Work Text:
Monday, March 9th
5 Days Until White Day
Yosuke has never once spent time with Kanji alone. He is already standing in front of Chinese Diner Aiya, waiting for Kanji to show up, when this occurs to him. They’ve been friends for - what? - four or five years now, but they’ve only ever hung out when the others were involved. Realizing this, Yosuke starts to feel a little guilty that he’s called the guy out for lunch to ask him for a favor, since they aren’t really that close at all. He checks his phone for any messages and shifts his weight from foot to foot, trying to warm himself up. It is an ugly winter afternoon in Inaba, and the clouds overhead are pregnant with precipitation, but it’s not quite cold enough for snow. Maybe it’s best to call this whole thing off? He can text Kanji and say that he got hit by a car on the way here, or maybe he has food poisoning.
“Hey!” a voice barks at him.
Shit, Yosuke thinks. He should have faked the food poisoning while he still had the chance.
There’s Kanji, stomping up to the restaurant with his hands in his pockets. Everything about him - his piercings, the dark clothes, even his posture - still radiates intimidation just like in his teenage years, and Yosuke can’t help but grin to himself, knowing about the big softie he is on the inside. In fact, there’s a moment where it looks like Kanji’s about to lean in for a hug, but then he seems to realize who he’s meeting with, and he just throws himself through the diner’s doors instead.
They take the table in the front, by the window facing out onto the street. Even though it’s lunch time, the Shopping District is pretty dead thanks to the imminent rain, so there isn’t much people-watching to be done. They both order beef bowls and are mostly silent while they dig into their steaming food, letting it warm them from the inside out. The moment isn’t awkward - there’s no way for two guys who have known each other for so long and been through so much together to still feel that kind of discomfort around each other - but there’s definitely a lack of friendliness, and it makes Yosuke sweat in his jacket and squirm in his seat. Yeah, this favor was a bad idea.
“So, what’s up?” Kanji asks, once he’s getting full and slowing down with his food.
Yosuke laughs, “Can’t a guy just want to have lunch with an old buddy?”
“I mean... sure,” Kanji says with a shrug, “But you texted me and said you had a huge favor, so I assume there’s something going on?”
Even real food poisoning sounds like it would have been worth it right about now. “Well, heh… It’s embarrassing, really...” He trails off, stirring his leftovers with his chopsticks and giving Kanji and opportunity to stop him or the world an opportunity to end. “We hired this new girl at Junes back in January. She’s a total babe. Tall and blonde and such a great sense of humor. I’ve got it bad. Now, knowing my luck with the ladies, I don’t expect anything to come out of this. But then -- get this, dude -- on Valentine’s Day, she actually gave me homemade chocolate cookies!”
Yosuke pauses for dramatic effect, so that Kanji can make some remark on how impressed he is, but Kanji just blinks at him from across the table, his fingers fiddling with the silver ball of his nose piercing. Feeling a little deflated, Yosuke continues on, “So now White Day is coming up, and I have no clue what to give her in return. So I texted Chie and Yukiko and asked them for their opinions. Chie was all - duh, Yosuke! Get her candy! Food is the only way into a girl’s heart! So I got an expensive ass box of chocolates. But then Yukiko responded, and she told me that things like candy or flowers are nice, but they don’t last long enough. So, if I really want to impress her, I should get her something that won’t be eaten or dead by the end of the week. I’ve been really stressing out about this for weeks. I mean, you can’t buy jewelry for a girl you barely know, and there’s no way I could guess what size clothes she wears. Then it finally occurred to me! And this is where you come in. I was thinking maybe I could make her a stuffed animal or something, like the kind you make! If you’d be willing to teach me, I mean.”
“You’re shittin’ me right now.”
“Uh… no?”
“Ya know White Day is like five days away, right? How the hell are you supposed to finish a project that fast?”
Yosuke sinks back in his seat. He’d really imagined that sewing a stuffed animal would take him no more than like a single afternoon, tops. “So there’s nothing I can finish in this time frame?” he asks.
Kanji slaps a hand to his face and groans into his palm, “Listen, I can dig somethin’ up. It’s doable. But you’re gonna have to come over every single day this week. Got it? No excuses, or you won’t stand a chance of pullin’ this off. What’s your schedule at work?”
Yosuke chews his bottom lip, trying to remember his hours for the rest of the week. “Well, I’m off today,” he answers, “Then me and Ted pretty much alternate opening and closing shifts. I got White Day off, but I was hoping to go in and bring her the gift before her shift is over.”
Kanji puts his elbows up on the table and leans forward, resting his chin in one hand as he thinks. “I mean, the kinda animals I make take me like a day or two, but I don’t think there’s any way I can teach your dumb ass to crochet this fast. There’s a learnin’ curve. I think I have a pattern to sew up a teddy bear. Sewin’ takes a lot more steps, but it’s harder to fuck up.”
