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Ikuya hates parties.They’re loud, crowded, and smell like a bouquet of old socks, vomit, and jungle juice. They also make him anxious. His modus operandi is to find the least inhabited spot and hunker down, teetering on the precipice of a panic attack until Hiyori’s ready to go.He should be grateful he gets invited at all. If Hiyori didn’t make him come to these things, he’d never be invited anywhere. Sure, Hiyori disappears the second they arrive. But Hiyori shouldn’t have to babysit him - he has friendships outside Ikuya and deserves to enjoy those too. Hiding is Ikuya’s choice, not Hiyori’s.Tonight is more of the same. The new school year starts Monday, and everyone’s getting the stupid out of their system before it’s back to papers and late nights in the library. Hiyori’s disappeared, but he’s definitely still here. He always finds Ikuya if he’s leaving to make sure Ikuya leaves as well - even if Hiyori’s leaving with someone else. So he’s huddled in a sparsely populated hallway on the second floor of some random frat house, searching for total isolation in someone’s empty bedroom. He’d take a bathroom so long as it’s people-free.His quest ends in success. He finds an unlocked bedroom at the end of the hall and slips inside, careful to make himself invisible as possible. Not that it’s hard. Invisible is his default setting. He doesn’t bother looking around - all rooms are the same in these places. All he needs is a door to close and a bed to sit on.Tonight is harder than others. Why that is, he doesn’t know. All he knows is the loneliness that runs beneath everything he does refuses to stay at its usual constant buzz tonight. His chest hurts with it. His everything hurts with it. He squeezes his eyes shut, willing the stinging behind his eyes to disappear, but luck has never been his strong suit. So here he is, wiping at his face with the sleeve of his shirt at a party he didn’t want to go to and wasn’t even invited to.Fun.He’s checking and refreshing all lines of communication with Hiyori to see if he’s messaged him about leaving when the door crashes open. Two giddy partygoers fall into the room, hands all over each other and laughing like they’re sharing some big secret. The guy kicks the door closed, and they promptly start pulling each other’s clothes off while Ikuya sits there frozen, wanting to announce his presence but too afraid to do so.It’s the girl who finally realizes they’re not alone.“Oh my god!” she gasps. “I’m so sorry, we didn’t - ”This is the worst. The one time - the one time he broke and cried at one of these things, this happens. It’s never happened before. Fate waited until he was even more pathetic than usual to spring this one on him.“No,” he answers quickly, patting down his face, “I should have - ”Should have what?The guy is staring at him strangely. He’s got bright red hair, a rumpled shirt, pants that are halfway open, and look - Ikuya gets it, okay? He’s in what he assumes is this guy’s room, alone and crying in the middle of a party. If he could stop making him feel like an insect under a hot lamp, that would be just great.“I’m just going to - ”What he’s going to do is obvious, but doing it is enormously awkward. He skirts around the happy couple and opens the door, all under the ceaseless, judgmental gaze of the guy who seems intent on making him as self-conscious as possible.“Bye,” he says - and why? Why is he like this?He hurries down the hall and high-tails it to the first floor. It no longer matters if Hiyori’s still here - he’s going home. Even he has a limit, and it’s been reached.He steps out into the autumn air and takes a deep breath. Everything sucks a lot. That’s the mantra he plays on repeat, day in and day out.
Uber is surging like nobody’s business, but he orders one anyway. Can’t put a price on getting the fuck out of here. Three minutes away - about three longer than he’d like, but whatever.“Hey!”He nearly clears the ground at the sound of an unfamiliar voice behind him.“Shit, sorry - I didn’t mean to scare you twice - ”Oh. They’re talking to him. Nervously, he turns around to see the guy who had him under a microscope not two minutes ago. One of his shoes is untied, coming dangerously close to sending him into the pavement face-first, and while his pants are back on, he didn’t quite figure out the belt. He is, in a word, a mess.“Can I help you?” It sounds cold and rude leaving his mouth. This - this is why he’s so unlikable.“No,” the guy replies breathlessly, “I mean - I’m sorry about before. In there.” He points back at the house as though Ikuya hadn’t just spent a whole hellish hour in there. “We should have knocked - ”“Why? In case someone might be in your room doing absolutely nothing?” he bites out. “You’re fine.”He looks down at his phone. One more minute. One more minute with a guy who seems to want to keep the Ikuya humiliation train in service until the very last second.“I’m doing this all wrong,” the guy mutters, brow furrowed in what looks like frustration. “I’m - ”Ikuya’s Uber pulls up at that exact merciful second, thank fuck.“Not cool to leave someone waiting like that,” he says as he opens the door to the car. “She seems nice.” And by that, he means she hadn’t stared at him like an alien in a low moment. “Bye.”“Wait!” the guy calls after him. “What’s your name?”He’s too old for this. He’s too young for this. He’s too tired for this. He’s only too happy to shut the door to the Uber without another word. There’s a fucking ridiculous twinge of guilt when he catches one last glimpse of the guy before the car takes off - he’s just standing there, shoulders slumped and looking really bummed out.“Fucking weirdo,” he says under his breath. Then he leans back in the seat and erases the whole interaction from his memory, leaving only loneliness and disappointment in himself for taking Hiyori’s generosity for granted.He gets a well-deserved dressing down from Hiyori for his disappearance. Hiyori’s never mean about it. He doesn’t yell or throw insults. He simply expresses his disappointment in no uncertain terms and rightfully questions Ikuya’s ability to care for himself if he can’t do something as simple as sending a text. Ikuya doesn’t mention that he never wanted to be there in the first place. It’s ungrateful. Hiyori’s looking out for him like he always does. And Ikuya should want to go to those kinds of events. Hiyori always sticks his neck out to give him opportunities to be normal, and Ikuya never fails to waste them.That’s how he starts the semester - guilt-ridden and preemptively bored. Most subjects come easy to him, so apart from the courses related to his major, he basically sleepwalks his way to perfect marks. When he glances at his schedule to locate the building, he doesn’t even bother to check the class.Campus is pretty this time of year. It’s one of the few joys Ikuya derives from - from anything, really. To him, Autumn is less of a pumpkin spice latte, apple-picking affair, though he hasn’t been apple-picking since he was a kid and secretly loves pumpkin spice lattes. No, it’s the natural order of things that makes the season so appealing. The earth is dying. The earth is dying, but refuses to go quietly. It dies in a burst of flame, falling from trees and painting the world in a final explosion of life. Ikuya always feels it slipping away as soon as it arrives, and something about its ephemerality sings to the part of him that feels transient, impermanent.As soon as he enters the building, his head is dragged from the clouds. The halls are bustling with the grating, overwhelming sounds of life, a sea that sweeps him unwillingly to the lecture hall where he’ll be spending three mornings a week. He takes a seat in the back and slouches down. There’s no one he knows here, and he intends to keep it that way. Pens and notebooks are organized neatly on his desk, color-coded and perfectly stacked - organization is calming for him. It’s one of the few things he has any control over, and he clings to it.There’s always one group in these lectures that never shuts the fuck up. Ikuya doesn’t expect anyone to take gen eds seriously, but a little consideration for the fact that there are other humans in the room would be appreciated. This particular group introduces itself through the loud, obnoxious laughter of a guy with fluffy pink hair and an instantly irritating perma-smile.“But I have to sit near the front,” he whines, loudly enough for Ikuya to hear every word. “What if the teacher’s hot? What if he’s hot, and he can’t see me?”The teacher would probably live a longer, happier life.Next is an indulgent voice he recognizes right away. The girl from the party appears beside her friend. patting him on the back in faux pity.“Don’t worry,” she comforts him, “you wouldn’t let him miss you.”She’s so pretty. Long, dark red hair, great figure, and a smile that doesn’t make him want to claw his eyes out. She seems nice, too. The sudden desire to be friends with someone like her takes him off guard. He never wants to be friends with anyone. Guess all it takes is for someone - anyone - to show him the slightest bit of attention. Pitiful.“Miss who? You missed me that much?”Fuck, really? Really?Bringing up the rear is the guy who spent Saturday night making him feel like he was trapped under a magnifying glass. He hooks his chin over her shoulder, comfortable and affectionate in a way Ikuya sees all the time but isn’t personally familiar with. He hasn’t earned that kind of affection.They all take their seats, and Ikuya slouches even lower in his. He doubts they’d recognize him but doesn’t want to take any chances. His fear of being seen dissolves when the professor walks in and calls everyone’s attention to him.Classical mythology. Ikuya already knows it backward and forward, as he always does with gen eds. But he likes this subject, so at least the content will hold his attention. His newfound interest must be clear because within minutes, he finds himself involuntarily chosen to demonstrate what the class doesn’t yet know but will be well-versed in by the end of the semester.“You, in the back - can you tell us how Eros became Cupid?”“He didn’t,” Ikuya answers, just loud enough not to be asked to repeat himself. “And the common definitions are wrong. Eros doesn’t only represent lust. He’s the desire and feeling. ” An unfamiliar enthusiasm rises in him, along with the volume of his voice. “Closer to how humans experience real love.” Not that he’d know. “Ovid perpetuated Cupid as a representation of tender love, but the original Latin translates to greed and avarice.”Mortification floods him the second he stops speaking. There were a million one-sentence answers to that question, so of course, he chose the dissertation route. All he wanted was to stay invisible, and now every eye in the lecture hall is trained on him. Should he excuse himself to the bathroom? No, that would draw even more attention.“Should have picked on someone snoring in the front row,” the professor jokes, drawing a few laughs from the peanut gallery. For once, Ikuya hears it for the compliment it is. “Nicely done, Mister…”“Kirishima,” he mumbles obediently. “Ikuya Kirishima.”“Let’s hope you’re all able to answer as articulately as Mister Kirishima by the time finals come around,” the professor addresses the entire class again, taking the attention off Ikuya.Ikuya slumps back down in his seat, and his eyes flit nervously around the room, praying he’s already a memory when -There it is. The same inscrutable gaze from Saturday, fixed on him like he’s a bewildering piece of modern art. He stares determinedly at his textbook and tries to tune out everything but the professor’s voice, but he can feel the burn of eyes staring holes through him every few minutes. He doesn’t want to be perceived. He doesn’t want to be seen, period. Too bad he rarely gets what he wants.Class seems to go on for days. When he’s finally released from its clutches, he packs his things quickly and efficiently and makes a break for it, sending him careening out of the building and down a back path until he reaches a quiet, empty space. There’s one bench covered in wet leaves, but that doesn’t deter him. He sits there for god knows how long, trying to slow his heart rate and bury his embarrassment under the carpet of leaves at his feet.“You okay?”No. Come on. Now?With a deep breath, he looks up at the guy who won’t stop staring. He’s looking down at Ikuya with concern, and maybe a little curiosity.“I’m - why do you care?” he fires back. A slight tremor in his voice betrays his attempt at unfriendliness.“You ran out of there so fast,” the guy says. “I was just wondering - ”“Wondering why your little UFO took off somewhere you can’t examine it?” he snaps. “I’m sorry I was in your room on Saturday. Now if you could stop with the whole judgmental stare thing, that’d be great.”“What?” comes the guy’s confused response. “Wait, no, that’s not it at all! I was just surprised. You were - and then you were gone, and then you were in class, and I…I was worried,” he finishes. The sense he’s omitted several things from his explanation keeps Ikuya on edge.“So worried you ditched your girlfriend again?”The guy sits down next to him, moving slowly, carefully, like one false move will send Ikuya running for the hills.“That’s, uh. That’s not - forget it.” He looks down at his sneakers. “Your answer was really cool. In class. I never know stuff like that off the top of my head. Or the bottom. Hey,” he pivots, “you ever tutor?”Now Ikuya’s at a loss for words. This guy hasn’t answered a single one of his questions, and now he’s asking one that has Ikuya whipping out the key to his iron fortress before he even gets to the inevitable point.“No,” he replies curtly, hoping that’ll be the end of it. Of course it isn’t.“Would you maybe want to? I’m really bad in…well. Everything. I’d pay you, obviously.”Right. Goods for services. Ikuya is a means to an end. A transactional tool.“I don’t even know your name,” he says in place of a response. “I don’t know who you are. You’re just some guy.”“That’s an easy fix,” the guy grins. “I’m Asahi.”He holds out his hand. Ikuya stares at it well past the awkward mark, and only then, once he’s done embarrassing himself, does he take it.“I’m Ikuya,” he replies without inflection. “I guess you knew that.”“Mister Kirishima,” Asahi echoes in a poor impersonation of their professor.This - whatever this is - doesn’t feel like it’s happening. It feels like he’s standing fifty feet away, watching this interaction play out like the dénouement of some bizarre arthouse right before the credits start rolling.“So, Ikuya Kirishima, what’s a guy got to do to get you to tutor them?”“For all you know, I get Fs in all my other subjects.”Asahi raises an eyebrow. “But you don’t, do you?”Ikuya stares at the ground. None of this makes sense. He doesn’t know this person, and they don’t know him. He interrupted his hook-up at a party. That’s literally it. But maybe -“Ikuya?”A hand lands on his shoulder, and he looks up to see Hiyori smiling down at him.“I called, but you didn’t pick up. Who’s this?” he asks, turning his attention to Asahi.“Just someone from class.”“Is it important?”“…no.”Asahi is staring at him differently now. This time, his gaze fills Ikuya with shame.“Then I’m sure he’ll understand if you have to get going,” Hiyori instructs briskly. Then he addresses Asahi directly. “Ikuya gets tired easily, so if you don’t mind.”Now Asahi’s staring at Hiyori with wide-open dislike. He looks between him and Ikuya as though trying to piece something together - all there is to piece is how Ikuya has once again burdened Hiyori, forcing him to take time away from his own life to look after him.“Okay,” he agrees without a fight. Then he gives Asahi a mumbled “Bye” and follows Hiyori away from his quiet spot.As he retreats, he can still feel Asahi’s eyes on him. It burns. The sensation makes him ball his hands into fists at his sides in a mixture of anger, shame, and - even in Hiyori’s company - loneliness.Is it just him? Or have the leaves gone silent under his feet?Ikuya had once considered seeing a therapist. An observant teacher had recommended it. They told him he looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, and that maybe seeking professional support would help lift some of it. He’d made it as far as emailing his primary care doctor for a referral when Hiyori found out and shut the whole thing down.Ikuya didn’t need a therapist, Hiyori said. There was nothing wrong with him - he just required looking after, that’s all. Nothing Hiyori couldn’t handle. He said if there was anything Ikuya needed to talk about, he’d be right there. And he was right there. He was always right there. The only time he wasn’t checking up on Ikuya was when he’d take some much-deserved social time of his own, and even then, he’d make sure Ikuya was there, whether Ikuya wanted to be or not. He’d just sigh afterward when he found Ikuya off by himself, which meant he’d also ruined Hiyori’s good mood.So he never saw a therapist. After all, there’s nothing wrong with him.But every time he’s in bed staring at the ceiling for hours on end, it sure as fuck feels like it.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Ikuya is a film major. He loves it - it’s one of the few things he truly loves. He’s never been a film snob. Sure, he understands the value of the classics, but there’s an addictive urgency to modern movies, one that makes Ikuya feel something. Anything. He despises people who turn up their noses when movies are described as an escape. Escape is living someone else’s story for a few hours, and Ikuya would kill to live any story other than his own.So Tuesday is a good day. He gets to sit in International Sci-Fi Cinema and tackle some twenty-first century favorites, followed by a deconstruction of women made out to be evil for daring to be feminist in his Villains in Film course. This is another kind of escape - the kind of escape where he can convince himself he has a dream, and that he could succeed in achieving it on his own. It’s the nicest escape he has.Come Wednesday, it’s back to the dreaded lecture hall. The material still interests him, but his embarrassment from two days ago has followed him ceaselessly, right back into the hallowed halls of Classical Mythology. He slinks in behind a lively group of girls and reclaims his seat in the back, mercifully open and waiting for him.He’s organizing his pens when he hears the obnoxious voice of Mister Wants to Fuck the Professor, followed closely by the kind-looking girl. Naturally, Asahi’s bright laughter brings up the rear. A wild, unacceptable part of him wants to say hi, but he crushes the urge before it can become a reality. Instead, he steals a glance, and - yeah, even that was pushing his luck.He catches Asahi’s eye, and something sparks in them, a sudden purpose in amethyst. When he noticed his eye color or why he’s assigned them such a poetic descriptor, he doesn’t know. Whatever the case, Asahi is now approaching him with a broad smile.“Hey, Ikuya,” he greets him, not nearly as loud as Ikuya expected. “Good to see you.”Because he’s a coward, he looks back down at his pens. “Hi,” he replies in as quiet a voice as he can muster. Maybe Asahi won’t hear him, and he’ll leave Ikuya to his color coding. Of course, that’s not what happens.“Can I sit here?” Asahi asks, pointing to the open seat next to him.Fuck. What is with this guy? Can’t he tell Ikuya doesn’t want to be seen? He opens his mouth to give him a single ‘okay’ because what else can he say? Only that’s not what ends up coming out.“What about your friends?”“I see them all the time,” Asahi waves them off like someone confident and secure in his friendships, which he obviously is. “I need a change of scenery.”“I - ” he stops short when he sees Asahi’s friend and girlfriend looking at him from down near the front. Frantic panic rises in his chest. “Do whatever you want. I can’t stop you.”Asahi appears to take that as a formal invitation. He flops into the seat beside him and dumps his things out of his bag, setting Ikuya’s teeth on edge in its total chaos. Loose-leaf paper and pens clearly lifted from wherever Asahi happened to find himself without one lie scattered, every last one of them capless. His phone vibrates loudly and endlessly with texts, and his coffee is teetering precariously at the edge of the desk, tempting fate and trying Ikuya’s patience. He’d rather die than interact, but that coffee is going to end up on his shoes if he doesn’t.“Your coffee’s going to spill,” he warns. “Please move it.”“Shit, sorry.” Asahi snatches the paper cup, sending a few drops flying onto his hand. “Fuck, that’s hot. Sorry. Actually, do you want - ” he pulls a slightly crushed but mostly intact glazed donut from his bag and holds it out. “They gave me an extra by accident, and I’m not that hungry. Don’t want it to go to waste.”Ah. That’s more like it. Throw the unwanted shit at Ikuya. Sad thing is, he’s going to accept it. Slowly, like he’s afraid of being bitten, he takes the donut from Asahi’s outstretched hand.“Thank you.”Asahi beams. “Anytime.”For a moment, the donut sits on his desk untouched. Eating around other people feels unnatural to him, but it does look good, and he is kind of hungry. Plus, he forgot to eat this morning - he’ll get a scolding from Hiyori for that later. So he eats it in tiny pieces, careful not to make a mess or disturb his perfectly organized materials.Asahi looks like he wants to engage him further in conversation, which Ikuya has absolutely no energy for. Fortunately, the professor chooses that moment to begin telling them about the Maenads and their ecstatic, frenzied romps, which often left a trail of men torn limb from limb in their wake.“That’s so fucked up,” Asahi whispers. “Next level alcoholism.”Ikuya is seized by the sudden urge to laugh. It’s foreign and uncomfortable, and he quickly stifles it with an iron grip on his pen and a painful bite to the inside of his cheek.“I feel like you already knew that,” Asahi continues. “You didn’t even take any notes.”Right on both counts. He’s getting slightly more comfortable with the new seating plan, so of course, he has to go and embarrass himself.“The Sandman.” Asahi looks at him expectantly, almost excitedly. “It’s a graphic novel series. There are Maenads, and they take Dream’s son - that’s Orpheus - and they - ”He’s cut off by Asahi’s phone vibrating loudly on the desk. His obnoxious friend is waving from down near the front, so it’s obviously from him. Asahi rolls his eyes and flips him off, his attention leaving Ikuya instantly.Right. Some people have friends, and some - most - people don’t want to hear someone like Ikuya rhapsodize about a graphic novel series when they can just watch the TV show. His love of the series doesn’t embarrass him. The Sandman is a seminal, celebrated work. But his awkward, jumbled, out-of-context sales pitch proves he should just keep his mouth shut. For all he knows, they could have been texting about how fucking weird he is and how much Asahi regrets parking himself where he did.After firing off a response, Asahi shoves the phone into his pocket and leans back toward Ikuya. “Sorry,” he whispers, “so it’s a comic book?”“It’s nothing,” Ikuya mutters, turning his attention to his still-blank notebook and jotting down things he already knows about the Cult of Dionysus.“I - okay.” Asahi slouches back in his seat in one of the most offensive displays of manspreading Ikuya has ever seen.The rest of class passes without incident. A few times, he feels Asahi’s eyes on him, but he keeps his own on either the professor or his notebook. As soon as the professor wraps up, he packs his things even faster than usual, desperate to escape before Asahi can say anything else.“Hey, Ikuya!” he calls after him as he hurries out of the lecture hall. “Wait up!”Ikuya doesn’t stop or acknowledge him. He thinks he’s successfully shaken him once he enters the steady stream of people exiting the building, but no dice - an out-of-breath Asahi catches up to him just outside the building before he can disappear to his dorm.“What are you up to right now?” he asks as he falls into step with him. “Are you busy?”“I’m tired.”It’s technically not a lie - he does tire easily. But it’s also only the first class of the day, so the excuse doesn’t hold as much water as he’d like.“That’s cool. I mean - naps are good. I usually just nap in class,” Asahi laughs. Why is he still here? “Do you have any more classes today? What’s your major?”Christ, this guy simply does not stop. What does he want? There are a million students on campus who tutor in a professional capacity, if that’s what this is about. Wanting to work with him instead makes no sense. And Ikuya can’t handle the extra stress - it would be bad for his health. At least, that’s what Hiyori would say.“Film,” he answers anyway, and to his own surprise. “That’s - that’s my major.”“What? That’s so cool!” Asahi exclaims. “I love movies. So you’re going to, like, direct and shit?”This is too much. Ikuya hasn’t had a real conversation outside Hiyori and his family since…he can’t remember when. It frustrates him to no end that it’s giving him a headache and that he can’t form more than one-word answers. Part of him would like to share what he’s passionate about, but like earlier, everything sits on his tongue in a jumble of nonsense he can’t allow past his lips.“I guess,” he says. Finally, his first break of the day arrives in the form of his dormitory, providing true escape. “I have to go now.”“This is your dorm? Sorry, too personal,” Asahi backs off with a sheepish grin. “So…can I sit next to you again on Friday?”Ikuya pauses. The thought sounds like a broken record at this point, but this is all so weird. The way Asahi keeps asking, you’d think Ikuya owned the deed to the seat. That, and he’s making the baffling, active choice to sit thirty rows away from his friend and girlfriend two classes in a row. But it wasn’t the end of the world today, and no one seemed particularly upset, so maybe…?“You don’t have to ask perm - ”“Ikuya!”He flinches at the sound of Hiyori’s voice, and immediately wishes he could take it back. He knows Asahi saw, and knows it’s why he suddenly looks so concerned. Hiyori slides into place beside him and gives Asahi a quick once-over.“You were gone when I came to check on you this morning,” he says, though his eyes are fixed on Asahi. “Did you eat?”Ikuya stares at the ground, hoping it’ll swallow him whole if he does it hard enough. “No,” he answers. “I forgot.”Hiyori sighs. “You always end up buying that dessert trying to pass for coffee when you don’t eat. I’ll have to start going to the cafeteria with you.” Great. Another thing Ikuya’s adding to Hiyori’s already full plate. But he had been thinking about getting a pumpkin spice latte today, so his help is probably necessary.“Sorry,” he repeats for the trillionth time in his life.“Why are you sorry?” Asahi’s voice cuts through the tension. Ikuya had almost forgotten he was there. “I forget to eat breakfast all the time. Why are you talking to him like he’s - ”“I’m sorry, who were you again?” Hiyori asks with a smile that doesn’t come anywhere near his eyes. It hardly comes near his mouth. “Ikuya?”“He’s a classmate,” he answers automatically. “We’re just…we’re just in the same class.”“Hm.” Hiyori doesn’t sound like he believes him for a second. The thing is, Asahi is just a classmate, and yet Ikuya still feels like he’s lying. He feels like a kid about to go inside to get a time-out, and it’s humiliating. “Alright, classmate. We appreciate your input. Ikuya?”That’s his ‘let’s go’ voice. And that’s exactly what Ikuya does - he goes. Before he does, he spares Asahi a glance and instantly wishes he hadn’t. He looks downright alarmed, and why? Ikuya doesn’t know him. But when he sees that expression, he wants to die of embarrassment anyway.He doesn’t look again.Hiyori keeps his word and accompanies Ikuya to the cafeteria the next morning. It’s a quiet affair, apart from Hiyori checking to make sure Ikuya didn’t forget anything for his classes. They part with the silent understanding that Hiyori will be there to meet him after his last class.Then Ikuya gets his little day of escape. In Countercultural Films, they take on the controversial content of an Italian writer and director whose work Ikuya enjoys, and its place in exploring an age of sexual and political upheaval in Europe. Next is Film Writing and Criticism, where they dive into the backlash against critics from a social media-inundated culture that requires all opinions to match their own.Ikuya feels free in these classes. For a few hours, he can convince himself that one day, he’ll put all he’s learning to good use, and that people will care what he has to say about them. He knows his inability to engage in complex conversation outside of these classes will prevent those dreams from becoming a reality, but even so, it feels good for those few hours.The comedown is always brutal. After class, Hiyori is waiting for him, as always. They go to dinner and back to the dorm, where he does his homework and lies on his bed, staring at the ceiling and wishing he could sleep through the night just this once. For someone who sleeps as much as he does, a full night’s rest is infuriatingly out of reach.Tonight is especially difficult. Before that stupid party, Ikuya hadn’t cried in ages. But his meltdown in Asahi’s room appears to have opened some kind of door, because tonight he starts crying almost as soon as he lies down.Once he starts crying, he can’t stop. What is he doing? He’s completely alone, and his debt to Hiyori is piled so high he can’t see the sun from where he’s buried beneath it. He doesn’t really think Hiyori is his friend. He’s not sure he even likes Hiyori, but Hiyori is all he has. So he cries because he’s lonely, he cries because he has no future doing what he loves, and he cries because even if he did, he’d have no one to share it with. There’s a weight on his chest, as though an immovable boulder was sitting on it. He can’t tell if he or Sisyphus have it worse.Sisyphus probably didn’t cry.Ikuya comes so close to skipping class Friday morning. After his tense moment with Asahi, Hiyori would probably let him - and in the end, that’s the deciding factor. In a sudden burst of rebelliousness, he slips out early and grabs breakfast on his own. It’s not what commercials would call a complete breakfast, but it’ll work. In a rare moment of self-indulgence, he allows himself to take the long way to class, breathing in the quintessentially autumnal day of which there are so few before the world is put to rest.As the building comes into view, his stomach starts tying itself into knots. Maybe he should have skipped class. He’s not nearly as brave as he was when he woke up this morning - he could still turn around, he could still -“Hi, um, Ikuya?”Shockingly, it’s not Asahi, but his girlfriend. She’s pretty as ever, dressed in the typical fall getup popular among college girls and wearing a warm smile. She seems like such a nice person.“Me?” God, he’s hopeless. It’s his fucking name, right? Who else would she mean?“Yes, you,” she laughs, not unkindly. “I wanted to introduce myself since, you know. Didn’t get a chance to on Saturday.”“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been in there.”“How could you possibly have known?” she brushes it off. “I’m Gou.”She holds her hand out, and Ikuya startles himself by taking it without hesitation.“Ikuya.” Not terrible, right? Oh, no. Fuck, she already knew that.She’s nice enough not to mention it. “It’s nice to actually meet you.” She starts walking again, and Ikuya follows without thinking. “You looked like you were enjoying the weather. Fall’s the best, right?”“It’s my favorite season,” he blurts out in his excitement to share something he loves with literally anyone.“Mine too. Everything’s so beautiful this time of year, isn’t it?” Ikuya nods silently, secretly thrilled to be in good company. “Asahi mentioned you major in film?”The thrill is extinguished as quickly as it ignites. Why is Asahi talking about him outside of class? Unless that piece of trivia was a lead-up to how humiliating things became seconds after sharing it, he can’t imagine why it would be necessary to tell Gou.“Yeah, I - yes.”“That’s fantastic! I bet you have an amazing imagination.”She really is as lovely as she looks. Ikuya wonders if life would be different if he’d grown up with friends like her. If he would be different. Would he feel so desperately alone all the time? Would he go to bed every night blanketed in despair that nothing would ever change?It doesn’t matter, because he didn’t grow up with friends like her, and he and his life are what they are.“I don’t know,” is all he can come up with in response.They enter the building, at which point he hears the obnoxious friend calling for Gou in his obnoxious voice. No matter how lovely she is, he refuses to be within spitting range of that voice.“Bye.” He does his best to give her a smile, however small.“Oh, wait! Do you - ”But he’s already hurrying into the classroom, leaving her to greet her real friends. It was nice, though, talking to her. Maybe she’ll approach him again, but he wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t.He’s mid-organization ritual when Asahi slides ungracefully into the seat beside him.“Hey, Ikuya!” he greets him with his wide, bright smile. “What’s good?”The shame he felt yesterday comes bubbling up at the sight of him. He does his best to swallow it, but it tastes like bile on its way down.“The guy at the coffee place made me the wrong drink,” Asahi moves on, relieving Ikuya of the need to tell him what’s good. “So now I have a PSL I definitely won’t be drinking. I know it’s kind of basic, but do you want it?”Ikuya wants it. Bad. Sure, it’s just another instance of being a convenient substitute for a trash can, but…he wants it. Several unspoken, unwritten rules have already been broken this morning, so what’s one more? Hiyori doesn’t have to know.“Okay.”Still slightly hesitant, he takes the drink held out to him. By the positively heavenly smell, he’s pretty sure there’s whipped cream in there, which is exactly how he’d order it. As soon as the flavor of autumn hits his tongue, a small smile begging to be set free slips past his defenses. Asahi’s eyes widen, and then he lights up like a Christmas tree.“Thank you. I know it’s basic, but it’s my favorite.”“Noted,” Asahi says in lieu of a ‘you’re welcome,’ and taps his head. “Hey, did you know there’s a TV show of that comic book you like?”Ikuya is speechless - which is saying something since he can barely produce a full sentence on a good day. Did Asahi remember the name, or did it pop up as a suggestion after another show? No - even if it popped up as a suggestion, Asahi recognized it, meaning he did remember. The vicious, ever-present voice that’s anointed itself Ikuya’s protector whispers that he should correct him, that he should tell him it’s a graphic novel. But he doesn’t want to do that. Before he knows it, the jumble of words he holds in all day, every day, is pouring out.“It’s good. It’s great, actually. Dream doesn’t have nearly as much pathos at the start of the novels as he does in the show. It works in the novels, but I love what the writers did with his character. It was supposed to be unadaptable, but they did it. And there’s an audio production - you wouldn’t think a graphic novel would work, but it’s incredible. The show hasn’t covered the best parts yet.”He has to stop and take a breath because he’s run out of air, and he’s run out because he hasn’t spoken that many consecutive words in years. A second later, he realizes Asahi is gaping at him, staring like he has five heads - and that’s when the dam he’d managed to hold together for a few miraculous sentences breaks. A familiar rush of shame courses through him, contorting his body into something desperate to disappear.“Sorry.”His apology shakes Asahi out of his horrified stupor. “What? No!” he protests. “That sounds so - ”Miracles do sometimes occur, and this one comes in the form of the professor announcing the start of class. Today, it’s Hades and Persephone. This is a myth Ikuya struggles with. The implication is Persephone did love Hades and enjoyed her annual six-month tenure as queen of the underworld. She found something to love in the dark amidst the lost, pale imitations of people who once lived under the sun. But is that really true? Or did she do it because she had to? Was it because her only choices were to adapt and learn to live with it or spend months in misery surrounded by souls with no way home?Though he appreciates the change of seasons spurred by her coming and going, he thinks he’d prefer the sun year-round.Asahi keeps glancing sideways at him and the pumpkin spice latte that quickly lost its luster after his word vomit. Even as a throwaway, he hasn’t earned it. This is what happens when he goes off into the world on his own; he gets overwhelmed by the smallest things, puts his foot in his mouth, and ends up filled with regret. His passion is aimless and can only be released in unbecoming bursts - he’d be a nightmare to work with.With ten minutes left, he begins to plot his escape route. Keyword: begins, because seconds later, the professor makes a surprise announcement.“I’ll be giving you a semester-long assignment,” he announces. “You’ll be analyzing and forming a thesis statement on a myth of your choice - and yes, I’ll be checking to make sure it’s not all Hercules. I won’t make you sit through each other’s presentations, or we’ll be here until after you graduate. You’ll be doing video essays instead.”Ikuya is enrolled in a Video Essay course. He enjoys it immensely but never intended to get in front of the camera. He’d rather die. At least he can do it alone in his dorm, and the only person who will ever see it is someone he’ll never cross paths with again after this semester.“This is a partnered assignment, so make sure you choose someone who won’t slack off and leave you with all the work.”Oh fuck. Oh no. Oh absolutely the fuck not. There has to be a way to get an exception. The professor likes him. He’ll talk to him after class and -“Hey, Ikuya.”No way.“Let’s be partners?”Why?“If you’re asking because it’s an easy A - ”“No! I mean, it’d be fun, right? Working together?”“What about your other friends?” Why is he always ditching his girlfriend?“They’ll be fine,” he nods to Gou and the Other Guy, who, for some reason, are waving at them. Gou gives them two thumbs up and hooks their arms together. “She knows how to handle him.”Despite his earlier word salad and subsequent wish to die, he’s itching to say yes. Asahi is looking at him with what can only be described as puppy dog eyes, like he really, genuinely wants to work with him.Hiyori wouldn’t like it. Hiyori would encourage him to ask for an exception. The smile he gave Asahi the other day is so clear in his mind, all cold eyes and bared teeth. Hiyori wouldn’t approve.“Okay. I’ll work with you.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Ikuya begins the weekend with a new contact saved to his phone. There’s also one brand-new text, simply reading Asahi Shiina!!!!!! He’s not sure it merited all the exclamation marks, but maybe that’s just how he texts. Ikuya’s texts are clinical and to the point. His exchanges are never conversations - they’re just a litany of confirmations, sharing of locations, and other concrete, requested information. Perfunctory shit.He hasn’t told Hiyori about the project. Not yet. He’s scared of how he’ll react. Not that he can put a stop to it since he and Asahi have already submitted themselves as partners, but Hiyori will find other ways to chastise him. Doing something away from Hiyori’s watchful eye sends a thrill of defiance through him every time he thinks about it, but it’s always short-lived and followed by guilt for being so ungrateful. Hiyori does everything for him, and here he is, taking pleasure in the idea of flouting his efforts.Saturday morning finds him doing the usual - staring at the ceiling and wondering why he should bother getting up at all. Hiyori usually doesn’t check in on him until later on Saturdays. He knows where Ikuya is and what he’s doing, so he doesn’t need to worry about him trying and failing to exist in the world on his own.Pulling the covers over his head, he burrows back into his cocoon. The blinds are closed, and the lights are off, making it easy to pretend it’s still nighttime. If it’s nighttime, he can sleep for hours. He’s just drifting off when his phone lights up with a text. It’s too early for Hiyori, but -
ikuya! meet up today? for the prjct
He stares at the screen for entirely too long. Asahi in no way projects the image of someone who spends a single second of his weekend on homework. Ikuya figured they’d meet in the library on weeknights outside social hours. He continues to stare at the screen, well past the too-long point. Responding with a yes would mean having to drag himself out of bed and shower, which feels like an insurmountable task. The structure of his class schedule forces him on weekdays, but weekends are forty-eight hours of nothing but the comfort of not existing. Responding with a no, though - he can’t explain it, but ‘no’ feels like robbing himself of something. What that something is, he couldn’t say, but the more he thinks about it, the more he doesn’t want to deprive himself.His fingers tremble pathetically as he types a basic okay and hits send. Asahi’s reply comes within seconds.
NICE
