The Way Things Are
They sat on the school roof, somewhere they rarely went. In these new days of Student Council duties and the responsibilities that came with that, it often felt like barely a breaktime was taken outside of the Student Council building. So many lunches sat around the meeting table as sunlight streamed in, as the bustling sense of daily life took place somewhere that felt far, far away.
This lunchtime was free, though. They went up through the stairwell, up to the roof. There was nobody there; of the infrequent visitors that the place received, most of them had seemed to move on with the graduation of the previous tier of third-year students. Ichii sat back against the back wall of the concrete shelf where building met building, looking out across the open space and remembering the years past, the students who had passed on. That Nishimura had come here often, hadn't he? It seemed like you couldn't spend a lunchtime on the roof without seeing him napping somewhere. Didn't Katsuragi come up here sometimes? Sometimes.
Ichii closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling of the lunchtime sun. The weather was warming and it'd be summer, soon.
He felt movement against his shoulder, but didn't open his eyes. The small noise Makoto made as he moved told Ichii that the other boy was still asleep, finding a comfortable position. He stayed still, hoping that Makoto could find comfort against him.
In these small moments, everything felt innocent. Wasn't it a rather pure sort of joy, being able to spend a lunchtime sunning on the school roof, undisturbed and resting? Makoto had been working hard recently, and the lethargy was infectious. Was it alright to fall asleep? Lunchtime wasn't that long. Ichii had a feeling that if he let Makoto sleep and fell asleep himself, it was entirely possible that they'd wake up in the middle of the afternoon, realising too late that they'd missed parts of their lessons. He opened his eyes, clenching one fist and making a conscious effort not to fall asleep. Nonetheless, he yawned.
Makoto had no such problem. Ichii turned to look at him, watch his sleeping face. Like that, he really did look innocent, didn't he? Breathing deep and even, had he even entertained the possibility of fighting to stay awake, or had he just given in to his feelings and fallen asleep? Either way, it didn't matter. Ichii turned back to face forward, taking a deep breath as he felt a light breeze wash over him. He'd wake Makoto, once it was time.
Somehow, though, Ichii felt loathe to wake him. Even if the bell went to signify the end of the lunchbreak, even if they missed class, wasn't it alright to stay here like this? To let Makoto sleep, to keep his expression so open and vulnerable. His delicate sleeping face really didn't give anything way, did it? Anybody who saw that... nobody who saw that would be able to guess the kind of person that lay beyond that charming sort of face, would they? Ichii sighed, deeply. To look at Makoto like that, even he found it hard to believe.
The Makoto who was the head of the Student Council.
The Makoto who had no hesitation towards, in his capacity as such, dealing out punishment in the Student Council's name.
The Makoto who, in his kindness, could be cruel and ruthless. Maybe without even realising it, but Ichii felt it, felt it so terribly.
If somebody misbehaved, they deserved punishment. That was the baseline that Makoto operated over, feeling and believing - truly believing - that this sort of mindset justified his behaviour. He'd turn to Ichii afterwards and smile, smile at him and the other Council members and not seem to understand why they didn't smile back. Kirihara and Moritaka, seeing shades of their old leader. Mizuki, frightened by the juxtaposition. Ichii, numbed by the sight of seeing somebody he thought he knew doing something he couldn't understand at all, not in the slightest.
That seemed to be the pattern of everything, now. Last year, their first year on the Student Council. This year, their second year on the Student Council and their last year at Seirei Gakuen. Their last year? So much had happened that time felt as if it had passed quickly and slowly both at once. So much had happened and to think that they were in the third year already almost seemed unfathomable; at the end of the year, they'd be concentrating on university applications and entrance exams. They'd be leaving Seirei Gakuen, going to pastures anew. Where would they go? Some to Seirei University, obviously. Ichii thought about his own marks and about how perhaps it wouldn't be a good idea for a member of the Student Council to aim so 'low'. Not that he'd ever had aims of being on the Student Council in the first place, but that had somehow become his role and he supposed he should aim higher. Somewhere like Tokyo University? Too high.