“Are you sure? Sewing sounds like it’d take a hell of a lot more time, man…”
“Yeah. You cut the pattern and pin it all together, then I can show you how to run it through my machine. They can teach kids in primary school to do it, so I think you can manage, unless you’re sayin’ you’re dumber than a seven year old.”
“No!” Yosuke says, “If a primary schooler can do it, obviously so can I. But… does it have to be a teddy bear ? I’d rather not have her think of Teddie every time she looks at it.”
Kanji rolls his eyes. “Then make the ears longer and call it a rabbit or a dog or somethin’. Jeez. You want my help or not, dude?”
“I do! Yes! I mean… please ?”
Kanji sits back and crosses his arms over his chest. “Okay, well then… To pay me back, you’re gonna buy my food all week. Startin’ now.”
“What the hell?” Yosuke cries, “Do I look like I’m made of money to you?”
“So you thought I was just gonna help you and get nothin’ outta it?” Kanji asks.
Yosuke groans and pulls out his wallet. “Fine. But you can’t request, like, a steak dinner or anything crazy like that.”
“It’s a deal.”
Surrounded by bolts of fabric in the back room of Tatsumi Textiles, Kanji takes Yosuke’s hand. “You’ll wanna use one of these,” he says, and he guides Yosuke’s fingers to a row of bolts that he has leaned against the wall.
Yosuke strokes the fabric and gives a little moan, “Oh wow. It’s like petting a kitten made of clouds or something.” He’s pretty sure it’s the softest thing he’s ever touched, so plush and warm against his fingers that he has the urge to bury his face in it.
“These are all a kinda fabric called minky. That one’s smooth minky, but you can also see we have dot minky and sherpa minky. Folks usually use ‘em for baby blankets and shit.”
“What is it made out of?” Yosuke asks.
“Uh, polyester.”
“That’s a lame answer.” And, finally, Yosuke can’t fight the temptation any longer. He steps in close, wrapping his arms around the bolt that’s nearly as wide as he is, and he pushes his face in against the fabric, rubbing the soft fibers against his cheeks.
Kanji grabs him by the hood of his jacket and tugs him back. “Hey! Face off the merchandise!”
Yosuke pouts. “Kanji, if you were my real friend, you would make me a blanket from this stuff.”
“You can make yer own damn blanket after I teach you how to sew,” Kanji growls, “Keep focused, man, or you ain’t gonna finish this thing.”
“Okay, okay. You’re right. Focus,” Yosuke says, and he takes a deep breath, “How much of this do I need for a bear? Or a rabbit or whatever I’m going with.”
“Which one do you want?”
"The rabbit, I guess."
"No, dumbass! I meant which fabric do you want?" Kanji yells, and it takes all of the little self-restraint he has not to punch Yosuke right in the nose for being so dense.
“Oh! Yeah, right. Well, I like this smooth minky,” Yosuke answers. He turns to look over the color choices. It comes in a few different pastel shades, as well as a white and a brown. He feels like the brown or the white will look the best, but he’s always been partial to the color orange himself. “How about the orange?”
“Which orange?” Kanji asks, “the peach or the clementine?”
Yosuke stares long and hard at the two shades of orange, but he wouldn’t have been able to guess in a million years which one was peach and which one was clementine.
“What about both?” Kanji suggests, “You can make the rabbit's body out of the clementine and use the peach for the bottoms of the feet and the undersides of the ears.”
“Uh. Sure. How much is this gonna cost me?”
Kanji lifts the two bolts of fabric up, one on each shoulder, and carries them over to a cutting table. Yosuke gawks; he can’t believe the dude can carry them so easily. The bolts of fabric are huge! “Don’t worry about it,” Kanji says, dropping them on a table with a heavy thud and reaching for some scissors, “It’s on the house.”
“Seriously, dude? Are you sure?”
“Yeah, they ain’t that expensive. Plus you’re buyin’ me food all week, right?” Kanji grins at him as he unrolls the fabric. He doesn’t even bother checking the measurements against the yardstick; he eyeballs it and slices through with the scissors like a knife through warm butter. Yosuke is honestly impressed.
With the fabric cut, they head upstairs, Yosuke holding the minky in his arms and rubbing it against his cheeks whenever Kanji’s not looking. He’s never been in Kanji’s room before, although he can imagine what it might look like - maybe band posters up on the walls? Black furniture, black sheets, black pillowcases? But then again, Kanji isn’t so simple as all that. Maybe everything’s pastel and soft and pleasant, like the minky? When Kanji slides open the door, Yosuke is surprised to see how old-fashioned the room looks. Tatami floors, paper-thin walls, tansu chests in place of dressers - the works. There are small clues as to Kanji’s true personality, though. A basket of yarn sits in one corner, some of his handmade dolls are displayed in various states of completion, and there are art supplies laid out on the table as though Kanji had been working on something just before heading out to lunch. The whole place has a peaceful, quiet vibe that doesn’t align with how loud and temperamental Kanji can be.
“Damn,” Yosuke laughs, “It looks like my grandma lives here.”