Asahi is so…much. He’s just so much. Despite his muchness, Ikuya makes plans with him, arranging to meet at a coffee shop he’s never been to ten minutes from campus, then drags himself out of bed and does what always feels so impossible: showering and abandoning the sweats he spends every weekend in. Maybe because having plans is so unprecedented, he spends more than five seconds thinking about what to wear. God, he feels like a fucking idiot. It’s homework. They’ll go over things and go their separate ways, and it won’t matter what he wore. And yet - and yet - he still goes for the slightly nicer jeans and his favorite fall sweater.On the walk there, he revels in the freedom of fall weather unencumbered by impending lecture halls or check-ins from Hiyori. The temperature is perfect, the sky a cloudless blue. The withering trees sing their death knell in radiant color, there and gone as briefly as Ikuya will be on this earth. Nothing lasts, including him. And what a comfort that is.Ikuya is used to busy cafeterias or campus coffee spots with lines out the door, so he’s surprised to find himself in front of a small, quaint, mostly empty coffee shop. It’s quiet inside, blessedly so. The place is full of mismatched sofas and armchairs surrounding low wooden tables - it’s a cozy, unintimidating atmosphere he instantly falls in love with.Asahi isn’t here yet. He’s secretly relieved since he’s only just now realizing what he’s signed up for. He hasn’t socialized, not even for academic purposes, in years. Does he even remember how? Unlikely. He can barely do it in a classroom where he’s not required to speak to anyone. Less than twenty-four hours ago, he was blurting out an unasked-for short-form essay about a graphic novel adaptation. He’s a wreck.Oh well. No turning back now.Taking a seat on one of the couches, he starts organizing his course materials on the table. Everything lands just where it ought to until, of course, he gets to the pens. Color-coding is evidently a thing of the past - the second he pulls the first one out, the door bangs open, and an out-of-breath Asahi stumbles in, his shock of red hair tousled and cheeks flushed like he’s been running. A well-adjusted person might wave or call to him, but Ikuya is not a well-adjusted person. Asahi’s eyes scan the place, widening slightly when they land on Ikuya - he probably didn’t think he would show. Ikuya wasn’t sure he would show.“Ikuya!” he exclaims as he rushes over. “Sorry I’m late. The guy I share a bathroom with - you know what, forget it.” He drops down beside him on the couch and gives him one of his big, bright smiles. They hurt Ikuya’s eyes, those smiles. They’re like looking directly into the sun. “Hold on, I’ll try again - hey, Ikuya. Better?”Ikuya knows he’s staring. This whole thing is just so baffling to him. But he’s going to make an effort not to be the worst person in the world today. At least when he fails, he can say he tried.“Better. And I - hi.” Then, on impulse, “This place is nice.”“It’s awesome, right?” Asahi looks around. “It reminded me of you. Okay, give me five. I’ll go get us something. You’re a whipped cream guy, right?”Despite his head spinning like a carnival ride, he manages a slight nod. It’s more than enough for Asahi, who takes off for the counter.This place reminded Asahi of him? How? Why? And he’s buying him coffee? Again, why? Owing anyone anything when he already owes his world to Hiyori is terrifying - he should have just ordered before he got here. His leg jiggles anxiously, and he bites his lip until it hurts. He’s seriously considering making a break for it when Asahi returns with two wide, bowl-like mugs typical of sit-down coffee places.“Hope this is okay.”Ikuya gazes down at his pumpkin spice latte - one of the prettiest he’s ever seen. Cinnamon sugar powders the whipped cream and surface of the drink, and a cinnamon stick leans artfully against the side of the mug. The whole thing is beautiful and smells even better.“Shit, I probably should have asked what you wanted,” Asahi backtracks, “I just assumed, but I shouldn’t have - ”“It’s lovely,” he interrupts - and Ikuya never interrupts. “Thank you,” he says, allowing a small smile.“Uh, I mean, yeah, I - no problem,” Asahi replies. “Man. Okay. So!” He looks down at the materials Ikuya’s spread neatly across the table. “Let’s get this show on the road. What’s all this?”“It’s…I probably didn’t need to bring this much. But, um. There are variations in the way myths are told, and the textbook is pretty elementary. There’s so much, but - you know what, we can just use the textbook.”This is ridiculous. It’s a gen ed class project, not a fucking capstone. Why can’t he ever just chill the fuck out?“No, this is awesome,” Asahi assures him. “I know there’s like, a million Greek myths, and I know you know them all. Actually, I had an idea.”Ikuya doesn’t know where to put flattery, and he’s relieved he doesn’t need to address it. He might also be slightly intrigued by which myth has succeeded in capturing Asahi’s imagination.“Alright.”“So you were talking about the crazy chicks in the comic book - ” maenads, Ikuya assumes “ - and then you started talking about Orpheus before - but anyway, I googled it. Him, I mean. I googled him.”Asahi’s a much better listener than Ikuya would have ever given him credit for. He was sure his ramblings had flown in one ear and out the other, lost in the text exchange with his unbearable friend.“That was the saddest shit I’ve ever read. Like, it kind of made me cry. How could they expect him to not look back? You lose the love of your life - I’d want to know they were there!” The longer he talks, the more animated he becomes. “And it’s not just him that gets hurt when she disappears, right? She’s dragged back down forever, so it’s also a really fucked up thing to do to her. I don’t know, it’s like they were playing with them. It’s messed up.”Ikuya’s shock isn’t only from how impassioned Asahi’s speech is, or how deeply affected he is by the tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice. Those are monumental, yes, but what really gets him, what truly has him floored, is that his interpretation is in lockstep with his own.“Can you imagine?” he finds himself asking. “Knowing what it’s like to live - Eurydice was dragged to the underworld on her wedding day. The focus is on Orpheus as the protagonist, but imagine being her and thinking you’ll get it all back and get to be in the sun again. Think about how that must have felt, being dragged back down into the dark for good, and all because someone loved you too much.”Asahi has his arm on the back of the couch, listening to Ikuya like he’s telling the most extraordinary story ever told. Ikuya is torn between the desperate desire to run from the attention and the equally desperate desire to share something he loves and have someone care for once in his fucking life.“So, uh,” Asahi clears his throat once Ikuya’s finished. “Sounds like we might agree on a few points.”He flashes a huge, excited smile, and Ikuya has no control over his answering one, far more restrained but no less excited.“I guess so,” he agrees, his body relaxing the most infinitesimal bit. With how tightly he’s wound twenty-four-seven, even that much is an unsteadying change. “I thought we’d just choose a myth, but…it sounds like we have our thesis statement too?” he ventures, propelled by a tiny, foreign spark of something he’s too afraid to identify as hope.“I’m all in.” Asahi scoots toward him - it’s not by much, but Ikuya still has to fight with every fiber of his being not to shrink away. “See? I knew we’d make a good team.”Team. Working with someone. Someone wants to work with him. Someone listened to him and wants to work with him. But what if this is as good as it gets? What if this ends in disappointment because Ikuya couldn’t live up to this moment? So far in life, all he’s amounted to is a sinkhole of wasted potential.But that word - team.“I’m all in.”And just like that, they’re a team. They finally drink their untouched coffee, and god is that a fucking great pumpkin spice latte. Better than it looks, if it were possible. Schedules are compared, and they agree to meet up the following Saturday, same time, same place.“You headed back to campus?” Asahi asks as they leave. “We can walk together.”He wants to. He thinks he’d love to, maybe. Ikuya hates that he’s exhausted, hates that he’s going to say no, and wishes the business of living wasn’t a constant uphill battle.“I’m going this way.”He points in the opposite direction of campus, where nothing but solitude awaits him. Maybe one day, he’ll have energy reserves to spend hours on end with someone, or several someones.“Got it.” He’s surprised Asahi doesn’t push or ask where he’s headed. “See you Monday?”“See you then.”“Hey, can I sit next to you on Monday?” Why does he always ask? Why does he -“Yeah. Okay.”During his time at the café, he’d missed three calls and ten texts from Hiyori. The disapproval he’s met with when he returns borders on frightening. Hiyori never raises his voice, and almost always delivers his blows with a smile, but they cut deep.Hiyori doesn’t believe him when he says he went out to get some air, rejecting the notion that Ikuya could simply want to be outside for more time than it takes to get from building to building. Ikuya is too fragile, too easily exhausted to exist outside these four walls without him. The thing is, Ikuya is too easily exhausted, and he’d give anything not to be. He suggests that maybe the two of them go out to get some air one weekend. They could work on improving his fragility together. But Hiyori has other things to do, and needs to know Ikuya will be where he’s supposed to be when he comes to check on his well-being. It’s the least he can do.Ikuya has been trapped in the dark of his own volition for as long as he can remember. Now, as impossible as it seems, he’s beginning to think he might want to try to climb out. But the weight of his debt to Hiyori keeps him down, sealing over any sources of light with cement.So he spends the rest of Saturday and Sunday trapped in the dark, comforters pulled over his head and drifting in and out of fitful sleep that provides no real rest. Crying jags come and go, crashing over him in hopeless waves because he can’t find a foothold out of the dark, and when he does, it disappears as quickly as it appeared.This is as good as it gets for him.Monday morning finds Ikuya desperately trying to extinguish the hopeful spark from Saturday. After his thorough reprimanding this weekend, he’s scared, and knows whatever little flame he might carry with him as a result of this class will be put out swiftly and definitively.Yet try as he might, he can’t put it out. It’s there when he chooses an outfit he likes. It’s there when he steps out before Hiyori can come to chaperone him. It’s there, flickering warm in his chest as he walks to class through the brisk fall morning, making the world’s coda that much more beautiful. But anxiety still floods his gut when he merges into the crowd entering the building and enters the packed lecture hall. Despite the effort put into his clothes, he’s no less hellbent on fading into the background.But the spark’s still there.“Ikuya, hi!”Gou’s voice startles him into almost dropping his bag before he can sit down. He rights himself with very little grace and turns to see Asahi’s girlfriend smiling at him.“Hi, Gou.” It comes out just fine. He’s glad to see her.“How was your weekend?” she asks. Then, without waiting for an answer, “Asahi’s so excited to work with you. He couldn’t stop talking about it.”Ikuya doesn’t know what to do with that information or why it’s being relayed to him. He curls his fingers in the sleeves of his sweater, digging his nails into his palms through the fabric.“I’m sorry,” he tells her, “you two should be partners.”Gou gives him a puzzled look. “Why? Kisumi and I work well together.” Let the record show that Ikuya learned his name against his will. “I’ve had to watch Asahi accidentally glue macaroni necklaces to his body since elementary school. I’ll be fine, trust me.”It’s almost too easy to picture Asahi like that.“You’ve known each other a long time?”“Too long,” she laughs. “Which is why we shouldn’t work together. I’d have to dangle treats in front of him to get him to pay attention.”That sounds more like what he expected when he agreed to work with Asahi. The way Gou speaks of him is fond - Ikuya can imagine Hiyori describing him the same way, impatient and punctuated with a long-suffering sigh. Gou’s sincere, open demeanor puts Ikuya at ease.“If you haven’t already found your seat, now would be the time,” the professor’s voice rings out.Kisumi, whose name he was so much better off not knowing, is beckoning impatiently for Gou to join him. She offers Ikuya one more smile, kind as ever.“Let’s hang out sometime, okay?” is her unexpected farewell before hurrying to her usual seat.Ikuya turns that one over in his mind as he takes his seat. Her suggestion didn’t come across as a pity move. Does she really want to hang out with him? He’s so preoccupied it doesn’t even occur to him that Asahi isn’t there - not until he skids into the classroom and the seat next to him.“Morning, Ikuya!” Asahi whispers as he sets a paper cup in front of him. “Happy Monday.”Ikuya stares at the cup in confusion. Another accident? Or is this…?“Is cider okay? You seem like you love fall, so I thought it was a safe bet.”Cider is okay. Cider is very okay. Ikuya hasn’t had cider in years. To be honest, he’d forgotten it was a fall drink. But why? Saturday was one thing, but there’s no reason for Asahi to do this today. He doesn’t stand to gain anything from it, and Ikuya can’t handle owing another person.“Why?” he asks, eyes still fixed on the drink before him.“Why not? It’s Monday. Mondays suck.”“I don’t think they’re that bad,” he replies, surprised to find he means it. “But thank you. That was nice of you.”“Dessert for breakfast makes you live longer,” Asahi declares, still in a whisper. “It’s science.”Ikuya’s lips twitch. Before he can respond, he realizes with a start that class is well underway, and he hasn’t even taken out his notebook - never mind the pens. Shocked at having lost track of time so easily, he scrambles to pull them out of his bag as discreetly as possible. Asahi follows suit and makes no such effort to keep quiet, which really shouldn’t faze Ikuya at this point.Today, they’re covering Hephaestus and Aphrodite. The son of Zeus trapped his mother, and in exchange for her freedom, he was given Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty. Because Aphrodite understandably didn’t return his affections, he forged a girdle for her to wear that made her even more desirable to others as a form of punishment. She eventually had an affair with Ares, the god of war, and when they were discovered, Hephaestus brought them to Olympus to shame them. But he failed to consider that the other gods and goddesses, self-possessed as they were, wouldn’t give a shit. Not to mention Aphrodite was pregnant with Ares’ child, which carried far more weight than an affair. And what resident of Olympus wasn’t constantly engaged in an affair themselves? So they were set free, leaving Hephaestus vengeful and alone.Ikuya almost feels guilty for enjoying this one as much as he does. He has a visceral hatred for Hephaestus, and doesn’t blame Aphrodite for doing what she did. The myth claims he traded his mother for Aphrodite because he loved her, but Ikuya doesn’t believe that. For him, it was about ownership. Power. He had the most beautiful woman in the world, and no one else could have her because she was his. And in the end, his claim meant nothing. Ikuya’s relief for her is uncomfortably strong.As the professor moves on to analysis, Ikuya looks surreptitiously at Asahi. The only thing written in his notes are the words ‘this guy fucking sucks’ underlined not once but twice. Ikuya has to forcibly swallow the laugh that threatens to escape at the sight. Asahi’s lack of actual notes will prove problematic come exam time, but he’s listening - like, really listening, and incredibly invested. His reactions are the same as if these stories were playing out in real life and not in the pages of morality plays - immorality, in the case of Greek gods. He’s similar to Ikuya in that way, except Ikuya’s reactions never leave the confines of his mind.Though after this past Saturday, the ‘never’ no longer applies, does it?The class has him so preoccupied he doesn’t notice he’s finished his cider until the professor concludes his lecture and sends them on their way. He packs and leaves quietly but isn’t surprised when Asahi catches up to him. This is Ikuya’s new normal, whether he likes it or not - and he’s not sure he dislikes it.“So, Mister Kirishima,” he addresses him formally, “as a fall guy, what’s your favorite fall activity?”Apple picking, haunted houses, all the things one associates with fall - he hasn’t done any of them since he was little. There is one thing he still does, but it’s not something he’s comfortable sharing.“I don’t know,” he confesses. “I haven’t - ”“Ikuya!”Fuck him sideways. Hiyori is directly outside the door to the building, phone in hand and a ‘you’re in trouble’ smile plastered on his face. Ikuya wilts when he sees him, hating how his shoulders immediately curl into an apologetic hunch.“You were gone again this morning,” Hiyori scolds him as a greeting. “I’ll have to start coming earlier.” He eyes the empty cup Ikuya hasn’t had a chance to toss yet. “See? I told you.”“Sorry,” he responds on autopilot.Hiyori turns narrowed eyes on Asahi. “Good morning, classmate.”“Good morning, whoever you are,” Asahi retorts in an uncharacteristic display of aggression. “Everyone standing here is an adult, you know that, right?”“Debatable,” Hiyori counters, eyeing Asahi from his bright red hair to his bright green sneakers. “Ikuya, let’s go.”He wills his body to stay right where it is, but it’s too conditioned by the sound of Hiyori’s voice. His shoes are the perfect place to direct his shame as he mumbles a goodbye to Asahi and follows Hiyori as far from his nice morning as it’s possible to get.Once he’s back in his room, with Hiyori’s promise to pick him up before his next class, he curls up on his bed for the nap he’s ashamed to need. Then the unexpected happens in the form of his phone vibrating with a text - a text that’s not from Hiyori.
tell me one fall thing u think sounds fun
Though he’s well aware how completely basic his response is, he sends it anyway.
apple picking
Asahi’s response is instant.
noted :)
There’s nothing else. No, actually - there is something. The spark smothered by Hiyori’s appearance after class reignites, starting in his chest and radiating outward. This time, he thinks he’ll do his best to protect it.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Two years after they met, Ikuya and Hiyori started dating.It made sense at the time. They were best friends, spent all their time together, had no end of shared interests, and, perhaps most prevalent, they were hormonal teenagers. When Hiyori brought it up, Ikuya saw no reason to say no. The whole thing was like a friendship upgrade. What wasn’t there to like?A lot, as it turned out.From Ikuya’s perspective, the relationship went sour after about six months. Spending all his time with one person was restrictive in a way it hadn’t been when they were just friends. Or maybe it had, and Ikuya simply wasn’t mature enough to see it. His interests and hopes for the future were changing and didn’t align with Hiyori’s anymore. Had they never started dating, they likely would have drifted apart. The less intellectually and emotionally connected Ikuya felt, the more their initial physical attraction faded. The relationship wasn’t working and needed to end, but Ikuya’s increasing disinterest came with a heavy sense of guilt and responsibility. Hiyori was almost frighteningly invested. The thought of hurting him was enough for Ikuya to prolong the relationship far past its expiration date.When Ikuya finally ended things, Hiyori took it disturbingly well. He responded to Ikuya’s desire to remain friends with enthusiasm, telling him he’d be there for him no matter what. That meant a great deal to Ikuya since by that point, he had no one else to call a friend. If it weren’t for Hiyori’s friendship, he’d have been completely alone. Not only did Hiyori stay friends with him, he went above and beyond, dutifully looking after Ikuya and his well-being.By the time Ikuya realized his mistake, it was too late. He’d wanted a real friend, the kind you go with to movies and concerts, the kind you stay up late and talk about nothing with. Instead, he’d allowed Hiyori to become a caretaker with whom he had nothing in common. Relying on him for years had rendered him unable to navigate the world alone, and despite having someone with him constantly, he’d never felt more lonely.But Hiyori stayed. Ikuya let him down, broke his heart, and he still stuck around. Ikuya owes him for that. The question is - does he owe him his life?Because it sure feels like he’s paying with it.Tuesday is all about horror. Ikuya’s Cinema of Horror course covers practical FX, the Giallo movement, the historical mistreatment of women on horror sets, and the interplay of comedy and horror. Ikuya is fascinated by horror. Unconstrained by an industry that looks down on them and refuses to take them seriously, creators are free to do just that: create. He thinks he’d like to try his hand at it if he were brave enough. All that freedom sounds nice.Next up is a course that directly applies to the unusual position Ikuya’s found himself in. His Videographic Essay course dives into YouTube and social media culture and how audiences’ ability to consume the written word is diminishing at an alarming rate. But it’s not all negative. Any method of reaching the audience in a way that might make them think is vital in today’s landscape. Ikuya wonders how he and Asahi can best get their point across. His little spark grows when he realizes he’s not only excited about their thesis, but using his unique skill set to make their video essay pop.Hiyori’s description of his day on their walk back to the dorm fades to static. Ikuya’s imagination is too busy running wild to listen - he has so many ideas, and he might actually see them become a reality. Even if it’s only for a gen ed project, it’s a hell of a lot more than his status quo of nothing.It’s something.When he wakes up Wednesday morning, he can’t do it. Any of it. His body is weighed down so heavily there’s simply no getting out of bed. Showering and getting dressed is out of the question, never mind pursuing higher education, so he cocoons himself in his covers and excuses himself from the burden of going to class.Hiyori doesn’t give him a hard time about it. He rarely does when Ikuya gets like this. It’s one of the few things Ikuya appreciates about him - he just tells him to stay in bed as long as he needs, and that he’ll be by later with food Ikuya won’t touch.Normally Ikuya would go back to sleep, but this morning is different. Why can’t he shake this - this thing that disrupts his life to the point where he’s unable to live it? Missing class is frustrating. Feeling like there’s a wall between him and the rest of the world is frustrating. Everything is frustrating.Only as he lays here with limbs that won’t even carry him to the shower does he realize how much he’s come to look forward to his stupid humanities gen ed. When it hits him, he cries because he doesn’t want to feel like this anymore and doesn’t know how to make it stop, and keeps crying because crying begets more crying begets even more crying. There’s nothing cathartic about it.Sleep takes him before long, and he doesn’t wake up until three. When he does, he has two texts, neither from Hiyori.u running late? Asahi’s first text reads. His second is a more concerned u okay?You’d think Ikuya had died. Yes, he’s beyond frustrated about missing class, but his absence shouldn’t be cause for concern. Still, it’s a nice, foreign feeling, having someone who isn’t Hiyori care if he’s still breathing, wondering why he’s not out there in the world. The little spark in the darkness flickers dimly, something warm in the sludge keeping him from moving.But even with something to keep him warm, he’s still mired in the sludge and weighed down by his boulder.He doesn’t text back.Things are more manageable on Thursday, and by Friday, Ikuya feels like himself again. While he’s still anxious on his way to class, it stems from not returning Asahi’s texts, not class itself. The longer he went without responding, the harder it became. Why? Why couldn’t he have just said he was fine and gone back to sleep? He’s overthinking this. It’s not like he even needs to acknowledge it. For once, reaching the lecture hall is a relief - he has no choice but to put his chronic overanalyzing on hold.Astonishingly, Asahi’s already there, sitting next to what he’s decided is Ikuya’s desk and texting whoever the fuck. He’d hazard Gou or Kisumi, but the guy gets so many texts that for all he knows, it could be the dean. The flesh-and-blood Gou and Kisumi are in their regular seats near the front, saving him from having to deal with more than one person at any given time. Asahi pops up as soon as he spies Ikuya, conflicting expressions of excitement and concern flickering across his face.“Ikuya!” he exclaims. “How are you feeling?” He presses a cup into his hand. “Pumpkin chai.”Ikuya looks from the coffee to Asahi, unsure if he should address his well-being or the beverage first.“I’m fine. Sorry I didn’t text back.” The apology leaves him unbidden. Minutes ago, he was excusing himself from acknowledging it at all. For one fantastic moment, he considers sharing why he was absent. “I was just feeling under the weather.” The moment passes. “Thanks for the coffee.”Asahi looks at him strangely, almost identical to how he looked at him during their humiliating first encounter. Ikuya neither understands nor likes it, so he sits down and begins organizing his things to distract himself. Asahi seems to pick up on his discomfort and quickly moves on.“That sucks,” he says. There’s a note of apology in his voice, one Ikuya is surprised he’s even able to catch. “Y’know, if you like, feel shitty again, you can text me. Not that I want to bother you when you’re sick!” he clarifies, waving his hands dramatically in front of him. “I could bring you DayQuil. Or NyQuil. Or Gatorade. Or all of the above. Should I stop talking now?”He’s so…he’s just so. A quiet laugh bubbles up in Ikuya’s throat and spills from his mouth before he can push it back down. It hangs in the air between them where he can’t take it back, a piece of himself for Asahi to keep or throw away.“No way,” Asahi breathes, lighting up with unrestrained delight. “Did I just get the Mister Kirishima to laugh? This is going right in my diary.” He pretends to scribble on one of his hundred-some-odd sheets of loose-leaf paper. “Dear diary, today I was so stupid, even Ikuya laughed at me.”Ikuya hides his too-wide smile in his coffee. He doesn’t know what to do with this, but the urge to run isn't as ferocious as usual. The part of him that values his little spark won’t let him run.Their exchange ends with the professor’s introduction to today’s topic. Today’s myth is one of Ikuya’s least favorites. The tragedy of Apollo and Hyacinthus is one he conveniently overlooks when he goes on mythology-reading sprees. The Spartan prince, Hyacinthus, Apollo, the sun god, fell in love, and a passionate romance blossomed between them. Then there was the god of the north wind, Zephyr, who wanted Hyacinthus for himself. But instead of trying to win him, Zephyr destroyed him - if he couldn’t have him, no one could. One day, when Apollo was throwing disks, Zephyr made a gust of wind carry one of them away. The heavy object hit Hyacinthus in the head, killing him instantly. In his grief, Apollo created the Hyacinth, which bloomed in the soil soaked with Hyacinthus’ blood.Distress twists low in Ikuya’s stomach. Something about this specific myth makes him feel trapped. He wants to run from it. He wants to return to pretending it doesn’t exist and doesn’t appreciate being forced to confront it. What is it about this particular myth that affects him so strongly? There are hundreds of tragic myths. His feelings toward Orpheus and Eurydice are equally strong but don’t make him feel sick.“You good?” Asahi’s whisper brings him back to the present. He blinks, taking in the classroom he’d nearly forgotten was there.“Yeah,” he whispers back, unconvincing even to himself. “I’m good.”Class ending is a relief. This time, though, he doesn’t make a mad dash out of the lecture hall. He packs his bag and hesitates, and for what? To see if Asahi will walk right into another humiliating Hiyori confrontation with him? Maybe that is what he wants - to feel normal for thirty seconds before disappearing. Once he notices, Asahi quickly dumps his things into his bag and jumps to his feet.“After you,” he says with a little bow. God, he’s weird. “You headed back for your world-famous nap?”Ikuya rolls his eyes. “Yes. I get tired. Everything - I just get tired.”“Yeah, totally. Sorry, it’s not my business,” Asahi backs off, and Ikuya hates it.“It’s fine,” he sighs. “Don’t worry about it.”As usual, and still very much to Ikuya’s confusion, Asahi doesn’t bother waiting for Gou and Kisumi. He follows Ikuya into another pristine autumn day - and Hiyori is nowhere in sight. Ikuya catches Asahi scanning the perimeter as well, and fuck, seriously? How embarrassing that he’s seen enough to feel like he needs to do that. Asahi doesn’t comment on it, but shame settles cold and familiar on Ikuya’s shoulders anyway.“You like scary movies?” Asahi asks out of the blue as they head home. “That counts as a fall thing, right?”“I do,” he admits. “I actually - I really like them.”Asahi brightens. “Me too! Man, when there’s a ghost in the background or some other scary shit? I’m hiding under the couch. I watched those movies with Kisumi. You know the ones - ” he does a terrible, incredibly unspecific impression of someone using a generic instrument of death “ - the guy with the chainsaw arm?”“Evil Dead?” Ikuya supplies, succeeding in holding back a laugh this time. “Army of Darkness?”“Yes!” Asahi cries. “Those ones! So cool. We should totally bring ‘groovy’ back, right?”“No time like the present.”“We do movie nights,” Asahi tells him. “Me and Kisumi and Gou. You should come sometime.”Ikuya bites his lip. Socializing. The thought alone exhausts him, but he wants to. He really wants to. He’d rather Kisumi not be there, but beggars can’t be choosers.“Yeah. Maybe.” It’s the best he can do.“Sweet!” Asahi’s enthusiasm is remarkably intense for a ‘maybe.’By now they’ve reached Ikuya’s dorm. Ikuya can’t believe Hiyori never showed up. Apart from last Saturday, it’s the first time their conversation has gone uninterrupted since they met. It was nice, and he regrets leaving it here, even though he’ll be seeing Asahi less than twenty-four hours from now.“This is me,” he says as they stop outside the building. “I’ll, um. See you. Tomorrow.” Amazing farewell. Total knockout.“Can’t wait,” Asahi replies with one of his killer grins. “I won’t be late this time. Promise. No, wait, I’ll be early,” he pledges, accepting a challenge Ikuya hasn’t issued. “Take care, Ikuya.”“Take care,” he echoes, offering a small wave as they part ways and Asahi heads back the way they came.Hiyori’s absence is explained in a phone call upon Ikuya’s return to his room. There’s a wedding out of town he’s been roped into by his family. It’s bound to be a chic, expensive affair. The Toonos and all their extended family are…snobs. They’re snobs. Ikuya will only ever admit that to himself in the privacy of his Hiyori-less room - but a family that dedicates an entire week in the South of France to a marriage likely to end in yet another divorce? Hard to classify them any other way.But their snobbishness is giving Ikuya a whole week to himself. One whole week to pretend he’s debt-free and maybe - just maybe - find a foothold that will stick. It’s ambitious and overly optimistic, especially for him. He can barely make it through the day without spending at least three hours in the fetal position. Still, he doesn’t want to waste this chance. So he’ll take his naps - and the rest of the day, he’ll do his damnedest not to squander it.Autumn is yet to let him down this year. Saturday dawns clear and sunny. The air is brisk but not cold, still clinging to the distant remnants of summer. Ikuya had surrendered to his exhaustion at seven the night before, and by the time its morning counterpart rolls around, he’s wide awake. It’s unheard of for him - he’s gone to bed at equally pitiful hours on a million Friday nights, and it’s never stopped him from sleeping straight through Saturday.In another wildly out-of-character move, he makes his bed, brushes his teeth, and showers, all before eight-thirty. How long this unexpected burst of energy will last, he has no idea. But it’s the weekend - he has all tomorrow to recover, so why not take advantage of the rare, likely brief reprieve from himself he’s been given? Like last weekend, he spends nearly two minutes picking out something to wear. There’s something to be said for not throwing on the first hoodie his fumbling, sleep-heavy hands can grab.Now he has a full three hours to kill before meeting up with Asahi. For perhaps the first time since he started college, the thought of spending all that time in his room on a day tailor-made for him is unacceptable. He should go out. He should go somewhere. He should - he wants. There is that one fall activity he enjoys - the one he’d never share or do with anyone else. So he does a quick Google search to see if said activity is available to him near campus, and hello, there it is. Twenty minutes on foot and in the same direction as the café? He can do that. He just barely remembers to grab breakfast, and then he’s on his way. The walk is beautiful. His breaths are deep, expelling the stale, sterilized air of a life lived indoors and replacing it with something living.By the time he reaches his destination, he feels part of the world of the living - ironic, since he’s now standing at the entrance to a graveyard. The old iron gates are flung open, a meeting place for the present and the end. Ikuya crosses into the end and leaves the present behind with ease. As soon as his foot hits the other side, the sounds of the world outside go silent. The silence is a weight off his shoulders. He smiles effortlessly at nothing and no one, a secret between him and those long gone.This cemetery is old. Crumbling, moss-covered headstones show dates as far back as the seventeen hundreds. Ikuya strolls down paths lined with memory, content to be among the long gone for a while. This is something he only does in autumn. The world is on its way out, and in some ways, autumn is the singular point where the dead have something in common with the world they've left behind. Sometimes, he worries what others would think if they knew this was something he loves. Yes, he’s spending his morning with the dead, but he’s alive here in the sun, and when he leaves to rejoin the living, he’ll do so without looking back.And that’s what he does. Two hours later, his solo fall adventure comes to an end, and he leaves feeling more rested than he does after a full day curled up in bed with the blinds down. Maybe he should come back if he can plan it so Hiyori won’t notice he’s gone.The closer he gets to the café, the more anxious he becomes. No matter how much he’s looking forward to it, extended one-on-one time with someone who isn’t Hiyori is a significant adjustment. As promised, Asahi is already there when Ikuya arrives, monopolizing the same couch and table as last time. He looks up the second Ikuya opens the door and breaks into a huge smile.“Ikuya!” he calls, motioning for Ikuya to join him with an exaggerated wave. Actually, no - there’s nothing exaggerated about Asahi. That’s just who he is. “Hi!”“Hi,” Ikuya greets him in an indoor voice as he joins him on the couch. “How are you?”“Well now I’m doing great. I got you the same thing as last time. I hope that’s cool.” He gestures to the pumpkin spice latte Ikuya hadn’t noticed was there. This time, it’s accompanied by a cookie. “Oh, and that - you were out on Wednesday, so - ”“You don’t have to do that,” Ikuya interrupts. He’s screaming at himself to shut the fuck up, but his mouth is operating on deeply entrenched, suddenly-triggered distrust. “I mean, why? What do you get out of it?”Confusion floods Asahi’s warm features. There it is - this is where Ikuya fucks it up. He didn’t even make it one week.“I want to, that’s why,” he answers, as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You like them, that’s why.” Then he smiles, throwing Ikuya all over again. “But I probably should have asked. So…can I keep doing it?” he pleads, not unlike a kid asking for another bedtime story.Ikuya sits there quietly, trying to wrap his mind around Asahi wanting nothing in return. Did he really just ask for permission to keep doing something kind? The way he phrased the question implied he would back off without protest if Ikuya said no. The choice is entirely Ikuya’s, and that’s ultimately the deciding factor.“Yes,” he says. Then, because he’d like to meet Asahi where he is, “I’d like that. Thank you.”Asahi’s face explodes in a big, joyful smile - all because Ikuya allowed him to buy him coffee. “Nice!” he practically cheers. “Okay, awesome. Sweet.”Ikuya ducks his head and begins organizing his things on the table. No way does he do it to hide a smile. Not a chance.“So,” he moves on, searching for solid ground to stand on, “I thought we could start at the beginning. Obviously. The myth emphasizes love at first sight, right? A lot of myths do, but this one always felt more real to me, I guess. Maybe because it isn’t this instant, dramatic love affair. It’s quiet.”Asahi regards him thoughtfully. “You think maybe he toned it down for her? I think he would have been singing about it rock concert style if he didn’t think it’d scare her off. Like he was playing the long game because she was worth it.”“I hadn’t thought about it that way. But it makes sense. Maybe that’s why it feels more real.”“And more tragic,” Asahi adds. “You get a real love story. What about you? Do you believe in love at first sight?”If it weren’t in the context of their work, Ikuya would balk at the personal nature of the question.“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” he answers honestly, only able to because it’s in service of the discussion. “Being drawn to someone, maybe.” The one thing he won’t divulge is he wouldn’t know what love looks or feels like, period. “It’s hard to imagine. What about you?”“One hundred percent,” Asahi declares confidently and without hesitation. “No doubt.”He sounds so sure. Ikuya wonders if it’s because he’s experienced it himself. But according to Gou, they’ve known each other since they were kids, so his beliefs and his own love story contradict each other. Strange.“Different perspectives are good in an assignment like this,” he says, returning to the discussion at hand. “As far as Aristaeus goes - ”“He wants to own her,” Asahi cuts in. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off.” Ikuya shakes his head and waits for him to continue. “He wants to own her so bad it literally kills her. And he doesn’t love her, obviously. The second she dies, he’s out of there. It’s about power for him.”“Exactly,” Ikuya agrees wholeheartedly. “I also wonder if he was happy she died. If he can’t have her, then she’s worthless to him. She deserves to be trapped for eternity in a place she can never come back from.” That’s all he intends to say, but then a question he wasn’t expecting to ask spills out. “Do you think Aristaeus hates Orpheus not only because he has Eurydice, but because he didn’t have to trap her? Orpheus worked for it, sure, but she wouldn’t have fallen in love with him if he wasn’t…him. Does that make sense?”“It does,” Asahi replies. “It really, really does.”One discussion, cookie, and pumpkin spice latte later, they deem their work done for the day. Ikuya’s less tired than he expected. He’s still unable to bring himself to walk back to campus with Asahi, which frustrates him even more than it did last week. Disappointed, he heads in the opposite direction, only making it about ten feet before he hears Asahi calling his name.“Ikuya!” Asahi approaches him carefully, an abrupt change from how comfortable he’d been only minutes ago. “Uh, so you know how I told you we have movie nights sometimes?” Ikuya doesn’t respond. His stomach is suddenly churning with anxiety over what he knows Asahi is about to ask him. “We’re actually doing one tonight. Would you maybe want to come? No pressure. I know it’s super last minute.”Ikuya’s fear and the sudden appeal of blanket cocoons in darkened rooms are telling him in no uncertain terms that Asahi’s invitation is not an option. He has to say no. He can’t handle this. There’s no way.“What time?” he asks instead.“Seven? Is that too early?”He has to say no. This doesn’t end well for him.“Okay. I’ll come.”“Seriously?” Asahi double-checks in a mix of eagerness and poorly concealed shock. “I mean, great. Cool. Do you remember where the house is, or…?”Right. The dreaded frat house. Asahi is in a frat. Considering how they met, he’s surprised he’d forgotten.“I’ll need the address,” he tells him. “I kind of tried to block that whole night out.”Asahi’s smile falters for a split second at what Ikuya assumes is the memory of finding a stranger crying in his room while he was trying to get it on.“I’ll text it to you,” he says, recovering admirably. “Gou’s going to be stoked, too. I guess I’ll see you later then?”“Yeah. I’ll see you later.”Then they part ways, for real this time. As he walks in the opposite direction of campus, Ikuya has only one question for himself, one that covers all manner of sins.Why?

