Chapter Text
It would be easier if Rei wanted to die.
It was a chilly morning in November. Thankfully, the heating in Rei’s one-room apartment had been fixed somewhat since he moved in, and the curtains were drawn to let meager sunlight in. Rei sat against the wardrobe near his bed, eating a sandwich that was nothing more than eggs between toasted slices of bread. He wore only an old t-shirt and gray boxer shorts, the same clothes he had worn all day yesterday. The sunlight reached the skin on the right side of his body, producing the faintest sensation of warmth. The pressure in his chest felt particularly heavy today. He didn’t think he could make it to school, so he took his time with his miserable meal.
Though he could no longer understand why, Rei had wanted to return to school after his debut as a professional shogi player. What was it that he wanted to find? An image of himself formed in his head, surrounded by friends in the classroom. Rei was covering his mouth as he laughed, and his next-seat neighbor shushed the others while barely containing his laughter himself. Their homeroom teacher never figured out what the joke was, making it even funnier for the high school boys. When the last class ended, Rei quickly slung his bag over his shoulder and joined his best friends on their usual walk home. It had been another fun day.
Rei shook the daydream from his head. Of course, even going back to school wouldn’t change his personality. Friends and formative high school experiences don’t just happen to you. He had foolishly foregone the fact that simply showing up to class wouldn’t solve his loneliness. The reality is, he felt like a completely different being from everyone in his class. They were fundamentally different entities. It was obvious by the hesitation from others when he did speak: a halt in otherwise fluid chatter, as if they were as confused by Rei as he was by them. Even if Rei wanted to make friends, there was a sort of impenetrable veil draped over every centimeter of his body. His words don’t get through to others, and others’ words don’t get through to him.
He wondered if this is how Souya Meijin felt. The blinding child of God carried his own impenetrable sphere, like a snow globe, freezing time and sound within it. He wondered if his own hearing would eventually go too, and come, and go away again. If Souya Meijin was a frozen snow globe, contained within himself, Rei was a castaway who sank deeper and deeper into a boundless ocean, where sound, warmth, and light would never reach, where above, below, left or right were indistinguishable. Rei had read about how divers can suffer health consequences from descending too fast or without proper preparation. The growing pressure causes the air inside your body to compress, so your lungs and ears can become powerful vacuums. Your eardrums are sucked in, and hearing can get stuffy, or muffled, or lost altogether. He clutched at his chest, where the pressure remained heavy and unreachable. Maybe his ears would soon give out, too. Maybe his heart.
Rei flipped open his phone to find no new messages. It’s not like he had many contacts in the first place. Akari-san believed he was at school, so she wouldn’t want to disturb him. Hina and Momo were probably at school too, like he should be. Nikaidou and Shimada-san would be studying at Shimada-san’s home as usual. Hayashida-sensei was the only one who might notice his absence, but even he would have better things to do than follow up on a single student’s absence, anyway. Rei was free to stay in.
He dragged his body to the shogi board in the middle of the room. He was supposed to study his opponent’s match records before next week’s match. Half an hour into the charade, he accepted that he wasn’t making any progress. He slid back into the comfort of his futon on the floor, against the wall, protected from the window by his wardrobe. It was still morning. He was really tired.
Grasping at his chest couldn’t remove whatever force was constricting his lungs, forcing him to draw shorter breaths, but he did it anyway. He fell in a half-awake trance where he heard waves, crashing, louder and louder until an especially loud one stole sound from him, and he sank into dreamless sleep.
***
Although still groggy, Rei could hear loud knocking on a door that was almost definitely his. Eyes closed, he prayed it wasn’t, yet the sound didn’t stop. He had to answer.
He couldn’t understand how he had mustered the effort, but before long, Rei had put on his glasses and stood up. His head was stuffy and slow, but he’d manage. He flipped both locks and opened the door. “Heyyy, Kiriyama, playing hooky, are we? Thought you could pull a fast one over your teacher, huh— wait, did you just wake up? It’s almost 6PM. Are you sick?” Hayashida-sensei’s rapid fire was difficult to keep up with. The homeroom teacher placed his hand on Rei’s forehead. “No, you don’t feel warm… Yetch,” he muttered, and wiped his hand on his pants. “Sweaty, though. You should probably shower or something.”
“Sensei… Did you… just come here to berate me?” Rei resisted the urge to close the door and go back to bed.
“Oh, please, give me a little credit, like I could berate a dear student of mine whose monthly income is…” Hayashida-sensei’s eyes narrowed. Higher than mine, his silence said. “Well, anyway. I wanted to check up on you. You’ve had so many absences already, I thought you were worried about not passing the grade this year at this rate.”
“Oh, that.” Rei hadn’t thought about it at all today. And he wouldn’t. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”
Hayashida-sensei was already inviting himself in. He slid off his shoes then walked to Rei’s small kitchen counter. Rei hadn’t noticed at first, but it looked like his teacher had brought some paper bags with him.
“An answer like that won’t do, you know. I like having you around school, but I do want to see you graduate high school before I’m 40.” The teacher started taking items out of the bag: a boxed lunch, a plastic container with some kind of soup, and fresh bakery bread.
“What’s all—”
“Just a question, Kiriyama-kun. Do you always greet your guests in underwear, or am I special?”
Rei immediately looked down at his legs and felt his ears run hot. He had felt so outside himself, he didn’t notice he was still wearing only underwear; yesterday’s underwear, at that.
