Chapter Text
Akiyama Mizuki knew better than anyone that no matter how non-chalant about it you acted, being an outcast hurt. Somehow,Kamishiro Rui had absorbed her into his show, his eloquent words and carefree smiles. She’d let him charm her into thinking that he was just a little lonely and very insane.
Mizuki had wanted to believe that. He wasn’t the annoyance she’d thought he was when they first met, so she hoped he was happy.
“I see. Well in any case, it would seem fate has brought us together here today. It's nice to meet you, Akiyama Mizuki.”
Huh? But he had just asked for her name. Who did this boy with rat’s-nest hair and a stupid smirk think he was? What was he trying to achieve?
“Why'd you ask my name if you already knew it...?” The boy had chuckled then, as in reveling in her extremely justified confusion.
“Because I wanted you to tell me yourself, of course. Names are quite important, aren’t they?”
He’d had her completely fooled.
But they were alike.
Broken things with no companion.
Rui always had one sleeve rolled up, one down, his uniform shirt completely disheveled. When she’d asked why he didn’t wear the blazer, he’d shrugged. “The feeling of the seams bothered me. It wasn’t worth the trouble.” She saw the scars.
“My robots can be quite hazardous.”
She’d wanted to believe him, so she did. Stupid.
Kamishiro Rui was a strange one, but that was observed with fondness now. And hell, she was one to talk.
He was reckless, too. Maybe he would have had her all caught up in his show for longer if he had taken care of his wounds.
“Are you bleeding?” The boy looked down at his sleeve, as if noticing the red for the first time.
“Ah. I suppose...” Mizuki had sighed.
“Let me see. I’ve got band-aids.” And he’d let her see.
No robot debris or slip of a tool could make five uniform cuts across an already battered looking arm.
Mizuki and Rui were both messes, in situations neither of them could really change for the better. They were stuck in this stupid junior high school with people who hated them for existing, and their own minds were worst of it.
The boy helped her cling to life.
See, at least you have Rui, at least you have Yuki, your mom and dad, MiraMagic, the internet, no dying allowed today! Nope!
She hoped she was doing the same for him.
It was lunch period, and she awaited him, with his purple hair in the state of a rat’s nest, one of his notebooks with him.
He was always writing, and he was good at it, too. Plays of course, were his greatest obsession, but there were these little pieces of short story he kept showing her. She was almost jealous, if she had his writing skill, the amount of yuri fanfiction she could pen....
Maybe she’d ask him. He was most certainly not the type to be against yuri fanfiction.
Today, though, she wanted to ask him something else.
See, he never actually ate lunch. The boy always just let it sit as the two of them talked or stared into the distance or he would gave parts of it to her. Some days, he’d have a little, but that was rare. On its own, that wasn’t really that weird.
School made them both anxious and being anxious could make eating feel impossible. Sometimes Mizuki felt too miserable to eat anything, even at home.
But no, that wasn’t it. He looked sick. That uniform he didn’t wear properly got baggier and baggier as time went on. The third year always looked off balance after standing up, his eyes unfocused.
And his face was deathly pale, dark circles rivaling her own. Something was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t on purpose, but he wasn’t eating enough, and it was hurting him.
So when he sat down against the rooftop fence, his unopened lunch box next to him as he wrote, she approached him.
“Rui?” When she sat, he leaned over his notebook so she couldn’t see. He was so touchy about that, as if his handwriting was in any way legible at a glance.
“Mhm?” She snapped in front of his face, so he’d actually pay attention and not be half-daydreaming.
“I think you should eat, then write. Aren’t you hungry?”
His yellow eyes went wide with a second of fear, exposed, before going back to his slight smile.
“Not particularly. I’m usually not at this time of day.”
Right, and building robots were why there were scars up his arms. She shook her head. Oh, this conversation was going to be annoying, but if he really was starving, she could lose her only friend. The idea was terrifying.
“You still should. It’s not good for you to never eat anything, you know.” His expression caught again.