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Something came up

I’m tired

I’m not feeling well

I have homew
“Fuck.”Ikuya has spent the last thirty minutes composing and deleting excuses for backing out of Asahi’s movie night.By the time he got back to his room, he’d been dead tired. An entire morning and a good chunk of the afternoon spent in places he loves with people he likes more than he should shouldn’t sap him of energy the way it does. The three-hour nap he’d taken upon his return made him so angry. Now the same fatigue is whispering to him to cancel his first real social plans in years.No. Even if he has to drag himself there, even if he has to leave early, he’s going. His inability to beg out has to be a sign, right? He’s supposed to go. He will go. Washing off the vestiges of sleep in his second shower of the day is re-energizing, though it doesn’t wholly dispel the desire to cut and run, which has him waiting until the last minute to call an Uber. It arrives at five minutes to seven, and the frat house is fifteen minutes away. So he’ll be a little late - so what? He made it out of the building, opened the car door, got in, and closed the car door, all without sprinting back inside and diving into bed. That’s no small feat.When he arrives he lingers outside, trying to reconcile his pathetic exit from two weeks ago with tonight’s uncomfortable but fought-for arrival. His finger hovers over the doorbell for way too long until he finally just squeezes his eyes shut and punches it. While he waits, his worst self makes a last-ditch effort to convince him to leave, but it’s too late - someone’s opening the door, and that someone is not Asahi or Gou. It’s - “Ikuya!”He should have stayed home.“I can’t believe you came!” his welcome party cries, breaking the decibel scale and Ikuya’s eardrums. “Wait, wait, we haven’t really met - ” and that is very much by design “ - I’m Kisumi.”He grabs Ikuya’s hand and shakes it, all without Ikuya’s participation.“Hi,” he allows, and nothing more.“Come in!” Kisumi retreats into the house and beckons for Ikuya to follow, utterly oblivious to Ikuya’s lack of enthusiasm for his existence. But he follows him anyway - this is simply the price he has to pay for friends.“Gou’s running behind, so it’s just the three of us until she gets here,” Kisumi explains as he leads him through the house. Hooray. “I, for one, have been dying to meet you. You’re famous around - ”“And that’s enough from you,” comes a familiar voice from the door of what looks like a living room. Ikuya nearly collapses in relief when he sees Asahi. The glare he’s aiming at Kisumi transforms into a smile as soon as he lays eyes on Ikuya. “Hey! Glad you made it. Sorry about him. Impulse control isn’t his thing.”This is a lot. Like, a lot, a lot. But he’s happy to see Asahi, and being happy to see anyone is a new and nice feeling.“Hi. Thanks for having me.”“Thanks for coming,” Asahi replies, all warm, welcoming energy. “We got the TV room, so there won’t be random dudes walking in and out all night.”And isn’t that music to Ikuya’s ears. Settling on the couch in front of a sizable TV, he folds his hands in his lap while Asahi stays outside to chew Kisumi out for something Ikuya can’t hear. While he sits there waiting awkwardly for it to end, he becomes acutely aware of every part of his body and how he has no idea what to do with it. Why? Why can’t he just sit like a normal terrestrial being?Asahi joins him on the couch and guides him back into the moment before he can fall too deep into self-loathing.“He’s a lot, I know,” he commiserates, nodding at Kisumi. “But he’s a good guy. For what it’s worth, I told him about forty times to let me answer the door.”“No, it’s okay.” It’s traumatic. “I’m sorry I was late.”“You’re early, actually. Gou’s just getting in an Uber now. But whatever,” he waves it off. “You ready for a scary movie? I picked one out. You can tell me how shitty my taste is in a second.”Ikuya is so fucking relieved they didn’t ask him to pick. Yes, he knows a good deal more than them about horror, but that doesn’t mean he’d pick a crowd-pleaser. Seconds later, Asahi proves he didn’t need Ikuya’s input anyway - he fires up the TV and brings up a movie Ikuya would have suggested himself if he could handle the pressure. Why he’s so surprised, he doesn’t know. Time and again, Asahi has shown himself to have good instincts.“I like this one,” he says with an impressed smile. “It’s good found footage. They do a lot with a really low budget. Nice pick.”“For real? Fuck yeah!” Asahi pumps his fist in the air. “The Ikuya seal of approval, doesn’t get any better than that.”Ikuya feels himself relaxing. This is okay. Kisumi makes him want to drink bleach, but that’s not who he’s here for. If he keeps himself focused on this - and possibly Gou - he thinks he might have a nice time tonight.As though his thoughts had summoned her, Gou appears seconds later. Her smile is radiant, like she’s on cloud nine without a return flight.“Finally,” Asahi and Kisumi deadpan in unison.“Leave me alone!” she complains. “You know I was - Ikuya!” She rushes over and takes a seat on his other side. “I’m so glad you made it! And that Kisumi didn’t scare you off,” she adds, tossing a judgmental look Kisumi’s way. “Sorry I’m late. I was - ”“Oh, so he gets an apology?” Asahi scowls. “What did I ever do to you?”“Exist,” she answers dismissively. “How you work with him, Ikuya, I’ll never understand.”There’s so much happening all at once. It hits him that he’s basically a stranger in a long-established group of friends. He was aware of it from an objective standpoint, but as he sits here while comfortable, clearly well-worn banter flies around the room, he finds himself longing to be a part of it and with no idea how.“This is boring,” Kisumi whines. “Gou, I want to hear about your date.”Ikuya does an inner quadruple take. Her what?“I’m going to marry her,” Gou sighs. “We’re going to run off to Paris and go to all the Olympic weight-lifting events.”“You found the one woman who loves muscles as much as you,” Asahi says. “You’re right, you need to lock that down.”Is anyone seeing the giant neon question mark above Ikuya’s head? Anyone? That he’s missing a pretty major puzzle piece shouldn’t come as a surprise - social acuity has never been his strong suit.“I don’t understand,” he blurts out before he can stop himself.The room goes silent. Of course it does. It was only a matter of time. All things considered, he had a good run. Now he can pack up and sleep for the next twenty-four hours. Hell, with no check-ins to worry about, maybe he’ll sleep for the next week.“What do you mean?” Gou asks, because why not prolong this?“I just thought…” he trails off, looking between Gou and Asahi. “No, never mind, I was just - ” he curls in on him himself “ - sorry.”Somehow, some-fucking-how, Kisumi - who wasn’t even there - is the only one who understands what he’s getting at.“Oh, that? Ew, no,” Kisumi grimaces. “They just get bored and fuck at parties when they’re both single.”Gou gasps, eyes wide and memory apparently jogged. “Oh my god, no.” She puts her hands on Ikuya’s knee and looks him dead in the eye. “No, no, no, no. But of course you’d think that, why wouldn’t you?”Ikuya is doing his best to reframe key pieces of the last few weeks, but the speed at which he’s being asked to do so is overwhelming.“I would rather die,” Gou continues. “And he would die. I’d kill him in the first three minutes.”“She really would,” Kisumi pipes in. “I would, too, actually.”“Oh,” is the best Ikuya has to offer. “I didn’t know.”“And now you do! And you’re invited to my wedding,” Gou promises. “I’m glad you asked. Asahi, can you imagine if he just kept thinking we were dating?” She looks pointedly at her…friend. Her friend.Ikuya’s gaze slides over to Asahi, and what he finds is - well, he has no clue what to make of it. Asahi’s eyes are glued to the floor, his leg is bouncing with restless energy, and he’s drumming his fingers on the back of the couch.“Earth to Asahi,” Kisumi singsongs, waving his hands in front of his face. “You in there?”“Oh, fuck, uh - yeah,” Asahi stammers, looking back up like he’s coming out of hypnosis. “No, yeah, that would be extremely not awesome. That would totally suck. I feel like I told - anyway.” He pushes himself off the couch. “I left all the snacks in the kitchen.” He smiles at Ikuya, a little subdued but no less kind. “Be right back.”“I’ll help!” Gou jumps up and follows him out of the room, and then it’s Ikuya and Kisumi. In a room. Alone. Together.“Ikuya, I think we should come up with a nickname for your fans,” Kisumi announces after a brief silence, apropos of nothing. “Like Swifties.”The fuck is he on about? This is bait, and he’s not going to bite. No way. Not him.“Care to be less cryptic?”Okay, so he bit. No way it’ll happen again.“Let’s say you were famous,” Kisumi rephrases, “in certain circles. Hypothetically. What would your crazy Twitter fans call themselves?”He’s even more irritating than Ikuya anticipated.…and Ikuya’s going to bite again.“They’d call themselves idiots,” he shoots back, “because that’s what I’d tell them they are.”“So mean,” Kisumi pouts. He bounces back from his tragedy less than a second later, his bullshit pout turning into an exuberant, overly bright smile. “Want to know what I’d call mine?”“Do I have a choice?”“I’d call them Kiss Me’s!” Apparently, Ikuya didn’t have a choice. “Perfect, right?”“Sure.”“I still think you should give your fans a nicer name,” Kisumi tells him. “What if you have some right here on campus?”He might not make it until Asahi and Gou come back. This is depleting his energy reserves and brain cells at an alarming speed.“Then they should seek help. I’m the least likable person on earth.”The second the words leave his mouth, he freezes up. That’s a motto meant for him alone, to repeat to himself over and over again, twenty-four hours a day. In the twenty minutes he’s known him personally, Kisumi has revealed himself to be someone comfortable airing people’s dirty laundry. He’s the last person who needs to know what goes on in Ikuya’s mind.“Tell that to the people in the kitchen,” Kisumi argues unexpectedly. “I think they’d beg to differ.”He’s going to tell them, isn’t he?“Please don’t tell them I said that,” he begs, knowing his plea will fall on deaf ears. “I’m already - ”“I’m annoying, but I’m not an asshole,” Kisumi interjects. “Of course I won’t tell them. But I hope you won’t always feel that way about yourself.”Ikuya is suddenly so, so tired. He slumps down on the couch, closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath.“Thanks. I guess you’re not an asshole. But you’re definitely annoying.”Kisumi lets out a surprised, gleeful laugh. “Aw, Ikuya! I knew we’d be friends!”His life is a nightmare.Ikuya’s interminable exchange with the third amigo ends with the return of Gou and Asahi. They come bearing snacks and a much happier Asahi than the one who left, injecting desperately needed energy into Ikuya’s rapidly deteriorating will to stay awake.“Ready for my accidentally genius pick?” Asahi asks, reclaiming his seat next to Ikuya. “Ikuya said I did good, you guys.”“We should all be so lucky,” Gou says, settling on Ikuya’s other side. “A girl can dream.”“Alright everyone, shut up,” Asahi orders the now fully assembled group. “Screams only.”“Why do you even bother saying that anymore?” Kisumi challenges him. “It’s never worked.”“You especially can shut up,” Asahi glowers. “Okay, movie time.”Kisumi was spot on in his observation - none of them can keep their mouths shut for more than thirty seconds. Not even Asahi, who might be the worst offender. Ikuya is glad he’s seen the movie, or he’d have no idea what was happening at any given moment. They all seem to, though, and Ikuya doesn’t know whether he’s horrified or impressed. Probably both.“Oh, holy shit!” Asahi yells when a piano starts playing by itself in a dark kitchen. “Why wouldn’t he turn the lights on? Why - oh my god!”Suddenly, he does a terrified dive into Ikuya’s side. Ikuya does his best to fight the impulse to stiffen or shake him off, and instead pushes himself past his limit and pats Asahi’s back.“People in scary movies are stupid, that’s why,” he explains, unable to hold back a smile despite his inner turmoil.“Just like you, Asahi!” Gou teases.“You’re just jealous of my emotional support Ikuya.”Being referred to using a possessive would normally make Ikuya’s skin crawl, a reminder of how trapped he is. Right now, though - there’s a sense of belonging in Asahi’s words. Not belonging to anyone. Simply belonging.About halfway through the movie, Asahi taps his knee. “You alright?” he checks in, keeping his voice low. “I know it’s a lot all at once.”Ikuya’s answering smile comes easily. “I’m having fun.”Asahi bumps his shoulder. “Wouldn’t be half as fun without you.”When Asahi holds his gaze, Ikuya miraculously manages to remain held. Warmth settles somewhere he can’t identify, different from the little spark he simultaneously nurses and hides.“Thanks.”“That clown moved!” Kisumi yells. “It wasn’t there before!”The quiet moment shatters thanks to the world’s most insufferable living being, and they return their attention to the movie.The rest of the night is fun. While he doesn’t participate nearly as much as everyone else, he’s smiling and sometimes even laughing, and that’s a hell of a lot more than he’s done in forever. Once or twice, he even manages to get jumpscared. Toward the end, he starts getting tired. Being tired means he likely can’t stay too long after the movie, and that pisses him off. Maybe he can push through it. He doesn’t want to go. Once Hiyori’s back, there won’t be any way to get something like this past him. But god, he’s fading fast. The writing’s on the wall, and Ikuya’s time is almost up.“I knew she was a ghost-demon-thing,” Asahi moans between brief peeks from behind his hands. “She was the first one being weird!”The girl who is, in fact, a ghost-demon-thing jumps at the reporter dumb enough to meet her at the hotel-cum-haunted house where everyone died, and then the screen goes black.“That was awesome,” Asahi says as the credits begin to roll. “I wasn’t scared at all.”“Can someone roll back the tapes to confirm?” Gou smirks at her friend. Her friend who is only her friend and nothing else.“Your good taste backfired on you.”Asahi’s mouth falls open. “Ikuya…did you just drag me?”“…maybe?” he replies nervously. Too soon?“I’m honored,” Asahi pretends to sob, easing Ikuya’s nerves. “That means everything to me.”Ikuya laughs, followed by a yawn he does his best to suppress. Based on Asahi’s reaction, his best isn’t enough.“You tired?”“Yeah,” Ikuya answers honestly. No point in pretending when Asahi already knows. “Sorry.”“What? Don’t apologize! If you want, you - ”“Sleep is for the weak,” Kisumi butts in. “We’re just getting started!”If looks could kill, Kisumi would be dead by now. Unexpectedly, the murderous glare is on Gou’s end, who Ikuya never would have guessed could level someone with such contempt.“I’ll just call an Uber.” He pulls his phone out and does the deed, wishing with every tap of his finger he wasn’t like this. “Six minutes.”“Aw, I’m sorry to see you go,” Gou says. “But beauty sleep is important. Right, Kisumi?”“Couldn’t live without it!” Holy shit, Asahi meant it when he said she could handle Kisumi. He’s scared of the wrath of Gou.“You’ll come hang out again, right?” Gou asks. “We end up here a lot since Asahi and Kisumi live here, but we do other things too.”How would that even work? He can barely figure out how to get his and Asahi’s project meetups past Hiyori. This - this whole friend group thing - it’s a pipe dream. But for as long as Hiyori’s gone, it’ll be nice to pretend.“Yeah, I will. Thank you.”Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Asahi looking at him with what he can only interpret as concern. Maybe he’s guessed that Ikuya’s presence is only possible due to Hiyori’s absence. Maybe he knows Ikuya lives his life on a leash. If so, how fucking embarrassing for him.With his Uber now five minutes away, he says his goodbyes, wishing he didn’t have to make them. Gou reiterates her desire to hang out again, and Kisumi tells him his specialty is forcing his friendship upon everyone and that Ikuya is no exception. Yeah, no shit. Determined to dream until the end, Ikuya accepts their sentiments - even Kisumi’s. Then he heads out, surprised when Asahi accompanies him.“Thought we could do this when I’m not a complete wreck,” Asahi tells him, scuffing his sneakers on the pavement and giving Ikuya a small, embarrassed grin. “Since, you know. That whole thing.”“Well, your shoes are tied. That’s an improvement.”Asahi laughs. “I can barely remember to tie them on a good day. And look, that night - with the, uh. The Gou thing,” he says, and Ikuya feels an uncomfortable pang in his gut. “I didn’t realize you thought we were a thing. Which was stupid since that’s literally how we met. Well, not met, but - ”“You don’t have to explain yourself,” Ikuya says. He already feels stupid, and really doesn’t want that image in his head right now. Not after such a nice evening. “I didn’t even know you.”One minute left.“But now you do, right?” Asahi asks - he sounds so worried, and for what? “I mean, maybe not super well. It’s not like it’s been that long - but at least well enough to know I’m not like that?”“I still don’t know,” Ikuya shrugs with feigned indifference meant to push him away so Hiyori’s return doesn’t suck so bad. Asahi’s face falls, and that indifference crumbles so fast it fails right out of the gate. “But I’d like to.”You’d think he just told Asahi he won the lottery six times in a row. Nothing about Ikuya warrants that kind of reaction, but it makes him happy anyway.“Me too! You, not me. I’d like to - ugh, you get it,” he groans, his exasperation betrayed by a positively blinding smile. “Just…keep hanging out with us? With me?”Ikuya wants to. He wants to so bad. What if this is the foothold he’s been looking for? This may be the only chance he gets. So he’ll pretend until it becomes real, or until it becomes a sweet memory to look back on when he’s at his lowest.“Yeah. Okay.”His Uber pulls up, and Asahi opens the stupid door. He’s working overtime to make up for the untied shoes.“See you on Monday?” he asks, leaning down before Ikuya can close the door himself.“According to my schedule, yes.”“Cute,” Asahi grins. “Real cute. Night, Ikuya.”“Bye.”Asahi shuts the door, and the Uber takes off. When Ikuya looks over his shoulder, he gets a glimpse of Asahi watching with his hands in his pockets as the Uber disappears.“See you on Monday,” he says to himself, and smiles.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

He sleeps all of Sunday away.An entire day of his one debt-free week down the drain. He could kick himself - and he does. All the possibilities, all the potential he’s wasted on his beloved Morpheus, add up to a life unlived. He’s never felt that loss as sharply as when he wakes up Sunday evening.The one saving grace is a collection of new texts he’s amassed in his sleep. One identifies the sender as Gou, who he immediately adds to his contacts. She’s happy he came, she’d love to hang out again, she’d gladly kick Kisumi to the curb for him. Said prospective ejection is behind unknown sender number two. Kisumi has sent him three separate listicles breaking down celebrity superfan nicknames. Adding him to his contacts takes five minutes and a self-pep talk.He replies to Gou, thanking her for having him and confirming his mutual desire to hang out again. Responding to Kisumi takes reminding himself that he’s the best friend of two people he really, really likes. When he does finally get around to it, it’s in the form of a single cool and thumbs-down reaction.Asahi’s initial texts aren’t much different from Gou’s.
ikuya!!!

