Archive of Our Own ^beta

Your textbook has been opened to the same page for almost an hour now, dimly illuminated by the computer screen and the ambient light from outside the window. You haven’t made any progress.

You will eventually. If you keep staring, eventually the words will unscramble themselves on the page and you’ll understand what you’re looking at and you’ll make progress. You’ll keep writing this goddamn thesis. It’s important. This is important work that you’re doing, so you’re going to keep doing it, and you’re going to get it done, and you’re not going to go to sleep until it’s finished.

It doesn’t matter that your eyes are starting to sting. It doesn’t matter that the tight feeling in your chest keeps getting tighter. It doesn’t matter that the joints in your fingers and your wrists are pleading with you to stop. It doesn’t matter that your chest feels like it’s being sucked into a vacuum. It doesn’t matter that you’ve cracked your neck more times in the past twenty minutes than you’ve blinked. It doesn’t matter that it feels like a fucking elephant is sitting on your chest, god, what is that?

You can hear your heart pounding in your ears. You know what else you can do? You can fucking ignore it.

Back to the textbook. You blink hard, squeezing your eyes shut for a long moment at an attempt to get them to rehydrate themselves. They still feel dry when you open them again, but now you’re looking at the pages in front of you with renewed vigor.

You’ve read this line a dozen times already and you’re not sure what about it is stuck in your craw. It’s not like you don’t understand it. As far as you’re concerned, all of this is pretty basic stuff. Hell, you’ve cited this same case study as a source before — in middle school. Why is your mind getting stuck on it now?

It’s insulting. You were doing better work back in fucking middle school. You’re eighteen now, aren’t you? You’re an adult. You should be able to act like one. You should be able to research like one. You shouldn’t be getting distracted by the stupid goddamn tight feeling, or the sound of your own heartbeat, or feeling a little tired. Instead, you’re a sniveling little whelp who can’t accomplish the only thing you’re good at, the only reason you exist. What is the Steering Committee even keeping you here for?

You have that meeting with them in the morning. Technically, that meeting is only five hours away. You should really get some sleep before you go, but there won’t be any point in going at all if you can’t get this done beforehand. What the hell are you even thinking — since when are you allowed to sleep? You don’t need it. And even if you did, it wouldn’t matter, because you are not even looking at your goddamn bed until this fucking thesis is in a workable state. If it’s not done, if it’s not perfect, then the Steering Committee will be the least of your worries. You don’t have time to be wasting on preliminary drafts when there are people out there dying.

…but of course, the Steering Committee sure doesn’t feel like the least of your worries. The mere thought of walking down that hall, the hall that no other students have dared to set foot in for fear of expulsion, and heading in through those grand oak doors makes you feel like you’re about to hurl. The feeling of their cold eyes with their crows feet and stern brows boring into your skull, the sound of their voices like they’re speaking underwater, the things they demand of you — you can’t take it. You can’t bear it. It feels like digging your own grave and lying at the bottom of it and striking the center of your own chest with your shovel. This perverse facsimile of medicine that they’re wringing out of you like they’re harvesting your rotten blood to sell as a cure to the desperate — your research isn’t supposed to be used like this. It’s inhumane. It’s sick.

Instantly, the pressure rises into searing, agonizing pain. It feels like you’re being run through with nails, it feels like your heart is trying to pump corrosive sludge through your veins, oh, god, you’re dying, aren’t you? You’re having a fucking heart attack, right here in your lab, you’re finally keeling over and dying like the pathetic freak that you are.

Quaking onion-skin hands clutch at your chest, balling up the fabric of your rumpled shirt. You’re not sure if anything has ever hurt this badly before because right now your entire world is this single endless point in time. You can’t remember anything but the serrated edge ripping through your sternum and the feeling of sweat pouring down your face and dripping onto your arms. You can’t remember anything at all.

Was this how it started for mom? A feeling like she was about to die, and then nothing? Just a void behind her skull, the memories of her life and you with it all blown to pieces by the overwhelming flood of caustic poison leaking into her arteries? Your arteries feel full. Your belly feels like it’s being attacked with an ice pick. Your mom doesn’t even remember who you are, and she’s gone, and she’s never ever coming back no matter how good this thesis is, and you still have to finish, you have to finish, you have to finish it because you need your mommy to remember who you are again, because you can’t remember who you are right now on your own and you don’t want to die without someone holding your hand.

