Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The great heft of the man sitting behind the desk made everything else within his office seem a half-size too small.

Maybe that’s why being here made you feel like such a child.

Clearing his throat, Principal Kobayakawa shifted in his seat. You could hear the fabric of his ill-fitting tan suit straining against him as he moved. A new outfit and a good tailor would have done wonders for the man, but this suit was yet another example of how he handled everything in his administration—clinging to relics of better days, even if it hurt, in stubborn denial that anything could ever change for the worse.

“As you no doubt have realized,” Kobayakawa began, “our student body is experiencing an unprecedented mental health crisis. With all these terrible rumors surrounding Kamoshida-kun, and that poor, troubled girl’s suicide attempt—”

“Suzui-san,” you said.

“What was that?”

“Her name is Suzui Shiho, sir. And they aren’t ‘rumors.’ We all heard Kamoshida-san’s confession earlier this month.”

“Ah, yes—the confession he gave under suspicious circumstances, backed by no substantial evidence? That confession?”

“The police thought my records substantial enough to take them.”

“Which brings me to my next point.” Kobayakawa leaned into his desk, his red bowtie nearly swallowed beneath the choked-tight folds of his neck. “I find it truly curious how you’ve managed to keep such extensive documentation on our athletes’ training injuries, while simultaneously failing to realize one of them was planning on throwing herself off the roof.”

“With all due respect, sir,” you began, willing yourself to keep calm even as your blood began to simmer, “I’m not a therapist. I do what I can, but most students don’t trust me that way.”

“Perhaps if they did, Suzui-san would still be here.”

The bottom of your stomach fell out and took all your fight along with it.

Kobayakawa leaned back in his chair, his agitation fading. Whatever expression you were making was enough of a victory on his part to temper his ire.

“As I was saying,” he continued, “because our current mental health support is clearly lacking, I’ve hired a part-time counselor to provide our students with proper guidance. He will be holding sessions out of the health room, starting tomorrow. Make sure he has a place to work.”

‘Tomorrow?’ you thought, aghast. ‘Reallocating space with less than a day’s notice? In the middle of annual physicals?’

“Is there a problem?”

‘You’re built like a fucking thumb.’ “No, sir. I’ll handle it.”

“See that you do. You’re dismissed.”

-

The rest of your workday was spent rearranging furniture and seething quietly—alone, of course, because asking for help somehow felt like admitting defeat.

You didn’t want the new hire or his incoming student traffic crossing through the health room any more than they needed to, so you rolled up your sleeves and got to work, clearing out clutter from a long-neglected corner by the door.

Until now, you had been the only medical professional on-staff for all of Shujin Academy. At first, you were grateful to be hired for such a position so quickly after your licensing; considering your lack of experience, landing a full-time job at a prestigious prep school in the heart of Tokyo was a miracle. However, your debut semester made the reason for the vacancy clear: the volume of medical care and professional obligations required of the position was not meant for one person.

Even now, as you were finally being given support in the form of an additional hire, you were still being made to feel like you were failing a job in which you’d never been equipped to succeed. There were simply not enough hours in the day for you to assess the mental health needs of every single student that passed through your doors. Because of this, most didn’t bother coming to you for help at all.

Perhaps if they did, Suzui-san would still be here.

You thought about how often Mishima Yuuki would visit for new bandages, or to have a fresh bruise examined to make sure it wasn’t anything worse. You thought about how many times Suzui Shiho took respite in your office, silent and downtrodden, unable to look you in the eyes anytime she was there. Your interactions with the school’s illustrious volleyball team were through gauze and disinfectant and elastic wrappings, through meticulously recorded incidents that were left in files to rot.

Maybe you could have done more. Maybe you did fail them.

With a final, frustrated shove, the repurposed waiting area chair you’d been dragging around shifted into place.

After several hours of cleaning and reorganizing, you were finished.

Sighing, you tried to catch your breath as you wiped the sweat from your brow, the sleeves of your dress shirt bunched up hastily above your elbows. You’d hung up your lab coat and taken off your shoes before you began shuffling things around; between the messy bangs sticking to your forehead, and the fact you were standing on the health room’s checkered-green floor in your socks, you looked like an absolute wreck.

No better time for the door you thought you locked to fly open without warning.

Principal Kobayakawa entered the office with a taller man in tow, the latter holding a cardboard box in his arms.

You watched them like a deer in the headlights.

A sweaty, disheveled, shoeless deer.

Kobayakawa’s tone was gentle and infuriating. “Oh, my apologies—I thought you would have headed home by now,” he lied. “Dr. Maruki, may I introduce you to our school nurse.”

The bespectacled man leaned over for a proper glance, and even his eyes seemed to smile when they found you. “Hey, there.”

Opposite to your own botched first impression, Dr. Maruki seemed well-put-together; his rectangular lenses were simple and practical, his shaggy brown hair styled and well-kept. The way he was radiating with nervous excitement gave him a youthful charm, while the touch of goatee at his chin added enough maturity to keep his appearance from skewing too young. He had the sort of kind face and warm smile that interviewed well and eased the nerves of those around him. Mild-mannered and inoffensive.

The perfect stooge to navigate the administration’s PR nightmare.

As Kobayakawa couldn’t seem to be bothered, you introduced yourself to the new hire by name before bowing his way. “Looking forward to working with you.”

“Right, of course, thank you for having me—” Maruki, flustered at having forgotten his manners, returned your bow at once. A bundle of mismatched pens spilled out from his cardboard box. “Oh, s--sorry—”

Still facing the floor mid-bow, you watched his loose pens scatter miserably across the checkered-green floor. You realized he was wearing sandals.

Exposed toes in your sterile work environment.

You already loathed this man.

Kobayakawa made himself scarce with a short goodbye, as you and Maruki were left to crawl across the office, cleaning up the spill.

“Thank you—and sorry about that, again.” Maruki tossed the last of the pens back into his cardboard box. “I really appreciate you sharing your space while I’m here.”

“I wasn’t given much of a choice,” you said, sliding your shoes back on, “but you’re welcome.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll do my best to stay out of your hair. They assigned a carrel for me in the faculty office, meaning all those pens get to be someone else’s eyesore, haha.”

“Okay.”

“Looks like you were doing some redecorating! Need help moving anything while I’m here? I’m stronger than I look, you know.”

“No need, thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. Guess all that’s left is to prep for my big debut tomorrow, huh?”

“Mhm.”

You plopped yourself back into the rolling chair at your desk and returned to your paperwork. With Kobayakawa gone and some time put between yourself and the day’s events, you hoped the tension that had coiled itself between your shoulders would loosen up enough for you to be able to focus, again.

At least, that’s what you hoped.

You were used to irregular traffic throughout the day, so you paid little mind to Maruki shuffling around the health room while he set up his things. As luck would have it, he was only distracting when he was standing still.

In your peripheral, you watched as he idled near the entrance with a hand on his chin, appraising the corner you’d set up for him. He would then make miniscule adjustments—shifting the table an inch, turning a chair a few degrees—before stepping back to reassess the scene.

Squeak. Silence. Creak. Silence. Screeeeeeeeeeech.

He went on to sit and bounce on each individual cushion to test them for comfort, like he was trying out furniture in a showroom.

You waited until he left again to get up from your desk and take a closer look at the posters he pinned to the boards. Most were sheets about mental health: colorful charts and infographics labeled with population statistics, laundry lists of symptoms to be aware of—all fairly standard, except for one.

Standing out from the rest was a motivational poster featuring a terrified kitten dangling from a tree branch, and the words Hang In There! emblazoned across the negative space in the tackiest font you’d ever seen in your life. The poster was a quirky, silly outlier among its brethren. A kitschy lifeboat floating in a Helvetica and Corporate Memphis sea.

(It was also crooked. Just a little.)

Maruki returned with a basket filled with juice boxes and individually-packaged treats. “Hey, do you have anywhere I can put these?”

“...sorry.”

Shrugging, he rested the basket on one of your rolling trays without asking, taking a juice box for himself and plugging the straw in.

You should have been celebrating.

You should have been elated about you and your kids finally getting the support you needed, but bitterness lingered in the aftertaste, poisoning the pride you were trying so hard to swallow. How much time had Principal Kobayakawa wasted brushing off your concerns about Kamoshida’s abuse? How many signs did he ignore or bury, and how many of them were yours? Yet this was still your fault, somehow?

And when a student gets pushed past her limit, Kobayakawa hires this guy? This unthreatening, band-aid-fix of a man who planned on tackling a potential schoolwide crisis with snacks and funny cat pictures? He couldn’t have been much older than you were—was he even qualified to work with these kids, or did Kobayakawa shit the bed on that part, too?

Meeting your gaze, Maruki tilted his head and raised his juicebox at you. “Want one?”

“...we work at a high school, Maruki-sensei, not a kindergarten.”

You returned to your desk, ignoring the sudden falter in his spirits and pretending you didn’t feel like you’d just kicked a puppy.

Maruki was formally introduced at the daily faculty meeting the following morning. He wore a lab coat similar to yours, now, along with a light blue dress shirt, a checkered blue tie, and a red lanyard with a name badge marking him as outside counsel. Here, you learned he was an accomplished and well-educated man, having stepped away from his own cognitive therapy clinic to take on his current position at the school.

You felt like an ass for doubting his credentials. He was certainly more educated than you were.

The other teachers were quick to fawn over him as you all headed to afternoon assembly together. You couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but even from your position at the back of the group, you could tell he carried himself well.

Even if he dared to go on-stage in sandals.

By the time Maruki introduced himself to the assembly, the student crowd was already buzzing with whispered compliments and hushed giggles about how attractive him and his voice were. For how well things were going, you were expecting him to deliver a short, polished introduction, choice words gently prepared and humbly offered as a beacon of encouragement to any students who felt trapped in the dark. (And then everyone would clap.)

Instead, in all of his clumsy, well-intentioned glory, he embarrassed himself on-stage.

It happened again on the way back to your office. You overheard him offer his counseling services to a few students in the courtyard, only for him to get shut down almost instantly, forcing him to maneuver his way back into their favor.

Memories from that awkward morning kept replaying in your head throughout the day, over and over on loop. Even as you stayed late after school, crouched behind a bookcase to reorganize files on the lower shelves, you’d get flashbacks to his missteps until the secondhand embarrassment made you cringe.

No one deserved that. No one.

You may have had some feelings about the circumstances of his employment, but that didn’t mean you wanted to see him fail.

The door to the health room slid open while you were still hidden away. You heard it close shut before a familiar voice heaved a very heavy sigh.

You peeked around the bookcase you were kneeling behind.

Maruki leaned back against the door, his shoulders slouched in dejection. After a few moments, he approached the corkboard nearby and touched a weary hand to the crooked poster of the branch-clinging kitten, patting the top of its head. “We’re really in over our heads now, aren’t we, buddy?”

Oh, dear.

“Um...Maruki-sensei?”

Startled, he yelped and jumped a little, whipping around to face you.

“Sorry!” You raised your hands, placating. “I didn’t mean to scare you—”

“No, no, it’s alright, I just thought you were already—ah, well, that was embarrassing.” He laughed, helplessly. “Anyway, I...don’t mean to kick you out of your own office, but I do have drop-in hours I need to prepare for, so...”

“You're right, I shouldn’t be here,” you said, scrambling to your feet. “Forgot to keep an eye on the clock today, sorry.”

“Please, it’s alright—this is an adjustment period for both of us. I’m sorry you had to see...” He gestured at the poster behind him, too ashamed to face that which he once so lovingly pet.

Your first instinct was to lie and say you didn’t see anything, but you thought better of it.

Logically, you knew you were being unreasonable. Logically, you knew your frustrations stemmed from something that wasn’t his fault and had nothing to do with his capabilities or the good he could do for the school. You were both on the same side, here, and you really needed to apologize for how petty you were being.

“...Maruki-sensei, I—”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re—what?”

“I think I may have taken Kobayakawa-san’s offer to ‘make myself at home’ a little too seriously,” he chuckled. “It can’t be easy having to share your office with the new guy—and here I am, putting up posters and bringing in food like I own the place. I should’ve been more considerate of you.” He brightened up, a new idea dawning on him. “Tell you what—I’m not here on Saturdays, but I’ll bring you a treat first thing Monday morning to make up for it. Do you like coffee? Tea? How do you take it?”

You shook your head. “You don’t need to go through the trouble—”

“No trouble at all,” he beamed. “I insist.”

With your intent to apologize all but forgotten, you felt your weakened defenses being disarmed piece-by-piece, courtesy of a kind face and well-kept hair and eyes that smiled when they saw you.

What could you do but accept?

You learned Maruki was a morning person, because of course he was.

You always made it a point to arrive at school much earlier than most—not only to beat the morning transit rush, but to also get a headstart on your paperwork for the day, the latter being doubly important now that you were losing your extra after-school hours four times a week.

Hearing your door slide open within an hour of your arrival was an unexpected surprise.

You could practically feel Maruki’s presence across the room, charged with energy no human should be capable of before 7am.

“Good morning, Maruki-sensei,” you offered, in the kindest voice you could muster this early.

“Morning! Looks like someone’s an early riser.”

“Not by choice, I assure you.” As you continued pouring over your documents, an airtight thermos was placed gently on the desk in front of you. “...what’s this?”

“Your drink. The one I asked you about last week, remember?”

“This is...” You sat up. “I thought you were just going to make a stop on the way here?”

“Now where’s the fun in that?” he laughed, raising his own thermos. It was identical to yours, save for the colour. “Besides, take-out cups would probably be more difficult to bike here with...”

Now that he mentioned it, you noticed he did look a bit flushed. “You bike to school?”

“Whenever I can! I wouldn’t get much exercise, otherwise...” Maruki turned to leave, raising his hand in a little half-wave goodbye. “Well then, I’ll leave you to it—I need to prepare for homeroom. Just leave the thermos at your desk and I’ll take it with me on my way out, okay?”

“...thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

You stared at the bottle now cradled in your hands. The heat from the insulated metal warmed you up nicely. You hadn’t even realized you were cold.

To think, he made you a drink at home and brought it with him all the way to school...

You swung around in your rolling chair. “Maruki-sensei?”

Hand on the door, he stopped to look back at you. “Yes?”

“...do you have a minute to talk?”

-

“So you have your Nursing License and your Yogo Teacher’s License,” Maruki said, nodding with fascination. “That’s an impressive amount of training. Shujin is very lucky to have someone with your expertise on-staff.”

You shook your head and raised a hand to wave off the compliment, though you went a little pink around the ears. “The sports programs are very important to the Academy. They just needed a school nurse who could properly attend to the athletes.”

“And you’ve been doing all that work alone?”

“Until now, yes.” You kept your tone neutral. You didn’t think it was wise to be completely honest about your feelings. “That’s part of the reason I wanted to talk to you. I’m...very, very grateful to have you here. The way I treated you the other day was completely unprofessional, and I’m sorry.”

“No apologies needed, I understand why you felt so protective. This school is your territory, after all. I’m just passing through.” Maruki folded his hands in his lap. “If it helps, think of me as a visitor setting up a tent here for a little while. I’m going by campsite rules, and I’ll do my best to leave this place in a better state than when I found it. As a matter of fact, to that end, I was told to prioritize students who needed counseling the most—those directly affected by Kamoshida-san.”

Your blood ran cold at the sound of his name.

“Good. That’s...good.” Still seated, you bowed gently in Maruki’s direction, your fingers clutching tight around the drink in your hands. “Please look after them. They need support where I failed to gain their trust.”

“This has nothing to do with you.” He leaned forward in his chair. “These children were made to feel powerless. What happened was not your fault and doesn’t speak to any sort of failure on your part.”

Suddenly, you became hyperaware of where Maruki was sitting, where you were sitting, and how this was exactly how his appointments were positioned. It felt like standing in the Principal’s office.

It felt like being a child.

“I don’t mean for this to turn into a therapy session,” you said, unable to disguise the edge in your tone. “Thank you for being here to help our students.”

Maruki replied with a nervous laugh. “Sorry if I crossed a line, I was moreso trying to validate your efforts. Besides, everyone needs someone to talk to.”

“And who do you talk to, Doctor?”

His smile turned somber. “You don’t trust me.”

“What matters is that our students trust you,” you said coolly. “It doesn’t matter if I do.”

“Respectfully, I disagree. It matters to me a great deal.” He gave a gentle shrug of his shoulders. “I can’t say I blame you for not trusting me, though. After all that’s happened, everyone’s faith in the faculty must be shaken to its core...regardless, is there anything I can do to help put your mind at ease? Any questions for me at all? I promise I’ll try to answer as truthfully as I can.”

You took another long, silent sip from your thermos while collecting your thoughts. For all your efforts to make amends and move forward on friendly terms, you ended up showing too much of your hand, revealing enough doubt to call his attention. You had to choose your next words carefully. No names, no accusations. Nothing that could be used against you later.

“Like you said, my position as school nurse comes with a lot of responsibilities," you began. "I’ve put in several requests for a school counsellor during my time here, and yet they only chose to hire you after something bad happened.” For the first time during the entire discussion, you met his eyes. “To be frank, I don’t know whose interests you represent.”

“I see...” Maruki placed a hand on his chin. “My first meeting with Kobayakawa-san happened the afternoon following Suzui Shiho’s attempt on her own life, but I didn’t hear anything back until Kamoshida-san turned himself in.”

“...you were here back in April?”

“I was, yes.”

“But why?” you demanded. “Why leave a private practice for a shared office and a pay cut?”

“Because there are people here who need my help, and I was in a position to give it,” he said simply. “I can’t speak to the character of the administration, but I care about the well-being of the students here. I can’t stand to see them unable to reach out to anyone about their pain. And to think, I only just got here...you’ve already seen them through so much, completely alone.” Maruki held a hand to his chest and levelled your gaze. “You asked me where my interests lie. The answer is here, with you and your students—that much, I promise you. I will not let you down.”

The moment fell into a brief silence—a staring contest between caution and conviction.

Caution blinked.

You reached into your pocket and pulled out a keyring with two small keys dangling from the loop. You tossed them his way. He fumbled a little with the catch.

“One’s for the spare filing cabinet by my desk, the other’s for the mini-fridge in the back. You can store your snacks wherever you like.” You stood up from the repurposed waiting room chair and made your way back over to your desk, taking your thermos with you. “Please don’t touch my pudding cups.”

Chapter Text

In the early hours of the following morning, a familiar thermos was placed on your desk, freshly refilled.

“Wh--thank you?” You looked up at your visitor with surprised concern. “I thought yesterday was just a one-time thing? Please don’t feel obligated to do this every morning.”

“I know,” Maruki smiled, still glowing from his morning bike ride. By the looks of it, he’d been wearing a helmet, as well, and his hair had not yet fully recovered. “It’s been fun making drinks for someone who’s not me. Sometimes, I’ll skip making coffee altogether just to squeeze in a few extra minutes of sleep...but if I’m also making it for someone else, it becomes a priority and I don’t get to be lazy.”

You took a generous sip from the bottle, then leaned back in your chair and exhaled, letting the drink’s warmth fill you up. You were feeling better, already. “I appreciate it. I always feel so dead right after I get here.”

“You know, two surefire sources of morning dopamine are a cup of coffee and some sunshine,” he offered. “Would you like to join me outside for a bit of both?”

You raised an eyebrow. “I walk to work in the sun every day...”

“Sure, but when was the last time you stopped to really take it in?”

-

The chill clinging to the last of the early morning air was not unpleasant, not when paired with the idle warmth of sunlight and the heat from the thermos in your hands.

It had been a while since you visited the school rooftop like this; the area had been locked off until recently, when access to the planters had been granted to a student volunteer. Among the rest of the haphazardly scattered school equipment stood a larger teacher's desk, wide and sturdy, pushed up against the wall near the entrance doors. You sat on the desktop, as Maruki leaned back against it beside you. After some convincing, he even got you to join him in a mindfulness exercise—all slow breathing and careful observance of the sights and sounds around you.

In through your nose. (Sprouts of green punctuating the spaces between the cement tiles at your feet.)

Out through your mouth. (The hollow rumble of air circulating through bulky metal vents.)

In through your nose. (Maruki’s hair fluffed back to normal at some point, did it just do that on its own?)

Out through your mouth. “I thought being an early bird was supposed to get easier as you got older, not harder.”

Caught off-guard, Maruki’s exhale tapered into a breathy laugh. “When you’re younger, it’s easier to get away with not taking care of yourself. I still remember the crazy all-nighters I used to pull in college. I pretty much lived on energy drinks and instant ramen, but even the thought of doing that now is making me queasy...speaking of food, what did you have for breakfast?”

You squinted at him from behind your thermos, halfway to taking a sip. “What did you have for breakfast?”

“Strawberry pancakes,” he replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“So much sugar first thing in the morning...” Self-conscious, you drummed your fingers around the bottle. “I...normally skip breakfast to get out the door as soon as I can. Lunch is usually my first meal of the day, if I remember to eat. Either way, I’m starving by the time I get home, so I have way too much food for dinner and it puts me right to sleep.” You clicked your tongue and sighed, rubbing at the side of your neck. “Yeah, I of all people should know better—I know, I know.”

“It’s always easier to give advice than take it, even if it’s your own. Sometimes especially if it’s your own...” He thought for a moment before straightening up. “Say, I’ve got an idea. Would you be alright sharing contact info?”

You reached into your pocket for your phone. “Sure, why?”

“Looking at pictures of food always makes me hungry, so I’ll send you a picture of my lunch every day to remind you what time it is. Ah—don’t expect anything fancy, though...”

“Oooh, I get it. If I have to talk to you about my lunch, eating it becomes a priority,” you reasoned aloud, navigating through your phone screens. “Like you making our drinks in the morning.”

“You’re right! I didn’t even make that connection. Just goes to show, accountability is a very powerful tool.”

An empty New Contact page stared back up at you from your palm, and you could see your reflection against the phone screen. It made you feel like shit, for some reason.

You hesitated. “This is really thoughtful and all, but...you don’t actually have to do this, you know.”

Maruki smiled at you, again. “I know.”

-

Maruki:
>Got a really good deal on yakisoba!
>I spent too long on the pancakes this morning and didn’t have time to pack lunch...
>Maybe you were onto something about skipping breakfast?
>That was a joke! Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

You:
>Fun fact, that phrase was just a marketing ploy from an Adventist in the 1800s trying to sell breakfast cereal.

Maruki:
>That fact is not fun at all. :(
>What’s for lunch?

You:
>Haven’t decided yet...
>A walk sounds nice. Maybe I’ll head to the convenience store, too? I can get caffeinated while I’m there.
>Coffee and sunshine, right?

Maruki:
>Coffee and sunshine!!
>I’m so glad you remembered.

You felt your face heat up. “What do you mean you’re ‘so glad I remembered,’ you just told me that this morning...”

Still, the yakisoba picture made your stomach rumble.

For the first time in recent memory, you set work aside and took care of yourself first.

-

Four times a week, your shared rituals were routine.

The tap of the thermos touching your desk gave you a small, Pavlovian rush of adrenaline that you started looking forward to every morning. You would follow Maruki’s lead up the stairs to the rooftop for some sunshine and good conversation, before heading down together to the daily teacher’s meetings in the faculty office on the second floor.

As annoyed as you were to admit it, his texts had successfully peer-pressured you into eating something at lunch every day—large or small, homemade or store-bought, as long as it was something. Even though you coordinated separate breaks so he could help walk-in appointments during the lunch hour, the shared messages felt a little less like eating alone.

Between time spent with him and time spent kicked out of the health room to accommodate his drop-in hours, your windows to catch up on your own responsibilities grew shorter and shorter—however, when you did sit down to work, your newfound energy made you much more productive in much less time.

The self-deprecating part of you questioned why he bothered with any of this. Was he just aiming to stay on good terms with the person he was forced to share an office with during his tenure? Or did your first meeting reflect on you so poorly that he thought you were some helpless charity case in need of his freely-given guidance?

...did it matter?

You had no friends among the other faculty members. You had no other friends at all, really. Conversation wasn’t something that came easily to you—not as easily as it did when you were together. It was nice to have someone to talk to, someone who cared about you like this, even if it might’ve been out of obligation or pity. You’d spent so much time alone, you’d forgotten what this felt like. Did that make you pathetic?

Did it matter?

There were three things you knew about Sakamoto Ryuji.

One: Sakamoto Ryuji loved his mother. From the time he was on your athlete roster, to when gossip about his home life spread through the school like a virus, to the short stint of time where you aided in his physical recovery, he would always spare a thought about how his mother would be affected. For everything he’d been through, you were glad he had someone at home who loved him unconditionally. It explained a lot about the size of his own heart.

Two: the state of Sakamoto Ryuji’s mental health was inversely proportional to how often he would nap in the health room. You could always tell a big track meet or competition was on the horizon when he showed up at your door in the middle of the day. During the worst of his decline, he skipped a class or two near-daily to sleep. Naps in the nurse’s office were a luxury once afforded to him as an athlete’s privilege, now written off as nothing more than delinquent behaviour. But you didn’t care. If a student, any student, felt like they had nowhere to go, you preferred they spent their time in your office instead of getting into trouble elsewhere.

Three: the official school account of what happened to Sakamoto Ryuji’s leg was bullshit, and you were the one who signed off on it.

You couldn’t help but wonder if a part of him still hated you for it.

There was certainly a part of you that still did.

-

Ryuji leaned back against the examination bench, one leg folded over the other as he gave you an incredulous look. “So, what—he’s just squatting in here until November? Lame.”

“This school needs all the help it can get,” you said, rolling your office chair over a few feet to grab his paperwork off your desk. “After everything that’s happened, you kids deserve to speak to an actual therapist.”

“Yeah, because I’m really going to trust you guys to start giving a shit about us now.”

“Language.”

Ryuji clicked his tongue. “C’mon, doc, you’ve seen him. The guy’s a total goober. And the whole ‘bumbling nice guy’ act? I ain’t buyin’ it. Oh yeah, and what’s with his weird obsession with snacks, anyway? Like we’re wild animals he’s tryin’ to lure out of hidin’, or something...”

“Maybe it’s worked for him before? He did run his own clinic at one point.”

“Whatever. Should’ve told him right where he can stick his damn counselling...”

Whether or not you empathized with Ryuji’s frustrations, Maruki was still a member of the faculty. You needed to help restore student confidence in the teaching staff wherever you could.

“What about you, Sakamoto-kun?” you asked, changing the subject. “How have you been? Haven’t seen you in here in over a month.”

Ryuji’s eyes went wide. “Woah, it’s been that long already? Guess I got busier than I thought...”

“Keeping busy is a good thing. This is the health room—the less you’re here, the better you’re doing, I hope. I’ve caught you around school—going to class again, sitting for exams...I think I’ve even seen you hanging out with...it’s Amamiya-san, right?”

Ryuji bristled. He didn’t like where this was going. “Yeah, what about it?”

You’d caught glimpses of the new transfer student here and there around campus: a tall, quiet second-year with glasses and a mess of black hair. Almost everything you knew about Amamiya Ren came from whispers in the hallways by students and teachers alike. If it weren’t for the fact you’d seen him with Ryuji so often, you would’ve sworn the kid was a ghost.

“I heard he has a record,” you said.

Rolling his eyes, Ryuji scowled with the aggravation of someone who’s heard the same pushback a hundred times before. “Look, I know what you’re thinkin’, but everything everyone’s sayin’ about him is bullshit, alright? Yeah, he’s got a record. He’s also a really good guy. Sure as hell saved my ass more than once.”

“Do you trust him?”

“With everything I’ve got.”

“Okay.”

“‘Okay’?” he repeated dully, deflating a little. The fact you backed down so quickly took the wind from his sails. “Whaddya mean, ‘okay’?”

“I mean I wanted to hear what you thought of him. If you trust him, that’s good enough for me.” You returned your attention to your clipboard, filling in the rest of Ryuji’s documentation. “Plus, that means Amamiya-san believed what you had to say about Kamoshida right away, right? Anyone that eager to stand up to that rapist’s manipulative fucking bullshit is alright in my book.”

“Language,” Ryuji tried to chide, but he was grinning too much to sound convincing.

If you had a nickel for every ‘misunderstood Shujin Academy student unfairly ostracized from his peers and villainized by the faculty’ you knew, you would have two nickels.

It made perfect sense why they were friends.

As things grew quiet, Ryuji slouched a little more, bouncing his leg as you continued scribbling away at his file. “So...the shrink.”

“Dr. Maruki,” you corrected.

“Right, yeah, Dr. Maruki. You get a read on him, yet?”

“Well, I don’t think he’s a clinical psychologist, for one. His doctorate is in experimental research, so I think the counselling is more of a side-thing...”

“Not what I was asking...” he sighed. “I meant more, like...do you trust him?”

The ask gave you pause.

With Ren, you’d shown confidence in Ryuji’s judgement of character, and now Ryuji was trusting you enough to return the favour.

For all your shared rituals, the fact remained that you didn’t know much about Maruki or how he treated the students, yet. You couldn’t afford to be mistaken about this.

Especially not with Ryuji.

“Dr. Maruki’s barely been here a couple of weeks,” you settled on. “I’d need more time to say for sure. That being said...I do trust that he’s here with the students' best interest in mind. I don’t think talking to him is a bad idea.”

Ryuji made a low, noncommittal noise, staring off in thought as you finished up his report.

The days became busier as the calendar tumbled towards the end of the month. Between word of Maruki’s drop-in sessions spreading throughout the school, and your task of finishing up everyone’s annual medical exams, there was no shortage of students flooding through the health room over the past week.

The end of May marked the big cleanup event, where Shujin students had been volunteered by Principal Kobayakawa to help tidy Inokashira Park. You were part of the skeleton crew who stayed behind to keep the school running for the handful of students and teachers absent from the event.

You may have been buried under a tower of last-minute regulatory forms, but you weren’t complaining—not when so many people were working in a crowd under the sun while you got to stay in an air-conditioned room alone. Besides, no counselling drop-in hours meant you had the entire office to yourself, leaving you to power through the last of your paperwork completely uninterrupted, straight into the afternoon.

It did mean you’d miss out on seeing a certain someone today, though. Anyone who worked the park clean-up had the rest of the day off as soon as it was over, meaning Maruki would’ve gotten to head home early today, too.

If that were the case, though, why would he be sauntering into your office in the middle of the afternoon?

And why was he carrying a plastic bag?

“Knock, knock...” Maruki slid the door open a little further, leaning into the room to get a better look. “Oh, whew, I was hoping you’d still be here.”

It wouldn’t have made sense for him to wear his lab coat to the clean-up, but seeing him without it on still felt scandalous in a way you couldn’t explain. His hair was even more tousled than normal; he’d been working outdoors all day and looked exhausted, but he was smiling, and he was here.

Why was he here?

“Maruki-sensei?” You’d gotten to your feet without realizing it. “Shouldn’t you be home by now?”

“I got some leftovers and a ride back in exchange for helping with takedown.”

“But—how come?”

“One of the other teachers had to leave early, so they needed an extra hand. Also, I forgot to text you today,” he teased with a smile while holding up the shopping bag, “and I knew if I didn’t look after you, you’d forget to eat.”

(He brought food for you?)

(He came back for you?)

“C’mon,” he winked. “Let’s head up.”

Somehow, you managed to hear him over the heartbeat pounding in your ears.

-

A morning coffee break on the school rooftop was one thing. Eating lunch together up here felt like something else entirely.

Somewhere within the stacks of old school desks and foldable chairs, you managed to dig out a couple of tables and seats that faced each other. Between the two of you were two steaming servings of tonjiru in takeout bowls, two pairs of disposable chopsticks, and two canned drinks.

Maruki tucked a couple of his fingers behind the knot of his tie and loosened it, sighing happily. “Alright, let’s dig in!”

Your line of sight kept locking onto his forearms, revealed by the neatly-folded sleeves of his dress shirt.

“Thank you for all your hard work today,” you mumbled. “And for the...food, as well.”

“Don’t mention it! Please, enjoy.” He split a pair of chopsticks and began prodding at the soup. “Consider it my thanks for your help with Sakamoto-kun. He actually came in to see me the other day.”

You blinked. “How did you know I was the one who talked to him?”

