Chapter Text
This wasn’t his dorm room. This wasn’t even his room at his family’s inn. Toudou sat up, listening to an alarm that definitely wasn’t his. Toudou’s alarm was a lot classier.
Toudou’s head was heavier than usual and for one brief second he wondered if he’d been drugged. But he hadn’t been out anywhere last night. He’d gone form school to practice to his dorm, where he’d slept, then woken up here. There was no opportunity for anyone to drug him.
This bedroom was a lot bigger than Toudou’s dorm and he stood up to examine it, ignoring the shrill alarm. Everything was neat, fitted into its proper spot, bookshelf, and desk pristine. Toudou turned off the alarm and turned toward the mirror. A phone, not his phone, his phone was in his dorm, but a phone started ringing.
Toudou didn’t look away from the mirror for a long time. Normally there was some self-appreciation involved in Toudou’s staring, but now it was something else altogether. Toudou was staring at Makishima’s reflection. The phone stopped ringing. Toudou opened and closed his mouth, watching Maki-chan’s reflection do the same. The phone started ringing again and this time Toudou turned. He spotted a cell phone by the bed, but that wasn’t what was ringing. He grabbed it anyway.
Gingerly, he stepped into the hall looking for the house phone. He picked up.
“Toudou?” Someone asked using his own voice. He hoped it was Maki-chan.
“Yeah?”
“It-are you—“
“Yes.” Toudou took a deep breath. He opened the cell phone. 7 missed calls from Jinapachi Toudou. Toudou looked at the little emoticon next to his name. It was a mouth. Rude.
“How…” Makishima trailed off. “What do we do?”
“Nothing. We’ll just cause a fuss, no one will believe us until we know how it happened and he don’t want to draw attention to ourselves until then.” Toudou twirled a strand of hair around his finger. How would Makishima look in a headband?
“Still…”
“How long does it take you to get to school?”
“Well I have to bike this week so forty minutes?”
“When does your school start?”
“…in fifty minutes.”
Toudou hung up. It went against every nerve in his body, (in Maki-chan’s body really), but it had to be done. He was not going to let Makishima be late! Toudou had perfect attendance and that wasn’t going to stop just because he was in someone else’s body!
He got dressed, brushed his teeth, and tied Maki-chan’s hair in a messy bun. Even if could envision other parts of Makishima’s body as his own for now, the hair was something so distantly Maki-chan, that it was impossible.
Toudou drank a glass of milk and ate a boiled egg. That was some protein at least. He hoped on Makishima’s bike and started off toward the school. He had a vague sense of where it was, but he stopped at a red light and Googled it on Makishima’s phone just in case. Pedaling was weird; his limbs weren’t the same length and his style, Toudou’s silent, creeping style of riding felt odd. But it was the only way he knew how to cycle and this body still had all the correct muscles, if the limbs were a little longer and the joints were bonier.
He arrived to class on time, but out of breath. He had a vague understanding of Makishima’s classroom and schedule, but the ride over here had been enough time to realize a vague understanding wouldn’t be enough. Toudou searched the sea of people, still standing by the bike rack. When he spotted the bear he smiled, wondering how it would look on Makishima’s face.
“Tado-“ What was the nickname again? “Tadokorocchi!” Toudou tried to turn down the enthusiasm as he approached Tadokoro. Tadokoro was in Makishima’s class and if Toudou wanted to pretend to be him, Tadokoro was the guy to follow.
There was no reason to tell anyone the truth or freak out about the switch. Toudou was adaptable. He’d never met a problem he hadn’t overcome, except people believing him. This would be no different. If he couldn’t get people to believe him than it was best to just let things play out for now.
“Your hair’s up.” Tadokoro said. He thumped Toudou on the back and started walking. Toudou followed and tried not to pitch forward when Tadokoro knocked into him.
“I…” Makishima had always looked nicest with his hair up. When Toudou had fixed it in the mirror he’d been taken with it, even then. “I woke up late and my hair was a mess.” Toudou shrugged and hoped that sounded more like Yuusuke Makishima and less like Jinapchi Toudou.
Tadokoro only laughed and Toudou figured he’d done something right. He took notes in all of Makishima’s classes and ate lunch with Tadokoro, or ate a fifth of Tadokoro’s lunch since Toudou had woken up too late to make a lunch or remember to bring money. Tadokoro talked nonstop about anything and though Toudou wanted to join in, it was easy to resist, easy to smile and listen to someone else for once. Except on one point.