All at once, it gets worse; death overpowers you systematically and makes you watch how pitiful you are. The edges of your vision are swallowed up with black until only a pinprick of light remains at the center. A high pitched whine in your ears builds and builds into a deafening mechanical whirring noise, so tangible that you briefly wonder if there’s construction outside your window. Your teeth and fingers buzz, your gut twists itself into painful knots, you can’t breathe, god, you’re going to fucking die in here and no one will find you until you start stinking up the place.

You’re so fucking stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid, dying here alone in this stupid lab with your stupid book and your stupid thesis and your stupid life’s work being dictated by some stupid committee, and you never want to think about them again, you don’t want to have to go meet with them in the morning, you wish they would just disappear and leave you alone because you hate it, you hate how weak and cowardly you are, you hate how fucking spineless you are for not being able to stand up to them, but god damn it, they scare you.

Part of you instinctively wishes Enoshima was here. You push that part of yourself down. You don’t wish that stupid, ugly woman was here. You just wish you had a distraction.

Right.

Just distract yourself. Distract yourself. The less you think about that meeting in the morning, the less you think about the way your chest threatens implosion, the more work you’ll be able to get done. Just focus on your work.

The mere thought of peeling your eyes open makes you feel seasick enough that for a moment, you really are scared that you might throw up. You try to settle the churning with a deep breath, but it goes in and out so shakily that you may as well be hyperventilating. Whatever. You try again, and again, and again, until you’ve started to feel lightheaded and buzzy all over. It’s unpleasant, but it’s better than the nausea. It’s better than your heart exploding. With a display of willpower that’ll leave you in debt for days, you force your eyes back open.

The world pitches and swims, then rocks slowly like a ship casting off, then steadies. You refocus your blurred vision on your textbook. Slowly, the whirring in your ears dies back down to the quiet ring.

You blink hard again. This… doesn’t make any sense. This is complete gibberish. Aren’t you supposed to understand this stuff? Aren’t you supposed to be a scientist? But instead, you’re just sitting here like a stupid dumb idiot who can’t even read.

You grit your teeth, sliding your hands up your scalp and tugging at your hair. It’s fine. It’s fine. You just need to try again. And this time, damn it, try and focus. Stop being so dumb for a second and read. You know how to read, don’t you? Because you’re a grown up, and grown ups know how to read.

You rub at your eyes with the heels of your hands for a little too long. Maybe your eyes are just being dumb. Maybe you can rub the gunk out of them and then you’ll be able to make sense of this idiot textbook.

For a long moment after you pull your hands away, you keep your eyes closed. You draw in a deep breath so you can let it out in a long, tired, pissed-off sigh. Your heart is still beating its big fat fists against the insides of your eardrums, but the annoying ringing sound is gone. Your tummy doesn’t hurt as bad anymore. Neither does your chest. You take in another breath, but this time you push it out in a determined huff. You open your eyes. This time, you’re ready. You can handle this because you’re a doctor, a real doctor, and any real doctor should be able to do anything.

Right. There has to be some kind of explanation for why you couldn’t read it properly. It can’t be that there’s something wrong with you. Surely, the words are only obscured because of how much sweat you dripped onto the pages when you were dying a couple minutes ago. That’s all. Just some annoying sweat getting in the way of what would otherwise be a totally normal night of cramming.

And it hasn’t just sullied your textbook — in fact, though the downpour has stopped, you’re still all wet and clammy and cold and shivering so badly that your teeth are chattering. Your hair sticks in solid black strands to your forehead, just above your eyes. You want to bat them away. You want to change out of these soaked, dirty clothes. You really, really want a blanket.

But you don’t have time for that right now.

You lurch forward, jaw clenched and brows furrowed, setting your sights on that super-stupid passage again. This time, you’ll be able to read it, and understand it, and keep on moving, so you can finish writing your thing and crawl under the covers and feel warm again.

