It was a game. Tag and chase, just between the two of them. / Sho and Kyoko through the years.
CHASE
They were knee-deep in mud and looking for faeries when she told him she loved him.
For the most part, Shoutaro tries to forget that ever happened—not 'cause he didn't appreciate the confession or anything (he did) but because they were seven and she stilled believed in fairytales and he still could never quite tell her, "No, I am not freaking doing that crap," because then she'd make this face like she's about to cry and—OK, some people are equipped to handle sobbing females but Shoutaro is not one of them.
Even though he knows it's not really possible, he thinks mud is leaking through his canary yellow rain boots and drenching his socks, and there is no worse feeling than walking around aimlessly through the muddy riverside looking for mythical creatures visible only to his best friend with wet feet.
Ahead of him, Kyoko's somehow drenched from head to foot, but skipping around with this stupid grin on her face like the rain and the cold don't mean a thing to her. And maybe they don't, but Shoutaro's throat is itching, and he wants out of this horrible situation he's found himself in. He rubs his nose agitatedly and half-heartedly pretends to be looking for faeries.
He clears his throat and points at some funky looking scrap of foliage and says, "I think I've got one."
And in roughly twenty seconds less than the time it should've taken in order to sprint through the soggy ground, Kyoko is at his side.
"Where?" she demands, golden eyes lit up and fiery in a way Shoutaro can never get used to.
When he doesn't answer, she wraps her small hands around his arm and shakes him. "Sho-chan," she whines, dragging out his nickname. Her nickname for him. "Where is it?"
"Y'know," Shoutaro says, making weird little gestures towards the plant, "there…"
She looks for the faeries, then back at him uncertainly. "I don't really…"
He huffs and crosses his arms over his chest like his dad does when he's upset but trying to hide it. "Mo," he snaps, "I thought you wanted my help."
"Sho-chan," she tells him patiently, "if I wanted to look at Arisaema ringens, I would've gone by myself"—Shoutaro struggles to not roll his eyes here because of course Kyoko would know exactly what sort of plant this was—"we're looking for faeries."
He takes a few seconds to process the fact that someone can be so smart yet so not….
He stares at her for bit, just taking in her wet hair plastered to her cheeks and forehead and how one ponytail's looser than the other before giving in. He knocks her on her head—gently, unlike before when they'd first met and she was all over the place and he was setting the kitchen on fire whenever he tried to cook (it briefly occurs to him that not much had changed in either of those departments).
"What do you mean there's nothing?" he said, even though simply saying the words seem to tug painfully at his vocal chords. "Don't tell me you can't see him."
"…him?"
Shoutaro wets his lips before continuing. "Sure." He sneaks a glance at her and sees her still looking at him a little skeptically, so he stresses, "He's got yellow hair and green eyes and rainbow wings—"
"Yellow hair and green eyes?" Kyoko interrupts quietly.
It surprises him a little that she'd be asking about his hair and eyes—which are totally common in certain parts of the world—and not the rainbow wings, but Shoutaro rolls with it.
"Yep," he affirms, popping the 'p.' "He's a faeries prince," he adds for good measure. He grins at her mischievously. "Who knows, you might marry him one day."
Kyoko's face goes pink, and she shakes her head at him before wrapping herself even tighter around his arm. "But I love Sho-chan. Scho-chan's my prince."
Shoutaro doesn't quite feeling like snorting or blushing, but he's definitely not comfortable where this topic has gone. He shakes her off a little. "Sure, Kyoko…"
She's too busy happily skipping away to catch the hesitance in his voice.
The first time it hits him is also the first time he feels genuine resentment towards his parents.
It was somewhere between Kyoko performing the tea ceremony—perfectly—and patiently dealing with a drunk customer that Shoutaro realized it and in hindsight, he was pretty slow to get it only now since she'd been cleaning, cooking, learning to glide (glide—not walk) like his mother for years.
His parents had made it pretty clear to him since he could speak that he was going to inherit the ryokan one day and become the Taisho. Shoutaro had somewhat resigned himself to it—for one, he was called Shoutaro and the only place where a name like that would fit in would be in a traditional inn. Secondly, it'd break his parents' hearts if he turned them down and, you know, there's that whole crying and yelling and grounding he'd have to deal with if he even thought about running off.
Point is, Shoutaro's fine with that. It's cool—really. (Even if life would be really slow and just—seriously? An inn manager?)
