Chapter Text
In his sixteen years, Tanaka Ryuunosuke just made one mistake.
His three years at Karasuno High school just started around four weeks ago, at was May now. Finding new friends, entering a school club, making new experiences, having fun. That’s how he hoped it would be. Apparently, Lady Fortune had other plans for him.
He always went to the same school with Kimoto Kouhei. They were in different classes, but eventually met. Kimoto had dark brown hair and eyes, was very muscular for his age, and he was 188 cm and handsome, which made him popular very quickly. Ryuunosuke himself wasn’t that muscular, but he considered himself normally built with his 173 cm. He was just 15, so he hoped to grow some more. Kimoto and he were best friends in middle school. They spent a lot of time together since they lived close. Playing video games was their favourite activity, but they also worked on their homework. They felt comfortable around each other.
When Ryuunosuke was around twelve, he noticed that he was somehow different from the other boys in his class. They talked about sports, singers or actresses and admired their beauty or how cute they were. Ryuunosuke just thought he wasn’t interested in that kind of stuff, as he didn’t really like talking about these kind of things. He was actually more interested in the clothes they wore. He was also not interested in the female friends his older sister brought home with her, like Kimoto was. He preferred dancing and fashion over playing baseball or soccer with his friends, and they started making fun of him. At that time Kimoto still defended him.
When he was thirteen, he found out why he was different from his friends. He found out that he was attracted to boys. To say that he was shocked at first was an understatement. Ryuunosuke needed some time to process that and come to terms with his own sexuality. He withdraw a bit from his friends and spent some time alone, trying to find some books or articles that would help him. When he finally was comfortable with himself again, he decided that he should tell his best friend. After all, Kimoto probably knew the most about him, as they always shared secrets.
They were spending the afternoon at Kimoto’s place, studying for a history test the next day. It took Ryuunosuke some time to muster the courage to tell his best friend about his sexual orientation. He explained him how he felt about boys and girls, and how troubled he was after discovering it. But he also told Kimoto that he wasn’t interested in him, so he shouldn’t worry about that. There was an uncomfortable silence after he confessed. He was waiting anxious for a response from his best friend. To him, it felt like hours until Kimoto finally reacted.
He threw him out. Kimoto just told him to pack his books and leave the house. Nothing else. Ryuunosuke sighed and complied. What else could he have done? He left Kimoto’s house and hoped that his friend just needed time to think about what he just heard. Somewhat hopefully he walked home and finished the studying for the test alone.
The next day at school Kimoto kept his distance to Ryuunosuke. The latter already thought that this would happen. The following days weren’t any different. In the week after that however, Ryuunosuke felt that something changed. He found out that Kimoto betrayed him and it scattered the hope he had. His classmates were whispering to each other and stopped when he came close. They also didn’t invite him anymore to hang out with them. And around three weeks after coming out to his best friend, the whole school knew he was gay. They started bullying him, there wasn’t a day anymore he wasn’t called names. He started hating going to school, but it would take around one more year before he could go to a high school. He knew he just had to bear it, but that was harder than it sounded.
It got even harder when his parents found out about him being gay. Apparently, Kimoto’s mother met his mother at the supermarket, they talked about their children and Kimoto’s mother told his mother what she heard from her son. Ryuunosuke knew he wasn’t the favourite child, he wasn’t born as a girl and wasn’t even planned to begin with. So when his mother found out that her son was gay, she was outraged. She actually wanted to throw him out of the house, but thought this would make her look like a failure and bring shame to her family. After her talking with his father, his parents agreed he could stay in their house if he would pay rent. What other option did he have than finding himself a part time job? His big sister kept out of the whole conversation. Ryuunosuke didn’t know if she just didn’t care or was too afraid to say something.
Now, standing on the Karasuno High School roof, eating a rice ball, he looked down on the other students. Thinking back about everything happening to him in the last three years made him realize that telling Kimoto he was gay was the biggest mistake he ever made.
Kimoto told his classmates in middle school about it, and those class mates told friends from other classes, so the news spread around in school and he lost all his friends. His family finding out lead to him needing a part time job. He had to work at a small bookstore after school, usually until the evening, so he could pay some rent to his parents. At home, he additionally had to do the house work, cook food and go grocery shopping, sometimes in exchange for food or missing rent. He was struggling with his school, because he just didn’t have the time to focus on his studies. But he knew he couldn’t move out, he would need way more money that way, which would just mean working more. It was a vicious cycle.
And even now in Karasuno, nothing changed, since Kimoto chose to go to the same High school. Within just one week after coming here, everyone knew about him. The bullying and names just continued. Even those people who wouldn’t mind Ryuunosuke wasn’t into girls, didn’t dare to become friends with him. They were afraid of being bullied too. Some days, Ryuunosuke would find notes at his desk with mean drawings or insults, he once also found a razor blade in his shoes after changing his clothes after PE, luckily before putting them on.
Even with all the bullying, mean words and once in a while a jostle in the hallway, and the verbal abuse at home, he was too afraid to go to the guidance counselor of his school, or even the police. He feared everything would be worse after that. No, all he had to do was to endure everything for three more years, until he would finish High school so he could start working. He knew it wouldn’t be a good job, because he wouldn’t be able to get a university degree, but he didn’t care. Ryuunosuke just needed enough money to move to his own place, preferably far, far away. That’s all he wanted.
He finished the last bite of his rice ball, his last meal before going home around 10:00 this evening, and put his lunch box in his backpack. He had the last shift at the bookstore, they would close around 9:00. He has to clean everything there and on his way back home he had to buy some groceries before starting dinner preparations. Just thinking about that made him sigh. He was happy over the fact that he could at least do some homework when there was no customer in the book store, and he could use the books that were useful for doing that. The bald-headed teen made it to his seat at the very end of the classroom and got his books out of his bag. The next two class were math. He actually didn’t understand even a bit of their current subject, because he accidentally fell asleep during the introduction. He tried to understand it during class and when doing homework, but he just couldn’t understand it. He also already asked his math teacher to explain it to him again after class one day, but the explanation just confused him more. And asking one of his classmates would just be wasted effort. Maybe he could ask his big sister, but she always was busy with her college and Ryuunosuke didn’t want to bother her. Even though he paid attention to the teacher in class and wrote the calculation down, he still didn’t understand a word.
After sitting through history and art, the exhausted teen made his way directly to the book store. The owner already waited for him to take over the shift, and wished him a nice evening. The owner was a nice older man, sometimes he would even bring the teen some food when his wife cooked too much. His wage wasn’t the best, but he liked working here. The customers were nice and he liked talking with them and helping to find the right book. That evening, there were just a few customers in the store, so he was looking for the right math book to his current subject and hoped it would at least help him to understand a bit. During his shift, he was able to get most of his homework done, not just math also the other subject.
After the last customer left, he quickly cleaned and closed the store and made his way to the close by supermarket. His mother already shoved a shopping list and the necessary money into his hands before he left for school, so he quickly bought everything written down and hurried to get home. Some minutes before 11:00, the fatigued teen finally arrived home. His father was standing in the kitchen, a cup of tea in his hands, his mother and his sister seemed to be in bed already. He greeted his father and hastily started with the dinner, Karaage as requested. At least that was a meal that didn’t take too much time preparing. When everything was done, he cleaned the kitchen and set the timer of the rice cooker so the rice would be done tomorrow morning when everyone was up. After that, Ryuunosuke took a quick shower and went to bed.