Desperately, you scan the paper for any words you comprehend, even any kanji you recognize, but you barely know any of them at all. Even the hiragana is hard to parse with these stupid stuffy sentence structures. Your eyes instinctively look for furigana that you know won’t be there because this is a book for grown ups who actually know what they’re doing, and you’re just some lousy idiot kid who can’t even read right.

Who are you trying to fool? You’re not a doctor. And right now, because of how dumb you are, there are hundreds or thousands of other boys and girls just like you whose moms are forgetting all of them too, and all you can do is sit here in this dark ugly room and have a probably–heart–attack because of how scared you are of your teachers. You’ll never help anybody. You’re just bad. Mom knew that, and that’s why she left you.

In a fit of frustration, you sweep your arm across the table, sending the awful book and all your pens and markers crashing to the linoleum floor below. It only makes you feel better for a second. Then it just makes you more mad. And as if this garbage night couldn’t get any worse, now your head hurts, too.

You really, really wish Junko was here. You don’t care that she’s just some super ugly brainless girl who wears too much gross makeup. You’re scared and you’re alone and it’s dark in here and she’s the only person who likes you when you’re normal, let alone like this.

A humiliating lump settles in your throat. Every time you try to swallow it down it just gets tighter, but you keep trying anyway. Crying is for babies, and you’re not a baby. You’re not. You’re not.

With a frustrated growl, you hug your knees tight against your chest. Maybe if you hold your breath, the lump will go away and your eyes will stop stinging and your bottom lip will stop wobbling. Even if it takes until your face turns blue, it’s worth it if it means you won’t cry. You’re a big kid now– no, you’re an adult, you’re a man. You should be stronger than this.

Your plan is ruined when you gasp, startled by a muffled voice from behind the thick, tinny door of this terrible room.

"Yasuke-chaaaaaan!"

You would know that shrill, obnoxious shrieking anywhere. She only ever calls you ‘-chan’ when she’s trying to get on your nerves. You don’t bother answering her. She doesn’t bother waiting for an answer. You’re pretty sure the door is locked (because you always lock the door behind you, because that makes it less likely that your mom will find you and start freaking out about the kid in her house), but she opens it anyway. You don’t know how she always does that. You’ve never asked.

The change in her demeanor is instant, just like it always is. Her bombastic energy wilts. Light pours in from the hallway and across the wall, obscured by the unmistakable shape of her twin-tail shadow, and then it’s gone with a click as she shuts the door behind her. And it’s dark again. And you really wish it wasn’t, because you don’t like the dark.

"Yasuke…" she says, voice quieter now as she takes in the scene before her. You know you must look ugly, all shaky and sweaty and gross. She doesn’t seem to care. Her heels click against the linoleum, all the stupid charms on her phone clattering with each step, growing nearer and nearer until you can smell the floral chemicals of her hair spray. The smell is suffocating, but you don’t mind it as much as you pretend to. Even now, as if by habit, you crinkle up your nose and scowl.

"What do you want, you ugly girl?" you jeer, wincing at the unmistakable waver in your voice. It makes you feel pathetic. Some sick part of you doesn’t mind feeling like that as long as it’s around her. She already knows you’re pathetic, and she loves you anyway.

You can’t bring yourself to look directly at her, but you still see recognition flicker in her eyes from the corner of your vision. Her gaze, always so piercing in those annoying fake blues, softens to a warmer color that she never shows anyone else. She’s looking past her ugly contacts, looking directly into you. You try to swallow the lump in your throat again.

To everyone else in the world, Junko is a gaggle of masks with no one to wear them. But not to you. To you, she’s a gaggle of masks with the only person in the whole world wearing them. In times like this, when you feel the least deserving of it, she shows you that person. It feels good. It’s only ever around you, and somehow that makes it feel even better.

She doesn’t ask before grabbing you by the wrist and pulling you out of your chair. It rolls backwards, sends you stumbling down, flailing to get your feet on the ground before your face smashes against it first, but she doesn’t let you fall. She yanks you up and steadies you in that uncareful way of hers, showing you all thirty-two of her teeth with her grin.

"You’re all done for the night!" she chirps matter–of–factly. You open your mouth to protest, but she takes advantage of the fact that you’re still righting yourself on your feet and barrels right over you. "I decided that, so it’s true now. And that means noooo arguing, ‘kaaaay?"