“You got a fuckin’ problem with it?” Kanji snarls at him, “Not enough dirty magazines layin’ around for you?”
“Wh-what?”
“Yeah, Ted’s told me all about your weird magazine collection, so shut your fricken mouth.”
Yosuke shifts the fabric to one arm and holds his free hand up in surrender. “Calm down, dude. I was just teasing. I really didn’t mean anything by it. We’re just friends giving each other shit, right?”
“Yeah, well, maybe we’d have that kinda relationship if you hadn’t bullied me all through high school,” Kanji growls. He storms across his room, throwing open the drawer to one tansu and digging through its contents.
Yosuke winces. He can’t think of anything to say to that besides a lame, “I really am sorry for that. I was such a jackass.” He likes to think that he’s grown a lot since then, but maybe he hasn’t. This is the first time he’s been in Kanji’s bedroom after half a decade of friendship, after all.
“Tch. Whatever,” Kanji grunts. He pulls from the drawer a JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure clear file; Yosuke doesn’t know the character, but he recognizes the art style. He has to very purposefully keep his mind blank, to avoid thinking anything negative or judgmental about Kanji based on his taste in this particular anime. When Kanji passes the clear file to Yosuke, he says, “Here. It’s a pattern I made myself. Should be simple enough even for you to figure out. Give me a minute and I can sketch out new pieces for the ears, if you’re gonna make a rabbit.”
Yosuke sits cross-legged on the floor, setting the stack of folded fabric on the table in front of him. Then he opens the clear file. It contains pieces of paper cut into odd shapes, with notes scribbled out on top of them. The paper and the notes mean absolutely nothing to him. He stares up at Kanji, wide-eyed, and asks, “Can’t I just… pay you to make it for me?”
“What the hell? No!”
“Why not?”
Kanji drops onto the floor on the opposite side of the table. He’s scowling as he opens a notebook and tears out a sheet of paper. “Cuz if you’re tryin’ to show someone how ya feel about them, it’s gotta mean somethin’,” he says, “It don’t mean nothin’ if it comes from me.”
“I could always lie and say I made it. She’d never know!”
“Yeah, maybe. But you’d know. It makes a big difference when you see someone you like holdin’ onto somethin’ you made for them, instead of somethin’ you just bought for them. Anyone can buy someone a stuffed animal. But you’re gonna make her one, and it’s gonna mean a lot more to you that way.”
Yosuke runs his fingers over the minky absentmindedly as he watches Kanji, who has picked up a pencil and is drawing long, swooping lines down the piece of paper. “Have you ever liked anyone?” he asks.
“I ain't tellin' you,” Kanji snaps, and he folds the paper in half, long-ways.
“You’d make someone a really good boyfriend one day,” Yosuke tells him, and he’s surprised to realize that he means it. Kanji’s not very smart at all, but he’s passionate and loyal, and he’s good at a million different things, most importantly cooking. He even has a pretty great body, which Yosuke knows for a fact because he’s unfortunately seen way more of it than necessary. Girls would probably be all over him if he wasn’t so angry all the damn time! (Or guys. Yosuke still isn’t 100% sure which way Kanji swings, but - really - he's cool with Kanji either way.) It all makes Yosuke feel a little anxious, because if Kanji has all of these traits and is still single, then how's a guy like Yosuke supposed to stand a chance?
“Uh. That’s weird comin’ from you. But thanks? I guess?” Kanji passes him the folded piece of paper and a pair of scissors. “Cuz this out. Make sure to keep it folded so you get two identical pieces - one for the left ear and one for the right ear. Once you’ve got ‘em, I’ll tell you what to do next.”
Tuesday, March 10th
4 Days Until White Day
They’re prepping for inventory at work, which is probably Yosuke’s least favorite time of the year. It involves a lot of organizing, making sure everything is tagged properly, and scanning a ton of barcodes. Every single time that one of his teenage employees decided to half-ass something over the last twelve months is now coming back to bite them in the ass. He’s exhausted when he leaves for the evening.
The last thing he wants to do is make the walk over to Tatsumi Textiles and work some more, but he knows he doesn’t have a choice. He curses his past self for waiting to reach out to Kanji until the last minute. Yesterday, he hadn’t even got around to the actual sewing yet. He’d cut out the ears, and then Kanji had showed him how to lay the pattern out to conserve the most fabric. The rest of the night, he’d spent hours pinning each of the ten pieces into place - four limbs, two for the head, two for the body, and then the ears. Pinning was an excruciatingly slow process, because he had to make sure that he didn’t crease the fabric or stab into the tatami beneath. In fact, he wasn’t sure what he hated more - pinning the pattern down, or checking SKUs for inventory at Junes.
