Chapter Text
“Good morning, Takumi!”
His voice had been a source of comfort, once. It was calm and soft, almost melodious, each sentence constructed with intention and precision.
Now, it was a threat.
And also one hell of a surprise.
Takumi jumped and choked down his shock. Where did Eito come from? He ignored the initial feeling of uncomfortable warmth spreading through his chest – the one manufactured by his first hundred days at the academy with Eito by his side. It was immediately replaced with a hammering heart and sweaty palms.
That was better. That was an emotion that made sense to Takumi.
At least he wasn’t the one who had to respond. Before he could even find the source of the sound, Takemaru intervened.
“What the hell?” He exclaimed, twisting back in his seat to find the source of the voice. “Eito? Who let you in here?”
Gaku also decided to make his presence known with a choked-out expletive. “What do you think you’re doing? Get back to your cage!”
Eito, with a plate of food perched on the table in front of him, blinked innocently, as if their reactions had not been entirely justified.
As if they were the crazy ones for questioning him.
“As a member of the Special Defense Unit, it only makes sense to spend time with you disgusting freaks,” Eito said, leaning his chin on one gloved hand. The other hand was bare, resting just beside his plate.
As Takumi expected, his meal of choice was a sandwich. Takumi couldn’t tell from this distance exactly what type it was (maybe a ham and cheese bagel?) but he also figured that this was not the most pressing detail.
Takumi had crossed the length of the cafeteria before he realized what he was doing. A tremor had seized his jaw, so he clenched it. Takumi couldn’t show weakness in front of the traitor.
The one that he had decided to spare.
“Nobody said anything about you being a member of the Special Defense Unit,” Takumi said, towering over him, one of the few times he was ever able to do so.
Eito dwarfed Takumi. From Takumi’s usual position so far below him, Eito’s sneer had always hit him harder than it should. With his tilted chin, arms held aloft like he was welcoming Takumi to join him in prayer, Eito would destroy Takumi over and over again.
“You need all of the manpower you can get,” Eito said. “Can you really afford to have me sit on the sidelines?”
“You don’t have to sit on the sidelines,” Takumi said. “You have to sit in your cage.”
This seemed to surprise Eito, but Takumi had no idea why. How could Eito expect anyone to welcome him back to the team after what he had done? He may have been the whistleblower who unraveled the secrets Sirei had kept from them, but he had fought them only days ago.
“Does Mr. Aotsuki intend to fight with us?” A trill sounded from the table closest to the Ration-O-Matic, followed by a breathy laugh. “You can’t be serious!”
Takumi turned to see Ima and Kako seated on the benches, a graphic slop of borderline inedible food splayed out before them like a buffet. Ima’s hands were folded under his chin, a grin narrowing his glinting eyes. Kako’s head was bowed, her fingers working through a thread on her jacket.
“I am serious,” Eito insisted. “Our interests are shared, after all. What reason would I have to harm you now?
“Get real!” Gaku shouted. “You’re just trying to manipulate us again!”
Eito winced. “Manipulate you? For what goal?”
“How am I supposed to know?” Gaku leaped to his feet, one hand still pressed against the table, as if anchoring himself to a safe zone. “Maybe you just want us to lower our guard so that you can sell us out to the Invaders!”
“Is it still right to keep callin’ them that? Takemaru grumbled.
“You know exactly what I mean!”
“Anyway, Gaku’s right,” Takemaru said, turning to Eito, his body tensed into a defensive stance. “We can’t trust you. Simple as that.”
Eito, as always, was impassive. No apprehension or discomfort marred his calm. If anything, he seemed curious.
Maybe hurt.
But, he couldn’t be.
Eito wasn’t capable of feeling those kinds of emotions. Not in response to horrible, ugly monsters like him.
To Takumi’s surprise, Eito’s face split into a grin. He stood up and motioned to the room at large. “Well, then I will simply have to win it back, won’t I? Let me clean the bathrooms for all of you.”
“That’s not really necessary,” Takumi sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
“No, please. It will be my pleasure, my ugly friends,” Eito hummed. “And the rest of the school, too. Nobody will ever need to do chores around here again. I will truly and honestly do anything for all of you.”
After a brief pause, Gaku cautiously said, “Anything, you say?”
“Anything!”
“Eito, stop,” Takumi cut in, his teeth gritted in frustration. “Do you think you’re going to win anyone’s trust that way? By doing chores?”
“I’m essentially prostrating myself before you, aren’t I?” Eito said. “Doing the chores of you repulsive, ugly monsters? Cleaning the filth you leave behind? I’m making quite an effort here.”
“You really need to cut it out with the ugly, filthy monster schtick!” Gaku whined.
“Eito, listen to me,” Takumi said. He took a step closer, but now Eito was towering over him again, scrutinizing him from under his lenses. “That’s not how you build trust. You doing chores for us –”
“I can do other things too! I truly mean –”
“-- or being our servant doesn’t deal with what’s really the matter!”
Eito paused, eyebrows raised just a fraction. Takumi remembered when that gaze was a moment of reprieve, like the sun on a cloudless day. Those carefully practiced expressions of gratitude and love had always been a farce. Takumi needed to remember that. It had never been real.
