Note: Before I start the story, I made a sketch of the Ryuugazaki family in this fic! :) The link is on my profile, as always, so make sure you guys check it out if you're curious!
Besides Rei, all of them are my original characters. I initially just planned to sketch Ryouji, since his character seemed to be getting a good response from some of my commenters and reviewers, but I ended up sketching the whole family XD. The power relations are actually similar to those in my own family, if you assume that I'm in Rei's position ;v; Hope you guys like the sketch!
...
After that, the two boys were suddenly together a lot more at school. When the chime rang for recess, Rei would now quickly stand up with the other students—but instead of the playground, he jogged over to Saionji's classroom so that they could walk together from there to the fifth-grade classroom for math. After the lesson was over, Rei would walk Saionji back to his fourth-grade classroom before returning to class himself. He often did the same during lunch and after school, when he walked with the fair-haired boy outside the school gates until they parted ways. With that, there was no longer any spare moment for those bigger kids to sneak up on Saionji. Rei could sometimes feel their glares from across the hallway when he was walking with the boy, but he hardly paid them any attention. He did this with the promise that he would teach Saionji some self-defense techniques whenever they had the time, and then hopefully the grey-eyed boy would no longer have cause to be afraid. Sometimes, they went to an empty hall within the school building to practice them.
Now that he was spending so much time with the boy, Rei naturally started to learn a lot of things about him. Yuuto (he referred to Saionji by his first name in his head now, even though he never called him that out loud) was, as he had known, good at math, but he was also good at biology. Since his own mother was a biology teacher at middle school, Rei had a fair degree of knowledge in the subject and could understand what Yuuto was talking about in their conversations. He told Rei that his dream was to become a marine biologist someday and go swimming with his favorite seals. Not only that, but he was fairly skilled at most of his class subjects, except Japanese, and they could talk on the same level of intelligence with each other about topics like physics and chemistry. And sometimes, they would just sit next to each other quietly and each read a book. Although Rei might not admit it out loud, he liked having a friend with similar interests, who he could talk to and be perfectly understood by.
He also learned what Yuuto's personality was like. On the surface, he was quiet and shy, without much self-confidence or physical strength. Though Rei always taught him patiently, he was clumsy while putting the self-defense techniques to practice, and he quickly ran out of bodily strength, his breath already heaving after practicing for three minutes. However, during other times when he was feeling comfortable, Yuuto talked more than one might expect, his grey eyes shining as he spoke about his favorite sea creatures or described what he had read in a science fiction book the other day. The boy was also patient—he listened to Rei's long rambles about theories and perfection and beauty, often with a good-natured smile on his face. When Rei was in a bad mood some days, he didn't try to half-heartedly comfort him, but he waited silently until Rei hinted that he felt like talking again and then returned as if nothing had happened. Like Rei, Yuuto was also a hard worker—Rei often noticed him frowning in concentration during their math lessons, diligently taking down notes. Rei also found that Yuuto had a good memory, even better than his own—even though Rei had neglected to remember the names of his classmates, Yuuto remembered the names of everyone in his grade. When Rei asked how, he smiled sheepishly and said that he had been watching the people here a lot since he transferred to the school. And most of all, Yuuto was fair—he was never quick to judge people based on their looks or after only a few interactions with them. Although Rei had always disliked his classmates because all of them had seemed judgmental of him and because of their past bullying, Yuuto never saw them the way Rei did. When Rei asked once if he wasn't mad at his classmates, because Yuuto was pretty much in the same situation as Rei was, the fair-haired boy shook his head with a smile that was so painfully understanding that it made the brunette want to throw his hands in the air in exasperation.
"I don't really think they're all bad—after all, if I was in their shoes, I would have been too scared to approach me too. Since those bigger kids were always picking on me…" His voice grew a little quiet at the end, but he managed to maintain his smile. "Besides—I never tried to approach them as much as I could have. I was too scared—so, I don't have the right to complain, either." At those words, Rei's heart clenched a bit, as he thought back on all those years that he had stayed alone at his desk, his nose stuck in a book that hid him from anyone outside his closed-off world. All of a sudden, he felt ashamed of himself—now his behavior and attitude seemed so childish and narrow-minded, not to mention cowardly.
"If I hadn't met you, Ryuugazaki-kun, I think I probably would've still been alone." Those words drew Rei's attention back to the fair-haired boy, who was smiling at him with a knowing look in his eyes. "I think it was because one of us made the second step." Rei didn't need to know what the first step had been—he had rejected it outright the first day he met Yuuto. When he heard that comment that day, the blue-haired boy realized for the first time just how mature this small, thin boy was. It made him develop a newfound respect for his friend—the first person he met that he could call one.
What worried Rei were the days when Yuuto were absent from school. Although this didn't happen many times the first few weeks he was friends with the boy, it started to happen a lot more frequently after that. Besides feeling a little lonely when he wasn't there, Rei was worried—each time Yuuto returned to school after his absent days, he looked paler and paler. He knew it wasn't because of any bullying—he had been making sure of that every day since the first. Each time Yuuto had just waved off Rei's worried questions and had said that he'd had something to do that day.