At least at Junes, he has Teddie and the other staff to goof around with and keep him company. In Kanji’s room, they’d worked without speaking a word to each other. Kanji had put on some YouTube videos of other people doing crafts, and the pleasant, peaceful videos had practically put Yosuke to sleep. It really got under Yosuke’s skin how he and Kanji just didn’t seem to have anything in common. Yu and Chie were gone for school, and Naoto and Rise were off working, leaving him alone with Kanji and Yukiko, the two people in their friend group who were hardest for him to connect to. If it wasn’t for the bear, he’d probably have lost his mind with boredom and loneliness by now. Maybe this is his chance to fix things. If only he could find some common ground with Kanji…
Standing in front of Junes, shivering in the cold, he calls Kanji up. It only rings once before Kanji answers, “Hey.”
“Hey, hello ~ ” Yosuke greets him cheerfully, “Just calling for your dinner order.”
“You still at Junes?”
“Just walked out. Why?”
“I’m gonna text you a shopping list.”
“What the heck, dude!” Yosuke cries, trying to conceal the chattering of his teeth, “I promised you dinner, not your groceries!”
“You get a discount, dumbass. Plus, this is for dinner. You won’t regret it. Don’t be cheap or I’ll kick your ass.”
Kanji hangs up without so much as a goodbye, and a second later, Yosuke gets a list so long that the text stretches the length of his phone screen - prawns, eggplant, sweet potato, lotus root, shiitake mushrooms, onions, carrots, burdock, vegetable oil… Yosuke stops reading and texts him back - WTF?
But he storms back inside anyway and heads to the grocery department, filling a basket with everything on Kanji’s list. It really doesn’t end up being more expensive than buying them both dinner from a restaurant, but by the time he’s done, he’s wasted an hour of his evening, giving him even less time to work on his stuffed rabbit.
At Tatsumi Textiles, Kanji’s mother is showing a customer a length of silk from a display on the wall. He calls out a greeting as he slides past her into the belly of the building, where he finds Kanji in the kitchen, wearing a yellow apron and mixing some dry ingredients together in a bowl using a fork. He’s so engrossed in the task that he doesn’t notice Yosuke until he has announced his arrival with a sarcastic, “ Honey, I’m home !”
Kanji rolls his eyes and sets the bowl down to grab for the bags of groceries. He begins taking each item out, one at a time, judging Yosuke’s shopping skills with his mouth set in a scowl. “Head upstairs and get to cuttin’,” he says.
“Cutting?” Yosuke repeats.
“Yeah. I laid the scissors out for you. Just cut out the fabric along the pattern. Make sure to keep everything flat, and don’t take the pins out.”
Yosuke is kind of disappointed that he’s being sent upstairs alone, since he’d had his resolve to try and befriend Kanji this week. “Are you making dinner?” he asks, “I can help?”
“No,” Kanji grunts, “You’d just fuck it up. Besides, you’re runnin’ outta time and that doll ain’t gonna sew itself.”
Yosuke sighs; he can’t argue with that. So he drags his weary self up the stairs into Kanji’s bedroom, finding the two lengths of minky laid out where he left them and a pair of shiny silver scissors sitting on the table next to - and he really can’t help but smile at this - a cup of jasmine tea. Damn, he thinks, as he settles down and takes the scissors in hand. If he could find a girlfriend as thoughtful as Kanji, he’d be set for life.
Working up here in Kanji’s room by himself is lonely and boring. He finds himself even missing the hypnotizing YouTube videos. Anything is better than the silence. From downstairs, he can smell the rising aroma of whatever Kanji is cooking, and it is making his mouth water. The only time his own family ever really sits down to a meal together is on holidays. Otherwise, it's a lot of take out from the Junes food court.
It feels like it takes hours to finish cutting out all the pieces, although, in reality, a whole hour probably doesn’t even pass. Once they're done, he stacks them up on the edge of the table, laying the scissors on top of the pile, and spends about half a minute just staring at the wall and wondering if he should head downstairs, but then the door slides open and Kanji steps in, balancing two trays of food on his arms. “Good timing, man!” Yosuke says, and he jumps up to help Kanji with one of the trays.
Kanji has made tendon, and it smells so amazing that Yosuke wants to weep. There’s a massive bowl of rice piled high with tempura prawns and vegetables, pretty enough to be in a food magazine. He throws himself down at the table and has the chopsticks digging around in the bowl before he even gets settled on his legs. “Dude, this looks awesome!”
He chomps down on a tangle of tempura burdock. It’s still so fresh and hot from the fryer that he has to chew with his mouth open to let the heat out. The texture is perfect, the flavor is perfect, everything is just perfect. Once he manages to swallow, he beams at Kanji and groans, “I am in heavennnn~”
Kanji’s cheeks flush. He kneels down at the table across from Yosuke and, while he lets his food cool down a little, he reaches out to lift up one of the pieces of minky that Yosuke has finished cutting. Yosuke braces himself for Kanji to find something wrong with it, but instead he nods and tells Yosuke, “Not half bad.”
From Kanji, that assessment feels like the best possible compliment, and Yosuke is beaming as he shovels food into his mouth, giving a little blissful moan with each bite. “I really owe you one,” he says, “You’re helping me with my White Day gift, you’re making me dinner… I feel like I haven’t done anything to deserve this. Thanks, Kanji. Really. Thanks so much.”
