Work Text:
With Valentine's Day coming up in a few days, Hanagaki Takemichi was in a bind.
Scribbling away at the crumpled piece of notebook paper, Takemichi sat at his desk in his room with a mess of balled up papers scattered around the desk. They were all letters. This was his 15th attempt to write a letter to his friend.
Letters weren't really up Takemichi's alley but there was no way he was going to say it to Chifuyu's face.
His secret, that is.
That he had developed a crush on his best friend.
"AGGHH!" Takemichi squeezed the paper in front of him, crumpling it once again.
This one won't slide either.
Takemichi didn't know how to express his feelings properly in this situation. He couldn't make it a romantic letter, he had to make it casual somehow. One wrong word and...
("What is this? Gross.") Takemichi could see Chifuyu dropping the letter with a a face of disgust written all over it. He could see it blow away in the wind. And he imagined himself, left dumbfounded as his best friend leaves him forever. How tragic.
Just be honest, but casually, Takemichi told himself as he teared out another page of lined paper from his school notebook. Then he started writing away again.
The next day at school, Takemichi could not focus. The bell rang, marking the end of classes for the day. "I shouldn't do it after all," he muttered to himself, worn out from the mental exhaustion.
"What's up with Takemichi lately?" Takuya, one of his friends, said from a nearby desk as he gathered his belongings.
"Something on your mind?" Akkun asked, sitting on his desk.
"It's nothing," Takemichi said, his voice clearly weighted down. He lifted his head from the desk and started to put his items in his bag.
"I've already figured it out actually," Kazushi said with a grin on his face.
Eh? There was no way - Takemichi's eyes widened. Kazushi knew everything and anything, he was the smartest of the bunch. It was no surprise if he really had deduced it.
"Takemichi has a crush on a girl!"
The rest of the group let out a gasp in unison.
Barely missed it. Takemichi sighed in relief. Chifuyu is a boy but I guess having a crush either way is the same.
"Is it true?" Akkun asked. "There's no way -"
"Those daydreaming eyes give it all away," Kazushi adjusted his glasses. "He's imagining how he would confess to her. She must a real steal! So Takemichi, who's the lucky lady?"
"..." Takemichi was practically speechless. He wasn't sure how to react in his situation. "She's... The real steal," he coughed out.
"Our Takemichi wouldn't settle for any less," Takuya said. "You need to show her to us. Or else Kazushi will deduce who it is too."
"Yes today! While everyone is just leaving school!" Kazushi exclaimed. He grabbed Takemichi's shirt from the back and pulled him from the desk.
"M - Maybe another time!" Takemichi stammered. He escaped his friend's grasp. "I have a ton of homework to do!"
And with that, he darted out of the school as fast as he could, leaving a trail of flying dust behind.
"... You think he's going to see her?" Takuya asked to his friends whom were left behind.
"There's no way Takemichi is seeing any girls without us knowing," Kazushi said with a thumb to his chin.
"That was close..!" Takemichi panted as he reached a couple of blocks away from the school, taking a stop to catch his breath. There was no way his friends could know he had a crush on another Toman member. Having a crush always involved someone else. He didn't want them to see Chifuyu in any different light than they do now. And neither did he want them to know that he was... Interested in boys.
"What was close?" A familiar voice sounded.
Takemichi jumped out of his skin and let out a scream. The devil himself stood right next to Takemichi, holding his school bag over his shoulder.
Chifuyu tilted his head slightly but his face was expressionless. "Are you running from someone?"
"Something like that," Takemichi replied, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "What are you doing here?" His heart was still racing from all that had just happened.
"What do you mean?" Chifuyu asked as if it were obvious. "I wanted to do homework at your place."
"My place?" Takemichi froze at the thought of his room currently littered with love letters. He had forgotten that since they had become closer friends, they often visited each other's houses, perhaps a couple of times a week. "How about another time?" He asked, trying his best to not be suspicious.
The corners of Chifuyu's lips turned slightly downwards. "Why? Is there something going on?"
A gulp went down Takemichi's throat. He hated that look. Chifuyu had traits that resembled a little puppy sometimes. And they were heart-wrenching.
"We have a plumber coming in today! Right!" Takemichi frantically spat out anything that came to his mind. Unfortunately it was that one. "But! Next time for sure!"
"Ah really!" Chifuyu seemed convinced. He let out a laugh. "Okay, I'll see you tomorrow then."
That's right. Chifuyu wasn't among the brightest people Takemichi knew. He painted a smile on his face and waved Chifuyu off, "See you tomorrow!"
Holed up in his room once again, Takemichi was greeted by the flood of crumpled letters on his desk. Two close calls, he thought as he let out a sigh of relief. Throwing his backpack onto the floor, he grabbed a crumpled up letter and opened it.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Chifuyu
Do you like me too?
CRINGE. Takemichi felt his body tighten up in disgust as he tore the paper into shreds, raining the pieces down into the trash can. There was no way he wrote that. Not only was it just dreadfully bad, the handwriting looked like an elementary schooler's. Takemichi had no artistic qualities in him so there was no way he could express his feelings through letters.
Frustration eating Takemichi up, he grabbed each one of the crumpled letters and threw them into his backpack. There was no way he would risk letting his parents see them since it was his mom who often cleaned his room.
It would be better to just confess in person, Takemichi thought. It was too much work having to write letters. And it certainly wasn't going to plan. So he decided that the best plan of action was to talk it out as friends. Chifuyu was someone he trusted after all.
Jumping onto the bed, Takemichi took out his flip phone and starting typing a message to Chifuyu.
Hey tomorrow at 11, homework at the park. Toilet still isn't fixed.