“You...may have come up once or twice. Oh, but maybe I shouldn’t have said that...”

“I’m glad it worked out,” you said shortly, burying your sudden surge of worry deep. Whatever Ryuji was comfortable enough to share with Maruki was none of your concern.

Thankfully, you didn’t get the chance to dwell for long; the smell of the broth was already making your stomach growl. The tonjiru looked incredible—a visual melody of warm colours, generous slices of pork, and thick chunks of vegetables that were softer for having been left to marinate for a while. After half a day of starving yourself, you gave thanks and indulged as quickly as your chopsticks skills would allow.

Mid-bite, Maruki watched in surprise, the ends of his chopsticks still in his mouth as he spoke. “Gotta say, that’s...the most enthusiastic reaction anyone’s ever had to my cooking.”

You choked. Just a little. “You made this?”

“Oh, I didn’t tell you? I was on the cooking crew. I cook quite a bit at home, but I found out today that some techniques don’t scale well with larger batches...especially ones involving salt...”

“Now I feel bad,” you joked. “Whoever’s waiting for you at home is being deprived of your cooking because of me.”

He laughed. “Somehow, I don’t think houseplants respond kindly to miso soup.”

“Ah,” was your only reply.

You felt as if you’d just swallowed an ice cube whole.

Maruki cleared his throat, trying to distract from the red rising in his cheeks. “Wh--what about you? Do you have an, um...houseplant? To cook for? At home?”

“...I’ve got a cat.”

“...it’s nice to have a cat.”

“...I don’t actually have a cat,” you cringed, staring squarely into your bowl. “I’m too busy with work to be responsible for any living thing besides myself. Some days it feels like I can barely get that right. Sorry—I don’t know why I lied. It seemed...selfish, I guess? Not having anything else to care for.”

“Oh.” Maruki went silent for a moment. “...may I recommend a houseplant?”

You glanced up to look at him, and you both burst into laughter.

This had to have been the most painful possible way of finding out you were both single.

As your shared laughing fit died down, Maruki finished off his own with a heavy, nostalgic sort of sigh. “I...actually used to be engaged, if you can believe it. We were together for a long time.”

You could believe that very easily, but you spared him your commentary.

“I’m sorry,” you offered. “Losing that must’ve been hard.”

“It was my fault, in the end, for being such a coward. But, it’s been a couple of years since then. She’s much happier now! I’m grateful for that.”

You swirled your coffee around by the lip of its can. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you happy?”

Bewilderment flashed across his face, as if he’d never heard the question before. “Oh, y--yes! Well, maybe? I guess you could say I’m working on it...” He looked solemn, his drifting gaze growing absent. “In any case, I’m not in a place for another relationship anytime soon.”

You knew setting such a boundary was the smart, responsible way of handling things.

Even so, the sinking feeling in your chest did well to remind you that the heart was neither smart nor responsible.

“I think that’s very self-aware,” you managed to say, in spite of yourself. “If more people realized they needed to work on themselves instead of seeking out partners to bear the brunt of their emotional shortcomings, the dating world might be a better place.”

“Sounds like you’re speaking from personal experience,” he chuckled awkwardly.

You shrugged. “If that’s what it sounds like.”

The shift in topic seemed to lighten the weight from his shoulders. “The way I see it,” he began, “most people experience some level of disconnect between who they want to be and who they really are. Depending on how big that gap is, some people can go for years without experiencing any significant personal growth, just to avoid feeling the pain of facing their own reality. This avoidance normally leads to suffering—not only for the person whose reality catches up with them, but also for the people closest to them, like their romantic partners, who are forced to deal with the fallout of their inaction.”

“...now who’s speaking from personal experience?”

His laugh sounded like an apology. “This is relevant to my research, actually. Sorry if I was rambling...”

“No, no—I like your rambling,” you nodded, trying to sound encouraging. “I think it’s possible to grow as a person while being avoidant, though.”

“You think so?”

“Ignoring reality would make it easier to put yourself in the shoes of the person you want to be, wouldn’t it? Thinking like them, acting like them—narrowing that gap you mentioned, by improving your own behaviour. So, even if you fall short of your goal, the trying would still have meant something.”

“Avoidance as a constructive defense mechanism,” he considered, “to prevent discouragement before changes have the chance to be internalized...”

“Can’t fake it ‘til you make it if you keep reminding yourself how unrealistic ‘making it’ might be.”

Maruki hummed thoughtfully. “Some might argue setting unrealistic expectations only leads to even bigger disappointment down the line.”

"Well..." You looked off to the side and bobbed your head a little, weighing the objection. “Depends on the situation. You don’t want them becoming delusional or anything, but in my experience, you...” You paused for a moment. “You tell someone whatever they need to hear to make it through another day. Thinking like that’s gotten me in trouble, though, so maybe I shouldn't talk.”

“In trouble?” He folded his hands and rested his chin on top of them. “How?”

“There’s that saying, you know? ‘Shoot for the moon, because even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars’? Some kids who shoot for the moon, they’re just looking for a way out—and from where they’re trapped, the moon is all they can see. So you tell them they can make it, no matter how unrealistic it sounds. Their parents don’t tend to like that approach very much, but...if their dream gives them enough hope to escape whatever shitty situation they’re in, you tell them they can make it. You can’t sell the stars to someone surviving on dreams about the moon.” You shook your head and buried yourself into the last of your soup. “Sorry, wow—now who’s rambling, huh?”

“It’s alright,” he said gently. “I like your rambling.”

When you met his eyes again, you noticed there was something different behind them—a new familiarity in the way he looked at you, like the light around you had shifted and he was the only one who could see it change.

Breathing deep, Maruki leaned back in his chair and looked away from you, his vision drawn to the spaces between neighbouring buildings where he could see the sky.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” he sighed, his wistful adoration floating on a ghost of a smile. “The amount of influence a shift in cognition can have on one’s reality. How many observable changes can be made in one’s life just by believing they’re capable. It’s incredible. The mind is such a beautiful, powerful thing.”

Your heart sparked with unrealistic expectations as your mind warned of even bigger disappointment down the line.

“Yeah,” you replied, raising the canned coffee to your mouth. “Sometimes it’s a bastard, though.”

Chapter Text

With Shujin’s annual medical examinations completed, most of your morning was spent away from the Academy, attending various meetings with other school nurses from your ward to review health education pieces for the upcoming summer months. Another missed rooftop caffeine appointment with Maruki had you feeling sluggish all morning, but somewhere between seminar planning and special announcements from the Board of Education, your phone buzzed in your pocket.

Seeing his name pop up on your screen was as good a dopamine rush as any.

Maruki:
>Sorry to bother you while you’re off-campus...
>Do you keep antihistamines in the health room, by chance?

You:
>Shit, I have the keys to the cabinet on me.
>I’ll call Kobayakawa-san. He can page a custodian to get you in with a spare.

Maruki:
>No need, I can wait.
>Will you be back before lunch?

You:
>I’ll try my best. Hang in there!

The prospect of rushing back to the health room was more effective at keeping you awake through the rest of your meetings than you dared to admit.

As soon as you deboarded the train at Aoyama-Itchome, you half-jogged the rest of the way back to school, cabinet keys in-hand.

Now that you were going to be at least a little less busy, you thought about what you could do to start returning the favour of Maruki’s daily kindness. He liked sugar in the mornings, right? It had been a while since you last tried your hand at baking, but maybe you could—

For some reason, facing the closed door to your office was the trigger that gave you pause, your heart still racing from the run there as you caught your breath. The wind your excitement stirred that little disparaging voice in the back of your head, and now it was here to knock you down a few pegs.

Maruki was just the first faculty member you got along with. It was nice to have a friend at work, but letting yourself feel like a giddy teenage over something like this was nothing short of pathetic. He was kind to everyone. You could have been anyone. Appreciating it for what it is and enjoying it while it lasts doesn't mean you should let yourself get attached. It’ll be easier to let go once it’s over, that way.

With your enthusiasm successfully tempered, you sighed and slid open the door to the health room.

As expected, Maruki was waiting for you in his normal seat near the entrance, his computer open in his lap. By the looks of it, the pollen today had gotten to him something awful—he sniffled behind a facemask, all red-eyed and bleary, pushing up one side of his glasses to rub at the corner of his eye with the back of his hand.

He glanced up as he heard the door open. Even with the mask, you could tell he was smiling. “Ah, welcome home—”

And his voice died in his throat.

(Welcome back, was what he meant. Welcome back.)

He didn’t correct himself right away. The longer he kept silent, the less it made sense to try.

Pretending you were unfazed, you dragged yourself into the room, hanging up your satchel briefcase on the coat rack by your desk.

“Tadaima,” you drawled comically, in the most tired, monotone voice you could muster.

The sound of his bashful laughter came as a relief.

Little did you know that, from then on, it would become a running gag between the two of you.

It’s just a joke, you’ll tell yourself, exchanging ‘welcome home’ greetings whenever he arrives in the morning.

It’s just a joke, you’ll tell yourself, pretending it doesn’t strike a chord somewhere you stopped hearing music a long time ago.

-

Baking didn’t seem very complicated, at first. Most recipes consisted of measuring out ingredients and following a list of instructions, which seemed straightforward enough.

Little did you realize that most recipes assumed you had some baseline level of knowledge in the kitchen, a sort of common-sense you never managed to acquire over the years. Deceptively simple instructions were shadowed by nuances and know-hows you weren’t aware of, at least not until you were looking up the symptoms of your mediocre creations on the internet to try and diagnose what went wrong.

Still, your first few attempts came out okay. Edible, but nothing to be proud of, and certainly not something you were confident gifting to another person.

By the time you called it a day, your apartment had been marinating in the scent of baked dough for so long you couldn’t smell it anymore. Plate after plate of your middling product was spread across your countertops, and you realized you had a more pressing issue at hand.

What the hell were you going to do with all these cookies?

The health room was in desperate need of spring cleaning.

You started by emptying a low bookshelf of its contents, intending to sort through what should be kept and what should be donated, but then you got distracted by how filthy the bookshelf itself was, which then led to you noticing how filthy all the shelves were. Before you knew it, you were emptying every bookcase, medicine cabinet, and sliding cupboard one by one, attacking every shelf in the office with rags and cleaning solution.

“How are they?” you asked out loud, scrubbing at stubborn ring stains left by glass bottles.

Ryuji was leaning in a foldable chair nearby, balancing on its rear legs as he rocked back and forth, a half-eaten cookie in his hand. “S’alright. Kinda dense. Eatin’ one sorta feels like eatin’ three.”

“Yeah, I think I overmixed the batter? Which is a thing you can do, apparently.”

“Oh, you made these?” he asked, surprised. “Sorry, didn’t mean to be a jerk about it...”

“No, no, I wanted your honest opinion. Maybe I should try making mochi, instead? Or maybe some kind of gelatin would be easier to start with...”

“You know, my mom says if you wanna get good in the kitchen, instead of tryin’ to learn a bunch of different things at once, it’s better to learn how to do one thing really, really well. Then after, you take what you learned from that and pick a new food to practice. Like a--a Katamari ball of good cookin’. Y’know?”

“Makes sense...” You glanced at him over your shoulder. “Your mom give you a lot of cooking tips?”

“When she’s got time to teach me, yeah. Workin’ two jobs leaves her pretty wiped, so havin’ a hot plate to come home to at the end of the day’s the least I can do for her.”

“That’s really thoughtful of you. What kind of dishes can you make?”

“Some real basic stuff, nothin’ fancy. Oh, oh—but I can make a killer oyakodon.” Ryuji shoved a couple more cookies into his mouth before he continued. “Like, when I do it, it looks like a total pile of crap? But it tastes soooo-hooo-hooooo damn good. Now I’m learnin’ how to do tamagoyaki without turnin’ ‘em into scrambled eggs by accident. I think havin’ that weird pan makes it easier? Dunno when I’ll get one of those, though, so I’m stuck doin’ it the hard way.”

“You really like eggs, huh?”

“Filling and high in protein, what’s not to like? I’m a growin’ boy.”

“Growing?” you laughed, wringing out your cleaning cloth. “You’re taller than me, Sakamoto-kun.”

He shrugged, his chair creaking as he continued tilting on it. “Gotta eat more eggs, doc.”

“I’m counting on you to bring me some tamagoyaki once you get the technique down, then.”

“Alright, now we’re talkin’!”

You moved on to the neighbouring medicine cabinet, emptying the shelves of miscellaneous supplies. “Things with Amamiya-san still going well?”

“Mmhm,” Ryuji nodded, his mouth full again. “His cat’s gettin’ on my nerves, though.”

“His...cat? He has a cat?”

“Yeeeep. Walks around like he’s the boss of everyone when he’d be as good as dead if Ren didn’t find him when he did. Seriously, would it kill him to show some gratitude?”

“Sounds like a normal cat to me.” You reached the shelf containing rolls of gauze and medical tape, and froze. As always, the less you saw of a student, the better you knew they were doing—but for some of your old regulars, like the majority of the damn volleyball team under Kamoshida's instruction, you couldn’t help but wonder. “...how about Mishima-kun? Is he doing alright?”

You heard the sound of Ryuji’s chair scraping hard against the floor as he nearly fell out of his seat, regaining his balance at the last second. “Uh, w--w--why do you ask? What did he say?”

“I haven’t spoken to him lately. I saw him with you and Amamiya-san the other day—”

“Where??”

“A--around school?” Confused, you turned around to face him fully. “Did something happen?”

“Nope,” Ryuji said, his voice shooting up several octaves and breaking. He cleared his throat and strained to bring his register back to normal, but his next words sounded like the auditory equivalent of falling down the stairs. “No, he’s--he’s doing fine. Great! Never better. Good ol’ Mishima. Mishiman. The Mishi-masta.”

“O...kay.”

You were missing something here, and yet you had no desire to learn what it was.

Returning to your cleaning, you caught a glimpse of the cabinet’s glass door reflecting against the light, revealing half a pane’s worth of smudged fingerprints. “I just wiped this down the other day—why is anyone even touching the glass?” You clicked your tongue. “I swear, sometimes this job has me feeling more like a maid than a nurse...”

Ryuji forced a laugh. “Whaaaaaaaaaat? Maids are lame, nurses rule, I love nurses—Mishima and Ren’re the ones into maids, totally obsessed, I wouldn’t know anythin’ about any of that crap—” He frantically dumped your entire tupperware’s worth of mid-level baking into his school bag as he rambled, before zipping it up and slinging it over his shoulder. “Anywaythanksforthecookiesgottaheadtoclassnowbye!”

He was out the door before you could get another word in.

You only understood about half of that conversation.

Maybe you were losing touch with the students even faster than you thought.

---

Four ingredients.

You chose this recipe because you didn’t think it was possible to mess up four ingredients.

Over the next few days, you learned the hard way that if a recipe called for fewer components, there was a chance it required more careful techniques to pull off properly.

On the other hand, the damn thing had four ingredients.

How long could getting it right possibly take?

The following Monday morning, your office door slid open much later than expected.

“Tadaima.”

The sound of that word in his voice brought such a smile to your face that it took a moment to realize something was wrong.

“Okaeri, Maruki-sensei,” you said, finishing off a signature before looking up from your desk. “Are you okay? I was wondering if you’d make it in time for the teacher’s meetin—”

You did a double-take.

Maruki’s clothing was just off-kilter enough to be noticeable, while the ends of his damp hair dripped with water from getting caught in the rain. Your first thought was that he’d taken a tumble on his bike, or something—but when you met his eyes, he offered a weak smile and an uneasy laugh, holding up two thermoses to reveal a scattering of bright pink scratches and thin slivers of red down the lengths of his forearms.

-

“Are you sure it didn’t look rabid?”

“It was harmless, I swear. It was my fault for scaring the poor thing.”

“...do you need the rabies speech?”

“P--please don’t. The last one you had at homeroom gave me nightmares...”

Maruki had taken the train this morning, thanks to the rain. Somewhere along the way, he spotted a kitten stuck in a tree, and he—in all of his heroic, foolhardy glory—decided to try and rescue it himself. The cat was saved, though Maruki had gotten roughed up in the process.

“Worth it?” you asked, pulling on a pair of disposable gloves.

“Absolutely,” he replied, grimacing as he folded up his sleeves over the sink.

After he washed up his injuries, you had him sit on the examination bench so you could take a proper look at the wounds. Most of the scratches were surface-level, but you pressed clean pads against the ones that weren’t until they finally stopped bleeding.

You took your time applying thin layers of antibiotic ointment down each individual mark that marred his skin, trying your utmost not to think about how heavy his hands felt in yours.

Holding onto his wrist, you turned his arm over gently, ignoring how much you wished you weren’t wearing gloves so you weren’t left to imagine how his skin would feel beneath your touch.

In a last-ditch effort to distract yourself, you wrinkled your brow and focused instead on the movement of your fingertips brushing medicine against his arms, repetitive and featherlight, your concentration mirroring that of an artist blending paint onto a canvas.

Just don’t think about it.

(Please, just don’t think about it.)

You chanced a glance up at him, not expecting what you saw. His eyes had drifted shut without you knowing, his expression softened by a faint smile as he breathed, silent and slow. It was the same look he had on the rooftop sometimes, when you stole peeks at him during your mindfulness sessions. Soothed and completely content.

Seeing him like this felt like a violation of privacy, somehow. You were quick to avert your eyes.

“Good news,” you said, calling his attention as nonchalantly as possible. “You won’t need stitches. I’ll grab a couple of butterfly bandages for the deeper cuts, but you will live to be a hero to small animals another day.”

He continued smiling softly as he watched you apply the bandages to his arms. “Thanks for looking after me. It was fun being on this side of the exam table, for once. As much fun as getting mauled can be, I mean. And...sorry if this sounds strange, but...” He drummed the fingers of his free hand on his lap. “Has anyone ever told you that your hair smells like a bakery? It’s nice. Unless olfactory hallucinations are a rabies symptom, of course! Haha, oh nooo...”

You poked one of his bandages and he winced out loud.

“But really,” he laughed, rubbing at the spot where you prodded him. “I’m feeling better, already. Thank you. Heck, if I could be half as efficient with my treatments as you are with yours, I might finally get somewhere.”

“You’ve barely been here a month and you’ve had counselling sessions with half the school, I’d say that’s pretty efficient.” You snapped off your gloves, tossing them into a nearby bin. “Why, is Kobayakawa-san giving you a hard time?”

“Kobayakawa-san...? Oh, no, nothing like that. It’s about my research progress.”

“You know, you don’t really talk much about your research.”

“It’s my life’s work,” he said, exasperated. “I need to put a conscious effort into making sure it’s not all I ever talk about...surprisingly, most people aren’t interested in listening to a washed-up researcher ramble about his paper.”

You stood up from your chair, turned it around, and sat in it backwards while facing him, resting your chin on your now-folded arms. “Maruki-sensei, you have my undivided attention.”

“O--oh. Okay, then! Let me see, where to begin...” He crossed his arms and curled a hand around his chin. “Say a student were to walk in right now and tell you they were in pain. How long would it take you to figure out what was wrong?”

“A couple of minutes, maybe? Faster if it’s something obvious, of course,” you nodded towards his arms.

“Of course! But the timeline is short because physical injuries are quick to assess. A broken bone will always be a broken bone, for example. Now, imagine: the same student is here with a broken leg, but instead, they need multiple appointments with you over the course of several weeks—sometimes with referrals to other specialists—before they can even call it a fracture. Then, their treatment comes via process of elimination, because what works for some may not work for others—and in some cases, can even make things worse. Meanwhile, until a suitable treatment is found, this student is still struggling with their pain, every single day. The time it takes for someone to get the help they need is a massive barrier of entry. That’s what I’m trying to solve.”

“Physical injuries are definitely easier to deal with.” You tilted your head against your folded arms. “Splints, antibiotics, surgeries—they work on every human body in the world. It’s not the same for mental health.”

“But...” He folded his hands together and leaned forward. “If we could turn emotional pain into something tangible, something we could see and heal...”

“Like a wound?”

“Exactly,” he beamed. “Treatment would be faster, more accessible, more consistent...eventually, we might even be able to get rid of pain altogether! Wouldn’t that be exciting?”

“Revolutionary, more like. But...ah, never mind.”

“Please, speak your mind,” he encouraged. “Don’t worry about hurting my feelings—I value all the input I can get.”

“Well...” You took a moment to sort your thoughts. “Let me put it this way. People with certain types of paralysis are at a much greater risk for untreated injuries—infections, internal bleeding, those sort of things. You can imagine why.”

“Because they can’t feel it,” he nodded.

“Right. Pain is the body’s way of telling us something’s wrong—just because the pain’s gone, doesn’t mean that whatever’s causing it isn’t still wreaking havoc in there. How can you measure the ongoing efficacy of your method if you no longer have pain as a metric?”

His brows knitted together as he considered his reply. “If someone’s quality of life can be equally improved by either the healing of their trauma or the absence of their pain, would the difference be anything more than arguing semantics? Would the end result not be the same?”

“That’s what I’m saying, though—it wouldn’t be. The first would be a well-adjusted individual who worked through their issues and grew as a person. The second would be emotionally paralyzed, walking through life with a broken leg because they can’t tell it’s supposed to hurt.”

“Ah, I see your concern, now. Please, don’t get me wrong—there’s a very big difference between resolving pain and removing the ability to feel it. But on the other hand, you can’t blame people for not wanting to hurt, anymore—especially if the cause of their pain isn’t something that can ever be resolved in full. If a person’s trauma can’t be healed, do they not deserve the chance to no longer suffer the pain it’s causing? And if one person can be given that opportunity, shouldn’t everyone be afforded the same?”

“I don’t...know. I don’t know.” You sighed. “Maybe physical and non-physical wounds are more alike than we thought.”

“Are they?”

“I can set a broken leg, but afterwards, the body will still need a long time to heal. I think the same goes for what you do, too.” You gave him a meaningful look. “It’s not our job to make people’s pain go away. It’s our job to find out what’s causing it, so that they can start to heal.”

“In that case...” Maruki rested his hands at his sides and leaned onto his palms, crinkling the paper on the examination bench beneath him. “I guess the only truly universal solution would be to stop the trauma from happening at all.”

“Yeah,” you sneered. “Remember that the next time you see a cat stuck in a tree, okay?”

---

‘Batter needed more air beaten into it.’

‘Oven must not have been hot enough.’

‘Wait a goddamn minute—what do you mean not all flour is bread flour?’

Mediocre single-servings lined the shelves of your fridge, each slightly more competent than the last, a monument to both your tenacity and your refusal to waste food.

“It’s better to learn how to do one thing really, really well.”

Ryuji’s mom was right. You weren’t about to give up on this.

Snacking on your fourth failed attempt, you rolled up your sleeves and started again.

“Blood tests all came back good,” you said, feathering through the pages on your clipboard. “So did your chest x-rays. Your blood pressure’s running a bit high, but other than that? Everything’s right as rain.”

The redheaded student seated in front of you rested a hand on her chest and sighed with relief. “Oh, thank goodness. That gives me a little more confidence.”

“Also, side-note—your eating habits are fine. I’ve never seen a student your age take their nutrition so seriously. You have my full support to tell anyone else who makes rude comments about your food intake to mind their own damn business.”

“Good to know,” she smiled politely. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”

Puzzling over her paperwork, you scratched your head with the back of your pen. “I’m just confused over why you were sent in for another check-up so soon after your annual examination...”

“Oh, I was the one who requested it. I wanted to make extra sure nothing was wrong with me physically.” As soon as the words left her mouth, her bubbly demeanor fizzled, as if she hadn’t realized the implications until she acknowledged the results out loud. “I...guess whatever’s holding me back must be in my head, after all.”

Somewhere between your clipboard pages, you landed on the email her coach had written to you in private some time ago. In it, Coach Hiraguchi outlined sudden changes in Yoshizawa’s attitude and mannerisms, all of which were beginning to mirror those of her now-deceased sister’s. The emulation was clearly a coping mechanism, one that even those closest to her were afraid to confront in fear of triggering a full emotional breakdown.

Glancing at her from behind the edge of your clipboard, you treaded carefully. “Yoshizawa-san, do you...still enjoy gymnastics? Is it something that makes you happy, or...does it feel like you’re doing it for somebody else, sometimes?”

“Hm.” Yoshizawa tucked her hair behind her ear, her eyes downcast as she considered your question. “I have felt like I’ve been in a slump, recently...those are never fun. But, I can’t give up just because things are getting difficult. As long as I’m healthy, I’ll do as much work as I need to in order to get where I need to be. I even have a new training partner, now! He’s helping me get my confidence back.”

You were at a loss for words.

You asked three questions and she answered exactly none of them.

“...have you had a chance to see our part-time counsellor, by chance?”

“You mean Dr. Maruki?” she beamed, lighting up with recognition. “Yes—he’s amazing! My father took me to his clinic after everything happened with my sister...Dr. Maruki has helped me through so much. I don’t think I would have had the courage to follow-through with my transfer to Shujin if it weren’t for him.”

That wasn’t in her file. “You were Dr. Maruki’s patient before you transferred here?”

“Yes, and I wouldn’t be who I am today without his help. I was so happy when I heard he got a position here at the school! I hope other students have found him as helpful as I do.”

(They did. You knew for a fact they did.)

If Yoshizawa was already seeing Maruki, you reasoned, that meant she was already being taken care of. As long as the students were happy, their mental health no longer required your involvement, and you certainly had no right to question or interfere with his ongoing care. He had much more experience with this than you, after all.

You finished off the appointment and told her she was free to leave.

“Good luck with your training, let me know if you need anything.” You wiggled the clipboard in your hand. “And I don’t care how slight the increase was—I want this blood pressure back down. So don’t push yourself too hard, okay?”

Yoshizawa giggled on her way out. “Now you sound just like him.”

(That was a compliment, right?)

“Oh—hang on,” you called after her, leaning back in your chair. You wanted to make sure Coach Hiraguchi stayed informed. “This new training partner of yours, do they go here?”

Her hand rounding the door, Yoshizawa stopped in her tracks and did a little hop backwards to face you again. “Oh yes, Amamiya-senp—er, pardon. He’s the new transfer student, Amamiya Ren.”

“Ah.” Of course it was. “I hear he’s a good guy.”

“He’s been a very good friend.” She looked off to the side for a moment, perplexed. “A little out of shape, though. Surprisingly not as limber as he looks.”

The weather had been humid and wet and miserable all month, but your shared early mornings—when the air was still cool and the concrete was damp from the rain—were still a most welcome respite. Maruki was by your side as always, leaning against the abandoned desk you sat on. You had his thermos in your hands, and a small paper bag containing a culmination of a month’s baking practice hidden by your side.

You’d never been the type to shy away from your own efforts.

So what made this so nerve-wracking...?

“This might be a weird question,” Maruki started, “but what do you know about Amamiya-kun?”

You shook yourself from your thoughts. “Sakamoto-kun’s friend?”

“That’s the one.” Smiling, he tucked his free hand into his pocket. “You and Sakamoto-kun are pretty close, huh?”

“I oversaw his physical therapy exercises for a while after he got injured. I suppose he was no stranger to my office even after that, though...” Remembering the bloody marks from the fights he would get himself into, you cut yourself off and cleared your throat. “Anyway. You were asking about Amamiya-san?”

“You must’ve been the one to give him his physical exam when he first transferred here, right?” He prepared to take another sip of coffee. “What were your first impressions?”

You shrugged. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Quiet, polite. He has a record, but with the rumours going around, you’d think the kid was a serial killer, or something. Haven’t heard about him causing any trouble since he got here, though.”

“Not even his and Sakamoto-kun’s confrontation with Kamoshida-san?”

“Wouldn’t know anything about that,” you lied. “I know his glasses are fake, though.”

Maruki reeled. “You’re kidding...”

“Gave him the eye exam myself. Funny, right?” you smirked, looking over.

Your smile faded.

(Was it just you, or did Maruki look seriously betrayed all of a sudden...?)

“S--so, uh, why the sudden interest in Amamiya-san?” you pushed, trying to change the subject.

“Oh—Amamiya-kun’s been helping me with my research, lately. He’s an incredibly bright young man. I’ve...noticed he mumbles to himself sometimes, though, so I wondered if you’d also noticed anything out of the ordinary.”

Hearing Ren mentioned yet again, you couldn’t help but mentally review the shortlist of everything you’d learned about him so far through the eyes of other people. He was trustworthy. A good friend. Top of his class. Had an annoying cat. Mumbled to himself a lot. Insightful enough to help Maruki with his research. Liked maids. Wore fake glasses solely for style points. Wasn’t as limber as he looked.

Maybe he was a serial killer, after all.

“Can’t say I’ve noticed anything, no. But he’s helping you with your research, is he?” You opened the paper bag at your side. “The new theoretical approach to psychological treatment?”

Maruki blinked. “Theoretical?”

“Yeah, you were talking about turning emotional pain into something physical you could heal more easily.” You handed him one of the carefully wrapped slices of sponge cake, choosing the other one for yourself because the wrapping didn’t look quite as good. “It’s not like we can actually do that yet, right?”

“Oh, but we can!” As you’d hoped, he accepted the cake from you without realizing it, far too engrossed in his own explanation to notice. “Cognitive psience—er, with a ‘psi’ at the start, like the Greek letter—is a very real field of study. Think of it as a more niche, experimental offshoot of traditional cognitive science.”

You took a bite of your cake. “Legally distinct cognitive science.”

“Exactly!” he said excitedly, mirroring you and taking a bite from his own slice. “Decades of research has suggested our cognition operates in parallel to some observable plane. If I can reconcile that concept with some of my own theories, I could reform our entire understanding and treatment of trauma as a whole. I could help those who have been irreparably harmed by the unkind realities of this world, and save anyone suffering from the pain that's preventing them from reaching their true potential. A world where no one had to live with that burden, ever again. Can you imagine?”

Somehow, it was within this specific, fleeting moment when the truth of him finally clicked into place.

There was no irony or ulterior motive in the passion he had for helping others. He’d dedicated his life to some obscure field of science, pioneering independent research for the mere possibility of discovering something that could improve the lives of those around him on a level never before seen. Considering his age and current career path, he obviously had yet to produce any meaningful results, but the conviction he had for his approach was as relentless and unwavering as it must have been on the day he first envisioned it, for better or for worse. You could see that determination reflected in him, now. Every single part of him.

As a man who gave himself so wholly to the world, you wondered how the world hadn’t broken him, yet.

Completely oblivious to your silent opining, Maruki took another bite of cake, finally pausing to blink down at it. “What am I eating? It’s so fluffy.”

Christ, your heart was in your throat. “Th--that’s the most enthusiastic reaction someone’s had to my baking.”

(You’d been waiting all month to use that line.)

“You made this?” he gasped, his eyes brightening with sheer delight. “Oh, my...thank you. I can’t remember the last time anyone baked me anything.”

“You’ve made us drinks every morning you’ve come in—I wanted to start bringing something for us, too, and you mentioned having strawberry pancakes for breakfast once, so I knew you liked sweets in the morning, but I can’t have too much sugar too early, so—” Breathe, goddamn it, breathe. “It’s just castella. Not a big deal.”

“Don't be silly, I throw stuff into a bottle and mix it up—but you, you actually made something.” He was grinning ear to ear, happier than you’d ever seen him before. “Knowing all that just makes this taste even better.”

Your face was on fire. “If you say so...”

“It’s true! Knowing how special something is leads to an actual change in your cognition, which creates an improved difference in your experienced reality—”

He was flattering you with science, now.

“Stop,” you mumbled, holding your face in your hands. Your heart couldn't take this. “Please.”

“This gives me an idea for my next counselling session, actually.” Maruki hummed, lost in his own little world. “Oh, you’ve really spoiled me, you know. I’m going to be craving this every morning, now.”

What better time for the rooftop entrance door to fly open without warning.

When Ryuji entered the scene, he was met with the sight of the school counsellor happily stuffing his face with sponge cake, while you held your head in your hands with an expression of despair, your blushing so bright it was a wonder smoke wasn’t pouring out of your ears. It was almost like a renaissance painting.

“Rooftop’s off-limits, Sakamoto-kun,” Maruki said, his mouth full.

“The hell—then what are you guys doing up here??”

You held out your arm. “I’ll give you the rest of my castella to forget about it.”