“Quit thankin’ me,” Kanji mutters, “You’re makin’ it weird.”
“No,” Yosuke insists, “I’ve been thinking about it since this came up yesterday. After everything that happened, I don’t deserve all of this from you. I’m sorry.”
“Why’re you bringin’ this up again? What do you want me to say?” Kanji asks, “You expect me to forgive you or somethin’?”
“N-no!” Yosuke says, “I don’t want or expect forgiveness. I just want you to know that - ”
“Listen,” Kanji interrupts him, “It may be cathartic for you to keep apologizin’ and yammerin’ on about it, but it ain’t for me. Ya can’t just say you’re sorry the magic number of times and - poof - redemption.” For emphasis, he waves his fingers around in the air like he’s accomplished some slight of hand magic trick.
Yosuke shakes his head, his eyes wide. The last thing he wanted was to upset Kanji. He holds his hands up in surrender and agrees, “No, you’re right. Forget I brought it up.”
Kanji snarls at him, slamming a fist down on the table. “See, now yer pissin’ me off. You’re a fuckin’ coward . This apology is chicken shit and so were you back then. You made me hate myself, you made me feel excluded and treated me like I had some contagious disease, all because if it was me at the bottom of the totem pole, then at least it wasn’t you. Now you’re ashamed, and you’re questionin’ if it’s right for you to be here with me, as if your pathetic opinion about me and my lifestyle still has any power. But it doesn’t, because I know you were just scared and desperate. So the fact that you think I’m still dwellin’ on that shit you said back then is pretty damn funny, if you ask me.” With that, Kanji snatches up his chopsticks and delivers a steamy pile of rice into his mouth. His teeth gnash at the food, making him look even scarier.
Yosuke is speechless. He wants to run, but then he’d just be acting like even more of a coward. The thing is, Kanji isn’t wrong. He’s seen through Yosuke completely. Scared? Desperate? Pathetic? Yes, that all sounds like him. And he realizes that his repeated apologies aren’t some noble attempt to clear his conscience or to mend things with Kanji. He’s apologizing because he’s spineless and powerless, and the second Kanji forgives him, he might be able to claw his way back onto higher ground.
“Don’t just sit there poutin’,” Kanji grumbles at him through a mouthful of prawn, “I’ll kick yer ass if you let this food get cold.”
Yosuke gives a weak little smile and begins to poke around his tendon with his chopsticks, although his heart isn’t in it anymore. He’s ashamed. “You’re right about everything, by the way,” he admits.
“I know I am, dumbass. That’s why I said it,” Kanji says, “Listen, if you wanna move on and make it all up to me, then you gotta be a good friend. You gotta be the best friend you possibly can be. Love me for who I am now; love me so much that it don’t matter what happened in the past.”
Yosuke lifts a tempura sweet potato to his mouth and flashes Kanji a grin, “Compared to all this sewing bullshit, that’ll be a piece of cake.”
"Let's talk about our plans," Kanji says, once they've pushed their empty bowls aside, and Yosuke is sprawled out on the floor, content and full and ready for a nap.
"What do you mean?" Yosuke asks.
Kanji stacks the bowls together, setting both sets of chopsticks inside the top bowl. Then he rises to his feet, stretching until the bones in his spine give a satisfying pop. "Well, I mean, there ain't much left to do. Just give the guy a face and then sew him all together. That's really only a day's worth of work. So if you wanna take off tomorrow and just rest, you can. Or you can come over early tomorrow mornin' and get it all out of the way. It's up to you."
Yosuke sits up, which is hard to do considering his stomach feels like it's about to burst. He watches as Kanji opens another drawer and digs out some decorative boxes, one teal and covered in roses, the other pale yellow and printed with daisies. They look like the kind of thing someone's aunt would pick up in a craft store. The fact that Kanji has them in his bedroom makes him want to laugh, but not in a mean way. It's just fondness he feels, as Kanji brings the boxes over to the table and sits down next to him. "I mean," Yosuke says, feeling his cheeks heat up, "I'm enjoying this. The hanging out and working on stuff together, I mean. So I don't really want to like... get it out of the way or whatever. Unless you're sick of me."
Kanji opens the lid to the daisy box, revealing dozens of mismatched buttons. He slides his fingers through the collection, and there's a pleasant tinkling, clicking sound as the buttons all roll together. "I ain't sick of you," he sighs, and he pours handfuls of the buttons out onto the table, until the box is empty and the table is a mess, "I thought he'd look cute with some button eyes. These are all leftovers from other projects. Sorry it's so disorganized. There's some matchin' pairs in there, though."
Yosuke leans over the jumble and begins to dig through them. Some of them he puts straight back into the box, like a gold one shaped like a bumblebee, or tiny white ones the size of pearls, or a single pink button that's almost as big as his palm. Others he sorts by color, trying to find a match. After making sense of Yosuke's organization methods, Kanji joins in, their fingers dodging each other's as they poke through the clutter of buttons, sliding them this way and that into appropriate, smaller piles. "Maybe we could make him a buddy?" Yosuke suggests.
