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It was ruined. Tadashi was going to ruin it.
It was fine, it was going so good—why now? Do they know? Do they even care? Surely she knew - she was trying to sabotage him, wasn’t she? She was jealous.
There’s no other reason, it only makes sense. She was trying to backstab him.
Why else would she buy that for him?
“Tadashi!” His mum had shouted, “I’ve bought you a cinnamon roll, it’s on the side in the kitchen next to the microwave, okay?”
Such a simple phrase, a casual one, a generous one. Too generous, really.
“Oh,” Tadashi swallowed. “Yum. thank you,” he had replied, just as simple.
“That was nice of your mum.” Kei spoke.
Was it?
“Yeah.”
Kei crossed his legs from across Tadashi, the two sat in his room, silently keeping each other company. “You don’t seem too happy. I thought they were your favourite,” Kei continued.
They were. That’s what made it so bad.
“I am happy, I love cinnamon rolls.” Tadashi muttered, like he was admitting to a crime.
Kei’s face puzzled, “you sure don’t look like it.”
Leave it. Please.
Subtly, Tadashi turned away - refusing to face Kei in the eyes as he lied to him. “I said I was happy, Tsukki. I don’t have to jump up and down every time I hear about food, okay?” He chuckled, fake and cold, “just how chubby do you think I am?”
“What?”
Tadashi couldn’t see Kei’s face, but the soft change in his voice, deeper yet calmer, was enough to scare him. “When have I ever called you that?” he asked.
Not the right thing to have said, Tadashi’s mind supplied helpfully. He fidgeted where he sat, “I don’t know, never. Sorry.”
Kei uncrossed his legs.
“Tadashi, can you look at me?”
Why? So you can see exactly what he means? To pinch his chubby cheeks? To pull the extra skin on his chin? To remind him?
Tears were no short of routine to Tadashi, but tears in front of Kei weren’t. Hurriedly, he swiped away at his eyes to hide the sour water streaming down his face. Would the streaks they left behind make him look slimmer, he wondered. Would the salt in his weeping contain fat?
“Tadashi.”
Hiccups caught in Tadashi’s throat—frantic and pathetic. It was all coming back to him now. All because of the mention of a stupid, sweet pastry. Tadashi’s mouth went dry.
“Tadashi—“
“I can’t d.. do this, Tsukki- don’t look-“
It would taste good, wouldn’t it? It would taste so good.
Kei reached a hand quickly to Tadashi’s skin, the boy hardly felt it. “Tadashi, please,“ he begged.
Please. The same word his stomach relays to him every day as he fills a tiny bowl up with fruit and fibre cereal, oat milk pooling and his collarbone exposed. The beg his mind forces upon him when he can’t focus at school, too fixated on how he looks at that moment. How the girls and boys who sit around him look—how they look so much better, just because of their weight.
It’s unfair, it’s just so, so unfair. They’ve never once thought about how visible their bones are, what they ate that day, what they won’t eat the next. They moan as they talk about the food they had earlier, how they ate so much and how they don’t know how anyone could live without food.
Tadashi doesn’t know, either. It’s a silly sentence, because you can’t live without food.
So why does he try?
Why does he try so hard?
“Tadashi!”
Yamaguchi jumped.
Kei’s arms had curled around his best friend, slowly rocking him.
It was warm - like ice cream on a steaming brownie.
Like cold frosting on a piping hot cinnamon roll.