“Wait...” Ryuji took the slice of cake without noticing. “Forget about what?”

“That’s the spirit.”

Chapter Text

The box you handed Ryuji was about a foot long, wrapped in brown paper and tied off with twine.

“What’s this?” he asked, shaking the package by his ear. Something hefty shifted around inside. “What’re you bakin’ now, doc, bricks?”

Your expression turned incredulous as you clicked your pen at your desk. Had your near-perfected castella meant nothing? “It’s a tamagoyaki pan, actually. I saw one on sale last week and remembered your birthday was coming up.”

“Oh, shit.”

“I’ll let that one slide. Happy Birthday.”

Looking confused, Ryuji rubbed at the back of his neck. “Jeez, doc...I--I don’t know what to say.”

The reaction wasn’t what you were expecting. “Sorry, is it too much?” you asked, concerned you’d crossed a line. “It’s nothing fancy, I promise. Just until you got a better one.”

“N--no, no, this is awesome!” he said, perking up. “I don’t even remember tellin’ you about this...seriously, thank you. It’s just...forget about gettin’ me a gift—none of the adults’ve ever said anything for my birthday before, includin’ you. What gives?”

Simple: he was outgrowing you, and you were feeling sentimental.

But you couldn’t just say something like that, could you?

“You’ve come really far from where you were a year ago.” You broke eye contact to make this easier on the both of you, opting to continue filling out some miscellaneous document at your desk as you spoke. “I wanted you to know I see the effort you’re putting in, and that I’m proud of you.”

He clicked his tongue. “Man, if I knew you were gonna get all mushy about it...”

“Let me finish, alright? It’s not every day you find people who bring out the best in you. It seems like you’ve made some incredible friends. They’re lucky to have you, too.”

“...they are pretty damn great, yeah.” Ryuji couldn’t stop himself from grinning at their mention. After a moment’s silence, he sunk further into his chair with the gift box in his lap, flicking at a loose thread of twine. “I dunno...it’s been nice, havin’ people like that again. People you can count on who can count on you, y’know? I almost totally forgot what that was like.”

“Good for you. Seriously, I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen you smile this much.”

“Yeah...you, too.”

You did a double-take from your paperwork. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been smilin’ a lot, too. And you don’t look so beat all the time, anymore...so, uh, speakin’ of.” Ryuji sniffled, bouncing his leg and looking away at whatever spot across the room made him seem the most casual. “Are you and Doc—the other Doc—like...”

“...uh-huh?”

“I dunno, people were sayin’ you hang out every mornin’, then I saw you guys up on the roof eatin’ cake? And then I got to thinkin’ you two are in here...alone...a lot.”

“Alright, that’s enough. You don’t think I deal with enough perverted rumors, being a nurse? Dr. Maruki and I share an office, that’s it. Don’t believe everything you hear.”

“Uh, I don’t? That’s why I asked you about it, duh.”

You watched Ryuji slip the birthday gift into his school bag with a little less enthusiasm than he had a moment ago. If you didn’t know any better, you would’ve thought he almost seemed disappointed.

“Anyway, thanks again for the pan! Gonna get a ton of mileage outta this thing.” He zipped his bag up and slung it back over his shoulder, getting to his feet. “Oh, uh—since this is for my birthday n’ all, do y’know where Dr. Maruki keeps his juice boxes? Think I can grab one for the road?”

You gave a very loud, very exaggerated sigh. “No, Sakamoto-kun, I have absolutely no idea where he keeps his juice boxes,” you said, keeping your tone and expression neutral as you got up and walked over to the minifridge. You grabbed your keys out of your lab coat pocket and knelt down to unlock the door. “Even if I did, I would never compromise the sanctity of Dr. Maruki’s inventory control without his permission.”

And you tossed him a juice box.

Catching it single-handed, he grinned. “Hahaha, sweet.”

As luck would have it, Maruki entered the health room as Ryuji was on his way out.

“Bye, doc.” Ryuji slurped back his juice as he shuffled past Maruki out the door. “Hi, Doc.”

“Oh, that’s right!” Spinning on his heel, Maruki turned and pointed a finger-gun at Ryuji as he exited into the hallway. “Belated Happy Birthday, Sakamoto-kun.”

“Uh. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Twice in one freakin’ day,” Ryuji muttered as he walked away, chewing on his straw. “Unbelievable...”

Maruki turned back to you and pointed over his shoulder. “Was that one of my...”

“Kid knows too much,” you sighed, still kneeling by the fridge. “Had to silence him.”

“Occupational hazard,” he replied, nodding sagely.

“Want one of my custard puddings in exchange?”

“Ooo, don’t mind if I do.” He caught the one you tossed his way. “Are you going to Ushimaru-san’s thing?”

“Ushimaru-san’s thing?” you echoed, locking the fridge back up.

“A mixer before summer break. The...23rd, I think it is? After closing ceremony.” Maruki plucked a disposable spoon from the top shelf of a medicine cabinet, before leaning back against it and digging into his dessert. “I’ve been out for drinks with him and a few of the other teachers before, but this get-together involves a lot of the other faculty, and...well, to be honest, I’d feel less out of place if you were there.”

You thought about Maruki having after-work drinks with the likes of Ushimaru and Kawakami and Inui and your brain short-circuited, unable to fathom what that would even look like. Still, it made perfect sense that Maruki hung out with people after work. He was personable, sociable, likeable—of course he had other friends within the Shujin faculty that weren’t you. Why did that come as a surprise?

Just because you couldn’t make them?

You realized you’d been silent a few moments too long. When you finally stood up to face him, he was frozen in place, pudding cup in-hand, looking so goddamn sorry for you.

“...you weren’t invited, were you?”

“Please don’t look so concerned,” you snapped, sounding more frustrated than you wanted to let on. “I don’t normally go to these sorts of things, anyway. Once you decline enough invites, people stop asking. It’s fine. Really.”

“Gotcha,” he nodded. He shifted his attention back to the pudding, digging for the caramel at the bottom. “Any reason why? If you don’t mind me asking.”

You shrugged. “Being around a bunch of drunk co-workers isn’t exactly my idea of a fun evening.”

“Hmm...” Maruki hummed thoughtfully around his spoon. “What about just one?”

Between final exam rush, end-of-term arrangements, and pre-break sports preparations, the month of July flew by as quickly as it came. You were excited for summer break; though you didn’t have any big plans, sleeping in everyday and doing a whole lot of nothing for once was always more than enough to look forward to.

It had almost been a week since the closing ceremony, but only a few days since you last saw Maruki at an emergency assembly, the school's urgent reminder for students to behave themselves over summer break necessitated by recent Phantom Thief-related events. You managed to keep up your normal routine throughout the week without him, though, sitting outside your apartment with coffee every morning to bask in the sun—you even bought a fancy new mug specifically for it. Still, it did little to make up for how much you found yourself missing the counsellor's company.

No morning meetings. No lunchtime texts.

Had your life always been this quiet outside of work?

Once every so often, you’d scroll to his name in your contacts list, only to stare in silence before talking yourself out of messaging him each time. You’d seen each other almost every day for over two months—he deserved some space. He had other people to spend time with. Other things to do.

(You should probably get yourself some of those.)

Tonight was when you scheduled to meet up for drinks; it was the last chance you had to spend time with him before summer break really kicked in, and to say you’d been counting down the days was an understatement. The thought of not seeing him again for another month after tonight made your chest tighten in that telltale, pathetic way that made you hate yourself.

The weather hadn’t been able to make up its mind all week, switching back and forth between heat waves and heavy rains and back again on a dime, which made figuring out what to wear difficult. You settled on something comfortable and upscale-casual, along with a loose jacket—one you could zip up if it got too cold and take off if it got too hot—and the most durable umbrella you owned, hooked snug around your wrist.

The umbrella would end up being your wisest decision of the evening.

In an effort to make your outing feel like a proper celebration, Maruki sent you the address of a new izakaya somewhere down in Odaiba. Between the pouring rain and your unfamiliarity with the area, you were so worried about being late that you ended up arriving half-an-hour early with nothing to do.

Odaiba was only slightly less crowded than usual, in spite of the weather. While you walked around to waste some time, you continued to glance down at your phone every so often to publicly cue that you were waiting for someone, as if any of the surrounding strangers actually cared whether or not you were alone.

Eventually, you passed a designated smoking area at the end of the block; inside were a few stragglers, working on their nicotine fixes beneath the shelter of their umbrellas. An older man with a cigarette dangling from his mouth scrolled through his phone. A young woman with shopping bags people-watched from behind the glass, meeting your eyes briefly as you passed her. A taller, bespectacled man in a brown jacket leaned back against a tree, taking a drag and holding his breath as he lowered his loosely-held cigarette to his side.

...wait a minute.

You recognized those glasses.

“...Maruki-sensei?”

Maruki choked almost immediately. Hunching over, he tried to dispel the smoke, hide the evidence, and hold his umbrella upright, only to fail spectacularly at all three.

“Sorry—I’m sorry,” he winced between coughs. “You weren’t supposed to see me like this...”

“Ah,” you said flatly. “So this is why you didn’t come to my anti-smoking lecture.”

-

Since you were both early, you made your way back to the izakaya together, shielding yourselves from the rain with your umbrellas while queuing outside the restaurant.

“How was Ushimaru-san’s mixer last week?” you asked.

“Fun! From...what little of it I can remember,” he added timidly. “I may have gone a little overboard. It’s always nerve-wracking meeting colleagues outside of work for the first time, isn’t it?”

“A little, yeah. The best part is seeing how people normally dress. Speaking of,” and you gathered just enough courage to sound nonchalant, “that’s a nice jacket.”

“Why, thank you.” Maruki looked down at himself. “You don’t think it looks dated?”

Someone must have told him that once, you thought, and he carried the comment with him every time he put it on. “Not at all, Maruki-sensei. I think it suits you.”

He tilted his head towards you as if sharing a secret. “You know, we’re not at school—there’s no need to be so formal. You can call me Takuto.”

You ignored the little twirl your heart did and looked him dead in the eyes, unflinching. “Takuto-sensei.”

“Now you’re just teasing me...” he pouted. “Are you angry at me for smoking?”

You sighed. “Does it matter?”

“I’ve told you before, what you think matters to me a great deal.”

“Well, if you came to my presentation...” You side-eyed him, sly but light-hearted. The line shuffled forward again, as did the two of you. “Even so, seeing you have a bad habit...I don’t know. Makes you seem human.”

Maruki blinked. “You mean I didn’t seem human before?”

“I was this close to nominating you for sainthood, actually.”

“Think I have a shot at getting canonized once I quit? I’m already down to four a week!”

“Four packs a week?!”

Your gasp was loud enough to draw attention from a few other people in line. Even Maruki startled.

“Wh--what?” he sputtered. “No, no—cigarettes, four cigarettes a week! I’ve cut back since college, but I still use them sometimes to settle my nerves. They...help keep my hands from shaking, haha.”

You realized you caught him smoking before meeting you.

You realized he specifically got here early to smoke.

When you found your voice again, you couldn’t mask the gentle worry that came with it. “Do I make you nervous?”

“It’s not you, exactly, it’s...” Maruki closed his eyes and smiled down at you again, his brows knitting together apologetically. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you all week. Is that strange?”

“No, I’ve...I’ve been looking forward to tonight, too.” Feeling your face go warm, you turned away to hide it. “I mean, we saw each other almost every day at school. Going from that to nothing at all...”

“Almost feels like something’s missing, doesn’t it?”

Your fingers tightened around the handle of your umbrella.

He sounded so casual when he said it, completely unburdened by the gravity with which it was received. You didn’t know how to respond to that. You couldn’t even bring yourself to look at him, anxious of the expression you might find and the impact it would have on you.

Thankfully, you reached the front of the queue not long after, and all tension was dispelled by a young hostess showing you both to your seats.

-

The cozy atmosphere of your shared booth was enhanced by the low din of the restaurant and the warm glow of overhead lights. The ease with which you fell back into conversation was something special to behold; it had only been a few days since you last saw each other, but you somehow already had so much to say.

Unconvinced that you were eating your fill, Maruki continued ordering food for the table, while you were forcing glasses of water on him between each beer to minimize his chances of a hangover the next morning. Stacks of appetizer plates and empty beer bottles cluttered the table until your stomachs were full and your heads were abuzz in a pleasant sort of daze.

“Sucks you have to work over summer break,” you sighed. “You deserve a vacation.”

“Well, I am still technically a part-timer...” he said, sounding resigned. “Besides, it’s easier to work on my paper back at the clinic than it is at the school. I’ve also been meaning to check-in with some of my old patients, not to mention the clinic’s files are due for a look-through...” Maruki tilted his head back, squeezing his eyes shut. “Gah—there’s so much to do...!”

“Which is exactly why you need a vacation,” you repeated, pointing your bottle at him. “You’re one man, Maruki-sensei. You’ve been working your ass off helping half the school—you should be taking it easy.”

He shook his head. “You give me too much credit, I’m really nothing special. Just another out-of-touch therapist trying to get high-schoolers to talk about their feelings...”

“...you’re joking, right?”

You thought he was being humble, maybe—fishing for a compliment, at worst—but one look at his expression made it clear he’d intended neither. No, he very much believed all those things he just said.

You were going to fix that.

“Maruki-sensei.” You adjusted yourself in your seat and leaned into the table, addressing him with the resolve of someone about to deliver the bombshell of the century. “Our students love you. Every word I hear out of them is about how incredible you are. You made a bunch of teenagers like attending lectures and going to counseling, because with you, they feel respected and listened to—just the other week, Yoshizawa-san was telling me how you helped her before she transferred, and...” You trailed off, having lost your train of thought. After a moment, you plopped back into your seat, swirling around the liquid at the bottom of your bottle. “I don’t know what you do, Maruki-sensei, but it’s like magic. The school just feels better with you around.”

You watched with no small measure of delight as Maruki, already flushed from the alcohol flooding his system, went a shade of pink that creeped up his neck and reached the tips of his ears.

“A--ah, well...thank you. Coming from you, that’s...” He folded his hands together and stared down at the table. “I don’t think Shujin would be the same without you, either.”

“I mean, every school needs a nurse...”

“You’re more than that,” he said, his eyes snapping up at you. “You’re a port in a storm for students with nowhere else to go. Hearing the way some of these kids talk about you...I don’t think you realize how important that’s been.”

“Really?” You had a hard time believing that, but you never really had a pulse on what the students thought of you in the first place. “...I’m grateful they finally have an adult they trust enough to talk to, like this.”

“Only because I’m trained to uncover that kind of information. That’s all there is to it. Nothing up my sleeves,” he joked. He drummed his fingers along the side of his glass, looking uncertain. “You know...I once asked a certain someone about why he dyed his hair. He told me that if people were going to hate him anyway, he wanted it to be for something he had control over. He said he got just the reaction he was looking for out of everyone, too...everyone except you. He told me by that point, you were the first person at that school to smile at him in a very long time.”

You had a sudden flashback to a certain younger student walking into your office, nose bloodied and hair as bright as the sunshine.

“I told him it looked good,” you said, smirking at the memory. “Should...you be telling me this? You’re not breaking confidentiality for the sake of a compliment, are you?”

“Hey, now, I never said who it was—I could be talking about anybody,” he laughed. “My point is, you’ve inspired trust in more students than you know. Given what some of them have gone through with the faculty, that’s no small achievement on your part.” Something shifted in Maruki’s once-thoughtful gaze, and you noticed his smile towards you weaken. “Actually, I...hate to bring the mood down, but I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

“Of course.”

“...did you know? About Kamoshida?”

Your high spirits took a tumble as you felt something in your gut begin to sour.

Finishing off your bottle before you answered, you swallowed hard. “Would you think less of me if I said yes?”

“I’m just trying to understand,” he said gently. “The more I learned about the situation, the harder it was for me to imagine how it went on for so long. The parents, the faculty—not one person stood up for these kids. How does something like that happen?”

“Remember how I said sports programs are important to Shujin? Kamoshida is—was a coach who got results. And the things people are willing to sweep under the rug for the accolades—”

“Did you?”

His words were chased out by sudden, subtle desperation.

Here, in front of you, sat a good man—a good man who wanted to believe in the good in everyone, including you. From the moment you met, you’d made such a show of how much you cared about your students, yet here he was, trying and failing to reconcile that image with the fact you sat around and did nothing.

Did he ask Ushimaru this question, you wondered? Kawakami? Inui?

“I noticed.” You sounded distant to your own ears. “How couldn’t I, right? I’m the one who bandaged them up and sent them back. None of them would tell me anything. So I talked to Kamoshida, started sitting in on his training. And wouldn’t you know it? The days I came to watch, not a single student got hurt.”

“...then what?”

“What else? He got me banned from practice.” You dragged another beer towards you. “Told Kobayakawa-san I was being ‘distracting,’ and I got a slap on the wrist for interfering with his methods. The abuse got even worse after that. He thought someone talked, so he punished them all for it.” You took another sip—two gulps, three—before resting your head in your hand. The pressure of an oncoming headache was manifesting somewhere behind your eyes. “I did everything right. I filled out all the right paperwork, I escalated my concerns to all the right people—nothing changed. I don’t blame the students for being too scared to say anything, but us? The adults? We had no excuse. They didn’t trust any of us enough to come forward because they didn’t think we’d do anything about it, and they were right. We all knew. We all let it happen.”

“A diffusion of responsibility,” Maruki offered. “The more people complicit with the status quo, the less likely an individual will try to speak out.”

He tried to keep his tone even, but you could feel his opinion of you eroding with every word, enough to make the conversation feel worse for wear. You knew you deserved it. Everything about this man somehow managed to both inspire and discourage you, making you want to better yourself while reminding you of all the ways you fell short. You could have done more—he would have done more—and you knew it.

“What happened was not your fault and doesn’t speak to any sort of failure on your part,” he’d said.

You wondered if he now understood why you never really let yourself believe that.

Your line of sight drifted up to meet his gaze again. “Did Sakamoto-kun tell you about his leg?”

By the way his eyes widened, you could the question caught him off-guard. As long as you were in the saint’s confessional, you figured, you’d take the opportunity to wring your bleeding conscience dry.

Clearing his throat, he straightened up in his seat. “I...was made aware of some allegations, yes.”

“We’re not at school, Takuto-sensei—no need to be so formal. Did he tell you or not?”

He nodded, his expression darkening. “Were you there?”

“I went to the police after it happened,” you nodded back. With your head still in your hand, you tried to focus through your mental fog, finding the right words to string together for a story you’d never told before. “Kobayakawa-san wanted me to lie on the medical report. By that point, I’d exhausted all of my options. Talking to the police was the one thing I hadn’t tried, yet. And you wanna know what they told me? ‘You care about your students, right? If you go causing waves like this, you’ll probably lose your job. Then who would they have to look out for them?’”

(You remembered how genuine and non-threatening the officer was when he said it, convinced his warning to you was a favour. You would’ve preferred it if he laughed in your face, instead. The cruelty would have felt less dystopian.)

“So I kept my mouth shut,” you continued, “and I signed off on my own lies, like a coward. Because I thought staying was better than being replaced by someone who didn’t care.”

“I see...” Maruki craned his head down a little, trying to draw your eyes up from your downcast expression. “Is there anything you wish you’d done differently?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I should’ve gone to the news? Or put more pressure on the other teachers to say something...” You returned to your drink. “Maybe I should’ve just filed that police report, even if it meant getting blacklisted from every school in the city.”

“You decided against leaving things in the hands of a system that’s done nothing but fail you. I don’t think you can be faulted for that. If you were the only one who felt that way, the Phantom Thieves wouldn’t be as popular as they are.” He gave the statement room to breathe before speaking again. “Do you...agree with how the Thieves handled Kamoshida, then?”

You barked a laugh. “Look—I know vigilantism is bad and everything, but the Phantom Thieves were a dream come true, I think. Does that make me a bad person?”

“I think we all want to see people who’ve harmed others face punishment for their actions. The Phantom Thieves seem to be able to make that dream a reality...”

“I take it you’re a fan?”

“Not sure if ‘fan’ is the right word,” he said, sounding uneasy, “but I do admire what they stand for.”

“I didn’t think they were real for the longest time,” you admitted. “Then whatever they did to Kamoshida, they did to that famous artist, and then again with some big-shot mob boss. The police even had to release a statement about that guy...whatever they’re doing, they’re getting better at it. But,” you pointed at him, your hand wrapped around the neck of a bottle, “I get to school early. I remember their first calling cards. Still have one at home, actually.”

“Boy, I bet that’s worth a lot...” he said, awed. “What about it, though?”

“The message they wrote, the anger in it—plus Kamoshida being their first target—it felt personal. You can tell it was written by someone he hurt. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the Phantom Thieves is from Shujin.”

“What an incredible theory.” Maruki curled a hand around his chin. “What do you think the chances are I’ve already interviewed one of them? Their insight could be invaluable to my research...”

You tilted your head. “You think cognitive psience is related to how they ‘steal hearts’?”

“Possibly. I don’t have any proof, but I don’t want to count it out just yet.”

“Hmm...hails from Shujin Academy, had a motive to target Kamoshida, experienced with cognitive psience techniques...” You smirked at him from behind your bottle. “Maybe Maruki-sensei is a Phantom Thief.”

“H--huh??” He reeled back, his glasses sliding down his nose. “Me?? I don’t think I’d have the nerve for it...wait, do you think they’d let me in if I asked?”

You snorted with laughter as the waitress brought over another round for you both.

“To be honest, I’m just glad they’re on our side.” Maruki started on his next drink at once. “When we’re made to feel powerless, the best course of action is to focus on what we do have control over. I’m thankful they’re at least trying to do some good.”

“Like you said, plenty of people out there losing faith in the institutions that were built to work for us.” You spared a glance at the empties around the table. How many were yours and how many were his, exactly? You were losing count. “You’ve been in the medical field longer than I have, Maruki-sensei. I’m sure that industry’s managed to screw you over, too.”

“Spoken like a true professional...” he sighed. “Sad to say you aren’t wrong, though. As you can imagine, it’s not the happiest story.”

“The ones that change us never are, are they?”

He offered a sympathetic, lopsided smile. “Haven’t I been enough of a buzzkill tonight?”

“I mean, I’m still pretty buzzed.” You brought your bottle to your lips. “C’mon, let’s hear it.”

“Well...” He leaned back in the booth seat, his hands still wrapped around the bottle in front of him. “This was back in university. I took up a research position after I graduated. My paper was an extension of my original dissertation, and what I had was extremely promising. Everything was working out. I had investors lined up, I was offered the position of department lead for a new cognitive psience division, we were even building a lab right here in Odaiba—” Maruki stopped mid-sentence and reeled himself in, rounding his shoulders as he settled back into his seat. “...anyway. It all fell apart, one day. The school’s funding was pulled and all of my sponsors backed out.”

“Wait, what the fuck?” you blurted out. “What happened??”

“‘Due to the lack of concrete evidence, all further research and funding in the field of cognitive psience will cease.’” The phrase had occupied his thoughts so thoroughly that the words were branded into his memory. “The purpose of the department—of my research—was to help produce that evidence in the first place. The reasoning was cyclical—it made no sense. I couldn’t get a real answer out of anyone, either, let alone try to plead my case. There was nothing I could do. I’ve been on my own with this paper ever since.”

“That’s horrible...” Though you slowed on the drinks, you watched as Maruki only seemed to down his faster. “Maybe they knew you were onto something.”

“Thinking about being sabotaged makes me feel like some kind of conspiracy theorist...” He drained his bottle with a final swig and slammed it down, before helping himself to the beer you hadn’t touched yet. “Why would someone with enough power to pull the plug and hide their involvement it go through all that effort to shut me down? I’m a nobody...”

“But the new department would’ve brought your research to the public eye, right?" you urged. "If cognitive psience really is capable of what you think it is, there are a lot of powerful people who wouldn’t want that discovery made. I mean—instant, universally accessible psychiatric care? How many industries would that destroy? Honestly, it’s kind of amazing you’re still alive...”

The more you explained yourself, the more your implications sank in, and the paler Maruki became. “I...guess I haven’t considered that, before. How many organizations profit from the psychological suffering of others...”

“Might be easier to ask which ones don’t,” you replied sardonically.

The waitress returned to your booth.

Maruki took both bottles, this time.

“You know, I was wondering why I’ve been getting a sense of deja vu...” he muttered, his smile somber. “The last time I talked about any of this was also at an izakaya, with a friend of mine from university. He thought there might’ve been more to the shutdown, too. Ugh...thinking about how long ago that was makes my head hurt...”

“You have been working on this for a long time...”

“Of course,” Maruki said firmly. “If it was sabotage, that only makes finishing my paper even more important. It means I might be on the right track...” He shook his head. “No, I know I am. I can feel it.”

“Well,” you shrugged. “‘When we’re made to feel powerless,’ right?”

“...right.”

For a moment, you were taken back to a memory of him by your side on the school rooftop, explaining the vision he had for the world and the steps he would take to get it there. You felt an echo of that same conviction even now, as relentless and unwavering as ever.

Remembering you were unofficially in charge of keeping him hydrated, you refilled his empty glass from the water pitcher and traded it for one of his untouched bottles.

“At the risk of repeating your friend again,” you said, raising your reclaimed beer towards him in cheers. “I believe in you.”

“Don’t worry,” he smiled back, “that sounds nothing like him.”

And he clinked his bottle against yours.

Eventually, you got your head on straight enough to manage a final count of the bottles across the table. Even with the one you were still working on, you realized he’d put away nearly twice as much as you did over the past two and a half hours, and now that you were paying attention, you could see it—you watched his inhibitions slip between the last of his drinks, his conscience off-balance and open to suggestion, but not entirely far gone. See, Maruki got quieter the more he drank.

You just grew more incensed.

You turned the details of his situation around in your head, over and over, until even the thought of him wasting time sitting here with you felt like an injustice. How much time had the wrench in his plans stolen from his research so far? How could his lifelong work and all his dreams be snatched away from him so unceremoniously? And where had he hidden all his fury? Had he buried it so deep beneath the matrices of his kindness that he’d forgotten there was a grave there at all?

Could you even take him at his word?

What if he was lying to you?

“How far did they get with building your new lab?” you asked. You weren’t sure how much time had passed since the silence was last broken.

“Hm?” Maruki winced, as if the mere act of thinking caused him pain. You could almost see the loading circle above his head as he processed your question. “I...don’t think they broke ground before the land was resold. Why?”

“Show me.”

He snorted like you’d told a joke that wasn’t particularly funny. “What?”

“You said it was supposed to be built here in Odaiba, right?” you pressed. With your pesky sense of better judgement dulled by evening drink, your skepticism and adrenaline-fueled confidence were left to reign unchecked. “I want to see where it would’ve gone. Can you take me there?”

“Don’t worry about me, forget I said anything. Let’s just stay a bit longer, order another roun—”

“Takuto.”

He inhaled at the sound of his own name, his sudden change of breathing making your heart skip a beat.

As he straightened up to level your gaze, you could tell from the look in his eyes he didn’t have the strength to deny you twice.

So you asked again.

“Show me.”

Chapter Text

Though you were only travelling a short distance, the trip took you further from Odaiba’s attractions, with bright ferris wheel lights and the inviting city-glow of other recreational spots abandoned as afterthoughts behind you. You tried not to think about some alternate timeline of events where you explored the mainstreet together in the rain, instead of wherever you were headed now. Perhaps another day, you thought, when you were both in better places. Another summer, maybe. Another life.

By the time you reached your destination, enough time had passed for the evening’s cool humidity to have sobered you both up a little—enough to have your balance and wits about you during the walk, at least. The backstreets around this corner of the island were as good as abandoned this time of night. There were no signs of anyone other than the two of you nearby.

Stacks of sandbags were strewn around the perimeter of the construction site, alongside pairs of orange pylons joined with striped barriers. Tall metal panels walled off most of the area, a retractable vehicle entry gate serving as the front entrance. Past the blockades, a lofty skeleton of steel beams loomed several stories overhead, surrounded by parked boom trucks, excavators, and power cranes.

You would’ve thought nothing of the scene, were it not for the trepidation radiating from the man behind you, his anxiety so tangible you could feel it itching at you from several feet away.

Watching you approach the site, Maruki kept rooted to his spot at a safe distance, tucking his hands into his pockets. “Well, there you have it. Here lies all my hopes and dreams...”

He tried to laugh the quip off as a joke, but only ended up sounding uncomfortable.

One of the perimeter walls displayed advertisements from various sponsors. The largest among them was a bright, colourful poster, marking the stadium-to-be as the planned location for the upcoming Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships.

Reminded of Yoshizawa’s recent meets, you did a brief search on your phone to bring up whatever details you could find. There, beneath a news article announcing the arena’s construction, was a footnote about discontinued plans for a research center, credited under the name of Maruki’s university.

You heard the click of a lighter somewhere behind you, turning around just in time to watch a cloud of smoke dissipate around him as he exhaled from the side of his mouth, slow and steady.

In through your nose. Out through your mouth.

His hands were trembling.

You’d driven him to smoke twice today, you realized—half his weekly limit.

Maybe asking him to bring you here was a mistake.

Just then, your eyes were drawn to a disconnect between the metal walls.

The large section break was bridged by a pair of banner stands, its tall vinyl posters printed with hazard striping and the usual Safety First kanji across their faces. You peeked through the spaces to see most of the site swallowed in darkness, save for a handful of overnight floodlights illuminating a path inside.

That’s when you felt it.

A sudden, overwhelming compulsion, like fishing wire snapping tight around your ribcage, tangling itself beneath your chest and urging you forward. The sensation was unlike anything you’d ever felt before, hundreds of times more potent than a gut feeling or some errant intrusive thought—no, something was hidden in there, beyond the darkness.

And it was calling for you.

Your lingering intoxication gave you the bravado to answer, and the foolishness to question nothing.

With your umbrella still dangling from your wrist, you dragged out one side of the banner stands, hauling them open like an unwieldy door to make enough room for you to pass through.

Maruki made an odd, strangled sort of noise. “What are you—”

“I’m gonna have a look around,” you said, already shuffling yourself through the gap. “Stay here.”

“H--hang on, it’s dangerous! And trespassing, which is illegal—”

“Only if I get caught.”

“I don’t think that’s how that works...!” He rushed up to grab your arm, your wrist, something to stop you, but he arrived a split-second too late, grasping at empty air as you slipped beyond his reach.

“Five minutes,” you insisted, turning on your phone flashlight and aiming it ahead of you. Your heart was still racing, still being tug-tug-tugged onwards by that invisible wire wrapped around your insides. “You can keep watch if you want, text me if—”

You took a few steps before feeling another tug in the opposite direction, this time on the umbrella hooked around your wrist.

Maruki had stumbled his way in after you, eyes widened with worry. “And if you can’t reach your phone?” he demanded, holding your umbrella—and by extension, you—in place. “What if something happens to you? You’re being reckless!”

You gripped your umbrella’s handle properly and, with Maruki still clinging onto the other end, you kept walking. “That makes two of us, then.”

He sputtered in response as you led him onwards.

Realizing he had no hope of turning you around, his objections petered off as he allowed you to drag him further into the shadows.

As idiotic as this entire stunt was, you went about it as wisely as you could. You stayed quiet. You kept your hands to yourself and your phone’s flashlight on your footing. You followed the guiding lights along the main pathway, each step imprinting into the pressed dirt made damp from recent downpours. Though it wasn’t currently raining, the sound of dripping water surrounded you on all sides, a soothing evening chorus of droplets hitting tarp and metal as you both voyaged deeper into the heart of the construction site.

Still hanging onto your umbrella, Maruki stayed hunched over as he trailed behind you, keeping an anxious eye out for any nearby movement. “This feels like the start of a horror movie...”

“Don’t worry,” you whispered, “if we get murdered, I’ll help you haunt the hell out of this place.”

Suddenly, the sound of flapping wings echoed through the overhead beams.

Maruki startled and leapt a foot into the air, clutching his own folded umbrella to his chest. “Oh, goodness gracious—!!”

Though not his proudest moment, the way you held onto his arm to stay upright as you tried to restrain your laughter made him glad he hadn’t let you explore this place alone.

