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It's getting dark when Mitsuba makes the decision to do something he's been putting off and visit the school art room.
He has a bag with him, tucked under his arm to prevent any greedy pink thieves spotting it, but he still tries to go about this quickly just in case. He gets to the bottom of the staircase and takes them two at a time, taking very great care not to land on the fourth step again, before ending up in front of his destination, hand hovering awkwardly in front of the classroom door.
Would it be weird to knock? If he wanted to talk to Tsuchigomori, he'd knock, but that's because he's a teacher here and he actually has a classroom of his own. He wouldn't knock if he wanted to speak to Hanako. Maybe he shouldn't bother. Would she even care? It feels like he should knock. He's just going to knock and not make it weird. Is he making it weird? Fuck, Mitsuba might be overthinking it. Why would it be any different for her? He's just going to knock and -
"Oh my gosh, are those my coffee jelly cups?"
Mitsuba screams and leaps back. His fight or flight instincts are slightly broken, so he tends to try to do both at the same time - in this instance, leaping away from the sudden voice in the silence and lashing out with his sharp scarf ends. Very quickly, albeit slightly too late, he realizes that was the wrong choice. By that point, he's already made the mistake.
He yowls in pain as Shijima grabs the ends of his scarf and yanks him towards her, nearly strangling him with the force of it as the material tightens around his neck.
"Ahh, I'm sorry, you startled me!" he screeches. "You can't sneak up on someone like that, I could have had a heart attack and died!"
Shijima stares back at him from behind thick glasses, expression blank. She seems to have recovered quickly from Mitsuba's attack, which is probably a good sign, but she still looks somewhat unimpressed. She does let go of him, causing him to nearly stumble to the floor, and then brushes her hands together as if she could have gotten them dirty during the process, which is frankly offensive.
"You're already dead," she points out. "And you're standing outside my door, so if anyone should be scolded for sneaking, it's you. Were you even going to knock?"
"I was!" Mitsuba protests. He brushes his hair back with his fingers - he'd done it up in a cute half up, half down style today with a soft pink ribbon that compliments his hair perfectly, but the excitement of the last minute or so has already mussed it slightly. "Of course I was, I wouldn't just barge into your space like an animal. Where the hell have you even been, by the way? I looked for you more than once and you were never anywhere I checked. Like, where do you go when you don't want anyone to find you?"
At this, Shijima cracks a grin. "Never you mind," she says in a light, cheeky tone, and then steps forward to open the door (Mitsuba flinches as if she might be about to attack him, which of course she isn't, he's being insane and Tsukasa is surely to blame for it in some way). With ease, she gestures for him to enter. "Juniors first."
He enters the art room. It's not an unfamiliar room by any means - being the Third School Mystery means that every nook and cranny of this building is his jurisdiction, and he watches over it with pride, even if all he's doing is watching students engage in schoolwork and longing to join in with them. However, he's never spent that much time watching this area of the school, mostly because he knows Shijima already does it, and besides, Mitsuba would much rather listen in on a history class where he can actually learn something than cringe his guts out watching teenagers struggle to draw a pointillism apple.
The last time he was here, it was because he was looking for Shijima. The time before that, it was probably for the same reason. He hadn't thought she would take her declaration not to appear to him again unless he brought her treats so very seriously.
Speaking of which...
"I got those desserts you wanted," he says, and turns towards the door to show her the inside of his bag. She closes the door and peers in curiously, eyes wide and lips parted. Mitsuba tries not to laugh. "It wasn't easy, I couldn't find a place from which I could then get them here. Turns out you can just buy these in grocery stores. Not that I bought them, obviously, I have no money, but whatever. No one noticed."
Shijima grins from ear to ear at the sight. "You got a multipack," she gushes, sounding more delighted about this than anything else Mitsuba's ever heard, which he supposes isn't a surprise based on the situations he's previously seen her in. "You're a gem, kid. Thank you, seriously, so much."
She takes Mitsuba's bag and practically skips across the room. Mitsuba follows, because he's not sure what else to do and she had invited him in, after all. She slides into one of the chairs at the art tables and claps her hands together with glee before grabbing a sheet of paper and a pen off the countertop behind her, which she promptly begins to scribble something with without looking up once.
Mitsuba makes the decision to sit down across from her. It really hadn't been easy getting those coffee jellies. He could have asked Kou, of course, but Kou would have wanted to know why and would have whined about having to spend money on him and it just would have been too much of a hassle to bother. Besides, he leaves the school on his own so rarely that it was kind of a thrill, even if his hunger does come back full force every time he does.
Well, Kou had given him food the other day, so it wasn't all that bad.
"What are you drawing?" he asks. He's genuinely curious. Shijima had told him she doesn't like drawing anymore, so he can't imagine why she's doing it.
"Nothing much," she replies, and sits back before touching her fingertips to her drawing and dragging it into the real world. Mitsuba jumps back, nearly falling off the chair he'd just sat down on. Shijima grins, holding up the silver spoon she's just created. "Just this."
"I thought you couldn't use your Mystery abilities after your yorishiro was destroyed?" Mitsuba asks, startled but also thoroughly impressed. He secretly does think Shijima has the coolest powers out of any of the School Mysteries. "How'd you do that?"