Makoto, he knew, was aiming towards a specialised cookery college. There was talk of work experience in Europe, attending the restaurants of high-class chefs and picking up skill and experience as he went. That was the definite path that Makoto was set on and they'd all known it, but as the ball started to roll to put plans into place, it only felt like another suffocating aspect of the future.
"... After school, we... probably won't be going to the same place afterward, will we?..."
"... I'll definitely make sure to phone Ichii-kun every day! Definitely!"
"Even if we're far apart, it won't make me love you any less. I'll keep on loving you until we can finally be together again, where I'll only love you more because of that. I promise."
Makoto said such things so easily. Such was to be expected from the leader of KISS. Ichii didn't doubt that Makoto meant every one of those things that he said, but found it difficult to say anything in return.
On the shallow level, it did feel strange to even contemplate such a thing. They'd been in the same class since Seirei Primary, moving through the years and schools always at each other's side. Now, their different skills threatened to separate them - would separate them - and Ichii didn't know how he felt about that. Genuinely didn't know how he felt about it. This concerned him.
They'd been together, in one way and another, for most of their lives. During the third quarter of their first year at Seirei Gakuen, Makoto had confessed deeper feeling and this had blossomed into a relationship; at the time, that had made a lot of things make sense. Makoto had been the one to initiate the feelings but Ichii had had no problem in taking them on for his own, learning and changing and feeling. Seeing his oldest friend in a different light, being amazed and enthralled by all that he found there. Being able to appreciate him in new and different ways, always finding something interesting to focus on. Makoto sometimes worried that his feelings had somehow coerced Ichii into their current arrangement, and Ichii did wonder if he'd ever have realised feelings like that were he left to his own devices, but didn't care. Makoto loved him, he'd always loved Makoto to some extent, this new angle on everything broke the barrier to be able to feel everything.
Like that, everything would have been fine. The slow-blooming flower of a true sort of love, something they could both believe in and cherish and draw strength from. Something small but wonderful, unspoken but always present. A determined sort of love.
Ichii wished it could have stayed like that. Wished that that Wada-senpai had never had to get involved. Wished that Makoto had had the strength back then to believe entirely in his own feelings, but knew that nothing could have been helped about that. Essentially, Makoto had had problems that he felt he couldn't talk to Ichii about because Ichii was (unknowingly) the concerning offender and saw the admired head of the Student Council as somebody he could trust to confide in, could trust for advice. And if Yoshikuni had been any upstanding kind of person then surely that wouldn't have been a problem, but he was broken and bitter and had no qualms, it seemed, of projecting that dissatisfaction onto the shoulders of somebody who didn't deserve it, who should never have known such things. And Makoto, literally trusting to a fault, had never seen Yoshikuni in this light. Had accepted punishment for his feelings and never saw that as being as strange and wrong as he felt his initial feelings to be. He'd felt guilty for feeling such towards his best friend, for feeling something so hard that threatened to rip their friendship apart; Ichii knew that Makoto had only been scared that his feelings would have had a negative effect, but did he really believe that something like that would happen? Really?
If he did or if he didn't, by their move to the second year, the damage had already been done. Makoto's life became a dichotomy of two extremes - his feelings for Ichii and his urge to follow Yoshikuni's lead, both urges that drove him. Ichii didn't understand his behaviour when relating to the latter and knew that nobody else did, either. Maybe Takumu and Kazuya did, but they never said anything. Yoshikuni leaving the school had drawn a curtain over those years and neither of them were eager to speak. Ichii didn't feel the need to force them.
Makoto punished people. He did so with a smile, his view so black-and-white that it didn't feel like something he shouldn't do. He was the leader of the Student Council, wasn't he? Wasn't this the sort of thing that Student Council leaders did? Maybe, maybe in the past, but Ichii would watch as Makoto did so and wondered why Makoto felt the need to uphold that tradition. Why anybody felt the need to uphold that tradition. Why the school would tolerate such behaviour under the pretence of the Student Council.