Eventually, the path you were following led up a slope you could not see behind.

The strange, insistent sensation from earlier continued to hold a vise around your chest, tightening its grip as you closed the distance between you and what lied beyond the hill. With your phone’s flashlight acting as a beacon, each step brought your anticipation closer and closer to a head. The sheer force of your pounding heartbeat jostled your every breath.

Finally, you reached the top.

The hill overlooked the heart of the stadium—an expanse of flattened dirt, crowded with parked vehicles and construction equipment. Rows of staggered steps enclosed the arena, each level lined with metal sheets and webs of rebar for a future concrete pour. The overnight lighting provided minimum visibility; it was too dark to see up into the nosebleeds, giving the eerie illusion of higher seating fading away into pitch darkness.

There was nothing here.

The wires around your insides dissolved. The supernatural gravity once pulling you into orbit vanished, leaving you adrift.

And just like that, the feeling was gone.

You heard your name called softly as a gentle hand rested on your shoulder. The gesture was almost electric, clearing the static from your nerves.

“Are you alright?” Maruki asked. “You’re shaking...”

“I...”

Raindrops landed against your head as it began to drizzle through the open ceiling. You felt like a puppet with its strings cut, the sudden loss of adrenaline allowing exhaustion to flood in its place.

With a weary sigh, you pocketed your phone, opening your umbrella and tip-toeing between the rebar grid to sit within the half-built stadium stands.

Somewhere behind you, you heard Maruki open up his umbrella, too. “So, um...what are we doing here, again?”

“I don’t know,” you replied, running a hand over your face. “I wanted to see what they took from you, I guess.”

“...oh.”

There was a surprised sense of sadness in his voice that you didn’t know what to make of.

What else were you supposed to say, at this point? That you had a ‘feeling’? No, you were just drunk and delusional—and right now, feeling numb and cold and very, very stupid.

In your peripheral, you saw Maruki make his way over to where you were sitting, following the path of steps you took through the rebar, square by square.

Your open umbrellas bumped as he sat down next to you.

“The lab wouldn’t have taken up this whole area,” he explained. “They must’ve expanded the project once plans changed.”

You watched the shape of him move beside you in the darkness, his edges outlined by the ambient glow of floodlights nearby. For all the time you spent together, you tried not to let yourself notice how soft his hair looked, or how the ends seemed to curl a little whenever it got humid; sitting this close, however, there was no escaping just how much you wanted to run your fingers through it.

You held your head in your hand. The headache was coming back.

“Any idea what the place would’ve looked like?” you asked. A feeble attempt to distract yourself.

Maruki shook his head, the lenses of his glasses glinting. “The research center would’ve been an extension of the university. It didn’t get far enough for anyone to see the design.”

“Tell me how you would’ve done it, then.”

“How I would’ve done it? Oh boy, that’s a big question...” Idly spinning his umbrella over his shoulder, he looked across the stadium’s unfinished field with renewed consideration. His expression reminded you of the day you met, when he stood in the health room and rearranged furniture in the corner, inch by inch. “Something modern, I think. High ceilings, glass panels—it has to feel freeing, that’s what’s important. It needs to be a place where people would feel comfortable opening up and unburdening their minds...” He leaned closer to you in that discreet, secret-telling way. “Plants help with that, you know. Makes spaces feel less impersonal.”

“No kidding,” you smirked, exhausted. You were grateful he was still humoring you. “What kind of plants would you have?”

“Hm...ficuses would work—maybe some lofty figs? Wonder if I could get away with jasmine vines...ooo, could even have wildflower patches outside the building, wouldn’t that be nice?” He paused for a moment, muttering under his breath like he was making a grocery list. “Maybe put out some fruit bowls...”

“The people need their snacks.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

As he smiled at you, you realized his anxiousness from earlier had all but vanished—gone, the moment he realized you weren’t okay. He was so quick to put himself last.

Almost second nature.

You thought about his vivid descriptions as you stared out at the construction scene before you—above you, around you—and the repeated realization that his vision would never come to pass struck you harder than it did moments earlier.

“You’ll get there,” you said, voice steeled with determination. “Even if it’s not the version you were promised, you’ll get there. I know you will.”

Maruki laughed softly and turned to you, resting his chin on his hand. “Not even going to try and sell me the stars, huh?”

You can’t sell the stars to someone surviving on dreams about the moon.

Those were your words, after all.

As a joke, you shielded your eyes from the rain and looked up in response. Sprawling silhouettes of scaffolding and crane arms encroached your view of the sky. What little you could see was overcast, the rolling clouds painted charcoal wherever the moonlight touched them. Not a star in sight.

“You don’t need them,” you decided. “You’ll hit the moon for sure.”

Maruki followed your gaze skyward. “What does your moon look like?”

Still looking up, you squinted. “Waxing crescent? Same as yours.”

“I think that’s waning, actually...”

“Damn it, I always mix them up.”

He shook his head. “I--I meant about your plans for the future, haha. You’ve listened to me ramble non-stop about mine, but I don’t know the first thing about yours.”

(Oh. Right.)

Until a few years ago, the majority of your life had hinged so completely on the mantra of ‘go to school, get good grades, get a good job,’ that even after becoming employed, you had a difficult time envisioning anything more for yourself. Considering the unrelenting passion Maruki possessed in pursuit of his life’s work, any answer that came to mind when asked about your own prospects felt asinine in comparison.

“I’d like to travel,” you settled on.

“Yeah?” he lit up, all too eager to hear more. “Where to?”

His enthusiasm only made you feel guiltier for being so aimless. “Not sure. I guess I always considered travelling a goal for ‘someday,’ instead of something to actually sit down and plan for.”

“I have to admit, that’s a little surprising. You’ve always struck me as the type of person who knows exactly what they want.”

You thought about exactly what you wanted.

You tried and failed not to imagine your hands through his hair, again.

Hastily rubbing at your eyes, you used the white sparks flashing behind your eyelids to blot the thoughts away. “I’m tired,” you grumbled. “I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t. It’s hard to imagine any future where I’m not always just a little tired. I don’t like thinking about it much.”

Maruki tilted his head. “Do you normally have trouble sleeping?”

“It’s...not the kind of tired that can be cured with sleep.” (It was more a state of being.)

“...ah.” (A noise of understanding, like he knew the feeling well.)

“Regardless,” you continued, “I like my job. I’m lucky to have it. All I’m focused on right now is how I can do better by our students. Thinking any further ahead than that is just a distraction from what I need to get done.”

Maruki gave you another lopsided smirk. “Shujin’s really captured your heart, hasn’t it?”

“Phantom Thieves never stood a chance.”

He laughed at your joke. It made you feel better about yourself.

“In all seriousness,” you started again, “I’ve...never been a very hopeful person. ‘Keep your expectations low and you’ll never be disappointed,’ you know? But being around these kids—it’s reminded me how nice it is to have hope, again. Knowing that every day, I can help them get a little closer to their dreams. So, maybe my hope isn’t meant for me, maybe it’s...”

“Maybe hope is something we’re meant to give other people.”

“Yeah, that’s...” You tried not to sound awestruck by how succinct he managed to be. “...yeah.”

Maruki hunched over in his seat, resting his arms against his knees. “I can relate to seeing things in terms of others,” he said. He wasn’t looking your way, anymore. “I’ve always seen a future where I help make the world a better place, but...it’s hard to make out exactly who I am in that world, because I’m the one taking the picture. Does that make sense?”

“Like you’re only there in spirit.” Smirking, you gave him a weary, knowing side-eye. “Sounds like Maruki-sensei doesn’t like thinking about his future, either.”

He smiled sadly in return. “Well, there’s only so many times I can watch my plans for the future fall apart before I stop making them.”

You both stared out across the expanse of the unfinished arena. The quiet patter of rain against the shells of your umbrellas was the only sound to break the silence between you for a while.

Sometimes, thinking about your future felt less like choosing a path and more like killing everyone else you could ever become. Maruki, on the other hand, had always known who he wanted to be, only for the rug to be pulled out from under everything he’d built for himself over the years. He was not a man who seemed to want for much, yet the precious few things he dared to dream for still somehow ended up in shambles.

You glanced at him from beneath the rim of your umbrella. “Do you ever mourn the people you could have been?”

(Because you did. You did all the time.)

“You mean if I got married, if the research lab worked out—things like that?” He considered your question before nodding, carefully. “I used to. But, if we end up disappointed on our side of the fence, it’s easy to colour in all the paths we didn’t take with a nicer shade of green. There are people here, now, who need my help—people who have had their futures stolen by trauma, by grief...my time is better spent for their sake, rather than feeling sorry for myself and what could’ve been.”

“I once heard that grief is the price we pay for loving something so much.”

“That’s...one way of looking at it,” he grimaced. His choice of words was generous, but the way the corner of his mouth twitched made his aversion to the sentiment obvious. “The idea that love and pain are on opposite sides of a scale makes you think there’s a fairness to it. But grief isn’t fair, is it? Regardless of how much or how little you love, anyone’s future could be stolen in a moment and leave them suffering for the rest of their lives. Depression. Anxiety. Catatonia. PTSD. Days and nights in long-term care, barely acknowledging the world around you. All because of a sudden tragedy neither of you had any control over. How cruel is it to blame love for incurring that cost?”

The sinking feeling beneath your chest drowned out your urge to apologize for the platitude.

As he stared ahead, you watched him from the side for the sliver of his expression you could see. “...is that what happened to you?”

His sudden stillness made it clear he realized he’d said too much.

“...Rumi.” The name sounded like a fond, yet distant memory. “Her name was Rumi.”

“Rumi,” you repeated, softly. You gave his affection enough room to fill the air between you. “What was she like?”

“She...was the most fearless woman I knew. Passionate. Kind. A little short-tempered,” he added, chuckling. “We’d known each other since high school. Rumi supported me so much throughout the years, and I couldn’t even...” He cut himself off with a held breath, sighing before regathering his thoughts. “I--I was with her, the night she lost everything. One random, senseless act of violence, and her entire future went dark. She was in so much pain, I couldn’t stand it—I would’ve given anything to make it stop.” He laughed again. It sounded empty, this time. “I guess I got my wish.”

“...what happened?”

“I’d become a trigger for her, you see. The flashbacks, the panic attacks...I thought being there was helping her, but I was doing just the opposite. Her cognition must have recognized I was the last link she had to her trauma, so she...” He took another small breath. “She forgot a lot of things. I just happened to be one of them.”

Shutting your eyes, you tightened your grip around the handle of your umbrella, keeping silent through the dull sting of secondhand heartbreak. If you had to bite your tongue any harder, you’d sever it.

“Oh, but the change...!” Maruki looked straight up at the sky and smiled, the sprinkling of rain spotting the lenses of his glasses. “It was like night and day! Her whole future lit up, again! She was herself, again. It was the first time I recognized her since the incident...I’m glad I was able to see her one last time.”

Her future went dark, he said.

Her future lit up again, he said.

Where did that leave him?

(You were sitting across from him in an izakaya booth—your blood boiling on his behalf after hearing of the injustices he faced—wondering where he’d hidden all his fury.)

(You were sitting across from him on the school rooftop, eating soup and drinking canned coffee and asking if he was happy.)

(He’s somehow managed to change the subject again, his smile wistful and faint as he searched between towering buildings for patches of the sky.)

‘The mind is such a beautiful, powerful thing.’

“I--I wasn’t lying, before,” Maruki said, defending himself from your misinterpreted silence. “Rumi’s much happier now. If forgetting me was the cost of moving on, I’d pay it gladly, a thousand-fold. But this...” His gaze swept across the construction site surrounding you. “This was supposed to be in her memory. I couldn’t save her, but i--if I could use her experience to learn more about healing trauma, altering cognitions—to shine a light on other futures that went dark, too...if I could make sure no one else had to suffer like she did, ever again, then...then...”

“Then you wouldn’t have died for nothing.”

“...we both died that day, I think. Parts of us, at least.” His shoulders shifted, slackening under the time-delayed weight of the toll the evening had taken. “But Rumi kept going. And so will I. I--I have to. I have to keep trying. What else am I good for, if not this? What is my purpose if I can’t make the world better for the ones I love?”

Old shards of a shattered heart had been laid plain at your feet, and finding your words felt like playing hopscotch through the fragments.

“Takuto,” you said aloud, his name the first to escape your careful restraint. You mirrored his pose—resting your elbows on your knees, leaning in closer—trying to draw his attention away from the ashes of his missed opportunities and back towards you. “You’re worth more than what you can do for other people.”

A hollow breath of laughter shook loose from him as he finally turned to face you, his dark eyes misty with a familiar tiredness that no amount of sleep could cure.

“...I really wish that was true.”

You lowered your umbrella to one side until the rain felt like impatient fingertips drumming atop your head, urging you to move.

Your lingering intoxication gave you the bravado to lean forward, and the foolishness to question nothing.

Surrounded by the reclaimed ruins of his dreams, seated somewhere within the half-built stadium stands, you wrapped your arms around his shoulders, and held him tight.

His umbrella fell to the ground with a clatter.

Captive to your drunken impulses, you hadn’t thought this through enough to imagine what his response might be.

Nothing could have prepared you for the feeling of him abandoning all pretense and folding into your embrace, his arms enveloping you like he’d been holding them open for years.

He turned more towards you, and his knee bumped against yours; you felt his arms curl around your waist, resting at the small of your back, holding you close and with purpose.

“Oh,” he sighed with wonder.

You had to remind yourself to breathe.

In through your nose.

You could still catch the faint cigarette smoke clinging to his jacket, the scent of clean linen and earthy cologne layered somewhere beneath. His back was more broad than you thought it would be; his body felt warm and heavy against yours. He was too damn tall, you decided, trying not to let yourself be buried in the feeling of how he held you so completely.

He gave good hugs. You always imagined he would.

Out through your mouth.

As you exhaled, you felt his body sigh with yours in time.

He was breathing with you.

You thought of stolen glances during rooftop mindfulness, of looking up at him as you tended to the cat scratches along his arms, and you wondered if he looked as peaceful now as he did within those moments.

You liked being the one who helped him feel at ease. You wanted to continue being his anchor.

You wanted to be the one he pictured when he thought of coming home.

But this isn’t about you, said the voice inside your head. He’s in pain, you insensitive prick. How dare you make this about you?

The guilt struck some sense into you, and you loosened your grip to let him go—only to feel his arms tighten around you, guiding you back up against him, the tiny gesture more than enough to set your nerves alight.

“Sorry...” he whispered, sounding bashful. It was easier to apologize than to ask you to stay. “I--I’m sorry, I just...can’t remember the last time I got to hold someone like this.”

You leaned back into him, ignoring the rolling thunder of your heartbeat, and smiled warmly against his shoulder. “Yeah, you do.”

His grasp around you faltered. You just hugged him tighter.

“It was her,” he said under his breath. He was smiling, too—you could hear it. “It was her.”

You ran your hand along his back to soothe him. Keeping silent, you hoped you could relay your intent in the way you held him, the way you helped him breathe—that it was okay to think about her, to talk about her, to remember her happily. Even if it hurt.

Even if it meant using you as a placeholder through which he could imagine someone else in his arms.

How much of himself must have vanished alongside her for him to deny the comfort of anyone else ever since. How tragic it must have been to lose the same person twice—to watch her become a ghost he did not recognize, then a shadow who did not recognize him—only for him to be grateful that it afforded her the chance to start her life anew after the tragedy.

Of course he couldn’t see himself in his future, you thought. He’d never pictured one without her.

With your gentle hand still calming against his back, tracing the same path on his jacket over and over again, you wondered if you were capable of loving anything as much as he loved her.

That’s when he called your name—your name—a sound you barely registered, so convinced he was too immersed in his own memories to pay you any mind.

He asked for you again, a little louder, in case you hadn’t heard him the first time.

You just liked the way your name sounded in his voice. “Hm?”

“...thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being here.”

You clicked your tongue. “Takuto-sensei, you don’t need to thank me for something like that.”

Maruki turned inward and nestled his head against yours, as if he were cradling something precious. “Thank you.”

You felt his breath on your neck when he spoke.

This isn’t about you.

“And you’re right,” he started again, sounding hazier and more distant than ever. “I won’t have died for nothing, because I’ve got nothing left to lose. So I’m going to do it. I will. For Rumi. I have to.”

His words weaved their way beneath your skin until your blood ran colder than the rain.

Maruki was the first to pull away, leaning over to grab your abandoned umbrella from the ground before so much as glancing at his own.

“Here,” he smiled, holding it above you as he handed it over. “Before you get sick.”

All this, while he was still being rained on.

As you both gathered yourselves, what he had said continued haunting you with implications you weren’t sure were there. Anxiety seeped into the edges of your perception, blurring the passing moments like they’d been synced to your quickening pulse, outside of time. You watched the quietness, the weariness return to his tipsy state of consciousness the entire walk back—away from the arena, down the dirt path, through the makeshift entryway you closed up on the way out.

“I won’t have died for nothing, because I’ve got nothing left to lose.”

What did he mean by that?

What the hell did he mean?

You crossed through the backstreets all too quickly and found yourselves back at the train station, side-by-side on a barren platform while your heart still rattled in its cage.

Maybe you were overreacting, you figured. Even if he wasn’t entirely in his right mind—even if things had gotten a little existential (which was your fault, by the way)—you’d been given no reason to believe he was an actual danger to himself. Everything was alright. After boarding the train, you would ride together in silence, then part ways at whoever’s stop came first. You would both go home. You would both sleep this off.

...and then what? You’d call him in the morning?

Hope he was still around to answer the phone?

A familiar chime sounded through the overhead PA, jolting you from your thoughts before a prerecorded voice signalled the train’s arrival. The approaching rumble felt like a last call.

Maruki caught you looking his way, and the silhouette of him smiled back.

All you could think about was Shiho standing at the edge of the rooftop.

“Can I walk you home?” you blurted out.

The train’s cabin lights danced across his bewildered expression as it pulled into the station beside you.

Glancing away, Maruki rubbed at the side of his neck, his face redder than ever. “I--I’m flattered, but...don’t you think the timing is a little—”

“Oh, christ—I’m not propositioning you.” Now your face was burning, too, even though hitting on him would’ve been less embarrassing than admitting you thought he shouldn’t be alone. “Can I please just walk you home? Please.”

The train grinded to a halt. A set of doors opened nearby.

He must have heard the desperation in your voice, you realized, as his entire demeanour shifted the moment he realized you weren’t okay.

“O--of course,” he nodded drowsily, doing his best to sound reassuring. “If it’s not too far out of your way.”

-

Maruki’s apartment was tucked away in a quiet corner of the district, the building it belonged to standing only a few stories tall. Though it was a long walk from the nearest station, the relaxed atmosphere of his neighbourhood was a pleasant change of pace from the bright lights and bustle of your high-rise city block. The peace was almost enough to help calm your nerves from earlier.

Almost.

Leaning against the railing of the shared front balcony, you pretended to be distracted by the view from the top floor, keeping your back to him as you listened to him fumble with his keys.

You’d barely exchanged words since boarding the train, with you on edge and harrowed by the prospect of the unthinkable. You were too polite to question his emotional state out loud. He was too polite to ask what you were doing here.

You wanted to make sure he got home safe, that was all. Once he entered his apartment and you said your goodbyes, you could finally, finally release the breath you’d been holding onto since the station. You’d have to ask if he’d like to go out for coffee tomorrow afternoon. Just as an excuse to check in on him.

The jangling of metal continued behind you.

You wouldn’t give him a choice, you decided. You would be here tomorrow afternoon to make sure he was okay.

You heard keys clatter to the ground, followed by Maruki clicking his tongue in frustration.

“Rats.”

“I got it,” you said, already sweeping down to grab them.

“Sorry...” He squeezed his eyes shut and ran a hand over his face in embarrassment. “Might’ve gone overboard tonight...”

He’d used the word ‘overboard’ to describe his time at Ushimaru’s mixer, too. You wondered if overdrinking was a recurring thing.

You looked down at his keys. Two of them were recognizable, still hanging off the metal loop they were on when you first gave them to him. Among the others, one key in particular stood out, bearing a rubber cover that was the head of a bright green cartoon frog. It was a Sanrio character—you were sure of it—but you were too addled to remember its name.

“Front door frog,” Maruki blurted out, bleary.

“Front door frog...?”

He nodded. “I found him on the sidewalk a while back—he must’ve fallen out of someone’s pocket. He looked so sad, all alone on the pavement...” He winced and gave a spiraling little laugh. “Ah...you must think I’m insane.”

“Nah,” you smirked, sliding the froggy key into the lock and turning it. “You’re—it’s cute. Front door frog. Frog’s cute.”

(Nice save.)

Upon opening the door, the first thing you noticed about his apartment was how nice the air inside was—clean, crisp, and smelling vaguely of ozone, like he’d left a window open for the night air to sweep clean through. Across the apartment, the mottled glow of streetlights blurred in from the bedroom’s rear balcony door. You could make out the silhouettes of houseplants hung up by the window.

The reality that you were standing outside of his apartment began to settle in.

You realized you hadn’t thought this far ahead, either.

Noticing your sudden hesitation, Maruki looked down at you with gentleness, his messy, rainswept hair framing his tired eyes. “Would you like to come inside?”

Oh, you thought.

“Uh,” you replied.

“I’m not propositioning you,” he chuckled. Though he only meant to tease you with your own words from earlier, he blushed more than you did for trying. “I--it’s late, I mean. You can call for a taxi and wait inside, if you’d like.”

The trains would still be running for another hour or so. Even with the trek back to the station, you could easily transit home, if you wanted to.

Still smiling, he gave you a little nod toward the open door, and you discovered how weak you truly were.

“Sure,” you said, barely above a whisper. You bowed politely before stepping past him. “Thank you for having me.”

Following you inside, he turned on the lights and shut the door.

“Tadaima,” you joked, for old time’s sake.

Maruki snorted a laugh and you watched him go pink around the ears, again.

As you sat on the raised entryway floor to set your umbrella down and take off your shoes, you watched him drop his keys into a small tray atop the shoe cupboard by the door. You did a double-take, jumpscared by the small poster taped to the wall behind it.

Of all the fluffy kittens clinging to all the tree branches in all the world.

Hang In There!

You got up and followed him down the hall, socks muffling the sound of both your footsteps. The apartment was split between an open kitchen/dining area and a bedroom at the back; a fairly small place, which still somehow managed to be bigger than yours.

(Probably cheaper too, you realized, as he lived away from the city and a fair walk from the nearest station...)

“Sorry about the mess,” Maruki started, interrupting your thoughts. “It’s been a while since I’ve had company.”

You always heard that the state of one’s living space reflected the state of one’s mind—that much seemed to ring true, even now.

Boxes of paperwork and loose research notes were piled around the room, while books and binders were stacked precariously in places they shouldn’t have been. The countertops of the dual-burner kitchen were crowded with spices and little cooking tools you’d never seen before. Greenery was hidden everywhere you looked—lining the kitchen window, sitting on top of the microwave, burrowed within clusters of knick-knacks—and each plant was bright and colourful and thriving, regardless of their size and in spite of their number.

Between three succulents on one of the higher shelves, you saw your morning thermoses standing side-by-side.

The small dining area across from the kitchen was made up of a plush loveseat, a low coffee table, and a small television nestled cleverly across from them both. You could see him spending his evenings here, with dinner and cheap beer for company, watching those variety shows he always raved about—the same ones you secretly avoided every night so that he could tell you all about them in the morning.

“...your apartment is much cooler than mine.”

“Really?” he said, surprised. “That’s not a word I’m used to hearing. ‘Chaotic,’ ‘disorganized,’ ‘anxiety-inducing,’ on the other hand...”

“Oh, it’s all those, too. But there’s also a lot of you here? In a good way, I mean,” you added quickly. “It’s nice.”

“I’m glad you think so! Can I get you anything?”

“I’m all good, thanks.”

“Of course.”

Pulling your phone out of your pocket, you absently made your way over and had a seat on the couch as you scrolled for a cab, only to lose your train of thought the moment you glanced back up.

You caught him in the middle of removing his jacket, watching as his shoulders shifted to let it fall halfway down his back before he slid his arms out, sleeve by sleeve; such a fleeting moment, over before you realized you’d been staring. His shirt bunched up somewhere along the way, just enough to reveal the skin at one side of his waist before he adjusted the fabric back down.

Maybe you could spend the rest of your life on this couch.

Maruki folded his jacket over the armrest opposite you, and you felt the couch sink in further as he plopped himself into the seat next to you with a heavy sigh. “What a night, huh?”

What a night, indeed.

What the hell were you thinking?

“...I’m so sorry.”

He leaned his head back onto the cushions, looking towards you. “For what?”

“What do you mean, ‘for what’?” you asked, bewildered. “For being depressing as hell. And for asking you to take me to the stadium, and for the...”

“Breaking and entering?” he offered helpfully.

“...I was very careful not to break anything, actually.”

“I don’t think that matters...”

“Christ,” you groaned, throwing your head back and running your hands through your hair. “That was so fucking stupid. And what if we got caught? We could’ve gotten arrested—lost our jobs. And all that shit I made you talk about back there...”

“Hey, now, don’t go taking all the credit.” His brows drew together in sympathy. “Here’s something I always recommend: instead of saying sorry, try saying thank you.”

You lolled your head to one side and met his eyes, mirroring his pose.

“Thank you,” you deadpanned, “for breaking and entering with me.”

Maruki turned from you and laughed—a hearty, sudden sound, devoid of energy yet filled with joy. He sounded like music.

“And thank you for listening to me tonight,” he replied. “Please don’t think you made me do anything—I wanted to talk about those things. It was almost like mindfulness! But...sad? What’s the opposite of coffee and sunshine?”

“I don’t know,” you snorted. “Comfort and starlight?”

“Comfort and starlight,” he echoed, airily. “I like that.”

You wanted him to be angry at you, and the fact he was relaxed and content only made you feel worse. Worrying about his well-being felt stupid in hindsight; you bit back every apology that threatened to burst out of your chest, if only because he asked you to.

Sorry for being an idiot. For wasting so much of your time.

Sorry that you couldn’t help but be you.

“Thank you for inviting me out tonight.” You had to choke the first two words out making sure they weren’t an apology. “This might come as a real shock, but you’re the only friend I’ve made at Shujin since I started.”

“Me? Really? That’s a bummer...”

“I’m being serious.”

“Sorry, sorry,” he chuckled, folding his hands in his lap and looking at the ceiling. “I appreciate our friendship, I really do. I don’t...talk to anyone the way we do. What happened with Rumi? I’ve never told anyone any of that, before.”

“Ever?” you said, straightening up. “You really didn’t get help after that?”

“That decision was out of my hands, for a few different reasons...” He tilted his head, glancing over his glasses somewhere in your direction. “Thank you for giving me that chance. So, please don’t apologize. You were doing me a favour.”

“...I like talking to you. I like the way you make me think about things differently.”

“That’s my line,” he smiled. “I didn’t realize how much I’d miss chatting with you in the mornings. I’ve actually been wanting to call you all week, but...we’re barely into summer. Didn’t want you getting sick of me too quickly.”

You knew he was the type to pick up if someone called, that much was a given—but to think you’d been on opposite sides this entire time, staring at your phones and hoping they’d ring.

“Maruki-sensei,” you said firmly. “You can call me whenever you want, day or night. If it’s you, I’ll answer.”

“Really? I’m glad, then.” He turned back towards the ceiling. “I think I’d miss you too much.”

The words shattered the last line of defense you had in assuming he was just like this with everyone, and that you weren’t special. He was relaxed and content because you were here.

Because you were you.

You spoke up again without making eye contact, more quietly than you planned, praying that he didn’t notice the sudden, nervous change in your body language. “...Maruki-sensei, I—”

And you felt him lean against your shoulder, fast asleep.

...you just wanted him in your arms again.

It felt like a lifetime ago, hearing him whisper about how he couldn’t remember the last time he got to hold someone. Maybe one day you’ll tell him that you didn’t remember the last time you were held that way, either; one day, when the passage of time dulled the memory enough for it to no longer mean as much to you as it did within that moment. But, right now, you wanted to hug him again—to have his weight against you and feel the rise and fall of his breathing, soft and slow.

With his head against your shoulder, you allowed yourself to touch your nose softly into his hair. He still smelled like rain, with the faintest hint of smoke.

“Sorry,” you said, your resolve to withhold your apologies crumbling. “I’m really, really sorry.”

You didn’t notice how your movements shifted him off-balance, and he slipped further down without warning, still unconscious as he face-planted into your lap.

“...shit.” Sitting up a little straighter, you nudged at his shoulder. “Maruki-sensei? Sensei? Sensei. Takuto-sensei.”

Eventually, he stirred at the sound of his name, and drowsily nestled further into your lap; facing away from you, he clutched at the fabric over your leg for purchase, almost begging you not to move.

“Sorry...” he whispered.

(Because it was easier to apologize than to ask you to stay.)

You sighed, again.

From where you were seated on the couch, you were able to reach several things without moving too much, which you figured was a deliberate design choice on his part. With a little stretch, you snatched his jacket off the other arm of the couch, grabbing his phone from one pocket and plugging it into a charger on the table. You folded the jacket up neatly and tapped at him until he let you place it under his head. He adjusted accordingly, naturally, drawing his legs up to lay down properly; they dangled off the other armrest, the couch not big enough to accommodate his full height.

The cuffs of his pants rode up a little, exposing the green and blue stripes at the ankles of his convenience store socks.

(How could such an extraordinary man be so painfully ordinary?)

Maruki roused a little, lifting his head. “Wait, your cab...”

“There’s a long wait,” you lied. “I’ll wake you up when it gets here. C’mon.”

He didn’t have any energy left in him to fight.

He settled back into your lap while facing the ceiling this time, his eyes already drifting back shut. His glasses had been knocked askew during this whole ordeal, crooked with the lenses smudged; not wanting to risk them getting damaged any further, you gently brushed his bangs aside and reached to take them off his face.

“Don’t,” he whispered, halfheartedly waving your hand away. “I like seeing you.”

Your heart skipped a beat as you watched him doze off again.

This man would surely be the end of you.

With your elbow bent on the armrest, you rested your head in your hand, watching him sleep away peacefully in your lap.

The next time you brushed his bangs away from his face wasn’t entirely necessary.

His hair was as soft as it looked, still curled at the edges from getting caught in the rain. From this angle, you could see premature strands of grey scattering the underside, disguised by the way he normally styled it. Though you wished he didn’t feel the need to hide them, you felt a strange, possessive pride in knowing they were there.

You were content being the one to help him feel at ease, to talk to him in ways that no one else could, just like he did for you; he helped you take better care of yourself, and you were going to return the favour. He would chat with you on the rooftop, and in return, you would offer microdoses of the hope you only ever gave to other people. If he took a picture of a future he couldn’t see himself in, you would pull out a canvas and paint him a scene.

Because you were the port in a storm. The one people came to when they had nowhere else to go. People didn’t seek you out unless they were in pain—this was just par for the course.

“I’m going to do it. I will. For Rumi. I have to.”

In a world where he watched people’s futures go dark, he dedicated his life to holding a beacon under the banner of lost love. So you would do what you could to help him get to where he needed to be.

For a moment—just a moment—you imagined what it might feel like, being the one he called home. Where you could wake up by his side every morning and watch him fall asleep every night. Where your days were coffee and sunshine and your evenings were comfort and starlight.

But this wasn’t about you.

You allowed yourself a smile at the self-indulgence, trying to commit the sight of him in your lap to memory. “Goodnight, sunshine.”

Hearing your voice again, he blinked up at you in a daze.

For a moment—just a moment—he looked at you like you were everything.

“Goodnight, starlight.”

Your heart ached from the endearment and how well it suited you.

He was the sun, and she was the moon, and you knew he would never settle for the stars.

Chapter Text

It was the heat that woke you up.

As you wrenched your eyes open, you found yourself slouching against a familiar couch, resting your head on top of your folded arms. You heard the quiet whirr of an oscillating fan before feeling your bangs flutter at the insistence of its gentle breeze. A thin blanket had been draped over you. The scent of something warm and rich hung in the air.

On the low coffee table in front of you stood a glass of ice water and a bottle of aspirin. It was your phone plugged into the charger instead of his.