Shijima shrugs, pulling the lid off of her jelly. "I did lose most of my abilities, yes," she confirms. "But I'm still able to do a few very small things like this. I can create items as long as they're not too big or complicated, and they disappear after a few hours. So it's nothing that cool."
She dips her spoon into her dessert and sighs. "I do miss having clones to do my work for me. Then again, I have so little work to actually do anymore."
Mitsuba supposes that makes sense. He watches as she slips the spoon into her mouth and lets out a soft breath.
"Oh my gosh," she sighs. "It's just as good as it used to be."
"It smells weird," Mitsuba complains, nose wrinkled. "It's like... dirt."
"It smells like coffee," Shijima deadpans, shooting him a look through her glasses. "You have a weird sense of smell, kid. So anyway, what are you looking to do now? Clearly you want something from me since you went to all this effort, and since you're cute and I like you alright, I'm willing to hear you out."
Mitsuba hesitates, surprised by her forwardness. One hand rises to his hair to tug a piece of it around his finger. "Uh... um, I mean -"
"If you're wanting something made for you," Shijima says, kitten licking the spoon. "I'm afraid I'm not too good at that stuff anymore, like I said. It's just small stuff I can create now. Terribly sorry to disappoint if you had something cooler in mind."
"I didn't want to just use your ability or anything," Mitsuba blurts. No, it's way more embarrassing than that, and he's starting to think this was a bit of a stupid idea. "I guess I just... I mean, all I really wanted was, uh..."
Shijima furrows her eyebrows, looking slightly annoyed. "Come on, kid, spit it out already."
"I just wanted to be friends with you," Mitsuba rushes to say, and then tries to force a grin to make him look less like a loser, which he doesn't think works at all.
Shijima stares at him like he's grown a second head. Mitsuba falters, smile wavering, and he drops his gaze to his hands.
"Uhh..." Shijima utters. She sounds somewhat taken aback. "...Why?"
This was definitely a stupid idea. If she rejects him, Mitsuba's going to explode out of embarrassment.
"I mean, I just..." he starts, shoulders tense with anxiety. "I don't know, you're a supernatural and I'm a supernatural and there aren't very many people who can see me who I'd want to hang out with or who would want to hang out with me. I don't - have - a lot of friends, really. I thought it'd be kind of cool. But if you don't want to, it's totally fine, like I don't even - I don't care all that much, so."
Shijima is silent for a moment. Mitsuba considers teleporting away to text Kou and beg him to exorcize him.
"Alright," the girl says, after a long moment, causing Mitsuba to snap his head upwards with surprise. She looks somewhat surprised herself at her own answer, blinking slowly as she glances back at him. "I mean, I guess I feel a little bad for you if you don't have any friends."
Mitsuba squeaks indignantly, shoulders rising. "It- it's not that I -!"
Shijima continues before he can finish protesting. "Besides," she says, and her lips curl upwards just slightly with a bitter snort. "I don't have many myself, so I suppose it wouldn't hurt to have somebody to talk to."
Mitsuba thinks about that, and realizes it makes sense. Of course Shijima wouldn't have a lot of friends, either. The Seven Mysteries are most of the only supernaturals within the walls of the school who are sentient or coherent enough to even speak, and even then some of the things lurking here aren't things that one would want to make conversation with. Mitsuba had tried, with wandering spirits and scuttling creatures and nearby mokke. It isn't easy, he'd realized, to make friends as a supernatural. There are rather limited options on who to talk to.
He had just assumed that Shijima probably knew more people than he did, since she'd been a ghost for so much longer. Now, he's remembering that she had spent all of that time cooped up in her boundary, drawing and only occasionally sending out her clones to do work for her. She's probably more socially stunted than even he is.
It's weirdly reassuring. Maybe it's less strange, now, that he'd asked her to be friends.
"Ok!" Mitsuba grins. Despite how lacklustre her response may have been, she still agreed. "This is great. There's so much stuff we can do now!"
Shijima at least looks intrigued by this, eyebrows raised into her bangs. "Ah, like what?"
Mitsuba holds up a finger to signal for her to wait a moment and gets to his feet, heading to the nearby window before sticking his hand inside. He'd left it in his boundary nearby for just this very purpose, and finds it almost instantly - a thick magazine, which he turns around and slaps onto the table for Shijima to take a look at herself.
There's a long pause, in which the girl squints at the front cover.
""Your Best Years: The Ultimate Guide to Friendship as a Teen?"" she reads aloud in such a scathing tone that Mitsuba instantly deflates.
"It's - it's not as cringe as it sounds!" he says, which is only kind of true. "I mean, I think it's aimed for teenage girls more than anything, and it is a bit childish, but - but it's got lots of good ideas in it! It's not just total bullshit!"
Shijima is already picking the magazine up with her free hand and flicking through the pages with a curled lip. "Going for manicures?" she deadpans, shooting Mitsuba a look. "Spa days?"
"Well, wouldn't that sound fun if we were able to do it?" Mitsuba says, holding out his hands expectantly. "It's got some interesting suggestions in there. And it says it's guaranteed to make you friends that last for life."
