(A/N Ah, sorry this is so late! Real life got in the way and even though this has been drafted for ages, I couldn't collar my beta for a long time. Anyway, here it is, Chapter 5!)
Chapter 5
6th June 2011
Kanji woke up feeling better; his back was slightly stiff but his headache had finally abated. He glanced over to his window; judging from the light outside it looked to be early morning. A tall glass of water he hadn't noticed being there before was by his bed, along with some painkillers. Ma must have been in his room again.
He had spent the last few days drifting in and out of sleep; he'd been exhausted ever since getting back, sleeping for long periods of time, sometimes twelve, fourteen hour stretches. He didn't any physical injury; he'd checked for wounds and found nothing, not even a wayward bruise. He'd felt cheated, the amount of punishment he had taken whilst in that pace he thought he'd at least have a cool new scar to show for it. His mother had fussed over him, as expected, laying a cool flannel on his head to bring down a temperature she was adamant he had, bringing him drinks and soup, even going as far as threatening to call the doctor out. He didn't need a doctor, just sleep. The soup was appreciated though.
The police had visited yesterday; his mother had reported him missing in his absence and they were keen to interrogate him. Hanamura had been right - he'd been gone for over a week. He hadn't been able to answer most of the questions, but not through a lack of cooperation. He genuinely couldn't remember much of what happened, especially the night of the alleged kidnap. It had been dark, right? And... there was a person. A person who had come to the shop. And then, there was an entrance, then he was in the sauna. And the other guy showed up. The police had just looked at him weirdly, written his statement, and left.
He sat up carefully and ran a hand through his hair. He felt gross having spent so many days in bed. He hadn't managed to properly wash for days, not trusting his legs to hold him up long enough to shower and feeling dizzy almost constantly.
He sipped the water, not needing the tablets, his mouth dry from excessive sleep. He quickly drained the glass; he hadn't realised how thirsty he was. After a moment, he swung his legs out of bed and stretched. He heard his joints pop as he stretched out his shoulders. Ah, that felt much better.
Right. Time to start sortin' things out.
He had a lot to think about, but more importantly, he had shit to do. He had to find out how he had ended up in the sauna.
Kanji dragged himself to the shower and let the spray wash over him. He would have gone for a bath afterwards, but he felt bad running the ofuro for just himself. He thought back to how it had all happened, but details still slipped by him. The more he tried to recall what had happened that night he ended up in that place, the weaker the image was.
He remembered everything the other him had said, though. Oh, he could remember that clearly. And he had a lot to think about, about all that stuff. Later though. He also remembered the look on his Ma's face when he had come home. Despite it being really late she was still awake, and had come running when she had heard him collapse into the shop. Her eyes red, a silk handkerchief bunched in her hands. He felt like shit for making her cry, even if it wasn't his fault. It wasn't as if he hadn't taken off before, he had gone sort of missing for a couple of days last year, but what with the murders- she had been worried sick.
He finished his shower and settled into his usual morning routine; he gelled his hair back huh, probably need to dye it again, and, after a moment's thought, changed into his school uniform. He needed to talk to those guys again. They must know what was going on.
He avoided his mother as he made his way through the shop and out onto the street. The morning sun was bright and high in the sky. Man, it was going to be a hot one. When did they change into their summer uniform again…?
The walk to school was initially pleasant; after so long being cooped up in bed it felt refreshing to be out in the sunshine and feel early morning breeze on his skin. The shopping district was quite busy, commuters heading towards the station, students making their way towards school, shopkeepers out front talking to people as they passed.
It wasn't long until he felt a familiar unease creep over him, of being watched. Kanji was kinda used to getting weird looks. Hell, everywhere he went he usually got someone scowling at him or lookin' at him scared. It was deliberate now though; bleaching his hair, getting that damn tattoo, getting those piercings. It gave people something to look at. But this time it was different. It was like before, when he was in middle school, long before he reinvented himself. As he passed through the shopping district to get to the school zone he definitely heard whispers, a couple of people looking at him and then turning back to their hushed conversation.
