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Chiaki really hated Kunishige at first.
Before she met Kunishige and Tougo, she had been friends with Soushirou for a couple of years, one of the few kids her age from a sorcerer family in their town. At that age, barely out of diapers, you were best friends with anyone who said more than two words to you. Soushirou was somehow more than that.
Soushirou was a good kid, smart and polite, the kind of boy that Chiaki’s parents would tease her about. Adults were weird about that kind of thing, even with preschoolers, and Chiaki didn’t really understand romantic love outside of the concept of having a mommy and a daddy who were married.
Chiaki thought marriage seemed kind of scary, too, especially the way the Soga clan talked about it: Duty. Honor. Expectation.
Chiaki hated the boys that reminded her of her duties to the Soga clan. Soushirou, though, made her forget that she was a Soga.
When they were apart, life was hard and full of expectations. Together, they were just goofy kids exploring the best parts of a normal childhood.
Soushirou and Chiaki would stuff pillows up their shirts and pretend to be sumo wrestlers, smashing into each other until they wore themselves out and had a juice and a nap. They would pick fights with other kids who underestimated them, and then Soushirou would beat them so soundly that even the sorcerer clan elders, who were entirely preoccupied with strength, would grow a little wary.
When they first started playing together, adults would say, “Oh, is your boyfriend Soushirou-kun coming over?”
Later, those same adults would look at Chiaki with concern and say, “Isn’t it about time you stopped playing so rough with that boy?”
It didn’t matter. They had each other, which made life a bit simpler.
It was a good system, and then it changed.
Kunishige and Tougo were two older boys in Soushirou’s neighborhood. Chiaki had never seen them before, but had heard enough about them from Soushirou to be leery. Kunishige and Tougo would play football outside, and Soushirou wanted to join them, but was too shy to ask.
Kunishige’s dad was a swordsmith. Tougo was a sorcerer from a non-sorcerer family. They both were loud and funny and Soushirou was so desperate for the boys to be his friend. Maybe then, adults would stop saying weird things about him being “too girly” and how it would be a shame if he ended up like Chiaki’s cousin Yutaka.
Then, one day, Soushirou arrived at Chiaki’s house, red-faced and out of breath, a delirious smile on his face.
“I made friends!” Soushirou said.
Chiaki was happy for Soushirou. Really, she was. At first.
Then, Soushirou stopped coming to her house as often. Chiaki’s parents rarely let her leave the compound, and they certainly wouldn’t allow her to hang out with that “annoying Rokuhira kid” and the teleporter from the broken family.
Soushirou’s time split between two friend groups. It wasn’t his fault, but he also didn’t really seem to notice how lonely Chiaki was without him.
He had begged her to sneak away from the Soga compound, to come down to the lake like they used to. No one had to know that Rokuhira and Shiba were there with them, but Chiaki was too afraid to lie to her parents.
Sometimes Akemura would play with her, but once his sorcery manifested, his time became limited as well.
Eventually, the loneliness was great enough for Chiaki to overcome her fear of punishment.
She regretted it immediately.
“You’re Soga Chiaki?” Rokuhira said with a stupid, awe-struck look on his face.
“I heard you’re stuck up,” Shiba said.
“I didn’t think you were real!” Rokuhira said.
“Really stuck up,” Shiba emphasized.
“I can’t believe Soushirou is the first one of us with a girlfriend!” Rokuhira bemoaned.
It was at that point Chiaki decided she didn’t much like Kunishige. All the weird adults in her life, the older boys too, acted like her only real value was in being married off to some other big clan sorcerer one day.
None of them had seen her as the goofy kid she was. Soushirou was the exception, but it seemed his friends were just as awful as all the other male sorcerers she knew.
“Quit being weird,” Soushirou said, more confused than angry.
“Gross, Kunishige. They’re too little,” Shiba said, sounding a bit disgusted as well.
“No! I didn’t mean it!” Rokuhira said, looking horrified. He sputtered for a while, not really knowing what he meant, probably just repeating something he had heard adults say, but it didn’t matter. The damage had already been done.
Still, for Soushirou, Chiaki would still sneak around with the group of boys, putting up with Rokuhira’s stupidity and Shiba’s barely-veiled animosity.
“I don’t think they like me,” Chiaki told Soushirou once.
“Of course they do,” Soushirou said simply, in that know-it-all way he had that was simultaneously annoying and reassuring.