Shijima presses her lips together tightly, staring at him over the pages. Then she sighs and sets the magazine down on the table with a plop.
"I just think," she says, "that the age gap might be a problem here."
Mitsuba blinks. "Huh...?"
"You're fourteen," she continues, folding her hands together. "You're in possibly one of the strangest phases of your life, or would be if you were a human. Because you're not, you're just kind of going to be a bit cringe forever. I'm eighteen. I've been on the Near Shore for decades longer than you have. I don't think we're going to have a lot of the same interests."
Everything she says digs straight into Mitsuba's heart like a knife, but especially the word cringe. "I'm - I'm not - I mean, I'm - you really think this is -"
"No hard feelings about it," Shijima says loftily, smiling. "I just think this is a bit... childish for me."
Mitsuba's jaw drops, hands balling up into fists. "You're a judgmental witch!"
"Oh, I am not," Shijima fires back. "I'm not judging you. I'm just saying I don't think I'm going to enjoy any of the, ah, suggestions from your magazine."
"Because you think they're childish," Mitsuba fires, lip wobbling. "You didn't even give it a good look! You just glanced at one page and called me cringe!"
"Cringe is a harsher word than I meant," Shijima says, twirling her spoon around in the air while she thinks. "Cheesy is closer to what I wanted to say."
This joins the barrage of knives in Mitsuba's chest. "Cheesy?!"
"Yeah," Shijima hums. She scoops up more of her coffee jelly and licks it off the spoon daintily. "It's nothing against you, kid, promise. It's just my opinion."
Mitsuba glowers at the magazine on the table. The three smiling kids on the front cover between the title and all the coloured blurbs continue grinning and holding each other, arms around each other's necks.
After a pause, he glares back up at Shijima and catches her wavering. She looks at him with an expression Mitsuba doesn't like, something that looks like pity, and then she smiles again, eyebrows downturned.
"I mean, if it's that important to you," she relents, and sets down her dessert. "I suppose I could take another look -"
"No," Mitsuba snaps, and snatches the magazine away to clutch close to his chest before Shijima can touch it again. "I don't want you to look at it anymore if you're gonna do nothing but shit on it!"
In truth, this magazine is actually fairly important to Mitsuba. He'd been given it by the mokke on one of his first days of existence, before he'd even fully gotten the knack of walking and talking with his new limbs and vocal chords yet, and had held onto the promise of being able to make friends like it was a treasure. Despite the fact that maybe it is intended for human girls, and despite the fact that there was probably no real love put into the making of it and it was just a cashgrab aimed towards desperate young teens, it meant something to him. It symbolized being a human being. After all, humans loved reading things like this, didn't they? It must have helped someone make a long lasting friend like the title promised.
...Maybe it is a bit cheesy. Mitsuba doesn't care. Some of the tactics written in here have worked on Kou, after all. Not that he would ever admit in a million years that he had tried that.
"I'm sorry, ok?" Shijima pleads. She sighs, dropping her head towards her chest. "I'd like to be friends with you, Mitsuba. If you want to try something from your magazine to cement our friendship, I'll go along with it. Ok? I really didn't mean to insult you, I forgot you're so sensitive..."
"I'm not sensitive!" Mitsuba screeches, the insult joining all the others in the form of a knife in his chest. He feels like she's trying to kill him with words or something.
"Ok, sorry," Shijima rushes to say, holding up both hands in front of her. Her hair is standing on end in its braids like a cats. "Let's start this over. Show me your magazine and I'll take another look at it."
Mitsuba considers, lips wobbling. "Fine," he snaps after a moment, dropping it back onto the table. "But I won't forget that you said I was cringe. I'll remember that you said that forever."
"You called me a witch," Shijima mutters, although clearly only to herself as she begins flipping through the magazine again.
Mitsuba rolls his eyes and glances out the window. It's windy and wet outside, rain droplets slapping sideways against the glass. Mitsuba doesn't enjoy the rain. The wet against his skin is always so uncomfortable. Kou had told him it was supposed to storm this weekend, but he'd hoped he would be wrong.
"Well, here's something," he hears Shijima say in a somewhat sarcastic tone, and looks back at her to see her holding up the magazine with a grin. ""Throwing a sleepover and talking about boys!""
"You said you'd stop making fun of it," Mitsuba says accusingly. He can feel his face lighting up. "Obviously not everything in here is completely relevant. It's just a guide!"
"I know, I know," Shijima says, amused as her eyes drop back down to the paper. "Speaking of boys, I was somewhat curious. Whatever happened to you and that Minamoto boy? Did you figure out what to do after we spoke? The mokke stopped spreading your business around, so I never got an update."
Mitsuba makes a face. He didn't really want to talk about this. It's so awkward explaining his relationship with Kou to other people. "I guess I did," he says, dropping his head into his hands and propping it up on his elbows. "What, why do you care about that, anyway? You don't actually want to talk about boys and neither do I."
"Just making conversation," Shijima shrugs. "It says right here that a good way to bond with someone is to ask them about their lives and show an interest in the things they enjoy."