This… isn't about the biker gangs.
What the other guy said was starting to resurface in his memory. How he had been actin' like he was on TV. He said that everyone could see them. Hell, there was that laughter too as if people were watching.
Ah, shit.
Kanji scowled at the two people gossiping. They caught his eye and quickly looked away.
As he walked down the streets he became more aware of people looking at him. Two middle aged women actually laughed as he passed. It could've just been a coincidence but he swore he heard the word queer; the sinking feeling in his stomach was too hard to ignore.
The walk to school wasn't that long; Inaba wasn't a big town and living in the shopping district meant that he didn't have far to go anyway. With his stride he got there quickly. As he approached the streets got busier, students walking together and talking. A few kids on bicycles rode past. He heard a few students say his name but he couldn't see who. His shoulders were hunched, tense, as he approached the gates.
He was dreading classes.
Whatever Kanji had heard on the way to school had been nothing compared to what he could hear in the corridors and classrooms. Everywhere he went, people were whispering, talking in small groups about him. What was worse was that he wasn't sure exactly what everyone had seen; it seemed inconsistent with what he had experienced in there. Whilst he hardly heard anything about bathhouses and TV shows, the rumour mill had taken hold, and more and more people heard about his supposed preference. Hell, some people even brought up how he had met with a boy a few weeks ago. A few weeks… hell it had really been that long…? I should… should probably get around to meeting with him again...
As he was putting his shoes into his locker, he was approached by a girl. She was in the year above, or maybe a third year, he didn't know. She was blonde, her dyed hair pulled up into a bun on the top of her head, and she had modified her uniform to be a bit more fashionable. She was kinda pretty. She stood in front of him, one hand resting on her jutted hip as she looked him up and down. Behind her a small group of girls watched, grinning maliciously.
"Tatsumi?" She spoke directly, looking him in the eye. Despite being a good foot shorter than him, he felt uneasy.
"Uh, yeah?"
"We heard you're queer now." Kanji stood for a moment, stunned. It wasn't a question.
"The hell!?" He raised his voice and struck the locker with the side of his fist. The sounds echoed through the corridors. She didn't even flinch. The noise made everyone nearby stop what they were doing to look at what was happening.
"We all saw it. On the midnight channel?"
"The hell do you know! Get outta my sight!"
"Figured. We always knew there was something weird about you." She smirked and left to join her friends; they were giggling and talking amongst themselves.
"Hey! T-That ain't it!" A lot of people were staring. "The hell are you lookin' at!?" People scattered in all directions, leaving him furious and feeling slightly panicked. Who the fuck did she think she was? He felt that he was about to fly off the handle at the next person who looked at him funny. Fucking bitch. He sighed, trying to calm down, feeling his face hot with anger. He headed to class, shoulders hunched.
He sat in his place, ignoring the people who were whispering. Sure, they did this the last time too, when he made his debut a few week ago, but there was something different about the way they spoke about him this time. Some kid in his class thought he'd be clever, and when he was sure Kanji could hear him had whispered to his friend that he'd heard that 'Tatsumi's a fag'. There was sniggering.
Kanji stood up suddenly, his chair clattering behind him, making everyone jump. He strode over to the kid and loomed over him.
"What'd you say?"
"Tatsumi-san, could you please sit-" his teacher tried to regain some control of the class. Kanji ignored him.
"What, nothin'? 'Cause I swore I heard you say somethin' about me." The kid didn't say a word, but he didn't look as smug. He'd sat down after that, and the rest of the lesson continued in silence though Kanji was sure that the kid and his friends were looking at him.
He ate alone at lunchtime, scowling at anyone who came near him in the cafeteria. He kept an eye out for Narukami, but didn't see him or his friends. He'd found out that they were all second years, technically his senpai. He had gone over in his head all of the things he wanted to say to them, what he wanted to ask them.