“I assure you, I’m just not hungry, and there’s no reason to worry.” Rui’s tone was clipped, and almost monotone, like he’d had this conversation before. If nothing was wrong, there wasn’t any reason for him to act so defensively...
“You say that, but you’re making this weird face. Like you’re smiling, and it’s not fake, exactly...but it’s not...happy.” Mizuki had mentally dubbed this the grave-emotional-turmoil smile, not to be confused with the chesire cat smile.
He sighed and went back to his writing. “I’ve learned facial expressions aren’t always reliable. And my, this line of questioning is so...dull, don’t you think?” he smiled at his notebook. "I would have thought someone as fun you would have something far more interesting to talk about.”
Mizuki rolled her eyes. She wanted to slap him sometimes. That probably wouldn’t accomplish anything. “Look, you’re being so weird about this. I just want to know why.”
The boy chuckled slightly, but there was no real humor in it. “I’m weird about everything, Mizu.” He closed his notebook and clutched it to his chest and started rocking. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“Rui-”
“That anime, the one you like, how is that going? Any new episodes? The art style looks lovely.”
“No, there aren’t any, but I really think-”
“Ah, that’s too bad. You know, a director I admire has a new play, but I can’t find any video of it. Isn’t that just tragic? Sometimes it turns up, and sometimes you never find it anywhere, and you’re left staring at the few videos that were taken for marketing purposes. Does anything like that ever happen with things you like?”
“Rui! Can you just either eat something or tell me why you won’t?” She was too close to his face, and he flinched away, breathing hard.
“My...you’re certainly persistent today.” He started rocking back and forth. “I’d rather not discuss this. So please-”
“Tell me the truth, Rui.” Her voice came out lacking all her sharpness, her fear without jagged edges. Cautiously, she reached to touch his shoulder. The boy didn’t always want to be touched, but there was no flinch, no pulling away, so she wrapped her arm around the taller. He stopped rocking, leaning his head on top of hers. The air slumped out of him.
The air on the rooftop was warm and stagnant, but Rui’s skin was still cold. Neither of them moved. They stayed like that for a while, not needing words yet. Finally, Rui sighed, and said softly, “It’s difficult for me to eat at times. Most of the time. It feels like my own brain won’t let me do so...I’m not quite sure why that is.”
Oh. That couldn’t be good. No wonder he looked like such a mess. Mizuki didn’t understand exactly what was going on with him, because she didn’t have experience with it, but she knew how pain could become inexplicably comforting and not being able to stop.
“I-I’m sorry it feels like that,” she tried to keep her voice soft. “It’s just...it’s scary for me. Because you could die, if you keep going like this.”No, that was too direct, too harsh.
“I know...I know...I’m sorry Mizu. I don’t wish to cause you pain, not ever.” Another sigh. “I suppose I can eat a bit today.” He sat up and picked his lunchbox back up, eyeing it warily as he opened it. He didn’t care about his own fate, no. Just her happiness. The boy never acted like he cared, not when people hurt him, or destroyed his things.
Of course it affected him though, he was only human, even if few treated him as one.
Rui was still staring down at his open lunchbox, not touching it. What was there to be so afraid of? It looked simple, some chicken, some rice.
She took his ice-cold hand in hers. “Go on...” He shook his head.
“I just...then I’ll have to be thinking about the fact that I ate this the remainder of the day...” Jeez. His brain was really screwing him over.
“Yeah, but won’t you have actual energy?” The boy seemed to consider her words, squeezing her hand.
“Right. Sorry...” His eyes still had that glassy quality to them.
“Don’t be sorry, just...” Rui was whispering to himself, the words unclear. He began to eat, chopsticks in one hand, crushing Mizuki’s hand with the other. She didn’t mind. Despite the circumstances, she really liked holding his hand.
When maybe less than half was gone, he pulled his hand out of hers and closed the box again. “There...see, I ate. You don’t need to worry.” he leaned his hand back against the fence as if he was exhausted.