Only when Rei had been friends with the boy for over a month did he tell Rei the real reason. It seemed that his health had always been weak—every time he had missed school, he had been in the hospital getting treatment for his condition. One day, when they were practicing self-defense again, Yuuto fell to the floor panting heavily after he attempted to execute one of the moves Rei had taught him. Alarmed, Rei had immediately taken him to the school infirmary, and when he finally found out the truth there, he had apologized. He couldn't believe he hadn't recognized how badly it was exerting Yuuto's frail body. Yuuto had only shaken his head with a smile as he lay back on the infirmary bed.
"I'm really grateful that you offered to teach me those techniques, Ryuugazaki-kun. There's no need to apologize for that." He gave a small sigh as he laughed slightly. "Although, I think I probably put all your hard work to waste. I've hardly gotten any better—I've always been really clumsy with things like sports, because I was born with a weak body. I even sit out for P.E. all the time because of it." He looked at Rei, his smile turning slightly rueful. "I wish I was as athletic as you are, Ryuugazaki-kun."
Rei had been unable to answer to that—he didn't know how to comfort the boy. It wasn't as if he could say that things would get better through practice—his hands clenching the edge of the bed sheets, he could only sit there and hope silently that his friend's health would eventually improve. After that day, he had resolved to himself that he would keep a keener eye out for his friend—that he would try to be a better friend himself as well.
But, looking back on it, it had all been for nothing. After all, Rei hadn't noticed it then, when it mattered the most—he had never truly understood what his friend was going through in his heart. And when Rei had finally realized this, it was too late to save him.
…
It was a hot day towards the end of June when their math teacher held them back after class once more. Smiling, she handed them two matching envelopes, which looked like invitations to an event.
"There's going to be a math competition for elementary school students in the second week of July," she informed the two surprised kids. "You two are the top scorers for math in my class, so I wanted to offer both of you this chance. If you think you may be interested, please tell me by the end of this week. After that, I'll be starting after-school training for all the kids I've given this invitation to. Since you will need your parents' permission, please talk it over with them as soon as possible." She had then left the classroom with a smile, leaving the two friends alone with their invitations in their hands. Rei felt a bubble of excitement well up in him as he looked down at the envelope.
"A math competition," he murmured, a smile growing on his face. He thought of how much fun he might have, studying more math than he ever had, challenging himself in his favorite subject—he also thought of how proud his parents would be, if he won the competition. Maybe even Ryouji would praise him—ever since his brother started junior high this year, he had been acting a little distant towards his younger brother. Maybe this would get his aniki to smile at him again. Feeling the hope bubble up in his chest, Rei turned to Yuuto with hope in his eyes.
"I think I want to do it, Saionji-kun!" he said, barely containing the excitement in his voice. "You're good at math, so you'll do it too, right?" He was then startled when he noticed that Yuuto's face was somewhat less excited than his own, as he stared down at his own invitation.
"I…I do think it might be fun. But I probably can't participate." The fair-haired boy turned to Rei with a wistful smile. "I would need after school training for this, right? My parents—they probably wouldn't let me stay at school for that long." At this response, Rei's smile slipped off his face.
"Is it because of your health?" he asked with a concerned voice. Yuuto nodded.
"Yeah—and I'm already being tutored at home after school now." Was it Rei's imagination, or did his friend's smile look a bit strained? "My mother—she wanted me to improve on my skills in Japanese. So I probably have to go home for those lessons, since it hasn't been too long since I started."
"But—but you don't even like Japanese!" Rei protested. "I mean, it's true, that doesn't mean you should neglect the subject, but—but still, you like math just as much as I do! We could even study for it together during breaks—"
"I'm sorry, Ryuugazaki-kun." Yuuto cut off Rei's words suddenly, his voice a bit quiet. "But I really don't think it's possible." Judging from the tone of his voice, Rei felt as if he had tried to cross a boundary he shouldn't cross. That was the first time he had felt that way around Yuuto—if it was a person of boundaries, Rei had always been that, not the other way around. Feeling a bit startled and a bit less excited, the brunette quickly nodded.
"If…if that's how you really feel." Noticing Rei's voice sounded cautious, Yuuto smiled at Rei in apology.
"I'm sorry I won't be able to compete with you, Ryuugazaki-kun. I'll do my best to cheer you on instead." At this, Rei breathed a little in relief and smiled back.
"Thank you." His eyes returned to the invitation, which he later carefully tucked into a pocket in his backpack.
When he talked it over with his parents at dinner, they had been fully supportive and given him permission. Mrs. Ryuugazaki had seemed proud of her son already from the simple fact that he had been selectively offered the invitation, although Rei had told her that he wasn't sure if he would win, or even place at all. Even his brother had thrown him a glance and a short "G'luck kid" before he stood up from the table to go to his room. In away, Rei felt as if he had already won. That night, he spent a few extra hours after finishing homework to go over his equations before he went to bed.
As the days left until the second week of July passed by, Rei grew increasingly occupied with looking over his math books and practicing calculations in his head as well as on paper. He had completely immersed himself in his preparations for the competition, to the extent that he found himself studying silently at school even when Yuuto was around. A few times, Rei had felt guilty and asked Yuuto if he wasn't boring the boy, but each time he had smiled at Rei and said he wasn't bothered at all, that he understood Rei was working hard. Reassured by the response, Rei had directed his attention back to the work before him, leaving Yuuto to watch silently from beside him.
A couple of times, Rei had been so lost in his work that he had forgotten to pick Yuuto up from his classroom the times he usually did. When Yuuto walked into their classroom for math each time after, Rei had then remembered and asked if he had been all right moving around alone. Yuuto had only smiled each time and said that he had been fine, that no one had approached him, and after that they sat down and paid attention to their lesson. After a while, Yuuto even told Rei that there was no need to follow him outside the school gates anymore, since Rei had after-school math training to do and would have to walk all the way back in.