Sent. The easy part was over. Now he needed to mentally prepare for what he was planning to do tomorrow, which included dumping out those letters into a public recycle.
The next day, Takemichi's eyes flew open. He couldn't get any sleep that night. His mind kept running with every possible scenario with Chifuyu. But in end he couldn't even make plans for those scenarios. He recalled the last time he had checked the time it was 7AM...
10:30?!
I must've fallen asleep at some point! Takemichi threw himself out of bed. He only had thirty minutes to get ready and his hair took the longest to do. But there was no way he was going to be late for this meeting!
Carrying his backpack with him, Takemichi glanced up at the dark gray clouds looming over the neighborhood. He was approaching a park that he and Chifuyu frequented. In fact, it was where they had first met. Back then, Chifuyu was wrapped in bandages. But since then, they had gone through a lot together. They were best friends. And Takemichi was getting ready to ruin that just for the opportunity to let out his feelings.
As Takemichi approached the park, he noticed the blonde kid sitting on the swings by himself. Chifuyu had arrived first.
"Chifuyu!" Takemichi called out to him.
Chifuyu turned his head and jumped off the swing. He only had a folder with him for schoolwork. "Takemichi! What's up? Too bad about your toilet."
"Yeah the toilet..." Takemichi said with a hand to the back of his head. His heart started to palpitate in his chest. A nervous feeling started to take over his body. "I wanted to talk about something -"
Just then, Takemichi felt wet drops landing on his head. It was raining now. Just my luck!! He screamed to himself.
"Shoot," Chifuyu said, holding out his hand to collect water. "Wanna relocate to a restaurant nearby?"
"Y - yeah! Uhh which way?" Takemichi panicked, unable to hold in the welling up of emotions within him. With every second passing, he felt that today just wasn't the day to do it, that he should just cancel the whole plan. He felt so nervous he couldn't talk normally and his legs had started to freeze up. He couldn't move. Stress was consuming him like a monster eating him up.
"Scared of rain or something?" Chifuyu teased him. "Let's go quickly, or else we'll get drenched." Then he started to dart off down the neighborhood street.
"Chifuyu!" Takemichi let out. He was sweating but it didn't matter since the rain was getting heavier by the moment. Using his feet to push his frozen body, he forced himself to run after Chifuyu. But once again, bad luck got the best of him. His shoe collided with the ground too early, causing him to land face first onto the street.
As much as it hurt, Takemichi had been hit by much worse forces. This was nothing to him.
"Ugh..." He groaned as he got to his knees. Now he was soaked.
"Takemichi!" Chifuyu ran back to his friend. "Are you okay? That looked brutal."
Tears welled up in Takemichi's eyes. He was an emotional person and he couldn't control it very well. Nothing was going his way lately and right now he was being such a loser in front of Chifuyu and they weren't even up against anybody. "I'm fine," he said, trying to hold back the shake in his voice.
"Oh your backpack opened," Chifuyu said.
"... Huh?" Takemichi's head shot up. Before him, a scattered mess of homework was soaking up on the ground. Chifuyu started picking up the crumpled papers that had escaped his backpack. They were wet and on the verge of breaking apart.
That was when Takemichi realized he was in such a rush this morning to get ready, he hadn't had the chance to stop by a public trash can to throw out the letters like he had planned.
Chifuyu eyed the papers, "Wait what are these —"
"Chifuyu! Don't read them -!"
But it was too late. Chifuyu had already read one of them. The writing probably wasn't very legible due to the rain but from Chifuyu's eyes widening, Takemichi knew he was already done for.
"What is this?" Chifuyu asked, clearly confused. "Do you like someone?"
Takemichi didn't know how to answer. His mind whirled. He had no plan for this.
As Chifuyu collected a couple more from the wet ground, he looked at them curiously.
"Don't tell me you came to me for romantic advice!" Chifuyu gasped.
"Chifuyu..." Takemichi took the papers from his friend not that it would undo what he had already saw. The letters had become one drenched, squishy ball. He didn't know what to say.
Do I confess now? Should I say it's for someone else?
The rain continued to pour down on the two, but that was the least of Takemichi's main concerns right now. Both of their hair was getting flat from the rain.
"Those letters," Takemichi breathed, unable to look at Chifuyu. "I wrote those..." He choked out the next words. "With you in mind."
"... Huh?" Chifuyu froze. His aqua eyes locked in on Takemichi. "... You're kidding right?"
"I'm not," Takemichi cried, knowing now he couldn't go back. He had said it, there was no taking it back now. "I have feelings for you now. And I'm really sorry about that! I just - It just happened I can't control it..!"
Chifuyu was silent. Takemichi couldn't see his face. What did Chifuyu look like right now?
"You really look like a loser right now," his friend laughed.
There was no doubt about that. They were both soaked. Takemichi had a stupid backpack on him filled with the letters he had planned to toss away and he was crying, making a stupid confession in the worst weather possible.
"C'mon partner," Chifuyu held out his hand as he got onto his feet. "We can talk about this when we get somewhere dry."
With the tears welling up in Takemichi's eyes, he couldn't see his friend's hand very well. He hesitated at first then took it, standing up. "Yeah, okay," he said, sniffing back the snot growing in his nose.
"And this time we can speed walk."
And with that, the two headed off, down the street towards the nearest fast food restaurant around. Takemichi tried to wipe his eyes as the emotions poured out of him. He didn't want to lose his friendship. But he knew Chifuyu well enough. This wouldn't be the end for them. Hopefully, it might even be a new beginning.
"By the way, that letter was really cringe," Chifuyu teased.
"Please don't mention it!"