"Yeah," Kanji agrees, "One for you to keep, and one for her."
For her... Oh, yeah. Yosuke has almost forgotten. The whole reason he was making this dumb doll in the first place was because he was trying to impress his blonde dream girl at work. But it's hard to think about giving the rabbit up. It doesn't even exist yet, in rabbit form. It's just a stack of fabric pinned to the paper patterns. He's attached to it, though. Will she even properly appreciate it? He wonders, as he slides the buttons across the table, lost in his thoughts.
"What's she like?" Kanji asks.
"Uh..." Yosuke lifts a button up, pretending to study it to give himself time to answer. He realizes it's the same stormy-sky color of Kanji's eyes. He sets this button to the side as a possibility for his rabbit's eyes, hoping he'll find a match, "Well, she works in the bubble tea place in the food court."
"She give you free bubble tea?"
Yosuke laughs, "No, man. My dad would murder me."
"Well, that's lame," Kanji mutters.
"Who needs free bubble tea, when I can just come over here for dinner again?" Yosuke says, and he elbows Kanji in the side.
"Don't get used to it," Kanji threatens him, and he slides a whole palm full of unsuitable eyes back into the daisy box. But he's smiling. Yosuke smiles, too. "But I mean, what's she like? Like what kinda person is she? Do you guys have stuff in common? What's her favorite color? That kinda stuff."
"Oh. Uh... I don't know? I actually haven't really talked to her about anything besides work."
Kanji rolls his eyes, "So then how can you possibly know that you like her?"
"Cuz she's hot, duh!"
"Ugh. Just when I start to think that I respect you just a little, you go and open your mouth," Kanji groans.
"What the hell, man! You're allowed to like people for being hot!" Yosuke argues.
"No, you're allowed to be attracted to someone for bein' hot, but likin' people is completely different. You like people for deeper reasons. Like cuz you push each other to be better people, or they make you laugh, or you have the same hobbies."
Yosuke takes a second to think about this. She's definitely made him laugh, he thinks. Although was she really that funny or was he laughing because he wanted her to keep talking to him? And she has indirectly pushed him to learn to sew, so doesn't that mean she's making him a better person? He may not know her hobbies, and he doubts they have any in common, but he figures that two out of three isn't bad.
They've sorted all of the buttons, and Yosuke's favorite button never found a partner. He frowns and rolls it around in his fingers. "Kanji?"
"What?"
"I know you said yesterday that you don't want to tell me who you like - and that's cool, you don't have to tell me - but I think if you do like someone, then you should at least tell them. I know that they'd be really happy."
Kanji makes a noncommittal noise and takes the button out of his fingers. "This the one you wanna go with? It's fine if it ain't got a match. I can figure something out."
Wednesday, March 11th
3 Days Until White Day
Yosuke wakes up the next morning to Teddie’s alarm going off. He normally throws a pillow over his face and waits for Teddie to get dressed and leave before drifting back to sleep, but if he wants to get anything accomplished with Kanji before his own shift starts today, then he’ll have to head over bright and early. He dials up Kanji as he’s throwing his clothes on.
“Hello?” Kanji’s voice is raspy and quiet.
“Oh shit, did I just wake you up?” Yosuke asks.
“It’s fine. What’s up?”
“I’m calling in regards to our arrangement,” Yosuke says, “What do you want me to bring for breakfast?”
He hears Teddie, who is brushing his teeth in the bathroom, giggle and tease him, “Oooh? Arrangement?” He has a flash of a thought. What if Teddie is the one Kanji likes? But the mere idea is so absurd to him, that he’s shaken it off in the blink of an eye.
“Don’t worry about it,” Kanji says, “I’ll whip somethin’ up. Just get your ass over here.”
“Hell yeah!” Yosuke exclaims, unable to hide his excitement, “See you soon.”
Dressed and ready to go, he finds Teddie blocking the hallway with a mischievous smile on his face. “Is this a sexy kind of arrangement with someone, Yosuke? Why didn’t you tell me! I thought we were friends!”
“What the hell? No, you dumb bear. I’ve just agreed to buy Kanji food in exchange for a favor. It's for White Day.”
“A sexual favor?”
Yosuke groans and shoves past him and out the front door. Yep, Kanji’s love interest is definitely not Teddie.
Despite the cold, Yosuke is practically skipping when he reaches the rear door of Tatsumi Textiles, avoiding the front entrance because Kanji’s mother is busy with customers. He’s pumped for another one of Kanji’s delicious meals and ready to accidentally stab his fingertips with a hundred pins again. But then Kanji answers the door, and his mood does a flip.