"I'll be fine, Ryuugazaki-kun," he had reassured Rei when he expressed concern. "Since I started hanging around with you, they've never approached me again. It'll be fine." Since that time, Yuuto had really left by himself, and Rei didn't have to drop by his classroom after seventh period anymore. He spent that time with his nose stuck in his math books, solving a new equation or memorizing a new formula.
…
It turned out that the day of the competition fell on a Wednesday, and Rei had to go to the office the day before to turn in the excuse for his absence. Yuuto had tagged along, and as they were returning to their respective classrooms, he observed Rei, who was mumbling formulas to himself even as he was walking down the hall.
"Ryuugazaki-kun." Rei looked up at the fair-haired boy, who asked him a question. "Are you feeling nervous about tomorrow?" Letting out a sigh that was indeed nervous but equally excited, Rei nodded.
"I admit, I am feeling a little nervous—" Well, maybe 'a little' wasn't the right word, but Rei continued. "But I'm also feeling really excited. I've already had so much fun studying everything—I can't wait until I get to apply what I've been practicing out on the stage!" He crossed his arms with confidence. "I'm sure I have all the theories completely down!" At this action, Yuuto laughed good-naturedly.
"That's great. I have school then, so I won't be able to be there to watch—but I wish you luck!" Blinking, Rei remembered—he would be leaving Yuuto alone at school tomorrow when the competition took place. Stopping in his footsteps, he frowned a bit worriedly as he turned to his friend.
"Are you…will you be okay? When I'm not here tomorrow—"
"Hm? Of course!" Yuuto replied. "The guys that used to pick on me were fifth-graders—I heard they're going on a school trip starting tomorrow, so it'll be fine. Don't worry about me—you should be focusing on your competition instead!"
"Really? That's good," Rei said in relief. Suddenly, he felt a little guilty about the way he had mostly forgotten about his friend until now—he wanted to do something to make up for it. So on impulse he turned to Yuuto with a spark in his eyes.
"Saionji-kun. Why don't you come over to my house for dinner after the competition? My mother makes the best hamburger steak." He knew that was Yuuto's favorite food. "And after we eat, we can go look at books in my room or even watch a few movies if you want to—I think my mother even recorded that marine biology documentary you said you missed on TV. You can come over after you're done with your Japanese lessons. What do you say?" This was the first time that he was inviting a friend over to his house, which made Rei a little nervous and excited at the same time. At this offer, Yuuto's grey eyes widened, and soon he was also smiling widely.
"Of course! I'd love to!" It made Rei wish he'd done it sooner—but there was no turning back the past. He smiled back at the fair-haired boy—and then, the chime rang for sixth period. "Well, that's the bell—let's return to class, shall we?" Yuuto simply nodded. They split up at a corner in the hallway to go to their respective classes. This would be the last time they saw each other that day, so they said their goodbyes and parted ways. Rei never noticed that Yuuto lingered in his footsteps for a while, staring at Rei's back as he walked away—his smile gone and replaced with a look of fear. A hand slipped into his shorts pocket, crumpling a piece of paper that was inside it.
…
The day of the math competition was a clear, sunny Wednesday. Having managed to take the day off, Rei's mother drove Rei to the Iwatobi City Hall, where the event was to take place. They arrived at 1 pm, and Rei's mother saw him to the backstage area, where several kids around his age were practicing last-minute drills and furiously scribbling equations down on paper. The sight only made Rei feel even more nervous—events like this had always made him nervous, especially when he was actually in the middle of them. He wondered if he would be able to keep himself calm enough to do math—he practically begged God to make sure he didn't throw up on-stage—and his mother must've realized his nervousness, because she squeezed his clammy hand comfortingly and gave him a last smile before she wished him luck and left for the audience seats in the hall.
Swallowing, Rei started to recite formulas under his breath while trying not to hyperventilate. He instead tried to think about the good things that could happen—the proud looks on his parents' faces should he win the competition, the praise he might get from Ryouji, and the fact that he had Yuuto coming over to his house to look forward to after this—all those things gave him strength, even though it didn't completely put out his nervousness.
When the coordinator called his name from the stage, Rei swallowed, and putting on a determined face, he walked out from the curtains and stepped up to the podium on the right. He looked around the hall as the coordinator called out the name of his opponent, and spotted his mother in the crowd with a video camera in her hands. She smiled and gave him a little wave, and Rei returned the smile as best as he could as he stood, waiting for the beginning. After the audience clapped, the coordinator called for the first question to be projected onto the slide.
"The first question is: What is the square root of x when x^3 equals the number 729?" As Rei had been listening to the question, his eyes had incidentally glanced at a spot in the audience—and found a familiar face in the crowd. He blinked in confusion, distracted for a moment. But he quickly turned his mind back to the question, and he managed to ring his buzzer first.
"3!" he called out into the microphone. A ding sounded in the hall, signaling the answer as correct.
"Correct! The answer is: 3! Five points go to Mr. Ryuugazaki Rei!" The crowd cheered, and Rei sighed to himself in relief. But in the back of his mind, a confused feeling remained as he thought of the face he had just seen in the crowd. Pushing the thought aside for now, he returned his concentration to the competition, his mind swiftly solving problems in his head.