Luckily, it didn’t take long for Shiba to begrudgingly give up his annoyance, and Chiaki even started to look forward to his contributions to the group: the way he and Soushirou bickered like they were trying to prove who was smarter, the way he always made sure Chiaki got to be on Soushirou’s team during their games, the intensity he brought in augmenting Rokuhira’s gross-out humor.
Rokuhira, though, was still insufferable.
Worse, Chiaki felt kind of bad for him. When Soushirou and Tougo really got going, it was difficult to break into their conversations. Chiaki felt like she was floating on the edge of a ship in her shoddy life raft, trying to get anyone’s attention onboard, just for the DJ to blast the on-deck speakers even louder.
Rokuhira had been putting up with their dynamic longer than Chiaki. Sometimes they’d bond over their common trauma.
Or, more accurately, Rokuhira would whine to Chiaki, and she would glare at him, but maybe her glare was too polite, because Rokuhira did not seem to take a hint.
“Chiaki, they’re talking about dorky stuff again,” Rokuhira whined, rolling around on the floor.
They had tried to pick a movie for them all to watch, settling on an old samurai movie in the hopes Rokuhira would be somewhat interested, since he was so obsessed with swords.
Unfortunately, Rokuhira’s interest in swords did not extend past their creation, and he was almost instantly bored. Chiaki wasn’t much interested in watching a 40-year-old black-and-white film about samurai killing each other either. She got enough of that stupidity at home.
Or, maybe she would have been more interested in the movie if it weren’t being constantly interrupted by the two biggest dorks in Kansai.
(Tougo had too readily recommended the movie. They should have realized it was his newest cultural obsession.)
“Mifune Toshiro is a Japanese treasure!” Tougo said, dramatizing his offense for the sake of their argument.
“Shimura is a more nuanced performer. Mifune is great and all, but too obvious,” Soushirou said, arms crossed and nose in the air.
“Save me,” Rokuhira whispered.
Chiaki really didn’t want to help Rokuhira, but even greater was her desire to not serve as an audience to two pre-teen boys arguing about Kurosawa films. (Soshirou was only ten! How does a ten-year-old develop such pretentions!)
So, reluctantly, she and Rokuhira snuck out of the room and found a shady spot outside to laze in the evening sun.
“Those two,” Rokuhira said fondly. He had found a couple of cold cans of green tea in the fridge, and was rolling one around his body, up and down his legs and arms, as if determined to soak up the cold before it could ever touch his throat.
When she got older, she would recognize it as a nervous tic; Rokuhira was always at his dumbest, most nonsensically annoying when he was anxious about something.
At the time, she just took a sip of her own cold tea and tried to ignore his fidgeting.
“If it weren’t for you, I’d still be stuck in that room,” Rokuhira said.
Chiaki continued to quietly sip at her tea.
“I just—look, I know I annoy you most of the time and you’re too nice to say so,” Rokuhira said. He turned, looking at her like he was hoping she might disagree. When she didn’t, he took a deep breath and turned back away.
“Anyway, I just wanted to say I think you’re cool, and I’m glad you’re our friend,” Rokuhira said.
“You think I’m cool?” Chiaki asked.
“Yeah,” Rokuhira said, hesitance creeping into his voice.
“Cool for a girl?” Chiaki asked.
Chiaki expected his answer to be less-than-ideal. She expected him to treat her as an outsider to their group, someone who couldn’t take a joke or who needed to be handled like a fragile doll. What she got instead was annoying, but in a way so suited to Rokuhira it came across as genuine and almost (almost!) charming.
“Duh,” Rokuhira said.
Chiaki smacked him, and he fell over, dramatically grasping his shoulder. It was the same way he would act around their other two friends, and she smiled, delighted to be seen as more than just her station, to be treated as a human being in her own right.
After that, Kunishige and her were friends, and they even hung out just the two of them, especially when Soushirou and Tougo devolved into their comedy routine, but even outside of that.
Chiaki had felt like a freeloader for so long, just someone the group tolerated because she was close to Soushirou. But Kunishige was her friend too.
Tougo…well. Tougo was a hard nut to crack. Chiaki didn’t take it too personally; it didn’t seem like even Kunishige or Soushirou understood Tougo most of the time.
It was the reason why, once Tougo was in middle school, a lot of girls started seeking him out. He was mysterious, cool, a bit of a rebel.
Once Chiaki got to middle school, those girls started asking her for advice on how “to win Shiba-kun’s heart.” Or they would tell her how lucky she was to be able to hang around the cool, older boy outside of school.
