Chapter Text
It was Monday, Feburary 7th, 2005. Munakata Reisi was at this point sixteen years old. He attended a special type of boarding school, much akin to the kind found within the borders of Denmark. In short: He lived there, and had done so since he finished junior high two years ago. Of course, he would return home in holidays and most weekends, but otherwise he rarely left school grounds and preffered to stay indoors when the weather turned less than enjoyable.
Unfortunately, due to the arrivals of the students of Aka High, who were visiting to get a look on a different type of school, Reisi was now outside. Originally the plan was that the entire school greeted the arrivals, but since it started raining, the head master decided to only bring out the “important people”.
Because he had attended the same elementary school as three of them and used to be somewhat friends with them, as well as being head of the student council, the headmaster had decided that he was in fact one of those “important people”. Thusly, he was now fighting the urge to move around in order to keep from turning into a popsicle in Japan’s cold winter rain.
Surprisingly, the source of his irritation was not the weather alone, but also a certain red haired teenager whose uninterested drawl he hadn’t heard since they parted ways the last day of elementary school. No, even before then. The week before that? Or was it a month? He didn’t recall anylonger, however the lazy tone and different accented huffs of air the redhead used as communication was still fresh in Reisi’s memory.
He glanced at the watch on above the school’s main entrance for the hundred and seventh time that day. They were late.
He almost didn’t manage to finish the thought, before a colorful bus appeared down the road.
“Ah, here they are!” Reisi sighed at his headmaster’s cheery voice, but followed the middleaged man towards the now parked bus.
Another reaon for Reisi to be one of the “important people” was the fact that was his past relationship with Suoh Mikoto. When they started in elementary school, Reisi had been an easy target for bullies. Mikoto had been the problem child who skipped school and terrorized the teachers. Mikoto had always hated bullies and had taken it on himself to protect the nerdy kid. As they became friends, Mikoto seemed to calm down. Reisi assumed that he hadn’t wanted to leave Reisi alone at any time, so he attended all his classes. While he still didn’t do much of his homework, he stopped messing with the teachers when he realized it made Reisi uncomfortable.
At the beginning of the fourth year of elementary school, a boy named Kusanagi Izumo joined the class, and the three of them became friends, although Reisi and Mikoto was still practically inseparable.
Somewhere throughout fifth grade, it all started changing. Reisi started getting confused about his feelings. They had rounded the age of ten and the boys were starting to talk about girls. Izumo had a lot of friends outside thei little trio, so it was originally him, who brought the talk with him. Mikoto was quick to agree and they – especially Mikoto - soon started bragging about how many they had kissed. Of course, neither of them had kissed any, but Reisi didn’t know back then. Or maybe he did, deep down.
The problem was, that Reisi didn’t relate to their talk. He didn’t find Mikoto’s ‘indecent’ pictures that interesting.
He also started finding himself starring at Mikoto. He would get more sad than he should, when Mikoto would head straight home after school to see how his mother was doing. He would get jalous when Mikoto payed attention to someone else.
In the end, ten year old Munakata Reisi came to the conclution, that he was in love with the redheaded troublemaker. A child’s love, but he still started thinking something was wrong with him.
Through fifth grade he started making up excuses as to why he couldn’t bring Mikoto home or the other way around. Mikoto’s mother had been in and out of the hospital the past three years and when she died in the hospital bed, Mikoto too became distant and started avoiding Reisi aswell.
Then Totsuka Tatara started in the end of fifth grade. Reisi had first seen him as a harmless puppy, but somehow they didn’t really like eachother. It wasn’t that they didn’t get along, they just didn’t seek out eachother’s company. Tatara became Mikoto and Izumo’s new friend and Reisi’s replacement.
By the end of sixth grade, Reisi no longer considered Mikoto to be his friend. They were both twelve years old and hadn’t spoken to eachother for months. When they parted ways the last day of elementary school, they shared a short awkward glance before they each went their own way.
It was first now, in second grade of highschool that Reisi could finally look himself in the mirror and say that he was no longer in love with Suoh Mikoto and believe it.
And now he was coming here. To Reisi’s school. For an entire week. And as if that wasn’t enough, he was to share room with Reisi, since the schools had looked at their records and decided that the best way to keep Mikoto from destroying the school was pairing him up with Reisi. To make Reisi babysit him. To make him stay by Reisi’s side “at all times”.
Reisi watched as an overly exited teenage boy, Totsuka Tatara, jumped out of the bus, closely followed by a yawning Mikoto and a slightly more composed Izumo.
“Look, King, there’s Munakata!” exclaimed Tatara. Reisi frowned slightly at the lack of a honorific, but quickly let it fade into his typical emotionless expression.
He started walking towards them as Mikoto made an uninterested noise and went to help Izumo get their bags. Tatara smiled widely and followed.
Reisi waited a few meters away until they all had their bags. The headmaster started moving them all inside and the arrivals started walking inside to meet their hosts.
“Suoh, this way.” When they became friends, Mikoto had refused to use Reisi’s given name, before Reisi used his. Reisi, being stubborn as he always was, in turn refused to use Mikoto’s before Mikoto used his. Neither of them wanted to lose that competition, so they had always used eachother’s familyname.
Reisi didn’t bother to see if he followed, but started walking off to a side entrance. It was closer to his room and neither of them had to be anywhere withing the next half an hour.
He opened the door and held it open for Mikoto, as the redhead walks inside. To Reisis’s surprice, he didn’t bring any bag, only a towel casually slung over his right shoulder.
“Where’s your bag?” Reisi asked as he followed Mikoto into the hallway, letting the door close behind him.
“Didn’t bring one,” sounded the answer. Mikoto rarely used more words than absolutely necersarry to get his point across. Most of the time he didn’t even use words.
“Why didn’t you bring a bag?” Reisi looked slightly annoyed at him. He liked having order in things. He liked planning. And here was Mikoto, who didn’t even take the time to pack a bag.
“Don’t need one.” Reisi sighed.
“Suit yourself.” He unlocked the door to his room and swung it open, allowing Mikoto to step inside. The room had two small closets, two beds, a large desk a bookshelf and a reather large bathroom with a shower, a toilet a sink and a vanity cupboard. Everything in the room was almost clinically clean, the floor, the bathroom and the tabletop being cleaned every day.
Reisi didn’t have a lot of things in there as he preferred to keep his stuff at home, but the five books in the bookshelf was accompanied by four boxes of jigsaw puzzles and a wooden carving of a bear, his brother bought him for his ninth birthday. The walls were bare and white except for a round clock, hanging over the window.
Usually they were two in a room, but Reisi’s roommate dropped out within the first week so Reisi was all alone. That also meant, that unlike the other visitors, Mikoto would get a proper bed to sleep in.
Mikoto looked around.
“You haven’t changed at all, have you?” Reisi decided not to answer and pointed at the bed he made for Mikoto.
“You can sleep there. the packing list did say to bring your own sheets and pillow, but for some reason I doubted you would bring any.” Mikoto chuckled and dropped himself on the bed, not bothering to remove his shoes first. He folded his arms under his head, using them as a pillow and closed his eyes. Reisi sighed.
“If you sigh, the happiness escapes you.” It took a bit for Reisi to register, that Mikoto had used one of Reisi’s mother’s favorite lines.
“Is that so?” He asked with a raised eyebrow. The only answer he got was Mikoto’s slight snoring. He withstood the urge to sigh again and instead settled with shaking his head, as he sat down by the desk and found his math assignment in his homework folder. They didn't have to go to the evening gathering so he had half an hour to do his homework before ten pm, at which point they had to get ready to go to bed.