Just what had Yuuto been doing in the crowd? And with such a conflicted expression on his face?
…
After beating the first competitor, Rei had to face-off with nine more, each one of them faster with their calculations than the one before. He had seen this coming, since the competition was being held in tournament fashion, with two players facing off and the winner moving on to the next stage. With his last competitor that he faced, a tall lanky boy with a beaked nose and mousy hair who had smugly given Rei a look-over as if saying that beating a brat like him would be a piece of cake, the battle had been the toughest. By the twentieth question, Rei had been tied with the boy, ten to ten, and he thought his heart would leap out of his throat as he waited for the final question to appear on the screen. But in the end, he won the battle—although his opponent had rang the buzzer first, he had answered the question wrong, and Rei had solved it correctly before the boy could redo his calculations. When the bell sounded, signaling that he had answered correctly, sparkles shot up from the half of the stage that held up his podium.
"Congratulations, Mr. Ryuugazaki Rei. You have won first place in Iwatobi City Hall's 20XX Math Competition!" the coordinator boomed. "Let's all give him a round of applause!" The crowd cheered, and Rei thought he saw his mother standing up from her seat in the crowd as she waved excitedly at her son with both arms, camera forgotten and a huge smile on her face. Instantly, Rei smiled back at her widely—the exhilaration and pleasure hit him suddenly with full force when he saw her, more so than when he had heard the announcement of his victory. Even feeling a bit sorry for his opponent, who had dropped to his knees and fallen against the podium in shock, he thought of how the rest of his day would go. After the award ceremony, he'd go running into his mother's arms as she happily told him how proud she was of him; they'd make a phone call to his father to tell him about the result, and he would congratulate Rei as well; the four of them would all go out to dinner to celebrate, and Ryouji would look at him and praise him; and the next day, Yuuto would come ove—Rei suddenly stopped track in his thoughts.
Yuuto-kun… His eyes dashed back to the audience, towards the spot where he'd seen Yuuto at the start of the competition…but the boy wasn't there. He scanned the crowd for the familiar light-brown hair—but he couldn't see Yuuto around anywhere. Frowning, he tried to remember what sort of face Yuuto had had on—he was sure there had been some shock on the boy's face, and then some other emotion that he couldn't assess in his head. He thought back to the interaction he had had with the boy the day before—he knew Yuuto had said he would be at school, and when the competition had started it had been two o'clock. Their school usually ended at three-thirty…and it wasn't a walking distance from the city hall, there was no way he could have come here without skipping his last few classes. Rummaging through his memories, he tried to remember what they had talked about in their conversation—his own nervousness and excitement, Yuuto wishing him luck—the fact that the fair-haired boy would be alone at school today—at the last thought, Rei stopped, his eyes shooting wide open.
'The guys that used to pick on me were fifth-graders—I heard they were going on a school trip tomorrow, so it'll be fine.' The blood drained from Rei's face as a feeling of dread washed over his body.
He realized then that he'd heard the announcement about the fifth-grade school trip on Monday. They hadn't left for the trip today—they were scheduled to leave next Wednesday. Yuuto had either not known and mistook the date for today—or he had lied to Rei. And judging from Yuuto's good memory and unexplained actions, it seemed there was a really good chance it was the latter. As everything began to click together, Rei started to panic, and for a moment he forgot that he was still onstage, with the coordinator saying something about the award ceremony.
He'd been so busy studying for this competition that he had inadvertently left the grey-eyed boy alone a lot recently. And on top of that, he had altogether stopped walking with Yuuto outside the school gates after school ended for some time. Each time Yuuto had smiled and said that nothing was wrong, that nothing had happened. But Rei—Rei couldn't tell when Yuuto was lying to him. He had never been able to tell—he hadn't even thought about the possibility.
How could he have been so stupid?
"—Mr. Ryuugazaki?" The coordinator's voice sounded puzzled. "If you could come up to the center, please?"
Rei didn't hear what the coordinator said after that. Turning, he bolted from the stage, disappearing from the sight of the confused audience.
…
He wondered if he had ever really tried to understand.
As he ran, the sun began to set towards the horizon, coloring the previously blue sky pink and yellow. With the passing minutes, it began bleeding crimson and orange, casing a reddish-yellow light on the townscape below it. Rei's lungs felt like they would burn from the oxygen, he was running so hard at a breakneck speed, the hardest that he'd ever run in his life.
When he had first taken the boy to the infirmary, he had sworn that he would be a better friend to the boy, that he would definitely watch out for him. After what he had decided then—this was not the way that things were supposed to be. Not now, not when he swore that he would change—feeling the panic swell up with a renewed gust of power, Rei tried to run faster, if that was even possible.
He arrived at the school after about forty minutes. As he neared the gates, he saw a few students walking home, probably after having played in the school playground for a while. As he ran past them, he thought he heard them whispering about something.
"—saw that kid in that classroom again with Kanemiya's group—"
"—they had him backed against a wall—"
"—him again? Poor kid—" The blood in his body ran cold, and he quickened his pace towards the school building. He ran up six flights of stairs until he was on the fourth floor. Swerving violently around the corner, he ran toward Yuuto's classroom and skidded to a stop in front of it, tearing the door open as it slid to his left with a loud SLAM!
