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It was the day after Akoya had stumbled across the box of diapers in Kinshirou’s closet. Kinshirou woke up feeling raw with the memory, wanting to block it out yet unable to think of anything else. Why hadn’t he moved them somewhere else? To someplace Akoya would never have checked, like perhaps behind a garbage can? He should have been glad it had made Akoya give up on attempting to overhaul his wardrobe, but even that stung. Despite how Akoya had sworn he still respected him, Kinshirou felt it must have shocked him deeply for him to abandon that.
Kinshirou put on his usual suit for work, feeling small and fragile under the stiff fabric that hung heavy on him. He stopped in front of the bathroom mirror and opened its cabinet, which was packed full with orderly rows of confounding beauty products Akoya was always trying to advertise to him. Jammed into a corner beside some kind of cream or conditioner was a comb; Kinshirou removed it and ran it methodically through his sheet of silver hair till his reflection became passably respectable. At work, at least, no one would see him any differently.
He still didn’t know how he could look at Akoya. He made every effort to square his shoulders, and then wavered out into the kitchen, feeling like a breeze would blow him away.
Akoya was making breakfast. It was warm with the smell of miso soup. He glanced up anxiously when Kinshirou entered. Akoya had a little frilly apron on over her casual outfit of the day, a flowery embroidered shirt over jeans and a braided belt. The apron was the main reason he enjoyed cooking, because it tended to require washing dirt off of rather a lot of vegetables.
Akoya had been waiting for Kinshirou. He felt like he had done something wrong yesterday. He would never have kept going through his closet if he’d known there was anything in it but clothes. And he never would have dreamed Kinshirou kept anything in it except what was supposed to be there. How many times had Kinshirou reminded him to make sure his beauty products stayed in the cabinet, and not all over the bathroom?
“Well, it’s running out of space,” Akoya said.
“Then maybe you should buy fewer beauty products,” Kinshirou said.
“Maybe you should help me use them,” Akoya said.
That usually ended that argument; Kinshirou did not want to start Akoya on that. But he would put all the beauty products neatly back in the cabinet when Akoya wasn’t looking.
Akoya didn’t know how to make up for his transgression the other day. He clearly hadn’t been meant to know about it, and now Kinshirou was acting distant. Sure enough, when he made a cheerful good morning, Kinshirou replied without meeting his eyes.
Kinshirou made himself busy by purposefully opening the cabinet under the sink—which he could swear Akoya never touched—and checking the small shiny, lidded white garbage can tucked primly under it. Of course, it was nearly full again. He had to empty it nearly three times a day, always rushing to catch it before it threatened to overflow appallingly.
“We need a larger garbage can,” Kinshirou had often said.
“No,” Akoya said. “They’re not beautiful. This one is cute.”
“But you never look at it,” Kinshirou said in frustration.
“I do look at it,” Akoya said. “I just don’t like to empty it.”
But today Kinshirou was glad for the excuse to walk out of the kitchen, carrying the garbage bag. Akoya tried not to notice him leaving and poured the miso soup into two bowls, checking that they each got an about equal amount of tofu and green onions, to balance the aesthetic. The onions were for color. He scooped out a couple of bowls of warm, fluffy white rice and set it all out on the table, waiting nervously.
They finally sat down to eat together, and tried to talk about normal things. Akoya didn’t dare bring it up. He thought he’d let Kinsirou do it, but he never did.
“I work till six today,” Kinshirou said, and left.
Akoya spooned up his little remaining clumps of rice one by one, the dreadful awkwardness hanging over him. What should he have done? Yes, he’d been surprised, but whatever Kinshirou had wanted, however rare and idiosyncratic, they had always tried their best to give him. (Except the garbage can.) Why should this be any different?
He fretted. He’d done something wrong, and now Kinshirou wasn’t speaking to him. He shouldn’t have ever tried to overhaul Kinshirou’s closet. He was clearly attached to that gold suit.
“I’m sorry, President,” Akoya mumbled. “You can wear whatever you want to,”
Whatever he wanted to.
But—Akoya thought, and thought, and began to be bothered. The diapers had looked awfully plain. Just regular white diapers. It was not—
He could wear whatever he wanted, Akoya reminded himself.
But—
Perhaps this would give him an excuse to talk about it.
Once he arrived at work, Kinshirou seemed to square up and straighten into his suit. He spent the day doing all the things he was supposed to. He catalogued things, and organized things, and responded to questions and complaints, and sent files to people, and told other people what to do. His efficient and effective work made his superiors like him. He heard their concerns and did what they wanted him to do.
He fell into this role so well that he could believe it, that if he did everything well enough, he could live on the praise and not need that other part of himself, the part that was so small and scared and so inappropriate here.
It was not appropriate anywhere, he thought with a blanching shame. He only did it sometimes, in the dark, when he could not sleep for the confusion of remembered feelings gripping him, that he relived over and over again. It had made him sick, when they had taken his life and put it on broadcast without his knowledge, with everyone watching and judging him. He still could not do anything without feeling all their eyes on him, hearing in his mind the things they would say. The sickness was deep inside him and sometimes it overwhelmed him till he could not feel anything else. The sense that he was not his own, that he must do what others wanted for their entertainment, made him ill and he could not think how to escape it. He could feel them watching him all the time.
They would make fun of him, they would laugh at him, always waiting for him to break out of his shyness and reticence and become what they thought he should be. He was avoiding things again, and he could hear the voices shaking their heads at him, laughing at him for being ashamed. The sickness gripped him inside and seared him through; he had to let his mind go blank to shut it out.
