“How do you get a squirrel to like you?” I deploy my opening line as I sit down at my desk, my favourite way to start the day. I wait for an answer but it seems like Hanako’s either not biting today or she’s genuinely stumped. I flash her a smile and deliver the punchline.
“Act like a nut.”
There’s a beat before a small smile forms on Hanako’s lips as she turns away, shaking her head.
“Ahhh, I got a smile! I’m counting that.”
“I d-d-didn’t laugh. Th-that w-was too corny. Like a D-D-Dad joke.” Hanako says quietly but having spent the better part of three years as her deskmate, my ears have become acutely tuned to her hushed voice. Any semblance of a laugh from her improves my day to no end but I’ll take what I can get.
“Well, I can’t keep telling you dirty jokes; you got me in trouble last time.” I muse with a wry smile, purposely trying to get a rise out of her and it works.
“N-n-no, I d-d-didn’t! Th-that was y-y-you!” She protests and I simply smirk at her.
Mr Mutou rudely interrupts my daily teasing of Hanako as he slides the door open. Everyone immediately falls silent as a cute stranger follows him in. He looks around like he’s lost until he starts looking at us. He sort of double-takes as he looks around, focusing on some people more than others. I can practically feel Hanako flinch as his eyes reach her.
I lean back, folding one leg over the other as Mr Mutou begins the introductions to… Necktie? Geez, Mutou… Everyone dutifully claps but especially Misha. The boy stands there for an awkward amount of time before Mr Mutou saves him from further embarrassment and assigns his seating.
As Necktie takes his seat next to the Student Council, I see Hanako’s curious gaze out of the corner of my eye. I smirk a little before leaning towards her and quietly whispering “Dibs.”
“Hey, Necktie. I hear you’re a word nerd.” I flash him a debonair smile as I lean on his desk. Hisao looks up at me surprised and I can’t say I blame him; I am a stranger to him. Stranger than he even realises.
Misha, on the other hand, understands and gets this wide-eyed amusement on her face that tells me she knows what I’m up to. I did wait until Shizune had gone walkabout before making my move, after all.
“Right, right! You said you love to read, Hicchan!” She chimes in with her usual mannerisms. “Aki-senpai is part of the Literature Club.”
“I’m kind of a big deal there.” I add with a shrug, much to Misha’s amusement and Hisao’s confusion. I adore Misha, we have a mutual respect for each other’s tastes.
“O-oh. Um, hi…”
“Akio. Akio Hayashi.” I purr, reaching forward and running his tie through my fingers slowly. “An absolute pleasure to meet you.”
“Umm…”
“Since you’re new; how about I give you the tour and show you around?” I ask but the loud clap of papers hitting the desk means my time is regrettably cut short as the returning Shizune’s inscrutable gaze bores through me. Her whole strict librarian vibe is kind of hot although I don’t think she has much time for my particular brand of shenanigans.
“I hear you loud-and-clear, Boss Lady.” I say, gesturing to Misha as she dutifully translates giving Misha and Hisao. “Seeya, Bubblegum. Catch you later, Necktie.”
As I take my seat ready for the next lesson to begin, I hear a soft humming from my deskmate. I look over to the shy girl beside who seems entirely too amused with her sad trombone impression.
“I’ll catch him later! I’ve still got dibs.” I protest, only to be quietly giggled at by Hanako. Despite what I say, hearing that makes my day so much better. “Shut up.”
“Hehehe.”
“Heya, Necktie.” I sidle up to the new boy, leaving my snoozing Club President in her favourite beanbag, as he browses the stacks of books in the library.
“Hi, uh… Akio, right?” He furrows his brow in recollection and I give him a wink as a reward.
“Got it in one; happy to know I made an impression.” I smirk, leaning against the stack with one arm. “So whatcha here for; Koontz or Dickens?”
“Wh-what?”
“I assume you’re here for a book?” I play innocent and Hisao double-takes before looking at the genre fiction once more.