thanks for coming

that was fun

we should do more stuff
Subsequent texts take it a step further than Gou. They chronicle a baffling, cringeworthy kitchen disaster.
i’m trying to make cookies

it’s not going well
The most recent text is accompanied by a picture of break-and-bake pumpkin-shaped cookies, half of which are burnt. The other half are raw. How is that even possible? Ikuya laughs to himself, which rarely happens in this room.
nvm i’m just gonna buy them

hope ur okay btw
He rereads them over and over. Why Asahi wants to share this with Ikuya is mystifying. Why he’s so intent on working with him, getting him coffee, and now assimilating him into his friend group - there’s no credible explanation for that. But here they are, and he refuses to complain about anything or anyone involved. Except Kisumi. He’ll complain about Kisumi.Normally, he’d leave the whole cookie-based overture for further conversation on read. Asahi’s culinary journey is so weird, though. So…him. That, and absolutely nothing else, compels him to engage.
those defy logic

they’re impossible to mess up
Asahi’s answer is instantaneous.
no they’re not!!!

actually i forgot to turn the oven on then i turned it on too high
Ikuya’s laugh rings loud and clear in the silence of the room.
please don’t eat them

raw cookie dough can give you salmonella
Given how often Ikuya’s seen him text, it shouldn’t surprise him just how fucking fast Asahi’s replies are.
idk what that is but challenge accepted

u doing okay?
The shift in tone is jarring. Ikuya assumed it was rhetorical the first time, but Asahi actually wants to know. Typically, his knee-jerk reaction would be to stonewall any kind of probing. Answering honestly is giving away parts of himself that can be used against him. To hurt him. But right now, he wants to tell Asahi he slept all day and how shitty he feels. His brain is constantly being hijacked by something he can’t control, and he just wants to tell someone.
i’m fine

thanks
Guess not.Asahi’s response isn’t as quick this time. When it comes through, Ikuya has to stop himself from throwing his phone across the room.
okay

see you tomorrow :)
Smiley face aside, they’re the words of someone backing off. Not that he’d expected any different. Stonewalling tends to do that.“Fuck me,” he sighs, and burrows back under the covers.Monday morning finds Ikuya in a shitty mood. Spending Sunday in bed robbed him of a good night’s sleep and gifted him with hours of tossing and turning. Preparations for class are the bare minimum - he showers, brushes his teeth, and spends exactly fifteen seconds grabbing the first hoodie his hand touches and pulling on his go-to ratty, ripped jeans. He avoids himself in the mirror, unwilling to look at the unbecoming bruise-colored shadows under his eyes. Breakfast doesn’t happen at all.The fucking craziest part of all this? It’s a massive improvement. Mornings like this are for skipping class and staring at that ceiling. Yet here he is, slouching toward Bethlehem like a swamp monster. Credit where credit is due, right?The unbroken streak of perfect fall weather clears his lungs of stale, recycled air. It’s enough to get him to the lecture hall alive, which is about as much as he can hope for this morning. Asahi’s not there yet. His lateness has Ikuya catastrophizing in ways that make no sense - will the texts have done their job and pushed him away for good? Will today be the day he rejoins his friends up front? Will their work together become a chore for him? His hijacker says yes, that’s exactly what will happen.Only none of those things happen. Asahi comes flying in with seconds to spare. How he manages not to spill the two coffees in his hands is beyond Ikuya, but apparently he’s got some acrobatics in him. As he takes his seat, he gives Ikuya a mile-wide smile.“Ikuya!” One of the coffees is set on his desk. “Caramel mocha.”Ikuya has no say in the smile that creeps across his face. “Thanks. And hi.”Before Asahi can say anything else, the professor demands their attention. At the same time, Gou and Kisumi barrel into the room, calling about a hundred times more attention to them than necessary. They probably couldn’t care less. Kisumi even looks like he might fucking stop and talk to them. Gou heads that possibility off at the pass and drags him away, throwing a quick wave and mouthed, “Hey!” Ikuya’s way as she does.Coffees given for no other reason than making him happy, being greeted by people like he’s their friend - it does wonders for his shit mood. There’s nothing he can do about the under-eye shadows or hand-combed hair - his figurative bed is made on that front. But those things don’t matter to these people, and suddenly, they don’t matter to him, either.Today’s myth is Theseus and the Minotaur. After his wife’s affair that resulted in a terrifying half-man, half-bull offspring, King Minos placed the beast at the center of an impossible labyrinth. Theseus was one of many who arrived in Crete to reach the center of the labyrinth and kill the Minotaur, and the only one who succeeded. King Minos’ daughter, Ariadne, fell in love with Theseus, and helped him find his way to the center and back using a thread unraveled along the path to help him retrace his steps once the beast was defeated.“Ariadne of Naxos,” the professor name-drops once he’s done. “Theseus killed the Minotaur and emerged from the labyrinth triumphant. Then he sailed off into the sunset, etc, etc. Beautiful stuff. But he wouldn’t have succeeded if Ariadne hadn’t fallen in love, devised the plan to use string in the labyrinth, and held the string for what - hours? Days?” He scans the class, looking for something or someone. Ikuya does not like that look. “What happened to her after Theseus sailed out of the picture?”Resigned to his fate, Ikuya waits in abject horror for -“You, in the back.” A few heads turn to look at Ikuya. Is it possible to pop out of existence? Resigned, he opens his mouth, but the professor doesn’t give him the chance to speak. “No, not you, Mister Kirishima. I know your name, and I know you have the answer.” His gaze slides to Ikuya’s left. “You. Let’s see if you’ve absorbed some of Mr. Kirishima’s knowledge by proximity.”“Uh.” Asahi looks positively stupefied.Ikuya wishes he could give him the answer - hand him a note or whisper it out of the corner of his mouth like they do in movies. Unfortunately, this is real life, and Asahi is alone in the hot seat.“Go on,” the professor encourages him.“I’m assuming she got screwed over?” he answers way too confidently for someone who was just doodling in his notebook. “Isn’t that what always happens in these? Except for, like, five. I don’t know.” That one gets a laugh from the class. “The good guys lose, the bad guys win, then the bad guys get drunk and hang out until it’s time to ruin someone else’s life.”No, Asahi didn’t answer the question - he didn’t even address it. Yet after less than a month of class and less than two weeks working with Ikuya, he was able to essentially sum up all of Greek mythology in one fell swoop. Surprised. That’s what Ikuya should be. Shocked, even. Ikuya is neither.“You’re not wrong,” the professor allows. Even he’s wearing an amused smile. “That is how a lot of them go, isn’t it? Except for, like, five. So, since Mister…” he prompts Asahi for a name.“Asahi Shiina!” he says proudly, pointing to himself like a kindergartner announcing themselves during roll-call.There’s a “Woo!” from Ikuya’s least favorite living being before the professor moves on.“Thank you, Mister Shiina, for your broad interpretation. Entertaining and true, but broad. I know I said you were off the hook, Mister Kirishima,” he goes on, turning an apologetic smile on Ikuya, “but like I said, I know you have the answer. The actual answer.”“Oh,” he responds, caught off his game by the fever dream that is this class, “Ariadne? She got screwed over.” The class and professor laugh, and is Ikuya actually alive right now? “Theseus was supposed to take her back to Athens and marry her. But he got cold feet and left her on the island of Naxos.”“Is that all?” the professor asks. Ikuya hears it for the challenge it is.“No,” he replies, more confident than he’s sounded in years. “There are two versions of what happened next. The popular one is where Dionysus found her on Naxos, fell in love, and married her. In the other one, Dionysus found her and fell in love, but she hanged herself when she found out Theseus abandoned her. In that version, Dionysus went to Hades and brought her back.” Where has he heard that one before? “Either way, they got married in the end, and she became immortal.”There’s another “Woo!” from the front. Ikuya’s going to be deleting one of his three new contacts. Can’t imagine which one.“Right on all counts. Not that I’m surprised,” the professor commends him. Then he makes it personal. “Who are you working with for your video essay?”Ikuya glances sideways at Asahi, who sends him a huge grin. “Uh. Him,” he confesses, gesturing to Asahi. That earns the biggest laugh of the morning.The professor looks back and forth between the two of them.“Good.”By the time Ikuya returns from his out-of-body experience, the professor is calling it a day - and dropping an unexpected announcement.“A reminder that there’s no class on Wednesday,” he calls over the din of students packing up and leaving. “I’ll see you all on Friday.”Reminder? Ikuya doesn’t remember hearing about it a first time. Regardless, his Wednesday morning has just opened up, and he’s…disappointed. Does he like this class that much? Ugh, who is he kidding - of course he likes this class that much. He’s making friends here. Friends who he’ll hopefully have the guts to keep past this coming Saturday. Ignoring the pit in his stomach when he thinks about the other option is a terrible idea. But denial is something he’s well-acquainted and comfortable with, and though it’s bound to be even more harmful in this instance, he clings to it like a life raft.“Hey, Ikuya,” his constant companion says as they leave the lecture hall, “what are you up to tomorrow night?”He comes this close to saying ‘sleeping’ but thinks better of it. Sunday was already an infuriating wash.“Nothing,” is what he goes with instead. “Why?”“Thought we could work on the project. You know, since we don’t have class on Wednesday. Oh - ” he appears to rethink his proposal “ - but you have a full day tomorrow, right? I guess that might be too much - ”“Sure.”Asahi brightens immediately. “Really? Sweet! Do you want to come over? Or we could go to the café, doesn’t matter. Up to you.”“I can come over.” He can? He’d intended to suggest the café. Apparently his subconscious is in the driver’s seat now, cutting it up in class and accepting regular invitations to frat houses.“Hell yeah!” Asahi exclaims. His reactions are always so disproportionate to Ikuya’s bare-bones offerings. He might as well be jumping for joy. “Does six work? When are you done?”They make plans for the following evening before parting ways on the steps of the building.“See you tomorrow.”“Not if I see you first!” Asahi shoots back - literally, with finger guns.“Terrible.”“Only for you.”With an equally corny thumbs up, Asahi disappears in the same direction they came.Tuesday is back to sci-fi. They do a close read on a film that asks: if you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things? When faced with that question and the tragedy the main character knows is coming after becoming fluent in an alien language, their answer is still no. They decide it’s better to know the greatest loves of their life and experience the pain of losing them than to never have them at all. The movie suggests inaction is the worst course of action. At the same time, it warns the viewer of the possible consequences of taking action - by choosing to stay the course laid out for them, the main character also condemns their family to loss without their consent.Ikuya wonders what he would do. There’s never been much to lose, but what if there will be? Would he choose love if he knew it would end in loss? Could he make that decision on someone else’s behalf as well?Next is an exploration of evil. The choice of an animated movie is surprising, but the shoe fits. The main character is alone, knows nothing about the world outside, and the only person in their life is their captor. Their captor also happens to be the person who cares for all their needs, effectively hobbling their confidence that they could ever live without them. Even in the end, after several attempts to take her hostage again, they still see their captor as a parent.Ikuya can’t stand it.Any other Tuesday, he’d meet Hiyori after class. They would walk back to their dorm while Hiyori talked about his day, and Ikuya didn’t speak at all. Tonight, he leaves class alone, walks in the opposite direction of his dorm, calls an Uber, and sets off for the house he’s learning not to hate. When he arrives, he loiters outside. Nerves he wasn’t expecting spring up, weeds in his nascent garden of excitement.Eventually, he does ring the doorbell, casting a plea to the heavens that Kisumi won’t be the one who answers. Blessedly, there’s no cotton candy pink when it opens, only the bright red hair and beaming smile of one Asahi Shiina.“Ikuya! What’s good?” he welcomes him, and stands aside so Ikuya can enter. “Thanks for coming.”“Hi.” Why is he so nervous? “Um. I don’t have everything since I came straight from class, but - ”“Nah,” Asahi dismisses his almost-apology, “you don’t have to lug that shit around all day. We’re doing this together.” Before Ikuya can respond, he moves on to the next order of business. “Are you cool working in my room? I figured it was quieter than the common room. Oh, but no pressure! Maybe a public space is better. I honestly didn’t think this through.”Ikuya can’t help but smile at how earnest he is. Asahi’s nerves calm his own, making his decision easy.“I’m fine with your room.”“For real? Okay. Neat. You can just, you know.”Assuming ‘you know’ means following him, Ikuya does just that and follows Asahi upstairs to his room. The second he walks in, he realizes this is where one of his lowest, most embarrassing moments occurred. How he failed to consider that when he agreed to come here is beyond him. But no worries. This is fine. He can totally do this without waves of mortification washing over him through space-time.Asahi is clearly feeling no kind of way about this. Guess this is an Ikuya-only experience. He sits on the worn, comfortable-looking couch and waits patiently for Ikuya to join him.“Hold on,” he instructs once Ikuya’s seated, grabbing a tupperware from his beat-up coffee table and handing it over. “Check this out.”Confused as to why opening plastic containers is his job, Ikuya removes the lid and - oh.“I did it!” Asahi cheers. “They’re not raw, they’re not burnt, and they’re really good. I did a taste test.”The tupperware is full of the simple break-and-bake pumpkin-shaped cookies he’d failed so hard at on Sunday. Ikuya can verify by sight that they are neither burnt nor raw. They’re a culinary triumph. It’s fucking ridiculous, but Asahi is so genuinely over the moon. One more look at his elated expression, and Ikuya is laughing, open and unguarded.“They look amazing. You’ve outdone yourself.”Telling Asahi he won Top Chef would have nothing on his reaction to Ikuya's praise. His pride is so unironic and devoid of pretense. Ikuya would call it endearing if that were a word he felt comfortable ascribing to anyone.“Alright, so. We’ve got snacks, a couch, and, most importantly, you,” Asahi lists off. “I’d say we’re in good shape.”You. Like he’s essential to Asahi’s happiness. The idea is so outlandish he shoves it aside where it belongs - but the warmth that pours in and fills him from head to toe can’t be helped.“Well then,” Ikuya begins, “since we’ve got those covered, let’s get down to work.” Pulling out his laptop, he begins sifting through the notes he’s compiled from their sessions. “I’ve been thinking about Eurydice dying on her wedding day. They’ve had this slow, beautiful love story, right?” Asahi waits for him to elaborate. “Eurydice was much slower, like we said. And the second it all finally came together, the day she acknowledged that it was real, it was all taken from her. I wonder if she felt like she wasn’t supposed to have that much happiness. Maybe that’s part of why she moved so slowly. She knew it was too good to be true, but for a while she made herself believe she could have it. So when everything falls apart, it’s not only one death - it’s two. Her own death, and the death of what she’d finally convinced herself she could have. Like a reality check reminding her she wasn’t meant for happiness.”“Fuck, I hate that,” Asahi frowns, looking deeply unsettled. “Not your interpretation! Just…if that’s really what she thought, then that is so beyond sad. Who deserves that? It’s bad enough to lose everything on the happiest day of your life, but to think you deserve it? My question would be - who made her think she deserved it? Because that kind of thinking doesn’t just happen on its own.”The distressed vibe coming from Asahi is confusing and disconcerting, and Ikuya needs it to disappear.“Yeah, I get it.” He doesn’t. “Anyway, not every idea needs to make it into the final project.”“No!” Asahi’s urgent rejection is startling. “If I’m reacting strongly, it probably means it’s important, right? It matters.”“Oh.” It matters. “Maybe.” It matters. “I think sometimes I get so absorbed in Eurydice’s mindset I forget about Orpheus,” he admits. “Absorbed in her tragedy, I mean. Something about disappearing into the dark twice in a row, permanently the second time - it’s frightening.”Where is all this coming from tonight, and why can’t he stop? This is all too close to home. Too honest. He’d started with only the project in mind and deteriorated dangerously fast. Talk about frightening.“It’s terrifying,” Asahi agrees, showing no sign of discomfort over Ikuya’s unusual behavior. “I can see where you’d get her thinking she deserved it. Like, okay, once? Awful. Twice? It must be something I did, right?”Ikuya’s chest tightens painfully. “Yes.”“But it’s not,” Asahi says. “She didn’t do anything wrong, and didn’t deserve what happened. What happened was fucking awful. She was already being punished for no reason, and if she punished herself too? On top of all that? Man. Brutal.”“Do you think Hades enjoyed giving her hope and taking it away? Like a reminder of where she belongs. Showing her there is another side of the door, then shutting it and making the door disappear altogether.”Instead of answering, Asahi grabs one of the cookies and holds it out to Ikuya. “If that’s true, there’s only one solution.” Ikuya takes the cookie and waits for Asahi’s proposed solution. “Change the ending and kick the wall down. And,” he adds, “trust that your man’s about to smash the getaway car into the other side.”Asahi punctuates his reveal with an alarmingly large bite of his unburnt, baked-through cookie. He looks so proud of himself, like he’s just unveiled what he knows is a foolproof plan for world peace. His cheek puffs out like a chipmunk, distorting his smile into an enthusiastic grimace. Ikuya can’t bring himself to point out the glaring issue of totaling the getaway car, not when the getaway car exists, period.“Trust,” he muses. “Imagine trusting someone that much.”“Easy,” Asahi answers, always so solid in his convictions. “You’re trusting me not to give you salmon with these cookies.” Ikuya doesn’t correct him. “Or maybe you’re not, since you haven’t eaten yours yet.” He stuffs the rest of the cookie in his mouth and says in a voice muffled by processed sugar, “Or you’re just distracted by how handsome I am right now.”Endearing has ascribed itself to Asahi on its own, deciding Ikuya no longer has a say. Asahi is endearing. Right now, and all the time. The way his stomach lurches when he realizes is accompanied by the same warmth he felt during movie night, both uncomfortable and welcome.“You’ll have girls lining up if you do that at parties,” he responds, unsure why the joke tastes sour on his tongue.Asahi’s sunny smile wavers before disappearing altogether, and - fuck, there he goes again. Why can’t he just follow cues like any other living being?“I really wish we hadn’t met like that,” Asahi says after a moment of ringing silence. “That was the absolute worst impression I could have made.” Ikuya is about to remind him that he was the intruder crying in someone else’s bedroom when Asahi throws his next curveball. “I’m not - I’m bi. We - Gou and I - we both are. And I’m mostly into guys. Man, this sucks.”That’s - okay. What is he supposed to do with that information? Does this change anything? Recontextualizing everything he could barely contextualize in the first place - he has no idea how to begin. Every time he thinks he understands, the script gets flipped on him. Asahi’s obvious frustration is unnerving, because he can’t tell if he’s frustrated with him or something else.“Sorry,” he replies, lacking a more understanding, nuanced response. “Should I…?”Ikuya reaches for his bag, but Asahi very gently touches his hand and shakes his head.“No, please stay,” he insists with a pleading note that gives Ikuya pause. “I’m just always a hot mess around you,” he laughs. “I mean, obviously, how could you not think - never mind. Fuck the project. Let’s just hang out?”Please stay.They’ve only ever socialized outside the project with others present, never just the two of them. Ikuya doesn’t know how to socialize with anyone one on one. He and Hiyori don’t socialize. Hiyori makes sure Ikuya doesn’t lapse into bad habits, and Ikuya shoulders the crushing debt of Hiyori’s efforts. Being alone with anyone without friends or work as a buffer scares him, but wasting the few days he has left when he already let Sunday slip away is terrifying.“Yeah. Okay.”The resurgence of Asahi’s smile is a relief. Smiles are one of the most ubiquitous expressions in human history, predating speech. Perhaps concerningly, all of human history has been distilled into three weeks for Ikuya, who now associates smiles solely with Asahi. If only his own smiles were a fraction as bright, because if they were, that would mean he was happy. That would mean wanting to share them with the world instead of hiding crying jags in a pillow in his darkened room.The worn couch creaks under Asahi’s weight as he turns his full attention to Ikuya, project materials forgotten. Though he worries for the poor, wizened thing, Ikuya follows suit. Now what? What are they supposed to do without a movie or some other external source of entertainment?Talk?“What’s your favorite movie?”Shit. Okay. They’re talking.No one’s ever asked him what his favorite movie is. Not since he was a kid, anyway. After years of rabid consumption, he now has a catalog of favorites and treatises on each, so he desperately needs to edit himself to avoid unleashing all his bottled-up thoughts and opinions. Otherwise his answer is bound to be a humiliating redux of his incoherent rant about a fucking TV show. So he takes a deep breath, opens his mouth, and -And he’s off to the races.All it took was four words to open the Pandora’s Box of everything Ikuya’s never said about the thing he loves most. Strongly held views on every genre, style, movement, director, actor, screenwriter, cinematographer, and composer dating back to the advent of cinema pour from him.Every so often, a little voice will scream at him to stop, and he’ll stumble over his words. But whenever he does, Asahi asks him another question, or pushes him to elaborate or explain something he doesn’t understand, and the voice fades to a whisper. Even if Asahi never calls or texts or sits next to him again, Ikuya’s captive audience is putting on a great show of Stockholm syndrome for the duration of his seminar.“...and that’s why superhero movies are going to be the death of cinema,” he concludes. “They stopped being popcorn movies the second they became impossible to understand without watching ten other movies first.”God, he is so fucking glad his phone is in his bag so he can’t see how long he’s been motormouthing. Now that he’s talked himself hoarse and his hostage has been released, anxiety rushes in, threatening to topple him from his high. He waits uncertainly for the fallout, whatever that may be.“Phew,” Asahi whistles. “I’m suing the school for hiding a whole ass genius from me for three years. Where have you been all my life?”Something Ikuya hasn’t felt in years spreads rapidly through his body - he grasps for the word, and is surprised when he comes back with two.Joy. Someone asked. Someone listened. Someone cared. Not just any someone, either - someone he’s been fighting tooth and nail not to care about, because caring will make it so much worse when they’re gone. As of this second, he’s right on the precipice of losing that fight, holding on by a thread. Because of that person, joy is lighting up his insides and spilling into the space around him, making him feel feather-light and limitless.While joy fills him and radiates outwards, the other word is him.Alive.Ikuya exists. To be heard is to be seen. To be seen is to exist, and to exist is to be alive. This is proof that Ikuya is alive, and not wandering the world, unaware he no longer belongs here. If these truly are his final days, his autumnal death throes, then he couldn’t have dreamed up a more beautiful way to go - an explosion of life before the end, a burst of flame before he’s gone.“Nowhere special,” he says, wishing he knew a more gracious way to acknowledge the praise. “Watching movies.” Trying to escape through them. “Keeping my head down.”“Keep it all the way up!” Asahi pushes back. “How else are you going to talk into the mic when you win your first Oscar?”That would entail having a career, which he won’t. No matter how autumnally alive he feels now, in a few days he may be a memory.“Thank you,” he tells him sincerely. The truth won’t change whether he voices it or not, so he might as well enjoy how alive he feels now. “Maybe we’ll win one for our project.”“Can’t have a best director without a best actor,” Asahi says. Then he clears his throat and launches into an impassioned, “To be, or not to be, that is…the only part I remember. But you were amazed, right?”Fuck, he’s always so eager and earnest.“You booked the part.”“No way! Hold on.” Asahi whips out his phone and pretends to type. “Hey Mom, got a part as Tree Number Two in Ikuya’s movie. Are you finally proud of me?”The more time Ikuya spends with him, the more natural laughing becomes, something he’s been out of practice with for so, so long. Asahi is as ridiculous as he is endearing, and he’s incredibly ridiculous.After Asahi’s brag, they talk a while longer, their laughter and joy keeping Ikuya’s exhaustion at bay longer than usual. But exhaustion is always nipping at his heels, and never fails to catch up with him eventually. Asahi seems to know better than to poke at his perennial tiredness, which was what he thought he wanted, but with no hand reaching out, he’s left alone with something that wants to eat him alive.“Thanks for having me,” he says as Asahi walks him out past a bunch of frat guys, because this is a frat house, and Asahi is in a frat. Which he keeps forgetting, even though he’s been here three times. “I had fun.”Asahi bounces slightly on the balls of his feet like a little kid who can barely contain their excitement, all because Ikuya managed to publish a three-word review of their evening. What would he do if Ikuya told him he had a great time and wishes he could stay?“We should hang out more,” Asahi suggests. “Y’know, without the project. Or Gou and Kisumi. Like, just us.”The creeping warmth he feels around Asahi wraps itself around him like a purring cat, startling in how widespread it is. “Yeah,” he agrees, “we should.” After tonight, he neither needs nor wants a buffer around Asahi. “And you can sit next to me on Friday.”Asahi gives him one of his trademark blinding smiles. “Better watch it, or I’ll move in permanently.”When they met, Ikuya’s Uber was a lifeline whisking him away from his nightmare and Asahi, who played a key role in said nightmare. Now when he gets in the car, he’s sad to go. Asahi insists he take the rest of the cookies and sees him off, double and triple checking how serious Ikuya was about sitting next to him. Then Ikuya’s gone, leaving the bright lights of the house and the even brighter light of Asahi behind.The comedown when he gets back to the dorm is a hundred times worse than usual. The joy was short-lived, apparently contingent on Asahi’s company. Now that he’s alone with his exhaustion and despair, he can hear the clock ticking, counting down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds he has left until his little vacation ends. Hiyori is strict, and even though Ikuya wants to dig his way out more than breathing, he owes him so much. How could he betray the one person who stayed, even if staying was ultimately to his detriment?Why does Ikuya’s life have to be so much shorter than everyone else?