You grit your teeth. For better or for worse, you do know better than to try arguing with Junko. Not like this. Not when the walls and the floor are still swaying from side to side like the big noisy clocks that old people have in their houses. Junko’s fingers crawl down your wrist until her hand is slipping into yours, lacing your fingers together. She squeezes. You squeeze back, harder. She shows you less of her teeth.

"Eww, you’re all sweaty," she says, though her voice holds exactly none of its usual bite. Her words are scathing, but she says them like she’s packing up her only nice teacup before the big move. "You can use my shower, since I’m so nice."

Maybe to anyone else, she would come across as a backhanded mean girl — but you know her better than that. You would feel weird if she dropped the act outside of the safety of her bedroom. It’s the only place either of you can truly be yourselves.

You can only manage a dumb nod in response. Whenever she’s holding your hand, no matter how uncomfortable your body is, your head settles into a quiet humming sound instead of yelling at you. She doesn’t pester you about answering her with your words this time. Instead, she leads you over to the door and out into the hallway. You follow her without hesitation all the way across the campus.

Her dorm is the same as it always is — which is to say, it’s slightly different from how it was yesterday. You don’t know how she finds the time in the day to reorganize and replace her decorations so often, to say nothing of how frequently she moves the furniture around. The only thing she always keeps in place is the bed, and only because she knows you need your hiding spot to be consistent. She doesn’t even touch the occasional blanket or manga you squirrel away underneath.

You finally feel your shoulders start to relax. This is the only place you feel safe. Her bedrooms over the years might be the only places you’ve ever felt safe.

The first thing she does when the door clicks shut behind you is pull you into a hug. You hunch over (you’re always hunched over) to rest your head on her shoulder, letting your arms loop loosely around her waist. She smooths her hands over your back and sways from side to side. She calls this dancing, but it’s not dancing. She just knows you’re too embarrassed to admit that you like being rocked.

Of course, it doesn’t take a loudmouth like her very long to spoil the mood.

"Ugh, Yasuke, you totally reek…" she moans in an exaggerated pantomime of dejection. "And your shirt is like, ninety percent pit stain… I can’t believe I’m so totally in love with someone so totally gross..." And then, at the drop of a pin, her tone is back to its usual. "You should really step out of that lab and shower sometimes, y’know!"

Maybe now isn’t the most sensitive time for her to criticize you for your hygiene, but you don’t mind it. This is just how the two of you talk to each other. You would be more offended if she held back because she thought you couldn’t handle it — and it’s not like you don’t know it’s true.

Without warning, because everything she does is without warning, she whirls you around toward her wardrobe, leaving you stumbling over your own limbs like you’re not used to how long they are. Now face to face with a full length mirror, you see how messy your hair is from wringing your hands through it all night, how deep and purple the bags under your eyes are, the dark scruff starting to gather on your chin. The stubble in particular makes your chest feel tight again with unease, so you turn your head away from the mirror.

Junko stands in front of you, rummaging through her wardrobe until she produces a semi-tidy stack of your clothes. She tosses them onto the bed before wordlessly turning back to you. She pulls off your too–loose tie over your head, starts working on unbuttoning your dingy shirt. You let her. You don’t know how she manages all that dexterity with those gaudy acrylic nails. You appreciate it nonetheless — your body always hurts all over, but right now your fingers and knuckles burn especially hot from the nonstop typing.

She slides your shirt down off your arms and tosses it into her hamper by the door, making a ‘woosh’ sound with her mouth as it sails through the air. Then she looks you up and down, pursing her lips in thought before something seems to click into place in her mind.

"Yup, I’m preeeetty sure you can manage to take your own pants off," she lilts. She looks up at you with big puppy dog eyes, but it doesn’t work as well on you when she has those searing blue circle lenses in. "I know you’ll miss me, but you gotta shower all by yourself this time, okay? But I pwomise I won’t be far! If you miss me so much your little heart can’t bear it, just call out ‘Junko-chamaaaa~!’ and I’ll be there before you even know it!"