“Yeah… But I’m drawing a blank.” He shakes his head, scrunching his mouth up. “You’re in the Literature Club; any recommendations?”
“Oh, my dear sweet Necktie…” I chuckle, clapping my hand on his shoulder and leading him around the corner to the other side of the stacks.
“We have plenty of light novels, but what you want is something that delivers with every page turn and for that; you want manga.” I gesture broadly towards the volumes at waist height, like a magician revealing his trick.
“I didn’t expect a Literature Club member to suggest manga.” Hisao snorts with amusement while I brush my hand across his shoulders as I swap sides.
“Ah, but that’s a mistake people often make. Literature is just another word for stories and stories can be told in a lot of ways - in a lot of mediums - and I like to think of myself as a connoisseur of stories.” I explain, picking up a volume of my favourite manga and handing it to him.
“I don’t think a connoisseur would recommend Bleach. It’s a pretty ubiquitous shonen manga. My friends read this.”
“And clearly your friends have good taste; they read quality manga and they’re friends with you!” I compliment but I soon feel I’ve said something wrong when his expression sours.
“Yeah, maybe I’ll think about it.” Hisao says solemnly as he bends down to replace the volume. “Maybe I’ll just watch a movie or something.”
“Ah!” I beam as I see another avenue of attack. “Movies are also an excellent story-telling medium!”
“You watch movies in the Literature Club too?” Hisao asks with an obvious tone of disbelief but I simply smile and point my thumb towards the dozing Suzu.
“As often as the Prez allows and that’s way more often than you think. It’s not to everyone’s tastes, some people who have a much more narrow view of story-telling but I’m nothing if not open-minded.” I say, waggling my eyebrows. Hisao furrows his brow at me again and takes a step back.
“Right… Well it sounds like the Literature Club is a little less word-y than I thought it would be.” He says, obviously unimpressed by my schtick as he turns away to go around the stacks again.
“Last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice.” I blurt out in a desperate attempt to sound smarter than I’m coming across. He seems to appreciate it as he stops and casts a curious gaze over his shoulder.
“That’s from the Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot, right? I read that while I was… Over the summer.” He stops himself, almost like he’s trying to think up a lie and it’s pretty obvious. Curiouser and curiouser as the saying goes.
“I’m more than just a pretty face with exceptional taste in manga and movies, Necktie. I can read as well.” I offer up my hands as I shrug.
“Hm. Maybe I’ll swing by the Lit Club and we can talk about it. I’m not one for poetry but I liked what it had to say.” Hisao smiles and I try to look as suave as I can as he leaves the library.
“I have never seen you work this hard and fail this spectacularly.” A voice announces behind me. I turn to find Suzu holding her head up off the table with a silly little smirk and sleepy eyes.
“Well, we can’t all land a catch as tasty is Miki Miura, Snuzu.” I shrug, stepping toward the club president and pulling up a chair.
“You had your shot, Akio, but you decided the track captain was a better choice.” Another voice chimes in and I track Miki over my shoulder as she circles around me and over to her girlfriend. Wrapping her muscular arms around Suzu’s neck and squeezing her lovingly, I muse on how right she is. Which is the most annoying thing about her. Miki’s often right.
“We both know it could never work between us, Bumpkin, as much as I adore you.” I tease. Seriously, I adore her. If Miki didn’t pose the risk of routinely cracking my pelvis like a wishbone, I’d have asked her to marry me by now.
Her or Hanako. It’s a tough choice when it comes to the fairer sex which is why I stick with boys. I know what I’m dealing with there.
“Too bad she’s taken then!” Suzu squirms, awkwardly grabbing at Miki’s arms defensively. Suzu doesn’t mind getting a little bruised. Hell, I think she might like it. I adore that little freak too.
“I’d never come between the two of you. Not unless you asked nicely, anyway.” I throw a literal tongue-in-cheek barb at my cerulean-haired friend and she scowls. Miki gets her girlfriend to cool down with an affectionate peck to the top of her head.