Because Kanji looks good. Not in an objective, general sense, like how Yosuke can look at Rise and tell she’s a stunning young woman. Damn, he wishes this were so simple as that. Kanji’s actually pretty much a total mess. He’s still wearing the sweats he slept in, but they hang so low on his hips that Yosuke isn’t sure he’s wearing underwear. His shirt barely contains those broad shoulders and muscular arms. His hair hasn’t yet been styled, so it hangs loose and fluffy around his face. He’s wearing his glasses, too, because he has yet to put his contacts in. Yosuke hasn’t seen those glasses in years - he’d actually sort of forgotten Kanji ever wore them - but the sight of them resting on the bridge of Kanji’s nose makes a voice deep inside of him whimper in misery and longing.
It’s okay to think these things, Yosuke tries to tell himself. It doesn’t mean he likes dudes or anything. On social media, he sees girls telling Yukiko how beautiful she looks all the time, and those comments never have heavier meaning to them.
“Yo. Earth to Yosuke? You okay?” Kanji asks. He has a bobby pin in his fingers, and he reaches up to sweep his bangs out of his face, pinning them into place in a lazy replica of his slicked-back daily hairstyle.
“Yeah. Sorry. You just, uh, caught me off guard…”
“Huh? It’s my day off, and I was probably gonna touch up my roots, so I didn’t do nothin’ with my hair today. Why? You got a fuckin’ problem with it? I don’t gotta impress you.”
“Wh-what? No! I didn’t mean it like that at all! I just…” Why does he suddenly wish he’d never come over? “I just haven’t seen those glasses in ages. They almost make you look smart!”
“Fuck you, Yosuke,” Kanji grumbles, but he steps aside to let Yosuke inside.
As soon as he does, he’s hit with a crushing wave of delicious aromas. It’s enough to make him forget his anxieties regarding Kanji’s appearance. He’s so eager to get out of his boots and coat that he nearly trips over himself in the entrance. “Oh man,” he moans, “It smells so good!”
Kanji has used the rest of yesterday’s groceries to make strawberry muffins, with a crumbly streusel top and drizzled with thin icing. He has served the muffins with a mug of hot chocolate, still steaming. Yosuke’s so happy he melts into his chair and has taken the first bite before Kanji’s even settled down next to him. The texture - perfect. The taste - perfect. Every bite he gets sweet, fresh bursts of flavor from the bits of strawberry. He honestly could weep.
Kanji seems unaffected by how heavenly the muffins taste and how Yosuke is moaning with bliss in the seat beside him. “I sewed on the eye last night,” Kanji says, “I know I told you to do the whole thing yourself, but when I started makin’ dolls, gettin’ the eyes right was always the hardest part for me. So I just went ahead and did it for you. I couldn’t find another button, though, so - well, I’ll show ya what I did.”
After they’ve eaten and drained their cocoa, he leads Yosuke up to his room. The rabbit’s head has been sewn together and is already stuffed, with a single button eye that’s the same color as Kanji’s steel blue ones. Kanji has thrown together a miniature eyepatch that the rabbit wears in place of its second eye.
“Oh, Kanji…” Yosuke murmurs. He reaches out for the rabbit head and squishes it in his fingers, “He’s awesome.”
“I don’t think your girlfriend will appreciate the eyepatch, though,” Kanji laughs. He’s blushing, though, clearly flattered by Yosuke’s admiration. “We’re gonna have to think of somethin’ else. Maybe you can pick another button to go with it? Or we can make it look like it’s winkin’ or whatever?”
Again, Yosuke feels a twinge of reluctance to part with this creation of his. Does he really have to give it to her? Maybe the chocolates will be enough? But why does he need a stuffed rabbit? He’s a grown man! It makes no sense! “Um,” he says, “Maybe I can wait and make that decision at the end?”
Kanji shrugs, “Whatever, but I ain’t sewin’ a button on at the last minute on Saturday mornin’.” He has the box from last night, the one decorated with roses. He takes off the lid and pulls out bundles of embroidery thread in a rainbow of different colors. “I figured I’d show you how to make the nose with stitches. Then we’ll probably have time for you to pick out the fabric and get the pattern pinned down for the second one before you gotta go in to work.”
“You should pick the fabric for the second one,” Yosuke says. He isn’t sure why he’s decided this, but it sounds right.
“Me? Uh, okay.” Another shrug from Kanji, and he sits down at the table, patting the floor for Yosuke to sit beside him.
Yosuke chooses peach thread to match the inside of the ears and the bottom of the feet, and Kanji shows him how to thread the embroidery needle, then how to go through the hole at the bottom of the head to start outlining the nose. Yosuke is surprised; he finds the repetitive motion of each stitch to be relaxing. While he finishes filling in the shape of the nose, Kanji leaves the room, where he is trapped alone with his thoughts.
Would it really be so weird for an adult man to have a stuffed rabbit? Kanji has stuffed animals in his room. Hell, Kanji sells stuffed animals from the family store and online. Ted might give him shit for it, but Ted’s a fricken stuffed animal himself, pretty much. What right does he have to make fun of anyone, anyway?