“No. You can’t use food based products as facial cosmetics. Especially mascara,” Toudou said. Tadokoro might have believed food was the answer to everything from healing to cosmetics, but that didn’t make him right. “Your eyelashes are teaming with bacteria and adding something like a DIY Oreo crumb mixture is just going to give you an infection… sho.”
Tadokoro looked at him.
“It-for hair it’s different since most of the food based ingredients are just the oils of food, which you hair would have anyway. Hair’s not attached to something as open as say, your eye and it’s already dead so there aren’t natural bacteria that live there… sho.” Toudou stared at Tadokoro and then averted his eyes. Tadokoro only laughed, a loud, thudding, feel-it-in-your-bones laugh, and Toudou smiled awkwardly.
“You’ve been spending too much time with Toudou.” He said, still laughing. Toudou paled and Tadokoro only laughed harder. “You’re probably right though. Still, food has so many uses, I think it’s silly for people to have such a love/hate relationship with it.” Tadokoroo kept laughing until there were tears in his eyes and Toudou nudged him.
The rest of class passed by more or less smoothly. Tadokoro noted that ‘Makishima’ was more talkative that usual, but of course, no one was going to suspect what had really happened. Toudou was starting to relax. It was Wednesday and with any luck he’d figure things out by the weekend. He’d be back to normal and could leave this all behind him. Toudou changed for practice, already making up excuses for his riding style. He checked his phone before he left the clubroom though.
117 missed calls from Jinpachi Toudou. And yet, Makishima’s phone hadn’t even rang. Could Maki-chan have put his ringtone on silent? How rude. Toudou looked at the texts, he suppressed the urge to laugh.
Pick up
Pick up
Pick up the phone
This is serious
Don’t mess this up
Toudou pick up the damn phone we need to talk about this, how am I supposed to explain any of this?
There were other messages and Toudou smiled he scrolled through them.
“Pretty boy say something funny?” Tadokoro asked. Toudou opened his mouth to say he, Toudou, was always hilarious, and that Makishima just didn’t appreciate him, but Toudou stopped.
“I should probably take this.” He said. Tadokoro raised his eyebrows, there was something about it that seemed suggestive, but it could have been Toudou’s imagination. “He… seems to… it seems urgent.”
“I’m sure it is.” Tadokoro smiled. Toudou edged out of the clubroom and stood around back. He called himself. Or he called Makishima. Makishima didn’t even pick up. Toudou frowned the way that kings frowned before they sentence someone to death.
Makishima called back though and Toudou picked up after the first ring.
“You –You didn’t pick up!” Makishima said. He sounded distressed.
“You set my ringtone to silent, whose fault is that Maki-chan, anyway…” Toudou lowered his voice and crept further away from the clubroom. “ You don’t have to worry. I’ve taken care of everything brilliantly, no one suspects a thing.”
“Shouldn’t we tell someone, what really happened? This morning you said we shouldn’t, but I don’t know why he have to lie to everyone, it seems unnecessarily complicated.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, who would believe us? Besides, these things don’t just happen, anyone we talk to would think one or both of us was unstable and then it’d be even harder to switch back. This’ll fix itself, haven’t you seen Freaky Friday? Or those other ones? We just need to find out what caused it and then we’ll learn our lesson and change back. You should come over this week and we’ll discuss it.” Toudou waved his hand dismissively like he had an actual audience.
“Shouldn’t you be taking this more seriously?”
“This weekend.” Toudou repeated. “Tell my team we have a race, that way whatever you mess up, they’ll probably think it’s just nerves. Relax Maki-chan. There’s nothing we can do about it right now, so it’s best to just roll with it.” Toudou picked some dirt out from under his nails. He’d need to give himself a manicure when he got home—when he got to Makishima’s house.
“Hmm…”
“It’ll be fine, besides, you get to be me for a day? People would kill for this chance Maki-chan, really you should enjoy—hello? Hello?” Makishima had hung up on him. Toudou sighed and looked around. He went back to the clubroom. The small glasses wearing climber was still there, waiting for him.
“Oh, Makishima-senpai, everyone else went ahead, we’re training in pairs today you know and I…” What was this kid’s name? On-something? Onata? Honda? No…Onada?
“Onoda.” Toudou said. Onoda immediately stopped talking. He was beaming, hands clasped in front of him, hanging on his senpai’s every word. Toudou liked Manami, as much as anyone could like Manami, but this was something else. “Onoda I was thinking, today, when we go climbing, er—sho—we should explore the use of different styles.” Toudou nodded. Onoda nodded. Onoda waited for more. “sho?” Toudou finished. Onoda nodded again and headed off toward the bikes, Toudou followed. He checked his phone, surprised Makishima had sent him a text.