“He’s only joking, babe. You know he’s got his eyes on the newbie.”
“And he’s blowing it!” Suzu announces.
“Not yet.” I bite my tongue at her and she recoils and Miki laughs.
“Urgh, gross.”
“So what’s the deal with him? He doesn’t ping my gaydar.”
“I’m working on it! He’s a little aloof; he’s clearly keeping stuff close to his chest…” I muse, scratching my chin. “Maybe a little snooty given his taste in authors…”
“But you still wanna fuck him.” Miki smirks and I chuckle, nodding.
“So bad. Him and his slutty little waist.”
“Heeeyyyy, Necktie…” I speak carefully into the night air, mindful that my sudden appearance doesn’t pitch this poor sap off the edge of the roof. “You, uh… You having your own personal dark night of the soul up here?”
Hisao sways unsteadily as he turns on the spot towards me, bottle of whiskey in hand. I wince as my blood runs cold at the sight and feel my heart sink at the familiarity of all this. The fact that the school hasn’t fixed that rickety fucking fence yet just adds insult to injury. Lou deserved better. So does Hisao.
Guess that’s why I’m up here - risking life and limb - when I could be meeting the track captain in the usual spot for some post-festival festivities… And they say chivalry is dead.
“Who…?” He slurs, peering into the darkness as I slowly make my way towards him, edging around him like an predator eyeing prey but I guess a Samaritan talking a jumper off a ledge is more apt. C’mon, Akio, lay on some charm and de-escalate.
“You know me, Necktie!” I chuckle, more nervously than I’d like. “It’s Akio! The best looking guy in our class? Present company excluded, of course!”
“Right… From the book club…” Hisao mumbles as he frowns to himself, thankfully slinking away from the hole in the fence as I manoeuvre around him, putting myself between him and a rather quick trip to the ground floor.
This is so fucking stupid, I should have called for back-up as soon as I clocked Hisao but I just had to satisfy my curiosity, didn’t I? One whiff of whiskey and I needed to see where the party was. Least that blind kid throwing up in the stairwell is far away from this mess, even if he’s making one of his own.
“So, uh, what’s the occasion, Necktie? Toasting your first week surviving Yamaku?” I ask into the night air while fishing my phone out of my pocket. Hisao stumbles back and forth before stepping towards me. My eyes flicker between the approaching drunk and my one-handed SMS SOS.
“I guess… Not a lot else to celebrate.”
“Why not? We’re young, dumb, and full of-”
“Bullshit. It’s all bullshit.”
His bitter spitting makes me pause. Maybe I wasn’t far off the mark with that dark night of the soul crack. He looks defeated. Tired. Sick of it all. That look, plus the drink and a roof, doesn’t mix in any way that ends well.
“Wanna talk about it, dude? I know I like to run my mouth but I like to think I’m a good listener too.” I summon up the courage to take a step toward him and he leans back against the air conditioner, his limp arms crashing the bottle into the metal box with a clatter.
The noise makes us both flinch but as he grumbles and brings the bottle to his mouth, I manage to sidle up to the new boy. He offers the bottle to me and I pause, staring at the offering. I reach up and grasp it in my hand, noting the weight. Best guess; Hisao and his buddy drank about three-quarters before things took a turn. Lightweights.
“Kenji was weird. Weirder than usual.” Hisao says, half-mumbling with his hand still in the air as if he was still holding the whiskey bottle. “He kept talking and talking and then he threw up. That’s what this week has been like. Talking. So much talking. Being talked at. Like I should care or like anyone else does.”
Oh boy…
“Life at Yamaku not living up to the sales pitch?” I ask and he frowns.
“Nope, pretty much exactly what I expected. I was shipped off to freak school and it’s just been one weird thing after another. This place is full of weirdoes.”
“Wooooow.” I roll my eyes then point the neck of the bottle towards him. “I’m gonna let that slide because you’re still new, Necktie.”