But, if his suspicions are correct—and he's pretty certain they are—his parents are training Kyoko to be the Okami-san. His Okami-san. (He refuses to use the "w" word.)
OK, so Kyoko as his…as you know, his (still can't say the word)—isn't the worst thing that could happen to him. She's not a bad catch, per se. Granted, there are a lot of nicer (curvier) girls out there, but Kyoko's not, like, ugly step-sister level of hideous. (And Shoutaro's seen her fairytale book enough to know that Anastasia and Drizella were ugly ugly.)
Kyoko and Shoutaro against the world. He wants it to feel right. By all means it should. He can't picture it any other way.
And that's the thing—Shoutaro seriously can't remember the first he ever met her because it's like she'd simply been a part of his life from the beginning. Thinking of life without Kyoko was like thinking of the ryokan without its Okami-san. He just didn't.
He likes Kyoko—he does. But he's no Prince Charming and she's no Cinderella; the life she wants definitely isn't for them, not in this lifetime. Shoutaro as the Taisho and Kyoko as his wife. It should make sense. It should click together without any effort at all. Only…
Shoutaro just doesn't want it.
He's not completely sure what "it" is exactly—whether it's taking his dad's place or…the whole marriage thing. But what he does know is that the thought of managing an inn for the rest of his life and the name "Fuwa Kyoko" makes his stomach flip uncomfortably.
Don't get him wrong; he likes Kyoko—honest to God he does—but…like and love are different things, and he can't throw either of those words around as comfortably as his best friend.
Shoutaro's twelve and in a few months, Kyoko will be too.
When he finds her, she and his dad dancing in the kitchen (only not really dancing 'cause his dad's still a professional and Kyoko's too much of a rule follower—doesn't look any less cool to him), tossing ingredients to each other; Kyoko gets the veggies, the Taisho gets the seasonings for meat. Shoutaro waits at the door and just takes it all in.
He's done this before plenty of times, and his mother always shoots him teasing looks whenever she passes by and catches him at it, but this time, as the Okami-san glides by and gives her son a subtle, playful glance, he barely reacts.
Kyoko's hair hits just below her chest, and Shoutaro knows his mother had probably been silently going nuts over it; combing, braiding, twisting, piling up, and just running her fingers through those dark strands. She's also been losing a bit of her baby fat, and it looks like she just might have some cheekbones somewhere—when she catches his eyes and smiles at him endearingly, it's all he can do to stare…
Before abruptly shaking his head and successfully ridding himself of any weird, girly thoughts. Shoutaro looks at his best friend again, and that's all he sees. His best friend: a plain little girl who hunts faeries in her spare time (which has become less and less frequent as his mother piles work on her that he now realizes is shaping her to be the perfect Okami-san).
Shoutaro shoves his left fist into his hoodie's pocket and trudges over to Kyoko, yanking a little on one of her thick locks. He juts his chin towards the stove burners, the stoves, and that ancient stone oven his dad kept around but never used.
"You're like a walking fire hazard in here with all this," he tells her.
He ignores her confused queries as he walks out the door, and—the very next day—her hair's chopped so it's barely touching her shoulders.
One sentence.
And that's all.
He feels a mix of relief and guilt and a new taste of dominance when Kyoko runs her fingers through her hair and her eyes widen when she reaches the ends—like she forgot she ever cut it, like she misses the length of it.
(Shoutaro silently misses it too, but he'd sooner ask to take his father's place than admit that.)
He's thirteen and he's stuck staring at her so long, he's not sure if his eyelids are even properly functioning.
Kyoko steps off the stage towards him, hands clutched around her guitar like she's immune to the applause she's getting and the glares the other girls are giving her, when really, she's just in her waitress/Okami-san mode in order to avoid either a) turning red like a tomato or b) crying 'cause she doesn't know why all the other girls hate her so much. (And really, Shoutaro's not too sure why either.)
"Sho-chan?" she asks.
He snaps himself out of it with a violent shake of his head. "…I didn't know could sing. Or play guitar," he adds.
Kyoko's cheeks take on a pink tinge. "I—I'm all right, I suppose."
Shoutaro's not sure if this is her low self-esteem acting up again or false modesty, but what he does know is this: Kyoko's a little more than just "all right" when it comes to singing—even if her guitar playing could use some polishing. Speaking of which…
"Whose is that?" he wonders aloud.
