AN: Hello everyone! *chirp chirp... chirp chirp*
Yes, I know it's been awhile. Two years actually. I'm so sorry I left this off... I seem to have a bad habit of it. The truth is that this was the last fanfic I ever wrote. I was just starting my freshman year of college when I submitted the last chapter. And life just got so busy. I began to see fanfiction as a part of my past-an essential part of who I am, but nevertheless essentially over.
I randomly remembered this anime the other day and I watched a few episodes with my suitemate (she loved it btw). I said to her, "you know, I wrote a fanfic for this once." And instead of continuing to write my final essays, I pulled this up and read it. I was brought to tears. Not just because of the story or because Yuujiro and Tooru are perfect, but also because I became hopelessly nostalgic for my fanfic writing days. And because it was incomplete. You can't imagine the guilt I felt. I've been there as a reader, and it's awful.
So I decided that there may still be a place for fanfic writing in my life. Not at the weekly update level, but every once in a while. At any rate, I want to finish what I started.
So at long last, I give you the next chapter! I imagine it will only take a few more chapters to come to a close. Please enjoy the ride! And thank you for reading!
The burning feeling of betrayal never fully subsided. Tooru, fearful of losing Yuujiro and terrified that he may have already, kept his lips permanently sealed, lest he utter words that would push Yuujiro further away.
To Yuujiro's credit, he did try to apologize to Tooru.
Tooru, if I did something to upset you, I'm sorry.
You know you can talk to me about it,Tooru.
Just as Tooru was coming close to forgiving Yuujiro, their one-sided conversation began to fall along the lines of:
Jesus Tooru, I didn't do anything wrong!
God, Tooru! Stop being a jerk and say something!
Finally concluding with the worst line of all:
If you're not going to talk to me, I'm going to call that girl.
Tooru was asleep before Yuujiro returned.
Tooru woke up the next moment with a lump in his throat and silence on his lips, and although he knew it was unjustified, he vowed to maintain his silence throughout the day. Yuujiro, despite receiving the cold shoulder, opted to carry on as if nothing had changed.
On the way to homeroom:
"Ugh, I'm so tired, Tooru. I got hardly any sleep last night. I can't understand why they won't fix the air conditioning. The school should treasure us! How can I get my beauty sleep?"
"You're beautiful Princess Yuujiro!" a mediocre student called in passing.
Yuujiro flipped his hair and flashed a smile, and three boys stopped dead in their tracks and swooned.
Yuujiro turned back to Tooru. "I'm honestly getting bags under my eyes. It's horrendous. But, you know... you still look fine, Tooru." Yuujiro lightly brushed the hair out of Tooru's eyes, and Tooru flinched away. While his expression remained stoic, he couldn't help the light blush that colored his cheeks for the briefest of moments.
The two friends entered the classroom and took their seats.
Eating lunch:
"Don't you know pizza is bad for your skin, Mikoto?"
"So what?" Mikoto pouted. "Everyone eats pizza! I'm a growing boy!"
"Oh, but Mikoto, you're also a growing girl."
"Hey!"
"Isn't that right, Tooru?" Yuujiro waited a beat, as if listening to Tooru's compulsory response in his mind. "Yes, that's right, Tooru. Mikoto is... um... an ugly girl."
Mikoto looked rather more confused than he did offended. Tooru calmly nibbled his panini.
The day continued in much the same manner: Yuujiro ignored Tooru's silence, and Tooru ignored Yuujiro altogether. Yuujiro's attempts at conversation grew increasingly stilted and the student body surrounding them grew increasingly reserved.
Tooru had every intention to maintain his silence indefinitely: there was nothing Yuujiro could say or do that could incite a reaction, Tooru decided. Whatever happened, Tooru resolved he would not break.
The moment the two entered their room, Yuujiro declared, "I'm going to call that girl."
...and Tooru snapped.
His jaw sore and his voice raspy from disuse, the words fell rough and unfiltered from his lips. "What's going to happen to us when you get a girlfriend?"
