AN: id recommend watching the whole series first. i love theo hes practically canon gay god bless i haven't written in a while also i have no keyboard so sorry if there's errors! pls point them out to me, thank you for reading!
In the beginning it was just him and Rei. It wasn't as if Theo was unusual, or stuck out - just unpopular. Something about him simply radiated 'loser', usually causing more problems than he would've liked. But even losers need friends, right? Just one? Just Rei.
He'd known her since middle school, anyway. And high school so far had not been a great time. Didn't make new friends. Couldn't. Little into his first year at Yokobane, and he'd already found new bullies. It was bad, worse than usual, or maybe it just seemed worse, because he was older, or they were older, people always got worse when they got older.
It was bad.
He'd thought about doing things, things you're supposed to never ever do, the kind of thing they said you went to Hell for. He wasn't particularly religious, that didn't stop him, he just couldn't go through with it. A loser even in despair. He chuckled at the time, with fingers through chain links and the wind through his hair. The people down below looked so small and insignificant, so background, as if he was the only one that mattered. Literally on top of the world. But still such a loser.
Then they threatened to hurt Rei. Of course. He couldn't do that to her - it'd be nothing but his fault. Her getting hurt because of him. Because of being friends with him. He started avoiding her, and he took the loneliness and the bruised arms and the plastered legs and hid them far, far away. What else was he supposed to do? He had no idea what the future would hold under forced smiles and fake laughs, but it certainly wasn't Kitazawa.
He was the art teacher at Yokobane. So what? Theo was never very good at art. Or a lot of his subjects, really, but he didn't care about art. Not until Kitazawa-sensei solved everything. Not until the flame that was Kitazawa-sensei flicked on and cast everything into the light.
It was startling how quickly things got better; only now could he see why Kitazawa-sensei was so popular, and suddenly school was kind of fun, if only because now he had art lessons to look forward to. And somehow, somewhere along the way, he wanted more - more lessons, more time with him, more than just a teacher, more than just a friend. It was weird, yeah. Creepy, even. Previously, the thought never occurred to him that he'd swing this way. The "Mess with Theo Club" had called him names of that agenda, but they were just trying to be mean.
It was some kind of joke that they turned out to be right.
Kitazawa disappeared. Distressed and frightened that his fire had been extinguished, he sought the help of some detectives. Nice and Murasaki. Hamatora. They were dressed funny and seemed to have less money than he did, but they did the job. Just his luck that his "best friend" wasn't only dead, but the leader of the Mess with Theo Club.
The first time at the casket, his heart felt too numb to do anything but stare. Like he was submerged in ice. The second time was relief and tears and heat, and breaking, the photo breaking under his own hand, breaking like his heart had been, like his world had been. There was the truth, and there was his freedom, and everything trapped inbetween was a blur of love and hate. Desperation - gratitude - anger - betrayal - more emotions than he thought was possible to feel at once.
It still hurt. When he returned to baseline, staring at the shards and debris and petals, feeling as disordered as it looked - it still hurt. So he got a part-time job, with Rei, at a hot spring. They'd blown all their savings on the Hamatora job anyway. That was where he developed another crush - god, it sounded so dumb aloud - on the masseur. Hasuda-san. He was kind, helpful; he was even open about liking guys, something that made Theo feel so normal.
Of course it turned out he wasn't a great guy. Planned some crazy scheme to get his favourite idol back onto the scene; seriously, what the hell? It's a good thing Hamatora were there. Nice and Murasaki. It was a little relieving to see them again, alive and well. As if they weren't just client and vendor, but friends. Nice-kun made a comment about Theo going for the older guys - he was embarrassed - but a little relieved the detectives knew he was like that. He felt he could trust them. A small part of him said what happened Kitazawa and Hasuda was his fault.
The next time they met again was on the school trip to Okinawa. Satou Nice-kun and Tanaka Murasaki-sensei joined Theo and Rei once more. They played together, talked and Nice-kun even competed in the triathlon for him. And Theo was happy. Happier than he should've been, he thought. It felt right; him, Nice, and Rei. They were good together.
And that's when he realised he liked Nice. In that way. Sat in his room, he laughed, alone, as a bubble of anxiety welled up within his chest. A loser's crushes can't end well. One, a criminal, and one dead and a criminal. That left Nice-kun, to just be dead.