It's not his, and he doubts she'd have the money to buy one. Not to mention she'd be more likely to spend her savings on more plain, overly-practical clothes than something like a guitar, also, since when had she been interested in music? That had always been Shoutaro's shtick…
"Hm? Oh, this?" She lifts the instrument a little higher, shrugging. "Aoi-kun lent it to me."
Kyoko shoots a grateful smile over her shoulder to the aforementioned boy, and Shoutaro feels something like jealousy boil in his gut. Jealousy over the fact that Kyoko would go to someone else for help; jealousy over the fact that Kyoko can sing and play folk-songs about as well he can.
Music was always something Shoutaro thought he excelled in. Kyoko was a pro at cooking and serving and cleaning and school—but he was a musician. That's the one thing he could do better than Kyoko; he still could, for all intents and purpose (Kyoko messed up her fingering over the bridge and couldn't quite hit the high notes).
But honestly…with Kyoko, one could never ignore the fact that, once she set her mind to something, she'd master it.
Shoutaro snorts, turning his head to the side but keeping her in his peripheral vision. "Maybe you shouldn't have borrowed it from 'Aoi-kun' in the first place. Maybe you shouldn't have come to this talent show at all."
Her eyes widen in alarm. "Sho-chan?" she calls, before realization sweeps over her face. "Oh no…it was no good, wasn't it? I knew I should've practiced more—"
"No," he says, harsher than he's ever, ever spoken to her before, "you shouldn't have practiced at all."
"…What are you saying?" There's a funny lilt to her voice that he can't quite place and, oddly enough, her face is completely unreadable.
Something about that jars Shoutaro because, just like how he's never intentionally tried to hurt her, she's never ever used her Okami-san façade on him; the face she uses when she deals with bullies and strict teachers and drunk customers.
Shoutaro swallows around the brick in his throat. "I'm saying you shouldn't have tried."
Kyoko's carefully constructed face cracks for a just a moment, and she flinches like he outright slapped her. He doesn't stop himself though. Not until the final nail is in the coffin.
"After all, what talent do you have other than being a maid?"
His best friend's body goes rigid, and she immediately puts a hand over her mouth, eyes firmly goes to the ground. Shoutaro can't tell for sure, but he thinks her eyes are watery than normal.
"I'm sorry," she says from behind her hand, words so muffled, he's not sure he's hearing them right, "I swore I wouldn't do this in front of you anymore."
Shoutaro's brow wrinkles in confusion, pretty certain they're on completely different topics now. Kyoko shoves the guitar into his hands with a quick, "Give this to Aoi-kun, please," before rushing off.
He thinks he catches sight her fumbling with a blue stone just before she ducks behind the school building.
Shoutaro bites the inside of his cheek and ignore the guilt twisting his stomach.
Kyoko wears her Okami-san face for the next four days before apologizing to him.
They're fourteen, and his life at school is amazing.
Shoutaro manages to convince himself that her life is too, but there's only so long he can go before finally admitting that that's not true at all. Digging through garbage for your school lunch, redoing all your homework 'cause someone flushed it down the toilet, having your desk hidden from you is not amazing, and therefore, neither is Kyoko's school-life (even if she's still a straight-A student).
He can't remember exactly how old they were, but Shoutaro's pretty certain that—once upon a time—he'd bring it upon himself to protect his best friend from these sorts of situations. For example: beating up the guy who thought it be a good idea to flirt with her and glaring to death anyone who tried take his seat beside her.
When Kyoko walks into the classroom, everyone stops what they're doing to watch her reaction. The words "slut," "whore," "loser," and countless other names that violate rule 3 of section A in the student handbook: Swearing is prohibited on school grounds, are scrawled on the back of her chair and her desk.
The girl with bleached hair and twinkling eyes on his arm giggles quietly. All Shoutaro and Kyoko can do is stare at the other, completely at loss of what to say or do.
When the teacher comes along and takes in the scene and immediately snaps at everyone to settle down, demanding that the culprit come forward.
Once upon a time, Shoutaro would've said the same thing as his sensei. He swallows and refuses to look anywhere but at the blackboard in front of him.
The girl on his arm catches this and murmurs, "You sure she doesn't mean anything to you?"
"'Course not," he mutters. "She's just a plain, boring maid who lives at my parents' inn."
The girl raises a delicate eyebrow at word "plain," but doesn't push it. She runs her fingers through his hair (which he's been thinking about bleaching), and Shoutaro lets her.
Kyoko digs her nails into her palms and stiffly sits at her vandalized desk.
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