Shima chewed on his cuticle instead of the bento lying sadly on his desk. It's not that his brother was a bad cook, it's just that he had gotten used to drooling over his mother's cooking. Adapting would take some time. It was on his head, though, and Shima understood that. The fact that things might be difficult after moving out at fifteen had been clear in his mind whilst announcing his choice. It was better this way, though. His parents would have less to deal with. They wouldn't have to worry about Shima or the palpable unease he now discharged into the air and through their lungs.

Shima thought his parents were good people and didn't blame their apparent apprehension towards him now—they weren't good at hiding their feelings. Shima didn't wish to make anyone, himself included, uncomfortable. He moved in with his brother, a college student who wouldn't mind living with a gay teen, as long as that teen paid rent.

Picking about his bento, Shima ate the fired egg alone and emptied the rest into a wastebasket beside the teacher's desk. He nodded to his female instructor and made to return to his seat. Sadly, someone had gotten there before him.

Togawa Yousuke smelt of yakiniku garnished with cigarette butts. He was loud, quirky, and always seemed to have something to say, especially if that something was to Shima. Togawa was three years his senior (Togawa being eighteen and Shima sixteen; Togawa had a birthday soon). Shima worked fast and held a top spot at his previous school. The facility he transferred to was less advanced, and they allowed him into the senior class. Togawa had apparently—Shima mostly heard rumors—taken a year off in grade school because of some family trauma, so he would graduate a year later than normal.

"If you aren't going to finish your lunch you should give it to me." His smile was a bit off kilter, like one side of his face thought him more clever than the other. His hands pressed against Shima's desktop. The tips of his fingernails were ragged.

Shima slipped into his seat, somehow not overly uncomfortable with Togawa's pungent presence wafting around him. It had been very off-putting the first day, a week or so ago when Shima transferred to the school nearby his brother's place.

"If you get fat you'll break my desk," Shima said, placing the bento box into his desk.

A few of Togawa's friends giggled. They always watched and listened in when their pal tried (his damned hardest) to converse with Shima. They must've thought it funny to try and befriend the misfit.

"Hey, you're no cute when you frown, Shima-Chan." Togawa leant forward.

Shima wrinkled his nose. "You stink."

Togawa's eyebrows lifted. He held a hand to his mouth and smelt his ashy breath. His shoulders went towards his ears. "Is it the meat or the cigarettes?" The question was oddly sincere.

"It's really the combination that does it." Shima said, wondering when class would resume.

Togawa smiled softly. It came across with a plastic gloss, but Shima didn't know the teen enough to say it wasn't completely genuine. "I don't like it either." He lowered his head and pushed from Shima's desk, walking back to his spectating group.

They wore a watered down look of confusion, and then class resumed, and Togawa's momentary character break was forgotten.

By most.


And so these men of Indostan

Disputed loud and long,

Each in his own opinion

Exceeding stiff and strong,

Though each was partly in the right,

And all were in the wrong!