Sunlight threatened to spill in from the edges of every curtain in the apartment, all of which had been mercifully drawn shut. Your head was throbbing. The taste of last night coated your tongue with a sour staleness that reminded you why you didn’t like to drink.

Your awkward sleeping position left every part of you feeling sore; you tried sitting up, but your neck and lower back seized in protest and you doubled over, cursing sharply in pain.

“Sounds like someone’s awake,” teased a too-cheerful voice. From the neighbouring bedroom, Maruki leaned back in his chair to peek at you from around the open sliding door. “Good morning! How did you sleep?”

“Uggggggggh.”

“Right, stupid question...”

“God, my head...” Wincing, you propped your chin up on the couch’s armrest and faced him, still trying to blink your eyes fully open. “What time is it?”

“A little after ten. Please, drink up—you’ll feel better.” He turned back to his desk. “I’ll be right out.”

Inch by inch, you eventually managed to force yourself upright. You downed two aspirin and half the glass of water in one go, swilling a little before swallowing to wash the unpleasant taste out of your mouth. You combed your fingers through your hair to tame the post-sleep mess, but gave up halfway, instead holding your head in your hand to try and will your aches away.

You jolted at the sound of a book snapping shut. Maruki emerged from his bedroom and into your peripheral vision.

“Were you working?” You could barely lift your head to look at him. “Sorry for interrupting...”

“No, no—just finishing up a diary entry.”

“...you keep a diary?”

“I do.” He raised his arms and stretched a little as he passed you on the way to the kitchen. “Is that strange?”

You could see him keeping a journal, certainly, but the word ‘diary’ evoked the image of some small book of secrets hidden away under lock and key...

...which, in hindsight, you could also see him doing.

(You wondered if he’d written anything about you in there.)

When you finally had a good look at him, the first thing you noticed was that he switched outfits since last night, now wearing a short-sleeved polo and a pair of light jeans. You suddenly realized that he must have showered and shaved and changed out of his clothes, all while you were sleeping in the next room. It took effort not to dwell on the image.

“Another scorcher today,” Maruki sighed, leaning down to fetch something from the lower drawers of his fridge. “This is an older building, so the air conditioning isn’t the greatest...but, not to worry! I have everything under control.”

As heavy as your head felt, you couldn’t tear your eyes from the sight of him bending over. “Oh?”

“The trick is to get up early and open all the windows while it’s still cool out.” Nudging the fridge door closed behind him, he carried a small armful of something over to the kitchen counter. “Then, keep an eye on the temperature. Once it gets warmer outside than it is inside, shut the windows and let the fan and dehumidifier work their magic. Easy as pie.”

You smirked. “Sounds like you have it down to a science.”

“Well, you’ve gotta do basic science before you do advanced psience.”

The pun took a second to click, but you snorted as soon as it did. “That joke might work better in writing.”

“Realized that as I was saying it, yeah...” He started chopping away at something on the cutting board. “Anyway, the electricity bill takes a hit, but weather like this makes me sleepy if I’m not careful...I also wanted to keep you comfortable—you were out like a light over there.”

“Oh. Yeah.” You fidgeted with the blanket now pooled around your waist, feeling your nerves twist themselves into anxious coils threatening to spring. “Thank you...for taking care of me. I should get going.”

Maruki’s shoulders dipped a little. “Right, you probably want to head home...”

A lump lodged itself in your throat. There was something about the way he said it, like he’d forgotten you weren’t supposed to be here. Like the fact you had to leave at all had completely slipped his mind.

“Here,” he started, turning towards one of the stovetop burners. You didn’t notice the small pot sitting there until he started dishing something out of it. “Let’s at least get something in your stomach before you leave, okay? You’ll need the energy if you’re going out in this weather.”

You imagined him earlier that morning, tip-toeing around the place so he wouldn’t wake you—minding the numbers on the thermometer, preparing food and water and medicine, draping a blanket over you as you slept—and you had to bite back the sudden, overwhelming urge to run away.

Being in his apartment—half-wrapped in a blanket that smelled like him, waking to the warmth of his kindness after years of waking up alone—sent you into fight-or-flight mode. But why? Why was this affecting you more than any physical contact from last night, back when he was melancholy and vulnerable?

Did your courage around him only exist when you were the one in control?

Your spiralling was promptly interrupted by Maruki setting down dishes on the table in front of you: a steaming bowl of broth filled with small, dark shells, and a plate of apple slices on the side.

“Shijimi miso soup,” he began, “with a few extra touches to help balance out the flavour.”

“Shijimi?” You blinked. “Like the clams?”

“Oh, have you never had this before?” Grinning, he folded his legs and sat on the floor opposite you at the table, already buzzing with excitement to explain. “Shijimi clams have an amino acid that helps break down the toxins in your system produced by drinking alcohol. It’s a very popular hangover cure. Trust me—I’ve had this so many times, I could probably make it blindfolded! Oh, but that sounds bad, doesn’t it...”

“A little,” you smirked, “but thank you for the food.”

With how unwell you felt, you found the idea of shellfish a bit too much to handle at the moment, so you picked up one of the small forks and went for the fruit first, instead. “Are these part of your hangover cure, too?”

“A healthy snack never hurts.” He reached for one of the slices, himself. “You don’t like too much sugar in the mornings, right?”

(How long ago had you told him that...?)

Now that you could see his handiwork up close, you noticed he’d trimmed the peels to make each individual apple slice look like a bunny. The little red rabbits were cute enough to fill you with rage.

“They’re adorable,” you seethed. “I can’t remember the last time I saw one cut up like this...”

Mid-chew, Maruki nodded with enthusiasm. “Mmh—you should start! I do it for my lunches all the time. Sometimes you need to give yourself little things to brighten up your day, you know?”

You hummed thoughtfully around the apple-bunny now sticking out of your mouth. “Like gifts to Future You.”

“That’s a fun way of thinking about it.” He leaned back, propping himself up on his hands. “Besides, if you don’t do nice things for yourself, who will?”

Closing his eyes, he relaxed his head to one side. The standing fan oscillated his way and he sighed quietly, tugging at the front of his shirt to help himself cool off.

You pictured his cutely-trimmed apple slices and his tacky, crooked cat posters and tried not to dwell on how a question he posed so happily made you so sad to think about.

Reaching for your bowl of soup, you noticed the broth smelled even more like the ocean up close—admittedly, not the most appetizing aroma for a stomach like yours, still soured from drinking. Still, not wanting to seem ungrateful, you held your breath and braced yourself as you tipped back the contents of the bowl.

The flavour wasn’t as off-putting as you expected. To the contrary, the clams added a unique, savoury dimension to the salty miso broth that went down smooth and settled warmly in your stomach.

“...oh, wow.”

Maruki gave you a knowing look. “Pretty good, right?”

“Are you kidding? This is incredible.” You raised the bowl to your mouth again, muffling your words as you spoke. “I wish you could make this for me every morning...”

“You know, I always thought I’d be the one asking that question, not receiving it...”

You choked on your miso soup.

(Deja vu.)

“S--sorry, that was mean...!” He shot up to his knees and handed you the glass of water. “I’m glad I got to make it for you. I was surprised to see you this morning—I bet you fell asleep before your cab arrived.”

Recovering from your coughing fit, you sipped your water in furtive silence.

(It wasn’t really lying if you just didn’t respond, right?)

“I’ll admit,” he continued, not noticing your lack of response, “I don’t remember much of what happened after we got back. Bits and pieces here and there...” A nervous laugh bubbled out of him. “I didn’t say anything strange, did I?”

You shook your head. You tried to think back on some details that would help prove your point, but found yourself distracted by the realization he’d forgotten the nicknames you traded, too.

...maybe that was for the best.

Mistaking your quiet for apprehension, Maruki dipped his head to meet your downcast eyes. “You would tell me if I did anything to make you uncomfortable, right?”

“Of course,” you bristled. You were almost offended on his behalf that he’d accuse himself of such a thing. “If you made me uncomfortable, do you really think I would’ve stayed?”

The worry in his eyes softened. “I’m still sorry for all the trouble, keeping you here...”

“It’s not your fault! I mean, I was the one who asked to walk you home in the first place, remember?”

Though you meant the question as reassurance, your words only seemed to make his uncertainty shift focus onto something new, something he was now visibly torn on whether or not to bring up.

“...you want to ask me something.”

Maruki snorted and shook his head, the fluff of his hair bouncing along with him. “After how much I embarrassed myself last night, I don’t think I have the right to ask you anything.”

“We embarrassed ourselves last night.” You returned to your soup. “Ask.”

“Alright, alright...” Falling quiet, he looked down as he tried to reimagine the scene. “Why...did you want to walk me home? You looked so scared...I--I didn’t want to pry, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder if I did something to make you worry.”

You felt a tingling rush of panic at the memory. Your mind’s eye flashed back to last night’s scene at the platform—how desperately your words spilled out of you, how the train’s cabin lights cascaded across his empty smile like sunlight filtering through the trees. Light, dark, light, dark.

“You seemed out of it,” you settled on. “I kept telling myself over and over you were just drunk and you’d be fine, but...call me paranoid, I wanted to make sure you got home okay.”

Maruki shook his head again, a little more frantic this time. “Please, don’t misunderstand—I should be thanking you. If it wasn’t for you, I would’ve probably spent half the night trying to unlock my front door...”

You gave an exaggerated, solemn sigh. “Front door frog can only do so much all by himself.”

“That’s right,” he laughed, “you met him, too.”

Maruki’s gaze returned to the hands he’d folded in his lap, and he rolled his thumbs as he bided his time.

“My behaviour last night...” He paused, wincing like the memory caused him pain. “That...can’t have been fun for you to deal with. I--I guess it doesn’t take much to get me rambling on and on about a bunch of old sob stories, does it? But that’s all in the past, now. It’s pointless to keep looking back. I’m sorry to have worried you. I won’t let it happen again.”

You quelled the violent urge to defend him from himself.

His shame served as mortar for the walls being rebuilt before your eyes. You watched him close himself off, brick by brick, knowing that trying to stop him now would only amplify his regret—but really, what did you expect? That his behaviour, every mechanism he used to survive these past few years, would change overnight because you had a drunken heart-to-heart and hugged for a few seconds?

For someone who measured his worth in the weight of what he did for others, you wondered if he spent so much time helping people unmask that he’d forgotten who he was without his own.

You compared the man from last night, longing to be seen, to the man in front of you now, so desperate for you to look away.

(What you wouldn’t give to have him in your arms, again.)

“...you don’t have to brave out these kinds of things, you know.”

Maruki’s expression faltered. “I’m sorry?”

“Last night,” you continued. “You looked at me the same way you’re looking at me right now. Like you’re...somewhere else. That’s what made me worried. Not the stories you told me.”

Maruki could tell you were upset, which only made things worse. You could see his eyes already filling with renewed concern, his posture poised to spring forth targeted apologies while completely missing your point.

“Help me understand,” he asked—he begged.

Help me understand so I can make it better.

(So quick to put himself last.)

“You’re smiling.” You met his eyes and wondered if you looked as exhausted as you felt. “Why are you smiling?”

He reached towards his face, an uncertain hand hovering just over his mouth. “Am I...?”

Another small laugh, self-conscious and overwrought.

He looked lost.

“I’m your friend, not your patient,” you said dully. “You don’t have to convince me you’re okay. If you really don’t want me to worry about you...” You reached over to stab another apple-bunny onto your fork. “Don’t smile at me unless you mean it.”

You almost could hear his thoughts scrambling as you nibbled away at your apple slice in silence, his mind a rapid-fire buzz of unvoiced attempts at mending something that couldn’t be fixed with words.

Eventually, he shed his instincts like old feathers, one by one, until he stopped carrying himself like an apology.

As his shoulders squared and his demeanour shifted, he began to remind you of how he looked when he thought no one was watching, when you found him half-slouched in the smoking area, his jaw set and expression neutral—existing in the space he occupied, instead of making himself as small as he could inside of it. You made him aware he was putting himself on-stage, and as you drew the curtain on his performance, the threat of something more fearless spilled in from the edges like sunlight.

Maruki took the chance to observe you in return—you, with your sleep-ruffled hair and your post-hangover weariness, your resting expression having fallen into something both tired and vaguely annoyed (as it so often did.) You’d never been the type to withhold your weariness for the sake of his comfort, and he was beginning to understand that all you wanted was for him to extend you the same honesty.

The smile he showed you now was more sombre, but more earnest than before. “You really are one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met, have I told you that?”

Empty clam shells rattled around in your bowl as you drowned yourself in the last of your soup. “I’m choosing to take that as a compliment.”

“It is,” he said shortly, uncrossing his legs and getting to his feet. The cuffs of his pants rode up a little, revealing ankles still banded by the stripes of his convenience store socks. “I need to step it up before you get bored of me.”

“Of you?” You clicked your tongue. “Never.”

“Is that right? I must’ve gotten lucky, then.”

Maruki leaned in to gather the empty dishes off the table, which narrowed the distance between you without warning. For a moment, you could almost count his eyelashes—every smile line, every tiny freckle you’d mapped to memory the night before. His shirt was just loose enough to grant a slight view of his chest down his front collar. You caught the scent of bar soap and aftershave on his skin.

“I know it’s a nervous habit of mine, but don’t worry.” Maruki glanced up at you from behind his glasses, the deep brown of his eyes levelling yours. “Every smile I’ve had with you’s been honest.”

Within the same breath of his arrival, he retreated to the kitchen, as oblivious as ever of how the things he said and did so candidly would sometimes affect your heart.

Maybe that, too, was for the best.

In the walls he built around himself, he’d loosened a brick, just for you.

For now, that was enough.

“Would you like some coffee before you leave?” he asked, his voice slowly regaining the familiar cadence of his natural cheer. “I can put it on ice as a treaaat...”

Why did it sound like he was trying to bribe you?

You pressed your hands against your cheeks in a futile attempt to cool your face down. “That sounds really nice, thank you.”

As Maruki busied himself in the kitchen, you took a moment to notice just how much better you were feeling overall. The queasiness in the pit of your stomach was settling, and your body wasn’t as sore as it was when you first woke up. Even your headache seemed to be going away. The only thing left that needed attention was something you’d been foolishly putting off since the izakaya last night.

“...hey, can I use your washroom? I really gotta pee.”

“O--of course!” he flustered, embarrassed he hadn’t offered the courtesy first. “I actually changed out the face towels in there for you, in case you wanted to freshen up. I’d, um...” He laughed, sounding bashful. “I’d offer to let you use my shower, but I’m afraid if I have to say ‘I’m not propositioning you’ one more time, it’ll lose all meaning.”

You were thankful you were already walking away, as you didn’t need to go through any extra effort to hide the look on your face.

“That’s alright,” you said. “I didn’t bring a change of clothes, anyway—I’d have to borrow some of yours.”

You turned the corner just in time to hear a dish clatter into the sink as he lost his grip.

-

On your way out, Maruki urged a bottled water from his fridge into your hands, refusing to let you leave without it. The moment you stepped outside, you understood why.

You thought his apartment was warm, but leaving the front door felt like walking straight into a blistering cloud, the dense, sweltering summer heat making every breath feel more and more like drowning. It was bad—but not bad enough to justify the cab fare, you decided, as you thought back miserably to your last bank statement.

You used your umbrella for shade on the trudge back to the station, even if carrying one netted you strange looks from passersby. Thankfully, Maruki didn’t seem to mind.

Before you boarded the train, the two of you stumbled through the whole politeness song-and-dance once more, with you expressing your gratitude for his hospitality, and him parrying your every appreciation by thanking you for keeping him company the previous night.

Passengers on the train car were sparse, no doubt in part due to the adverse weather. After taking a seat, you chanced one last glance at him out your window—only to find him still standing on the platform, still looking your way. He straightened up in surprise when you met his eyes again, as if he hadn’t expected you to look back, and he beamed as you traded waves goodbye.

Soon after leaving the station, you received a new notification on your phone.

Maruki:
>Text me when you're home?

The message put a smile on your face the entire way back.

-

Your bottle of water was empty by the time you got home.

The first thing you did after walking through your front door was grab the remote and blast your wall-mounted air conditioner as high as it would go. You stuck your head under the vent until the cool air kicked in, lazily firing off a text in the meantime.

You:
>I'm melting, but I'm home!
>Thanks for the water bottle, I drank the whole thing.

Hungover and exhausted, you ignored your desperate need for a shower and collapsed on top of your mattress, where your bedsheets were blissfully cold to the touch. It didn’t take long for you to start dozing off...

...until your phone rang and startled you awake.

You didn’t bother checking who it was before you answered the call, your face still half-buried in your pillow. “Hello...?”

“Hi!”

That familiar, too-cheerful voice.

You bolted upright.

“Hey!” You froze, recoiling in silence at how happy the sound of his voice made you. You really needed to do something about this before it got worse. “Everything okay?”

“Oh—yes! I just wanted to ask you about something and thought it would be easier to call. Do you have a minute?”

Though you were happy to chat, you wondered what could’ve been so urgent that he had to speak with you so soon after you got home. “Yeah, shoot.”

“Remember how I was working on that diary entry this morning? I’m trying to write things down as I remember them, things from after we—after I got home last night. Did you...” A shy laugh interrupted his train of thought. You could almost feel his breath through the phone. “Sorry—this is going to sound ridiculous, but...did you say something about being able to call you anytime I wanted?”

You cringed at yourself, again. “...I did, yeah.”

“Oh...! I was worried I made that whole thing up...er—you can call me anytime, too, for the record! Th--that was a very kind thing to offer, thank you.”

You could tell from his demeanour that discussing the previous night’s events still sent him reeling, so you decided not to push the issue. “Don’t thank me, yet,” you joked. “I have to make good on it, first.”

“I mean, you’ve done a great job so far.”

“‘So far’? You’ve only called me once.”

“100% success rate. That’s an A+!”

You rolled your eyes and laughed, flopping back onto your mattress. How could you feel so godawful but so light at the same time? “Maruki-sensei, did you just call me to ask if you’re allowed to call me?”

“N--no, I...you left your jacket here, also.”

“Oh, shit—sorry. It was so hot this morning, that jacket was the last thing on my mind...”

“Haha, that’s fair...”

Running a hand over your mouth, you stared up at your ceiling, keeping your phone pressed to your ear. The idle humming of your air conditioner became more and more conspicuous as the uneasy silence between you grew into something tense and tangible.

“...you want to ask me something.”

“You know, you’re very good at that,” he pouted.

“You’re not that hard to read. No offense.”

“None taken. It’s not the first time I’ve heard that, either...” He sighed. “I invited you out last night to celebrate, but...I’m sorry. It’s my fault for asking something that completely ruined the mood. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot like that.”

“It’s okay,” you said, shaking your head as if he could see you, anyway. “It was an important question. You deserved to know.”

“A--and don’t worry, everything we talked about stays between us. You’re the only faculty member I’ve spoken to who expressed any sort of accountability over the situation...I appreciate you telling me the truth about what happened to you.”

“To me?” you snorted. “I brought that all on myself—that’s nothing compared to what you’ve been through.”

“It’s not a competition...”

“I know, but—” You cut yourself off with a short, frustrated sigh. Where had all your words gone? “Everything you told me, the things you’d never shared with anyone, before...thank you for trusting me with something so important. I hope I haven’t done anything to...” You took another breath to reconsider your words. “I hope you don’t regret talking to me.”

“I would never regret that.”

The overwhelming relief you felt made it easier to ignore the way his words angled their way beneath your chest. “Good.”

“Buuuut,” he started again, playfully, “I still want to make it up to you. You pick the place, this time—my treat. And no mentions of Kamoshida this time, I promise.”

Raising an eyebrow, you made sure your smirk came through in your tone. “Are you just using this as an excuse to hang out over the summer?”

“...would it be so bad if I said ‘yes’?”

His sudden confidence caught you off-guard; you were thankful he couldn’t see how quickly you buried your face into your hand.

“I guess not,” you muttered, curling up a little closer to your phone. “Just...take care of my jacket until then, okay?”

Summer was the time of year you always looked forward to the most. Regardless of whether you were a student or a faculty member, the promise of summer was the carrot at the end of the stick that kept you going; you worked your ass off the rest of the year for the hard-earned opportunity to do absolutely nothing with your time. Summers were for staying up too late and sleeping in too long—that’s how you always spent them. This year’s break shouldn’t have been any different.

But it was, somehow.

You’d felt restless ever since closing ceremony—the more you tried to relax, the worse it became. It felt like the inner gears that powered you through your busiest days refused to stop turning, leaving you pent-up and brimming with anxious energy that had nowhere to go.

To shake off some of the electricity, you spent the day cleaning and catching up on some long-procrastinated maintenance around the apartment. It was sundown by the time you finished, but those still-churning gears would not let you rest.

You decided to go for a walk, during which your autopilot steered you down your normal path to the train station without you fully realizing it. With nothing else to do, you surrendered to impulse and wandered onto the next train out.

You hopped off at Shibuya.

The underground walkways were as crowded as ever, and although the busy close-quarters made the summer night’s heat feel that much more suffocating, the moderate din of idle chatter helped drown out the volume of your own restless thoughts. There was a lot more buzz about the Phantom Thieves than you remembered; you overheard several people talking about some big corporate data leak and whether or not the Thieves would take action from this point forward. Some stalls were even selling Phantom Thieves-branded merchandise, now.

Since when had they gotten so popular?

Maybe you should’ve paid more attention to the news...

Station Square opened up to you at the top of the staircases, and the outdoor space allowed you to breathe a little easier. Crowdsourced gossip was replaced by sounds of the city at night, a medley of bright advertisements and busy streets with just a dash of automated service announcements for good measure. Almost instantly, you were greeted by the acoustic stylings of a busker with pink-streaked platinum blonde hair, and the cloying smell of cigarettes from the smoking area nearby.

(You peeked inside. He wasn’t there.)

The biggest attraction in the square by far, however, was elsewhere. A large crowd had drawn around a politician on a makeshift wooden stage. He was an older man of slightly ample build in a well-tailored suit and tie. The sash he wore matched the bright green flags of his party behind him, but unlike the flag’s branding, his sash sported bold red text.

Kind Society, Bright Future.

He carried himself with a world-weariness you didn’t normally see in politicians, with every word, every gesture, every line on his face etched from years of earnest determination. Even he was delivering an impassioned speech about the Phantom Thieves—how they only existed due to the world’s injustice, and how they had to remain anonymous for the same reason. His delivery was so captivating, you ended up sticking around until the end.

“I may not be able to effect change during my lifetime, but I’ve made my peace with that. I will be happy, as long as I can be a meaningful stepping stone for the future of our youth.”

(‘The future of our youth.’)

(What have you done to help facilitate such a future, other than remaining complicit in someone else’s crimes?)

By the time you snapped out of feeling sorry for yourself, the speech was over and the crowd around you was thinning out. The politician had stepped off-stage to have a sidebar with his colleagues, one of which was another, taller man in a suit, and the other...

You turned heel and made a beeline straight for the stairwell before a certain messy-haired second-year could pick you out of the crowd.

(Ren worked in politics, too??)

(How many hobbies could one kid possibly have?!)

As you descended the steps and resubmerged yourself in underground chatter and knock-off Phantom Thieves logos, it suddenly occurred to you that everyone around you seemed to be furthering themselves with their time. From the Thieves enacting their brand of vigilante justice, to Maruki having clinic hours over the summer, to Ren having more after-school activities than God, you realized the restlessness you were feeling was guilt—guilt over letting yourself decay as the world moved on to be a better place without you.

Racks of kiosk brochures caught your attention on your way back to the train.

In a sudden fit of inspiration, you grabbed one of everything that wasn’t a job application and headed home.

-

The high was short-lived.

Colourful pamphlets for getaway opportunities and various local attractions were scattered on the floor in front of you, and all you could do was wonder how your line of thinking had ever gotten to this point in the first place. You were going to help make the world a better place for your students and start a path down the road to standing up for what you believe in...

...by going on vacation?

Were you stupid?

Well—maybe it made a little sense. The goal right now was to get you out of the house so you weren’t wasting away all summer. You had to start somewhere. How could you be in a position to help anyone if you couldn’t even leave your apartment?

A bit different from apple slices and cat posters, but it would at least be something new.

Hesitant, you started rifling through the multitude of bright brochures. The aquarium opened up a new exhibit. The planetarium printed a listing of their new summer showtimes. One of Destinyland’s most anticipated attractions was now open to the public. Day trip after onsen after rural retreat in the countryside...had there always been this many fireworks festivals in the prefecture? Did you have to be a family to get this discount?

Page after page of glossy photographs and charming promises. How hard could it be to choose something? This wasn’t rocket science, you could just pick whatever looked the most interesting to you. Just pick one.

Just pick one.

Just fucking pick one.

Instead, you reached for your phone and dialled up your most recent contact.

Ring.

(You felt silly calling him, but not as silly as you felt being paralysed with indecision over something like this. At least he’d know what to do, right?)

Ring.

(Maybe you should’ve texted first. Why did you just assume he’d have time to answer the phone? How inconsiderate of you.)

Ring.

(You needed to hang up before it reached his voicemail, you didn’t even plan out what to say—)

“Hello, hello!” came a cheery voice, a little out of breath.

“Hi!” Your voice cracked, several octaves higher than normal. You cleared your throat. “Hi. Sorry—is this a bad time?”

“N--no, not at all! Sorry it took me a while to answer. I don’t get many calls, so I usually leave my phone in the other room. Then I always forget what my ringtone sounds like...”

“Maybe I should call you more often, then. Keep you on your toes.”

“Hey, don’t tease...”

(Why did that make you want to tease him more...?)

“So, to what do I owe the pleasure?” (You could hear the smile on his face.) “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I...”

You trailed off. You meant to ask him for advice, but swiftly realized you didn’t need it, anymore.

Hearing his voice was enough to calm your nerves.

“...I figured out where we could go.”

“Oho? Let’s hear it.”

You glanced back down at the mess of brochures on the floor in front of you.

Just pick one.

Shutting your eyes tight, you swept a hand into the pile until you chose one and held it up in front of you.

You slowly opened one eye, then the other.

...alright, yeah.

Yeah, you could work with this.

“Maruki-sensei,” you began, pinning the phone to your shoulder as you unfolded the pamphlet. “Have you ever been fishing?”

Chapter Text

As you were the one who suggested the outing, you made sure to wake up bright and early the day-of. Prepping your clothes the night before meant saving time for an unrushed breakfast the morning after. You even had the chance to drink your coffee in the sunshine, special mug and all, as lonely as it might have been.

For as long as you could remember, summer breaks acted as recovery periods between semesters, whether it was your own schooling or your current tenure at Shujin. All your accumulated sleep debt between New Years and now was called at once, and the precious handful of weeks you had to yourself were wasted away in a restless slumber, resulting in a desperate pivot over the final few days to reset your sleep schedule.

Not this year, though.

This year, you were waking up at reasonable times, eating decent meals you made at home, and going out more on your own—and there was an inexplicable sense of loathing over how much better you were feeling for it. Were you mad at yourself for not doing this—acting in your own best interests—earlier? Or were you just upset at the prospect of all that wasted time?

You could unpack that later.

Today, you had fish to catch.

The whole point of selecting a random activity from the pile of train station brochures you brought home was to push yourself out of your comfort zone and try something new. You had aspirations about what you wanted to accomplish on behalf of the students of Shujin, aspirations that were as lofty as they were vague, and this plunge into a new hobby would serve as a first step towards existing outside the bubble you lived in for most of your adult years. Working alongside someone like Maruki made your flaws all the more obvious.

Maybe, if you pushed yourself enough, you could be a little more like him.

Your train pulled up to Ichigaya station, the tracks bordered by a waterfront on one side, and lined with commercial buildings on the other.

You weren’t sure what to expect from fishing. The pamphlet mentioned their ponds were friendly to all skill levels, including beginners: they charged by the hour, and you didn’t need to bring any of your own supplies. When you first brought it up, Maruki was pleasantly surprised, mentioning he hadn’t been fishing in the longest time. He’d done this, before.

You wondered if he was going to be better than you at this, too.

Before you had time to dwell, you spotted your soon-to-be fishing partner waiting for you on the other side of the ticket scanners, and his familiar smile completely derailed your train of thought.

“Good morning!” he beamed. “Did you get here okay?”

You nodded, smiling back. “How about you?”

“This place is further from my clinic than I thought, so I got quite the workout. But the weather’s nice, so I can’t complain. Oh, right, before I forget...” He reached inside his bag and pulled out a neatly folded garment, one you quickly recognized as the jacket you’d left at his apartment the previous weekend. “I was checking the pockets before putting it in the wash and found a hole in the lining. I just stitched it up real quick, hope that was okay.”

Right.

The hole in the pocket you felt every time you put your hand in it. The one you told yourself you’d fix, but never actually got around to.

You gave him a sheepish little ‘thanks’ and took your jacket off his hands.

The small valley surrounding the fishing centre was a slice of nature that cut through the crowded metropolitan heart of the inner city. The centre itself was built over the middle of the river, where structures segmented the water into several large outdoor ponds, surfaces teeming with stocked fish as their would-be catchers sat along the edges on upturned crates.

Not that you were one of them, or anything.

No, you and Maruki were standing at a long, waist-high water basin, thin fishing rods pinched between your fingers like something out of a children's game as tiny orange fish zoomed around in about three inches of water.

Because this was your first time here, and because you yourself were a beginner, the older man at the attendant's counter suggested mini-fishing to get your feet wet. Turned out “mini-fishing” was the official title for the kiddie pool.

The older man seemed to get a kick out of that.

A nearby grade-schooler cheered as he hooked a goldfish and proudly showed it off to his parents.

Like the bigger pools, you were supposed to catch as many fish as you could within the hour you'd paid for, and your hour here was nearly up. Several tiny catches were swimming around in the small, dark blue net Maruki had hanging inside the basin. You, on the other hand, were finagling with the mashed bait at the end of your hook for the umpteenth time. Too little, and the bait either fell off or got snatched away faster than you could blink—too much, and it would be ignored by the miniscule fish as a meal too big to handle.

The grade-schooler across from you jumped for joy, again.

Maruki pretended not to notice. “These little guys sure are a slippery bunch, aren’t they?”

“I don't need your pity.”

“You’ll get the hang of it! See, it’s all in the wrist,” he said, flicking up another fish onto his hook to punctuate his point.

You considered the possibility that Maruki might’ve been better at this than you, but you hadn't expected to be completely useless at it; being relegated to the kiddie pool was embarrassing enough, and knowing you deserved to be here was a whole other level of soul-crushing. Maruki had been working on his paper while pulling clinic hours this summer—he took time off to be here. You’d apologize for wasting his time if you didn’t also know he wouldn’t hear a word of it.

The grade-schooler cheered a third time.

“Okay, now he’s just showing off,” you scowled. You tossed your hook back into the water with the saddest little plunk you’d ever heard.

“You okay?” Maruki chuckled. “Something’s telling me this isn’t just about the fish...”

You kept your eyes on the darting flashes of orange as they remained allergic to your hook’s meager offerings. If he’d asked this half an hour ago, your instinct would’ve been to dismiss your feelings on the matter, but something about being shown up by a literal child and a swathe of creatures no larger than your pinky finger was making you feel vulnerable.

“It’s not about the fish,” you admitted, still staring down into your basin. “I’m...embarrassed. To be bad at this in front of you.”

“In front of me??” he reeled. “Wh—how come? Have I done something to make you feel bad?”

“No!” You whipped around to face him, shaking your head. “No, no—I just...had this image in my head of how today would go. That I’d be really good at it the first time I tried, and I’d get to look cool in front of my friend, or something. Now that I’m saying it out loud, I can hear how dumb that sounds...”

“It’s not, don’t say that. But you don’t have to impress me—you're not here to perform. I’m here to spend time with you and help you try something new. Besides,” he paused to add another caught fish to his net, “you wouldn’t get as much out of any new hobby if you were good at it right away, would you? Getting better is the fun part! And, if you want to get better, I guess we’ll just have to come back and do this all over again. Only if you wanted to,” he repeated, quickly.

Once again, the light of his earnesty cut through the brain fog. Someone wanting to spend time with you was still a concept you were trying to wrap your head around. “You’d wanna come back here with me?”