She points at the page she's stopped on. Lo and behold, it does actually say just that. Mitsuba squints, still feeling somewhat like she's poking light fun at him, but he supposes he can't be too picky when it comes to conversation partners. However, he doesn't imagine Shijima wants to talk about his love life, and God knows Mitsuba doesn't want to receive the same judgement he already gets from Natsuhiko from his new friend.
"Well, let's talk about things we like, then," he suggests, tilting his head. It seems like an easy ask, and probably a safe start, too. "You used to draw all the time, but now you don't like it anymore, right? What have you been doing with your time instead?"
Shijima hums, pursing her lips as if thinking. "Well, it's not that I don't draw at all," she admits. She eyes up the paper she'd drawn the spoon on beside her. "I've been teaching myself to be bad at it."
Mitsuba furrows his eyebrows. "Uh... what?"
"Well," Shijima begins to explain. "Because of my yorishiro and my abilities as School Mystery Number Four, I was forced to draw every second of the day, and my drawings were pretty much always objectively good, even if I wasn't always satisfied with them. My drawings were photorealistic. However, I hated drawing them. It wasn't any fun. My current theory is that maybe I might start to enjoy it again if I learn how to be bad at it, and draw things for fun instead of because I'm being forced to. Then I can just focus on enjoying myself and not on how perfect they look."
Mitsuba supposes that makes sense. A lot more sense than he'd imagined it would. Briefly, he tries to imagine being forced to do something forever, one activity over and over, and shudders. No matter what it was, he would grow to hate it. Nothing would be fun for that long.
"I guess I understand," he says. Outside, lightning flashes. Neither of them have any reaction to it. "But why are you still bothering to pursue the same thing, anyway? Like, why not do something else? You could take up... I don't know, baking, sewing, woodworking. Why the determination to keep drawing if you're not enjoying it?"
Shijima chews the inside of her lip, casting her gaze back outside. The brightness of the lightning reflects off of her glasses before leaving them in near darkness again.
"The original me loved to draw," she says, somewhat absently, sounding far away. "I do it for her. Even if I don't have to, I want to."
Then she clears her throat and sticks her nose back in the magazine. "Hey, there's actually a whole section here on planning the perfect sleepover. Do you think anyone would have a problem if we stole a classroom for the night to make forts?"
Mitsuba knows she's being sarcastic, but he would actually really enjoy that. However, he has something else to focus on right now. "You mentioned that before," he says, and meets Shijima's eyes over the magazine. Hers are dark and hollow, difficult to read. "That there was an "original you." You said she made you."
Shijima drops the magazine and hums, a cold smile curling her lips. "Her name was Mei," she tells him. "She was sick and dying, but more full of life than anyone else I ever saw come into her hospital room. When she passed, I was all that was left. A piece of her who she left all her wishes and desires to. I suppose you could say I'm not an ordinary ghost, in that sense. I was technically never alive like most of them once were."
Mitsuba's breath hitches. He's been waiting to be able to see Shijima again for so long so he could get an explanation for this, and now his heart is racing. Is it possible that he and Shijima are the same?
"I'm like that too," he blurts, unable to contain himself. Shijima shoots him a questioning look, so he explains quickly. "I wasn't ever a human, and I'm technically not even a ghost. I was made artificially with the mind of a student who went to this school, but died a while ago. So I also wasn't ever human. I guess we're kind of the same, huh?"
Shijima's eyes flash with curiosity. "Huh," she utters aloud. "Perhaps we are. When you say you were made artificially, what do you mean by that, exactly?"
Mitsuba thinks, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation. "Have you ever seen the movie Frankenstein?" he eventually says.
Shijima purses her lips. "I've read the book."
"There's a book?" Mitsuba questions.
He hears Shijima snort. "Yes," she says. "Very famously, there's a book."
Tsukasa never told Mitsuba that. "Well, I've only seen the movie," he admits with a shrug. "Anyway, I'm... kind of like that. A bunch of stuff all put together to make a human looking body. Tsukasa said he got the idea to do it from watching that movie. He made me watch it with him too, so he could show me what it was like."
Shijima interrupts before he can start talking about how horrific the movie had been and how much time Tsukasa had spent poking his arm and going look, that's you. "I'm sorry, you're saying that you're an artificial supernatural made out of... other supernaturals?"
Mitsuba nods. "Yep. Tsukasa used a lot of dead ones to turn them into me, and gave me the mind of the original Mitsuba Sousuke. It's a bit weird, I know, but aren't we kind of the same? You're artificial too!"
Shijima's expression is weirdly tense, a strange look that doesn't seem too positive taking over her face. "Um... I don't know if it's the same thing," she says in a low tone. "I mean, I wasn't... pieced together from other supernaturals. I was a drawing that the original Shijima Mei drew and brought into reality because she was so close to death. I mean, I guess it's - maybe kind of similar, a little bit."
Mitsuba's smile wavers, even as Shijima tries to reassure him upon seeing the look on his face. "Really?" he says, doing his best not to sound too disappointed. "Well... where did you go during the Severance, then?"
Shijima blinks with confusion. "The Far Shore," she says. Her spoon scrapes the bottom of the plastic tub, searching for more jelly. "That's where all the supernaturals went, didn't they? Where did you go, if not there?"
