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Fuyuhiko is four. He is lying on the floor by the door that connects his and Peko's bedrooms. He scribbles with a red coloured pencil, his feet kicking at the empty air behind him. After a couple of minutes, he slides the paper through the gap. He pushes his face to the floor and shuts one eye, trying to peek through the crack between the floorboards and the door. He waits for her response.
Fuyuhiko tries to pick the wax out of his teeth. He accidentally bit his crayon, a result of being too used to chewing on his pencils. He sits with his back against the door as he pushes his picture underneath it. He is still four.
Natsumi is banging on Fuyuhiko's door, demanding her green pencil back. She screams that she can't draw the stem of her flower without it. Fuyuhiko is too busy leaning against the other door in his bedroom, the door that leads to Peko. He scribbles on a spare piece of paper and hastily slips it under Peko's door before Natsumi breaks the other down. He is five.
Peko sniffles, quietly stifling her sobs. Fuyuhiko's father had screamed at her for not being vigilant enough during a family outing, resulting in Fuyuhiko almost getting kidnapped by a member of their rival clan. She wipes away her tears from under her glasses using the corner of her duvet. She sniffles again, then halts as she hears a small sweep across the floor. She turns to the door that leads to Fuyuhiko's room. A sheet of paper lies on the floor. She is six.
Fuyuhiko paces his bedroom. He has been locked in, grounded by his mother. He bites his fingernails. He runs his fingers across the books on his shelf, blowing the dust from his fingertip when he pulls it away. He looks out at the garden. He tries to do a handstand and winces when his wrist twists. He flops on his bed. He opens his bedside drawer. He takes out a notebook and rips a sheet of paper from it. He is seven. He doesn't like being alone.
Fuyuhiko is annoyed. He is frustrated. But he doesn't know why. He saw Peko chatting with a brunet boy earlier in the day near the dojo. He wonders who he is, and why Peko was talking to him. Maybe that's why he feels so frustrated. He writes her a note questioning who the boy is, too nervous to confront her in person, for whatever reason that may be. He doesn't think too far into it. He is nine.
Fuyuhiko is bored. He dreams about being a ninja someday and starting his own ninja-clan. He leans against a heavy encyclopaedia, drawing on some paper. He is more careful than usual, and he takes his time. He wants to show it to somebody, but he knows his parents will disapprove, and Natsumi will mock him. So, he slips it under the door, right to the one person he knows won't belittle him for having a dream. He has just turned ten.
Peko is mad. She fiddles with her red hakama. It is ripped. Fuyuhiko had been messing with a real katana he had found in his father's office. She doesn't know how she got in there (as it was a locked room), nor how he managed to pull it off its holdings on the wall. But he did. She'd tried to grab it back, fearing he may hurt himself, but he swung it away. It caught the fabric her hakama and sliced clean through it. That was her favourite hakama. Peko sighs. Something white slides into the corner of her vision. She turns to the door and grabs the sheet of paper. She is twelve. He is eleven.
Fuyuhiko is home late. He'd been out watching a movie with a friend. It was rated a 15, but he got in despite being freshly thirteen. He always got his way when people learnt of his name. He thinks about the events of the film. He wonders what Peko would think about something that happened in it. He's too embarrassed to bring up the topic with her face-to-face. So, he settles on writing her a note and pushing it under their shared door. He anxiously awaits her response, chewing on his fingernails.
Peko has a cold. She keeps sneezing. The tissues are piling up at her bedside, spilling off the nightstand. She grabs another tissue and sneezes—as quietly as she can—into it. She opens her eyes, and a light is shining from beneath Fuyuhiko's door. Crap, she thinks. She woke him up. She waits, eyeing the crack beneath the door, hoping it turns off. It doesn't. The light fades for a moment, just on the left side. Then, a slip of paper glides across the floor. She hesitates, then steps out of bed, pushing her duvet to the side. She is fourteen.
Fuyuhiko is fifteen. He has a crush. On a girl. She makes him feel funny, that's how he knows. His heart races when she gets a step too close. He finds himself looking for her, even when he has no reason to. The (rare) sound of her soft giggle when he tells a dumb joke gives him a sense of pride he just can't quell, even days after the fact. But there's a problem. He can't tell her. Not directly, at least. So, in all his fifteen-year-old wisdom, he attempts to write her a very inconspicuous note. Just to see what she'll say.
He searches the paper, reading her words intently, desperate to detect if there's any secret meaning hidden between the lines. After a minute had passed with still no luck deciphering her words, he picks up his pen and flips the paper over. Why not just ask?
It's late. Fuyuhiko stares at his ceiling in the dark. Peko stares at hers. Fuyuhiko's bed is too cold. Peko's bed is too wide. He looks over to the door. He's sixteen now, and there's only one week left until the pair move up to Tokyo with Natsumi to begin their enrolment at Hope's Peak Academy. Even though Fuyuhiko is ready for a fresh new start in life- there's something he knows he'll miss. He writes her a note, only half-expecting a response.
Their door creaks open. It clicks shut. Tonight, only one room is occupied.
It might stay like this for a while.
Sure, sharing a door is fun.
But sharing a bed is nicer.