For the briefest of moments, a smile graced Yuujiro's lips, then he narrowed his eyes. "You're not trying to hold me back, are you? Some friend."
"N-no!" Tooru burst. Now that he'd begun, he could hardly contain the words bottled inside of him. "It's not that, it's just..." Tooru took a shaky breath. "What do you even like about her?" What does she have that I don't...
"Boobs." Figures.
"I understand she has breasts, Yuujiro! Lot's of girls... I mean... all girls... All girls have breasts! You don't even know this girl! How could you choose her over... when we..." Tooru through his backpack on the ground and stomped over to his bed. "L-look. What else do you like about her." Tooru's voice was slightly more stable. Slightly.
"I don't know," Yuujiro sighed and, taking his cue from Tooru, sat on his own bed. "What are you even supposed to like about girls?"
"Yuujiro!"
"No, I'm serious, Tooru. I've never had a girlfriend before, so I want to do this right. What are you supposed to like about girls?"
"I don't know."
"Well... what do you like about girls?"
"I don't," Tooru mumbled.
"What?"
"I don't like girls."
Yuujiro didn't respond, and Tooru was afraid to glance up at him. Tooru studied the left corner of their rug, feeling his face grow redder with each passing second... minute... hour? How long had it been? Was Yuujiro still there? Had he even heard?
"You don't mean that," Yuujiro's voice came out as a whisper.
"I do," Tooru said with an air of assurance that he certainly didn't feel.
"You like girls, Tooru," Yuujiro said with more authority, "We both do."
"I'm gay, Yuujiro."
"You're not."
"I'm gay!" Tooru's throat was swollen and his eyes stung.
"W-what about when you said you liked the comforting type?"
"I don't know... I just couldn't think of anything else. I'm gay."
"W-what about me, Tooru?" Yuujiro's voice was bordering on hysteria. "You like me when I'm a girl!"
"I don't. I'm gay."
"You certainly seemed to like it the other night!"
"Y-Yuujiro, I... I like you... as a boy," Tooru choked out. He lowered his eyes to that same corner of the rug. The colors blurred. "I'm gay," he repeated.
"Will you stop saying you're gay!" Yuujiro burst.
"I'll stop if you believe me!" he snapped. "I'm. gay."
"N-no. You're just confused because of what we've been doing. Tooru." He tried to look Tooru in the eyes, but Tooru would not look up. "Tooru, listen to me!" Yuujiro sprang up and crossed the room to leer over Tooru. "You know how I don't let you touch me?"
"Yeah."
"Why don't I let you touch me?"
"It'll spoil the illusion," Tooru recited, still stubbornly staring at the rug.
"Right. So I'm going to spoil the illusion now, and you'll see that you don't like me anymore, ok?" Without further ceremony, Yuujiro dropped his pants, boxers and all, and Tooru finally lifted his eyes from that corner of the rug.
He took a brief moment to ogle, before blurting the first thing that came to mind: "You're huge!"
"Th-thanks," Yuujiro blushed, and pulled up his pants.
Tooru glanced from Yuujiro, to the ground, to his hands, then back up to the furiously blushing Yuujiro, and finally, Tooru began to laugh, a deep, full, desperate laugh. His body rocked with laughter, chest heaving, eyes pouring tears. "Y-you must have thought... I was so small... and pathetic!" he gasped. "All of this... time and I... I didn't even know!"
Through his tears, Tooru could see that Yuujiro was positively bewildered - he was probably unsure whether Tooru was laughing or sobbing. Tooru wasn't so sure himself.
"You're not pathetic..." Yuujiro gently ventured. "And, um... I'm pretty sure your's is above average, so..."
"Y-you wouldn't know... be-because you have NO idea what average is!"
"H-hey that's not true!" Yuujiro burst. "I! ...I..." He deflated. "I don't know why I'm angry."
Tooru wiped his tears away, miraculously sobered. His stomach ached. "Yeah," he grinned. "You should be flattered."
"No. I mean... No." Yuujiro squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. "Back to the point. Tooru... look at this!" Yuujiro broadly swept his arms at the space between them. "We're back to normal! Now you know you don't actually like me!"