About halfway through his meal he noticed that he was being stared at. Again. The fuck with this! Abandoning his half eaten gyuudon he walked over to the kid, a young boy. He looked to be a first year like him, but he wasn't in his class.
"What're you staring at?" he demanded.
"N-nothing-" The boy had a small notebook and a pen in his hands. He quickly tried to hide it.
"What's-? Gimme that!" Kanji snatched the book away from the kid and opened it at random. He saw his name, and Yukiko's- scrawled in there next to some numbers. The hell was this!?
"What the- why is my name in this! Who the hell're you!?" The kid panicked, pushing past Kanji in a haste to leave the cafeteria. Kanji looked at the book again. The numbers looked like dates. Huh.
"What's the matter Tatsumi? Had an argument with your boyfriend?" Kanji looked up from the notebook, a scowl firmly in place. There were three third years sat nearby. His dickhead friends started laughing.
"The hell did you say to me?" The one who spoke initially grinned and sat back in his chair.
"Oh drop the tough guy act, you faggot." Kanji sized him up.
"'Tough guy', huh? What, you wanna piece of me?" That guy was shorter than Kanji, and not as muscular. He had one of those annoying long hair styles like Hanamura did. He probably didn't know how to fight; he could take him, easy. And his friends too. He could grab one of these chairs and-
The prick started laughing.
"Hah, I'm not even gonna touch you. I might turn into a pansy."
"Is that what you say to your boyfriend?"
"What a queer."
Kanji moved quickly. He stepped forward and grabbed the nearest guy by his jacket collar, hoisting him up from his seat. The other two looked stricken, eyes wide and the entire room fell silent.
"Who're you callin' a pansy, huh?"
"Put him down, Tatsumi-san." Fucking teachers. Always showin' up late, when it looked like he was to blame. He sighed, half lowering, half dropping the prick back into his seat. The bastard immediately started rubbing his neck, making a big show over the supposed injury Kanji had caused. Wuss. He hadn't even hit him. "Come with me please. You too Ando-san."
Teachers. Cops. They were all the same.
Kanji had been in the faculty office all afternoon, being lectured on fighting. Ando had been doing his best to play the victim, saying how Kanji had just attacked him for no reason. It had pissed Kanji off. There was no point trying to explain what had happened though; no one would take him seriously - who'd believe it anyway?
He would apparently get expelled if he was involved with any other incident; the school would apparently not tolerate violence. Whatever. It wasn't as though he hit the guy. The bit that really pissed him off was the references to middle school about how his school file said that he was violent. Like those pricks knew what happened back then.
He had contemplated going home after that. The entire day had been a fucking joke and he was sick of it. He was sick of shitheads like Ando, he was sick of girls like that bitch from earlier. It was all because of that stupid bathhouse, and the other him that people were sayin' all this crap about him. But… he had accepted what had happened, in there, right? It was all stuff that he had thought about before, stuff that he had to think about. That was the entire point of coming to school today, to sort stuff out.
The corridors were getting quieter; most people who had after-school clubs had gone to them already, leaving only a few people hanging around. He went up to the second year classroom, but Yu-senpai and his friends weren't in there. After sweeping the school, he eventually found them hanging out on the roof. He screwed up his courage and walked over to them, suddenly uneasy. They'd seen first-hand what his other self had been like; they knew the details of the rumours.
They were surprisingly friendly towards him, though they were keen to interrogate him. Kanji managed to stumble his way through their questions; just like with the police it wasn't as though he was trying to be evasive or nothin', he just couldn't really remember much about what happened. The questions about Naoto were especially difficult though for entirely different reasons; he felt his face get hot, especially when Chie-senpai wouldn't drop that line of questioning, pestering him about everything they talked about and making it sound weird that he wanted to spend time with a guy.
"I, uh… I don't really get it myself." Kanji said, trying to defend himself; he felt oddly nervous around these guys. He thought about the girl he ran into in the corridor earlier, the way she had sneered at him. "Girls are so loud and obnoxious, so, y'know, I really don't like dealing with 'em. Guys are a lot more laid-back. So, uh, I started thinking, what if I'm the type who never gets interested in girls? And I couldn't accept that, so I kept spinning around and around in my head."