Standing in the classroom were six boys, each of them bulky and tall. Rei instantly recognized their faces—they were the ones who had always bullied Yuuto, and before that, the ones who had used to bully him. They had made a half-circle formation around someone—Rei's eyes swiveled to that kid, who was standing near the window with spindly legs slightly bent and apart, one arm slightly uplifted in tension while the other was hidden behind his back, his face frozen in surprise—and fear. His wide grey eyes stared at Rei in shock, glowing in the backlight of the evening sun that came through the open window. Yuuto. Swallowing, not because of the bullies' presence but because he had no idea what his friend was thinking, Rei opened his mouth.
"Saionji-kun—" As he spoke, his words faltered in the air. "What—what are you doing here?" Rei didn't like how Yuuto's expression stayed on his face, even though he was here now, ready to stop those bullies from doing whatever they were going to do to him. Now the surprise was gone, and only the fear remained—and Rei had no idea why it was directed at him. Trying not to clam up from the tension, Rei continued to speak. "You—you were at the competition too, right? I, I thought I saw you in the crowd—"
"Go away." Yuuto's voice was strangely quiet, but Rei heard those two words. Taken aback, his violet eyes widened slightly.
"…Saionji-kun?"
"I said, GO AWAY!" Until then, Yuuto had been hiding one arm behind his body. Now, he revealed what he had been holding in that hand when he brought the arm forward—Rei recognized the flash of steel as the pale boy held his arm thrust out towards the Rei. The motion had made the bullies stumble back, their faces paling in shock when they saw the item.
In his hand was a small pocketknife. The blade was about the length of an adult's longest finger, and the handle was also about that long. The hand holding the knife was quaking violently as its owner stood near the window, his whole body trembling with anger and fear, both emotions flashing in his usually gentle grey eyes. The blood had drained from Rei's face when he had seen the weapon, and a million different thoughts crashed into each other in his mind as he stared at his friend in shock.
"Oi—is he seriously gonna use that thing?" "What if he stabs us with it?" "Shh—just shut up! Don't provoke the kid!" The bullies flinched when Yuuto's arm moved very slightly. The only thing that kept them from bolting from room was Rei, who was standing in the doorway.
"Why are you even here, Ryuugazaki-kun?" Yuuto's voice was quiet, but spiteful. "So what if I went to that competition? So what if I saw you up there, doing math problems like you were having a field day? You should have just kept having a field day. You said your parents were taking you out for sushi afterwards—did you really ditch all that just to come here?" He fought to keep his voice as even as he possibly could. "You should have just forgotten that you saw me there. You should have just pretended not to notice—you should have just kept not noticing, like you always have."
"…What are you talking about, Saionji-kun?" Rei's own voice shook as they fell in a stunned whisper from his lips. At the confusion in Rei's face, Yuuto let out a weak laugh.
"I wanted you to stay that way—sure, I kept getting beaten up when you were busy thinking about the competition—sure, it hurt, and sure, I felt like crap after every time—but I still thought that that was better than you finding out about it. You should have stayed oblivious like you always were—busy with your favorite math, making your nice parents proud, making your cool older brother acknowledge you, being the perfect son, the perfect student, and perfectly happy."
"Saionji-kun…!" Rei tried to find a response for what he was hearing, but he couldn't think of anything to say in his situation. What was he supposed to say to all that? These were the first that he was hearing about these feelings—it bewildered him, how bitter his usually kind friend sounded right now. It made the blood in his ears pound as he stood at the doorway, his mouth agape.
"So what if I was suffering? I've always been suffering. Every day after school, it's a trip back home to get tutored, a trip to the hospital to get checked up on, a trip to whatever fancy building that my parents are holding their social event, then another trip back home, where I know I'll be falling asleep alone in that too-big bed, in that too-cold bedroom I've always hated. Feeling sickly and physically weak, that's not the worst thing. Taking three different medications every day, three times a day—that's not the worst thing. Being pressured by my parents' expectations is not the worst thing. Even getting beaten up by idiots like them—" He jerked his head towards the bullies in the room, who jumped at his sudden gesture. "—is not the worst thing." His eyes fixed onto Rei's violet ones, meeting them with such coldness and loneliness that Rei almost felt as if a snowstorm had started in his heart from just looking at them.
"The worst thing, is having you know. Looking at me with those eyes of yours, exactly the way you're looking at me with those eyes right now—and seeing what you think of the real me. Of all the things that I've kept hidden away—of all the ugly feelings that I have for the people around me. When up 'til now, all you've seen of me is the pretty shell that I've been trying so hard to keep intact every day—I can't believe I ever thought that we were the same." He laughed bitterly. "This is really the worst. Why in the world did you have to come here? At this time?" Backing up towards the open window, his free hand gripped one side of the frame. With one of his feet he stepped backwards onto the windowsill, hoisting his other foot up. The curtains billowed behind him as the evening summer breeze blew through the window, all the way to Rei where it ruffled his dark-blue locks as his body stiffened.
"Saionji-kun!" His eyes were wide with panic, his throat and mouth dry. "Get down from there!"
"I hate being here at this place every day. I hate seeing your oblivious face every day. Maybe—maybe if you hadn't been here, I wouldn't be having all these complicated feelings right now. Maybe I would have just resigned myself to forgetting how to feel. Maybe I would've been happier if I was alone—if I stayed numb, like how I used to be before you came along."
"YUUTO!" Rei's voice was shrill. When the brunette called his name for the first time, something seemed to snap in Yuuto's face, which became livid with hatred.