The smile dropped off Tooru's face. "But I do like you."
Yuujiro studies Tooru's face for a moment. "Fine." His eyes hardened and disgust twisted the corners of his mouth. "Fine. I believe you."
"Y-Yuujiro?"
Yuujiro sat back down on his bed and picked up his phone. "I don't want to talk to you right now." He glared at his phone, thumb hovering over the screen.
Tooru's throat swelled shut. He could feel the tears welling in his eyes. He let them fall. "Y-yuujiro," he sobbed. "P-lease..."
"I'm going to call that girl now." Yuujiro inclined his head toward his friend, but his eyes remained shielded. "Mind giving me some privacy?" His voice was hard. Cold.
"F-fine." Tooru stood on shaky legs. "I needed to go anyway." He grabbed his backpack off the floor and fumbled for his keys in the drawer. It was hard to see through tears but they didn't seem to be stopping anytime soon. "I-Im going to... to the convenience store." He took a couples steps toward the door then pauses. "Do you want anything? I could get you the soda you like."
Yuujiro didn't respond. Tooru glanced back and saw that Yuujiro was already punching numbers into the phone. Tooru bit back a sob and slunk out.
The bathroom was at the end of the hall. Too far away for Yuujiro to hear him. Too far for anyone to hear him.
He didn't bother going into a stall-no one except Yuujiro would came in here anyway and he's...
Tooru sunk to the tiled floor.
The pain was so terrible, he imagined that no one in the world could possibly have felt like this before. Why would anyone want to be in love if it felt like this? Wouldn't someone have spread the word?And why would anyone want to give their hearts away again after this pain? It felt as if someone had reached down his throat, scooped up all his internal organs, and drew them out of his throat. Slowly. Choking out more and more with every sob.
And yet the only thing he wanted was Yuujiro to run through the door and throw his arms around him. It was just a mean joke he'd say. I'm sorry. I thought you were playing along.
Or even better I thought about it and I do love you Tooru. I was just afraid.
And then they'd kiss...
And this was why people still fell in love after feeling their still-beating heart being wrenched out of their chest-because they couldn't help it. He couldn't help it.
He thought about girls. Girls with large breasts and tiny waists and clear skin and soft smiles and everything he should want in a girl, but that phantasm would warp into Yuujiro. And only then. Only then would he feel anything.
The tile was cold against his forehead Why can't I just be normal?
It felt like hours, days, weeks, millennia had passed when Tooru finally felt completely empty. Completely numb. The space below and between his ribs where butterflies fluttered every time Yuujiro kissed him felt hollowed out, as if with a massive ice-cream scoop.
He looked at his watch. It had been maybe 45 minutes? Maybe an hour?
He thought about going back, but the idea of spending the rest of the afternoon and night with Yuujiro... And Yuujiro probably didn't want to see him either.
He couldn't go to any of the common rooms or the library without getting mauled by muddy haired students, and he just didn't have the energy to project his princess demeanor...
Now that he thought about it, there was really only one place he could go.
...
Tooru knocked on the door and shifted uncomfortably. No answer. This might have been a terrible mistake after all. He was just turning to go when the door opened.
"Kouno?"
He mustered a small grin. "Hi Mikoto. Can I come in?"
AN: Thanks for reading!
Side bar: I don't plan on updating my profile, so in case you're curious I'm going to give an updated blurb here. I'm now 20 years old and a junior in a small liberal arts college in the East Coast. I'm an English major/education minor. I'm also studying creative writing. I'm hoping to be a high school English teacher and a novelist. This summer I'm teaching creative writing at a summer camp so it looks like I'm on the right track!
In the time since I've been writing I've fallen in love and had my heart ripped out my throat multiple times... over the same guy (and we were only official for 4 months ugh) which finally gives me some real life experience with which to write romance.
I've also made some incredible and supportive friends who I have the pleasure of living with, been cast in 5 productions at school, and been selected for a selective creative writing class.
So really, it's all been good. And I'm very happy with my life. Much love 3