"Well, I can understand the part about feeling more relaxed around dudes." Yosuke said, shrugging. Kanji looked at him oddly. He didn't expect to hear that coming from him.
"How are you feeling?" Yu-senpai asked breaking the brief silence.
"I'm fine now." Kanji responded. "I mean, it was all in my head, when y'get down to it. I was the one shutting out that stuff." He felt that he needed to give an explanation, that it wasn't his fault that he was weird. He took a deep breath.
"So," he hesitated, running a hand through his hair. "Our family's run a textile shop for generations. My parents are kinda weird. They say stuff like, 'dyes are one with the universe,' and 'cloth is alive…'- that's the kinda house I grew up in. So I've been interested in sewing and stuff since I was a kid. But the second I say stuff like that, people look at me funny. Girls make fun of me, the people in the neighbourhood treat me like I'm some zoo animal, so I was sick of everything. And when I got to my senses, I was running wild." He was trying not to look at their faces as he spoke, instead finding an interesting part of the ground to fix on. He expected them to say something - they didn't. He laughed nervously. He couldn't believe he was saying all of this shit in front of people like Yosuke-senpai.
"Shit, what's with me today? I'm going on and on about myself." He looked up from the ground, meeting Yu-senpai's gaze. "Forget all that. Man, I must look really lame right now."
The party shook their heads, and, oddly, he felt slightly better. He expected some sort of wisecrack or something, but he was thankful that there wasn't one. He let out a relieved laugh. "I've never talked about any of this stuff before. Guess I never had anyone to tell it to. I guess I wasn't really afraid of girls. I was just scared of people in general. But all that's behind me." It wasn't… entirely true. He didn't think he was afraid of girls at least. But it was true enough for now. Until he could properly think about it.
"Wow, I'm surprised… You're a good kid…" Chie-senpai said. Kanji towered above her, drawing himself up to his full height. That was pushing it.
"Don't call me a good kid…" Yosuke-senpai started laughing, but there didn't seem to be any malice in his voice either. Perhaps Kanji had misjudged him?
"No need to get embarrassed. You're a big guy, you can take it. Hey, is there anything you remember after you ran into us the second time? You know, after you chased us away and said you were gonna take us down."
Kanji's frowned, his brow furrowed in confusion.
"Huh? Uhh… I went… I was gonna sleep it off in my room…" Something wasn't quite right. A small detail was at the edge of his memory, elusive and annoying. "Wait, I think someone came…"
"To your house!? Who was it!?" Yosuke-senpai seemed excited, talking over him. Kanji began to doubt his memory; that night was so hazy.
"Uh, well, it was just a feeling I had; I dunno if anyone actually came. Other than that … I remember some weird, dark, entrance thing. When I woke up, I was laid out on the floor of that sauna place."
This got them all excited. They began throwing out suggestions as to what it was; oddly, "the dark entrance thing" being a TV was the one which was got them most riled up. They continued their interrogation, asking him about the police, anyone who had been to the house. It was giving him a headache. Too many people had asked him shit today.
"Are you guys playing detective or somethin'?"
"Mmm, well, something like that." Chie-senpai looked at Yu-senpai, as if seeking permission to say more.
"Anything I can do to help? If there's some bastard out there who put me through this, I ain't gonna rest until I make 'em pay." There was someone behind this. Someone who put him through so much hell, and now he is having to live with it every damn day of his life.
"Seriously? Awesome! You'd make a great addition to our team! Whaddaya say, Leader?" Yosuke-senpai had turned to Yu-senpai, apparently oblivious to the looks he and Chie-senpai were sending each other. He turned to Kanji, and nodded.
Kanji grinned sheepishly. He felt like he belonged to something; it was a weird feeling but it made him feel pretty good about himself.
