Work Text:
🦋🐜
"Hey, can you hear me?"
Your voice reached him as if through a curtain of cotton.
Gido blinked. His head was too heavy to move, so he rolled his eyes toward you. Squeezing his eyes against the bright sky, he gradually adjusted to the daylight. A surprised huff escaped his lips when he saw you kneeling beside him.
Startled by your proximity, Gido flinched. He gained enough strength to sit up and slide away from you. How long had he been lying there? A memory hit him hard. He remembered the boys from his school who had ambushed him right after classes ended.
"Are you okay?"
Huh?
"What did you just say?"
"I asked if you were okay," you repeated slowly, your brows knitting with worry. "Your face looks pretty bad."
He was used to getting beaten black and blue, often losing all his strength or consciousness in the process. What he was not used to was someone asking if he was okay. "I—I," he stammered, unable to grasp a single thought. Was someone, a stranger and a girl above all, concerned for his well-being?
"Let's patch you up, shall we?" you asked, giving him a warm smile.
Gido was so overwhelmed that he didn’t know what to do. But the moment you held out your hand, his body reacted on its own. He grasped your soft, delicate hand with his rough one and stood up. He had never known that a girl's hands could be so soft.
"Let's go over there," you suggested, pointing to a wooden bench on the empty playground. He followed you without saying a word. While he sat beside you, you rummaged through your giant square bag. Before he knew it, you had laid out a bottle of hand sanitizer, an antiseptic solution, bandages, tissues, small scissors, cotton balls, and swabs on the bench.
Astonished, he took in all the supplies you had laid out. You were carrying a whole first-aid kit!
"I'm always prepared for everything!" you proclaimed, smiling proudly. You squirted a generous amount of sanitizer onto your palms, rubbed your hands and fingers together, and warned, "It'll sting a little."
Gido didn’t feel anything while you tended to his wounds. He glanced at you cautiously from time to time, his gaze always halting on the rainbow-colored butterfly clips in your hair that fluttered whenever you moved.
Once you had finished, you put everything back in your backpack.
"Thanks," Gido said.
"So, what’s your name?"
"Kiyochika...Gido." You told him your name, and he asked, "Aren't you scared?"
"Scared of what?"
"My teeth."
You leaned forward, making him recoil reflexively. The butterflies in your hair danced wildly, mirroring the fluttering of his heart from the unusual closeness. He was much calmer when danger enveloped him. He wasn’t used to peace, neither at home, where his drunk father beat his mother, nor at school.
"What's wrong with your teeth?" you asked, furrowing your brow.
Apparently, you hadn’t noticed them yet. Gido reluctantly opened his mouth, exposing his sharp teeth.
You gasped and clapped a hand over your lips.
She'll say something nasty for sure, he thought. Or maybe you would run away.
"Doesn't it hurt when you eat? Have you ever bitten your tongue?" you asked, voice full of concern.
"Ah... Uh," Gido stammered, puzzled by your unexpected reaction. "I've mostly gotten used to it. I've had them for as long as I can remember. They are the reason other kids bully me. It’s not like I chose to be this way..." He clenched his bruised fists, which you had carefully treated with ointment. "You should leave. If they see us together, you might get bullied too."
For a while, you didn't say anything. Finally, with a gloomy face, you said, "Those who bully you are jerks. It’s not right to beat someone up just because they look different."
Something was scratching at Gido's throat. Before he knew it, tears were rolling down his cheeks. He quickly wiped them away with his forearm and sniffed. How embarrassing. Embarrassing and confusing. At some point, Gido stopped believing that anyone in this world would be kind to him. His chest tingled strangely, so he pressed his hand over his heart.
"Everything okay?" you asked. He nodded slowly.
You didn’t speak for a while. It was a comfortable silence, accompanied by the sound of both of your legs swinging from the bench.
"Oh, I almost forgot! I have to go home now, or my parents will start to worry. But let's meet up here tomorrow at the same time, okay?"
"And then what?"
You shrugged. "We can hang out if you want."
Gido looked at you in disbelief. "I told you... You might get bullied, too, if they see you with me."
You sighed. "Don’t worry about it. My dad is pretty well-known around here. If they bully me, they will definitely get their asses kicked!"
Something bubbled up in his chest, and he laughed hoarsely. You were such a delicate girl that your swearing was almost bizarre. Sudden dread seized him, and he froze. What if you wouldn't be here tomorrow? What if all this was just a joke or a trap?
The butterflies in your hair glittered in the sunlight as you took one out. "Here, take it as a promise that we'll meet tomorrow. They’re my favorite clips. I wear them every day."
"All right," Gido said, hesitantly taking the butterfly clip from you.
"See you then!"
You stormed off, and he followed you with his eyes until you were out of sight. He looked down at the butterfly clip in his hand, and a sense of comfort washed over him.
There was no way you were a bad person after being so caring and nice to him. You could not be a pathetic ant.
Gido looked at the clip in his hand and smiled faintly.
No, you were most definitely not an ant. A beautiful butterfly. That is what you were.