Mitsuba drops his gaze. "Um..." he starts, hesitating as he wonders whether to even bother explaining. "Everywhere... I guess?"
The girl raises her eyebrows. Mitsuba huffs, good mood successfully killed. "I'm not a real supernatural," he tells her, slumping back in his seat. "So I just kind of - fell apart. I couldn't hold myself together long enough for the pieces of me to even get to the Far Shore. It kind of permanently ruined my body. I thought maybe... you were the same as me."
There's a pause, in which rain splatters against the window loudly, wind roaring.
"Strange," Shijima mutters. Then she looks at Mitsuba's face and rushes to continue. "Not you, I'm not saying you're - but I'd never heard of that before. An artificial supernatural who didn't even go to the Far Shore during the Severance... you're unusual, Mitsuba, I'll give you that."
Mitsuba tugs at his hair as Shijima continues, clearly realizing he wasn't going to say anything else. "I still think we're quite similar," she tells him. "I mean, you had a living counterpart who wasn't actually the person that you are now, correct?"
"Mhm," Mitsuba hums, nodding, and Shijima smiles enthusiastically. "I guess."
"See," Shijima says, "so did I. That makes us similar, even if we weren't created the same way. I think that's pretty cool, if you ask me."
Weirdly enough, that does kind of make Mitsuba feel better. He even manages a smile, which Shijima returns, although appearing somewhat strained. Mitsuba hopes he hasn't freaked her out by coming on too strong with the whole thing about them both being similar. If he did, she's doing a good job of hiding it.
"And hey," Shijima suddenly continues, setting down her spoon and turning the magazine towards him so he can see. "I found something we can do, too."
Compare your interests! reads the title of the page that she's turned to. In the centre of the double spread is a photo of two girls, one holding a skateboard and the other holding a paintbrush, both grinning wide. It never hurts to learn more about your new best friends. Why not find something that you can do together? Share the things you love to do, and you're guaranteed to bond over them!
"You already know the kind of hobbies I have," Shijima says. She folds her hands together and props them in front of her seriously. "What kind of stuff do you like to do, Mitsuba?"
Mitsuba's lips part, but no words come out for a moment. He feels like his voice has been stolen away from him.
"You're not just taking this seriously now because you feel bad for me, are you?" he eventually manages to say in a slightly accusing tone. "Because I don't want to be pitied by you. That's not friendship."
"I don't pity you," Shijima tells him plainly. She meets his eyes and sighs, expression complicated. "I do feel bad for you, but that's not why I'm playing along with your thing with the magazine. I think I just judged it too quickly. I have a fairly different personality from the original me, you see. She was much more of a kind and welcoming person than I am. I think I'm unfortunately just... not very good at that aspect of things. I want to be your friend, and I apologize if I come across as being too... mean, or uncaring, I suppose. It's just the way I am sometimes."
Mitsuba thinks about that for a long moment. He and Sousuke are terribly similar, he knows that much. It makes sense, considering they share a mind. It must be very different for Shijima. He wonders how strange that is for her, being the creation of her original self but being so far off from who she was.
"...I like to read, I guess," Mitsuba mumbles, after a moment. "I don't have a lot of hobbies like the other me did. He liked photography, and drawing. I'm not very creative."
Shijima tilts her head, seemingly curious. "Have you ever tried drawing?"
Mitsuba shakes his head, and a spark lights up in Shijima's eyes. "I have a great idea, then," she suggests, a smile rising on her lips. "Why don't you and I draw together? I can give you any tricks I know, and maybe we'll both enjoy ourselves."
It sounds like kind of a childish way to spend time. Then again, Mitsuba's already come to terms with the fact that his friendship magazine is fairly childish to begin with. It doesn't sound like an absolutely awful suggestion.
"That... might be fun," he says, shrugging like it doesn't even matter. "I mean, you're obviously going to show me up, so you can't make fun of me for not being good at it yet. I've never actually done it before."
He knows how to hold a pen and write, at least. Tsukasa had run a lot of tests on him after his creation, and had taught him the fine motor skills he needed to be able to drag a pen across the page and form the kanji to write his own name. Tsukasa had also taught him that his name contained the kanji for the number "three." He'd seemed delighted by that at the time, had thought it was the funniest thing in the world, and Mitsuba's wondered a few times if Tsukasa had always had the plan in mind to make him the Third Mystery or if it really had been a happy coincidence.
Well, happy for Tsukasa, at least.
"That's ok," Shijima says. She pushes her snacks aside and pulls two sheets of paper from off the sideboard and smacks them on the table in front of them. A pen is pushed into Mitsuba's hand, and he clicks it wondrously while Shijima smiles brightly, which looks actually genuine now. "This isn't a competition. We're just bonding, after all."
Mitsuba tilts his head, staring down at the blank page. "Ok, if you say so..."
He reaches out for the magazine from Shijima's side of the table so he can put it away, and in doing so, finds his eyes falling onto the back page. On it, three girls huddle together underneath an expansion of pillows and blankets, arranged in such a way that it makes a sort of house for them to sit in. Mitsuba stares at this for a long moment, thinking. Lips pursed as he wonders.
