Work Text:
“Ah, you forgot to fill this part out,” Fuyumi leaned over and pointed over his shoulder. “That’s important.” Keigo let out a dramatic sigh and let his head fall forward onto his arm.
“I don’t want to fill it out,” he complained petulantly and Fuyumi rolled her eyes fondly. He was an exaggerating drama king but they’d been working together long enough to know he’d fill out his applications well. His laid back attitude was a persona covering up his ruthless work ethic and determination to succeed.
“Tell us what trait of yours makes you the most valuable candidate,” she read and turned to him. “This is basically just asking you to brag about yourself. You’re great at that.” He shot her a dirty look and scrunched up his nose like a baby. She bit back a laugh. He wasn’t cute.
“Bragging professionally is so much harder,” he argued and Fuyumi let herself smile because really, she got it. Interviews were hard when there was only a certain amount of self deprecation that could happen before you became undesirable, and Fuyumi had a sad inability to appreciate anything she’d done without downplaying it severely. But Keigo was so amazing even if downplayed his abilities he’d still stand out from all the other applications and Fuyumi would never let him get away with half assing the range of his abilities.
“I’m not going to do it for you,” she said sternly and poked him with a pencil. He let out a petulant whine and she poked him harder. “You don’t have to make it professional at first. Just get your achievements down and work on refining them later.” He scowled and pulled the laptop toward him and drafted a response to the question.
“Don’t forget to upload your portfolio,” she reminded him. He nodded in response and she looked back down at her homework, tapping her eraser silently on the desk as she tried to focus on something other than his look of concentration. She was proud of him. He’d come so far from where they had begun. He didn’t even need her anymore, and that made her throat dry in a way she was reluctant to consider. He’d come to her originally for help with his applications. He was smart and athletic and already had good ideas documented and saved, all she helped with was filling out the rougher edges in his application since their college advisor was far too incompetent. The past year had been a delightful one of discovering and new ideas as she separated the talented, casual school Takami who never had to try to succeed at anything with the focused, hopeful Keigo who would stop at nothing to fulfill his dream. And she’d learned to admire and care for him as she helped him along to a path she could never hope to follow.
“What do you think of this?” he asked after a while and Fuyumi turned her attention back to him, shifting closer in her chair so she could see better. Her chin brushed his shoulder and she heard his soft intake of breath and sensed him turn toward her ever so slightly, his eyes sweeping over her face greedily. She ignored it, even as part of her preened in the back of her mind. It was subtle enough for anyone to miss, but Fuyumi knew him well enough to be able to interpret his every move. He liked her. Enough to be mesmerized when she picked at her chapped lips and stood a little closer or looked at her a little too long to be friendly. He complimented her often and she brushed them off knowing he’d never tell her such things if it weren’t for his stupid infatuation with her. And she cursed herself for paying so much attention to him she could tell all of these things without him telling her. But their relationship, while close, was transactional and so she brought her mind back to the task at hand.
“Hmm,” she hummed. “I like it, just-” she reached her hand over to fix his typo and brushed over his hands. Mistake, her brain scolded her as she tried to freeze her blush before it rose in her cheeks but she kept her hands steady and didn’t snatch them away like she was tempted to. Because Keigo was smart, and he couldn’t know her heart raced, too. “Okay, there. I think you should rework this sentence and you still have a few words left here so expand a little bit more on what you’ve done.”
“Thanks,” Keigo accepted her input and shot her a smile too soft for her heart to handle. She shrugged. Of course, she thought silently despite the irony of her helping him with college applications when she wasn’t going to college herself. She looked away from the steady tapping at the keyboard and tried to remind herself she was proud of him enough to outweigh her longing.
She was still bitter she couldn’t escape the town and run off to the city like he was. She’d had plans her first year of high school, taking all of the AP classes she could and studying hard and enrolling in extracurriculars that would help her. Her second year had been helping Keigo and developing her own passion, but also the descent into reality as her family loomed above her like a menacing cloud of foreboding. She’d fought against her father, but not hard enough because she knew, deep down, that she would lose. That she was always meant to lose. And sometimes she wondered if it would have been easier to have never allowed herself to dream at all.
It was why she couldn’t allow herself to get closer. Not now. Not when Keigo would be getting a full ride scholarship and Fuyumi milked the last days of her high school freedom desperately. Not when giving in would turn into I love yous too quickly and shatter into heartbreak. High school was nothing in the grand scheme of life. Relationships in high school were nothing more than pop quizzes and mock tests in comparison to the weight of the final test on one’s grade. College wasn’t even the pinnacle in one’s life either, but more like a midterm to gauge where one was doing in the course, an important milestone to help one go further. And in college, the past held one back. Touya had chosen to bomb his midterms and become something entirely different outside of their father’s influence, and didn’t want any reminders or ties with his family to hold him back while pursuing his ambitions. She’d learned that, slowly but surely, college changed you and warped you into another person - or maybe the person you were always meant to be. The high school persona was not one to be trusted, so even though her skin burned with the phantom feel of his touch and she fought the urge to shiver under his gaze, she held steadfast.
I love you, she acknowledged privately as she doodled in the margins of her paper. But he was not hers to covet, nor was she his to keep, so she wrestled down the bit of honesty that wanted to lay her feelings bare before him and watch him cradle them gently. Maybe she’d allow herself a moment of weakness one day, she thought as she rested her face on her fist and studied him over her glasses. Maybe she could tell him she loved him and then run off before she’d have to deal with those consequences and get that regret off her chest enough to deal with the rest of the other ones. Yeah, she reasoned. She could do that. Later, though, she told herself as the itch to do so immediately threatened to spill.
“I gotta go home now,” she told him. His face fell but he made no objection.“I’ll look over your essays tonight and get back to you on them, okay?” He nodded and raised a hand lazily in farewell.
“Okay, see ya,” he smiled politely and she nodded before gathering her things and leaving the room.
There were still children, she told herself as fought back the sinking guilt in her chest. They were too young for this to be proper heartbreak. And yet, maybe this feeling was the end of childhood, enough pain to burn away the rest of the wonderful innocence and immerse one into harsh reality.
No, she thought as she served her father food, wrestling Natuso into his chair and setting aside Shouto’s careful diet before climbing up the stairs and spoon feeding her mother soup because she was too weak to get out of bed. She stared out the window towards the city that mocked her, gloating about stealing Keigo away from her. They weren’t children anymore.