Hisao snatches the bottle from my grasp and shuffles away, a sour look on his face.
“Hey!” Jeez. If he jerked my wrist any harder, I could have broken it.
“Stop calling me names.”
“You don’t like nicknames, Necktie?” I watch him carefully, judging his swaying and wondering how quickly I could move if I really had to.
“I don’t like any of this! I shouldn’t be here!”
“Well, unless you’re a delinquent who got kicked out of every other school in the country or your parents just really fucking hate you; I think you probably should be.”
“You don’t know me!” Hisao wheels around, stumbling a little before pointing. “You… You don’t know what I’ve been through!”
Not for lack of trying… But maybe I didn’t try hard enough… I tried to collar him a bunch of times but he was always in the company of some of the school’s more endearing personalities. As welcome wagons go; he could have had worse.
Hanako seems to like him… And that endorsement goes a long way for me.
“Then tell me, Necktie. Promise I won’t laugh if the problem’s in your pants.”
“Shut up! Stop making fun of me! I don’t deserve this! I don’t deserve any of this! I should be back in Meguro going to a normal school with normal kids but noooo, I had to have a god damn heart attack and end up in this…” The anger builds in his voice before he punctuates the end of his sentence with another swig of whiskey and an insult that I’ve heard more times than I care to. “Cripple school.”
Now I’m starting to feel insulted but if he got sent here after a heart attack… That must have been a helluva culture shock.
“That must have been a real shock, dude. I’m sorry to hear that.” I have a history of trying to placate angry drunks. Not always successfully, and I hate that I have to do it here too, but I have to try. Thought I left this shit at home though.
“Whatever. Like you care.” He spits, glowering at me like I’m the personification of his own trauma.
“Believe it or not; I do.” I say but I can tell the look of pity I give him doesn’t help one bit as his face twists in anger.
“No, you fucking don’t! You don’t even know me!”
“Oh, well fuck me then, I guess! What the fuck do I know, right? It’s not like I’ve seen a dozen other people struggle with the transition over my three years going here. It’s not like I didn’t struggle!” I shout back, taking him by surprise.
“N-not like me!” He manages to croak out and I double-down, my fire finally lit.
“Don’t give me that crap, Necktie! You think you’ve got it rough?” I take step forward and snatch the bottle out of his hand and take a swig myself. It’s the cheapest, nastiest rotgut I’ve ever had the displeasure of pouring down my throat. I point with the neck of the bottle gripped in the same hand.
“I was like you when I first got here; in my own head and my head firmly up my own ass. Hated that I had to be here, hated being disabled, and hated my body. Hated everything about me…” I pour my heart out as much as I’m willing. It’s still painful to bring up but I feel like I’ll have to if I’m going to get through to Hisao.
“You know when that changed? The day I made Hanako laugh.” That little line surprises Hisao and it should. Surprised the hell out of me.
“I don’t even remember what the hell I said but she laughed and it was so… I just stared at her. I shouldn’t have, she didn’t speak to me again for weeks…” I chuckle, mostly to myself as I remember the sound of her laughter and the cute little ‘eep’ she made when I stared at her for too long.
“If you think you have it rough, listen to Hanako’s story some time. Or Suzu’s. Or one of The Terminals. You haven’t hit the rock bottom of shit hands dealt until you’ve heard about Lelouch or Kintaro, the guy whose seat you’re in now.” I focus on him pointedly but I think he’s spacing out at names he doesn’t recognise.
“But Hanako... Man, her laugh was amazing. I saw her, really saw her, for the first time when that happened and that’s when I knew what I could do, what I could be.” I smile wistfully at the lost boy in front of me and see so much of myself in him. And not in the way I meant a few days ago in the Lit Club.
“So what? You’re just the funny guy? Because laughter is the best medicine or some shit?” Hisao looks at me disbelievingly and I shrug.