He wanted someone to hold him while he clung to them and do nothing but be comforted like a baby. In the night he cried silently, wanting someone to come yet also wishing no one could hear. When he had been lying for hours with his face stuck wetly to the pillow and his fingers in his mouth, biting them against the urge to whimper in the dark, and could not think of how to fall asleep any other way—then he would go to the closet and fumble with the package in the dark and pull one shamefully on by feel, and stumble back under the covers. The sensation of being swaddled calmed him, and his swollen eyes would close and finally drift to sleep.
It was only when he had to. Only sometimes. But he’d been doing it for years.
And as he left from work, finally finished with everything he’d had to do, he found himself fantasizing desperately of wearing a diaper like a child, leaning into someone with his fingers in his mouth and letting himself be led around by the hand. Of not having to do anything, having no one expect anything of him. Of having all his thoughts go wavery and wobbly and not have to know anything, be sure of anything, least of all what he needed to do and be.
He thought of the box in his closet, waiting for him when he got home. And then he felt the piercing shame of knowing Akoya knew about it too.
He cringed to imagine it through Akoya’s eyes, knowing it was not beautiful. It was too shameful to acknowledge, to talk about. They’d had to let it hang unspoken. He felt he would not be able to look at Akoya when he got home.
“Welcome home, President,” Akoya greeted him.
Kinshirou felt small and wavering again inside his suit. He clutched his hands together tightly in front of him. “Hi,” he said faintly, feeling like he no longer could pretend to be anything, as the wavering feeling took over his head.
“Was your day okay?” Akoya asked. “You look a little—like something might be wrong.”
He had the fuzzy, wavery feeling in his brain, He felt grateful and ashamed that Akoya had noticed. He wished he could say what was wrong, but it was buried too deep inside him.
“Um, President.” Akoya was twirling his soft pink hair nervously around his finger, around and around. “Ummm, can I show you something? For you. But I don’t know if you’ll like it.”
“Oh?” Kinshirou couldn’t think of anything he wanted except something he couldn’t have. He suspected Akoya had bought another incomprehensible beauty product.
“Um, well, I…” Akoya looked bright red. “I’m sorry. You can wear whatever you want. But I went shopping. And if you like these—well—I—I—I found some with patterns. Look.”
Before Kinshirou could ask, Akoya began pulling boxes out of some shopping bags lying on the floor—boxes like the one in Kinshirou’s closet. Akoya looked as embarrassed to be handling them as Kinshirou had been to have it discovered. But he drew himself up and pointed proudly to the pattern displayed on one of them—teddy bears sleeping on moons against a soft pastel blue. “See,” he said. “It’s cute.”
Kinshirou swallowed hard and felt small and wavery and trembling all over. His face burned and he put this fingers in his mouth to keep from chewing on his lip. His suit felt wrong on him. He wanted to change out of it, and into—
“Also,” Akoya said hurriedly, shaking in nervousness as he tried to take everything out of the shopping bags at once, “you could put these over it.”
He draped a couple of folded garments over the boxes of patterned diapers. Kinshirou came forward and touched them gingerly, not taking his eyes off of any of it. They were a couple of pairs of pajamas, with pastel moons and stars on the front, looking decidedly fitting for a nursery. The fabric was plush and soft.
“I’m sorry, President,” Akoya said, red and anxiously twisting his cotton candy hair. “I tried to overhaul your closet after all.”
“I’m allowed to wear these?” Kinshirou asked weakly, rubbing his hand against his mouth. His other hand kept holding onto the pajamas.
“Yes, President. I got them for you.” Akoya felt the beginnings of relief. “Do you like it?”
Small tears started in Kinshirou’s eyes as he nodded, his fingers in his mouth. He wandered over and clung to Akoya’s hand.
“Okay,” Akoya said, his relief complete. He squeezed Kinshirou’s smaller hand. “Want to change?”
Kinshirou had never wanted so badly to get out of his suit.
Kinshirou padded to the side of the bed, half staring at the floor, wrapped in the soft plushy pajamas and padded with a diaper underneath. He thought about this and blanched and hung his head, frozen in place. A stinging, fuzzy sense of shame held him there. He let it grip him. It made him feel very, very small and blank and fuzzy. He was doing something wrong, but this was all he wanted to do anymore.
Akoya, sitting upright in bed, clapped his hands to his mouth. “President, you look sooo cute!”
The approval made Kinshirou’s heart swell, and he began moving again, his face warm as he climbed into bed, slipping deep inside the thickly quilted blankets. Akoya was a kernel of radiant warmth in the midst of all the paddling. He nestled up close to Akoya in his soft pink nightgown, pressing into Akoya’s chest. Akoya wrapped his arms tightly around him. Kinshirou could feel Akoya’s heart beating warmly through the plush layer of fabric around him. He was cushioned on all sides.
It occurred to him that he always fantasized about whimpering and being comforted, but he didn’t feel any need for whimpering now. Nothing else mattered anymore. He rubbed his face against Akoya’s nightgown, and let the wavery feeling come over him, everything else swimming out of his head. Only the blank and fuzzy warmth of the fabric and arms around him were left.
“Am I a baby now?” he asked faintly.
“Yes, you’re my baby,” Akoya said, hugging him close to himself like a teddy bear. His soft pink hair puffed out around him like a cloud.
“Okay.” Kinshirou reached for Akoya’s hand and put his fingers through his, clinging. He had tears in his eyes from gratitude. “Okay, I’m a baby. I’m a baby. Okay, okay.”
“Yes, darling, it’s okay.” Akoya cradled his arms around him. His eyes were closed. He looked like he would fall asleep rather quickly.
"It's okay," Kinshirou repeated dizzily, his head spinning from this moment being real. "It's okay."
He cried. He never wanted to wear his suit again.