Ichii still had scars from the end of the second year, where he'd broken down and shouted at Makoto. He rarely shouted and never at Makoto, but then, it felt like he couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't take it anymore. The things that the Student Council did, the things that Makoto had them do, the things that they did because Makoto had them do them. They all followed under this thin pretence, but Ichii was sick of it. Sick of seeing Makoto behave like that. Wondered if he could do or say anything to make Makoto change his mind, but Yoshikuni had left his print too deep and from the start, Ichii had known it useless.
Makoto had been kind as he'd taken Ichii down to the basement. Always seemed so concerned. Didn't want to do this, but felt that Ichii needed to learn respect for the Student Council, and Ichii hurt when Makoto whipped him but more than that, he felt something break. The gentle Makoto he knew would never do something like this. The Makoto he knew, surely, would not put matters of the Student Council to such a high position that he'd hurt his dear Ichii-kun, would he? But he did, and Ichii lay there barely hearing as Makoto spoke cruel words intended to spur one into 'respecting' the Student Council. Fearing them. Either. The more that Makoto did that the more determined Ichii felt to resist, but that determination didn't last long and he just couldn't be bothered anymore. If he couldn't stop Makoto, who could? If his words couldn't reach Makoto's ears, then whose would?
He couldn't be bothered anymore.
He simply couldn't be bothered.
Makoto had changed, changed too much. And it hurt, because he loved Makoto and, at least to look at him, he hadn't changed; the Makoto Ichii had known from Primary school, who he'd watched grow up through the years, who he'd always been beside... could he have changed, changed that much? But then they'd be in the Student Council basement and Ichii would watch as another student screamed for their punishment and pull the fabric of his blazer when he clenched his fist against his arm, his shoulder, where that mark still lay.
"Whenever you see it, you'll remember."
Ichii didn't need something like that. He didn't think he'd ever forget.
Ichii would sometimes wonder, what was more important to Makoto? However, even to consider that was useless, he knew that much. In Makoto's mind, there was no distinction of 'most important'; his feelings for Ichii were the 'most important', his position as leader of the Student Council was 'most important', and they were both important for different reasons, both important in totally different sections of Makoto's life. And that was the thing that Ichii found most frightening about Makoto, when he got like that; that he could do all of these things, act on the supposed behalf of the Student Council and do such terrible things, and then go home with Ichii as if nothing had happened, go to the coffee house and smile and laugh like he hadn't spent the afternoon in the basement 'training' up some delinquent first-year student.
Makoto would still say the sweet things he always had done, "Ichii-kun's the one I love the most!"... "I'll never stop loving Ichii-kun!", that sort of thing. He still made Ichii's lunchbox, still brought it to him every morning, still made it to perfection as he always did. But as the two of them progressed to the point of being third-year students, third-year students with the prospect of leaving to university, Ichii wondered if that was almost a relief. He hated the part of him that thought of time away from Makoto as being anything like that, but after everything that had happened, he felt that he couldn't help it.
He'd work on his studies, get good marks, make it to Seirei University. He'd pick up the phone when it was Makoto calling, he'd listen to whatever Makoto wanted to say.
He'd hope that the time alone might give Makoto space to think about his behaviour, really think about it. In the sheltered microcosm of Seirei Gakuen, any behaviour seemed justifiable; the real world wasn't like that. Whatever cooking college it was that Makoto went to might respect him for having been a Student Council leader, having been in a position that showed voluntary responsibility, but they wouldn't know of what lay beneath and hopefully by that point, it wouldn't matter. As much as the Student Council might have wanted to promote it, Ichii didn't feel that this was a world strictly governed by things such as 'punishment'; respect was respect, and surely to try to cause such a thing through fear was only undermining it? But, that had been all that Yoshikuni had known how to do come his last months at Seirei, and so such a thing had been imprinted on Makoto also. There, Ichii supposed, lay a true respect, an almost foolhardy respect. Even now, Makoto would not say that Yoshikuni had done anything wrong, that his methods had been wrong and his thoughts corrupted. Was that respect or blind dependence? Ichii didn't really understand their relationship at all.