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Wednesday is another bluebird autumn day in an unbroken streak. Ikuya wakes up before ten and is as close to energetic as he gets in the morning. No tears or staring at his feet wishing he could blink out of existence in the shower this morning - he picks out another long-untouched sweater perfect for the season and a newer pair of jeans often overlooked in favor of his threadbare, ripped ones.He only has two classes on Wednesdays. Since lecture is canceled and his other class doesn’t start until late afternoon, he’s got time to kill and no idea how to fill it. Usually, indecision would leave him anxious and paralyzed, culminating in him doing nothing at all. That, or he’d sleep the time away. Today, he goes on another solo adventure. He leaves campus, strolling without a destination in mind. Not a conscious one, at any rate. His subconscious has a very specific destination in mind, revealing itself only once he’s in front of the café. Being here without Asahi feels wrong, but it’s so welcoming and looks so right, and the smell is fucking heavenly.Ignoring the nagging voice saying he shouldn’t with everything he has, he orders a pumpkin spice latte and commandeers what he’s come to think of as his usual couch, curling up and relaxing in a way he’s never allowed himself to in public. But he feels so comfortable here. While he doesn’t know why this place reminded Asahi of him, he does know he adores it. When you’re right, you’re right.Instead of burying his face in a book or his phone, he takes it all in. The hot ceramic in his hands, the basic taste of fall on his tongue, the cozy atmosphere, the people walking by outside and keeping to themselves inside, whether alone like him or engaged in quiet conversation - they’re all such simple pleasures, and simple pleasures are hardly simple to Ikuya. Being out in the world does something to him. When he’s alone in his dorm, where he’s spent years curled up in the dark, change feels utterly impossible. But when he’s around people and dipping his toe into the unending rush of life, things don’t seem quite so bleak.Whether he gets another pumpkin spice latte to go is between him and god. Holy secret in hand, he heads back to campus, thinking he might sit out in the sun if he can find somewhere not too crowded. The quad is not that place, so of course, that’s where he hears someone calling his name.“Ikuya!” comes the piercing voice of his sleep paralysis demon. “Over here!”He’s not going to stop. He is not going to stop. If he doesn’t look, it’s not real.“Ikuya!” comes a second cheerful voice, warm and welcoming.Now his fate is sealed, because he can’t ignore that voice. With a heavy heart, he looks to where Gou and Kisumi are waving and beckoning him over. They’re lounging on the grass, doing what Ikuya was on his way to do, just - god damn it, there are so many fucking people. This is his personal nightmare. But he wants to see Gou, and stepping farther outside his comfort zone would be good for him. So he nervously picks his way through groups of students who don’t seem to have a care in the world, wondering what the last three years would have been like if he’d spent them doing all the things you’re supposed to do in college.“Ikuya!” Kisumi cries again before either Ikuya or Gou can say anything. “Sit, sit!”Sigh.“Hi,” he replies, since ‘sit’ was clearly Kisumi’s way of welcoming him. “Hi, Gou.”“Hi, Ikuya.” She’s lovely as always, with her pretty smile and hair and clothes. “This is such a nice surprise!”“We’ve never seen you outside of class!” Kisumi chimes in. “Not unless Asahi’s glued - ”“Where are you coming from?” Gou jumps in, addressing Ikuya and glaring daggers at Kisumi. “Class?”Ikuya absentmindedly pulls blades of grass from the dirt. “No, no class until later. I went for a walk off campus.”“Ooh, where?” Kisumi asks, leaning forward excitedly. “We’ll come with you next time!”No, they will not. Well, maybe Gou, but that’s also unlikely. The café was meant to be a quiet place for him and exactly one other person, and he’s not willing to share. Does that make him selfish?“Nowhere special,” he shrugs. “Just around the neighborhood. I haven’t done much exploring.” Fuck, did he really just say that out loud? Three years in, he’s barely deviated from his appointed route between class, dorm, and cafeteria. Pathetic.Gou looks at him as if she can hear his inner self-deprecation. “Kisumi, doesn’t your next class start in five minutes?”“Hm?” Kisumi cocks his head. “Yeah, but you know I’m always late - ”“You should be on time today,” Gou cuts him off again. “Or the hot psych professor might think you don’t respect his time.”Ikuya shouldn’t be surprised that the prospect of an unfuckable professor and Gou’s vaguely threatening tone are enough to get Kisumi moving, but both are still kind of amazing. Kisumi’s things are almost as disastrous as Asahi’s. The uniform pink, pink, pink of pens, notebooks, and laptop case only just gives him the edge over his chaotic counterpart. They probably smell like bubblegum and cavities.“You still owe me a nickname for your fans!” Kisumi reminds him before dashing off to the professor, who should definitely cancel his office hours. “Text me!”“No,” Ikuya responds without inflection.Kisumi is, naturally, unaffected in the extreme. “Great, talk to you soon! Bye, guys!”“You’ll get used to him,” Gou sighs as they watch Kisumi join the procession of students on their way to the halls of higher learning. “We’ve all been friends since we were kids, so I’m used to how extra he is all the time. He’s ridiculously loyal, though. But don’t worry,” she assures him, “me and Asahi will keep him on a tight leash until you stop wanting to kill him.”They don’t realize they’re signing up for a lifetime of leash-holding. Beyond the Kisumi of it all, though, Gou makes it sound like Ikuya is one of them now, a given and here to stay. Until you stop wanting to kill him. Until and onward.“He’s…yeah, he’s extra,” Ikuya edits himself heavily. “All three of you go that far back?”And they’re still a tight-knit trio, even after three years of college. They could have expanded their inner circle at any point, but they didn’t - so why now? Why Ikuya? There are thousands of people who would make more sense.“Elementary school,” she says. “Back when Asahi couldn’t sit still for more than a second. Not even a second. He’d rock back in his chair until it fell over backward.”The image Ikuya’s mind supplies is so vivid and so in character he bursts out laughing before he can stop himself. When he remembers where he is, he stops abruptly.“Sorry.”“Don’t apologize,” Gou dismisses his apology. “You have a nice laugh.” Before Ikuya can respond, she asks, “Can I be honest about something?”Ikuya’s heart rate goes up exponentially as his flight - never fight - instinct kicks into high gear. She’s going to tell him everything he already knows about himself, everything he’s refrained from interacting with people for. The same fear keeps him frozen to the spot, unable to run and responding with an automatic “Okay.”“You carry yourself like you’re apologizing for existing,” she says. “There’s a lot to like about you, Ikuya. No matter how hard you try to make yourself invisible, someone was bound to notice eventually.”This is - he doesn’t understand. Asahi says he’s a genius, Gou says there’s a lot to like about him, Kisumi wants to ruin his life, and Ikuya doesn’t understand why. All he did was invade a stranger’s room and flee like the pathetic, lachrymose figure he was when its rightful owner stumbled in with the girl claiming there’s a lot to like about him.“People scare me,” he admits in broad daylight, in the middle of a lawn overflowing with humanity. “I don’t know how to be around them anymore.”Anymore. Did he ever? Once upon a time, he must have, right? Whether he did or not, sharing this with someone he barely knows is incontrovertible proof he no longer does.What Gou says next neither invalidates his feelings nor encourages his beliefs, striking a balance only she could.“Then relearn,” she tells him. “With us. You already are. You agreed to work with Asahi, you came to our movie night, and you’re here with me right now. No one made you do any of that. That was all you. And you did all of that scared? Take a victory lap, Ikuya.”Ikuya is struck with the sudden, violent urge to cry. Fuck, he can’t cry here. Not in front of all these people. But come hell or high water, his surging emotions are in the driver’s seat and clamoring to be set loose. The first tear rolls down his face, then another, and another. He wipes his face with the sleeve of his sweater, but they won’t stop coming, so all he can do is bite his lip - hard - to prevent any noise from escaping. Gou moves carefully, coming close enough to put an arm around his shoulder.The gesture lifts something, like she’s shouldering some of the weight he carries around, if only temporarily. Relief floods him, and he sags against her as he cries silently in broad daylight in the middle of a lawn overflowing with humanity. Gou rubs his shoulder and holds him almost protectively, as if sensing how small he is, how fucking lonely. When was the last time he cried with someone? And with who? With his mother? That was years and years ago.“Sorry,” he sniffs. “And sorry for being sorry.”“Keep relearning with me,” she repeats, ignoring his apology in that characteristically kind way of hers. “You can cry as much as you need to. Just don’t do it alone.”That makes Ikuya cry harder, which Gou encourages by wrapping both arms around him, shielding him so he can let it out in relative secrecy. Yes, midday on a Wednesday in the quad is very relative, but he knows he’s safe here. Safer than in the gaping, empty maw of his room.The tears eventually run dry, and Gou gives him some space to straighten up and gather himself. “Thank you,” he says, bracing for a tidal wave of shame that never comes. “Was that a victory lap?”Gou’s laugh is warm and expressive. “You can have more than one. And Asahi doesn’t have to be there for the two of us to spend time together,” she informs him. “Call or text, and I’ll be there. I want to be your friend, Ikuya.”She’s the second person in as many days who’s expressed the desire to spend one on one time with him, where he can’t be invisible or fade into the background. How exhausting, scary, and how fucking thrilling. Neither Asahi nor Gou is asking him to give up the other. They’re making it clear that friendship isn’t a monolith. To be part of a group doesn’t mean he can’t have unique relationships with each of them.But would they still want that if he disappeared after Saturday? Would they come looking for him if he did what he knows and does best - hiding and making himself invisible? Those questions sit in the back of his mind, pushed aside until three days from now.Today, he has a friend.“Me too.”Ikuya’s only other class is a snoozefest of a calculus course. Why he needs to go at all when he could do it in his sleep is beyond him - he could be doing literally anything else, especially now that he has anything else to do. Every second he spends not taking advantage of the gift of time he’s been given is a second wasted. There’s an itch under his skin to boot, making him increasingly restless, uncomfortable, and warm as time passes.By the time class is over, he’s exhausted. Not in the way he usually is. But usual or not, needing to nap at all pisses him off so fucking bad. But he’s about to keel over if he doesn’t, so he books it back to the dorm and into the embrace of his bed, asleep before his head even hits the pillow.When he wakes, it’s 10 PM. Chills and aches rack his body, which can’t seem to decide if he’s freezing or burning up. The sheets and his clothes are drenched and disgusting with sweat, and he doesn’t have the requisite energy to drag himself from the swamp. Is he really sick? Seriously? Now?“Why,” he moans miserably as he curls in on himself. “Fuck my life.”This is so unfair. Doesn’t the universe have anything better to do than punish him on his week off? He doesn’t have any medicine or electrolytes, and he’s too achy and pathetic to go get some water. Hiyori usually takes care of all that for him - what a stunted excuse for a human he is. Guess he’ll just be riding this one out on his own. Knowing he’ll be suffering alone gets him crying again, and not in the cathartic, safe way he was earlier. Despair is the driving force this time, as it so often is.Five minutes into his cold, hot, and dehydrated crying spell, he gets a text.
ikuya!!!! how was ur day?!
Despite his abject misery, Ikuya smiles. Asahi texts the same way he talks - overexcited, animated, and sincere. Suddenly, he doesn’t feel so alone. Someone checked in on him because they wanted to see how he was doing. Not because they wanted to make sure he was where they expected - required - him to be.
it was good
Emphasis on the was.
but now i’m sick
In typical Asahi fashion, his reply comes the second Ikuya’s is delivered.
what is it? cold? fever??
Unlike last time, Ikuya doesn’t brush it off and pretend he’s fine. He tells Asahi he has a fever and, when asked, what his symptoms are. They go back and forth for a while, talking about their days and trading jokes that aren’t really a trade so much as Asahi joking around with him. Ikuya doesn’t have the energy to come up with anything witty. His body is using it all to wage war on itself.The chills get worse over the next half hour. Between all the aches, sweat, and a body that can’t figure out if it’s in hell or the Arctic Circle, he thinks he might actually die. Why he texts that to Asahi, he’ll never know. What he does know is that as soon as he sends it, a phone dings right outside his door.What?Someone knocks lightly on the door.What?“Ikuya?”What?Someone is outside, and that someone is Asahi.Ikuya is a mess, his room smells like sick, and - and no one but Hiyori has ever been in here. Panic grips him. Asahi knows he’s here, so he can’t pretend he’s out, and given Ikuya’s just texted him point one seconds ago, he can’t fake sleep, either. Fuck.“Sorry,” comes Asahi’s voice from the other side of the door. “I should have told you - I brought some stuff. I’ll just leave it outside, and you can - ”“You can come in,” Ikuya calls weakly, because worse than Asahi coming in would be Asahi walking away, taking Ikuya’s precious time with him. More than anything, he doesn’t want to be alone. “The door’s unlocked.”The door opens and in walks Asahi, smiling and concerned and about to buckle under the weight of several plastic bags. As quietly as he can, he sets his cargo on the floor and crouches next to the bed.“Hey,” he says. “You always look this good?”Ikuya can’t help it - he starts laughing. “Only when I try.”Asahi grins, lighting up the depressing, dingy cave of Ikuya’s room. “Can I?” he asks, gesturing to Ikuya’s forehead. Ikuya nods, too tired to worry about being touched by another human being. “Whoah,” he whistles when he presses the back of his hand to Ikuya’s fevered skin. “Hate that. Okay, here’s what I’m thinking - no, wait, back up. Are you okay with me staying? I like…want to take care of you. If that’s cool. Not that I don’t think you can do it yourself! Just - being sick on your own sucks.”Being taken care of sounds nice, and having company sounds even nicer. Hiyori brings Ikuya what he needs and checks in periodically, but never stays. To be fair, he’s risking getting himself sick if he does, which -“But what if you get sick?”“I never get sick,” Asahi proclaims proudly, jabbing a thumb at himself. “Not even when the flu was going around the frat house. Gou says I’m not human. Well, technically that’s unrelated to the sick thing, but whatever.”Of course he never gets sick. That’s entirely in keeping with his character, though Ikuya couldn’t say exactly why. But he’s going to selfishly benefit from Asahi’s character, and the universe won’t have stolen this time from him. As far as feeling like complete and total dogshit goes, he’s feeling pretty damn good.“Okay.”“Nice!”Asahi hops to his feet and starts unpacking and organizing the contents of the plastic bags. He wasn’t joking about the DayQuil, or NyQuil, or Gatorade. There’s also vitamin C, ibuprofen, tissues, water, orange juice, tea bags, and soup. Once he’s done arranging Ikuya’s very own Rite Aid, he looks around the room appraisingly. Ikuya doesn’t know what he sees or what he’s thinking. No one’s ever been in here, so he’s never had the opportunity to worry or care what anyone thought of the space he spends too much time in.“I can un-sick the room if you want to go take a shower,” Asahi suggests, skipping judgment altogether and getting right down to business. “Fever sweats are the worst - not that I’d know,” he adds with a wink.A shower does sound amazing, even if getting up decidedly does not. So he slowly climbs out of bed and drags himself to the shower, ignoring the way his body protests. The hot water soothes his sore muscles and washes away the sweat and stink clinging to him. While he stands there, he wonders why he isn’t freaking out about Asahi being alone in his room. For all Ikuya knows, he could be snooping and discovering all the proverbial dirty laundry that would send him running for the hills.But he’s not.Today, Ikuya has given pieces of himself to two people he’s known for all of one month. Even speaking to someone outside of what was strictly necessary was an impossibility before Asahi came barreling into his life like a freight train, upending years of stasis and changing everything.Feeling at least cleaner and more relaxed, if not healthy, he returns to his room to find Asahi has aired it out, changed the bedding, and even taken out the trash. There’s an entire sick day setup on his nightstand, completing the room’s transformation into the perfect place to convalesce.“Thank you,” he says with a grateful smile as he climbs back into bed. “This is so much better.”“Didn’t think I had it in me, did you?” Asahi replies, handing Ikuya some Gatorade and ibuprofen. “I mom-ed so hard when everyone got the flu.”Asahi sits on the floor next to the bed - the bed he just remade, in the room he just made habitable. Seeing him on the floor feels all kinds of wrong. Ikuya has become the king of surprising himself these past few weeks, a streak he keeps unbroken by asking, “Do you want to sit up here?”Without missing a beat, Asahi takes him up on his invitation. “This is so cool,” he remarks, looking around Ikuya’s unimpressive room as he clambers ungracefully onto the bed. “Look at me, hanging out in the Mister Kirishima’s dorm. If only the haters could see me now.”Ikuya preens under all the attention he never wanted. “Sorry I’m not better company,” he says. “Maybe it’s better that I can’t talk too much. You won’t have to sit there while I talk about how much I hate mumblecore for an hour.”“What? No!” Asahi protests. “Tell me everything about why I should hate mumblecore when you’re feeling better. You can sleep if you want.” Ikuya shakes his head. Physically, he’s tired, but he’s not sleepy at all. “Hold up, I just had the best idea,” Asahi says. “Why don’t we watch The Sandman?” That perks Ikuya up as far as his body will allow. “Thoughts?”“If you want to. Don’t feel like you have to because I’m sick.”“I’ve been wanting to watch it since you told me how good it was,” Asahi pushes back. “And I’ve been wanting to ask you to watch it with me since - anyway. We should totally watch it.”For the second time this week, Ikuya is being asked to share a passion he’s never shared before, and he’s over the fucking moon. Asahi does the honors and presses play on episode one, and then they’re off, summoning the wrong Endless, rebuilding realms, and watching humanity through the lens of beings who aren’t quite human themselves.Ikuya frequently steals glances at Asahi as they go, anxiously observing his reactions. Somehow, watching this feels less safe than yapping about film. He doubts Asahi will ever do a cinéma du look marathon, but this is ground zero, his humiliating formal introduction. Their informal introduction was worse, but at least he thought he’d never see what he perceived to be some morbidly fascinated frat boy again.In his mind, Asahi’s opinion of a stupid fucking show is intrinsically tied to Ikuya’s own self-worth. It doesn’t help that he’s quieter than he was during movie night, periodically asking Ikuya questions but mostly keeping his eyes trained on the screen. An increasing desire to turn it off and beg real exhaustion peaks after four episodes when Asahi hits pause.“Sorry,” he says, ignoring the little voice of disapproval that sounds remarkably like Gou. “I guess it’s not for everyone.”“Maybe not,” Asahi shrugs. “But it’s definitely for me. That was so fucking sad in episode three - I mean, did you see that? And Morpheus giving her one more dream so she’s not in pain when she dies…man. That’s so human.”Suddenly, Ikuya has the wild urge to hug him, which he only succeeds in frantically pushing down because he’s glued to the bed. “He’s changing, right?” he asks instead. “After being trapped for so long - he’s not who he was before.” And Ikuya is buzzing with the freedom of approval. Yet again, Asahi shares his intense feelings and desire to discuss them without making Ikuya feel like he’s being humored. “Something awful is subconsciously making him reach for something good.”“Totally. And Lucifer is way meaner than Hades, but at least he doesn’t fuck around. You can tell he’s going to pull a fast one whether he loses or not. And he doesn’t act like he’s all moved by the whole hope thing like Hades does with Orpheus’ song. That was a pretty sick rap battle, though.”“Mhm,” Ikuya nods. “The one thing that really bothers me is how he’s condemned his ex to suffer in hell because she left him. Because his pride was hurt. That’s - I just hate it.” He really hates it. Even sick, it makes him ill.Asahi smiles at him, less like looking into the sun and more of a dim, warm glow. “Yeah. I hate it too. This is obviously an extreme example, but some people really love punishing people they say they care about, don’t they?”Ikuya shrinks slightly, feeling exposed in a way that makes him ashamed. “Yeah.” He doesn’t know what else to say - they’re circling something he’s too frightened to articulate, although he desperately wants to. That he can’t is fucking frustrating, because he’s running out of time to articulate it, and soon it will be too late. He wishes he could make Asahi understand without needing to explain.“You down for more, or are you Sandman-ed out?” Asahi asks, seeming to sense Ikuya’s turmoil and deftly steering them into safer waters. Maybe he does understand, or maybe it’s another one of Ikuya’s desperate, chimerical fantasies.“I’m never Sandman-ed out,” he replies before taking a swig of Gatorade. “But aren’t you tired?”“Ikuya,” Asahi says sternly, “you underestimate how good I am at sleeping in. Gou and Kisumi always say a bomb couldn’t wake me up.”“Then let’s hope more than one bomb goes off in time for you to get to class.”Asahi gives him another one of his winning smiles, and they dive back in.Now that he’s no longer worried whether Asahi likes the show, Ikuya has some space to think, which is always a terrible thing. The way he feels about Asahi and Gou is different. What is stable and safe with Gou is expansive and ever-changing with Asahi, and the implications scare him. The desire to run and the unsettling need to wrap himself up in that feeling are equally strong and unshakably intertwined.The horror of John Dee and the diner gives way to Death doing her rounds, ushering those who no longer have a place among the living into whatever comes next. This is Ikuya’s favorite part. She would make the transition easy, with her reassuring smile accompanying the hard truth - life is over.“I like when Death is depicted as kind,” he says. “As something or someone you can trust.”The words roll off his tongue before he can stop them, and hang in the air where he can’t swallow them back down. A moment of quiet follows their escape before a hand nudges his own, cautious and uncertain. Just as unsurely, he returns the touch, not knowing what he’s doing or what happens now, if anything. Anything comes in the form of his hand in Asahi’s, held gently as his thumb brushes his heated skin.“Yeah. Let’s hope it’s like that,” Asahi murmurs. “For now, try to trust the living.”Wordlessly, Ikuya wraps his pinkie around Asahi’s.Not long after, he finally falls asleep. Just before he’s gone, when he’s caught in that liminal space at the edge of sleep, there are sweet words he doesn’t understand and a soft, gentle touch he leans into. Then he belongs to Morpheus, brother of Death.Tomorrow’s hard truths will be faced among the living.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Thursday is a wash, though it’s not miserable from start to finish. When Ikuya wakes up, there’s a new addition to his personal pharmacy. A cookie from their café sits next to a note reading sorry for breaking and entering!!! in absolutely appalling handwriting that makes his heart do a little flip. Since he has no appetite, the cookie goes untouched but doesn’t move from its place of honor.Gou and Asahi come by in shifts between classes, overwhelming in their frankly baffling commitment to someone who is steadily improving and likely to be with them in his beloved gen ed tomorrow. Even Kisumi comes by, all smiles and intent on turning Ikuya’s recovery into a slow, painful death. Where’s the fucking leash Gou promised?At least he brings absolutely nothing Ikuya didn’t already have. You go girl, give us nothing.Between resting, visitors, and making sure he’s not behind on homework when he feels up to it, he doesn’t have much headspace to think about last night. Which is probably for the best, if the way his heart does a little flip whenever he thinks about it is any indication. Whatever’s happening to him is as scary as it is exciting, and he can’t afford to spend the one day he has left circling the drain - he needs to just enjoy it while it lasts. He also studiously avoids the icy fear that curls around him in tendrils when he remembers why he only has one day left, and what’s waiting for him on the other side.By the end of the day, he’s drained but in much better health. Yes, he’ll be well enough to go to class in the morning, he assures Gou and Asahi during the last of their final unnecessary and deeply appreciated visits, he just needs to sleep off the last of it. And the craziest part? Sleep is needed. For once, sleep is restorative.Come Friday morning, he’s practically jumping out of bed, only slightly worse for wear and dying to get outside. Who is he, and what have they done with Ikuya? Along with this new Ikuya comes a new sweater, because every outfit is a new outfit when you wear the same three things every day and ignore the rest.Once he’s done admiring his new-old duds, he heads out into another perfect Autumn day, screaming a silent ‘fuck you’ to the cafeteria as he passes and taking a big bite of his cookie. The steady stream of students heading to the lecture hall is still a bit much, but somewhat less intimidating now that he’s cried his eyes out in their midst.Asahi is early, sitting right where Ikuya told him he could and fidgeting like a first-grader. When he sees Ikuya, he breaks into a megawatt smile and jumps out of his seat. “Ikuya!” he exclaims. “Here, I - oh, awesome! You’re having it.” He eyes the half-eaten cookie in Ikuya’s hand. “Sweet.” Before Ikuya can thank him, he plows forward. “Did you know they make s’mores lattes? I, uh, forgot to get one of those cardboard things so it might be hot, but here you go.”Ikuya accepts the coffee with a smile. “I didn’t know,” he says, “but now I do. Thank you.” This ridiculous gen ed has become the highlight of his week, all because a certain someone wouldn’t let him color-code his pens in peace. “Enough bombs went off this morning?”“Only needed one. Kisumi’s a human nuke.”Poetry.Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. As if summoned, Gou and the human nuke appear at that exact moment. Their chatter is respectively enthusiastic and so fucking loud for nine AM - or ever. Kisumi spots them first and cries, “Asahi! Ikuya!” So long, eardrums. “How are you feeling?”“Better,” he answers begrudgingly before bidding his soul adieu. “Thanks.”“I’m so glad,” Gou says. She brushes his bangs out of his face, a motherly, affectionate gesture Ikuya doesn’t mind in the least. “You - ”What Gou might have said is lost to the sands of time when Kisumi gasps, “Wait! Asahi, have you asked him - ”Gou grabs Kisumi’s arm and smiles, eyes full of threats that Kisumi seems to read as promises. “We’re going to sit down now,” she tells a confused Ikuya and an annoyed Asahi. “Right?”“Right! Before someone steals our seats.”They watch him scurry after Gou as she leads Ikuya’s ongoing trauma thirty rows away from him. “When did she get so good at that?”.“Never,” Asahi replies. “She was born scary powerful. She can read people like a book.” If she read Ikuya’s sad, empty pages and still wanted to be his friend, then maybe there’s a chapter Ikuya skipped. “But hey, so,” Asahi moves on, “how do you feel about playing hooky the rest of the day?”Well. That’s a new one. Not playing hooky - he’s skipped his fair share of classes, but always by himself, and always, always buried under the covers with the blinds closed and his boulder sitting heavy on his chest. Figuratively skipping town with someone else has a nice, thrilling ring to it. Besides, the only classes he actually cares about are for his major and this one. The rest of his day is nothing but gen eds that, unlike this one, he gives not one flying fuck about.“Works for me,” he decides. “Why?”Three pens and two pieces of paper fall off Asahi’s desk as he leans in and whispers. “Top secret.” Amethyst eyes that have claimed their poetic descriptor sparkle with childlike excitement. “Just be outside your dorm twenty minutes after class.”Color him very intrigued. “Sounds like a plan,” he whispers back. The professor clears his throat, signaling for their undivided attention. “Your pens are escaping, by the way.”Class gets underway to the soundtrack of Asahi cursing under his breath in hot pursuit of his runaway writing utensils. “Halcyon days,” is the professor’s opener. “You might be familiar with it as a colloquialism describing better days. For example, ‘the halcyon days when I didn’t have to sit through this class.’” His bon mot is well received and wins him a lecture-wide laugh. “Now, given our course of study, I’m sure you’re dying to know how the saying could possibly be relevant. Can anyone name the myth it’s referencing?” Dead silence. “Anyone?” Deader silence. “Alright then. Mister Kirishima, you have the floor.”This is his lot in life, apparently.“Halcyon and Ceyx,” he answers after clearing his throat.“Mister Kirishima can’t take your exams for you,” the professor warns the rest of the class. “And don’t be lining up to ask him if he tutors.” Ikuya spies Asahi cringing in the periphery. “Thank you,” he addresses Ikuya directly. “Now, Alcyone…”Alcyone was the daughter of Aeolus, god of the wind, and Ceyx was the king of Trachis in Thessaly. Alcyone and Ceyx were one of the few untroubled, purely happy unions under the dominion of Olympus, admired by all for their profound love and devotion. They playfully called each other Zeus and Hera - ironic, considering the tumultuous marriage of the king and queen of the gods - which angered Zeus, who regarded it as a sign of deep disrespect and vowed to punish them for it.One fateful day, Ceyx’s brother Daedalion threw himself from a rock in grief over the death of his daughter, and in his own grief, Ceyx decided to sail to the oracle of Apollo for answers. Alcyone had a bad feeling about his impending journey and tried to dissuade him, but he had already made his choice. So she watched her beloved sail off with a feeling that something was terribly wrong - and it was.Zeus struck the waters with a lightning bolt, raising a terrible hurricane that caused Ceyx’s ship to sink. Knowing this was his end, Ceyx prayed his body would wash ashore so Alycone could at least have something to bury. Hera was filled with sorrow for the two of them, and had Morpheus, son of Hypnos, create an apparition of Ceyx to tell Alcyone of his fate. Alcyone ran out to the beach and found his body, and in her grief, she drowned herself to be with him again.The gods were so affected by their tragedy they demanded that Zeus atone, which he did by transforming them into Halcyon birds. They spent the rest of their days together by the sea.“Thoughts?” the professor prompts once he’s relayed the tale. “Reactions? Don’t all raise your hands at once.” To Ikuya’s surprise, Asahi’s hand shoots up. “Mister Shiina?”“I don’t get it,” Asahi says. “They got turned into birds as a lame ‘my bad’ present, and those are supposed to be better days? Aren’t there ever any happy endings?” A murmur of agreement sweeps across the class, half of whom Ikuya assumed were asleep or on their phones. “They’re all awful people - the gods, I mean. They can’t have who they want, so they kill them, or steal them, or trap them. Like, honestly? They can all go fu - ”“I take your point, Mister Shiina,” the professor says over Asahi’s colorful closing argument. “You’re right, the gods are cruel and capricious and selfish. They don’t discriminate between humans and each other when it comes to their cruelty, either. So how do we learn from these parables? People are cruel to each other every day. What can we do differently than the gods?”Not having an answer troubles Ikuya. Shouldn’t he know? Asahi looks like he knows, and not being on the same page with their interpretation makes him feel othered. Like he’s suddenly back on the outside when, only seconds before, he was safely inside with everyone else. What can anyone do in the face of something so relentless? What can Ikuya do? Nothing, a voice whispers, a quiet hiss in his ear. You can disappear.Thoroughly unsettled, he avoids Asahi’s eyes and stares at his blank notebook. They’d be full of questions if he looked, he tells himself. Not understanding. Not worry. Not like he knows exactly what Ikuya’s thinking. Questions can be answered with lies. Understanding and concern are answers.“We can be good people,” Asahi answers without waiting to be called on again. “We can walk away from the assholes - sorry, people who get off on breaking people’s, uh. Souls? Spirits. They don’t mean squat if we don’t give them the time of day. And we can help people who don’t know how to walk away.”“Spoken like a true idealist,” the professor says. “When I say keep dreaming, I don’t mean it condescendingly. Go out there and make it real. You’d all listen if Mister Shiina delivered a sermon between keg stands, wouldn’t you?”The class laughs. Ikuya doesn’t.Asahi is an idealist. That’s been clear since Ikuya met him. Everything is so simple and straightforward and good. Say what you mean, treat others as you would have them treat you - and life is that easy for people like Asahi, unencumbered by a life unlived. An unwelcome flash of resentment comes and goes in the space of a second, leaving shame and guilt in its wake. Ikuya has been on the receiving end of Asahi’s simple, straightforward goodness for weeks, though he doesn’t know why. All his other feelings for him far outweigh any resentment.Asahi’s eyes are back on him. This time, he meets them - and he smiles.For one more day, Ikuya can keep dreaming too.With two minutes to go before the mysterious twenty-minute mark arrives, Ikuya waits awkwardly in front of his dorm. What’s Asahi got up his sleeve? Ikuya would be fine with just about anything, so long as he doesn’t spend today alone. Or alone with Kisumi, which would be so much worse than alone.What Asahi has up his sleeve is half-answered one whole minute early. A car horn blasts from the road winding through campus, sending Ikuya about a foot off the ground and shaving ten years off his life.“Ikuya!” Asahi shouts, leaning out the back window and beckoning him with a massive, unexaggerated wave and smile. “Hop in!”He comes this close to refusing when he sees Kisumi in the driver’s seat. He wanted to play hooky from class, not life. Oh well. At least he’ll die among friends. So he climbs in back next to Asahi, who is absolutely beaming.
“Are you so excited?” Kisumi asks breathlessly before Ikuya can even say hi. “I can’t believe you’ve never - ”“Shut up,” Asahi groans. “We literally just told you to zip it. We did,” he says to Ikuya. “Like, as you were walking over to the car. Also, hi.”“Hey.” They share a smile and some silent commiseration as Kisumi hits the gas and takes off. “Hi, Gou.” Gou reaches back and squeezes his hand. “Am I the only one who doesn’t know where we’re going?”“You’ll love it, I promise,” Asahi declares confidently, ignoring Ikuya’s question. “You won’t love what’s about to happen, but there’s nothing I can do about that. Not my car.”What’s about to happen is Kisumi assuming the role of DJ. The car is suddenly full of the most heinous bubblegum pop, which Gou immediately lowers to half volume. Ikuya’s no music snob, but he does know objectively bad music when he hears it, and is willing to bet the rest of the ride will be one long, torturous, objectively awful playlist.Campus disappears as they merge onto the highway and head nowhere Ikuya’s ever been. As the landscape slowly becomes more rural and the houses fewer and farther between, they chat and laugh and hold Ikuya back when Kisumi turns the music up again. When he’s not ready to hang the DJ, he admires all the sights he’s missed out on for years and wonders where they’re going. One forty-five minute drive later, he finds out.People mill about a lawn covered in picnic tables, drinking and eating and socializing with an ease Ikuya is trying desperately to learn. Next to it is a barn being used as a store. People walk in with nothing and leave with paper cups and baked goods, and some stop to take selfies in a nearby pumpkin patch. Beyond the crowds is a field that seems to go on forever, lined with rows and rows of neatly ordered trees. Without needing a closer look, Ikuya knows exactly where he is, and is overcome with the saddest, most beautiful rush of emotion when he realizes that this is for him.“This is the one thing, right?” comes Asahi’s voice from beside him, drawing him back to shore before he drowns in his feelings. “Best of the basic, if you ask me.”“This is the one thing,” he echoes, not needing to look at Asahi to sense his happiness and pride. “Basic is good. Basic isn’t - basic is such a sad word for things that make so many people happy.”“Amen!” cheers the most basic bitch in the solar system. “You’re making basic bitch fashion, Ikuya.”Gou, who’s been making basic bitch fashion since the day Ikuya met her, takes a break from whoever she’s furiously texting to pat Kisumi on the cheek. “And you’re making bitch fashion, period.” She clearly means it as a compliment, and a delighted Kisumi takes it as one. “What do you think, Ikuya? Beautiful, right? Someone may have stolen Kisumi’s car weeks ago and dragged me out here to scope - ”“Anyway,” Asahi interrupts, leveling Gou with a pitch-black expression Ikuya didn’t think he was capable of, “dessert first, healthy shit after?”Their assent is unanimous, and all four happy, basic bitches head into the barn-turned-store with nothing and leave with hot cider, too many donuts, and two bags full of everything Ikuya couldn’t not buy. Well, he almost didn’t, but Asahi explained he might need them for a rainy day, sage advice Ikuya couldn’t not take. Enabler. They gather around one of the picnic tables and admire their wares before digging in, giving Ikuya his first true taste of autumn.“Are you loving it?” Gou asks as he savors the taste of real cider. “You look like you’re in heaven.”“I think I am,” he smiles. “The donuts aren’t as good as the cookies,” he tells Asahi with a straight face, “but they’re alright.”“Those cookies fucking ruled,” Asahi says, taking Ikuya’s comment at face value. “And you didn’t get fish disease.”Gou’s lips twitch, and Ikuya hides his face in his cider, making a silent pact not to burst Asahi’s bubble. Kisumi is distracted by a group of guys at a nearby picnic table who have no idea what they’re in for if moves are made. Not that Ikuya’s seen him in action, but he can envision it all too clearly, and it’s horrific.They’re soon joined by someone Ikuya’s never seen before - a beautiful, tall girl with orange hair and honey-gold eyes that are locked on Gou. Gou’s breathless delight when she sees her explains who she was texting with such fierce concentration and the identity of the new arrival.“Everyone, this is Isuzu,” Gou introduces her maybe-girlfriend after giving her a quick kiss. “Isuzu, this is everyone.”Normally, this is when he’d get anxious and hope if he tries hard enough, he’ll become invisible and they’ll skip over his individual introduction. After all, he’s only just gotten comfortable with these three specific people - Kisumi tragically included - and even with Gou’s approval, Isuzu is an unknown variable. But he’s only a little anxious, and willing to stay visible long enough for a brief introduction. She seems nice. Good. Gou deserves someone nice.“Sorry,” Asahi whispers. “I didn’t know she was coming.”“No, it’s okay,” he replies, and it is okay. “As long as she’s happy.”Once they’ve finished their dessert, they make their way out into the sprawling orchard. The smell of apples is overwhelming, sweet and overripe. Ikuya can’t get enough. They wander between rows of trees hung heavy with fruit, their boughs whispering over the grass and fragrant carpet of fallen apples beneath their feet. Their leaves are still green, but the colors of Autumn are all around them in everything else. They do more tasting than picking, but it’s about the experience - he’d have nowhere to put them, anyway. They’d just sit in his dorm room, rotting right along with him the longer they spent there.Gou and Isuzu are glowing, hand in hand and stealing kisses, all wrapped up in each other. They’re like something out of a movie, the side couple that gets it right while the main character gets it all wrong. They look good together.On the opposite end of the spectrum, Kisumi is busy making eyes at a sugar daddy type one row over, and Asahi is searching for the perfect aerodynamic apple to lob at him. As Ikuya watches, the feeling of being an outsider in an established, lifelong group begins to creep in, until Asahi notices him and abandons his search to pull him back in.“Check it out,” he says, and without waiting for a response, takes Ikuya’s hand and leads him under one of the trees, pushing aside the branches sweeping the ground. They stop at the trunk, hidden from view. Asahi sits down against it and pats the grass beside him. “This is our clubhouse,” he tells him. “No one else allowed.”Ikuya joins him on the ground, back pressed against the trunk and legs stretched out over old apples, forgotten and bound to return to the earth. Late afternoon sunlight spills between the leaves, forming shifting patterns on the grass and painting the two of them gold. Everything outside their secret spot feels miles away.“You built this yourself?”“Only the best for you.” Asahi looks at him, searching for something he can’t seem to find. “How are you feeling?”“Much better,” he assures him for the millionth time. “Wednesday night was the worst of it.”“No, like - in general,” Asahi clarifies. “What’s going on in that genius mind of yours?”Genius. While it’s a gross overstatement, it still makes him smile. “I love autumn.”Asahi doesn’t call him on evading the question. “Yeah, I clocked that one. Why?”“The world is so alive. More alive than it is all year. I think it knows it’s dying, so it wants to live as fully as possible before it’s gone. Before it fades and disappears. Maybe,” he says hesitantly, “maybe it makes me as sad as it does happy. In the end, it still dies.”Carefully, always carefully, Asahi inches closer. “But it doesn’t stay dead. You get spring and summer, and you always get another autumn. And autumn looks good on you,” he says, tugging on the sleeve of Ikuya’s sweater. “The world’s alive a lot longer than it’s dead. Besides, winter isn’t all that bad. You’ll see, we’ll get some killer hot chocolate.”Ikuya can’t stand how hopeful he sounds, like he’s asking if Ikuya will be there. More than anything, he wants to reassure him, to tell him yes, without a doubt he’ll be there. But he doesn’t know, and all he has are doubts. “That sounds nice,” is all he has to give. “But today is good. Today is perfect.” Before he loses his nerve, he adds, “Right now is perfect.”This time, when Asahi smiles, it’s small and sweet and fills every corner with a familiar and welcome warmth. “More than perfect. You’re - that night, at the party,” he pivots, coloring the edges of perfection with a memory Ikuya can’t seem to escape, “when I followed you outside like a creep and a total mess?” Ikuya nods. “Your eyes. They were so…expressive. Yeah, that’s the word. They looked like they were saying something different than you were. At least, I think they were.”“They probably were,” he confesses, wondering when it became so dangerously easy to be honest around Asahi. “Why can’t I read them?”“Because you don’t see yourself.” Asahi reaches out and gently tucks Ikuya’s hair behind his ear. The tingling trail his fingers leave on Ikuya’s skin makes him tilt his head, instinctively chasing Asahi’s touch. “You just had to come crashing into my life, didn’t you?”“Speak for yourself,” he answers quietly, so as not to lift the dreamlike quality of the moment. “Some tutor I turned out to be.”Asahi moves a little closer. “You’re amazing,” he murmurs. “All other tutors should just give up.”Loud, familiar laughter and voices creep through the leaves, unfreezing time as they come closer. “Ikuya!” Gou calls. For the first time, her kind, cheerful voice is unwelcome. “Asahi!”Ikuya tries to hide his quiet devastation over the loss of even more precious time and whatever that moment might have been. Try as he might, he can’t ignore the clock, because no matter where he goes, who he’s with, or what they’re doing, he can hear its faint ticking.“They suck,” Asahi sighs. “And her girlfriend doesn’t get a pass.” Ikuya couldn’t agree more. “But hey, Ikuya,” he says, pausing before they leave their little world, “this’ll always be ours.”Tick.“Same time next year?”Tick.“I’ll be waiting.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Daylight is fading fast.Ikuya assumes the place is about to close, and that they’ll go home. But according to the three musketeers, the day is far from over. The more adult-oriented activities begin after sunset, and they’re not leaving until they’ve oriented themselves around them. Kisumi, Gou, and Isuzu orient themselves around the hard cider tent while he and Asahi - the ordained designated driver - stay sober.Watching Kisumi flirt with anything on two legs is a gag fest. He flits from one basic bitch to the next, simpering and batting his eyelashes and actually succeeding. No amount of bleach could help Ikuya unsee Kisumi making out with one guy right in front of him, never mind two. Barf bags are sadly unavailable.Then there’s an increasingly tipsy and handsy Gou and Isuzu. They’re bearable - cute, even. New love looks like fun. Sitting next to them is equal parts entertaining and awkward, and maybe - maybe they make him wistful. Maybe they make him jealous. And maybe he should stop being those two things right fucking now.What he can’t seem to do is stay away from Asahi. They laugh and joke about Kisumi’s conquests, and Asahi laughs at Ikuya’s disgust over said conquests. Gou and Isuzu occasionally lasso them into their conversation, which quickly turns into not conversation, and he and Asahi go back to each other’s company.Once the tipsy trio closes out their tab, Asahi announces the next after-dark activity.“A corn maze?”“A haunted corn maze,” Asahi corrects him, wiggling his fingers in what Ikuya assumes is an impression of a ghost. “Ghosts and chainsaws and all that good shit. Ghosts with chainsaws, if we’re lucky.”Considering how much Ikuya loves horror, haunted houses have never been on his imaginary shortlist of fall activities he’d never get to do. They just didn’t resonate the same as apple picking. But when in Rome, right? Although Greece might be more apropos. Hayrides are carting other haunted attraction-goers off into the orchard, disappearing into the night in a way that gives Ikuya chills. It’s fine. He’s an adult who loves horror. This is nothing.“Ghosts with chainsaws sound fun.”Do they?They’re on the next ride, swallowed by the same darkness. The tractor bed buzzes with excited, nervous chatter and laughter, brimming with pre-adrenaline rush adrenaline. Conversely, Ikuya’s unease grows the farther they get from the lights of the cider tent and store, and exponentially so when screams start to fill the air. They get louder and louder, reaching their peak as they crest the hill they’ve been climbing, and the corn maze that adult, horror-loving Ikuya will soon be navigating comes into sight.“Wild, right?” Asahi nudges him with his shoulder. “Must be pretty scary - hey, you good?”What must he look like right now if Asahi’s asking that? “I’m fine,” he says, going for nonchalance and failing. “I’ll be fine.”“And I’ll be right there if the chainsaw ghosts come for us,” Asahi promises. “Your own personal Ghostbuster.”That earns Asahi a genuine smile. “Lucky me.”The hayride drops them off and disappears into the night, returning to the other side of the Styx. They get on the line that’s moving faster than Ikuya would like and listen to one of the employees go down the list of rules. No leaving the marked path, no photos, no harassing the actors, no punching the actors - because apparently that happens - and absolutely no shitting yourself in fear. Ikuya really hopes that one is a joke.The entrance is through another, creepier barn full of midnight in the graveyard-type sounds. They don’t sound like any graveyard Ikuya’s ever been in, though he’s only ever visited in broad daylight.He’s fine. This is fine.The barn spits them out into the corn maze. Are all corn mazes this dark? Or is that fun little feature exclusive to this one? It’s okay. He’s with four other people, and all four are too loud to lose track of. The intrepid quartet and their cowardly hanger-on begin their journey through the maze with only their slowly adjusting vision and each other’s voices to guide them. Ikuya holds his breath, but no monsters, murderers, or ghosts - with chainsaws or otherwise - jump out. Their absence is haunting, and not in the fun, jump and laugh way.“This is boring,” Kisumi whines. “What am I supposed to put on Instagram?”“Nothing!” Asahi hisses as he whacks Kisumi on the shoulder. “They said no photos! I swear, you - ”A chorus of high-pitched shrieks and the revving of a chainsaw come from around the corner, stopping them dead in their tracks. Feet pound the dirt, and the sounds get farther away, presumably because whoever is shrieking is being chased by whoever is chainsawing. Seconds later, Ikuya senses something watching them. Whatever it is is skulking through the tall stalks on their left, observing their movements and listening intently. Fuck, fuck, fuck, Ikuya does not want to be here.“Guys,” he says, “uh, guys?” No one hears him over their dramatic stage-whispers. “Um,” he tries again, his shaky voice unable to cut through. “There’s - ”A long, pained moan comes from behind. Behind Ikuya, who’s landed himself in the back. He forces himself to turn around with the others and comes face to face with a figure in a reaper-esque black robe. Their face is bloodied and slack-jawed with unseeing milky-white eyes that see him perfectly in the dark.“Oh shit,” Asahi whispers for real.“Hot,” Kisumi nods approvingly.Their new friend is wielding a long, very real-looking scythe and twitching in a way he would find impressive acting-wise if he could remember that they’re an actor, which he can’t. Guess he’s the target audience, he thinks distantly before the reaper moans again and starts walking toward them. The five of them back away as the figure advances slowly, less slowly, less-less slowly, average, above average, and - fuck his life, they’re about to break into a run.“Nope,” is the last thing anyone says before the five of them take off, only a few feet ahead of their pursuer.Gou, Isuzu, Kisumi, and Asahi laugh as they run, screaming and shouting and clearly enjoying being scared. Ikuya isn’t enjoying being scared. He’s scared-scared, all fear with none of the thrill. Their ersatz death doesn’t feel inferior - it just feels close. Too close. As they run, more creatures creep and weave in and out of the claustrophobic walls of cornstalks, reaching for them and joining their original enemy for short bursts and at all speeds. The production value is incredible. Too bad Ikuya can’t appreciate it.He doesn’t know when or how it happens. One second, he’s running through a labyrinth alongside his friends, and the next he’s by himself, alone in the dark surrounded by head-high plants that could be hiding anything. The group behind them apparently hasn’t been let in yet, because apart from the fading screams up ahead, it’s dead silent. He should keep walking and catch up with everyone. But what if they’re not there? What if he’s somewhere else now? Or what if he’s walking beside them right now, but there’s a veil between them, and he’s lost on this side? Or what if -“Ikuya!”Asahi materializes out of thin air, flushed and out of breath and physically here.“We looked back, and you weren’t there,” he pants. “What happened?”Ikuya wants to reach out and touch but stops himself, scared of discovering Asahi isn’t here, and that he’s really alone. This way, he can pretend.“There was no one there. Everyone was gone.”“And you thought no one would notice?”“No,” is his first, defensive response. Then, because this is one of the only definitive answers he can give today, “Yes. Or you’d notice, and you’d keep going.”“Never,” Asahi answers even more definitively. “No way I wouldn’t find you. Even if you went full-horror and walked off into the cornfield. Even if you did it four hundred times.” He takes Ikuya’s hand and pulls lightly, his body angled toward the next turn in the maze. “Want to get out of here?”More than anything. “Yeah.”The maze isn’t any less dark now. If anything, the atmosphere is more unsettling. No actors appear. Nothing creeps alongside them in the corn. Nothing. But someone is holding his hand in the silence, and they’ve promised they won’t leave him behind. Eventually he sees light and hears voices up ahead. Kisumi’s rises above the others, grating and absolute music to Ikuya’s ears.“Ikuya!” Drama Barbie gasps when he sees them. “They wouldn’t let me go find you. Can you believe that?”“Overruled,” Asahi mutters under his breath.Ikuya holds back a smile though he’s oddly, disgustingly touched. They all crowd around him, even Isuzu, making sure he’s okay and didn’t end up tripping and breaking his ankle in the dark. They were apparently the last group, which seems much more plausible surrounded by lights and people than it did alone in the dark. No one mentions what he now knows is the real reason no one jumped out at them - the actors know a liability when they see one. So much for adult, horror-loving Ikuya.Now the day is over. They take the tractor back to the now-closed store and cider tent, where designated driver Asahi pries the keys out of Kisumi’s hands, relegating him to the backseat and appointing Ikuya as his navigator. Ikuya suspects he doesn’t actually need a navigator, but he’s happy to sit up front with him all the same.The farther they get from the orchard-store-bar-corn maze, the less happy and more anxious Ikuya becomes - this is it, this is the clock running down those final minutes. There’s no time left.They drop Gou and Isuzu off at Gou’s on-campus apartment with see you soons and promises of more days like this one. Then Kisumi announces that they’ll be making an extra stop, as one of his two unfortunate victims lives nearby, and he will be spending the night at their place instead of the frat house.“Thank you,” Ikuya says before Kisumi gets out of the car. “For trying to come back for me.”“Aw, look at us! And you pretend you don’t like me.”“You’re so fucking annoying.”“Love you too!” Kisumi yells, fleeing for the door of his one-night stand’s building after successfully dodging Ikuya’s hand in his face.“You guys would make the worst buddy cop movie ever,” Asahi says. “Actually, it would probably be amazing. Your place next?”No, he wants to beg, don’t take me back there. “Okay.”The drive is too short. Two hours would be too short, because the destination would be the same. He doesn’t want to get out of the car, doesn’t want to watch the taillights fade. There’s still a little time left, and he can’t stomach spending it alone.“I guess this is you,” Asahi says when they pull up, unusually subdued. Does he know Hiyori’s coming back tomorrow? Ikuya never even mentioned he was gone, but Asahi is smart enough to have at least figured that out. “That was awesome.”“Totally awesome.” God, he can’t fucking go up there by himself. That’s all it is - it has nothing to do with not knowing how to say goodbye. “Do you, uh.” This is usually Asahi’s thing. “Do you want to keep watching The Sandman? We still have a few episodes.”Asahi perks up instantly. “Fuck yeah! Best idea ever.”Ikuya’s relief is so strong it makes him giddy. “Cool. There’s a parking lot behind - ”Three sharp raps on the window scare them both out of their skin.“Ikuya?”And the clock hits zero.For years to come, he’ll struggle to articulate exactly how it felt to see Hiyori peering into the car when he wasn’t even supposed to be in the country. Caught somewhere between paralysis and vomiting, he obediently rolls down the window without being asked.“Hiyori,” he manages, “welcome back. Wasn’t your flight - ”“Got bored,” Hiyori dismisses him airily. “Thought I’d surprise you.”Consider him surprised. Hiyori turns his attention to Asahi, lips pressed into a thin line. Asahi glares back, daring Hiyori to just try fucking with him. “What?” he challenges him. “You going to write me a parking ticket?”Hiyori’s smileless smile grows. “I don’t care about your car, classmate. Speaking of, I didn’t realize class went this late on Fridays, Ikuya.”“No, it - it doesn’t,” he confesses automatically, fingers digging into the car seat. “We all went - ”“All?” Hiyori interrupts again, dripping with feigned curiosity that sets Ikuya even more on edge. “Sounds like you’ve had a busy week. Why don’t we go catch up? I’m sure you’re tired.”“Why do you talk to him like he can’t function?” Asahi finally speaks up. “He doesn’t need a babysitter.”“Excuse me,” Hiyori snaps, dropping the act no one was falling for. “I have been there for Ikuya for years. That’s what you wanted, Ikuya,” he reminds Ikuya as an aside. “No one cares as much as me. You’ve known him for, let’s see - a month? You really think you know what he needs better than I do?”“No!” Asahi bursts. “I don’t know what he needs! The only one who knows that is him!”Distress and panic build inside Ikuya as he sinks lower in his seat, wishing he could disappear. Five minutes ago, he had ample advance warning, a window of time to prepare and give himself a fighting chance of standing his ground, however small. Now not only is he unprepared, he’s so thrown he can barely think straight. All he can hear is the voice he knows not to talk back to, heavy with cold disappointment that makes his insides churn more than rage ever could.Hiyori’s lip curls in open contempt. “Then you don’t know him at all. Ikuya, let’s go.”Guilt is eating at him on all sides. More than anything, he wants to say no. But as he looks between Hiyori and Asahi, one impatient and expectant, one worried and pleading, his shoulders slump, and he averts his eyes - and that’s when he knows he’s already made his choice, a choice he’ll never forgive himself for.“Sorry, I - I’ll text you,” he mumbles, knowing Asahi will hear what he really means - there won’t be any winters or springs or summers. “I’m sorry.”Hiyori eyes the plastic bags full of everything Ikuya couldn’t not buy as he steps out of the car. “Ikuya,” he sighs, “I told you - ”“They’re mine,” Asahi says. “Problem?”“Only for your dentist,” Hiyori sneers. “Enjoy.”Why is he doing this? Why won’t his body listen when he screams at it to turn around and get back in the car? Because he’s weak, that’s why. Always has been. So, instead of doing what he wants more than anything, he shoves his hands in his pockets, unable to look at the light he’s choosing to walk away from. What a fucking coward he is.“Even if you go full horror, Ikuya!” Asahi calls as Hiyori puts a hand on his shoulder and guides him away. “Full-ass horror!”No, he’ll give up eventually. They all will, and they all should. You can only give so much of yourself to someone who throws it back in your face. At some point, it has to go to someone who’ll reciprocate and give of themselves equally.From the second Asahi asked him to stick around after movie night, Ikuya knew he’d let him down - he knew, and he still played pretend with someone who would never do that to him. All he accomplished this week was hurting others and ignoring his own heart breaking in slow motion.And so ends the brief life of Ikuya Kirishima, he eulogizes to himself as he walks back into the dark. May he never be remembered.