“Sure! I might be rusty, though. I haven’t really been fishing since...” He trailed off.

“...since Rumi?” you offered.

“Yeah,” he smiled. “Since the last time we went camping.”

You could tell from the way he stopped meeting your eyes that the awkwardness wasn’t from any sense of shame, or sadness—it felt more like your own, like embarrassment, from bringing her up so naturally in conversation as if she were still around.

You wouldn’t have that, though. You told yourself you wouldn’t.

“Camping, huh?” you said in playful disbelief, reeling back your hook to adjust the bait again. “I’m guessing Rumi was the outdoorsy one.”

He pouted. “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean? Do I not seem outdoorsy to you?”

You winced and tilted your head in a ‘so-so’ motion. “Eh.”

“Actually, Rumi was the one who asked me to take her camping. She saw a nature show on TV one day and got inspired. The first time we went, she was so determined to catch our dinner, I remember specifically picking out a place we could fish...”

You were actually sort of invested, now. “How’d it go?”

“Oh, about as well as you’d expect. We were on that canoe for hours without so much as a nibble. And, wouldn’t you know it? Just when we were about to give up...” He touched a curled finger to his mouth, trying to stifle his laughter. “She got so excited, she tipped the boat over.”

Snorting a laugh, you dipped your baited hook back into the water. “So she was the adventurous type.”

“To say the least,” he sighed wistfully, shaking his head. “Rumi was always more of an idea person—she’d tell me what she wanted to do, and I’d be the one to make it work. She loved trying new things, going to new places...after what happened, though, I don’t get out much anymore.”

“...you’re out now?”

“That’s true,” he smiled.

Whatever cold pangs of jealousy stirring within you were melted by the warmth that returned to his voice as he spoke about her. The two of them had spent half their lives together—of course she’d be intertwined with a countless number of his memories. It was hard to imagine how difficult it must’ve been, to carry someone he loved within his blood, seeing her faded signature around the blueprints of his world. She was such a significant part of the man he was, and of the man he became. How could you not love her, too?

A tug on your line interrupted your thoughts.

“Eh...?”

“You caught one!” he gasped. “Remember, it’s in the wrist—”

You followed his guidance with blind urgency and flicked your hook up above the surface, pulling a tiny goldfish from the water—deep orange and mottled with white. The way it was convulsing at the end of your line sent you into a nervous panic over not wanting to hurt it, but he was quick to help release it in your own, no-longer-empty net hanging inside the basin.

“And...there we go!!” he cheered. “Great job!”

Maruki raised his hand for a high-five, which you met as hard as you could.

Your hour was up not long afterwards. Any fish that were caught needed to be taken to the back to the attendants before being rereleased; as Maruki prepared to take his haul over for review, you couldn’t stop staring at the one circling the water inside your net. It was only one—small, insignificant, and not as impressive as the toddler managed—but it was yours. And you felt more proud of it than you thought you would.

Maruki pointed up towards a nearby sign. “You can take it home for a fee, if you’d like.”

“I don’t think the fish here are for eating, Maruki-sensei...”

“Not for dinner,” he said, looking scandalized. “As a pet!”

...a pet?

“I--I couldn’t,” you mumbled, shaking your head. “I’d probably kill it by accident, or something.”

“I remember thinking that way when I got my first plant. The responsibility feels very rewarding, though! I even had a goldfish I won at a festival as a kid,” he laughed. “How hard could it be?”

Only a couple of short months ago, you remembered telling him about how you shouldn’t be responsible for another living thing because you could barely take care of yourself at the best of times. But after everything you’d been through, everything you started doing for your own sake, did you still feel that way? Today was about stepping outside your comfort zone, after all—having new experiences. Besides, you’d only caught one that whole hour and it seemed like a shame to let it go now, dumped back in with a thousand others to be hooked over and over again until it died. If you could just save this one, then maybe...

“What if I mess up?” you asked.

“You won’t,” he replied.

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve seen what you’re like when you care about something.”

Feeling a blush creep up your neck, you didn’t dare look up from your net.

Before you left, you grabbed some supplies from the shop on your way out, grabbing the cheapest necessities from the aisles upon aisles of live fish and aquarium supplies. You picked up a small desktop tank that didn’t take up too much space, and a shade of light blue gravel that was easy on the eyes. A small shaker of goldfish flakes, a couple of fun little toys so the tank wouldn't look barren. The basics.

The employee who rang up your total was the older man from earlier; he didn’t seem very pleased to run your items through, but you paid his attitude no mind.

Maruki was almost more excited about the new pet than you were.

Maruki:
>Any idea what you’re going to name it?

You:
>I don’t want to name it, yet. This thing is definitely going to die on me.

Maruki:
>Don’t say that!! :(

The more time you took setting things up for it at home, the more buyer’s remorse started creeping into your thoughts; by the time you poured it out of its little plastic take-home baggie and into its new tank, the doubts had fully settled in.

This had been such an impulsive decision. When was the last time you even had a pet? You'd never forgive yourself if anything bad happened to it. Was its life here all that much better than it was in the kiddie basin? Maybe this wasn't a very good idea...

Sitting at your desk, you rested your head against your folded arms and watched your new deskmate swim around, tapping gently against the thin glass.

“...we’re really in it now, aren't we, buddy?”

The fish seemed anxious but curious about its new environment, feeling out the edges of its tank and nudging up against the gravel at the bottom. You found that watching it drift back and forth was hypnotizing and weirdly peaceful; you could feel your own stress melting away by the minute, and briefly wondered if you’d be allowed to keep it in the health room once school was back in session.

Later that evening, once the fish calmed down a bit, you carefully reached into the tank to place the tacky little plastic scuba diver decoration you'd bought down at the bottom. As you were retracting your hand, though, the fish swam straight into it—startled by the head-on collision, you yanked your hand out the water.

What was it doing?

Curious, you slowly lowered your hand into the tank, again. The fish darted up from the other side and brushed right up against your palm, before threading the spaces between your wiggling fingers. You closed your hand into a loose fist and watched it swim happily through the gap, then circle right back around to do it again.

Was it...playing with you?

Did fish do that?

Maybe this one was just used to kids sticking their hands inside its basin.

“You shouldn’t trust people so easily, you know,” you muttered, letting it bump up against your fingertip.

The first thing you did the following morning was check up on it and—maybe you were going crazy, but—when you came into its vicinity, you swore it started swimming around faster, like it was excited to see you. You figured it was probably hungry and shook a few flakes loose from the can. It didn’t seem very interested.

You put your hand in the tank, though, and it was all over your fingers again.

“Ok, well, I need to eat. We can play later.”

(You were talking to it, now?)

But it didn’t stop there. You sat down next to it and had breakfast in its company. You made yourself some coffee and, right before you were about to take it to your balcony outside, you looked over at the fish, again.

“...want some sunshine?”

Your Sunday morning came to an end while lounging on your tiny high-rise balcony, fancy coffee mug in your hands, a tiny fish tank planted firmly on a small table beside you, and a passing thought that this was probably the highest up this fish has ever been in its life.

You’d never be able to explain this to anyone else and sound sane—but it was just you and the fish, so you’d never need to.

That evening, while getting some chores done, you noticed your fish moving a little erratically out of the corner of your eye. It was swimming near the top of the tank, more frantically than before—not trying to escape, exactly, but pecking up at the surface of the water.

You thought it might have been searching for food, but the flakes you offered it once again went ignored. You dipped your fingers into the water, and it ignored that, too.

“What’s going on, little guy...?”

It was strange—you’d only had it for a day, but you could tell something was wrong.

Some online research quickly revealed that this behaviour occurred—gasping, they called it—when there wasn’t enough oxygen in the water. As you continued researching ways to remedy the issue, however, you tumbled down a rabbit hole.

There were dozens of misconceptions about goldfish care and, somehow, you had every single one.

Goldfish grew a lot bigger and lived a lot longer than you thought they did. Your tank was a fraction of the size it needed to not be considered the fish equivalent of psychological torture. You needed a proper filter, you needed test kits, you needed a siphon to help with water changes. You learned words like “tank cycling” and “nitrate spikes” and “water conditioner.” You were doing this whole thing completely and utterly wrong, and the things you read made it sound like a miracle that yours wasn’t dead already.

A quick way to increase oxygen levels, you read, was to stir the water in the tank manually, as the movement increased aeration.

You ended up sitting by its side for hours, stirring the water surface here and there whenever you suspected it might’ve had trouble breathing.

It was so small.

It was counting on you.

You couldn't fail him, too.

As the older man reached for his store keys and prepared to open the fishing centre for the day, he spotted you waiting at the locked entrance, an umbrella in one hand and a notebook in the other, looking like you hadn’t slept all night.

“...so, since I found out it’s a choking hazard, I replaced all the gravel with black sand substrate and got a couple of nice big rocks in there, instead. Got gel pellets instead of food flakes. I’ve been testing water parameters non-stop all week because the tank wasn’t cycled, obviously—did you know if the nitrates are off, it burns for them to breathe?—and I know he’ll need something bigger, but I can’t fit anything more than a 20 gallon in my apartment right now, and I’d want to invest in a better filtration system first, anyway...”

Sitting beside you on a neighboring upturned crate, several large carp already splashing around in the submerged net by his feet, Maruki listened in horror as you recounted what had happened to you since you last spoke.

“Is all that really necessary for such a small pet...?” he asked, dumbfounded. You don't think you've ever seen him look so apologetic. “I--I've always seen them kept in small bowls and little aquariums...who would have thought such a tiny fish would be such a big responsibility? I’m so sorry for putting all that on you so suddenly.”

You shook your head. “I’m just as much to blame, I should’ve done my research.”

“Oh, no...” He slapped his forehead. “I even remember asking, ‘how hard could it be?’”

“Yeah—turns out it’s pretty hard!” you cried out, exasperated. “But, you know...once we got through the worst of it? It felt...really good to be able to take care of him. I could tell he was feeling better just by the way he’s swimming around. He even recognizes me, I think? He’ll even swim to the top and let me pet him, sometimes.”

Noticing he’d gone silent, you turned back to look at him, only to find him staring at you with the widest, goofiest grin on his face.

You felt your face heat up almost immediately. “What’s that look for??”

“The way you lit up just talking about it! I still remember when you lied about having a cat and told me you couldn't take care of anything other than yourself.”

“Yeah, well...” Your hands tightened around your fishing pole, and the warmth in your cheeks didn’t go away. “Don’t congratulate me yet, it’s one week down and a decade and a half to go.”

“Do goldfish really live that long?”

“Apparently!!”

“But...it's a good feeling, isn't it?” Maruki looked down. “Every plant I have has different needs. Some need to be rotated in and out of sunlight, some need their soil changed more often, some need to be trimmed more regularly. It’s so rewarding, taking care of something and watching it grow under its best conditions. There's nothing quite like it.”

“This...might be a weird question, but.” You took a beat to consider your phrasing. “How...do you know whether or not you’re doing a good job?”

“Just keep an eye on them,” he said. “They’ll tell you.”

You nodded, silently. It made sense. Now that you were educated about ideal conditions, you’d be able to tell pretty quickly if things went wrong.

Maruki cleared his throat. “So, um...”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think the goldfish I had in elementary school was in pain...?”

Fishing at the main pools went a lot smoother. Instead of struggling with putting just the right amount of bait on your hook, you were able to just use boilies and call it a day. The fish here were much bigger and more densely stocked, meaning they were more eager to fight for food, and as a result, much easier to catch. They were big, though, which made sense, considering they did little else but eat all day; your line snapped on your first real attempt, but you caught the next three pretty handily.

It was nowhere near the veritable school of fish Maruki had by the end, but you’d taken all the tips he’d given you and you were proud of your improvement as you brought up your bucket to be weighed.

“How’s it doing?” asked the attendant.

You blinked. “I’m sorry...?”

You looked up and realized the attendant helping you this time was the older man from earlier in the week.

“The goldfish,” he said gruffly. “How’s it doing?”

“Oh—great! Thank you so much, again, for all your help the other day.” You bowed a little. “He’s doing much better now.”

“He even surfaces for pets, sometimes!” Maruki bragged on your behalf.

“Maruki-sensei—”

“That's good news.”

He continued weighing your haul in silence. You felt yourself straighten up a little with pride.

As you glanced around the attendant’s station, you noticed a tiered chart hanging up behind the counter, listing different species of fish, their weight and length range, and a corresponding point value total for each.

“What’s that?” you asked.

The attendant looked up at you, then over his shoulder towards the poster on the wall. “Points system. Fish from the main ponds get you points, points can be exchanged for prizes.” He then nodded over his other shoulder, pointing to another chart behind the counter on his opposite side.

You could trade in points for different boilies instead of buying them outright, even purchase brand-new fishing rods with enough points saved up. Your eyes drifted down the chart as the points count got bigger and bigger.

Fish God's Badge - 100,000 points

“A hundred-thousand points?” Maruki let out a low whistle. “That’s a lotta fish to catch...”

And that’s when it clicked.

The only thing you needed to motivate you through sticking with this hobby was something tangible you could work towards.

“...I’m getting it.”

“You what?” he chuckled.

“I’ve decided I’m getting that badge.” You looked him straight in the eyes. “Before the end of summer break.”

His smile faded as quickly as it came.

He leveled the seriousness of your gaze with one of his own, and gave you a short nod of mutual understanding.

“Then I’ll help.”

Chapter Text

Maruki wouldn’t have as much free time over the summer as you did, so you spent the next few days getting used to going to Ichigaya alone. Like with all your transit, you preferred arriving early to beat the crowds, when the only patrons of the fishing center were elderly men who kept to themselves. Settling into the routine made the self-consciousness of being on your own fade quickly; you learned that people, for the most part, had better things to do than notice you were by yourself in public.

You accumulated points, slowly but surely, working on your technique with quiet patience. One fortuitous day, you learned that catching enough fish within a time limit won you a free bonus hour. On another, you learned what a foul hook was after snagging a carp by its side, prompting help from the attendant on-duty as he tried to calm you out of your profuse apologies.

You needed 100,000 points for the badge. According to the mini-notebook you started bringing with you for recordkeeping, you were averaging 200 points per fish, meaning that to hit your goal within your time frame, you needed to catch about 34 a day. So far, you were averaging around 12.

Even with Maruki’s help, if you were going to get that badge by the end of summer break, you needed to get better at fishing, fast.

So once again, with your hat in your hands, you asked a certain fishing attendant for advice.

After braving the sweltering heat all the way to Shinjuku to pick up a book on fishing, you made another stop at the Underground Mall in Shibuya. The lack of politicians giving speeches in the square didn’t save you from running across an all-too-familiar student—fake glasses, annoying cat, not as limber as he looked—clad in a green apron as he arranged bouquets behind the counter of a flower shop.

At the attendant’s recommendation, you picked up a new fishing rod to save having to rent one every day, being careful to match the dimensions and features as written in your notes (collapsible, you’d scribbled in one corner, to take on the train.) You wanted to practice a checkerboard cookie recipe in time for the weekend, as well, so a quick trip to the mall’s grocery store followed.

Though being productive on a weekday summer afternoon energized you with self-satisfaction, the atmosphere throughout the mall was tense, as if the scattered crowds were holding their breath for news you hadn’t been privy to. As usual, the air was filled with whispers about the Phantom Thieves and their latest dilemma—this time, however, the majority opinion about their response (or rather, the lack thereof) seemed pointedly unkind.

While pulling out your card to pay at the register, the employee gestured towards a small sign and bowed, politely.

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience—it’s cash only, today. MedJed has been interfering with the payment systems all week.”

“Oh, right—of course.”

You did not know who or what a ‘MedJed’ was.

People were biting their nails over a cliffhanger while you somehow missed the mountain entirely.

On your way back to the train, you noticed one of the shop stalls—the one with shamelessly branded Phantom Thieves merch alongside the rest of their wares—was much less busy since the last time you’d passed it. There was something outrageous about how quickly public perception of them shifted, especially after they’d proven themselves time and time again. How egregious was their inaction to have shaken everyone’s faith? No matter what was happening, they’d surely pull through, right? Right?

(Of course they would.)

The absurdity of it possessed you to march up to the stall and buy something in some small gesture of solidarity, like you were wearing your team’s jersey the day after a big loss. You had just enough cash left over to grab a metal lighter bearing the Thieves’ logo, plucking it from the otherwise untouched tray of its identical brethren. The lighter felt solid and weighty in the palm of your hand.

You put it into your pocket with the intention of leaving it be, but your restless fingers had other plans.

Hidden away and muffled by your jacket, you opened and closed the lighter with satisfying little clicks the entire way home.

Sitting beside you on an upturned yellow crate, Maruki flipped through a small paperback labelled Essence of Fishing. A butter cookie with mottled patterns dangled from the corner of his mouth. “This is some pretty high-concept stuff…”

“I can’t make any sense of it,” you sighed into your thermos, sipping at it with one hand as you held your fishing rod in the other. “‘Sharpen your senses’? ‘Become aware of the gentle contours of their piscine bodies’? Like, what does that even mean?”

“I think it’s trying to say fishing is more about mental state than technique…”

“And I think I got scammed.”

“Aw, don’t say that,” he chuckled. “I’m sure this book will make more sense as time goes on. How many points are you at, again?”

“Uh…” Setting the mug down, you reached inside your jacket pocket, pulling out your tiny notebook and flipping to the most recent page. “Like—eighteen, nineteen thousand? I started buying better bait, and I got pretty lucky yesterday…”

“Well, then!” He slapped his knees; the gesture, along with his chosen outfit of jeans and a polo shirt, made him look incredibly dad-like. “Guess I better start pulling my weight while I’m here, huh?”

“I mean, you can relax for a bit—didn’t you just bike the entire way here?” you asked, surprised. Where was all this energy coming from? “Plus, you’ve been at the clinic all week, right? Tell me how your paper‘s going.”

“The ride’s no sweat—biking’s great exercise. You should come along one day.”

“No, thank you.” (You noticed he sidestepped the question, but you also knew full well that his reason for doing so wouldn’t be improved by your pressing.) “I’d probably collapse and die.”

“All the more reason to start. It might be hard at first, but you'll get better with practice, like any other skill. Like fishing. Or baking!” He grabbed another cookie from the open tupperware before reaching for his fishing pole. “If you told me you were bringing snacks, I would’ve gotten here earlier.”

“Well, unlike you, I didn’t want my snacks to seem like too much of a bribe.”

“You think I use them as bribes?”

“Don’t you?”

“I…suppose so?” he laughed, uneasily. “I like how food brings strangers together, and how it helps people feel comfortable enough to talk to each other. Pretty helpful in my line of work.”

You smirked. “Do you hand out thermoses for comfort, too?”

“Huh? No, I bought that one just for you.”

Your heart did a twirl, but you willed it back into submission as you slid your notebook back into your jacket pocket. Your fingers brushed against metal, and you realized your Phantom Thieves lighter was still in there.

“Oh, right—I almost forgot!” Maruki immediately dove into the messenger bag on the ground by his side. “Seeing as I was to blame for you getting a new pet in the first place, I got you something to help…”

Moments later, he resurfaced with a small bag containing messes of scraggly green leaves; he reached in and pulled out one of the bundles by its small plastic pot.

“Ta-da!” he said proudly. “Java Fern.”

You blinked at it. “Java Fern?”

“I didn’t know much about aquatic plants, so I did some research of my own. Super low-maintenance, easy to propagate, good for nitrate levels—even safe for your little guy to snack on. Unlike non-aquatic plants, though, you don’t want to bury the rhizome—this part here, where the roots come out, see?—because it can rot that way. The attendant said you can just glue them to the rocks and let them go crazy. Isn’t that great?” He held up the fern like a first-place trophy, grinning from ear to ear. “You finally have a houseplant to cook for at home!”

He was so enthused, so excited to regale you with everything he learned about aquatic landscaping—something he went out of his way to research, solely because he knew how important it was to you.

Unable to temper your smile, you thanked him in earnest, too focused on keeping your voice steady to stop your heart from somersaulting beneath your chest.

Your anxious fingers fiddled with the lighter again, hidden in the very jacket pocket he’d mended for you.

Click. Click. Click.

Maruki’s help over the weekend brought you over a third of the way to your goal. The sharp progress filled him with so much motivation that, should you be willing to switch to evenings on some days, he offered to swing by after work to help boost your numbers even more, as he was wrapping up his summer work over the next week and would have more time on his hands.

Though you’d miss the calm transit of your early mornings, you didn’t hesitate to accept.

You added another 4,000 points to your total that morning—your highest solo score yet.

Before heading home, you placed a small, carefully decorated bag of checkerboard cookies on the front counter while a certain fishing attendant had stepped away.

As you strolled into your summer home-away-from-home, offering polite waves across the ponds to the fellow early-morning regulars you recognized, you noticed someone new yet strangely familiar sitting among the crates. The woman wore a beige blazer over an orange-striped shirt, along with a jean skirt that reached her knees; her giant white sunhat seemed like it was less for protection and more for concealment.

Before you could fully register who she was, the woman had already done a double-take your way, the expression on her face falling the second time around.

“Give me a break…” Kawakami mumbled, miserably. “First students start crashing this place, now faculty? I thought I’d be safe on a weekday…”

A fresh wave of anxiety crashed against the walls of your still-fragile sense of confidence. Maruki was your only friend among your coworkers at Shujin, that much hadn’t changed. Worse yet, your social isolation was from neither ostracization nor a lack of trying on their part—the estrangement was entirely your doing.

Once you decline enough invites, people stop asking.

Your well-earned reputation among the faculty for being aloof and reserved served you no favours, here. Avoidance was the easiest choice. You could always come back later, or even another day. Wouldn’t it be so nice to be alone, right now, away from the world, somewhere you didn’t have to be perceived? You could run away. Oh, how much you wanted to run away.

You dug your heel into the step backwards you took.

No, this summer was all about new experiences—that’s why you were here in the first place, wasn’t it? To push yourself outside of your comfort zone? To build confidence doing something new you were absolutely terrible at? Didn’t this count, too?

Shit.

Steeling your resolve, you took a short, deep breath and continued as you were, claiming a crate facing the opposite pool behind Kawakami—far enough away to give her space, but close enough to be in each other’s peripherals at a glance. As you passed her and sat down, she didn’t seem to pay your presence any further mind.

Even so, you couldn’t just sit this close to her and not say hi, could you? The ball was in your court, now. You tried to think of something to say—anything that would make this silence you’ve subjected yourself to less awkward.

“I--I heard you were in the hospital last month,” you blurted out. “I’m glad to see you’re doing better.”

“Me too,” she smiled, her voice ever-so-slightly pitched with forced politeness. “Thank you, also. For the…card.”

You felt blood drain from your face. Right. The card. You remembered Kobayakawa approaching you to sign it as part of an organized ‘Get Well Soon’ from the faculty. There were flowers, too, weren’t there? You wondered if they got Ren to work on them. Why did you open with that? You probably should’ve taken more of an interest in Kawakami’s recovery. What was she even in the hospital for? Why didn’t you ever follow-up to ask if she was okay? Were you really that cold-hearted?

Paralyzed by your thoughts, you watched with growing interest as Kawakami continued to fish behind you with stunning ease. Her routine was hypnotising; she reeled in catch after catch and made it look effortless, cycling seamlessly between unhooking fish into her submerged net, adding bait to her line, then plunging the float into the water, all with the deft, practiced ease of a pro who did this for a living.

“Enjoying the show?” she sighed loudly, her back still facing you. (How did she know you were staring?) “This is the part where you say, ‘oh, Kawakami-sama, I didn't know you were so good at fishing!!’”

“Kawakami-sama, I had no idea you were so good at fishing.”

Caught off-guard, she looked at you over her shoulder, incredulous. “Well, look who’s talking, Dr. Telescopic Fishing Rod. How long have you been at it?”

The way she asked sounded like she was sizing you up, like your earlier compliment was sarcasm and she was getting ready to defend herself.

“J--just a couple of weeks,” you said quickly. You needed to make it clear you recognized her godlike fishing abilities and that she was superior in every way. “I…thought it might be fun to try for the 100k badge before the end of summer break.”

“...the Fish God’s Badge?”

“Yeah.”

“Ah.” To your surprise, she smiled a little at that, suddenly looking wistful. “I remember my first badge…”

“Your first??”

“Mhm. There’s a new design every year.”

“That’s incredible,” you said in awe. “I bet you have a whole board full of them at home, huh?”

Kawakami quirked an eyebrow. “Are you saying I have nothing better to do in my spare time than fish?”

“No, no, I didn’t mean—”

“Relax,” she chuckled, turning back to her pond. “I’m just teasing you.”

A more casual cadence had replaced the professional courtesy of her previous tone, which did a lot to help settle your nerves. You could’ve ended it there and went home happy—if you left the conversation knowing for sure that Kawakami didn’t secretly hate you, you’d consider that a win. But oddly enough, now that the tides of your anxiety had ebbed, you couldn’t stop thinking of things to keep the conversation going. Suddenly, there were so many things you wanted to say.

Taking another short breath, you ran with your courage’s momentum and stood up, moving to claim a seat at the empty crate next to her. You remembered Maruki’s words and, before saying anything else, you offered her the open container of snacks you brought with you.

“...what’s this?”

“A bribe.”

Kawakami looked at the cookies, then at you, then back again before taking one, cautiously.

“I finally got the checkerboard pattern right,” you bragged.

“Yes, I can see that.” After examining it closer, she finally bit the cookie clear in half. “Hm...this is pretty good. Thank you.”

“Of course.” Your other hand had found itself inside your pocket, again, fidgeting with the metal there for comfort. “I…wanted to apologize, Kawakami-sensei.”

“Please, it’s Sadayo,” she grimaced. “No need to make me sound older than I already am. What are you apologizing for, exactly?”

“I don’t know. I just feel like I’ve been an ass to everyone these past couple of years.”

Kawakami shrugged, making a dismissive noise. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take it personally, at first—at least until I found out you treated everyone that way. I figured that’s just the sort of person you were.” She tilted her head at you a little, her sunhat patterning the shadows against her skin. “Why the sudden change of heart, anyway? Did the Phantom Thieves get to you?”

“In a way.” Your thumb brushed over the lighter’s emblem. “After I was hired, I got reprimanded for looking into Kamoshida. Then when the whole thing with Sakamoto-kun happened…I didn’t know who I could trust at that school. So I didn’t trust anyone.” Scoffing, you rolled your eyes at yourself. “A lot of good that did. Things just got worse.”

“Kamoshida was an open secret,” she sighed, reaching for another cookie. “The staff knew, the parents knew. My personal life was a complete mess at the time, to say the least. I figured if no one else cared, why should I be the one to stick my neck out and bother? But then, Suzui-san…God, that poor girl.”

“How is she doing? Do you know?”

“She transferred out over a month ago. Still in rehab, last I heard.”

“I’ve wanted to reach out to her,” you admitted, “but I was complicit, like everyone else. Would she even want to hear from me? Do I want to be supportive, or do I just want to quiet my conscience? Would reaching out be for her sake or mine?”

“You’re overthinking it. Who says it has to be one or the other?” With a flick of her wrist, Kawakami hooked another catch; there was a thoughtfulness in the way she freed it from her line, this time, her movements slightly less routine. “Everything we do is a little selfish, in some way. I wish I realized that earlier. I was so…naive when I first started teaching. All I wanted was to be someone who did what was best for her students. But over the years…it wasn’t until Suzui-san when I realized just how much I let that goal get away from me.”

“I hate that she had to be the wake-up call. For us, for Kamoshida, for hiring a counsellor…I want to do better, to be better. I don’t know how, yet, but at the very least, I’m never letting anything like that happen again.”

“After what the Phantom Thieves did to Kamoshida, I’d be surprised if anyone had the gall to try.”

“It's not just our school that worries me,” you said darkly. “If things like that can happen at an Academy as high-profile as ours, can you imagine what might be happening at others?”

“I can’t let myself imagine that.”

“Why not?”

“Because if I did, I’d go crazy,” she laughed, sounding hollow. She fixed another boilie onto the end of her hook. “Part of what made my life such a disaster was worrying too much about other people. How does that saying go—‘you have to clean your room before you try to save the world’? I’m no use to anyone if I’m a mess. Someone…helped me realize that, recently.”

“It’s not…” You spoke very carefully. “It’s not Amamiya-san, is it?”

“How did you—did he say something to you?” Scowling, Kawakami flung her hook into the pond. “After he gave me his word, that little—”

You shook your head, violently, holding your hands up in defense. “No, no—it was a shot in the dark, I swear! I just keep running into him everywhere I go—it’s crazy. I’m starting to think I’m the only person in Tokyo he isn’t helping, somehow.”

It took Kawakami eyeing you for a few moments to convince her you were being honest. “Well, look at the bright side. Maybe you’re the only person in Tokyo who doesn’t need his help.”

“Seriously, I've spotted him helping out at political rallies, working at the flower shop—even Maruki-sensei talks to him about his research, apparently. Where does this kid find the time?”

“Hold on—Maruki-sensei?” she snickered. “Look, I know you’re trying to be professional, but isn’t that a little formal?”

“What do you mean?”

“Talk about your open secrets. Sneaking off to the rooftop every morning, showing up for the faculty meetings together…Chuono-san told the group chat that she saw you two leaving an izakaya a few weeks ago.” She looked genuinely confused. “Did you really think no one would notice?”

“There’s a group chat—” The rapid-fire accusations were making your head spin. “That doesn’t mean anything—everyone's had drinks with him! So have you!”

“Work outings usually have more than two people in it. Besides, Takuto’s way too upbeat for my taste. It’d be like dating a puppy…”

“We’re not dating,” you said, suddenly. “We’re friends. Just friends.”

Kawakami squinted. “...so I can tell Chuono-san she can go for him, then?”

“Sure!” Your voice shot several octaves too high. “It’s not like he’s interested in a relationship right now, so—”

You’d said too much.

Kawakami’s face fell, and she looked at you with the same pity you loathed seeing on other people—the type that made your cheeks burn and your fists clench as you wished you were anywhere but on the receiving end. It took all your effort to bite back a reaction, swallowing the frustration until it made your stomach sour.

“Well, that’s a shame,” she said simply. “I thought you looked good together.”

And that took the fight out of you.

You never once gave so much as a passing thought to the faculty’s opinions of you, if only because it was easier to write them off as a monolith that couldn’t be trusted—but months of your carefully constructed apathy came crashing down at the realization that you might not have been nearly as good at hiding things as you thought you were.

(Did he know what they were saying?)

(Did he know about you?)

“...I’ve made things awkward, haven’t I?” Picking up on your silence, Kawakami offered a lopsided smile. “Don't worry, your secret's safe with me. Here—let me make it up to you. You’re trying for the badge, right? Wanna know the real secret to fishing?”

“Please,” you begged, “before I drown myself in this damn pool.”

“You have to not want the fish.”

“...huh?”

“I know, I know, it sounds crazy—just hear me out. Fish are very sensitive to these sorts of things. They can tell when you’re desperate, or angry. The more you want them, the more repelled they are. Don’t aim to fish. Aim to just be. Then, they’ll come to you.”

Releasing the lighter in your pocket from your nervous fidgeting, you instead wrapped both hands around your fishing pole, took a deep breath, and tried to want for nothing.

What people thought of you didn’t matter any more than it did before you had this conversation. Not unless you let it matter. But you were immune, out here. Immune from all of it. You didn’t have to worry about any of your feelings or how they’d betray you. There was you, and the water, and the line. Nothing else. That was half the appeal of being out here, wasn’t it? None of it mattering.

And a fish pulled your float below the surface of the water.

“See?” Kawakami nudged you. “Now you’re getting it.”

“...Sadayo-san?”

“Hm?”

“When school starts up again,” you started, looking over at her, “would you like to write a letter to Suzui-san with me?”

“Yeah,” she smiled. “I’d like that a lot.”

On the days that Maruki could make it to the fishing center, you started your evenings by a bike parking area a few blocks away from the train station, waiting for him to cycle his way over from the clinic.

After the upcoming weekend, you’d be busy preparing for the new semester—scheduling appearances at the season’s sports meets, outlining health course curriculums—leaving little time for much else. Maruki’s help, combined with the advice from the fishing god herself (Kawakami) and your ongoing practice, had been doing miracles for your score; however, as the days continued, the pressure to meet your quota only increased.