You’re not sure what kind of conclusion that is, nor how she came to it, but this too is a regular occurrence. Junko will come and dig you out of your hole, haul you back to her room, and make you clean up and go to bed. Sometimes she decides that she’s going to strip you naked and squeeze into the shower next to you, but other times she decides to be a little more careful about preserving your modesty at the expense of you having to shower alone. You’ve never been able to figure out how she makes that choice. You’ve never asked.

A few short moments later, she’s piling your clothes and a towel into your arms and herding you into the bathroom, closing the door behind you with a meaningless wink. Even being separated from her by the thin bathroom door is enough to renew the interest that the looming oppressive fog has in taking root in your skull.

You decide to get this over with as quickly as possible. You don’t remember shucking the rest of your clothes to the floor or turning on the water, but you’re standing underneath it now and you can’t find it in yourself to worry about seconds you surely spent missing Junko.

You look down and take stock of this weird body, so different than what you expect it to be. The floor is further away than it should be. The fine, dark hairs on your legs put the same dizzy feeling in your tummy as the scratchy parts on your chin. Your hands are so big and knobby. One of your arms is littered with little tender lines, some white, most pink. It feels bad when you scrub them too hard with the wash cloth, so you try to leave them alone.

It all makes you feel so much bigger than you are, and that’s scary and confusing and embarrassing. It makes you want to curl up under the bed and make yourself small so that this shame will go away, or at least so that nobody, not even yourself, will look at you and see how gross you are. The only person who should see you like this is Junko. She doesn’t think you’re gross for how poorly your outsides match how you feel. She only thinks you’re gross when you smell. You think you’re gross all the time.

You know that the shower is supposed to be relaxing. You’re just not sure how you’re supposed to relax without her.

So you don’t. You speed through the rest of your shower as quickly as you can, giving the aching muscles in your neck and shoulders no time to unwind under the heat of the water, then dry and dress yourself with much the same haste. You don’t even properly dry your hair — you just scrub the towel through it and throw it up into a haphazard ponytail.

You throw open the door into Junko’s bedroom, finally stepping into air that you can actually breathe. You wring your hands for the moment it takes you to spot her where she’s lying in bed, then make an immediate beeline to her side.

Junko glances up at you, sitting up so she can hit the lightswitch at the foot of the bed.

The room goes dark. You stand frozen beside her, torn up by indecision.

You can’t decide whether you want to be in the bed or under it.

Some nights, underneath just feels safer. Mom never finds you under there. Other nights, you feel like you’ll die if you don’t get to feel Junko’s arms around you. It’s usually instinct that makes that decision for you, but tonight that instinct isn’t coming and you don’t know how to pick by yourself. You wring the hem of your shirt in your hands. You’re going to have to stand here all night and you’ll have to sleep standing up or get no sleep at all because you’re just a stupid idiot who can’t even do bedtime on his own. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid–

"Yasuke." Junko’s voice comes gently in the dark, and then in the dim pink of the soft LEDs she turns on with her little remote. Your grip loosens on your shirt. Junko scoots over, leaving a space next to her against the wall. You notice that she’s wearing pajamas now, too. "Come lay down with me."

Her voice lacks any of its usual weird, shapeshifting energy. Now it’s quiet and mostly flat. Maybe someone else would be scared by the sudden change, but to you it’s a soft confirmation that you’re both done playing pretend for the night. Junko’s eyes are warm and dark, her natural red lost but amplified in the pink light now that her contacts have been put away and her makeup has been wiped off. The day is over. You get to see the only person in the world now, without any of those masks, and all she asks in return is that you drop yours, too.

You would do anything to see her. So of course, you stop pretending that you know how to be big and smart and brave, and you crawl into her warm, dark embrace. The voice in the back of your head reminds you, like it always does, that one day she’s going to get annoyed with you needing to be held like a stupid baby all the time… but then Junko, like she always does, melts when she feels you hugging her close, and the voice gets easier to ignore.

Laying in her arms, all damp hair and fresh clothes, your body finally starts to ease from the rigor mortis. The relief of all that tension starting to float away makes your mind feel fuzzy and heavy. Your thoughts start to drift off into a place where you can’t quite reach them anymore. It’s as if now that you can’t see how much bigger your body is than the rest of you, your mind has accepted what it’s actually capable of right now.