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Ikuya is no stranger to guilt.For years, his guilt has centered around Hiyori. Guilty for breaking his heart, guilty for asking him to stay friends after breaking his heart, guilty for depending on him for everything, guilty for being ungrateful, guilty for lying, guilty for being afraid, guilty for wishing he’d go away - guilty, guilty, guilty. There is no other verdict.That verdict wasn’t overturned Friday night. Once they got back to his room, Hiyori laid into him, asking why he wasn’t enough after doing everything he could to make sure Ikuya was happy, healthy, and safe. Being away for a week had only solidified his concerns, he said. Showing up in a stranger’s car in the middle of the night with bags full of junk Ikuya had likely been eating all week instead of taking care of himself when he knew he was easily exhausted and prone to poor health told Hiyori everything he needed to know. Ikuya had been right to ask him to stay friends, he said. Of course he knew Asahi was covering for him - Hiyori’s no slouch.Then Hiyori apologized for being a bad friend, because if Ikuya had run off to make new ones the second he left the country, he must not be measuring up. Maybe Ikuya could tell him what about him was so disappointing. All he’d ever done was try, and it obviously wasn’t enough.Ikuya frantically tried to explain and assure Hiyori that none of that was true. Guilt like he’d never felt before filled his lungs, making it impossible to express himself like someone his age. Everything he said sounded more and more incriminating, a confirmation of all of Hiyori’s fears. Telling Hiyori he wasn’t expecting him to be back in the country until tomorrow was arguably his biggest fumble. And the worst part? Hiyori’s interpretation of that damning statement wasn’t wrong. There was no coming back from that.When Hiyori finally left, the emptiness of his room laid bare what he’d done, and that’s when the real guilt kicked in. He cried ugly, unearned tears as he realized he’d filled every crack with cement on his own, even going the extra mile and smoothing the walls so he could never find a foothold again. What would have happened if he’d just stayed in the car and left with Asahi? What would have happened if he’d said fuck it and gone ahead with their spontaneous Sandman plans?Those questions are pointless now. He’s made the conscious decision to trap himself, and now he has to live with the consequences. Since he’s a coward, the first thing he does is mute Gou, Kisumi, and Asahi’s contacts. He can’t stomach reading texts telling him what he deserves to hear, or - and this is infinitely worse - not hearing from them at all. Easier to pretend he was never one of them than face his snuffed-out existence. After that brave move, he turns out the lights and crawls under the covers, pulling them over his head as he sinks back into his cocoon.Then he cries. Again. Then he sleeps. Then he cries. Again. Then he sleeps. Again.Like Sisyphus, this is his punishment for cheating death.He skips class on Monday.How is he supposed to show his face? How is he supposed to sit alone in the back while the three of them sit thirty rows away? And how is he supposed to do all that on Wednesday? Nothing will have changed by then.There is a solution, one that will save him from having to show his face or sit alone in the back without bringing down his grade, and hopefully help make things up to Hiyori. Distance learning isn’t exactly encouraged, but it is allowed short-term. Getting permission all the way up to winter break would never happen, and even then, he’d still have to show up for midterms and finals.A month to six weeks is probably the sweet spot. That should be enough time to work up the courage, he tells himself, because he’s a fucking liar. Realistically, the outcome would have been the same even if Hiyori had shown up when he was supposed to, and skipping class is more of the same. All he’s doing is kicking the can down the road, avoiding the inevitable truth that he won’t be any more ready in a month than he is now.Whatever.The professor buys his flimsy excuse of needing to be out of town for a family emergency, wishing him well and telling him that his contributions will be missed. Yeah, well. Ikuya will miss being there, or what being there was before he blew it all up. Regarding the project, he figures they’ve done enough work. By the time finals roll around, he’s sure Asahi will be happy to film separately and email his work to Ikuya, who can work the only magic he’ll ever get to on the only film he’ll ever make. An illustrious career, retiring the same day as his debut.On Tuesday he throws on his ratty jeans and old hoodie, ignores the dark circles under his eyes, and shrinks himself back down, intent on becoming invisible again. Hiyori goes with him to the cafeteria and walks with him to class - he appears to be in a better mood, so Ikuya’s decision to stay far away from the lecture hall must have paid off. He wishes it was more of a relief than it is. They don’t bother arranging to meet after class, since they both know Ikuya won’t be going anywhere alone from now on. This was his choice, he reminds himself. No one made him do this.The respite of his major and his love of film is the one thing that remains unchanged. Narrative Avant-garde Film showcases the effects of social media on people’s ability to separate their own lives from fiction and over-identification to the point where those lines begin to blur. Ikuya can’t help but wonder if he’s guilty of that as well. Does using fiction as the ultimate escape count?Apocalyptic Film covers the end of life as we know it. How do these movies prey on our fears using heightened realities that don’t feel all that far-fetched or impossible? And what does the end mean to each individual? On a small scale, everyone has their own small version of end times that looks nothing like anyone else’s. The person on the other side of the street could be living through the end of their world, and no one would ever know.Reality comes rushing back in when he leaves at the end of the day and sees Hiyori waiting for him. They grab dinner for Ikuya and go back to his room, and then Hiyori leaves to meet up with a friend at the library. With what little energy he has, Ikuya cleans his room, takes out the trash, changes his bedding, and opens the window to get rid of the musty smell that’s crept in over the last few days. Then he does his homework, followed by an hour-long staring contest with the ceiling. When Hiyori gets back, he shuts the window because he’s worried Ikuya will come down with something. The weather’s not getting any warmer, and Ikuya’s immune system has always been low.He bites back the urge to protest. What he owes Hiyori aside, he’s clearly learned nothing about taking care of himself. Case in point - he came down with something last week. Protesting would be against his own best interests. But fuck does he have to make a surprising amount of effort not to.On Wednesday, he wakes up energized before remembering he has nowhere to go. Even if he did, there would be nothing waiting for him there. Hiyori drops off breakfast Ikuya won’t eat, complete with plain black coffee that smells bitter and gross and makes him want to wrinkle his nose.As soon as Hiyori leaves, he dumps it.Not being in class in person is a double-edged sword. The space usually occupied by anxiety is easily and painfully filled by a bone-deep sadness, a pit he tries to fill by doing what he does best - pretend. If he keeps his eyes on the professor, he can make believe he’s there in the back row with his coffee and permanently transplanted neighbor. But the professor’s face is too close, his voice is too loud, and there’s no sweetness on Ikuya’s tongue.The second saddest thing he’s ever done was hide the tupperware of break-and-bake pumpkin-shaped shaped cookies where Hiyori wouldn’t find them. The single saddest thing he’s ever done is take one of the cookies from their hiding place and eat it slowly, a pale, pathetic imitation, and the last thing he has. He takes small bites as the professor announces they’ll be covering star-crossed lovers Hero and Leander.On opposite sides of the Dardanelles Strait lived Hero, a priestess of Aphrodite, and a young man named Leander. They fell in love at first sight at the festival of Aphrodite, where they immediately began an affair that was frowned on by both of their families. Leander’s family didn’t approve of him being with a foreigner, and Hero’s family didn’t approve of her being with anyone, full stop. So, as in all stories of forbidden love, they kept their relationship secret.Leander was a strong swimmer and swam across the treacherous strait every night, safely guided by the torch Hero lit for him in her tower. They carried on through summer and most of autumn, until the waters of the strait became too rough even for Leander. Though it wasn’t easy, they decided to wait until spring to see each other again and live out the lonely winter months without each other.Their plan was solid but flawed. They didn’t factor in how desperately they would miss each other or how lonely they would be. One night, Hero finally broke and lit the torch, ignoring the winds outside and thinking only of Leander and her need to be with him. Leander saw the light and jumped into the cold, dangerous strait and began the long swim across. Suddenly, the light was gone. The winds had blown out the torch, making it impossible for Hero to reignite. Leander was left without a guide and became disoriented in the cold, dark water and rising waves, and soon realized he would never set foot on land again. He drowned with Hero’s name on his lips. Hero was so overwhelmed by her grief she threw herself from her tower and drowned along with Leander.Nothing could keep Leander from Hero - nothing but the dark. The dark takes and keeps everything it touches, especially those foolish enough to plunge into it by choice. Ikuya is so fucking sick of these myths. Even when the gods aren’t involved, there are no happy endings. People are stupid and more than capable of screwing their lives and endings up by themselves.“Thoughts?” the professor asks.“Hero’s family is so lame,” comes an instantly recognizable voice from offscreen. “Did they really think their smoking hot daughter wasn’t going to smash?” A loud, resigned sigh can be heard from another voice Ikuya knows well, a voice that held him while he cried. “None of that would have happened if they weren’t so possessive and had such massive sticks up their - ”“Thank you,” the professor firmly cuts the speaker off. “You make an insightful, if crass, point, Mister…?”“Kisumi Shigino,” Ikuya’s one-sided nemesis says, slipping into a flirtatious tone. “But you can call me by my first name.”The professor gives him a placid smile. “Possessiveness is a hallmark of tragic myths, isn’t it? So many great loves never had a chance because someone or something else decided one of the lovers belonged to them.”“Weren’t threesomes popular back then?” Kisumi speaks up again. “Not the family thing, because ew, but what about the other ones? We all know what they were doing in those bath - ”“Mister Shigino,” the professor warns over the surprised laughter of the class. “Your contributions are appreciated. Now, moving on…”Ikuya rolls his eyes and laughs to himself. He wishes he could see this in person - and he could, if he weren’t hiding in his room to avoid seeing this in person. All the pretending in the world won’t make the camera turn around or wave at him or interrupt his color-coding, so he’ll have to create his own little dream world right here in his room, an approximate distortion of reality.The one person whose voice he doesn’t hear is Asahi’s. No groan of exasperation to accompany Gou’s sigh or hissed, “shut up!” There’s only the dynamic duo. The rest of class is less of a discussion and more of a pop quiz. Most of the people the professor calls on are prepared to answer, which really shouldn’t surprise Ikuya since the class is so well-taught and engaging. They’ll do well on their finals. Ikuya will too, but he’ll escape as quickly and quietly as possible once they’re done, severing his ties once and for all to the gen ed he should have switched out of when he had the chance.When class ends, it…ends. The screen goes dark and silent, just like Ikuya’s room. Maybe he should go on a walk? No, there’s not enough time. He’ll just…do nothing. Yeah, that sounds about right. He’ll do nothing. So he shuts his computer, hugs his knees to his chest, closes his eyes, and does nothing.The world outside is silent.Gradually, Ikuya falls into a routine.Every other morning, he wakes up unrested and exhausted, throws on the first clothes he sees, and goes to breakfast with Hiyori before class. For a few wonderful hours, he gets a vacation from his sad little life, allows himself to imagine making a career doing what he loves, and then flies home without a tan or souvenirs.Every other other morning, he wakes up unrested and exhausted, stays in his sweats, and lets the breakfast Hiyori brings him go cold in favor of one of his cookies as he watches his former favorite class through a screen. The fake classroom he’s created around him in his mind becomes familiar, somewhere other than his room that dissolves once the lecture ends and he remembers where he is. Participation increases with each class, and eventually becomes real, substantive discussion. He’s glad, he really is. But the more people talk and offer their perspectives, the more he feels himself fading away. There’s nothing unique or valuable he could contribute anymore.The mark he made is gone.He goes to his other non-major classes in person. As always, he sits in the back where no one will bother him, and no one does. No one tries to talk to him or sit next to him or follow him out of class. Everything goes exactly as it should.As October progresses, a faint chill creeps into the autumn air, forcing him to wear a light jacket over his hoodie. All that means is that autumn’s days are numbered, and the world is moving on from its death throes into true death. Taking in the scenery as he moves from dorm to cafeteria to class and back with Hiyori by his side is one of the few joys he still has. The rest of his time outside class and homework is spent amusing himself through extreme escapism - he watches movie after movie, living as many lives as he can so he doesn’t have to live his own.He even rereads all ten volumes of The Sandman. The idea of watching the rest of the show on his own is too fucking depressing, but the graphic novels are safe since he never shared them with Asahi. Okay, so he might skip Orpheus and Eurydice. That one’s too raw. But he’s able to lose himself in the rest and live in the pages alongside The Endless and the beings - human and more than human - who cross paths with them. Asahi would enjoy reading these, he thinks sometimes. If Ikuya hadn’t run off, he might have loaned them to him.As hard as he tries to emulate his phone and mute his existence, Asahi is always on his mind. Though Kisumi and Gou start participating on a regular basis, he never hears Asahi’s voice - he always hopes he will, and always ends up disappointed. He misses his voice. He misses him. He wonders what and how he’s doing. He almost unmutes his contact at least once a day and chickens out at the last second. An imagined version of Asahi’s voice lives in his mind, promising he’ll always find Ikuya. In reality, Asahi probably never came looking and moved on when he realized Ikuya used him. That's what Ikuya hopes, anyway.Meanwhile, his fuse is getting shorter. More and more, he finds himself getting impatient with Hiyori. He’s unwilling to give him the reaction he’s looking for when he tells him about his day, or apologize for leaving his breakfast untouched - he even starts reopening the window the second Hiyori leaves, and doesn’t bother closing it before he comes back.Hiyori also becomes less patient, accusing Ikuya of not caring about his efforts or what’s going on in his life. Ikuya counters with the same accusations, though his persistent guilt always makes him back down in the end. So he’s miserable, lonely, and at odds with the one person in his life. The one person who’s always been there and who he chose to attach himself to for good.What a fucking mess he’s made of his life.All of this is fueled by the spark he’s simultaneously tried to nurse and hide. Unfortunately, the nursing went a little too well, and his spark no longer fits in its designated space. If only he hadn’t erased himself and made sure it had nowhere to go and no one to hold it with him. No longer quietly hopeful, all it does now is taunt him.They sit together in the dark, arguing as he tries and fails to snuff it out. They spar in the morning as he grabs another drab hoodie, ignoring his spark’s insistence he wear something nicer. There’s nothing to dress up for, he explains. No one to dress up for. But no amount of snuffing, arguing, or explaining will make it leave him alone. The spark curls up on his chest beside his boulder when he goes to sleep and flits around him as he wades through the sludge, lighting his path toward…toward what? Toward nothing.Fuck his cruel, piece of shit spark.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