What made it worse was that every evening this week had been absolutely scorching; the nights often felt hotter than the days did, which wasn’t very conducive to keeping one’s cool.

Tonight, you had Essence of Fishing open in one hand as you waited between catches. Kawakami’s tips had recontextualized the entire book for you, and Maruki had been right—it really was trying to teach you more about headspace than technique.

Maruki, on the other hand, was not having a very good evening, overall. Earlier, he had to pay for a rental pole out of pocket after it snapped on him mid-catch, and several catches throughout the evening had managed to slip away from him before they made it into the net.

In your few months of knowing him, this was the first time you’d ever seen him this agitated.

You watched him lean forward against his thighs and focus impatiently on the water, sweat beading at his furrowed brow—from the heat or the stress, you weren’t sure. A quick tug on his line revealed a swift carp had made off with his bait unscathed, and he clicked his tongue, growling a little under his breath.

Stubborn frustration was a new look on him, one you probably shouldn’t have taken such pleasure in watching him wear.

You shut your book and yawned as you exaggerated a stretch, trying to lighten up the mood. “My butt’s going numb…maybe I should start bringing my own crate.”

He didn’t respond. He didn’t even show any signs that he’d heard you.

Now you were getting worried.

“Hey, are you okay?” You leaned over to look up at him. “Why so locked in all of a sudden?”

The sound of your concern unwound him a bit, and he sighed some of his tension away. “Oh, a couple of reasons…”

“Do tell.”

Though he seemed apprehensive at first, one look at the uneasiness in your eyes was all it took to make him fold.

He sighed, again—much deeper, this time. “Remember how I said I was working on my paper over the summer?”

“Of course.”

“I…haven’t gotten anywhere with it. At all. Actually, I found some issues with the methodology and I might be a few steps behind where I started. It…might sound strange, but. I truly thought that if I kept at it—eventually, I’d have a ‘eureka!’ moment where everything fell into place. But…that’s not really how things work, is it?”

“If only,” you mused, sympathetic.

“If I could help you achieve your goal, I would’ve at least accomplished something this summer.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your paper.” You shuffled forward a little to scoot up next to him, scraping your crate against the pavement. “But, look—forget about the points. Even if we don’t make it, it got me out of the condo and doing something new. And…it, you know. Got me more time with you. And you caught up with all your clinic paperwork, too, right? I think we accomplished a lot this summer. Badge or no badge.”

He smiled at you, warmly; some of his worry slipped from his shoulders, but he carried the remainder of it in his voice. “Can I ask you a serious question?”

You nodded, making sure to hold his gaze.

“Do you…regret taking that fish home?”

”The fish?” You wanted to deny it outright in a fervent effort to reassure him, knowing he shared responsibility for the arrangement, but you managed to hold yourself back. “Why do you ask?”

“It was a life you took responsibility for—to save it from the environment it was in,” he continued, gesturing along while keeping his fishing rod in-hand. “And you thought you were prepared to handle it…but it wasn’t as straightforward as you thought it would be. It’s struggling, and you’re left wondering whether or not you made the right choice.”

You could tell he was alluding to something, but you couldn’t figure out how your situation could draw any comparison to the paper he’d been toiling at. “I did regret it, at first. It was a lot of worry and expense I wasn’t expecting all at once. But eventually, I realized my regret didn’t matter. I worried because I cared—and it wasn’t about me, anymore. I chose this. I took on a responsibility, and I had an obligation to see it through. And if I couldn’t handle it…I just had to become someone who could. Easier said than done, though,” you laughed. “I don’t think reading articles about aquariums all night and spending hundreds of dollars at the pet store is going to help with your research.”

“Maybe not,” he replied, a familiar somberness in his smile, “but your answer still helps. Thank you.”

“Sooo,” you pressed, “what’s the other one?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You said you had two reasons for getting serious all of a sudden. What’s the other one?”

“Oh, that.” Maruki directed all his attention away from you, focusing intently instead on applying more bait to his hook. “That…isn’t relevant, right now. Don’t worry about it.”

Fate did not want you casting your lines today.

The forecast called for heavy rains in the evening, but as it was your final available weekend, the two of you had been working overtime since morning, pushing your luck for as long as the intermittently spitting clouds would allow. That same afternoon, the attendant informed you that they were almost completely out of bait—all they had left in-stock were some strange boilies you’d never seen before, and as luck would have it, not a single fish had touched it since you were forced to start using them.

Perhaps it was a less-than-subtle hint that he wanted you gone so he could close up early.

“I think we should call it.” Maruki continued glancing up anxiously at the overcast sky. “I’m not liking the looks of these clouds…”

“One sec,” you replied, tallying up the day’s final score. You were juggling your notebook in one hand, your tiny golf pencil in the other, and your live fishing pole wedged in the crook of your elbow throughout.

He glanced down over your shoulder at the numbers you were crunching. “How’s it looking?”

“We’re only about 4500 points off,” you said, pleasantly surprised. “If we get here early tomorrow, we can—”

Everything happened so fast.

Your fishing line was yanked by a force powerful enough to knock you clean off your crate; out of reflex, you dropped your notebook and pencil to grab onto the pole with both hands and still barely managed to hang on. At first, you thought your hook might have caught on something—some moving mechanical parts or an oversized piece of driftwood—but the movement of the weight at the end of your line, though exponentially larger in scale, was telltale.

Rushing up to you in a panic, Maruki asked if you were okay, reaching over on instinct to help handle the pole.

You shot him a look, eyes flashing, which froze him in place. “Get the net.”

You don’t think you’ve ever seen him rush into action so quickly.

The fight was a blur. You remembered regaining your balance and finding a foothold, working with the fish’s weight using every inch of your line, willing it not to break. You led the fight with the tip of your pole, dipping it into the water, but let the body do the bulk of the work, the length of the pole curving so harshly you were certain it would snap right in half. You remembered every single thing you’d learned in the past few weeks flashing through your thoughts in quick succession.

Sharpen your senses.

It’s all in the wrist.

Gentle contours of piscine bodies.

Just be.

There was you, and the water, and the line.

In your strategic give and take, betting your technique and gear against the monster at the end of your line—a monster you regarded with nothing but respect—winning this fight was a battle of patience, of attrition, and when it grew tired of the struggle and eased at the exact right moment, you would feel it—

You used every remaining ounce of strength to drag the golden beast out of the water, falling clean on your behind as you watched Maruki—practically laying on his stomach, leaning halfway off the ledge over the pool—wrangle your prize into a net it barely fit in.

You were both breathing hard in the aftershock, hearts racing and adrenaline coursing, half-soaked against the pavement between the pond water and the rain. You couldn’t feel your arms. Everything around you was spinning a little.

Maruki was the one with a 4-foot fish with golden scales in his net like something out of a fairy tale, but he was looking at you with reverence. “You were incredible…!”

And for a split-second, your world stopped turning.

The next thing you heard over the blood rushing in your ears was the sounds of the fishing attendant laughing at the display, loud and jovial as he applauded his way towards you. “Congratulations—you’ve snagged yourself the legendary Guardian. Haven’t seen this fella in a few months.”

“It’s real?!” you both said, in unison.

“You’re lookin’ at him, aren’t you?” He stopped to stand over you. “So, you want a picture or what?”

The attendant gestured for your phone; still flat on your ass, you reached into your pocket and handed it to him without a second thought. The surreal sequence of Maruki helping you to your feet right before handing you the line of the largest piscine body you’d ever seen in-person made you feel like you were dreaming.

As the attendant backed up to take the photo, Maruki shuffled off alongside him, distancing himself from you and keeping himself out of frame.

”Um…!” You tried not to sound too pathetic calling after him. “You—you can be in the picture, if you want…!”

“No, I--I couldn't, you worked so hard—”

“But I couldn't have done this without you—”

“This is your moment, not mine—”

The fishing attendant shot him a glare. “Son, just get in the damn picture.”

“Y--yes, sir…!”

Empty net in-hand, Maruki sheepishly made his way back over to stand near you, still looking uncertain of the fact he should be there at all.

“What are you, allergic to each other?” the older man scowled. “Get in closer.”

Startled into action, he shuffled up close and slid an arm around your shoulders. You slid one around his waist in return.

“That’s better. Say cheese.”

He squeezed his arm around you just a little tighter, and you swore after this you could take on the world.

-

The Ichigaya Guardian was the rarest catch on the points board, enough to meet your goal and then some.

The Fish God’s Badge was yours; however, as you walked Maruki back to the bike lot a short ways away, it wasn’t the badge you were fixated by.

The photo on your phone wasn’t perfect by any means, but for some reason, that didn’t bother you, this time—you couldn’t remember the last time you saw yourself smiling that much, let alone the last time you had a picture taken of you at all. You’d never had a photograph you had the urge to frame before, but you could see this one so clearly on your table, right next to the aquarium. You could even display the badge right by it.

“Are you heading to the train after this?”

Maruki’s voice snapped you out of your daydream, and you looked up from your phone as you watched him retrieve his bike. “Probably, yeah. Why?”

“It's not raining that much, yet.” He tilted his head, nodding to the empty luggage tray on the back of his bike. “If you wanna hop on, I can take you to the next station.”

You laughed in disbelief. “What are we, high-schoolers?”

“Come on—just a short one, to celebrate. I know a really good path we could take!”

More of your concern rose to the surface as you realized he was being serious. “I don’t want us getting fined…”

“Oh?” he smirked. “What happened to ‘it’s only illegal if we get caught’?”

The playful throwing of your own words against you triggered a reaction of stubborn provocation, a defiant spark that showed in your eyes as he grinned at you a little wider.

-

Maintaining a death grip on the sides of the metal carrier under you, you suddenly became hyper-aware of every single thing on your person that put your balance in jeopardy—the homemade cookies rattling around in a half-full container inside your bag, the too-big umbrella hooked around your wrist—and it was little more than determination and raw fear of embarrassment that kept you from falling off.

Maruki hadn’t been lying about knowing his way around. He maneuvered from path to path, slow and strategic—weaving between alleyways, behind buildings, checking his surroundings and keeping away from the eyes of any peace officers who’d be thrilled to write you a ticket or three for double-riding. It was clear this wasn’t the first time he’d done something like this. The thought of it intrigued you.

After several minutes of stop-and-go, you eventually hit a quiet stretch of stonework road behind some older residential buildings, tucked away from the rest of the world, and the clicking of the bicycle wheels smoothed out as you began to coast.

Trees and bushes lined the path to one side; beyond that, lined further still with steel fencing walling off the lazy river below. The sudden calm gave you a victory rush, like you’d gotten away with something.

Like you’d won.

You pulled the fishing badge from your pocket and held it high up in front of you, the overcast grey sky a backdrop for your grand prize.

That’s when it started raining.

When it became clear there was no riding out the rainfall, he stopped at the nearest overhead he could find, the both of you laughing as you half-struggled to get your umbrellas open, scrambling for cover at the mercy of a dusk storm.

(When was the last time you felt this happy?)

Your shared levity quieted as you continued waiting out the downpour. Knowing you’d be here a while, you dug into your bag and brought out the remainder of your cookies to share.

The two of you took some time to examine the prize you’d earned more closely. The Fish God’s badge was a sizeable enamel pin, slightly smaller than your palm. This year’s design featured a carp breaching the water of one of the pools, with rows of cherry blossom trees and iconic yellow crates rendered in loving detail in the background, the entire scene crested along the bottom with the name of the facility.

The way you watched him marvel at it gave you an idea.

“This is yours just as much as it is mine,” you started, placing it square into his palm, “so we should probably split custody.”

“What?” he reeled. “N--no, I couldn’t, not after all you—”

“I’m not giving it to you,” you clarified. “Just give it back the next time we see each other. We’ll take turns.” You grinned, holding a cookie between your teeth. “A reminder about your summer not being a total waste of time.”

“I…don’t want you to remember it that way. I mean, that wasn’t…” He trailed off as he continued staring down at it in his hand, pondering through its reflection. “When you asked why I was taking this so seriously…I think I mentioned there were two reasons, right?”

Glancing up for him to continue, you were suddenly reminded how tall he felt when you stood next to him, like this. You noticed the ends of his hair were curling.

“When you told me you wanted this badge, you looked at me the same way you did back at the izakaya, when you asked to go to the stadium. A--ah, that is to say…” He breathed a laugh as he turned towards you. “When you look at me like that and tell me you want something, it’s like every part of me wants to make sure you get it.”

Your hand slid into your pocket as you remembered Kawakami mentioning how obvious you’d been.

You wondered if this torture of his was more or less cruel if he knew.

Click. Click. Click.

Maruki let out another soft, nervous laugh to interrupt the silence, slipping the badge into his pocket before patting himself down, searching for something. His hands were shaking.

Finding the pocket he was looking for, he reached in and pulled out a single cigarette. “Do you mind if I…?”

You were colluding on something destructive—your enabling of his vice, conspiratorial—but you wanted to provide him comfort more than you wanted to stop him.

The fire from your lighter danced off the reflection of his glasses, and you found reassurance in his surprise. The soft glow revealed his dress shirt had been soaked through, and you could see his skin beneath the fabric. He covered your flame from the elements, cupping his hand around yours, no longer trembling once it found you for anchor.

He leaned towards you, his glasses slipping as he held your gaze from above his lenses.

You light his cigarette.

And he smiles at you like he means it.

Chapter Text

[Friday, 09/02]

The start of second term came with yet another pendulum swing of public opinion about the Phantom Thieves. Between their most recent triumphs over some rogue hacker group, and the Prime Minister himself issuing a statement acknowledging their existence, the mysterious squad of vigilantes had risen from the ashes and returned to everyone’s good graces, more popular than ever.

You kept the branded lighter in your pocket, for good measure.

Recently, the transit crowds had been buzzing about some official fansite, a forum where the next target of the Phantom Thieves could be nominated and voted on by the public. The chatter itself was nothing new—what was new, however, was the name of your school at the edge of everyone’s lips.

“Did you see the news?”

“Those poor kids...”

“What is going on at Shujin?”

Morbid curiosity took over, and you pulled out your phone to search for the forum online.

“Oh,” you realized. “It’s literally just called the Phan-Site.”

The Phan-Site sported an ominous colour scheme of the Thieves’ signature red and black and white, complete with their now-infamous logo emblazoned across the header of the page. A poll was being featured, displaying a live feed of anonymous comments beneath it.

Are the Phantom Thieves just?

Apparently, 66% of the public thought so.

The user-submitted nominations for the next change of heart had pages upon pages of names filling the screen, from politicians across the spectrum, to famous CEOs, to popular movie stars and celebrities. No one was sacred. (You even spotted the Pope on there.)

“The administration knew the entire time—”

“—massive coverup—”

“—entire faculty needs a change of heart, if you ask me.”

With one hand around the lighter in your pocket, you used the other to tap the search bar and enter your name.

Sure enough, there you were, sandwiched between the rest of the Shujin teachers. You could tell someone had hastily copy and pasted the entire faculty list from the school website—not only because Maruki’s name was absent, but also because Ushimaru’s was listed near the bottom as “Ushimaru[BACK”. Compared to the hundreds of other nominations, the Shujin entries didn’t have a lot of upvotes. That made you feel a little better, at least.

After a quick glance over either shoulder, you tucked your phone closer to your chest and looked at the comments left under your name.

Anon: is this the school nurse?
Anon: I don’t see the nurse around a lot.
Anon: bc no one at shujin does their jobs LMAO
Anon: No way even the nurse was in on it ?
Anon: ★★★★☆ - let me nap in the office once
Anon: The nurse gets sent to a lot of sports meets. source: me, I’m at sports meets
Anon: im at tthe comvbinatuion kfc and sportsmeets
Anon: I’d sport my meat for the school nurse~ [USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST]
Anon: can’t trust anyone at that school after what happened. purge them all
Anon: Who do you think kept bandaging people up after kamoshitface was done with them? No way the nurse didn’t know.
Anon: i didnt think about it like that...
Anon: WOW your right
Anon: tbh you’d have to be a complete idiot to think the whole faculty wasn’t in on it at this point
Anon: How in the hell could you see stuff like that happening AND NOT SAY ANYTHING
Anon: k but the nurse and the milfy teacher get passes for being hot
Anon: we have a nurse???

The train car jostled on a turn, snapping you out of your spiral as you tried to keep your balance.

“—claims he didn’t know, but the article said otherwise—”

“—should step down immediately, no question—”

You quickly scrolled higher, higher, higher.

There, soaring through the ranks with every new vote, was Kobayakawa’s name.

Kawakami: Jeez, that faculty meeting was an earful.
Kawakami: Did we just happen to pick the worst school in Tokyo, or what?
You: I still can’t believe Kamoshida actually admitted to all that.
You: Changes of heart sure are scary...
Kawakami: He’s been gone for months, how does he still manage to be a pain in everyone’s neck?
Kawakami: I’ve already had a ton of students asking if I was part of the cover-up. It’s barely eight o’clock!
You: I feel like Ushimaru-sensei’s going to be throwing a lot of chalk today.
You: No one’s said anything to me yet, but I feel like I’ve been getting glared at.
Kawakami: I’m REALLY not looking forward to having officers on-campus, again...
You: I don’t know what they’re hoping to find by questioning all the senior faculty over again. Seems like It’s all for show.
Kawakami: And right in the middle of the big school trip, too...
You: Are you going to have to stay behind with the others?
Kawakami: No way!!
Kawakami: I’ve been a good, low-maintenance girl ALL YEAR. The principal knows I’d raise hell before I miss a free trip to Hawaii.
You: I never get to go on those anyway, lol.
Kawakami: Well, Takuto-san’s on-call starting today.
Kawakami: Maybe you can spend some quality time together. ;)

The door to the health room slid open with an all-too-familiar, “Tadaima!”

You nearly drop your phone.

-
[09/06]

Tensions caused by the recent exposé eased as the week went on. You spent the time keeping your head down and your mouth shut, regardless of incredulous glances or the whispers in your wake.

Since yesterday, you’d been going from class to class, giving your first lectures of the term to the second-years. Maybe it was the weary aura you were radiating, or the guarded way you carried yourself through the halls—whatever it was, the students had kept their distance, so far. In spite of how much you steeled yourself in preparation, no one asked you about the accusations.

You arrived early outside Classroom 2-D. A glance at the students seated inside reminded you that Ren was in this class, as was Mishima, the latter almost unrecognizable since his time under Kamoshida’s reign. It had been months since you’d last seen him in your office—but as always, for you, not being needed was a good sign.

Coincidentally, you were just in time to catch the end of Maruki’s lecture.

“Do you know the name of that phenomenon where the second hand looks like it’s stopped moving?”

“Chronostasis.”

“Yeah! That’s correct. When a person changes their viewpoint, there’s a moment of time that goes unaccounted for in their mind. In order to fill that blank, the brain experiences a fictional moment. That’s where this phenomenon comes from. The human brain really is incredible, right? It can make you feel like time has stopped.”

Watching how naturally Maruki took to teaching was always a sight to behold. No matter what he spoke about, his audience was always enraptured to listen.

(Yourself included, you supposed.)

During the short break between your lecture and his, Maruki left the classroom and stopped in his tracks on his way out; his soft eyes lit up when he spotted you, and it filled your chest with that sleepy warmth that only blossomed when he was around.

“Heya!” he beamed. “Here to teach the kids the wonders of travelling overseas?”

“Nothing that exciting,” you smiled back. “Just reminding them about vaccinations, food allergies, wearing sunscreen—that sort of thing.”

“Well, the crowd’s all warmed up for you! Good luck. Oh—and make sure to tell them sunblock goes on their ears, too. Had to learn that one the hard way...” He raised his hand for a half-wave goodbye, making his way back down the hall. “See you at the office!”

You waved back, trying and failing not to imagine him with lobster-red, sunburned ears. “See you.”

Eventually, it was your turn to step inside the classroom. You tried in vain not to falter.

As soon as you slid the door open, all the positive energy Maruki had left behind escaped through the doorway like a spaceship with a hull breach.

The cold reception wasn’t entirely unexpected, of course. Your health lectures were structured to frighten students into taking your advice, often by featuring graphic images and descriptions of all the misfortune that could befall them if they didn’t. (The photos you displayed during your ‘Safe Driving’ series netted you a record amount of complaints.)

Coming off the heels of the school exposé, however, the atmosphere was strained with a new, unspoken weight.

This was your penultimate lecture for the second-years—with any luck, it would be as quick and painless as the ones that came before.

Then again, you were never the lucky type.

Before you reached the lectern, a student in the far corner raised his hand.

You glanced over. “Yes?”

“Sensei,” he started, uncertain. “Were...you part of the cover-up, too?”

Scoffing, the dark-haired young woman sitting next to him rolled her eyes. “That was like a week ago, no one cares anymore.”

“Yeah, but all the other teachers have said something by now.”

“What does it matter?” another young man nearby chimed in. “It’s gonna be the same answer everyone else had.”

You nodded up in his direction. “And what answer’s that?”

“That you had no idea,” he sneered, wrinkling his nose, “even though everyone knows that’s a lie.”

The classroom fell quiet with anticipation for your response, the chirps of cicada calls filling the otherwise silent summer air. All eyes were on you, now—save for Mishima, his line of sight fixed firmly to the floor, eyes widening in the early signs of a fraught expression you knew all too well.

Because Kamoshida’s scandal was an ongoing investigation, you weren’t authorized to make any comments outside of dismissiveness or outright denial, a fact you were thoroughly advised on during last week’s faculty meeting. You were warned of the possibility of reporters trailing behind the officers on-campus—the reputation of the Academy was already in shambles without some thoughtless, out-of-context quote being twisted around and sensationalized for the public.

For a moment, you remembered the comments left under your name on the Phan-Site. No matter what, attempting to provide any context or justification for your involvement would only come off as an excuse, and those who were determined to think the worst of you would continue to do so without reprieve. But this...this wasn’t the idle gossip of strangers. These weren’t just some words in a newspaper, or anonymous comments behind a screen.

These were the people who were just as involved as you were, facing you. Asking you.

What else could you do?

“...I was part of it, yes.”

A wave of hushed tones swept across the classroom.

“Wait, what?”

“Admitting it just like that?”

”Is that allowed?”

“Kamoshida’s physical abuse of the Volleyball team was the extent of what I knew,” you clarified. Your heart galloped laps around the inner track of your ribcage. “Being silent means being complicit. So yes, I was part of the cover-up.”

The sneering boy from before continued staring at you, bewildered. “Why didn’t you do anything about it, then?”

“I tried.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Not hard enough...”

“What does that mean?”

“Maybe there’s an NDA?”

“Were the cops called?”

“Someone’s getting fired...”

“So what stopped you?” asked a wide-eyed girl from the second row, leaning into her desk with her arms folded. “Was the article right—was it the principal? Or someone even higher up?”

You realized that, as the first faculty member who tried speaking to them candidly, you had their full, undivided attention. It would’ve been so much easier to pass the blame—doubly so, as it also happened to be the truth. However, as flimsy and misguided as it may have been, you wanted to set an example. You wanted to be honest, to be better, even if you didn’t know where this road would lead or how much it would end up costing you.

“None of that matters,” you decided. “At the end of the day, I made a choice—a bad one—because I was scared. I...tried to make up for it by being ready for the next time, for the ‘right time,’ but...I should’ve taken the chance while I had it. Before he could hurt more people. I was wrong. And I’m...so, so sorry.”

Your hands were shaking, now. The absence of cold metal between your fingers was palpable.

“Why so honest all of a sudden...”

“Did the Phantom Thieves do this?”

“Only if there’s a suicide threat—wait for it...”

“Waiting for ‘the right time’? We’re supposed to believe that?”

“That makes no sense.”

“Is that supposed to make it sound any better?”

“Yeah, I don’t buy it...”

“It’s true,” snapped a voice from the front of the class, loud and steady.

For the first time since you entered the room, Mishima looked up at you, hunched at his desk and gripping the sides of his chair. A shadow of the anxious, tyrannized boy still lived beneath his skin, haunting the foundation he was trying to rebuild with his own two hands; the skeleton framework had strengthened his posture, and steadied his voice since you last heard him speak.

“I--I remember Sensei being there when it started getting bad,” he continued, pushing through the way his voice cracked. “Kamoshida...he never did anything to us when you showed up to practice. Then, he got you in trouble for watching, and...you weren’t allowed courtside, anymore. I remember how much worse things got after you stopped coming.” He took a moment to gather himself. “Sensei’s office was the only place I could go. When I visited, you asked me questions. You wrote everything down. It helped. I--it helped me remember everything that happened to me was...real.”

“Mishima went to the nurse’s office more than anyone...”

“Kamoshida got the nurse in trouble for watching?”

“So it really was the principal, after all...”

“I’m never making that mistake again,” you said firmly, turning back to address the rest of the class. “I don’t expect to win back your trust, but I’ll spend the rest of my days at this school trying to earn it. If someone’s hurting you, you can tell me—and I’ll fight for you the way I should’ve from the start. I’m on your side. I promise. I promise I’ve always been here.”

“I’m sorry,” you repeated, low enough for only him to hear.

Mishima winced at your apology—a stinging antiseptic to a still-healing wound.

The classroom lapsed into silence, again.

When you turned to begin writing on the chalkboard, there were no more whispers behind you.

The calls of cicadas filled the air.

-

“Tadaima.”

“Okaeri.” Sitting on his usual chair, Maruki looked up from his laptop to greet you, offering a smile that flickered once he saw the look on your face. The way you beelined across the room to kneel at the mini-fridge didn’t help. “Rough class?”

“You could say that,” you sighed, grabbing a pudding cup from the shelf. You stood up and nudged the fridge door closed with your foot. “How do I get them to like my classes as much as they like yours?”

“Oh, I don’t do anything special, I just plan lessons around the most interesting concepts I still remember from intro psychology. Learning’s always easier when it’s fun.”

You tore the seal from your dessert like you were ripping off a bandaid. “You’re gonna have to teach me how you do that.”

He laughed nervously. “Not trying to scare the pants off your students would be a good start...”

“...so you’re saying I shouldn’t have shown them what advanced basal cell carcinoma looks like to get them to wear sunscreen?”

“Yeah...no...”

“Well, failed step one.” You stabbed your tiny plastic spoon straight into the cup. “Guess I’ll keep it in mind for next year.”

“Ah! Before I forget...” Maruki dug into the pocket of his lab coat and pulled out the fishing badge, wiggling the shiny enamel pin in the air before placing it on the table in front of him. “You’ve got custody, today! How’s the little guy doing? Have you picked out a name for him yet?”

“Mm, not yet,” you mumbled around your spoon. “To be honest, I’m tempted to just name him after you and be done with it.”

“Aw, I wasn’t expecting to be a father so soon!”

A mini-spoonful of pudding got caught in your windpipe and you strongly considered the possibility of never eating in his presence again.

“Well, then.” He put his laptop away before getting to his feet. “Now that you’re back, I’m gonna go grab lunch. I’ll be sure to send you a pic—remember to have some real food, today, okay?”

“Wait, why did you need to wait for me to come back before heading for lunch?”

“Oh, Sakamoto-kun said he was feeling really nauseous about his flight tomorrow, so I let him rest in one of the beds.” On his way out, he gestured towards one of the pink curtains at the rear of the office, which you only now noticed had been conspicuously drawn shut. “Figured I shouldn’t leave him alone.”

You watched Maruki slide the door closed behind him; before your sinking heart even had the chance to settle at the bottom, you heard the telltale metallic jostle of a curtain being pulled open on its rings.

“Soooooooo,” Ryuji smiled, wider than ever, “‘don’t believe everything you hear,’ huh?”

(He wore that annoying grin a lot, these days. It looked good on him.)

You cast him a sidelong glance. “‘Nauseous about your flight,’ huh?”

“Yeah, man—I’m terrified!” He sprang up from the rest bed, hopping to his feet. “Can’t you tell?”

You watched Ryuji pass you by to snatch a pudding from the still-unlocked mini-fridge. The events from earlier that morning had you noticing his altered gait more than you normally would.

Taking his dessert across the room, he sprawled lazily across one of the loveseats. “So, you guys hold hands yet? Sneak in a little smoochy-smoochy when no one’s around? Hang on—you guys don’t make out here, do you? C’mon, doc, I get therapized on this couch—”

“Enough,” you snapped. You already felt a headache coming on. “I told you, we’re not together.”

Using the armrest as a pillow, he adjusted his neck to get a better look at you. “Wait, for real? Then what’s with all the ‘welcome home’ stuff and you namin’ his kid??”

“It’s a fish!” you sputtered out. “We went fishing over the summer, I—”

“What the hell?!” Mini-spoon sticking out of his mouth, he scrambled to right himself, snatching the enamel pin off the table. “Is this—no way, this season’s Fish God’s Badge??”

“Yeah, we...” Why was admitting this making you more flustered than anything else? “It was a joint effort. Him and I.”

“Man...” Ryuji held the badge up between his fingers, watching the light reflect across its polished surface. “I didn’t even know you liked fishing.”

“I only picked it up over the summer. Oh—!” You pulled out your phone, claiming the opposite chair to lean over and show him a picture. “We caught the Ichigaya Guardian, too.”

“Holy SHIT, who even are you?!”

“Language. How was your vacation?”

He shrugged, laying back down and digging further into his pudding. “Kept pretty busy. Gang and I did a lotta travelling over the summer.”

“Really? Where to?”

“Uh...” He hesitated. “Just. Y’know...hiking and stuff. Look, doc—I’m not the one who plans any of this crap, I just go wherever they tell me.”

He was hiding something, surely—it wasn’t your place to pry, nor was it any of your business, but... “Sakamoto-kun?”

”Yeah?”

”You’d tell me if you were in trouble, right?”

”Uh...yeah, I guess? Where’d that come from?”

Ironically, the fact he hadn’t gotten more dodgy about it gave you confidence he was doing just fine. “Just thinking out loud.”

”I mean, I do owe Ann, like, 500 yen, but...” He tilted the cup up and shoveled some pudding into his mouth. “Y’said you got a fish to name, or something?”

“Yeah, from the Fishing Center. I...wasn’t really expecting to take it home?” You pulled up another picture on your phone. “This is him. I’ve been so busy learning how to take care of him properly I haven’t settled on a name.”

“Woah, he’s so friggin’ tiny...” Ryuji squinted at your screen. “Does he really need all that space?”

“Yes,” you said, deathly serious.

“Alright, you’re the fish wizard...hey, uh, if you’re still lookin’ for a name, what about Skull?”

“Skull? I had a hard enough time keeping him alive in the first place, are you trying to jinx me?”

“No no no—it’s a cool name, trust me! Okay, okay, what about...Captain Kidd?”

“Like the pirate...?”

“Yeah!”

“I don’t know...” You did a double-take. “Wait, shouldn’t you be preparing for your trip?”

Mouth full of pudding, Ryuji shrugged. “I don’t gotta pack much. We’re only there for four nights.”

“Four nights away from Amamiya-san’s annoying cat,” you pointed out.

“Yeah,” he sighed, dreamily. “You ever been?”

“To Hawaii?” You shook your head. “Gotta stay here and keep the ship running. I’d love to visit one day, though. I’m counting on you to tell me all the best spots.”

“You got it! Maybe I’ll even bring the Captain back something cool...” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.

“...are you trying to buy the name of my fish?”

“I mean, you can’t name it after the Doc, right? Might as well write a whole confession on your forehead.”

“I’m not—”

“Okay, okay—like I care about what you old people do, whatever.” Ryuji scoffed. “What’re you so scared of, anyway?”

You took a breath and opened your mouth to speak, but the lack of energy left in you made all the words die in your throat. Maybe it was the lingering emotional fatigue from that morning. Maybe it was about wanting to set a good example to a student by being honest. But somehow, suddenly, you found yourself left with no urge to fight against it.

“Losing my friend,” you said, simply. “I’m scared of losing my friend.”

The teasing smirk vanished from his face.

“Oh,” he said, dumbfounded. “Shuttin’ you down would be stupid, though. Doc’s a goober but I don’t think he’s that dumb.”

“Right,” you laughed.