But without thoughts to occupy the space in your head, your feelings are allowed to sneak in and fill up the extra room.

Of course, a lot of those feelings are nice. The feeling of Junko’s hand petting your head, the feeling of the blanket she’s nestled the two of you in, the feeling of your thumb against the roof of your mouth, the feeling of her soft skin against your cheek… but some of the feelings are too big and too messy for you to make sense of. It’s like feeling scared and sad, but there’s an obfuscated depth to it giving it a shape that you don’t even know how to comprehend, let alone slot into its proper place.

Your eyes burn, this time not because of the bright computer screen — no, they burn because that lump in your throat is back and your chest is tight and they’ve decided that now they need to well up with tears. You shudder through a frustrated huff.

You hate crying. You hate the way it makes your chest hurt, you hate how loud it is, you hate how helpless it makes you feel, you hate that you can’t decide when to stop once you’ve started… so you don’t let the tears fall. You never do.

When a sob tries to wrangle itself out of you, you choke it back down. You can feel Junko’s lips curling into a frown against your scalp. Even with your thumb still between your teeth, you can feel your own lips curling into a frown, too. You’re catching glimpses of the unthinkable depth in those shapes and you hate it. You don’t want to see it, so you squeeze your eyes shut. They keep stinging anyway.

It feels like you’re trying to stop a waterfall by standing underneath it with your arms outstretched. And yet, somehow, you manage. The riverbed beneath you is parched. All the fish are gone and the dirt is cracked and dry, and your arms hurt so bad from the weight of all the water, but if you let go now then you’ll get swept away with the current. And you’re scared of that.

An ugly hiccup drags itself out of your chest. Even if you tried to let yourself cry, you’re not sure if you could manage. So the relief of tears never comes, and the pressure keeps building…

But still, Junko holds you. She cradles your head against her chest, and you listen to her heart beating, and she strokes your hair the way you like. She presses more kisses to the top of your head. She whispers words that you can’t quite untangle, but you know that they mean that she loves you.

You bury your face against the crook of her neck and she accepts you without hesitation. The gentle floral notes leftover from her hairspray mingle with the unplaceable scent you’ve come to unconsciously recognize as hers. Nothing soothes your nerves faster. It speaks to the part of your brain that can’t think, can’t rationalize, can only sense and react accordingly– the same part of your brain that you’re currently stuck inside of.

In the lab, with the books full of words that you can’t understand and the computer where you were supposed to be reinventing them, this state you’re in was dangerous. The room itself was a cruel trick built to surround you with everything you worked for but couldn’t maintain.

But here, with her, you understand everything. There are no words, no lives to save, no looming reminders of the Steering Committee’s hand on your throat. There’s just Junko. The only person in the world. The only world where you can exist.

Even though you still can’t cry, it feels like she’s opened a pressure release valve. It makes the waterfall weightless on your shoulders, keeps it all suspended in the air so you can put your arms down and give your poor, small, tired body a break.

She does this for you often. She’s done it for years that you don’t consciously recall, but your body remembers living through all the same. Never once has she broken the promises she’ll make you when she sees you cry for the first time. She’s never left your side. She’s never stopped loving you. She’s never forgotten you.

When you return to the self whose mother is gone, whose research is being used to hurt people, whose only choices are submitting to the grooming and extortion or watching his life’s work go down the drain, you’re going to have to grapple with the existence of those inconceivable tesseracts. You’re going to have to live with the fact that no matter how many tangles you sift through, no matter how many shapes you unravel, no matter how many of your words save however many lives, you will never understand how to exist within their cold three-dimensional halos.

But the floodlights can wait until tomorrow, where they will meet you again in that dusty old room at the end of that forbidden hallway. Tonight, the shadow of your other half is your security blanket. Her warmth is the only thing that exists and like this, in her arms, you find peace in the fact that you exist only as a piece of it. No matter how small you are, she’ll always be able to feel the hole inside her that you fill. She’ll never forget.

You tighten your hold around her waist. She brushes her lips against the beauty mark under the corner of your eye. The last of your thoughts drift upward with the waterfall, off your shoulders and past your reach. You are safe in the pink darkness of this unconditional love. She whispers words that you can’t quite untangle, and you understand everything worth knowing.