Those girls were at least a little better than the Azami Soushirou fanclub, which seemed to be most interested in Soushirou’s future earning potential as the only son and obvious inheritor of the Azami family business.
Chiaki wanted to tell them how Tougo and Soushirou had recently started arguing about foreign silent films, which had increased their windbaggery exponentially, to the point that she could hardly be around them for more than ten minutes at a time. (If she ever heard the terms Battleship Potemkin or Dr. Caligari again, she might have Kunishige hold them both down so she could try out the kidney punch Soushirou had so recklessly taught her.)
There was also the fact that they seemed to be way more interested in each other than any girl.
Soushirou had come out to her years before. They had been watching some melodramatic show about teenage romance, and when asked who Soushirou preferred out of the main love triangle, he had opted for the boy over the two girls.
Chiaki just took it as another part of Soushirou. If anything, his disinterest in girls was a relief. As everyone hit the worst parts of puberty, Chiaki didn’t have to worry about any awkwardness between them.
Tougo…well. Tougo remained a mystery.
Chiaki had brought it up around Soushirou once, asked him straight up: Did Tougo like boys too?
Soushirou had looked at her like he had swallowed a chopstick sideways.
“Not really my place,” he had eventually muttered.
Chiaki had taken it to mean that there was something going on between Soushirou and Tougo, but that Tougo wasn’t ready to come out with it.
That was understandable. Chiaki wasn’t so naïve to think their families and society in general would be kind about their relationship. But Chiaki also really didn’t like the idea of Tougo treating Soushirou like some ugly secret.
Still, she didn’t mention Tougo’s romantic interests again.
She had bigger things on her mind anyway. It was probably only a matter of time, but with the fan club girls, Soushirou and Tougo, and everyone else seemingly losing their minds in middle school, Chiaki’s own thoughts about adulthood had been kickstarted.
Worse, she started to notice things about Kunishige that she hadn’t before.
Kunishige could be a real idiot, but he also gave out strangely solid relationship advice. He was really good with people in an unassuming way that most didn’t seem to notice. Even Tougo and Soushirou seemed to breeze past Kunishige’s people smarts without much thought.
Chiaki noticed. She noticed too much, and she felt like she was maybe losing her mind.
She started to notice his smile, the size of his hands, the way his body moved when he was working in the forge and his shirt clung to his sweaty body too tightly (or, worse, when he took a break from blacksmithing and lost the shirt altogether).
She brought it up with Soushirou once, and he got that sideways-swallowed-chopstick look again.
“Oh, boy,” he said, grimacing.
He didn’t elaborate, no matter how much she needled him.
“It’s not my place,” Soushirou said.
Chiaki wondered if that meant Kunishige was asking Azami about her as well.
She didn’t act on it. Kunishige was older than her. He might not be more mature (to put it lightly), but he probably still saw her as a kid or “just one of the boys.”
After Kunishige graduated high school, their friend group started to disintegrate. Chiaki never would have guessed that Kunishige was the glue holding them all together, but it was the only explanation. Not even Soushirou could keep Tougo from attempting to rebuild himself into a clone of Ken Takakura. Not even Chiaki could keep Soushirou from disappearing into the seediest side of sorcerer society every weekend.
Kunishige was the only person who hadn’t lost his mind, so Chiaki started to seek him out more.
Her issues with Kunishige only became more intense.
When Kunishige smiled in that unassuming way, she had to hide her face for fear of mirroring his goofy grin. When he made some self-deprecating joke, she couldn’t stop herself from giggling like a preschooler hearing their first poop joke. When he would unconsciously flex his arm muscles, she had to immediately hide her face behind the nearest wall, tree, etc.
When Soushirou caught her under Kunishige’s spell, he would give her the most defeated looks, the ones that said, “Really? Is your self-esteem so low?”
Soushirou didn’t understand, though. He didn’t have crushes on boys their age. He was “too mature” for that. (He didn’t mean to, but he could really make her feel like a childish fool. It became pretty much impossible to talk to him about these things after a while.)
Tougo became even more distant, and sometimes she’d see flashes of his childhood animosity.
It was all very embarrassing. It sometimes even verged on painful.
On one ordinary day, she cracked. Tougo and Soushirou had both disappeared for the weekend, and it was just her and Kunishige, sitting outside the Rokuhira family forge, sharing a couple of cans of cold, green tea.
“I changed my mind,” Chiaki said.
