A/N: Sorry for taking so long to update! I went to Japan and then had exams etc.

16. So Yata bought his first beanie

He considered skipping school, decided against it, reconsidered it, and ended up going anyway. He hadn't actually skipped a full day in a couple of months, and he felt weirdly obligated to show up even if he was embarrassed about his hair.

Fushimi met him at the gate, giving him a long stare before bursting into laughter. Yata punched his friend in the arm, trying to hide his flaring red cheeks behind a string of muttered curses and empty threats. He could hear other students laughing from behind him, and he tried to convince himself that they probably weren't actually laughing at him. He was blushing so hard his ears were beginning to turn red too.

"So...what are you going to do?" Fushimi asked during their lunch break, trying not to laugh again. He was smirking, watching the shorter boy fidget with the ends of his hair, as he'd been doing almost all morning. Misaki, you're so pathetic.

"What do you think I should do?" Yata asked with a resigned sigh, his hands falling into his lap. He'd planned on watching the baseball team practice today, but he wouldn't dare show up now.

"You should shave it all off," Fushimi said thoughtfully, tapping his chin.

"That would look even worse!" Yata snapped. If anything could even look worse than this. He glared at Fushimi intensely, hoping his expression would silence his giggling. "Take this seriously!"

"Who even cares?" Fushimi asked with a disinterested shrug.

After school finished, they decided to walk home together, now arguing about whether or not Yata should buy a wig. Most people were finishing work, so it was home time for everyone. The main street was crowded as usual, with people bumping into the two boys every couple of feet. Yata trained his eyes on the ground, entirely uninterested in the plain faces surrounding him.

Yata suddenly ran into something solid, knocking him back a couple of steps. He looked up to see a tall man who'd stopped in the middle of the footpath. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded, raising his voice over the rest of the mindless chatter. The man ignored him, fiddling with his mobile phone and joining the rest of the crowd who were gathered at the crosswalk, waiting for the signal to cross. Yata growled under his breath until Fushimi tapped him on the shoulder.

"What?" Yata snapped, turning with a scowl already on his face. Fushimi just sighed and pointed. Yata had to squint to see past the glare on the glass, but he could see it was...a hat store? "What the fuck do I care?" he asked, turning away.

"Your hair," Fushimi said simply. He wanted to punch his friend for being so slow sometimes.

"Oh!" Yata said, snapping his fingers and weaving between other pedestrians to get to the storefront.

17. Fushimi wasn't afraid to speak his mind

"How does it look?" Yata asked, feeling stupid and girly again. Acting like my fucking name actually suits me or something. Fuck this.

"Stupid," Fushimi replied, barely glancing at his friend. "But slightly less stupid than before," he added after a pause. The beanie Yata had on was one of the cheapest in the store, grey in colour. "Just hurry up and buy something so we can leave."

"But which one?" Yata asked, sounding confused as he held up a dark blue beanie in his left hand and a black one in his right hand. I am not a fucking girl.

"All of them. None of them. I really don't care." Fushimi was losing interest quickly. And he hadn't had much interest to begin with. It was amusing to watch Yata fret for a little while, but even that got old. He didn't want to hang around listening to his friend whining all afternoon.

Yata sighed and ended up forking the money over for the grey one, since he was already wearing it. They exited the store and he felt a little less self conscious. It would probably only be temporary until his hair grew out, but he could get used to wearing beanies. Beanies...what a stupid fucking word.

18. Fushimi knew his way around a deck of cards

Sport election time was coming up, and the classroom was buzzing with conversation about it. Yata and Fushimi sat on their desks up the back, actively avoiding joining in with the useless discussion. Everybody already knew Yata would choose baseball despite not being able to play, and Fushimi would opt out of sport altogether.

Fushimi was shuffling a deck of cards, from hand to hand, back and forth methodically. He'd been considering teaching Yata how to play, but he decided he didn't have the patience to deal with that. So instead of doing anything constructive, he just sat there shuffling them.

"Hey," Yata asked, grabbing his attention. "What do you even do while we play sport?" It had never occurred to him to ask before.

"I play cards," Fushimi replied, smirking.

"What kind of bullshit answer is that?" Yata asked, eyeing the deck suspiciously. Card games were fine in his books, as long as gambling wasn't involved. He thought that was a complete waste of time. He knew Fushimi sometimes played the older students for money, but he held his tongue about it.

"I'm actually pretty good," Fushimi continued, flipping over an Ace. Why am I boasting to Misaki? He doesn't understand the finer details of the trade.

"You should learn magic tricks instead," Yata joked, chuckling. "Stop wasting your time with pointless shit."

"You should quit baseball," Fushimi retorted, snapping the deck together. "Maybe stop wasting everyone's time."

19. Yata could count the number of time's he'd punched Fushimi on one hand

The number was five. If he counted aloud and folded his fingers to match the numbers, it made a fist similar to the one he connected with Fushimi's jaw now. The taller boy fell backwards off his desk, holding a hand to his face and narrowing his eyes at Yata.

There was no need to ask "What was that for?" Fushimi knew well enough that he'd crossed the line, but that was part of the fun of being friends with Misaki. It was always so easy to cross lines, and so amusing to watch his reactions, even if they involved taking a hit to the face every now and then.

He could hit Yata back. It would be too easy, but it was a waste of energy and the teacher was already looking their way, words of caution already falling from his mouth. So instead, Fushimi righted his chair and wordlessly sat in it, staring at Misaki until his unwavering gaze forced the boy to calm down.

"Do you feel better now?" Fushimi asked, unable to hide his smile. Yata only responded with a glare.

20. Fushimi's ambitions were confusing

He wanted to do something worthwhile, but he couldn't pin an exact profession. When he looked around the classroom, his eyes critiqued the carefree faces around him, and he predicted probably three-quarters of his class would wind up in the same dead-beat, low-income job for the rest of their lives. He knew that wouldn't be him.

Studying and schoolwork held no interest for him. Calculus was only mildly fun because he was the top of the class, not that he boasted about that very often. As previously mentioned, he passed all his tests with flying colours and minimal effort, so it wasn't as if he was an underachiever.

It was just that...for all his desire for a decent purpose, he lacked direction. Politics would be easier than a walk in the park for him (in this part of town, walking through the park was actually pretty dangerous), but again he wasn't interested in the slightest. He wanted to make a difference in a different way. He thought even becoming the CEO of a profitable company would become very boring very quickly.

If he took a break from studying, he'd spend time researching different kinds of intellectual jobs. He thought scientific fields were cool, but he didn't want to waste so many years in university just to gain the right prerequisites.

So for now, he gave up trying to understand his future. He figured he had plenty of time. And whenever someone asked "What are you going to do in the future?" he'd tell them he wanted to be their family's personal funeral director.