly torn inumaki having a hard time trying to convey to the new student that talking verbally wasn’t really his thing. instead of putting the clearly uncomfortable student on blast, he quickly walked to the back of the classroom to speak to panda about the nature of inumaki.
he put his hand on panda’s shoulder while giving inumaki a small smile. “panda? kun…” the slightly taken aback teacher spoke. a slight waver in his voice. “this is inumaki toge! he has selective mutism and for the most part he doesn’t verbally speak, he uses sign language when necessary or writes things down.” as his teacher explained, toge couldn’t help but feel uneasy. ”just great another person who’s going to judge me” he couldn’t help but think to himself. to his (and the extremely nosy) classroom’s surprise, panda only smiled bigger and let out a small huff of satisfaction. “i think we’re going to get along!”
and so for the rest of the class period, panda began to slide toge sloppily written notes stained with potato chip stains asking all about him. when it came time for the bell to ring for dismissal, panda practically begged toge to give him his number so they could talk over the break and to toge’s dismay he eventually gave into his pleads—it was hard to ignore panda tugging at at his sleeve as he was weighing out the potential outcomes of his response.
what’s the worst that could happen? was what toge thought as he scribbled down his number on a sticky note and stuck it on the back of panda’s shoulder as he silently walked away. he was somewhat eager to get home, despite his silence his social battery was drained having to hear a new person talk his ear off the entire day. all he wanted to do was go home, be greeted by his cat, eat his favorite snack, take a nap, and wait for his mom to get home. so you can imagine his displeasure when he felt his normally quiet phone vibrating in his jacket pocket as he unlocked his front door.
xxx-xxx-xxx: 🎋🐼😊!!!!!
toge couldn’t help but chuckle softly to himself seeing the usage of emojis, it was like panda was typing in code and they were a pair of secret spies.
xxx-xxx-xxx: oh come on man i can see your typing bubbles its making me nervous 😡!!
toge bent down to greet his beloved cat as a way to calm his nerves before typing out his response.
me: oh sorry, i’m just not really used to people messaging me unless it’s my mom asking me what i want for dinner >_< . do you need anything? we just saw each other 15 minutes ago wwww.
panda: don’t apologize!!! ❌ i just wanted to check in on my new friend (it’s youuu by the way).
toge couldn’t ignore the feeling of his mouth twitching upwards into a small smile. it was the first time in his life that someone voluntarily called him their friend and seemed genuinely eager to talk to him. that evening panda and toge messaged back and forth, with toge entertaining panda’s rampant thoughts as he sent message after message, you could say the two became extremely close simply from their back and forth banter that evening. toge’s mother was over the moon when she got home from work with groceries in her hand, almost dropping the bags she had when toge told her all about his new found friend. she couldn’t help but grab him by his cheeks and place two delicate kisses on his discolored patches that often left him feeling insecure.
“mommm stop it.” toge whined as she was practically jumping for joy. inumaki’s face turned red in embarrassment. he couldn’t remember the last time she was this happy, and although toge was embarrassed he couldn’t help but hug her back and cherish the moment.
and so over the break toge and panda would text back and forth—toge began to break down the walls he had built up over the years (thanks to the help of panda) and was able to even let some of his goofy personality shine through. panda loved how funny and how much of a prankster inumaki was, and something pulled at his heart strings when he realized that no one knew that about him due to how everyone chastised him all throughout his childhood and made no effort to befriend him. but hey more toge for him! they simply didn’t know what they were missing, and panda was going to make it his life’s mission to give toge back all that lost time he didn’t get to experience due to bullying and never having a real friend.
for the next two years, toge and panda were like two peas in a pod. it wasn’t always a smooth sailing ride, sometimes inumaki’s name get spread around even more which caused him to doubt himself more than he already did, and if it weren’t for panda and inumaki’s mother he probably would of crawled back into his shell. there were times where inumaki would try to cut panda off claiming it was “too much” being around him and all his energy and unnecessary attention he brought with him. in inumaki language what he really meant is that deep down no matter how hard he tried to he couldn’t brush off the comments being said about him and his friend, and instead of communicating that to him he simply shut him out. it was hard for him, he wanted to enjoy having a friend like everyone else but no matter what people would always have something to say about the pair. no matter how hard inumaki tried to push his friend away it never worked, and it only made panda stick by his side more. panda wanted inumaki to see that he deserved to have friends and a sense of normalcy just like everyone else their age and after one last effort made by panda, inumaki was able to verbalize to panda how he was feeling when panda showed up on the inumaki’s doorstep.
“yes?” toge signed to panda as he saw his tall friend looking down to him, his eyes pleading with him to hear him out. it had been awhile since toge had replied to any of his efforts to get him to open up about his feelings.
“look i know you’re upset about a lot of things and i know i can’t control how you feel so can you just hear me out… please?” panda spoke in one whole breath. inumaki just stared back at him, his eyes devoid of any emotion and panda couldn’t quite tell what his friend was thinking.