“Huh?”
“I don’t want you to treat me like Tougo or Soushirou. Not anymore.”
Kunishige’s eyebrows were up by his hairline.
“I’m not a boy,” Chiaki reminded him.
Kunishige had leaned over, covered in dirt and smelling like sweat, to plant a small kiss on her cheek.
“Duh,” he said.
After that, Kunishige would leave sweet little notes for her, sneak chaste kisses on their walks home, touch her hand gently or share a flirty look when no one was looking.
It was exhilarating and fun and of course Soushirou caught them almost immediately.
“Kunishige, huh?” Soushirou asked. One question and one confident look was all it took for Chiaki to spill her guts.
Soushirou told Chiaki to be careful, to remember that her clan was full of a bunch of stodgy old dickweeds, as if she could forget, but ultimately wished her luck.
“Of all people,” Soushirou said, shaking his head. “I will never understand the appeal.”
A few weeks later, Kunishige told her that Soushirou had given him a much different speech.
“It felt like I was getting chewed out by my dad,” Kunishige said.
“That’s Soushirou for you,” Chiaki said. She was sitting next to Kunishige, tucked in so close they were almost touching, but not quite.
“Not even the first time he’s given me that speech,” Kunishige said, offhandedly.
Chiaki paused, then turned to him with wide eyes.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” As far as she knew, Kunishige had never had another girlfriend before.
“Uh, I kind of fucked up. With Tougo,” Kunishige said. He flinched, and she could tell he really didn’t want to tell her the next part, but they had promised to be honest and open with each other, and Kunishige was so honest it sometimes broke her heart.
He proceeded to explain that a shocking amount of boy-kissing had been going on right under Chiaki’s nose, and it wasn’t even the two boys she suspected.
“You’re kidding me,” Chiaki said, voice disbelieving and eyebrow raised. “No way. I mean, I never got Soushirou to admit to anything. But I thought he was just protecting—"
“I thought there was something going on there too!” Kunishige said. “But Tougo said they had never really thought of each other that way.”
“But, then, you two,” Chiaki said, still not wrapping her mind around it.
“I don’t know,” Kunishige said, apparently also a little dumbfounded by actions that he himself had instigated. “I’ve never really cared about, y’know, if it was a boy or girl I was kissing. I prefer girls, but boys have their own charm.”
“And Tougo?” Chiaki said, flabbergasted. The guy who tries way too hard to be cool? The guy whose fanclub consists 90% of girls desperate for a “safe” crush that they fall for a gay man? (The other 10% consists of boys who are so desperate for a “safe” gay crush that they fall for a boy they think is already taken.)
Soushirou’s words rattled around her head: I will never understand the appeal.
“I don’t know. It just seemed fun,” Kunishige said.
Chiaki scoffed. Of course Kunishige would think making out with your best bro was just a bit of fun. Possibly ruining my life-long friendship, having a laugh.
“I know it sounds dumb now! But, you know Tougo, he’s not the type to get attached. Or, at least, I thought so.” Kunishige cringed again.
Chiaki could understand his mistake with that, at least. She had been similarly mistaken about Soushirou, but in the opposite way. Soushirou had always seemed so upfront and disciplined, the kind of sweet boy you could bring back to your mother. He was now the one person she worried about the most.
“I think people who feel things really deeply are the best at hiding it,” Chiaki said.
She had to hide her relationship with Kunishige from her family. She had to hide her goofy side, her love of old comedy routines, her endless knowledge of baseball stats, and that she didn’t really like flowers or jewelry! Gods, would creepy sorcery men please stop gifting her flowers and jewelry!
But she didn’t have to hide any of that from Kunishige. Everything she revealed about herself only made them grow closer, to help them realize they had more commonalities than differences.
Soushirou and Tougo didn’t have to just hide from their families and society, but themselves, from each other. It felt like an important distinction.
She thought about Tougo’s mom, about his devil-may-care persona, about how he’d rather skip school and fail a class than try his best and achieve mediocrity. She thought that maybe trading simple kisses with Kunishige might seem easier than trying for a deeper relationship and being rejected.
“He doesn’t like looking weak,” Kunishige said.
“He sees his feelings as a weakness,” Chiaki concluded.
“Bingo,” Kunishige said, snapping his fingers.
Chiaki leaned against Kunishige, feeling a bit overwhelmed. The world was unfair. She imagined that if, one day, she had her own kids, she would make sure she was the kind of person they never had to hide from.