“I can literally sue you for sexual harassment, you know!” he shouted as he grabbed the nearest pair of slacks and ducked into the bathroom. “You’re already in my home, uninvited, so your case isn’t looking good at all!” He could hear his teacher snickering through the walls.
When he came out, utensils and a glass of water were laid out on the counter next to the boxed lunch. Hayashida-sensei, to Rei’s irritation, was organizing the clutter and putting away Rei’s dishes.
“Why did you come, sensei?” It was hard to speak respectfully, but he had little choice. “You’re not even my homeroom teacher anymore.”
“How cruel! Until you leave high school you still count as my student, Kiriyama-kun.” The teacher wasn’t letting up. “Less doubting my goodwill, more eating, how’s that?”
Begrudgingly, Rei grabbed the boxed lunch and sat on the floor by his coffee table. He quickly noticed something about the box was… familiar. When he opened it, he was sure: this boxed lunch was prepared by Akari-san and, most likely, Hinata’s help. It was nothing special, just the rice and leftover curry he had helped them make so many times, but at the same time, it was so, so special.
“Your face can be so transparent, huh.” Hayashida-sensei was smiling. “It sure is nice to receive a boxed lunch from a special someone, isn’t it?”
“How do you have this?” Rei did his best to ignore that last comment, or he’d go even redder than before.
Looks like his teacher was also heating up the tea kettle. Just how comfortable was this guy in Rei’s home? “When I noticed you were absent without a formal excuse, I asked Hina-chan if she’d heard from you. She was surprised to hear you didn’t show up. Apparently, they’ve been trying not to bother you because you have an important match coming up.” Rei concentrated on pushing each bite past his mouth, past his guilt. “So she said, ‘oh, Rei-chan is probably cooped up studying and forgetting everything else’. She asked me to bring you some food. She wanted to come herself, but apparently she needed to help out at her family’s shop. That girl, she’s so hardworking, isn’t she?”
She was. Rei admired her so much for that. Each of the Kawamoto sisters had so much to give.
Meanwhile, he…
The momentary happiness of being cared for faded, and was replaced by a wave of disgust towards himself. He was allowing himself to be cared for, again. Troubling the Kawamoto sisters, again, and this time he had roped Hayashida-sensei into it too.
He would save the rest of his food for when his appetite came back.
“What, don’t tell me that’s it.” His teacher was frowning again.
“I’ll eat the rest of it later. I’m full right now.”
He had expected a sarcastic retort from his teacher, but Hayashida-sensei seemed pensive instead. Like he was planning his words. “Have you weighed yourself recently, Kiriyama-kun?”
They were heading into uncomfortable territory. “Not since my last physical at school.”
“You do look thin, huh… Akari-san was getting concerned, and I am, too. Just make sure to eat every day… Alright?” Hayashida-sensei’s tone was unusually soft. Sincere. It made Rei feel so strange, and a little bit unpleasant.
“Right. I will.” It was a mindless, automatic answer. He’d eat whenever he remembered, and whenever he knew he could keep food down. He didn’t need to think further than that.
Hayashida-sensei didn’t press. He wiped the counter clean and faced Rei one last time.
“You’ve… You’ve gotten better since we first met. I know Akari-san and Hina-chan have been such a good influence on you. Momo-chan, too, of course,” he added with a smile. “I wish— we all wish you would rely on us some more when you need it.”
I think it’s physically impossible to rely on you guys more than I already do, was the answer he bit back. Any more, and you’d be holding my spoon for me when I eat.
“Right, well…” Hayashida-sensei stepped into his shoes and stood by the door. “I leave you to your,” he glanced at the room cluttered with shogi books and records, “studying, I think. I left you some tea to help you focus. Let me know if you need anything.” Finally, the door shut behind his former teacher and Rei was alone again.
The curry that once felt like warmth and laughter and happiness, like he was carrying home a small living thing, had lost its soothing effect. He only felt like Rei Kiriyama, the cuckoo bird who took over his adoptive family and pushed his siblings off the nest. The one who had stolen this portion of food from the sisters who had to budget for every meal they prepared. He needed to stop being cared for. He didn’t want to keep adding to the tab of kindness he would never be able to repay.
He put away the rest of the boxed lunch, but hesitated with the container of soup. Reheated soup was disgusting. It would be so wasteful. Plus, it really was a cold day, or a cold evening by now. The least he could do was not insult the sisters’ kindness and accept this. Hina’s smiling face came into view in his mind’s eye. He had to smile back at the thought, just a little.
But Hina’s face morphed into one of concern, and he remembered how she looked at him the day they first met. Rei had defeated someone in a shogi match that day, and in revenge, they coerced Rei into drinking too much and left him to pay for their drinks. Akari-san had found him outside and carried him back home like he was an injured kitten. When he woke up, Hina-chan’s eyes full of worry were fixed on him, the image burned into his mind. The sisters had met him in such a pitiful state, and they still stuck to him. Was it pity? Duty? Did they believe they’d be responsible for him if something happened?
The soup was lukewarm by now. Good. Rei believed it would’ve felt much worse if it was at a better temperature. This, he could tolerate. The tea his teacher made would keep him hydrated. The bread would keep him going when he couldn’t bring himself to prepare a meal. He truly was grateful. He knew the visit was well-meaning. It’s just that the more gratitude he accumulated, the more undeserving he felt. So much energy invested into him had to have some kind of proportional output, right? Thanks to their kindness, he should be able to win a lot of matches, make a lot of money, and help everyone when they needed help. He was much too indebted to allow himself to drown in his tiny apartment.
Once again, Rei Kiriyama turned to shogi for a lifeline.