Mizuki pressed against him. This was probably worse than he was telling her, but hey, it was a miracle he had told her anything at all.
“Good. I’m still worried, you know.” His features didn’t change. “This shouldn’t be so hard for you.”
“Yeah.” He looked at her. “Thank you. A part of me did want someone to notice, but not enough to actually say anything…” the boy chuckled.
His default reaction to anything seemed to be laughter. Even if it definitely wasn’t situationally appropriate.
“Thanks for telling me.”
The purple-haired boy nodded, mind too muddled to form words.
The bell rung. “Should we…”
Another nod. Did Mizuki want to go to class. No. But alas, if she didn’t want to face consequences, she must.
They walked down the stairs together, having to part ways when they met the hallway.
She stared straight ahead in class, not really inside of herself. Was it wrong to feel kind of pissed at him? Probably.
The idea of having to go through that whole process every afternoon was…no. She couldn’t do that.
Of course she wanted to help her friend, but she couldn’t take care of him all the time, not when her own problems left her completely out of energy.
Selfish, wasn’t it?
“Akiyama, do you know what this means?”
Without even turning around, she answered, “No. Do your own freaking work.”
And there the asker went, talking all about her to his friends. Maybe his situation would be better if he wasn’t stupid and either payed attention or looked up the material later. Nope, everything had to be because of her.
Why did she get so indignant about their hatred when her own burned so much deeper?
The day stretched on too far, but eventually she got home and flopped onto her bed.
Mizuki considered her options. Sleep was always fun. Being prevented from thinking for a few hours couldn’t go wrong. Then again, she should probably do something about the whole Rui situation…
He didn’t care about himself, but he did care about her happiness…and his interests. He really cared about those.
So maybe that was the key.
The girl sat at her computer, and connected it to that machine she’d bought that printed off stickers.
“Do you have a favorite animal?” The boy asked, completely out of the blue. She blinked.
“Huh?”
Rui gave her a crazy-eyed smile. “I myself am extremely fond of the platypus! Did you know that….”
Mizuki came away from that conversation with more platypus facts than anyone needed to know. Well, it was sort of interesting.
She chose some cute clip art drawings. Stealing random art, even for a good cause that wouldn’t make her money, felt like the wrong thing to do.
There were an awful lot of teal platypuses, some inexplicably wearing fedoras. She chose a couple of those, too.
Ten stickers, printed out to bring to school tomorrow. She just hoped her ploy would work.
She waited for him on the rooftop the next day. When the door opened, revealing none other than the boy she was waiting for, she pulled the stickers out of her pocket. “Look what I made for you!”
Rui came close to take a look, then made an odd screeching sound. “Sorry, I got a little bit too excited. Platypuses! You remembered!”
Mizuki rolled her eyes. “How could I forget?” When he made a move to take one, she pulled back. “You get a sticker if you eat.”
“My, isn’t someone as cruel as she is beautiful…” he said, voice dripping with drama. She felt her face warm.
She hoped he wouldn’t notice. “Do you want the stickers or not?”
“I do…” he looked at her hopefully. “Might you hold my hand again? That helped.”
So once again, they joined hands and the boy ate. He seemed to have an easier time than the day before.
“Was that enough to get stickers, Mizu?” He’d eaten exactly half, having divided the contents of his lunchbox as such before consuming.
“I-I think so…” She handed him three of them. He screeched again.
“You made Perry, too? I didn’t see!” He rocked, in excitement this time.
“Who?”
Rui gestured energetically at the teal platypus. “That’s his name. He’s a secret agent!”
He then proceeded to explain the premise of a cartoon he liked, including singing part of the secret agent platypus’s theme song.
Her plan had worked.(How long would it last? She didn’t know what the hell she was doing.)
But for the next few weeks, it kept working. Not always. But Rui was trying, for her.
It was strange, he’d once been so irritating. Now he was everything.