Seemingly catching him looking, Shijima leans over to look at the page with him. Their eyes meet for a brief moment, an expectant look on the older girl's face.
"You want to do that?" she questions, as if having read his mind.
Mitsuba swallows, suddenly curious. "What is it?"
"It's a blanket fort," Shijima tells him. Her gaze is faraway all of a sudden, as if recalling something. "Like I mentioned before. Mei and I used to make them in her hospital room. She liked having a place to hide out and draw in, where no one would disturb her."
Mitsuba considers that, glancing around the room. "How do you make one?"
Shijima is silent. When he looks back at her, concerned that maybe the memories of her creator are upsetting and maybe he's gotten the wrong idea, he instead finds her smiling. She gets to her feet, a fire suddenly alight in her eyes, and Mitsuba gets the smallest glimpse of what he imagines the original Shijima Mei must have been like in that moment. She looks almost younger, years melting off of her as she smacks the page of the magazine on the desk, jabbing her finger into it with vigour.
"How about I show you?" she says brightly, and Mitsuba can't help but smile back in reply.
Shijima shows him how to do it, right there in the art room. It's not like it matters - nobody's around to question who's pulling the desks together and stacking chairs atop them to make space for them to sit inside. Mitsuba grabs a bunch of blankets and pillows from his nest - his bed - in his boundary and he and Shijima drape them over everything and make a comfortable place to sit inside. It comes together as a sort of rickety cave by the end, material strewn all over the place and metal groaning under the weight of itself. Neither of them care. Mitsuba crows with delight as he crawls inside, then peers outside at Shijima with a massive grin on his face.
"Big enough to sit in," he confirms, flashing a thumbs up. "Grab the paper and come inside!"
Shijima does exactly that. As she enters, piles of paper and pens clutched in her hands, a clap of lightning sounds from outside, closer now. After a second passes, another one rings out. The sound of the rain slamming into the glass is much louder now, and briefly, Mitsuba wonders where Kou is and what he's doing. He's probably at home in the bright warmth, cooking dinner for his siblings. Or lunch. Or breakfast - Mitsuba has no idea what time it is. He never does. Thank God he never has anything to be late for.
"Dark," Shijima murmurs as she scoots up towards him, positioning the pillows on the floor so she can get comfortable. "But the main light being on will totally ruin the atmosphere... ok, hang on, I have a solution."
Mitsuba watches over her shoulder curiously as she draws a cute, rounded star with an open mouthed smile on its face. After a few moments correcting details, she touches the page and removes from inside of it the very object she just drew. It's yellow and plastic and has a purple button on the side of it, just like in her picture.
"What's that?" Mitsuba asks. He has genuinely no idea. "A toy...?"
It's not like he'd judge her if it was. He has a plushie on his bed in his boundary that he holds to sleep every night. He'd be slightly confused, certainly - Shijima seems so much more grown up than he is, but he wouldn't be able to say anything about it without being a hypocrite.
She shakes her head at the question and sets the thing on the floor between them before pressing the button.
Instantly, the fort lights up. Miniature yellow stars shine onto the tops of the desks and chairs and the blankets draped over absolutely everything, filling the fort with a warm feel that has Mitsuba gasping. Shijima grins, looking satisfied with herself. The light reflects off of her glasses, making it look like it's dancing off of her dark eyes.
"Nice, right?" she says softly. "It's a battery powered nightlight, just like the one Mei had. She loved that thing, never slept without it. I haven't drawn it in a long time, so I'm glad I still remember what it looked like. Do you like it?"
Mitsuba nods, entranced by the lights above him. He leans back, staring above his head with wide eyes. It looks almost magical, perfect. It's incredible how much the space has changed with just one singular addition. It makes the fort feel ten times more homely than it just had a moment before.
"It's so nice," he breathes. "I love it. I wish I had one of these."
Shijima lets out a soft laugh, leaning back on her hands. "I'd give it to you if it was going to last. Unfortunately, it'll have disappeared within a couple hours. That's the only thing I miss my yorishiro for. I did like being able to create things." She sighs, pinching her lips together. "The cost wasn't worth it, though. Ah, well."
She leans back against the wall behind her, eyes cast upwards at the stars. Mitsuba stares at the toy on the floor, then at Shijima, then back at the lights above them. He's not sure what to say in response to that. It's hard to tell whether Shijima is unhappy or if she's just reminiscing, and he's never been very good at comforting people when they're upset.
As if hearing his thoughts, Shijima glances over at him and smiles before holding out a pencil and a sheet of paper. "Well, now that we've done that, are you ready to do something else that's fun?"
Mitsuba blinks, remembering what their plan was, and then nods with a grin. "Sure. I can't wait for you to make me into a professional artist. Hit me with your wise advice, sensei."
Shijima laughs, sitting up with her knees pulled to her chest and her paper propped up against her knees. "As long as you're ready for it."
Mitsuba hides his face behind his hair for a moment, flushed and smiling to himself. Really, he hadn't expected today to go so well. He hadn't expected his magazine to help so much, either. Yeah, maybe Shijima was just playing along with him to be nice even if she thought it was childish or stupid, but she'd still played along. She'd still agreed to be Mitsuba's friend.