As the days pass, Ikuya’s self-inflicted loneliness weighs heavier and heavier. Halloween is right around the corner. Every day, more cobwebs, skeletons, ghosts, and pumpkins pop up around campus, and the sound of the dancing pumpkin guy video set to every song on earth blares from students’ phones. Halloween is Ikuya’s favorite holiday. The world smells like autumn cranked up to a million, and an undercurrent of fear and delight in the supernatural runs beneath everything. Most importantly, it’s the one day a year when Ikuya and everyone else on campus are on the same page. Though he’s no less alone or invisible, for a short time he’s neither.This year is different. All the things that used to make him happy are just reminders of how he gave up his chance to be on the other side. Every time he passes a group of students watching the dancing pumpkin guy or shrieking at the sudden, high-pitched cackle of a motion-activated witch, his choice pushes down on his shoulders. At least when winter comes, he won’t be surrounded by ghosts - he’ll be one.When Halloween proper rolls around, he’s losing his mind. The room is dark and musty, and his open window is no substitute for being outside. Worst of all, Fridays are lecture days, and he’d rather die for real than spend his favorite holiday watching something he willingly gave up, or hear the voices of people whose kindness he took advantage of. But he can’t just sit here in the dark, either. Not today of all days. One more day couldn’t hurt, right? There’s nothing after this. So he makes the executive decision to skip all his classes and slips out before Hiyori can come back from the cafeteria with his breakfast. A bold move, but he’s fucking desperate.Campus is buzzing with Halloween-fueled excitement. As he walks, he passes several students in costume, smelling like they’ve already started pregaming and are ready to ruin their professors’ days. At this rate, they’ll be passed out before whatever party they’re going to tonight even starts. He heads in the opposite direction of the crowd, keeping his head down until he’s safely off campus and en route to his destination. Once he’s sure he’s in the clear, he moves briskly, speeding up and looking anywhere else when he passes the café - he can’t bring himself to acknowledge its existence, which only makes him more aware of it.Something inside him loosens when he sees the old iron gates of the cemetery wide open and waiting for him. The silence that envelops him when he walks through makes him smile, like he’s come home after a long absence and found everything exactly as he left it. Crumbling, moss-covered headstones call out to him without words, because the dead have no language. Ghosts are wordless memories that fade with time, disappearing altogether when those who carry their memory leave the world behind as well. By now, most of the memories in this old cemetery are gone. Everything is transient, born with one foot out the door.What Ikuya loves most about Halloween is the brief, twenty-four hour window where those memories come back to life. They’re ephemeral and impermanent as anything else, but that’s what makes them so special. Blink, and you’ll miss their joyful dance in the sun, drinking in as much of the world they once belonged in as they can before they’re gone. Someone has to watch and remember, and Ikuya is happy to be that person - he’ll be one of them someday, and since he doesn’t have many people to remember him, his memory won’t last long. Today the veil is thin, and as he watches the proverbial dance, he wonders if he could walk through and spend a brief moment on the other side. Would it look any different than his life does now?When he finally leaves, he has five missed calls and fifteen texts from Hiyori that he avoids reading. Avoidance is his greatest gift, so he might as well flex. This time, when he passes the café, he slows down. Would getting one more pumpkin spice latte be the worst thing in the world? They’ll be gone tomorrow. No, he shouldn’t. No, he should. Since he’s come this far, he might as well go all the way.So he squares his shoulders and enters the café full of mismatched sofas, armchairs surrounding low wooden tables, and memories he’ll look back on fondly one day once the regret is woven into the fabric of his life, and orders his favorite. As always, it smells like heaven and can’t be had anywhere other than the couch he thinks of as his, and will stay his until he walks out the door. Before drinking, he pauses and takes a deep breath. Then he brings it to his lips and takes one small sip, then another, ignoring the tears rolling down his cheeks as he does. Who knew endings could be so painful and taste so sweet?About halfway through, he stops to dab at his cheeks with the sleeve of his hoodie - and that’s when it happens.“Mister Kirishima?”Oh fuck.Ikuya looks up into the face of the professor. The professor whose class he’s been watching online because he’s supposedly out of town. Which he’s obviously not. Which the professor now knows.“Oh, um,” he flails, “Professor - you - ”“May I join you?” the professor asks, throwing Ikuya off any game he might have had. Without waiting for a response, he sits down at the other end of the couch. “Welcome back.”“Thank you. The train - I just got back this morning.”Yeah, because he’s totally going to buy that.But the professor doesn’t call him on it - not with words. The knowing smile on his face speaks volumes. “I’m glad to hear it. Everyone in your family is okay?”“Yes.”The professor hums thoughtfully. “I’m glad to hear it. Discussion’s picked up since you’ve been away,” he says casually. “They seem to have realized they might need to know the material in your absence. But you have a unique perspective, Mister Kirishima. And I believe they miss that as well.”Ikuya picks up his cup and wraps his hands around the warm ceramic, unsure how to hold himself or what to do with his body. “No,” he disagrees, wondering why he’s saying anything at all when he knows he’s in more than one doghouse. “That’s not true. All I did was answer when you asked. You wouldn’t even know what I sounded like if there was an actual discussion.”“Lucky for us there wasn’t one, then,” the professor counters. “And lucky for your project partner. Mister Shiina seems very invested in what you have to say.” Come on. Asahi wasn’t an unavoidable subject, was he? Or maybe he was, given Ikuya’s track record for having the worst fucking luck on earth. “Or I assume he must be, given his behavior while you’ve been gone. For someone so friendly, he’s scared quite a few people away from your seat.”Catching his coffee before it ruins the barista’s day is nothing short of an acrobatic feat.“What?”“I know it was out of your control” the professor continues, “but working on the project by himself appears to be taking a toll on him.” Triple fuck. Because Ikuya wasn’t already wracked with guilt every second of every day. “Considering he’s doubled his caffeine intake. We’ve all been there. I know I have. Or am,” he says with a wry smile. “But I don’t pace myself nearly as well as him. I’d finish both of them in one sitting, and he never does.”Ikuya grips his cup so tightly his knuckles turn white. What the professor is saying is impossible. That boat sailed the second he got out of Asahi’s car and went upstairs with Hiyori. “Why are you telling me this?” he asks, too unmoored to care that he’s addressing someone who could affect his ability to graduate. “Why do you care?”“Because you both care about my class, which is unusual outside of the classics majors I work with. Between that and my limited exposure to your dynamic, you make a good team. Unlikely, but good.”Team.This can’t be - he can’t be here. There’s a ringing in his ears, his mind racing, and he - he needs air now. But he’s not done with his -“I’m sorry,” he says before gulping down the rest of his coffee and grabbing his phone off the table, “I have to go. And - I lied. I wasn’t out of town. I’m sorry about that too.”“No apology necessary.” Yeah, he knew. “Looking forward to seeing you in class on Monday, Mister Kirishima.”“I’ll be there,” he promises. “Thank you, Professor Serizawa.”Whether his favorite teacher says anything else, he’ll never know, because he’s already gone. Once he’s outside, he takes off running. He runs until he’s back at the iron gates of the cemetery, where all the air is his. For the second time today, he crosses the threshold and is welcomed by silence, and goes to a bench by one of the mausoleums.Ghosts whose memories have risen for one precious day watch over his shoulder as he pulls his phone out of his pocket. No more chickening out, they whisper as his finger hovers over Asahi’s contact on his phone. No more being a coward.Tap. Unmute.A bubble appears over the text message icon. Ikuya does a double take when he sees the number. Fifteen years ago he’d have racked up hundreds in overages if he had this many messages. He opens his conversation with Asahi, which should have gone cold, or have at most a few messages severing their connection for good - anything but this.There are pictures of every coffee Asahi brought to class for him, along with detailed descriptions. They become increasingly creative and delicious-sounding as time goes on. Asahi has to be ordering them custom, because there’s no way they were pre-existing menu options. ok so now i have a really long list for when i do see u, he wrote two days ago, ur gonna be super impressed.There are, for some reason, around thirty pictures of cats, with the caption cats that remind me of ikuya, with Asahi’s reasoning for each. Some are pulled off the internet, and others are taken by Asahi himself, as evidenced by the thumbs-up held as close to the cat as possible without being attacked. this one is nice, this one is smart, this one was the prettiest, i think this one is magic and keeping it on the dl, this one was hiding but it was my favorite.There are messages about movies Asahi’s been watching and the different genres he’s been dabbling in. Comedy, horror, sci-fi, drama, romance, thriller, fantasy, and even documentaries comprise his journey of filmic self-discovery - he struggles with foreign films because of the subtitles, but watches them anyway. i’m becoming a genius, he wrote after watching a Korean film, i can’t be seen w u if i don’t get smart. He also refuses to watch the rest of The Sandman by himself, though he does send a thrilling i should read the comic book for sure.There are accounts of weird shit Kisumi said or did, and his revolving door of flings slash victims. Sometimes Kisumi steals Asahi’s phone and sends selfies, which Ikuya scrolls right past. Gou’s blossoming relationship is also a hot topic. He’s glad to hear how happy they are and how well Isuzu has fallen in with them.
but it’s not as fun without u
Then there are messages about Ikuya.
u probably think i’m insane sending all these

but i think about u all the time and if ur ok

idk u just kind of rocked my world out of nowhere and i

anyway i really miss u

i’ll miss u in every season
Finally, there’s a picture of break-and-bake pumpkin-shaped cookies, bright orange and unburnt, with a simple happy halloween!!!!!!!!!!! from two hours ago. Ikuya’s eyes are glued to the screen as he rereads them again and again, trying to reconcile what should be with what is and has been. What does he do now? Where does he go from here?Go, his incorporeal friends urge. Leave. You don’t belong here.And they’re right - he doesn’t belong here. He belongs somewhere else, with someone else. So he follows their instructions and leaves to rejoin the living without looking back, unable to tease out and identify everything he’s feeling. All he can do is follow where they lead.The sun is low in the sky when he reaches the first place they lead him. Unexpectedly, that place is the dorm. Then he follows them up to his room, where he opens his computer and goes to the application he’s had bookmarked for years but has always been too scared to fill out - until now.While he has a few minutes and is in desperate need of somewhere to channel his nervous energy, he’ll fill out as much as he can before what he knows is coming does. Too soon, the door opens and Hiyori lets himself in without knocking, waiting silently for Ikuya to explain himself.Of course he’s scared. Of course he wants to crumble immediately, which is exactly what his body tries to do. But even though his heart is pounding hard enough to kill him, he resists by the skin of his teeth and forces his body to turn and face Hiyori instead.“Well?”“Well what?”“There I was in class, barely able to pay attention because I was so worried, and all you can say is well what?” Hiyori asks. “You know people act like idiots on Halloween. You don’t do well on your own around that kind of - ”“Then why do you drag me to parties and leave me alone if I don’t do well around people acting like idiots?” Ikuya interrupts. “And wouldn’t you wanting to be there in the first place make you one of those idiots?”Hiyori’s eyes widen, then narrow. “I thought you wanted to become less fragile,” he says. “I thought I was helping you by bringing you and giving you space. But you weren’t ready, and that’s okay.”“No, that’s not fair. I - ”“And you managed to find the biggest idiot of them all, so what’s the problem? Come on, Ikuya,” he scowls, “if you want to get better at this, you should at least be able to identify bad news when you see it. That’s why you need me.”Ikuya balls his hands into fists to hide their shaking. “Maybe I’m better than you think.” Before Hiyori can twist his words, he asks, “How long have we been friends? Nine years?”Hiyori sighs impatiently. “Yes, which is why I know you - ”“Right. And after nine years, you should know me better than anyone. So what’s my favorite series?”A brief, telling silence fills the room before Hiyori responds. “You watch so many. How can I keep up?”“Wrong,” he says. “My favorite series is on my bookshelf, not my TV. Not until last summer. What’s my favorite movie?”This time, Hiyori looks like he might actually be digging for an answer. “The one about the pianist and his driver…?”“Wrong again,” he corrects him, voice growing more steady and confident. “That movie is awful. You just picked the most recent Best Picture winner you could think of, didn’t you?”“This is ridiculous, Ikuya,” Hiyori snaps. “Does being your friend require a written exam now?”“This should be easy for someone who’s been my friend for nine years,” he pushes back. “I know your favorite true crime documentary, and I know you think the killer was a genius. I know you love referencing your favorite movie by calling crazy people bunny boilers. Maybe this will be easier. What’s my favorite drink?”Hiyori rolls his eyes. “Anything that will give you cavities. Next question, since you seem to need - ”“Be specific.”Nothing.“That’s what I thought. One last question. What's my favorite season?”“Winter,” Hiyori replies confidently. “You’ve always loved winter.”Ikuya is operating on pure adrenaline, praying he can keep riding the wave. Yes, he’s scared. Yes, he’s bracing himself against everything his body is trying to twist him into. But underneath all the guilt and anxiety are pictures of cats and coffee and a guy who wants him to name his nonexistent Twitter fans, and underneath that is the person who robbed Ikuya of his color-coding and gave him his spark.“Wrong. You don’t know anything about me, do you?” he accuses him as he stands and walks up to Hiyori, looking him directly in the eye. “You could have said no when I asked if we could stay friends, but instead you - what did you do? Maybe I could answer that question if you hadn’t convinced me I don’t need therapy. But I can’t answer because you did convince me, and now I probably need therapy more than I did back then.”Hiyori is on unstable ground, and he’s never unstable. This is Ikuya’s one brief window of opportunity. Do or die. “You can’t just spring these things on me out of nowhere, Ikuya,” Hiyori says. “You can’t put all these impossible expectations on me.” Despite his conditioning trying to stop him with everything it has, Ikuya pushes past Hiyori and opens the door. “Where are you going?”Leave. You don’t belong here.“You were right,” he says before closing the door and leaving Hiyori alone in his room. “Class does go late on Fridays.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

As soon as he’s outside the dorm, the adrenaline he’d been riding disappears and sends him crashing to the ground. He crouches down and buries shaking hands in his hair, breathing in shallow gasps as unbridled panic fills his lungs. Calm down, his spark scolds him. Calm the fuck down and get the fuck up. For fuck’s sake. If he didn’t love his spark, he’d kill it dead. But because he does love his spark, he does what he can and gets the fuck up. Calming the fuck down isn’t in the cards.All he can think to do is outrun the panic, so that’s what he does - he runs. He runs across a campus now cloaked in night, racing past the sounds and smells of his favorite holiday and alcohol-soaked parties full of barely-there costumes and a few vampire fangs thrown in for authenticity. He runs and runs and runs, until he’s slowed down by the realization that he can’t possibly run a distance that takes a car fifteen minutes.Uber is surging like nobody’s business, but he orders one anyway. Some things are priceless.One minute away. Thirty seconds. Five seconds - and away they go. This driver is slow. Do all Uber drivers drive this fucking slow? Doesn’t this driver know Ikuya’s in the middle of a nervous breakdown? Doesn’t this driver know the last thing Ikuya needs is to be alone with his thoughts right now? Doesn’t this driver know -“So are you getting out, or…?”Doesn’t Ikuya know where they are?“Oh.”The frat’s Halloween party is already well underway. Like all other frats, they probably got started before sundown. Loud music and strobes pour out the open front door, revealing next to nothing of the darkened rooms inside, while drunk students in skimpy costumes laugh and yell and make out on the porch. There’s even a guy puking in the bushes. The works.Ikuya rushes past them into the house, where he’s met with pounding, eardrum-wrecking bass, the familiar stench of old socks, vomit, and jungle juice, and a crowd that sucks him in. Everything about this is his nightmare, but he’s got tunnel vision, and that’s what keeps him going, pushing toward his goal through a sea of gross, sweaty bodies. The house is bigger than he remembers. By the time he spots the stairs after shouldering his way through more humans than he can handle, he’s fallen back into panic, overwhelmed and on the verge of tears.Finally, finally, he reaches the stairs. People he’s never seen before and hopes to never see again eye him with concern - he’s some frantic, costumeless guy racing past them like he’s got the hounds of hell on his heels, eternally out of place in the world. But he doesn’t have time for them. Not when he’s reached the second floor, or when he’s dashing down the dark hallway, or when he barely skids to a stop as he opens the door to the bedroom at the end of the hall and tumbles in, wild-eyed and breathless.Why he assumed Asahi would be in his room when a party is raging downstairs is beyond him. Asahi should be partying, not sitting on the couch in his room staring at his phone. But he is sitting on the couch in his room staring at his phone, and his shock at someone bursting in becomes a very different kind of shock the second he realizes it’s Ikuya.“Holy shit,” he breathes, eyes wide with disbelief. “Ikuya?”“I’m sorry,” he chokes out as Asahi scrambles off the couch and across the room in no seconds flat. “For not staying.”“Ikuya,” Asahi says again. “You’re here. You’re - you’re here, right?”“I’m sorry,” he pleads, because he’s been so awful Asahi doesn’t even believe he’s here. “Why would I - I didn’t know how to stay. You showed up and you never left, and you wanted to work with me and buy me coffee and watch movies with me. You did all that, and I walked away.” Fuck, he’s crying. “And you were texting me, and I didn’t even know, because I’m a coward and I muted you - I don’t understand. You should hate me. Why don’t you - ”“Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t know how,” Asahi says. “And I’d never want to.” The hand he brings to Ikuya’s cheek is urgent and gentle. “On the first day of class, when that guy came out of nowhere? I could tell he just knew you’d go with him. And he looked at you the same way and used the same voice that night, so of course you went with him. This isn’t on you, okay? I knew he had to be coming back soon, and I still waited too long. Ikuya, you could skip class and keep me on mute all year, and nothing would change for me.”“But why?” Ikuya begs. “Why keep sitting there? Why keep getting coffee and sending texts and thinking about me when - ”“Because when I told you I believe in love at first sight, I was speaking from experience.”Save for his breath quickening, Ikuya goes still.“…what?”“I know it’s crazy,” Asahi says. “I know. But the first time I saw you - ”“When I was hiding and crying in your room?”“You could have been robbing me blind, and I still would have run after you. So of course I scared you off, because that’s crazy person behavior, and I was going to have to daydream about the guy who got away forever like the big stupid romantic I am,” Asahi tells him with a small laugh as he brushes Ikuya’s tears away with his thumbs. “Then I saw you in class, and you were so…everything. And I knew I’d do literally anything to make you laugh.”“But you barely know me.”“One day I’ll know everything,” Asahi promises. “If you’ll let me. Right now, what I do know is your smiles start at the left corner of your mouth. I know you color-code red to yellow, even though I kind of ruined that for you. I know you brush your hair with your hand when you’re concentrating. I know your favorite Endless is Delirium, which is why I have to read the comic. I know you love movies about time and memory. And I know you think you’re dying, or you’re already dead.” Ikuya muffles a sob with his hand. “And I know you want to live.”Ikuya has never been more torn open in his life. After nine years, this is what’s left of him, a live wire, raw and seen with nowhere left to hide. Words he won’t know until he says them rise in his throat, clawing their way out.“I hurt all the time,” he says. “There isn’t one second I’m not hurting - and you know what’s fucked? Even when I’m happy, I’m hurting. More, actually. Everything ends, so the happier I am, the more it hurts. And I didn’t know that until I met you.” All the feelings he couldn’t untangle earlier unravel as he speaks. “You asked if you could buy me coffee, and it hurt. You asked what my favorite movie was, and it hurt more. You said you loved my favorite thing, and you meant it, and that hurt so much worse. Being happy is a death sentence. Why isn’t it like that for anyone else? What about me? Does everything ever stop ending for me?”“Yes,” Asahi answers without hesitation, “it does.”“When?”The last time Ikuya was kissed, he had one foot out the door, hopeful and blissfully unaware of what awaited him on the other side. That was years ago, and he’s been wilting ever since. When Asahi kisses him, he blooms. Nothing about the lips moving against his is tentative or unsure. They whisper in no uncertain terms that all he wants is all of Ikuya, and to give all of himself in return. Ikuya clings to Asahi and the beginning he’s found in him, waiting for him to dissolve in his arms when he inevitably wakes up alone in the dark of his room. But Asahi doesn’t dissolve, and Ikuya doesn’t wake up.“Does now work?” Asahi whispers once he’s thoroughly taken Ikuya’s breath away.Ikuya nods wordlessly and curls his hands in Asahi’s hair. Asahi kisses the corner of his mouth, his cheek, his temple, his eyelids, and his nose, promising coffees and killer baking skills and movie nights and the million questions he’ll ask when he reads the Sandman, and how cool and amazing every season of every year will be.Ikuya wants it all.“Now works,” he says once he finds his voice. “Now is good.”The muted noise and awful smells of the rollicking party beyond the door are easily ignored. No one has ever looked at him the way Asahi looks at him now, like he hung the moon and stars by just existing, and it’s enough to silence everything else. Ikuya wonders if his smile is even a fraction as bright as Asahi’s. That would mean he was happy. Truly, painlessly happy.Asahi leads him to the worn, comfortable couch and produces a new tupperware of his now famous break-and-bake pumpkin-shaped cookies. “These are for you,” he says. “Since you have a sweet tooth. That guy obviously wasn’t a fan of you having sugar, or anything you like, or - anyway, I just thought maybe if I did see you, even though I knew I wouldn’t, except you’re here - gah, you still make me nervous, you know that?”Ikuya closes his eyes when Asahi reaches out to run a hand through his hair. “I don’t blame you. When I’m not being unfriendly, I’m a flight risk. That would make anyone nervous.”Even without looking, he can sense Asahi’s distress. “That’s not why,” he insists. “You know basically everything. When you talk about something you love, it’s like you have an encyclopedia in your head. But it’s not just what you know - it’s how you express it, like you’ve been dying to talk about this shit for years, and I’m the one who gets to hear it? Man. You have so many feelings, and it’s impossible not to feel them with you. And this is less important,” he goes on, because Ikuya’s head isn’t already spinning, “but like - have you seen yourself?” Ikuya’s eyes snap open. “You just…look like that. How? So stupid out of my league in every possible way.”Something twists in Ikuya’s gut, painful and needy. “You can’t just…say all that,” he protests. “You - ” All his many feelings cut him off, overtaken by the need to express himself in more than words. The kiss is clumsy and unpracticed, driven by a body unaccustomed to and desperate for touch. Asahi lets out a small sound of surprise and surges forward, meeting his touch with eager enthusiasm and the faint taste of unscented lip balm. The brush of tongues and caress of hands is overwhelming. There are hands in his hair and on his skin, pulling him closer and closer still until he’s nearly in Asahi’s lap. The sensation is electric.“I didn’t think I felt anything,” he breathes between kisses. “Now I think I feel too much.”“That’s not a bad thing,” Asahi says, pulling away and going nowhere. “People with feelings make great art. People with feelings need sugar to live.” Eyes never leaving Ikuya, he grabs the tupperware and hands over one of the cookies. “Go for it, genius.”“Making art for a living feels pretty unrealistic,” he admits as he follows orders and takes a small bite of the cookie. The taste makes the few stale ones back in his room seem, well, stale. “For me, at least.”Asahi looks downright distraught over his response. “Who told you that?” he asks urgently. “That guy?”Ikuya almost corrects him, but he enjoys Asahi’s commitment to never saying Hiyori’s name out loud too much.“No one has to tell me. You’ve seen me. Even when Hiyori literally brought it to me, I still couldn’t get my shit together to eat breakfast. How am I supposed to have a career when I can’t even take care of myself?”“I don’t remember the last time I ate breakfast,” Asahi argues. “You’re in college. Who eats breakfast when they could sleep an extra hour and turbocharge through the morning on caffeine? Not meeting one person’s weird set of expectations doesn’t mean shit out there in the world. You’ll see. Let’s skip breakfast when we finish the project. Then you’ll have proof you can still kill behind a camera.”“We still have to figure out the ending.”Asahi kisses him again.“Do we?”They spend the rest of the night talking.Spurred on by his many, many feelings, Ikuya suddenly can’t stop talking, gripped by the need to be known. Asahi doesn’t stop asking, latching onto everything he shares and encouraging him to share more. Words come faster than Ikuya’s mind can keep up with, resulting in a scattered mess of too much and not enough. Scarcity has him spilling as much as he can before the familiar tick, the second hand counting down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds he has until his time is up kicks in, but it never does.Guilt, Ikuya’s best friend, crawls into his field of vision as he realizes he’s spent next to no time asking Asahi about himself. Being unused to socializing isn’t an excuse to take, take, take. So he asks, asks, asks.“Major?”“Early childhood education. I’m going to be Mister Shiina for real, just with, you know. Elementary schoolers. Not Professor Serizawa.”God, of course that’s his major. Like Gou said, Asahi would be right at home making macaroni necklaces with first-graders.“Favorite food?”“Nachos.”No surprise there, either. Maybe Ikuya can learn how to burn some nachos in exchange for more cookies.“What’s your family like?”“Awesome. My sister is half a foot shorter than me and can get me in a headlock in two seconds. My nephew is just like her. Beats me up constantly. One time he got three fingers up my nose. They’ll love you.”They go on like that, interrogating each other in their eagerness to know more. Try as he might to keep up, Ikuya still talks more - he has nine years of things unsaid piled up inside him, and they’re all fighting to come out. But he does learn a lot about Asahi, and can’t wait to know everything one day. And maybe there really will be a one day.“Favorite feeling?” he asks in the vulnerable, dreamy predawn hours of the morning.“Easy,” Asahi says, smiling Ikuya’s favorite smile. “Love. Yours?”“There are too many. Love is a good one.” The house is quiet, all but empty as October disappears and November takes its place. The space between them is full of possibility when he admits, “I think I love you.”“I know I do.”“Yeah,” he gives in, because even without a countdown, he won’t live forever. “I know I do too.”“So what's the moral of the story?”“The moral of the story?” Asahi responds to the voice off-camera. “Orpheus was wrong. Tragedy isn’t a given. There’s always a way back, and if there isn’t? Make one.”“But it goes both ways,” the voice says, “She was at a disadvantage, yes, but she could still do her best to kick the wall down. Right?”“Yeah, she could.” Asahi smiles, eyes shifting from his mark to the presence behind the camera. “And maybe remind the other guy to not total the getaway car.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

winter
The first snowfall of the year happens on a Saturday in mid-December.When Ikuya wakes up, his bedroom is cold. With a pitiful little whine, he pulls the blankets over his head, followed by some awkward kicking and twisting until his feet find the floor. Safely wrapped in his cocoon, he cranks up the heat before trundling over to the big glass window overlooking the courtyard to watch what’s left of autumn disappear.The world is finally dead. Under all that snow is only concrete and shriveled grass. But the snow is very pretty, he decides. Maybe he’ll come around to it. If he can come around to Kisumi, anything is possible. Not that he’ll ever tell Kisumi. He’d rather die.For all his agonizing over and avoiding the application he’d been longing to fill out for years, all it took was three days for campus housing to respond. Three days, and suddenly he was packing up his dorm room with Asahi and Gou. Kisumi was busy going through Ikuya’s clothes, explaining that he would be dressing Ikuya from that day forward. To his credit, he’s really fucking good at it. Yet another thing Ikuya will never admit to his - or anyone’s - face. But a mere five hours, a few trips in Kisumi’s car, and one exchange of keys later, he was leaving the room in which he’d been swallowed alive for years behind.When he’d looked back at the building one more time before taking off, he could have sworn he saw Hiyori watching from the second floor. Guilt had hit him like a gut punch - even knowing what he knows now, undoing years of deeply entrenched beliefs and loyalty won’t happen overnight. So he’d whispered one more “Sorry” and gone on his way.Now he’s watching snow fall from his on-campus apartment. Unlike the communal spaces of the dorm, he has his own bathroom, kitchenette, and a small living room with a big TV for binge-watching movies. Most importantly, no one has a key. Not even Asahi, who had firmly rejected his knee-jerk offer to give him one, saying he needed to earn access to Ikuya’s space. And if that was never, then no biggie. There’s one key, and it’s his.After a few minutes of quiet, his phone dings with a text, startling him out of his reverie.
u look like a cute alien
Smiling, he looks down and sees Asahi waving his arms, face flushed with cold and grinning ear to ear. Ikuya waves back and sends his own come up. Thirty seconds later - Asahi skips stairs, he knows it - he’s shuffling to the door in his blanket snuggie and letting Asahi in.“Make room,” is the only warning he gets before Asahi pulls the blanket from Ikuya’s hands and wraps it around them both. “Morning.”“You’re cold!” he laughs as Asahi hugs him. “And hello.”They trip backward as they make their way back to Ikuya’s room, hindered every second step by Asahi, who can’t stop kissing him. They’re so new, and everything is so exciting. Ikuya might be a little hooked on it all.“I have morning breath,” he complains when they finally reach Ikuya’s bed. “At least let me get un-gross.”“You’re the least gross,” Asahi says. “But if you must.”When he comes back from showering and un-grossing his mouth, Asahi is sitting cross-legged on the bed with an eager expression. They haven’t been together long enough for Ikuya to know what it means, but he has his suspicions.“Are you going to make me go outside?” he guesses, joining Asahi on the bed and hugging his knees to his chest. “Please don’t make me go outside.”“Only for, like, an hour!” Asahi insists. “Maybe less. Pinky swear.”Ikuya’s exposure to snow has been limited to quick, unpleasant walks between buildings, so the prospect of a prolonged period of time outside - while it’s snowing, no less - is daunting. But Asahi looks so hopeful, and unlike at the orchard, Ikuya can give him a definitive answer.“Alright,” he concedes, wrapping his pinky around Asahi’s. “An hour.”The snow is light and fluffy, making it easy to walk through. Ikuya is buried under fifty layers, a knit cap, boots, and gloves, and it’s still barely enough. One hand is shoved in his pocket while the other is intertwined with Asahi’s. There’s no way Gou is awake yet, but they wave when they pass her apartment anyway. Asahi leads them off campus in the opposite direction of the café and cemetery, not saying much, mostly watching Ikuya’s reactions to his exposure therapy.And his reaction is good. Cold, but good. Out here, he’s in a snow globe, whereas inside, he was merely an observer. He could get used to this. Asahi is overjoyed when he tells him as much.“We’ll go sledding! Next time, next time,” he amends when he sees the distress building on Ikuya’s face. “Baby steps.”Their journey ends at a small clearing, temporarily occupied by food stands. Everything smells fucking amazing. Asahi is well-acquainted with Ikuya’s terrible sweet tooth, and is apparently not afraid of weaponizing it. The front lines of battle are at a hot chocolate stand.“I promised,” Asahi says as he hands Ikuya a paper cup. “You get to decide if it’s killer.”Asahi never actually promised, and Ikuya never actually expected him to follow through. Regardless, there’s hot chocolate in his hand and an expectant Asahi in front of him. So he tries it and - oh, okay. Autumn will always own his soul, but - god damn.“Yeah,” he sighs into his cup. “Killer.”Asahi bursts into a beaming smile and throws his fist in the air. “Fuck yes! Mission accomplished!”They drink their hot chocolate and indulge Ikuya’s sweet tooth at a few too many stands before walking back to campus. An almost awkward silence lingers in front of Ikuya’s building. Asahi never invites himself up, and Ikuya always has to remind himself that it’s not because he doesn’t want to. For a chronic overanalyzer like himself, that reminder never fails to take a beat too long, frequently landing them in a quasi-standoff.“Stay?” he asks once his brain deigns to remind him. “Please.”“Please, my ass,” Asahi answers. “Race you up there!”They spend the afternoon watching a movie, rewatching said movie on mute and making up their own dialogue, and taking extended breaks to make out, talk about absolutely anything, and make out some more. Everything is new and fun and so full of feeling. They can’t keep their hands off each other, but they also have so much more to learn about each other, what makes them tick, and what they love - besides each other.“Holy shit, check it out!” Asahi cries excitedly halfway through their rewatch. “Professor Serizawa hit me up.”Personally? That’s unusual. All they have left are exams, which are proctored by another teacher, and grades are usually posted on the class portal. He peers at the screen of Asahi’s phone with some trepidation and begins to read.
Mister Shiina,