"Why did you have to stop me in the hall then?!" the pale-haired boy screamed. "I wish that you never tried to save me that day!"
"I WISH I HAD NEVER MET YOU AT ALL!"
Wait—wait—! NO—! Rei's mental prayers were ignored up to the last moment. What happened next seemed to happen in slow motion. Leaning back, Yuuto closed his eyes as he put one foot outside the window. The knife fell out of his hands and clattered to the floor of the classroom…as the light-haired boy fell out the window, disappearing from the room.
Rei didn't even hear the sickening thud of Yuuto's body landing on the ground. He never heard the commotion that resulted when some of the teachers who had been working in their office heard the sound and discovered the fallen boy. He never heard the sound of other teachers' footsteps running towards the classroom. He never even heard the sirens wailing through the evening air as the emergency cars eventually arrived at the school.
Before he knew it, Rei blacked out, falling to the floor in a crumpled heap, his skin pale and his eyes closed in unconsciousness.
…
He hadn't died. He thanked God that he hadn't died. But he was in a coma. He would be in a coma, it turned out, all the way up to the year that Rei was turning fifteen, and then some more maybe, maybe forever. Rei didn't know what was worse—the fact that his friend may never wake up again, or the fact that he himself had been the cause of it.
When Rei had regained consciousness, he had woken up in his bedroom at home. His mother had been sitting at his bedside watching over him, and her tearstained face had lit up when she saw him wake up. After he had woken up and remembered the incident, he had fallen in to panic all over again, and although he managed to calm down to a certain extent, the hollow, numb ache in his heart grew larger and larger with every passing second. When he heard about what state Yuuto was in, his body had filled with cold dread, and he had almost passed out again. He wasn't dead—thank God he wasn't dead—but being in a coma, he could die at any given minute. It left a harsh tension clutching onto his heart, and for the next six years, every time he thought about the light-haired boy he used to know—had thought he knew—the tension was back and grated at his heart over and over.
For many nights after Yuuto's fall, Rei had been tortured by daily nightmares of the incident. Sometimes it was exactly as the real event had gone—the pale-haired boy with his grey eyes laced with pain and rage as he fell slowly from the window and towards the ground. Sometimes it was Rei that was falling—and he never stopped falling, until he woke from the dream. In this version, he always saw a flash of light-brown hair and grey eyes that flashed as if they were screaming that they hated him. Neither of them permitted Rei much sleep, and he often awoke in the night with a loud cry, his breath ragged and his violet eyes flown open in terror.
Later that week, the police came to his house to question him. He told them everything with honesty, but not in detail—only told them vague things like "He said he felt pressured by the expectations around him" and "He was being bullied at school". It wasn't that he cared about what the police would think—it just didn't feel right, telling them what exactly Yuuto had been thinking that day when he purposely fell out the window. He didn't feel like he had the right to tell anyone about any of the painful and personal things that his friend had said. 'His friend'—Rei wasn't even sure if he had the right to call Yuuto that anymore. Not when he hadn't ever realized how much the boy had been suffering, when he had been right next to him all this time.
It was because of Rei that Yuuto was in the hospital, in the condition that he was in now. He thought at first that it was because he hadn't noticed the bullying that was going on, or because he had never noticed the unhappy pressure that the light-haired boy had felt from his family—but then he remembered the words that Yuuto had said just before he fell. Yuuto hadn't expected him to notice—he hadn't wanted him to notice. He had never thought Rei close enough to him to be able to share any of that with the brunette.
'I WISH I HAD NEVER MET YOU AT ALL!'
If only that had been the reality—if only Rei had never grabbed him by the arm in the hallway, had never saved him from those bullies, had never tried to become his friend—Yuuto would probably still have been in pain, but maybe it still would have been better than any of this happening.
…
His mother had let him stay at home and rest from school for the remainder of that week. She had been doing the dishes in the kitchen when a rock shattered the kitchen window in front of her and hit her in the chest. Some of the glass shards also hit her, leaving gashes on her face and arms as she fell onto the kitchen floor with a cry of pain.
Rei had been next to the kitchen door when it had happened—the blood had drained from his face as he dashed over to her and held up her upper body with his arms in panic. Having heard the crash, Ryouji had ran over to the kitchen as well. Seeing his mother in this situation also made his face pale in alarm—then, he had caught the sound of a loud snicker coming from outside the house. His face darkening in a stormy rage, he had barked at Rei to take care of their mother's wounds and was out of the kitchen door in a heartbeat to chase after the culprit.
But Rei already knew who it had been—he had caught the flash of a familiar face as the owner zoomed away on his bike. It was one of the guys that had always ganged up on Yuuto—Kanemiya, was it. He felt his shoulders shaking in anger—he thought that he knew what the boy had been trying to convey by throwing that rock at his house. He was threatening Rei from telling anyone about what he had planned to do in that classroom, or any deed that he had done before that. Just because he was too much of a coward to target him, he had targeted someone who was completely uninvolved—his own mother.
All of a sudden, everything just seemed too much to handle. He felt the anger slowly but surely being replaced by a fear that crept from the center of his heart through every vein to every crook in his body. His mother was hurt because of him—his sweet, kind, caring mother who didn't have a bad bone in her, who had never done anything wrong, was bleeding. He could tell as he quickly brought out the first aid kit in their house after he had moved her to the couch in the living room, and started to treat her as best as he could—some of the gashes were deep, and a few of them would even leave lasting scars. That rock had probably even bruised her chest pretty badly. And it wasn't just her—even now, as he stood in his living room at home, his friend was on the brink between life and death, in a hospital miles away. And all of a sudden, Rei felt as if he could not bear any of this anymore. He wondered how he could keep himself from further hurting anyone. And, lying in his bed that night, he reached both a conclusion and a solution.