It was easier to forget Eito’s broken promises when he had been under lock and key. All Takumi needed to do was avoid the Courtyard. It wasn’t like he ever really had any business there, anyway. Shouma had been more than happy to bring food and clear out Eito’s cage, just as he had for Eva.
Despite that, Takumi had found himself wandering through those gardens anyway. He had been greeted by that same smile, though it was less restrained than it once had been. Eito would offer him his version of a warm welcome with reckless abandon. Could it have been more genuine? Had Eito ever smiled at him in the first hundred days and meant it? Was the smile he gave Takumi through the bars of the cage now any different?
Eito would brightly exclaim his delight at seeing Takumi’s ugly face, which had caused Takumi to promptly about-face and thunder out of the Courtyard, face burning. This was all wrong. Eito wasn’t supposed to be like this. They weren’t supposed to be like this. Eito had been clumsily kind and cheesy to a fault. He had set death flags left and right for all the corny quips he supplied.
Eito was supposed to be his friend.
When Takumi looked at Eito now, with that same reckless smile, the whites of his eyes a little too visible beneath his long eyelashes, he felt nothing but loathing. That’s what the burning in his throat and chest was. Loathing, rage. The thundering heartbeat was a manifestation of that hatred.
“What is really the matter then, Takumi?” Eito asked, frustration evident in the gesture of his hand against his forehead. “I’m giving myself up to you entirely, you know.”
“In the last hundred days, you fooled us all,” Takumi snapped. He could feel his voice rising, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care how unhinged and salty he came across, because the rage he kept tucked away under his ribcage was threatening to burst out. “You were our friend, Eito. Even before then, we risked our lives to save you. Time and time again, we chose you. All along, you were a liar. You chose them. What makes you think we can trust you now, after all this?”
“Takumi? Are you okay?” That was Kako.
Takumi whipped around to face her. Her eyes were like saucers, and Ima’s fork was frozen in the air on its way to his mouth, his eyebrows raised to his fading purple roots.
Had he really been that loud?
“Nah, let him let it out,” Takemaru intervened. “Sounds like he was the closest one to Eito before.”
Takumi turned to Eito, whose expression had not changed much, except that his lips were just barely parted. He propped one hand on his hip and clicked his tongue. “No, you are completely right.”
Takumi blinked. “What?”
Eito turned more fully toward Takumi, that smile back on his face. The one he gave to Takumi back in the first hundred days. The one that made Takumi’s chest clench because, well, that had never been real, had it?
“You shouldn’t trust me!” Eito said, his voice bright, as if he had reached some kind of revelation. “You all have absolutely no reason to. I can tell that I’m not wanted here at all.”
“I, well –”
Damn it, Takumi! What use was it to try to backtrack now? That much was true. Still, hearing someone speak badly about themselves always makes everyone feel awkward. So, Takumi’s reaction was perfectly reasonable.
“Yeah, you’ve got that right!” Gaku exclaimed.
Takumi gritted his teeth. “Gaku, you’re not even a part of this conversation!”
“Why the hell are you getting mad at me?”
“I see it clear as day now,” Eito said. “I will leave you all alone.”
Gaku slammed his hand on the table. “Someone should lock him back up!”
“I can easily undo the lock again,” Eito sighed. “I promise, I’ll stay out of sight. I won’t bother you.”
“D’you think we’ll let you have your old room back, or something?” Takemaru snapped. “Because, if you do –”
Eito’s lip pulled back. “No, I’m happy with my cage, thank you. Spending the night clustered around you ugly freaks is more than I can bear right now.”
“Mr. Aotsuki, your charisma truly knows no bounds!” Ima laughed.
Takumi wanted to snap back that Ima wasn’t much better, but he held his tongue. There was no need to antagonize his allies when they had a clear enemy in front of them.
“You’re going back to your cage?” Takumi echoed.
“Yes,” Eito said. “Before I go, though, there is something I want to say.”
“Just say it outright, then. Why are you prefacing it?”
Eito chuckled. “Oh, Takumi. You are so interesting.”
“Spit it out.”
“Well, it’s nothing, really,” Eito said, slipping the black glove he left on the table back over his hand. “Just that I don’t know anything about the Eito from the last hundred days you experienced.”
Takumi just stared at him. “What?”
“I am a traitor, that much is true,” Eito agreed. “But I’ve never had the chance to manipulate you all into doing anything. I would appreciate it if you would see me for who I am now, rather than some alternate timeline that I have nothing to do with.”
“But you are the same person,” Takumi said. “I just stopped you before you could do all that. Are you trying to say you wouldn’t have acted the same way as you did in the first hundred days?”
Eito picked up his plate. “That’s not it. I most certainly would. But my circumstances have changed. Unfortunately, I have failed before I ever even began my slaughter.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Well, no. I just want you to consider me as I am, ugly Takumi!”
Takumi sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He could never figure Eito out, no matter how hard he tried. Takumi’s understanding of the man standing before him always felt just short – even when he thought he had him down, Eito would continue to surprise him.
“Just get back to your cage,” Takumi said, slumping onto a cafeteria bench.
“I will,” Eito insisted. “Though I do want to talk to Sirei first…”