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Mika had barely opened the door to Shu’s home when he saw his look of displeasure.
“Kagehira! Did it never once cross your thick skull to inform me you wouldn’t be coming home last night? Do you know how much time I wasted worrying? Or do you simply have no care for my well being?” Shu’s words kept coming out of his mouth as soon as Mika entered the room, not even giving Mika a chance to catch his breath.
“M sorry…” was all he mumbled out, hands clutching the gift bag behind his back. If it had been that easy to tell Shu he was going away, he wouldn’t have had to run away in the first place. Shu just didn’t understand. After Mika told him that he left, there was no way Shu was going to keep him around.
Even though Shu offered for Mika to live with him, and his own foster parents paying for some of the expenses like food and clothes for him, there was a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that cropped up every so often. He didn’t belong there, he didn’t deserve to be there. He wasn’t from a high class family like Shu, everything he touched he seemed to ruin. Everything was fragile in that house of his, from the porcelain dolls to the antique furniture. Things that had been in the family for generations. Mika… didn’t have generations. Everything began with him, and ended with him. There was no history to live up to, so there wasn’t really a clear path forward for him either. Shu had a future, for sure he did, and Mika would do everything in his power to make sure he got to it. And maybe, for his hard work, he could be part of it too.
But not when he was going around and ruining everything Shu cared about.
Both bears were in the bag, the old one that he had torn, and the new one he bought. The style wasn’t quite the same as the original, though the fabric was softer, it didn’t have the same quality as the older one. Shu didn’t like many modern creations, he would surely hate the bear.
Not to mention, once again, that Mika had desecrated his beloved plushie.
How could he have not been more careful?! He knew how much Shu’s antiques meant to him, yet he was so clumsy about dusting, trying to do a job as quick as he could to prove he was worth his stay. Haste makes waste, and if he had just calmed down and not tried to prove himself, the bear would still be on the shelf, and the two of them would have shared a nice evening together.
“I doubt it, given by how you’re still slinking around in the shadows and won’t face me fully, there’s something else going on,” said Shu, hands on his hips. He gave Mika a good look up and down, then sighed. “Whatever’s happening, we can discuss later. You need to take a bath. I’ll fix you up some lunch too, I don’t expect you’d feed yourself proper food without my intervention. What would you like?”
“Eh??? Whaddya mean? Why do I get ta pick?? Nnah this must be like a prisoner’s last meal!”
“Last m- Kagehira, why do you insist that I’m always ‘getting rid of you’? Haven’t I expressed that I was upset you weren’t here last night?” asked Shu.
“An’ that’s exactly why yer gettin’ rid of me-“
“I am not getting rid of you, that implies that in some context I own you. Hm, this is giving me quite the headache. Whatever made you think that?”
Mika pressed his feet together.
“Yer… Lookin’ at single apartments fer me…”
“I’m not going to be around next year, though my parents happen to like you, I don’t think you would enjoy it much living here with them while I’m abroad. Besides, it would give you a chance to have your own space. You could put posters on the wall.”
But I don’ wanna put posters on the wall, I wanna live with Oshi-san…
Mika’s bottom lip began to quiver into a pout. He knew Shu was so sick of him crying all the time, he needed to hold it in better.
“Why didn’t you come home last night?”
Home, as in their collective home. Which wouldn’t be Mika’s anymore the second that Shu moved out.
“I… I did something terrible.”
“Yes, last night was horrible. I thought to myself at first, maybe you were out with your friend Narukami, but even she didn’t seem to know where you were. Sakuma didn’t either. I went to the park to see if maybe you had fallen asleep taking a walk, but…”
Mika looked up at Shu.
He… looked for him?
“Nnah! It’s freezin’ out, Oshi-san, ya coulda caught a cold doin’ that,” said Mika. Shu shrugged it off.
“Well, it would have been your fault for disappearing so suddenly! I don’t know what I would have done had you been in any actual sort of danger. The thought did cross my mind many times last night…”
Mika felt like the guilt was filling him, from the shiver in his legs to the increase of his heart beat. Shu could’ve gotten sick from looking for him, all because Mika hadn’t told him he was staying out.
“Nnahh I won’t do it again,” said Mika. There was a bit of a silence. He had to tell Shu about the bear.
Shu would have to be upset about it. If he wasn’t then.. something was wrong. It meant that Mika wasn’t worth getting angry at, that Shu had given up on trying to teach him just like he gave up on the two of them living together.
He almost didn’t want to know.
He couldn’t.
Mika reached into the gift bag and pulled out the new bear he bought.
“… I gotcha somethin’,” he said, watching Shu become perplexed at why he was being offered a bear.
“Oh. Alright,” said Shu, taking it from Mika’s hands. “This is what you were shopping for this morning, with Aoba, correct?”
Mika nodded his head.
Shu looked at the bear, almost as if he was piecing together a puzzle in his mind.
“Is this to apologize for making me worry last night?”
“Sort of… Nnah I can’t lie ta Oshi-san!” exclaimed Mika. Wet tears dripped down his cheeks as he pulled the old bear out of the bag, struggling to hold the stuffing together. “I… I was dustin’… an’ I knocked him over… an’ before I knew it he jus’ had stuffin’ spillin’ outta him an’ I couldn’t stop it! I couldn't bear ta see ya after I ruined it, so I left an’ spent the night at the archery range.”
Shu traced his fingers along the ripped seams, taking the bear from Mika and looking it over.
Mika could tell how much it meant to him from the pain in his eyes. But he waited, and waited for Shu to yell at him, but it never came. His heart sank. His fears had been true. Shu had totally and completely given up, being indifferent about his existence. He should leave now.
But his feet stayed firmly planted on the ground.
“Aren't ya upset?” asked Mika, emotion spilling out of his chest. “I don’t… I don’t get it…”
“Kagehira, do you know why the bear burst open from just a short fall?” asked Shu, narrowing his eyes when he looked up. “Sure, the seams are open, but did it ever occur to you that this choice of red thread was odd, given the bear is brown?”
“I don’t understand-“
“Those are my stitches. My grandfather gave me the bear when I was a child, and even the most cautious child breaks their toys if they play with them too much,” he said, tucking the stuffing back in. “Judging by the fact you didn’t throw him away, you suspect he can be fixed, correct?”
Mika sniffled a little bit.
So… It wasn’t his fault the bear broke? Shu had already broken it once before? No, that didn’t sound right. Even Shu as a child would have had more skill to sew the bear shut than Mika did here.
“I dunno… Tsumu-chan-senpai said the fabric’s real old an’ brittle-“
“Then we’ll patch him up and make him a shirt, and he can sit right next to the new bear,” said Shu, with a slight smile.
It was unsettling, Shu being so nice. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to it. But… Maybe he should trust Shu’s words more. If he said he wasn’t getting rid of him, then that was final. What good would it do Shu to lie to him?
Mika nodded.
“I’ll make the shirt fer him. It’s the least I can do.”
“I’ll make one for the other bear. It’s better if they match in terms of what clothes they’re wearing,” said Shu. He looked down at the old bear, and then back at Mika. “And do stay the night, I don’t want a repeat of yesterday.”
Mika smiled softly. That, he could do.