“You think it’s easy? ‘Cause it’s not. All that pain and self-loathing and-and rage doesn’t magically disappear. You have to work at it. I think I’m finally in a place where I love myself in spite of it. All of me.” I put the bottle on top of the air conditioner and close the gap between the two of us.
“I have so many points of failure that I might as well be a crash test dummy made of porcelain. Your heart can be fixed, your risks can be managed. You can pass, dude. You’ve got a better shot at a normal life than a lot of people here.” That shocks Hisao a little. Maybe the tough love is actually getting through to him.
“I don’t know if I can be normal anymore or what that even means for me now…” Hisao’s head and shoulders drop, allowing me to see the door to the roof over his shoulder. It busts open and my back-up finally arrives; Suzu and her girlfriend Miki. I hold my hand up to them as I take a few steps towards Hisao. I think I’ve got this handled.
I hope.
“This is the right place to learn what that means, dude, and there are plenty of people who will help if you just ask.” I can see the emotion welling in his eyes as he processes what I’ve told him.
“I don’t know h-h-how… If it’s w-w-worth…” He chokes on his words and I throw my arms around the frightened boy before me.
“The next time you think no one cares or you’re not worthy; remember where the fuck you are, Hisao.” I whisper as his walls break and he begins to quake a little in my arms, face planted into my shoulder. “And count your lucky stars.”
“You guys okay up here?” Suzu asks as she approaches. I nod over Hisao’s shoulder.
“Can’t a couple guys hug on the roof, anymore? We’re great.” I release Hisao from my embrace and smile warmly. “Ain’t that right, Ne-?”
My affectionate name-calling is cut-off as Hisao projectile vomits all over my uniform shirt and tie, earning disgusted groans from Suzu and Miki.
“Sorreh…” Hisao grumbles in-between retches and spits, bracing himself on his knees.
“Miki, would you mind helping Hisao?” Suzu asks and her girlfriend nods and holds her arms around Hisao but not outright touching him.
“C’mon, gaylord… Let’s get you some water.” She jokes with a crooked smile as she ushers Hisao toward the door.
“I’m the only lord of gays around here, Bumpkin!” I call after Miki, who flips me the bird. I pull the soiled tie from my neck and delicately remove it along with my shirt once Hisao is out of sight.
“You okay, Akio? And don’t give me any of your usual crap.” Suzu turns her attention back to me as I turn my shirt inside out and bundle all the puke on the inside, wiping my hands clean or as clean as I can anyway.
“Shirtless on the roof with my cute club president? I’ve had worse festivals.” I smirk at the smaller girl beside me who goes from stealing glances at my scars to pouting at me.
“I said-”
“I’m okay… Thank you for coming, Suzu.” I sigh, giving her a genuine smile of relief. “I was worried… And I didn’t know who else to call.”
“You scared the hell out of me, Akio.” Suzu bops my arm in a huff. “I thought you were going to jump! You can take the time to type ‘Icarus might fall’ but not ‘Hisao danger-drunk’?”
“I can’t help having a flair for the dramatic, Suzu.” I laugh. “But I’m sure he’ll appreciate people showing up for him when he sobers up.”
“Sounded pretty intense from what little I caught.”
“Yeah, but I think he’ll be alright. He seems pretty strong-willed. Even if he can’t hold his liquor.”
“And you were so deadset on him too…”
“Did I say I wasn’t?” I raise an eyebrow at my companion.
“I’d break up with Miki if she threw up on me.”
“We both know that’s not true.”
“Yeah…” Suzu blushes. “Guess I’ll be rooting for you then. I think you have your work cut-out for you though.”
“Pfft, please!” I grin at the challenge. “This is one of my better first dates.”
After doing a cheeky gay ship between everyone's favourite redhead and the everyone's faovurite (by default) protagonist during my Secret Santa submission, I had the idea of how that would even begin and that lead to this so think of this as a prequel to Tender & Wild.
The fact that it's focused on Hisao makes it even better. It feels like it's expanding on your SS story for me, which I love.