I wanted to personally congratulate you and Mister Kirishima for a job well done on your project. Even in my other classes, I believe it would hold up well. Mister Kirishima was excellent behind the camera, both as a director and participant, and you were well-spoken, thoughtful, and, as always, a colorful and engaging presence. I realize communicating feedback and grades like this is unorthodox, but I wanted to let you both know that I will miss having you in my class. My office door is open to you both at any time. A’s across the board (I assume Mister Kirishima will be helping you study for exams).

Best,

Nao Serizawa

PS Mister Shiina, I have greatly enjoyed our after-class conversations. Good luck with everything.
“This makes me so happy,” he says, embarrassingly choked up. “We did it.”“Yes we fucking did.”Ikuya scans the email again. “After-class conversations? What’s that about?”Asahi looks like a deer in the headlights. “Uh,” is his very normal opener. “Nothing special. Just homework stuff.” In what is clearly a diversion, he drags Ikuya into his lap and pulls him in close enough for their breath to mingle. “Thanks for saying yes when I begged you to work with me.”Maybe the third degree can wait.“Thanks for asking me.”Between the project partner who came out of nowhere and changed his life, the unexpected beauty of snow, and the taste of chocolate and whipped cream on Asahi’s tongue, Ikuya thinks he could learn to love a world between death and rebirth.
spring
April is for cherry blossoms.Despite almost getting in a car crash when Ikuya used physical force to stop Kisumi’s DJing, they arrived at their destination alive and relatively unscathed. And thank god for that, because their destination is lovely.The annual cherry blossom festival in one of the nearby towns is in full swing. Food stands and vendors fill the streets surrounding a large park at the center of town. The lawn is dotted with picnic blankets brought by families, friends, couples, and everything in between, all enjoying the world’s new lease on life. As nice and cozy as winter had been, Ikuya is unspeakably relieved to be outside in a light sweater and jeans, and even more so to see growing things.Spring is another new beginning.“You have such soft hair.”“Oh. Thanks.”From the first day of class, he’d wanted so badly to be friends with Gou. Now they’re on their own in the middle of a park in a nearby town’s cherry blossom festival, catching up while Asahi and Isuzu play frisbee and Kisumi chats up god knows who at one of the food stands. As of today, Ikuya’s new favorite pastime is resting his head in Gou’s lap while she combs her fingers through his hair.“How’s the new therapist working out?” she asks, smiling down at him.A gust of wind rains pink petals down on them. “I’m not what you’d call a model patient,” he says. “But I do like her.”
Just before the new year, he’d finally gotten that referral from his doctor. Sitting down in his new - and only - therapist’s office for the first time was intimidating, but she wasn’t. He has to imagine the first month was like pulling teeth for her. While he told her about himself in broad strokes, getting him to share details was anything but easy, and coaxing him into talking about his feelings probably made him her least favorite kind of patient. But he didn’t stop going, and though he still needs some gentle convincing, engaging with her and facing his feelings is becoming easier as time goes on.“That’s good. You’re relearning with us and learning with her.”“Kisumi is teaching me violence. That’s not relearning.”“Alright, so maybe you’re learning brand-new skills with us too,” Gou allows. “Speaking of, here’s your favorite teacher right now.”Kisumi flops onto the picnic blanket, ruining their moment and robbing Ikuya of his sanity with his piercing voice and existence. “Look who got the hot face painter’s number!” he singsongs, throwing a wink over his shoulder to the poor face painter in question. “Oh, good, he’s not here.”Ikuya sighs in resignation and asks, “Who?”“Asahi,” Kisumi whispers loudly. “Now you can finally tell us about your sex life! Do you guys fuck all the time? I feel like you guys fuck all the time.”“Kisumi!” Gou hisses, aghast. “No! Bad dog!”“Come on,” Kisumi wheedles. “Please?”“Over my dead body.”Truth be told, he and Asahi have a phenomenal sex life.Their first time was wildly romantic - like, fade to black, movie kind of romantic. The last time Ikuya had slept with anyone was years ago, well past the emotional expiration date of the relationship. All he remembers is being bored. This time, the excitement and spark was bright and all-consuming, like night and day. Asahi was so sweet and careful, going to great lengths to make it a beautiful, memorable experience - and he’d succeeded. Ikuya may or may not have cried.Unlike their nauseating friend - yes, friend, okay? - they’re affectionate, but not all over each other in public. But the second they get behind closed doors, all bets are off. The explosiveness of their chemistry was a genuine surprise - he never would have guessed his unexpected fall would blossom into such breathless want. But his love of Asahi’s hands and having Asahi inside him and making Asahi feel as good as he does is transformative and life-giving.Do they fuck all the time? No. They spend as much time talking, laughing, watching movies, reading, and going places Ikuya’s never been and doing things Ikuya’s never done as they do in the bedroom. Although they do spend a lot of time doing all those things, so by that math…yeah, they do fuck a lot.After all, Ikuya’s got years of catching up to do.“You’re no fun,” Kisumi pouts, but as always, he bounces back in point two seconds, all smiles and new ways to torture Ikuya. “We’ll just talk about my sex life.”Thank god Asahi and Isuzu rejoin them that exact second, or Ikuya and Kisumi would be dead in a murder/suicide.“Vetoed,” Asahi says. “We see way too much already. Come on,” he instructs a surprised Ikuya. “Spring coffee time.”Asahi takes his hand and pulls him up. With a clear objective on his part and a clear curiosity on Ikuya’s, they take off for the many stands lining the park, walking until they reach a cute coffee stand set a little farther back from the others. Asahi orders a plain iced coffee for himself, and for Ikuya -“Iced honeysuckle latte,” he proclaims, handing the drink over with a flourish. “Espresso, vanilla, and honey. Didn’t make it myself.”“I’d be in trouble if you became a barista.” A wide smile spreads across his face after taking a sip. “Especially if you made anything as good as this.”For as thrilled as Asahi gets when Ikuya gives one of his seasonal drink choices a good review, you’d think he had made it himself. “Maybe I should change majors. Get a degree in awesome coffee choices.” Like the smooth motherfucker he sometimes is, he pulls a stray petal out of Ikuya’s hair. “So, Mister Kirishima. On a scale from one to ten, how would you rate spring so far?”Spring has never held much appeal for Ikuya. Where until this year winter was barren and dead, spring was a reminder of just how alone he was. At least in winter, no one was outside, so he could pretend he was like everyone else. But come spring, that illusion shattered when the quad was suddenly filled with noisy, happy students celebrating the nice weather and a world turned green again, and he was faced with the reality that he was nothing like everyone else.“You know how The Endless don’t stay the same forever?” he asks. “Delirium was Mania during the Roman Empire, and after that, she became Delight.” As always, Asahi listens raptly, hanging off his every word. “The personification of joy. And I think spring would be her domain,” he concludes. “Does that answer your question?”“You’re going on the record saying spring is your second favorite season?” Asahi asks back, brimming with his own personification of joy. “God, I could listen to you talk all day,”“That’s - sorry, that was a little much.” Even now, he's sometimes self-conscious when he realizes he’s waxing unnecessarily poetic. “Giving meaning to everything is kind of my thing. You know, in case you hadn’t noticed.”Asahi throws an arm around his shoulders. “And it’s the best. You didn’t win tutor of the year for nothing. Look how much bigger my brain is now!” Ikuya laughs as Asahi raps his knuckles against his head. “Oh shit, you hear that? Still hollow. But that’s unrelated.”Asahi is so gung-ho about boosting his confidence, he could cry - and he often does. Praise is something he still struggles with. But he’s trying. And Asahi keeps it light, always lifting him up without needing him to live up to some impossible ideal.They return to the blanket, and Ikuya resumes his position, head in Gou’s lap and fully relaxed. The five of them spend the rest of the afternoon talking, laughing, and celebrating while the world blossoms around them, Persephone returning to the surface after her time in Hades is done.Eventually, the artificial shutter of a phone camera draws his attention. “Don’t you fucking dare put that on Instagram,” he warns Kisumi. “Or you’ll be posting from the grave.”Asahi grabs the phone. “Nope,” he says when a violently protesting Kisumi tries to get it back. “This baby’s getting deleted. Uh. Right after I send it to myself.” He shows the photo to Ikuya. “Can I keep it?”Typically, he hates photos of himself. They show him what he’s convinced he looks like to others, and he doesn’t like what he sees. That’s one he and his therapist will likely be chipping away at for a long time. He doesn’t mind this one, though. Pink petals in his hair, eyes closed, and a small smile gracing his features perfectly encapsulate how he feels in this moment, surrounded by spring, friends, and the frat guy he loves.“Yeah, that’s fine.”“Sweet!” Asahi cheers, never failing to lose it over the absolute bare minimum. “Well hello there, new phone background.”And in this moment, he’s happy.
summer
July’s sun-warmed sand is less warm than white-hot.“Better?”“Much.”Ocean waves lap at Ikuya’s feet, giving them some much-needed relief from the third-degree burns he’d swear were forming. The water is a pleasant temperature. Maybe he’ll finally let Asahi convince him to go in.“The end of Season of Mists is fucked up,” Asahi says as they wade in a little farther. “But maybe it makes sense? Giving someone that much power - what’s the saying? Like, on your way to hell…”“The road to hell is paved with good intentions?”“Yeah! They ended up exactly like Lucifer anyway. All they did was call it redemption instead of torture. Just another couple of fallen angels, basically.”“Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Ikuya agrees. “Are you actually enjoying it? You don’t have to read it for my sake.”Asahi wraps his arms around Ikuya’s waist from behind in a sneak attack, lifting him a few inches off his feet. “If you ask me one more time, you’re going swimming with the sharks. Got it?” Ikuya shrieks with laughter and kicks his feet until Asahi puts him down. “You know I’m the world’s slowest reader. Which is honestly cool this time, since I could literally read it forever.”Ikuya’s copy of volume five is waiting for Asahi back at the Shiina’s beach house. They’ve been renting the same house every summer since he was a kid, Asahi had told him when he invited Ikuya out there at the end of the school year. The reality of summer vacation had hit hard - everyone was going home, and what the fuck was he supposed to do? He had no friends at home, and even if he stayed on campus, no one would be around. Any way he looked at it, he would be spending the summer alone. That triggered him something fierce.Then Asahi swooped in and saved the season. He wasn’t down with being apart for the whole summer, and he was definitely not down with Ikuya being alone for the whole summer. So here he is, spending July with a family who welcomed him with open arms, even if the arms were many and loud. They’re all like Asahi - warm, energetic, kind, and funny, with a knack for reading people.He’s having the time of his life.“You might be a slow reader, but you’re smart. I’ve always thought that.”Asahi appears genuinely touched. “Shit, for real? The Mister Kirishima?”“Yeah. You blew my mind the first time we met up for the project,” he admits. “Made me glad I showed up.”“Honesty zone - I googled that shit so hard,” is Asahi’s own confession. “I mean, everything I said was true, and I was super excited and digging it. But I wanted to impress you so bad and prove I wasn’t the stalker-y guy who never stopped texting.”He still texts more than anyone Ikuya’s ever seen, but Asahi doesn’t need to know that. He doesn’t let it interfere with their relationship, and watching him text at light speed while barely looking at his phone is endlessly entertaining.“You made a good case for yourself.”They walk a little farther out, stopping at a sandbar where the sand is damp and easy on the toes. The horizon seems to stretch out forever in an endless blue expanse. According to Anglo-Saxon mythology, following the moonlight’s path when sailing off into the horizon will eventually land you in Faerie. Ikuya will never know for himself, but he’d like to believe it’s true - and it could be, couldn’t it? That he’ll never lose his sense of wonder is one of the few things he truly likes about himself.For now, he’s content to wonder at the sandbar and his world-champion texter. Figuring a sandy ass wouldn’t be the worst thing to ever happen to him, he sits down and pulls Asahi with him. A surprised ‘oomph’ sound escapes Asahi as he hits the ground.“Warn a guy,” Asahi grumbles. Ikuya can’t bring himself to say sorry or take his complaint seriously, not when Asahi’s situating himself so Ikuya’s between his legs, chest pressed against his back. “There. Better.”Ikuya relaxes against him. Unlike Ikuya and his fair, easily burned skin, Asahi seems to soak in the sun and hold inside it him. Ikuya steals his warmth by osmosis through Asahi’s arms, chest, shoulders - everywhere, including the lips pressed to his neck.“That’s good,” he sighs as Asahi spreads his fingers over his stomach. “But don’t get too good. There are kids back there. Oh, and your family.”Despite that tiny detail, he turns his jaw up slightly and slides his hand behind Asahi’s neck to pull him in for a kiss. Their lips move together, tender and languid as Ikuya’s tongue pours gently into Asahi’s mouth. Sometimes he can’t help going against his own rules. They’re far enough out, right? As long as they’re not obscene, no one has to know.“Nope,” Asahi refuses when Ikuya instinctively pushes back without a second thought. “Too good.”“Ah, sorry.” Asahi kisses behind his ear and lightly massages the inside of his thigh, which is mean and unfair. “Rude.”Eight months ago, he would have hidden under his bed if you’d told him he would be on the beach with someone who wasn’t Hiyori. Not that he and Hiyori would ever have gone to the beach. Since they’re from the same town, he’s spent most of his summers with Hiyori - inside. The heat was too much, and the danger of dehydration was serious, Hiyori would insist. Yet here he is on a fucking gorgeous beach with his boyfriend and his boyfriend’s family, fighting through small cracks in his low self-esteem that weren’t there at all before, surfacing longer each time. One day he’ll climb all the way out, hopefully sooner rather than later.Sometimes he still feels hopelessly sad. There are days when getting out of bed is hard, just as they’ve always been. But while he’s not always truly, painlessly happy, he has people who care and do more than just check in. On the good days - of which there are more and more - his smile is often a fraction as bright as Asahi’s. Considering he’d crossed smiling off his list of attributes altogether, that’s a miracle in itself.“Want to share headphones and listen to the audio production?” he suggests. “We’re not caught up to where you are yet.”“Hell yeah!” Asahi seamlessly transitions from too good into plain old awesome. “Let’s head back. You’ll go up in flames if we don’t get more sunscreen on you anyway.” Fair. Ikuya hoists himself to his feet, and Asahi…doesn’t. “Yeah, uh…give me a minute. Too good,” he elaborates when Ikuya tilts his head in question. “Definitely too good.”Like the total virgin he decidedly is not, Ikuya’s face goes up in flames. “Sorry,” he says, giggling despite his himself. “I’ll make it up to you later?”“Not helping!” Asahi complains. “Now I’m going to have to think about that guy - yup, works like a charm.”Now sufficiently doused with cold water, Asahi joins Ikuya on flat feet and takes his hand as they head for dryer, hotter sand. Asahi’s sister, brother-in-law, and nephew are on towels adjacent to theirs, waiting to bully him as soon as they get back. Beyond that are the stairs leading directly from the beach to the Shiina’s back deck. The whole thing is impossibly idyllic in Ikuya’s eyes - overwhelming at times, but exactly how you’d imagine a summer at the beach should be.Besides being at home, seeing his mother, and having no class, summer hasn’t differed much from any other season. Not for years. Now that he’s experiencing it under wildly different circumstances, he sees the appeal. Yes, he burns easily. Yes, the sand is too hot. Yes, he needs to drink a lot of water to stay hydrated. But doesn’t everyone? Ikuya’s no different from anyone else, and isn’t that wonderful?“We haven’t had the best summer drink yet.”“What’s that?”“I know it’s not coffee, but you’ll totally love it. Promise.” Ikuya waits for the big reveal. “Milkshakes,” Asahi tells him proudly, like he invented them himself. “I decided we’re going to get some after dinner.”“Sounds good.”“Oh, and guess what?”“What?”“The place we’re going has - drumroll!” Asahi can barely hold in his excitement as he announces, “The place we’re going has maple and pumpkin flavored ice cream.”Much like their ice cream will, Ikuya melts. With a kiss sweeter than any maple or pumpkin ice cream, he says, “Then I’m going to need two milkshakes.”“Took the words right out of my mouth.”“And you can cash in on me making it up to you when we come back.”“Weird, suddenly we don’t have time for ice cream.”Yeah, summer is some kind of special.
autumn
The year has come full circle.The world is painted every shade of red and gold, clinging to tree branches and carpeting the ground, and the sky is a cloudless blue. It’s perfect sweater weather - warm enough to bask in the September sun and just this side of brisk. Autumn is here.The world has begun its long goodbye, and Ikuya is alive to enjoy every second. For the first time since he was a kid, he’s spent the year experiencing each season to its fullest. Each was special in its own way, but nothing will ever beat autumn’s lovely, bittersweet smile. This is what he lives for - a slow death that won’t end with his own. This year he can both grieve and celebrate its passing, knowing that this is the natural order of things.Then there are the pumpkin spice lattes.Morning walks have become a thing since senior year started. Contrary to Hiyori’s beliefs, spending time outside has improved his supposed fragility. While he still tires earlier than his friends, existing in the world - and doing it on his own - has all but wiped away his exhaustion and need to nap during every break. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he stops by the café for his favorite and drinks it on his regular route, always ending with a brief hello at the cemetery gates before heading back to campus.Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are different in that they’re the same. Now that they’re seniors, gen eds are a thing of the past. More than anything, he wishes he hadn’t run from the gen ed that saved his life. There are a million reasons why, but chief among them is knowing he’ll never get those unpredictable, increasingly creative morning coffees or baffling pleas to sit next to him again. Everything turned out alright in the end, but he can’t get back the delicate, unsettling, privately thrilling moments he stole from himself.But Asahi can’t help being Asahi, and remains adamant that even without a shared class, creative coffee is a must on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Every coffee Ikuya never showed up for last semester now shows up for him. There’s a toasted white chocolate mocha, a trifecta of snickerdoodle, maple pecan, and smoked butterscotch lattes, a cinnamon cappuccino, and a salted mocha caramel frappuccino - and those barely scratch the surface. Thank god he’s got a good metabolism and an even better dentist. Oh, and the world’s best boyfriend. Lucky him.Ikuya tried to pay him back once.Asahi was horrified.Ikuya did not try again.Now he just sneaks money into Asahi’s wallet.Today is Friday. Today is Friday, and Ikuya is playing hooky. Coffee-less hooky. A necessary sacrifice. His second sacrifice is significantly harder to stomach. When the DJ of his nightmares pulls up in front of his building, he’s already blasting tunes so horrific, even the most desperate wannabe pop princess would gag - so of course, Kisumi knows every word.“Ikuya!” Kisumi calls as the music segues into a dance break. “Come sit up front with me!”“No.”“But you need to see my new playlist up close!”“No.”As dearly as Ikuya would love to run him up a flag pole by his underwear, he has to give Kisumi credit for being every bit as loyal as Gou described. He’s completely unfazed by Ikuya’s attempts to kill him. Delighted, even. Any attention Ikuya will give is good enough for him. Ikuya will never tell him - or anyone, for that matter - that he appreciates him, or that once in an extremely blue moon, he even enjoys their dynamic.“Come sit in back with me,” a challenger chimes in. After a quick hello to Isuzu, who probably would have been fine relinquishing her up-close view of Kisumi’s playlist, Ikuya immediately climbs into the back seat and squishes in with Gou and challenger-turned-victor Asahi. “Hey there.”Their hands find each other quickly. “Hey yourself.”“Can you believe it’s been a year?” Kisumi says over the music as they take off. “That loser guard dog guy was always around, and you thought Gou and Asahi were fucking, and Asahi was everyone’s least favorite frat brother because he never shut up about your eyes and your brain and your hair and - ”“Kisumi!” Asahi cuts him off frantically. “Don’t make me look uncool in front of my boyfriend!”“Please, he never thought you were cool,” Gou smirks. “You were just some dweeb falling all over yourself every time you got within a mile of him.”“Ugh, fine. But you stuck around anyway,” he says to Ikuya. “You knew I was the man of your dreams when my cookies didn’t give you the fish sickness.”Ikuya bites his lip to keep from laughing. “Mhm. That’s when I knew it was love.”Kisumi keeps ribbing Asahi and taking them all down memory lane as the landscape changes. Buildings give way to sparsely populated rural areas and fields dotted with horses and highly unimpressed-looking cows. Looking at them, Ikuya is struck by a brief sadness. They won’t be visible on the drive home tonight. As it overlaps with his own, their lifespan is mere seconds long, only as long as he can keep them in sight. He’ll miss them, he thinks - a ridiculous thought, but true. They’ve left their mark on Ikuya, if no one else. They’ll be remembered.A welcome familiarity fills him as soon as the farm comes into view. The people, the picnic tables, the lawn, the barn-turned-store, the orchard that stretches into the distance - he loves this place.“You have to get two of everything,” Asahi informs him as they browse through the sugary aisles of the store. “Since you didn’t get to keep them last time.”“You’re going to give me cavities.”“If you were a cavity person, your teeth would have fallen out of your head by now.”Ikuya huffs a laugh. “Touché. Enabler.”“And proud of it!”Effectively enabled, he emerges with two bags of sugary goodness he’ll actually get to enjoy. Then it’s cider and donuts, another welcome retread of last year. Conversation flows freely, and the comfortable, well-worn banter he was so desperate to be part of is now second nature.“Ikuya, did you ever think of a name for your Twitter fans?” Kisumi checks in, as he does at least once a month. “Inquiring minds want to - ”“Kisumi. We’re ending this today.” Kisumi looks like he might pass out from excitement. “I do not want fans. I want friends. Do you - are you even listening?”“Ikuya,” Kisumi breathes, positively exploding with glee, “that is the perfect Housewives tagline!”The donut he squishes against Kisumi’s face is a necessary evil, and will be remembered fondly.Talk soon turns to Ikuya’s capstone - a thirty-minute short film. Between logistics, casting, and assembling a small crew to bring his vision to life, the project is already giving him ulcers. Then there’s the minor detail of working with people who aren’t his friends. He’s on shaky ground, a million times better than he was a year ago when he couldn’t even look someone in the eye, but not exactly the commanding presence needed to oversee a group of people. But he’s pushing through it and putting everything he’s learned into practice, because his small, tentative new dream of pursuing it as a career can never become a reality if he doesn’t.And it’s not all bad. Beneath the stress and anxiety is uncontrollable joy. This is what he loves, what he’s always wanted but never had the confidence or guts to do. When it comes down to it, he knows he has what it takes to make something great. Winning awards is the farthest thing from his mind. Only a handful of the thousands and thousands of films that hit the circuit every year make it into that conversation. As long as he’s telling stories, he couldn’t care less.“Storyboarding sucks. Can I just fast-forward to production?”“You didn’t tell me you’d finished the script!” Gou says, chucking him lightly on the shoulder. “When did that happen? And when can I read it?”“A week ago, and never,” he replies apologetically. “Well, maybe not never. After the screening. If it’s not a disaster.”“But that’s not until the end of the year!”“Exactly. That way I can flee the country right after graduation if it goes badly.”Gou ruffles his hair and gives him a knowing smile. “Somewhere in there, you know it won’t go badly. Anyway,” she moves on, “we’re here to celebrate, not give ourselves a hard time.”“A-fucking-men,” Asahi agrees as he raises his paper cup. “To cutting ourselves some slack and being basic bitches.”They all tap their cups together.“To basic bitches!”Basic doesn’t feel quite so sad anymore.Once the baked goods are gone, they enter the autumn sea of the orchard. The air is thick, smelling of apples underfoot and clinging to branches. Most will return to the earth, fallen, forgotten, and unused in their lifetime. But even those that don’t make it serve a purpose. Next year’s fruit will only be possible because the fallen enriched the soil. So, in a way, they never really die.Like last year, they eat more apples than they save. Asahi and Kisumi collect an assortment of lumps hurling fruit at each other, and Isuzu helps Gou face her fear of heights by climbing to the lowest branches of the least intimidating trees. Ikuya wanders off on his own. The paths between the rows of trees are peaceful and paved with squashed apples that stick to the soles of his shoes, turning them into a fragrant, slippery mess.Lost in thought, he wanders until he finds himself before a familiar tree. Branches sweep the ground, bowed over with apples and concealing the trunk from view, creating a veil between it and the world. Carefully, he pushes them aside and disappears - and smiles.“You made it.”“I did.”Asahi pats the grass beside him. “Come on over.”The late afternoon sun pours between the leaves, spilling gold across Asahi’s bright red hair and flush-prone face. Ikuya has seen him from every angle, but this may well be the most beautiful.“Did you renovate?” he asks. “It’s even nicer than I remember.”“Relationship upgrade, clubhouse upgrade,” Asahi grins. “Can’t be slacking if I want to keep impressing you.”“You always do.”Asahi takes his hand and kisses his palm. “So, Mister Kirishima. What’s going on in that genius mind of yours?” “You,” he says. When Asahi looks at him with a curious slant to his smile, he explains, “You told me every season would be cool and amazing, and you were right. Winter has snow and hot chocolate. Spring has cherry blossoms. Summer has ice cream and the beach. But - ”“But autumn is still your favorite?” Asahi finishes for him.“Yes.”“How come?”A slight breeze rustles the branches of their hideaway.“Because autumn has you,” he answers. “There wouldn’t be you in any other season if autumn didn’t have you first.”The smile Asahi gives him as he leans in is sweet and life-giving. “Would you still call it an ending?”“I would,” he says. “But an ending isn’t the end. We’ll always get another autumn.”“We?” Asahi’s smile grows. “So you’re casting me as a series regular?”“Try the lead role.”“That’s one hell of an upgrade from Tree Number Two. And yeah,” Asahi says before kissing him for the last, first, and millionth time. “Autumn will always be ours.”Familiar laughter and voices pass by their secret spot, just outside and miles away.“Should we go meet up with them?” Asahi asks. “Or do you want to stay?”Ikuya tilts his head to rest against the trunk and runs a hand through Asahi’s hair, smiling at the tousled mess he leaves behind.“Let’s stay.”Life will be waiting when they leave.