When Monday came the next week, Rei did not return to school. Neither did he do so on Tuesday, or Wednesday, or any of the days that came after. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and months turned into years—and never once did he leave his house unless it was absolutely necessary. Even when he did, he left inside a car—he never went jogging outside again, like he had used to love doing. He never went to visit the local library that had become one of his sanctuaries during childhood, to borrow any of his favorite books on his favorite subjects. He never tried to stroll through the neighborhood on the solitary walks he used to love, enjoying the breeze and the different colors of the trees that lined his neighborhood, all the beautiful things outside that he had grown to love. And he certainly never returned to school, any school—he was afraid that every time his eyes took in school scenery, it would remind him of the terrible things that had happened in the summer of his fourth-grade year. Every time he saw the maple tree outside his window, every time he looked at the scenery outside was breathtaking, he crushed the part of him that wanted to crawl out and explore, feel the beauty of the world around him with all his senses. Every time he felt the longing, every time he felt the yearning, he told himself that he didn't deserve to go outside. Not when someone he knew was always going to lie in a hospital bed, in the cold blackness of his dormant consciousness. No. Never again.
And after all this time, Ryuugazaki Rei had still not changed his mind. But a certain someone had made him waver. A certain someone had unexpectedly appeared in his life. Made the scenery outside seem even more breathtaking than it had before. Was just as beautiful as the scenery he had always yearned for, if not more. Made his heart flutter with inexplicable happiness.
And now, that person was standing in front of him, and he knew. He knew what had caused Rei to shut himself inside in the first place. He held the key to his horrible past—and worse, to his terrible self.
Rei didn't think he could feel any more terrified than he had during the ninth year of his life. But, as he stood at the window that evening, looking at Nagisa, he found out that wasn't true. He was absolutely, positively terrified. Seeing the person he loved with that knowledge in his eyes made him want to slam the shutters closed and rip the curtains back closed, all over again. Thinking about what the blonde might think of him, it nearly broke his heart in two.
For the second time, he wondered if it would have been better, had he and the blonde not met at all. For the third time, he could feel the world around him shattering.
Seeing Rei stand there, his face getting that panicked look, his eyes reflecting absolute terror as they stared directly at him—Nagisa didn't like this at all. It almost made him wish that he could take those questions back, if it meant that he wouldn't have to see his friend looking so in pain.
This wasn't it—he had never wanted to hurt Rei. He had just wanted to know, what had bothered the brunette so much that it kept him away from the outside world, what had hurt him so much in his past that it had caused him to cage himself inside that house. And now, there was a familiar look in Rei's eyes—Nagisa knew where he had seen that look before. The moment he had caught a glimpse of Rei's face as he was falling from the maple tree—that look of sheer terror—that look of pain, tinged heavily with regret. Now he understood—why Rei had been so panicked as his ten-year-old self climbed the maple tree that one autumn day. Why he had been so worried that he would fall. Why he had looked so horrified when he did. It all clicked together, making him feel even worse about the incident than he ever had. And all these years, he had only thought that Rei was angry at him for not having listened to him. He never should have ignored the brunette's warnings—it physically pained Nagisa when he imagined it, how Rei must have shouted towards Saionji Yuuto, how badly he must have wanted to stop that fall. He was sure that was what had happened—even if he didn't know Saionji, he knew Rei. He knew how kind his friend was—how much he cared about the people he loved, how much he could hate himself if he ever hurt any of them—and now, for six years, he must have been hurting so much. And the blonde was furious with himself for not realizing it all this time.
Now that he had noticed, he was going to do something about it. He had to. Mustering up the courage, because the unpredictability of the moment made him scared, Nagisa opened his mouth once more.
"Rei. I know what you must have thought, all this time. It's not true. It's not your fault he fell." Even though his voice shook, he willed himself to continue. "It's not any one person's fault—I know you think you were responsible for it. It's because I know how stupidly, exasperatingly kind you are—I can almost hear what you must have thought back then. 'It's my fault he jumped out the window, it's my fault I wasn't there earlier, it's my fault that I left him alone, that I never knew how badly he was suffering'—I know now. You probably thought the same thing about me, when I fell from that tree a few years ago—you must have blamed it on yourself then, too. And you felt so guilty that you kept your window closed all these years—"
"…It was." Nagisa stiffened as Rei's voice, more quiet, more scared, heavier than he had ever heard it be, sounded from his lips. "It was my fault, Nagisa-kun…" The brunette's arms shook from his sides as he stared at the floor, his eyes in terror. "It was my fault…I was the one who caused that argument…I was the one who made you climb that tree…and because of me, you fell…you could've died…just like Yuuto-kun could've died…just like he can die any time, any moment now…"
"That's not true!" Nagisa shouted, his voice frustrated. "Why can't you understand that, Rei-chan?! Why won't you listen to me?! I told you a million times, it's my own fault! You can't blame what I decided to do on my own on yourself! Just like you can't blame yourself for Saionji-kun for taking that step out the window! Sure, he was suffering and maybe you didn't notice that enough, but he should have told you what he was going through! He should have let you do what you do best, make people feel better, make them come to their senses! If he really thought of you as a friend, then he should have reached out towards you!"