“i’m sure you’re embarrassed of me and i’m s-sorry. i wish i could be a more quieter version of myself—i wish i could dial down my eccentricity and my quirks. but toge if i do that… that wouldn’t be fair! i’d be taking away all the unique traits that make me, me. i’m sorry my presence and our friendship does more harm than good to you i truly am but i care too much about you to just let you shut everyone out…me out, especially when you’re finally coming out of your bubble. i just want to show you that you too deserve friendship and good experiences like everyone else.” panda was red in the face and out of breath, barely giving himself time to breathe before he spilled his guts out to toge.
it was actually quite comical for toge, his friend out of breath just so he could make sure he got all his words out. he couldn’t help but laugh softly. his reaction only made the male in front of him confused as he looked back at his friend with a embarrassed expression. the embarrassment being too much for panda almost made him turn on his heel and leave but that was until he heard a voice. it was a voice he had never heard before.
“w-wait.”
panda turned around to look at the boy in shock. thee inumaki toge—the boy who never spoke did the exact opposite of what was expected for him. all panda could do was stand there dumb founded doing exactly what was asked of him. it was like his feet were glued to the ground.
toge was taken back by his own actions. why did he speak? most importantly why did he feel like he had to? he thought that him trying to cut panda off was the right thing to do for them both but it felt as if there was a devil and an angel on his shoulders trying to convince him to do what they wanted.
toge stared at his bare feet before opening his mouth up to speak again.
“you don’t embarrass me… if anything i feel like the embarrassment. i’m nowhere near your level when it comes to being a good friend—i don’t even know how to be a good friend… and i’m s-sorry for trying to push you away i simply thought i was doing what was in our best interest. i truly do value your friendship. you’re my closest friend.” he spoke in one breath, and he too was out of breath from the lack of a pause but he felt as if he had to get his feelings out, and quickly or else he would change his mind and go back into his shell.
“i’m also your only friend!” panda said softly laughing as he lightly punched inumaki’s shoulder. toge couldn’t help but laugh to himself. “yeah panda you are my only friend, my best and only friend.” he said softly. toge couldn’t help but feel relieved knowing that panda didn’t make a big deal of him using his actual voice—he didn’t make him feel alienated or as if he was an object being unwillingly put on display to be gawked at in a museum.
“come on inside and let’s get something to drink. i think we both are in dire need of something considering how red we are.” he said quietly before opening the door wider for both of them to walk through. his silent yet subtle humor made panda laugh as he shook his head in agreement as he followed him into the house that became an oasis for him. that was one of the things panda valued most about his friend, he loved how despite him not talking he was still able to have a good sense of humor.
“ my mom is making dinner when she gets off work so you’re welcome to stay if you want.”
and panda did exactly that. it was a new leaf for their friendship, now toge began to put in more effort to make his friend feel just as valued as panda made him feel. panda would stick up for toge and come to his defense when toge wasn’t around to hear the things being said about the two. once word spread of how panda protected toge as if he was his younger brother, most of the commotion around the eccentric boy known as panda and the mute quiet boy came to an end. by the time the boys were both seventeen, most of the other students matured enough to the point where the two boys didn’t have to worry about constantly being the subjects of jokes in front of every else from being different and being themselves. it was a relief for the both of them.
…
“earth to toge.” panda said while waving his hand in front of his spaced out friend.
it took a few seconds for panda’s voice to resonate in toge’s ears. he quickly blinked twice before letting out a grunt of acknowledgment.
“are you okay?” panda asked quirking an eyebrow up while looking at his friend’s expression.
all toge did was shake his head in agreement. the two boys walked to their class and sat at their desks. the bell was about to ring and their teacher was nowhere to be seen. their teacher never was punctual, even when they had him when they were first years. all the students in their class thought they’d seen the last of him but to their dismay that wasn’t the case when they received news that he’d be a teacher for third years as well. everyone received a one year break from him and his antics but had to deal with his rather childlike persona in their final year of high school.
as the clock ticked, the class reps took the responsibility of taking attendance due to their teacher’s usual tardiness.
when the reps got to one specific name they couldn’t help but snicker to themselves. “l/n- san” they called out while obnoxiously searching high and low for her in the classroom. taking their hands and holding it to their foreheads as if they were pirates on a ship looking for an island to explore.
“she’s not here like usual.” they remarked, quietly saying more comments about her low enough to themselves that they couldn’t be heard.
inumaki couldn’t help but grimace as he had once been the victim of jokes and unnecessary teasing at one point. they were only a few weeks into the school year and yet here they were already onto their next victim. ‘how pathetic.’ he thought to himself as the laughter between the reps continued. unlike the rest of the class who noticed their white haired teacher’s presence, the reps were completely oblivious to the fact that their constantly tardy teacher was standing in the doorway watching their antics.
“ahem.”
he cleared his throat loudly hoping to gain the attention of the class reps who failed to sense his appearance. when they finally acknowledged him they both stopped in their tracks like deer in headlights and quickly scurried back to their seats. he popped a piece of candy into his mouth and scanned over the attendance sheet, he couldn’t help but frown seeing that their relatively new student was marked absent. he sighed and put the attendance sheet away and began to start the lesson.