Surrounded by blankets and stars and pieces of printer paper, that feels like all that matters.
When Mitsuba eventually returns to the Broadcasting Room, he can't wipe a smile off his face.
"What's up with you?" Natsuhiko asks him as he sidles through the door, dodging a TV floating nearby at head height. "You've got a dopey grin going on. Have you been hanging out with that boy again?"
Mitsuba just rolls his eyes as Natsuhiko follows him around to the table, where he flops down and pulls out his phone. No texts from Kou - he's actually been really quiet as of late, and hasn't been responding to many of Mitsuba's texts. Not that he cares, because he definitely doesn't. He has other friends, now, and he doesn't need Kou's attention. It would just be embarrassing for him, anyway, to be unable to survive without the attention of some boy he likes. Mitsuba is better than that.
"Not everything is about that guy, airhead," he mutters, as Natsuhiko slides into the seat across from him. "I do things with other people sometimes. It's not your business."
"You always say things aren't my business," Natsuhiko points out, eyebrows raised. "And then you tell me anyway, because you get bored and want someone to talk to."
...That's maybe true. Mitsuba doesn't like being called out like that, though. Natsuhiko is so annoying.
"Go on," Natsuhiko continues, with a condescending grin. "Tell big bro Natsuhiko what you've been up to."
Mitsuba wants to tell him to shut the fuck up and go away, but unfortunately, since Natsuhiko's correct about the fact that he'll end up going back to him for conversation eventually anyway, there's not much point. While Natsuhiko makes for an irritating conversation partner, he's at least willing to talk to him. Mitsuba can count the number of people he has who would do that with him on one hand.
"I made a new friend," is all he says, shrugging nonchalantly and leaning forward on his elbows. "It's not that big of a deal."
"That's a very big deal!" Natsuhiko gasps. He grins wide, eyes thin with the force of it. "Good for you, Mitsuba. Who is it? Human or supernatural?"
Mitsuba narrows his eyes at him. "Never you mind. Airhead, what do you do all day that leaves you so much time to pester me with? Don't you have better things to be doing?"
"Uh, of course I do," Natsuhiko says, tilting his head. "Haven't you checked out my new gym?"
He gestures backwards towards the amalgamated stack of desks, chairs and various tools sitting in the corner of the room beside a stack of Tsukasa's CRT TVs.
"That's not a gym," Mitsuba replies flatly. "That's nothing. That's a pile of nothing."
"It'll be something soon," Natsuhiko promises resolutely. He cracks a grin. "You could do with working out a little, you're like a bundle of twigs tied together into the shape of a little guy."
Mitsuba shrieks with indignation, lurching back in his seat. "Don't comment on my body, you fucking pervert! What the hell's wrong with you? You don't just say that to someone! Pervert! Pervert!"
"Sorry, sorry," Natsuhiko yelps, smile vanishing as Mitsuba relentlessly wallops him with his scarf arms. "Ahh, stop, I'm sorry! I won't say anything else! It was just a suggestion!"
After a moment of this, Mitsuba relents, retracting his scarf and letting the ends turn back into fabric and hang loosely around his neck. Natsuhiko sighs deeply, adjusting his collar and dragging his hands through his hair. The look he gives Mitsuba is both exasperated and fond, shaking his head back and forth.
"You're impossible to talk to," he tells him. "Really, you are an absolute pain."
Mitsuba sticks his tongue out childishly. "Don't be gross and I won't attack you."
"You attack me for everything! You're out to get me no matter what I do!"
Maybe that's true. Maybe if Natsuhiko wasn't so annoying, it wouldn't have to be.
Well, it'll be difficult for the older boy to put him in a bad mood today. Mitsuba is pretty happy with what he'd accomplished. He'd found that he enjoyed drawing, and even more so, that he enjoyed Shijima's company. She was right about their age gap making conversation more difficult, but that had only meant that she had more to talk about to Mitsuba when she had to explain the things he didn't know, somewhat forcing her to come out of her shell. He thinks she's nicer than she'd first appeared. Even if she doesn't think she's as kind as her living counterpart, Mitsuba thinks she must be doing a good job of living up to her memory.
Right as he'd left her, he'd asked; will you be here next time I'm around? Hopeful, but not too much so, in case of disappointment.
She'd smiled at him and said, sure. I think I will be.
He likes to think that makes him fairly successful. Mitsuba has made a friend, all by himself.
It's nice. There's a sort of warm feeling in his chest, making it impossible not to smile. This must be how humans get to feel all the time, having so many others similar to them surrounding them so much of the day.
At the very least, he thinks, when Kou and Yashiro grow older and leave the school and no humans who can see him remain, he'll have one more person whose company he enjoys. That's something. A very nice something.
Although thinking about the future like that hurts his stomach. Mitsuba's been feeling kind of unwell for the past few days, actually. He considered visiting Tsuchigomori, knowing he's a biology teacher who probably knows a good chunk about supernatural bodies, but decided he'd wait until he was at least on his deathbed before he got that desperate.
Natsuhiko is still sitting across from him. He leans on his fist and yawns dramatically, making Mitsuba frown. He's never seen Natsuhiko sleep. Does he even need to? He might just be trying to show off how bored he is.