We’ll meet at my house on Friday night, my parents aren’t home so there won’t be anyone to worry about.
Toudou read the message as he stood next to his bike.
“Who’s that from? Friday night, do you have a race with Toudou? Are you two—”
“Executed.” Toudou said. He remembered Makishima saying that once. But then Onoda flinched and Toudou’s face fell. “No… no I mean… uh it’s a secret. A secret race… you shouldn’t spy on your senpai’s private phone conversation.” Onoda nodded, swallowed and got on his bike.
“I’m sorry senpai,“
Toudou cursed internally as he climbed onto Makishima’s bike and began riding. “No, I’m sorry.” He said. “I didn’t… um”
“It’s okay. I know you’re not good at small talk.” Onoda smiled, not the crazed Manami, I Only Feel Alive On a Mountain smile, but something pure. Toudou smiled back as the rode. Toudou had been to Chiba before to see Makishima and they’d ridden this exact path, and though that had been long ago, Toudou still remembered.
“You’re form’s very different.” Onoda said. Toudou was hardly paying attention. He wasn’t as fast as he usually was. For one brief second he wondered if he’d be faster with Makishima’s Spider Dancing but the second he tried it he fell over.
“Senpai! Are you okay? Are you, do you…” Onoda had stopped his bike and his hands were flying all over the place, Toudou just picked himself up and climbed back on the bike like nothing happened. He sped off, still practicing his normal climb, trying to figure out how to adjust to Makishima’s body.
“Remember, I said we’d be trying different styles?”
Onoda was by his side in a second and Toudou tried to speed up. Onoda shifted gears. He was still using a high cadence climb, but he was also trying to ride like Imaizumi.
Toudou said nothing. He figured Makishima would say nothing. Or maybe he would have said something, maybe Toudou didn’t know him at all.
Instead of thinking about it, Toudou climbed, focused on his muscles and limbs. He got the hang of it after a while, but it still wasn’t perfect. Even as he biked back to Makishima’s house Toudou realized he was still off. He wasn’t fast as either him or Makishima, but he was faster than he had been before, and that was something.
Toudou fixed himself dinner and did Makishima’s homework. Then he went upstairs, undid the bun on his head, and wondered where the manicure materials would be. Toudou rummaged around Makishima’s room. Probably the bathroom was a good idea, but for the sake of thoroughness, you had to start somewhere.
When he came across the papers, he froze. Usually flash freezes take several hours, none could freeze in under a minute, but Toudou managed to accomplish what a millions roads and ponds never could. He reread the documents.
Makishima was going to go to school in England, starting in August.
Makishima hadn’t even told him.
Toudou’s grip on the paper tightened before he forcibly relaxed and shoved them back into place.
The phone call was immediate and Makishima didn’t pick up. Toudou called again, trying to quell whatever was rising inside him. At least if he was angry, he wouldn’t be sad. Had Makshima told everyone else about this except Toudou? Did he just consider Toudou too unimportant to tell? Did he even consider them real friends?
No, he’d have to.
Finally, Makishima picked up. “Um… Hey. I mean. Hello!”
“You’re going to England?!” Toudou hissed. Makishima hung up. Toudou exhaled slowly and tried again. Makishima picked up.
“I wanted to tell you.” He said. “I haven’t told anyone. It’s. I’ll talk to you more about it on the weekend. Bye.” Makishima hung up again. Okay, so he wasn’t the only one in the dark, but the news still sat uneasily in his stomach. Toudou texted him.
I’m not mad you’re going, just mad you didn’t tell me. I thought we were rivals, and you’d tell me the important stuff!
Makishima’s reply was surprisingly fast.
Im not good with that stuff.
Toudou stared at the message and sighed, he ran a hand through his hair, forgetting for a moment that it wasn’t his hair. Toudou stood up and went to the washroom. He still had to give Makishima a manicure after all.
There were two doors inside the washroom, one that lead to Makishima’s room and the other that went to the hall. Toudou did his nails, deep conditioned Makishima’s hair, and got half way through a pedicure before he figured he should sleep.
It was all going to be okay. Everything was always okay. Toudou never had had any real problems, and he wasn’t about to start now. Things would work themselves out, they always did. The universe looked out for him.
Or at least, it always had.