"He said…that he wished we had never met." The words fell from Reis lips like a heavy weight. "He said he wished I had never approached him. Tried to help him. Tried to become his friend. Then maybe...even if he still suffered…maybe it wouldn't have been as painful…" His shoulders shook.
"All those times that I thought I was helping him…all those times that I thought I was going to be a better friend…I was just fooling myself. How could I be a good friend when I never even knew how much pain someone right beside me was feeling? How could I be a good friend, when I never noticed all the hints, when I never realized how he felt when he saw me being happy? I was so absorbed in my own affairs that I never ever realized how unhappy he was—and he never expected me to realize it, Nagisa. He never once thought that I was a true friend. He never thought I was worthy—he even looked scared that I even found out about it in the first place. He expected me to see him differently now—to treat him differently, maybe even reject who he was. I always only saw the nice, smiling, patient, mature side of him—and I never tried to reach beyond that surface. All this time—all this time that I thought we were friends—I was so oblivious, so stupid. I was just some idiotic kid in his life—and because of that one idiotic kid, he fell from the window that day. I couldn't even stop him, with what I was worth." Cold tears started to well up in his eyes. "And now, because I couldn't, he's alone, in some cold hospital bed in some cold ward—alone in the darkness fighting between life and death. And it's my fault!" He took a ragged breath and gritted his teeth as he tried not to let those tears fall—he didn't have the right to cry, like he was the one who had been suffering more.
"It wasn't just him, Nagisa—my mother got hurt, too! My own sweet mother who never had anything to do with what happened—she got hurt by one of those scum who used to gang up on Yuuto-kun, who used to gang up on me when I couldn't fight back—all because I had been in that classroom, saw them in there with him! It left her scars—scars that she'll probably have for the rest of her life, Nagisa! That's why she wears long sleeves all the time, even in the summer! Every time she looks at the skin that used to be so smooth and beautiful—every time she'll remember that she was hurt because of me! He probably saw me outside, getting the mail and going into the house—" His fists were clenched so tightly that his nails were digging into the skin, leaving raw red marks, almost drawing blood. "Nothing good ever happens when I walk out that door—I meet people I should never have met, I draw the attention of people that I never should be noticed by—and I'll remember things, things that terrify me and cut through my heart even with just the thought of them!" Now his eyes were squeezed shut with pain as he shouted the next words.
"Even the fact that you and I met, Nagisa-kun—is that really such a good thing?! Now that you know I'm the type of person who gets obsessed with his own little world, who never truly tried to understand the people around me—how can you still think well of me?! I could never completely let go of my math books—I could never completely let go of the scenery I see outside the window—even as I stay inside the house, I'm not repenting enough, I'll never be able to experience the hell that Yuuto-kun must be experiencing! I even find myself feeling happy, feeling whole again when I talk to you inside the window—when all this time, I never deserved you as a friend—I never even deserved to be your friend either!"
Silence. After those last words, the painful silence rang in the air between the two boys. In the distance, Nagisa thought that he could faintly hear the sound of two children's voices as they played in the neighborhood. Struggling to keep himself together, the blonde opened his mouth.
"Don't." His voice came out in a trembling whisper. "Don't say it, Rei-chan. Please."
"…Sometimes, I wish." Rei's voice was strained, hollow as he let the next words fell from his lips.
"I wish that I had never met you at all."
As the brunette said this, it seemed as if all the light was fading from Nagisa's world. Numbly, the blonde could only watch as Rei turned away from him, reaching out with his hands for the shutters. In what seemed to be a painfully slow movement, they slammed shut, making a sound that seemed like heavy rejection to Nagisa. When he realized what had just happened, it made the blonde drop to his knees on the floor as his eyes stayed frozen, fixed on the closed window, which was now draped with closed curtains.
"Rei-chan…" His own voice came out in a hoarse whisper. "No...no…Rei-chan…" Tears began pricking the back of his eyes. "Don't….don't say that, Rei-chan…no…it's my fault…" His whole body began to tremble as he sat there, in front of the window. "Don't do that…don't shut yourself inside…don't go back in there…" Hot tears started to roll down his face as his burgundy eyes crinkled up in sadness. "Don't…hic….don't…hic…don't—" His lips started to quiver as he began to cry.
"Rei-chan..!"
He realized that he had just hurt the brunette for the second time in six years. Not even feeling his knees hurt, he sat there, shoulders heaving up and down as he started to sob harder.
This time, along with Rei's, Nagisa's own world outside his window had shattered.
...
End Note: I know a lot of you might have expected something surprising to happen at the beginning of the story, because I unintentionally left a cliffhanger at the end of Chapter 6, but I initially didn't really mean for it to be one, so...^^;; Hope you weren't too disappointed!
And the angst in this chapter...whew. I felt my own heart wrenching when I wrote this. ;_; I hope the reason that Rei became a shut-in makes sense. I'm not the expert on shut-inness, so if the content is a little unrealistic, I apologize :(. And I hope the content about Yuuto wasn't too traumatizing for any of you, either.
Despite the depressing content, I hope you guys still enjoyed this chapter ;v; As always, I love to hear what you guys think about the story. If you have any comments or questions, please leave them! And for those of you who reviewed my earlier chapters, thank you! They make my day, they really do :))