You hoped to one day have a fraction of the unbridled confidence with which he saw the world.

The way he looked at you shifted a few degrees; the expression in his eyes wasn’t pity or concern, but one of some vague observation even he couldn’t quite put his finger on. “...y’know, doc, you really have changed.”

You raised an eyebrow at him. “Is that a compliment?”

“I dunno. Maybe?” Setting his empty pudding cup on the table, Ryuji pulled himself up off the couch in front of you. “Anyway...I gotta go pack. You guys have fun feelin’ each other up while we’re all gone.”

“Don’t have time for that,” you called after him. “I gotta get home and feed the Captain.”

Ryuji flashed you a lopsided smile before leaving.

-
[09/09]

The second years’ school trip hadn’t left Shujin as peaceful as Kawakami had teasingly hoped. Quiet as it was, the now-emptier halls of the school left its walls feeling more oppressive than ever. The police interrogation taking place over the duration of the annual trip was meant for senior faculty, but as your name was already on the record, you were shortlisted alongside the others.

The questioning at the precinct ended up being more tedious, than anything. They went over your filed statement line-by-line, alongside page after page of the medical reports you’d accumulated during your time at Shujin—every student injury that you believed could be attributed to Kamoshida’s abuse. Out of clear interest in the concerns raised by the news article, they had a few new inquiries about how much your peers would have known at the time, but you were forthright about your distrust causing a disconnect between you and the rest of the faculty during your tenure.

You were an island all your own, and for once, it worked in your favour.

Even when they pressed about Kobayakawa specifically, all you had to do was point out the dates on every copy of every report you ever filed his way. It became more and more distressing, looking back on it—all the time you took following the red tape to voice your concerns, knowing full well every page you left at his desk was destined for the shredding machine beneath it.

“He probably thought you were just filing these to cover yourself,” mused the junior officer.

You raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you think?”

“Of course not,” the senior officer said, reassuring you. “Only suggesting any possible reason Kobayakawa-san may have had for ignoring—”

“What makes you think I’m interested in his reasoning?”

They were more careful with their words after that.

With the afternoon behind you, you left the precinct weary and emotionally drained. A quick check of your phone showed it was nearing the end of the day, which gave you some hope you’d be able to head home, until you read your missed texts and had your hopes dashed entirely.

Maruki: Sorry to bug you like this, I’m sure you’ve had a long day.
Maruki: Kobayakawa-san asked to see you in his office after you get back.

Of course he did.

-

You held your hands behind your back as you stood in front of the principal’s desk. Kobayakawa was seated behind it, patting sweat from his brow with a handkerchief.

Everything in the office felt so much smaller than it did the last time you were here.

Not only had Kobayakawa asked for you through Maruki instead of messaging you directly, embarrassing you in front of someone he knew you respected, but being told to “see him in his office” came with enough deliberately planted condescension to make your blood simmer.

“So,” Kobayakawa finally began, looking you in the eye, “how did the questioning go?”

“Fine, sir. Just retreaded old ground. Nothing new.”

(Did he go through this with any of the other teachers? Probably not.)

He went silent again, fiddling with some sort of paperwork on his desk. You were trying not to let your growing aggravation sprout through the cracks of your resolve. The fatigue of reporting to authority figures had already worn your patience paper-thin, but showing any signs of it felt too much like losing.

“I’ve heard some concerning things,” he started again, “about one of your lectures earlier this week.”

So that’s what this was about. “What kind of things, sir?”

“Things outside of the scope discussed during the faculty meeting. Things that could be considered divulge the details of an ongoing investigation. Things these children have no right knowing about.”

“I didn’t speak on the investigation, sir. Only myself.”

“Don’t play dumb with me,” he snapped. “Regardless of how you may have tiptoed around your wording, you knew very well what you were implying. Did you really think your little outburst would earn you brownie points with the student body?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I discovered something interesting recently,” he continued, ignoring you. “Something very interesting, indeed. Shortly before you signed off on the incident statement for Sakamoto-san’s violent attack on Kamoshida-kun, the police station had a record of your visitation, but nothing at all about a filed report. Isn’t that curious?”

You felt your breath catch in your throat.

There were only two ways Kobayakawa could’ve known about that. The first was Maruki having shared your story with him. Maruki could sometimes play a little fast and loose with patient confidentiality when too engrossed in conversation, but something like this? Couldn’t have been him—unless it was deliberate, and the harrowing prospect of his entire personality being an act just to lull you into a false sense of security crossed your mind. But he wouldn’t do that. You weren’t that important, to go through all these hoops and layers of deception for some obscure sequence of events that didn’t do any real harm other than painting you as a coward...

Which left only one, much more feasible, much more terrifying possibility: Kobayakawa had direct contacts within the police force.

You could already feel yourself spiraling, in spite of how much you were trying to keep yourself under control.

(How many of them were in on it?)

(Was that why none of your internal complaints ever went anywhere?)

(Was that why that one officer dissuaded you in the first place?)

“Well?” Kobayakawa smirked. “ Care to explain yourself?”

The overarching implications went far beyond the scope of this specific conversation. If Kobayakawa already knew everything, that meant he was simply retreading old ground for you. Nothing new. Nothing to be worried about. Not here. Not right now.

“I thought I could do more good being at the school,” you replied, “than being let go for causing trouble.”

“And you just happened to realize this partway through? After you made it all the way to the police station?”

“The officer I spoke to convinced me out of it.”

“I see.”

With another heavy sigh, Kobayakawa reached to pat his folded handkerchief against himself, tapping away the sweat beading on his head and brow. Satisfied with the results of his reprimand, he suddenly seemed contemplative; he was no longer looking at you, but through you, as if your presence was secondary to something else at the forefront of his mind.

“The only reason I’m bringing this up,” he began, “is because I need your advice.”

“...sir?”

“Considering everything that’s unfolded—with Kamoshida-kun, with Suzui-san—I’d like to know if you regret not filing that report.”

Alarms were blaring in your head. This still felt like some kind of trap—something to trick you into some sort of admission. “I don’t understand how that’s related to—”

“Let me rephrase, then: you could have stepped in at any time.”

The implication made your head spin. “E--excuse me?”

“You had the opportunity to stop it with that police report, or any police report thereafter—and yet, you didn’t. Do you regret it?”

Your stomach turned hard enough to blur the edges of your vision. Acid rose at the back of your throat and you don’t know what sickened you more—the diffusion of responsibility, or the earnest way he was posing the question, looking down at you while daring to pretend you were on even ground. Like he believed everything he was saying. Like that one officer did.

“I don’t know what your angle here is,” you said, keeping your voice low. “What happened was due to your negligence and your negligence alone.”

“It was a simple question,” he said, his innocent laughter coming out hollow. “Now, I think we can agree that we all played a part in—”

“Bullshit.”

“Watch your tone,” he snapped. “Have you forgotten who you’re speaking to?”

“If you wanted to stop it, you wouldn’t have gotten in my way every single time I tried.” You felt your fists clenching, now. “You stopped me from supervising the volleyball meets. You ignored my requests for a school counsellor. You never bothered to read a single report—”

“And I suppose I made you write that statement about Sakamoto, too? Forced you to sign it, did I?”

“Stopping him was your job.”

“And seeing the problem before it got worse was yours.”

“Before it got worse?” you spat. Your every nerve was flaring with a raging confidence you hadn’t realized was in you. “So, what—we have a tolerance margin on abuse, now? It’s fine as long as it doesn’t get too bad? Is that what you told Kamoshida? Don’t leave too many bruises? Don’t assault too many girls—”

Kobayakawa slammed his palms against his desk, sending a pen cup tumbling to the floor. “The mental health of this entire student body was deteriorating right under your nose because you couldn’t bother to see the signs!”

“If you really believe that, then why am I still here??”

“I have been asking myself the same question,” he snarled. “Dr. Maruki has made it crystal clear what healthy, well-attended students look like. Perhaps it’s finally time to replace you with someone these kids are actually interested in talking to.”

“Hope you can find someone else stupid enough to take up this position pretty quick, then,” you said, turning heel and storming out. “Soon enough, you won’t have a counsellor or a nurse to use as scapegoats for this sorry excuse of an administration.”

“There’s a key difference between the two of you you’re missing,” he called after you.

“Yeah, what might that be?”

“When you’ve been replaced, there’s not a soul here who will miss you.”

“Be sure to put ‘good at being missed’ in the job description, next time,” you said, halfway out the door. “Would’ve saved us both some trouble.”

-

That was it. It was over.

You were going to lose your job.

Muscle memory alone managed to auto-pilot you through your daze, navigating a familiar path through the empty school halls and back to the health room. You slid the door to your office open with some difficulty; your arms felt so heavy.

“...okaeri.”

You didn’t think he’d still be here.

The way he seemed to have been idling on his own just for a chance to talk to you before you headed home, the way he approached you with no small measure of concern, as if he was readying himself to catch you if you collapsed—your heart couldn’t take this, too. Not right now.

“What happened?” he asked, far too gently.

There was the very real possibility you would be gone before his tenure was up.

How were you going to explain that?

“...it’s been a very long day, Maruki-sensei.”

You could see his thoughts racing behind his eyes as he scrambled for control, searching for a way to help with a problem he hadn’t the first clue about.

“...wanna grab a drink?”

The thoughts of it being inappropriate—having been spotted in public by your coworkers, having false rumors spread about you as a result—you couldn’t even pretend any of that mattered.

When you finally looked at him, his eyes were pleading with you to accept the only thing he could offer.

What else could you do?

Chapter Text

The Odaiba bar was even busier this time around—considering the two of you were visiting after work on a Friday afternoon, however, it couldn’t be helped.

Although it hadn’t been long since your first trip to the izakaya, the fact that everything looked the same as it did back then still managed to strike you as surreal. From the same young hostess who seated you, to the same warm fluorescence of the overhead lights, the familiarity felt like revisiting a crime scene—an old snapshot preceding an evening of half-drunken melancholy.

As horrible as your day might’ve been, you were determined not to let history repeat itself.

Maruki seemed to share the same goal.

After hanging up your school-issued lab coats and changing into your outdoor shoes, he whisked you away to the train station with no indication of where you were headed, half-joking that he promised to behave himself, this time. He went on to talk about anything and everything to keep the atmosphere light: last night’s variety shows, recent news about the Phantom Thieves, random discussions sparked by things you saw out the train window along the way. The less you spoke, the more he pushed to fill the silence.

Even now, sitting across from you in the restaurant booth—with his checkered tie and his baby blue shirt and his sleeves folded up to his elbows—he’d been going on and on about some new recipe he’d tried earlier that week.

You couldn’t focus on a single word.

The meeting with Kobayakawa, during which you’d been effectively fired, was looping in your mind on infinite replay, spliced between scenes from your earlier questioning down at the police station. The principal’s relationship with the officers there meant his cover-up for Kamoshida went far deeper than you could’ve imagined, and you were still trying to wrap your head around the broader implications. The series of events would’ve given even the biggest conspiracy theorist a run for their money.

(Was that why Kobayakawa showed his hand to you so readily? Because no one would’ve believed you?)

Whenever you did try to force your attention back on Maruki, his enthusiastic conversation only reminded of your morning chats on the rooftop; your train of thought shifted with anticipatory grief, wondering if you’d get to do that with him again before you were let go.

Drinking helped slow your racing thoughts, but didn’t do much to lessen the fog. Wrangling your anxiety about things you couldn’t talk about, trying to focus on the one person who cared about you enough to try cheering you up, all while feigning interest in whatever topic he was trying to engage you with—it was overstimulating, to say the least. Still, being in his company felt better than being alone.

More than anything, you didn’t want to be alone.

It took a few beers for Maruki to finally realize he was fighting a losing battle.

“I’m talking too much, aren’t I?” His brows knitted together in earnest, and the smile he’d been offering lost a bit of its shine. “I’m sorry...whenever something was on Rumi’s mind, I’d usually be her sounding board. I--I guess I’m not used to the quiet.”

The suffocating haze thinned out, just a little. “Does silence make you uncomfortable?”

“Only when someone I care about is upset.” Maruki shifted in his seat as he readjusted his approach. “I know you’re not up to discussing what happened, so I thought talking about anything else might help get your mind off things...”

“Being with you is enough.”

The thought slipped aloud before you could stop it. The soft look of surprise he gave you was enough to make you regret the words, but not enough to make you take them back.

“Is that so?” he chuckled. “I really need to learn when to stop talking, then.”

You snorted. It was the first smile he’d seen on you all afternoon, and the relief in his eyes made your chest sting.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” you lied. “Just got in trouble over something I said in class. Hasn’t been the first time, but dealing with that after going over Kamoshida for hours and hours...” You heaved a performative sigh before finishing off your beer. “Just a long day. That’s all.”

“That...sounds incredibly stressful.” The way his gaze lingered on you made his suspicion obvious. He poured you a glass of water, deciding not to push. “When Kobayakawa-san asked me to text you, I suggested changing the meeting to tomorrow because I knew you’d be exhausted...instead, he just laughed and said something about ‘the rumors being true,’ then told me to send the text, anyway.”

You downed the water, debating whether or not to follow-up with that.

You made sure to open another beer before you did.

“...have you heard about those rumors, then?”

He tilted his head. “Which ones?”

“Kawakami-sensei says the entire faculty thinks we’re...” You gestured around with your bottle, unable to bring yourself to say it out loud. “Y’know.”

“Oh...oh!” Maruki straightened up in his seat, looking scandalized. “Is that a real rumor?? I thought the guys were just teasing me...”

“Apparently, Chuono-sensei caught us leaving this place the last time we were here.” Your dismissive laughter came out sounding frightened. “Crazy, right?”

“Well...they’re just rumors, after all. As the school nurse, you must be used to them by now.”

You shook your head, blinking at him slowly. “Excuse me...?”

“Wait, I didn’t mean—” He cut himself off, pulling his beer closer to himself. “What I meant was I’ve only been here a few months and I’ve already dealt with a ton of rumors—I imagine you’ve had your own fair share, too. The only way to kill them is to starve them of attention.”

“Easy for you to say,” you sneered. “You won’t have to deal with them in two months.”

“That’s...true. I--if you need me to set the record straight, I can—”

“No, no...knowing how people talk at this school, that’d probably make it worse.” You sighed and made a hesitant, apprehensive noise, doing what you could to sell the lie of this being a difficult decision. “You’re right—ignoring them is probably for the best. If you’re sure they don’t bother you, either...?”

He shook his head. “As long as we know where we stand, what others think doesn’t really matter to me. Why would I be bothered?”

“I don’t know—maybe you want Chuono-sensei to know you’re single, or something.”

“...in that case, maybe you wouldn’t mind letting this rumor go on a little longer for my sake?” Maruki pressed his hands together, begging playfully. “Please?”

You laughed and he lit up at the sound. “I’ll be sure to tell Kawakami-sensei we’re in the clear.”

“I didn’t know you and Sadayo were talking!”

“Sadayo...? Oh, Kawakami-sens--Sadayo-san. Yeah.” You felt shy all of a sudden, admitting this out loud. Maybe it was because he had the tone of a proud parent asking about your new friend at school. “I ran into her at the Fishing Center over summer break and we got to talking. She was—is helping me write a letter to Suzui-san.”

“That’s great!” he said brightly. “She doesn’t like to admit it, but Sadayo cares a lot about her students. When I first arrived at Shujin, she invited me out so we could brainstorm my approach to Amamiya-kun. She was...a little concerned about him being in her class.”

“So she’s to blame for putting Amamiya-san in your sights...”

“I don’t know if I’d put it like that...” he laughed, sounding uneasy. “But, I think it’s wonderful you’re working together on something like this. Though I didn’t have the chance to speak with Suzui-san myself, I got to learn about her through some of the students I’ve had sessions with. She’s very well-respected among her peers.”

“She is,” you nodded. “I...didn’t know her very well, either. I guess that was part of the problem.”

“Even so, I think she’d be happy to hear from you. I imagine it would mean a lot to her.”

If I’m even around long enough to finish writing the damn thing, you thought dimly.

Maruki suddenly looked contemplative. “I have to admit, I didn’t think Sadayo much of a fisherman...”

“And she’s crazy good at it, too!” You released yet another big sigh of lament—the most honest one of yours so far. “I wonder if she’ll get to go fishing under the sun while she’s down there...”

“Do you think Hawaii’s one of the places you’d like to visit, one day?”

“Oh. Um.” You’d forgotten you told him that travelling was a goal of yours. You hadn’t given it much thought since. “Maybe? Sadayo-san’s sent me some pictures over the past couple of days, and the water looks amazing...god knows I could use a trip to the beach right about now.”

“Well...” Maruki chewed at the inside of his lip, drumming his fingers against the side of his bottle. “It might not be Hawaii, but I do know a place we can go.”

-

When you last left the izakaya, over a month ago, it was to prove a point. You followed his lead and all but stormed to the construction site, determined to either confront the outcome of his injustice with your own eyes, or prove you were being lied to.

You were slightly less intoxicated this time around, once again following him out the front doors.

You hadn’t realized how stuffy and overcrowded the bar was until you stepped outside and got a lungful of clear evening air. Poor sitting posture in the restaurant booth had your muscles aching, so you stretched out like an unfurling cat, sending blood rushing through your extremities and making you go a little light-headed. Before you could reorient yourself, you felt Maruki’s hand on your back, just below your neck, helping steer you in the direction he wanted to go.

“Just in case Chuono-san’s watching,” he teased.

“Right,” you mumbled back, still dizzied.

For the second time that evening, you weren’t sure where he was taking you. Regardless, because he was no longer so fixated on making you feel better, the relieved pressure helped you escape the fog he’d been trying to coax you out of all afternoon. You were keeping up with him in conversation again, walking by his side across straightaways and stairs until the park’s pavement became a boardwalk. Things almost felt normal, again.

But ignoring Damocles’s sword didn’t stop it from dangling—it only discouraged you from looking up.

By the time the wooden path beneath your feet gave way to the plush of sand, the full gravity of your situation had returned its weight to your shoulders.

Though hesitant, Maruki dared to test his luck, one last time. “...would you like to talk about what happened?”

He was asking, so politely, to be let in.

So, you rewound the film and hit play.

Walking along the manicured shoreline of Odaiba beach, you went over the day’s events with as much detail as you could remember, including the meeting with Kobayakawa, but short of your job being threatened. You spoke until your throat ran dry, until the sun touched the horizon and colour-shifted the sky, prompting the flicker of multicoloured lights to illuminate the Rainbow Bridge across Tokyo Bay.

In your now-thoroughly wrinkled work clothes, Maruki sat in the sand with his legs pulled up, while you stood beside him, throwing pebbles that weren’t from there into waters you couldn’t swim in. You’d untucked your dress shirt for a full range of movement. He’d already loosened his tie.

“And even after going through all that a second time,” you huffed, “they had the audacity to ask if I’d known Suzui-san or Takamaki-san to be ‘promiscuous.’ Leveraging my position as the school nurse to ask about their sexual history??”

“What does any of that have to do with what happened to them...?”

“Nothing!!” You threw one of the rocks into the water as hard as you could, propelling it past your previous record distance. “Absolutely nothing!”

“Unbelievable...”

“And—can you imagine—if they’re like this about a guy who confessed...?” You threw another pebble, this one too small to spot landing among the gently lapping waves. “How many kids—how many victims are out there, right now, staying quiet because this is the shit they have to deal with if they decide to ask for help? How many abusers are hiding in plain sight because, what—the Phantom Thieves haven’t brainwashed a confession out of them, yet?”

“I know the Thieves can’t help everyone, but...” Maruki’s expression intensified, his jaw setting as he continued looking out across the water. “I can’t imagine the pain of having to navigate something like this alone.”

“The entire system’s rotten,” you scowled, punctuating your point with a half-hearted toss of your last pebble. With a sad plunk, it fell short of all the ones that came before. “We never stood a chance.”

Having reached the end of your tirade, you glanced back down to see Maruki curled in on himself, his folded arms resting on raised knees, staring across the bay but at nothing in particular. You wondered if you wore the same absent expression whenever you got up in your own head, and if that was why he was able to call you on it so easily.

During your first outing together, as the drinks flowed, you grew angrier, he grew sadder, and you both grew terribly existential. History was repeating itself again, in spite of your efforts—you felt a pang of guilt for triggering this spiral, too, after all the lengths he went through to pull you out of yours.

(You could only avoid looking up for so long.)

Dusting off your hands, you flopped down to sit in the sand right next to him. “Sorry for souring the mood, again. There’s a reason I didn’t want to get into it.”

The regret in your voice snapped him out of his thoughts. “Huh? N--no, please don’t apologize—I asked because I wanted to know. Thank you for telling me.” He frowned, brow knitting with frustration. “You shouldn’t be going through this. Neither should those students. Doing the right thing shouldn’t be this difficult for any of you—it’s not fair. I’m sorry you’re having to fight for this every single step of the way.”

As much as you hated to admit it, his validation made the weight of everything feel a little less heavy to bear. “...thank you.”

“It’s hard, realizing how cruel the world can be.” Maruki sat up properly, straightening his legs out in front of him as he smoothed out the wrinkles across the thighs of his pants. “For people in our field, it’s impossible to help those in need without recognizing how they got there, or how far removed we can be from those circumstances. Or how...limited our reach really is. How can we help people who can’t even speak for themselves?”

You scoffed. “With the way things are, we barely help people who can speak for themselves. No matter what we do or how many people we reach, there’s always going to be some selfish asshole out there with too much power making things harder for the rest of us.”

“Don’t I know it,” he said, wearily. “Half the people who come to me for help wouldn’t be in their position if it wasn’t for the cruelty of others.”

“That’s just it, isn’t it? People will always be cruel.”

“Which is why it’s so important to be kind.”

You grimaced from how cheesy it sounded, though his heart was in the right place. So much easier said than done. “You’re right, you’re right...” you conceded. “I’ll make sure to be very kind in my complaint to the board.”

He chuckled.

The tension in the atmosphere was unwinding.

“Anyway. Enough depressing stuff from me.” You cleared your throat, eager to change the subject. “How have you been?”

“No news, I’m afraid. My research is still stuck in the same place it was the last time we talked about it...”

“Sorry to hear that...” You remembered how frustrated he’d been over the summer about his lack of progress, and how much his sense of accomplishment and productivity had been tied directly to it. “Are...you holding up okay? Do you wanna talk about it?”

“That’s alright,” he said, softly. “You don’t need to trouble yourself worrying about me.”

The dismissiveness pierced through your defenses like a needle stab, inoculating against your goodwill.

(At least he wasn’t smiling, this time.)

Maruki never had the easiest time opening up about what was troubling him—that much wasn’t new, nor had you expected him to change overnight. But the posturing of it—the light self-deprecation, the implication he was doing you a favour by sparing you—that part stung. You’d let him in just moments ago, and all he had to do was ask; yet, when asked for the same in kind, he shut the door in your face with the same forced politeness one would use to brush off a stranger.

You didn’t bother masking the irritation in your voice. “How would you react if I’d said that, instead?”

He blinked at you. “Said what?”

“If you asked how I was doing, and I said not to ‘trouble yourself’ worrying about me.”

“But it’s not trouble,” he insisted. “It’s second nature.”

You faltered. How could he understand the concept, but still miss the point so completely? “...is it really so hard to imagine I feel the same way?”

“A little,” he admitted, clearly surprised by your pushback. You could tell his thoughts were starting to race, again—trying to hone in on what he’d done wrong, trying to figure out what he could do to make it better. He suddenly seemed unsure of what to do with his hands. “I want to help with your worries, not add to them. You’re going through so much, already—with Kobayakawa-san, and this whole investigation—you don’t need any unnecessary burden.”

“If worrying about you is a burden, I want it,” you said. “Let me take it and hold it with mine.”

His eyes went wide.

You continued to hold his gaze and corner him with your silence, worried that if you looked away first, the facade of your unexpected resolve would crumble. His thoughts were no longer shifting, no longer searching for a solution. He stared back at you behind the same lashes you once counted; you watched a flush creep across his cheeks and every freckle you’d mapped to memory.

Maruki shifted his eyes downcast before he cast his sights back out across the water.

In a petty way, you felt triumphant—facing the man whose job it was to talk and rendering him speechless. As often as he would subject you to off-hand endearments that jolted your heart and caused your thoughts to short-circuit, it was nice to finally be able to return the favour.

“I’m sorry,” he said, finally. “I’ve gotten used to not being someone others are worried about. With Rumi...well, I also lost all our friends in the aftermath. Or, I should say—I didn’t do enough to keep them around. After all that, it was easier, being alone.”

“To not have to think about anyone but yourself,” you offered, familiar with the feeling.

“But, then I found you!” he smiled. “And you reminded me what it feels like to be cared for, again. I...shouldn’t take that for granted.”

For someone so likeable and popular among the staff, you hadn’t expected how isolated he was in his personal life. You’d always imagined him with an active social calendar, so often surrounded by friends and tugged every which way that you had to remind yourself not to feel guilty for taking up any of his time.

“You’re the only friend I’ve made at Shujin since I started.”

“Me? Really? That’s a bummer...”

Little did you know he’d felt the same way, all this time.

Though hesitant, you dared to test your luck, again. “...how are you?”

“Well,” Maruki exhaled, bracing himself for the right words. “I feel...lost, I guess?”

“Lost? Because you don’t know where to go with your paper?”

“In all my years of research, I’ve never been this stuck before...but I’ve also never been this close.” Although he was airing his frustrations, he also spoke with a sort of manic hopefulness—the thrilling desperation of a man teetering on the precipice of greatness. “There’s something important I’m not seeing. I only feel lost because I don’t know what I’m looking for. As soon as I can figure out what the missing piece is, the amount of people this technique could help—no, the amount of people this could save...”

“The whole world?” you joked.

“It’s possible,” he replied.

Your smile faded.

You didn’t regret him his life’s work—of course not, how could you—but if his sense of self was inextricably tied to his research and all the good it could do, it made more and more sense as to why he thought of himself as less and less of a person. He couldn’t open up about his state of mind because it was indistinguishable from his academic progress; he couldn’t see himself in the snapshot of his own future, because his future only existed within the framework of his results.

It was all you could do to continue separating the two.

“Takuto,” you started—slowly, carefully. “Would saving the world make you happy?”

Turning to you, Maruki inhaled and opened his mouth at once, as if the answer were obvious—but the moments passed in silence, without the utterance of a single word.

He waited to find his thoughts again. You waited to hear him speak.

“I’ve been at this for so long...” he started, giving a hollow laugh, “whether I’m thinking about finishing my paper, or never finding my missing piece and giving up on my research altogether...every possibility fills me with the same kind of dread.”

“What is it you’re dreading?”

“That I don’t know if there’s a ‘me’ left without it.”

Of course there would be, you wanted to scream. That’s all of you I know.

You tempered your knee-jerk reaction until you could conceive of something more thoughtful.

“...having something be a part of you for so long can make it hard to imagine your life without it. After losing someone you loved so much...you latched onto something else that gave you meaning—and you’re scared of losing that, too. But no matter what happens, you have the rest of your career. Your clinic, your patients. Your old friends, probably still out there wondering if you’re doing okay. You have your plants, and your cooking, and your bike. And your good fishing technique. None of that goes away just because you need to find a new path. Just keep walking the road you’re on until it’s over. And hey,” you laughed. “At least you know where it’s taking you. I don’t even know if I’m on a road right now, let alone where it’s going.”

He smiled at you warmly. “Wherever it’s headed, I’ll meet you at the end.”

“Deal,” you nodded. “Maybe I’ll finally get to be someone else, by then. More brave and less selfish. Someone who would’ve had the strength to do all the things I’m too scared t—”

Maruki reached around your shoulder, the weight of his arm resting heavily across your back before gently pulling you flush up against him. He leaned his head on top of yours, tucking your head beneath his own, as if to physically derail your train of thought. He let out a short, happy little sigh, sounding relieved. Like he’d been waiting for this.

All you could smell was aftershave and the artificial sea.

“Remember that morning I called you?” he started. You could feel his throat rumble as he spoke. “How I was trying to remember things from the night before, to write them down?”

You remembered sweltering heat being quenched with ice water—the taste of soup and apples on your tongue. “What about it?”

“There was something important you told me—that I was worth more than what I did for others. I remembered that right away. It was the very first thing I wrote down.”

Of course you remembered telling him that.

It was the last time he held you.

(It was almost like this.)

“I go back to that page a lot...I read it over and over sometimes, like an affirmation, trying to internalize it. There’s still...chunks missing from that night, but I’ve pieced together some other things since then. About what happened with Rumi. About how hope is something we give to other people. ‘Do you mourn who you could’ve been,’ you asked. Remember?”

All you could do was nod.

“Getting to know you, and your regrets, and all that pain you hold onto...I think I understand why you asked that, now. You weren’t just asking me. You were asking if I felt the same way. And there’s something I need you to know.”

He nuzzled into your hair; you could feel his lips move as he spoke, low and clear.

“You’re worth so much more than the things you couldn’t be,” he smiled. “And I’m happy to know you. Just as you are.”

A lifetime spent looking ahead—in pursuit of grades, in pursuit of a job, in pursuit of permission to live—had courted a subconscious disdain for the present that you hadn’t been aware of until now. You existed as the ghost of a someday, haunting your life as a purgatorial spectre caught between wasted potential and future ambition.

And yet, he was happy to know you.

For all your time spent searching for your value along the wayside of an uncertain road, he reminded you that you’d been worth something precious from the start. For one fleeting moment—held in his half-embrace, his head resting so tenderly against yours—the present meant more to you than all your futures combined.

You loved him.

You loved him, and you’ve never been so sure.

(Hadn’t you always known?)

Tears welled in your eyes faster than you could bite them down, that telltale burning creeping up your sinuses and only making it worse. You fixed your vision across the sunset’s canvas, trying to anchor yourself somewhere within the chromatic waves, but between your quickly blurring vision and the brilliant gradients of the sky, it was hard to tell where one shade stopped and another began.

That’s what your feelings had been like, until now. Like seeing in colours without knowing their names.

You wanted to hold him, too, but you could only muster the strength to grip onto the bottom of his shirt from behind. He could tell you were crying—of course he could—and you felt him squeeze you a little tighter, trying to keep his hand from shaking. Fireworks thrilled up your spine and scattered sparks beneath your skin, but you didn’t know what to do with all the newfound light bottled inside of you. There was nowhere for it to go.

He told you once that he was in no place to be with anyone—and here you were, in his embrace again, wondering whether the boundary was a crutch or a linchpin.

“What are you afraid of?”

Every possibility filled you with the same kind of dread.

Rejection had the potential of distorting every memory, past and future, under a filter of ulterior intent, calling into question the authenticity of your entire being. A line had been drawn early on; if you crossed that line and were turned down on the other side, your ongoing existence would be chained to the indefinite suspicion that you were only around waiting for him to change his mind.

But the thought of him loving you back didn’t inspire any feelings of hope, either.

Maruki, with his too-big heart and his instinct to put the needs of others ahead of his own. Maruki, so quick to put himself last, no matter how much it hurt him. On the chance he returned your feelings, did you trust him enough to love you for anything more than your own good?

Or would you just be another cat in a tree he’d take it upon himself to save?

You glanced around at the fake beach surrounding you, perfect and idyllic—a kind gesture that was a manufactured imitation of the real thing. Between his research, and his ambitions, and his grief, this was the best his heart could offer—because, while you avoided looking up, terrified of seeing your reflection in the face of a dangling blade, he was already chasing his future towards the horizon.

(How terrible it was, for the sun to feel like home. You would sooner burn into nothing than reach him.)

More than anything, you wanted to see him succeed. You wanted him to conquer every wall built within his path so he could reach the top and overlook the landscape of a future he could see himself in—and if you were in it, you wanted him to choose you for himself.

Because he deserved to chart the course to his own happiness, and you deserved to stop chasing after yours.

Maybe one day, at the end of the road, you could face each other as the people you wanted to be.

For now, you knew where you stood.

-

[09/12]

Kawakami: Did you hear the news?
You: ugh it’s so earlyyyy
You: what news?
Kawakami: It’s Kobayakawa, he’s...
Kawakami: He died last night.
Kawakami: Got into an accident right outside the police station.