She would protect her kids, but never shield them from reality.
Because kids would always find out the truth, and if an adult wasn’t there to help them work through it, it could be disastrous.
She wanted to be the kind of parent that kids like Soushirou deserved.
Soushirou was searching for answers to questions that could get him hurt or worse. But he was Soushirou, and to him being ignorant was worse than being dead.
She couldn’t talk sense into him, but if there was a reason he had more than one friend, this had to be it.
“What would you do if you promised to keep something secret, but now you’re worried that the secret might be really dangerous?” Chiaki asked.
“I don’t know. What kind of secret?” Kunishige asked.
“I’m really worried about Soushirou,” Chiaki said, her voice watery.
Kunishige put an arm around her and pulled her closer.
“I don’t know how to help him,” Chiaki said.
“It’s okay,” Kunishige said.
“I think he’s doing something really dumb, and he’s going to get hurt, but he acts like he doesn’t even care,” Chiaki said. She wiped at her face, frustrated that she couldn’t get this all out without crying.
“You don’t have to tell me details,” Kunishige said.
“He won’t listen to me!” Chiaki said.
“I’ll tell Tougo. He’ll listen to Tougo,” Kunishige said. He kissed the top of her head, and she collapsed into him, hiding her face in his side.
“I’m sorry,” Chiaki said.
“Don’t be. It’s good to cry,” Kunishige said.
They stayed like that until the sky started to go dark and the streetlights came on.
Kunishige walked her home. They considered stopping by Soushirou’s to check in with him, but decided against it. He probably wasn’t there, and even if he were, he probably wouldn’t appreciate if they came barging in, asking questions, concerned about his welfare.
Soushirou was too proud for that, unfortunately.
Chiaki was glad Kunishige was different.
For weeks after, Chiaki and Kunishige had time to themselves, and then Tougo just started showing up again, same as always, as if nothing had changed and no time had passed.
Soushirou returned to the group as well, albeit a lot more gradually, as if he were afraid of upsetting a space where he no longer belonged. Eventually, he settled back into his usual spot in the friend group.
Tougo and Kunishige went back to playing video games and making dick jokes. Chiaki and Soushirou continued their studies, talking about literature and poetry, bonding deeper over their responsibilities and familial expectations.
Soushirou and Tougo moved on from silent films to semi-ironically watching terrible horror movies, as if that were the next logical step in their journey as film snobs. Chiaki and Kunishige would trade kisses and giggles on the couch while Soushirou and Tougo engaged in what Kunishige called “dork foreplay.”
“Well, I’d rather look at a woman’s tits than a man’s ass,” Tougo said.
“The tits are fake,” Soushirou argued. “The ass is real.”
“Are you making an argument for realism in a movie where the monster is a penis-shaped puppet covered in white slime?” Tougo said.
“The difference being that I’m not getting horny about the fake stuff,” Soushirou said, sniffing derisively.
“Who said I’m horny!” Tougo said, making a show of crossing one leg over the other.
“Can we please tell them to leave?” Rokuhira whined. There was a blanket over his and Chiaki’s legs, and he was tickling his fingers higher and higher up her thigh, seeing how far he could go before she slapped his hand away.
“Not yet. I think this time they really might kiss,” Chiaki whispered.
Tougo and Soushirou couldn’t hear her, too enthralled by their dumb argument.
“Yeah, right. They’re more likely to take out their frustrations on each other with their fists than their lips,” Kunishige said. He said the words with the gravitas of a man who had lived through war and saw another battle waging on the horizon.
“Fine! You and me in the sparring ring, best out of three!” Soushirou shouted.
“Told ya,” Kunishige said.
Tougo and Soushirou went outside, bickering the whole time, forgetting that their other two friends were left staring at a TV screen where the movie was paused on a monster that, admittedly, looked quite phallic.
“Can we go make out now?” Kunishige asked, eyes wide and sad, bottom lip pouting.
“I will never understand the appeal,” Soushirou had once said.
As Chiaki and Kunishige kissed in Kunishige’s bedroom, on his bed, daring to let their hands roam over each other’s clothed bodies, they could hear the sounds of Tougo and Soushirou beating each other bloody in the yard.
Chiaki and Kunishige paused to roll their eyes when Tougo let out a high-pitched noise, followed by a round of Soushirou’s bizarre, snorting laugh.
There really is someone out there for everyone, Chiaki thought, and Kunishige kissed her again.