He barely understood his own with Makoto, anymore. He knew that, in these last few months, he'd been quiet. Everybody had noticed it of him and Makoto would often show concern, "That's not like you, Ichii-kun! I never thought I'd see a day where I didn't see you smile--!" and if anybody had told Ichii that then he knew that he might not have believed it either, but smiling seemed to be to pretend that nothing was wrong and everything was wrong and Ichii was bored of hiding it. He could never explain to anybody what the problem was, but he couldn't be bothered keeping up a false front anymore. KISS was bad enough and he was tired, so tired.
They'd leave Seirei, and have different problems. They'd have to be responsible. Everybody thought that the Student Council taught responsibility but, from Ichii's perspective, all it had seemed to do was to teach those involved in it how to be more selfish. This wasn't responsibility and this wasn't power, and maybe the move to university would shock Makoto into realising that. Ichii felt he could only hope so.
He looked at Makoto and could only see the boy he'd known for so long, the boy who had always been gentle and kind and friendly to everybody. Then he'd get changed in front of his bedroom mirror every night and see the thin line that Makoto had left across his right shoulder and remember (because he'd never forget) and think of the Makoto who'd been able to cause that and wonder if he knew him anymore, if he'd ever really known him at all.
Then, like now, they'd be on the school roof and Makoto would shift against him, cling to him, move around as he slept. Ichii would look down at him and, in this quiet moment, nothing was wrong. Makoto would open his eyes and look at Ichii with that trusting, searching expression, and Ichii would smile as best as he could, try to lie for a little longer. And Makoto would see that and smile back in return, a genuine smile, settling in against Ichii's shoulder once more, closing his eyes and going back to sleep.
Ichii knew that Makoto drew strength from him, from their relationship, but wondered how much strength he had left to give. Maybe Makoto had it all now; he didn't feel he had any left over for himself. Makoto could seem energised by such a small thing, energy that Ichii didn't feel he had to be able to give. After all this time, Makoto still trusted him, still believed in him, still depended on him. Ichii didn't have the heart to tell Makoto that he couldn't trust him, couldn't believe in him, couldn't depend on him at all. Had been too frightened by those times in the past to lay those things on Makoto's shoulders anymore. Hated being frightened of somebody he'd loved so much, but felt that he couldn't predict Makoto anymore. Couldn't tell his thoughts. Wondered if he'd ever known them to begin with.
But university was soon, and they'd be apart, and it wouldn't matter. Forge new friendships, keeping the old ones on the back burner. Would there be stronger relationships? Maybe. Would he look for them on purpose? That felt too tiring. Makoto was still clinging to him and that felt as tiring as anything else. Every moment at Seirei felt that it drained more and more but that time was finite, now. An end was in sight. Ichii couldn't look forward to it, but wanted to get there. Wanted 'this' to end. Wanted it all to end. And Makoto wouldn't let go of him, Ichii knew that. He knew that. And he didn't want to do anything so formal and cruel as to break up the relationship or renounce his feelings, but he didn't understand it anymore and didn't want to understand it. Just wanted to ignore it. Just wanted to switch off.
Another breeze blew and carried on it came the chimes that signified the end of lunchtime. Makoto didn't move and Ichii didn't move him. Another lunchtime over, another afternoon and another day that would end. Another day finished, another day closer to their graduation, closer to the end of it all. Closer, closer, just a little closer. Ichii turned to watch Makoto sleep, the only movement he made.
That's the way things are now, aren't they?
That's... just how they are.
Ichii closed his eyes.
end