...Mitsuba is in a good mood. Even Natsuhiko won't be able to ruin that. He repeats this over and over in his head for a few moments, trying to convince himself.
"Do you want to play a few rounds of Go?" he asks.
Natsuhiko lights up with such a pitched gasp that Mitsuba almost immediately regrets asking.
"Mitsuba!" Natsuhiko grins, already out of his seat and smacking his hands on the desk. His eyes are sparkling with joy just at the prospect. "I knew it! You do love me, after all!"
"Don't be hasty," Mitsuba snaps, turning his phone off and slipping it into his pocket. "If you try making up any stupid new rules, I'm leaving."
Natsuhiko giggles like a little kid, clasping his hands together in front of him. "Understood," he confirms, teeth bared with glee. "I won't let you down, kiddo. This'll be the most fun game you've ever played in your entire death."
Somehow, Mitsuba doubts that's true, but lets it slide anyway as the boy darts across the room in search of his favourite box of game pieces.
Later that evening - or maybe the next day, Mitsuba's so bad at keeping track of time - he goes to his bedroom in his boundary to hang up his art.
It's not like it's anything special. He's a shit artist, if he's being honest, even worse than Sousuke was whenever he doodled in the margins of his textbooks, which is frankly insulting. He'd like to be better than Sousuke at something, if not just to prove another difference between them that would make him feel more confident in his own self. But the drawings he and Shijima did, despite his own looking pathetic next to hers while she wasn't even trying, brings a smile to his face anyway.
He'd drawn a dog, a plot of flowers, Howl from Howl's Moving Castle (with zero references, so it's barely recognizable), and Shijima herself, which he's lucky she didn't perceive as an insult. She'd drawn the two of them in the blanket fort together as they'd been in that very moment. Mitsuba can't stop staring at how she'd drawn him. It looks so strange. Not in a bad way, not by any means, but it's hard to believe that it's actually his face.
Mitsuba sees his face a lot. In the Hell of Mirrors, you're looking at your own reflection almost every single second that you have your eyes open. Still - seeing it portrayed so kindly through art feels different. He looks even cuter than usual in Shijima's style.
He sits down and pins them to his wall beside his nest - his bed, fuck Kou for getting him into calling it a nest, which it's not. He still can't believe Kou had seen him wearing his stolen jumper from so many months ago and had barely had a word to say about it. He had been extremely out of it then, which Mitsuba supposes he's lucky for. He doesn't need Kou questioning him any further.
The jumper is in Mitsuba's bed right now. He's kept it here ever since his boundary opened up for him again. It makes him feel stupidly, childishly safe to have it.
The drawings, the jumper, and that giant bird plushie Kou had won for him all combined paint a nice picture for once. One of a person who has friends, who isn't alone. There is evidence of it all around him.
See, Kou, he thinks to himself. I have more friends than just you. I'm not always lonely.
He glances around his room. It suddenly feels very quiet, very small, very cold, despite the warm thoughts he'd just been thinking.
I'm not always lonely. Only sometimes.
As if recognizing his feelings, his phone buzzes, and he jumps. It's rare that he actually receives messages while in his boundary. The signal is rough, coming and going wildly, and sometimes his phone is just bricked entirely for days. He's spent more time in the Broadcasting Room trying to download videos to watch than he has doing anything else for the past several weeks.
The notification on his screen is a text, from lame earring boy. Mitsuba's heart skips - not that he's extra joyful that Kou is finally initiating contact and Mitsuba doesn't have to swallow his pride and do it first. He's just startled, is all.
lame earring boy (21:27): Hey, do you want to go for food with me and Nene this weekend? She's just asked if you'd want to come.
Well, fuck. Mitsuba stares at his screen for several long minutes that could possibly be hours. His sense of time is really just so bad.
It's probably stupid to agree to this. Yashiro knows about his feelings for Kou, had figured it out all on her own because he was just too obvious. Mitsuba would rather be exorcized horribly than admit to Kou that he liked him at all without knowing for certain what his feelings for him are supposed to be.
Then again...
Me (21:37): sure lol
Mitsuba is not very good at staying away from Kou. Besides, it's been a while since he's spoken to Yashiro. It can't hurt to spend some time with her. He'll even have something to brag about to Hanako later - haha, I took your girlfriend on a date and you can't, nyeh, nyeh, lame toilet ghost!
Nope, that's a recipe for getting him stabbed with a knife. Well, it'd still be fun to hang out. He wonders, silently, if Kou had arranged this just because of what he'd said the other day about Mitsuba not having friends apart from himself. Maybe he's trying to get him and Yashiro to become closer. Maybe he wants to pawn Mitsuba off on her so he gets some free time away from having to deal with his shit.
Mitsuba flops back into the nest and sighs. Unconsciously, one arm wraps around himself in a sort of half hug. His stomach has felt kind of weird for days and he doesn't know why. If it doesn't get better, he'll have to talk to Tsukasa.
He'll have time to figure himself out later. For now, there is so much time to wait to pass by, and not very much to do during it, so he simply closes his eyes and prays that it'll be the weekend by the time he wakes up again.