And if he does decide to keep it, then what does that mean regarding those weird feelings he had for Kanji at the door this morning? He is very much attracted to girls and has been his entire life. He’s just lonely, and he’s getting too attached to Kanji because so many of their friends have left town. In Yu’s long absence while he attends university, Yosuke is getting clingy and needy towards Kanji instead. That’s all. It makes total sense, when he breaks it down like this.
Yosuke leaves for Junes that afternoon with his spirits high, after finishing the first rabbit's nose and pinning down the pattern for the second rabbit. Kanji had picked a minky that is such a pale yellow it is nearly white, and Yosuke figures it will be the perfect, more feminine accompaniment to the first rabbit, which he has decided is the one he will keep.
His phone buzzes while he's making his way up the sidewalk, and he pulls it out of his pocket. He's surprised to see a text from Yukiko.
I'm really happy for you, Yosuke.
Yosuke blinks down at the text, completely clueless. He waits for a follow-up text or something, but when nothing pops up in the chat, he replies with a few question marks. She responds immediately.
Teddie told me about what you've been doing with Kanji.
I'm sorry. I'm sure you wanted to keep that secret, but you know how Teddie is.
I just wanted to send you good vibes ♡
"Ugh, that stupid bear," Yosuke growls to himself, "Why can't he mind his own business?"
But he has nothing to hide, he supposes. If he's going to mend his relationship with Kanji, then there's no reason Yukiko can't know about it. She is, after all, their only other friend who remains in Inaba. As he steps inside Junes and heads up to the manager's office to kick Ted's ass and clock in for his shift, he texts her back.
yeah its been kinda hard lol
but i think itll be worth it in the end
the 3 of us should go get lunch sometime
ugh 4... i guess ted can come too
just starting my shift but ill ttyl
Thursday, March 12th
2 Days Until White Day
Opening the store after closing the previous night is always rough. To Yosuke, it feels like one stupidly long shift with a break for a nap in the middle. Sometimes he even misses high school, because back then his dad rarely ever scheduled him for shifts longer than three or four hours. Now, he and Teddie are shift managers, and it seems like he’s wasting his life away at Junes. But the money is worth it, he tells himself. And he knows he’d be miserable going to university like Yu is, no matter how bad he misses living in the city.
The only thing that gets him through the day is thinking about his plans with Kanji that evening. He’s finally learning to use the sewing machine! He admits to Kanji, via text, that he’d been kind of hoping to hand-sew the whole thing, since he had found stitching on the nose to be mindless and relaxing, but Kanji had responded with an LOL and said it’d take him weeks to finish the thing instead of minutes, if he was determined to do it that way.
“Are you texting Kanji again?” Teddie teases him, as he walks in for his shift, dragging his bear suit in behind him.
“Yeah. So what?” Yosuke mumbles, pocketing his phone. He is in the back, where he has just checked in a new freight shipment for the clothing department, which is already his least favorite department to work on freight for, but with inventory so soon, that makes the job about a thousand times worse. He’s glad it’s Teddie closing instead of him.
“You’re always so smiley when you talk to him lately ~ ” Teddie chimes as he clocks in at the back office computer.
“Yeah, well you’re always so nosey when you talk to me lately,” Yosuke snaps back. But then they grab their box cutters and get to work on freight, setting their bickering aside. Time passes by more quickly when they’re laughing about their least favorite customers instead of annoying each other.
Later that afternoon, Kanji calls just as Yosuke is clocking out. He’s weary and in a bad mood from hours of unpacking boxes, but he answers anyway - because it’s Kanji, whom he is trying to repair his friendship with, and because he needs to know what he’s picking up for dinner. Teddie’s giving him the most impish grin as he leaves, but Yosuke ignores it. He doesn’t even want to know what sick shit is going on in that bear mind.
“Heeeyyy -- got any cravings? Any special requests?”
“Just grab something on your way,” Kanji tells him.
“No grocery list this time?” Yosuke laughs.
“What the hell? How did me helpin’ you with your love life somehow turn into me makin’ you food every day?”
Yosuke cringes, and he’s glad this conversation happened over the phone so that Kanji isn’t here to see his reaction. Because “love life” seems really dramatic. He doesn’t love her; Kanji had a point - he just thinks she’s hot and wants a chance to date her. Now that he’s thinking about it, this whole plan of a homemade White Day gift makes him feel ridiculous. He swallows. “Heh. Well, dude, you should’ve considered what the consequences of your tendon might’ve been.”
“Tch. Last time I ever make that for you.”
Approaching the elevators, Yosuke slaps the up button and stands back, watching for which one might open first. “What? Aw, come on man! You’re breaking my heart here.”
“So ungrateful.”
Yosuke is sure he’s grinning like an idiot into his phone, but he can’t seem to control his cheeks anymore. He laughs. “I am not ungrateful! I am beyond grateful. That tempura was perfection. You’re just fishing for compliments now.”
“Fuck you.”
An elevator slides open with a chime, and Yosuke steps in, pushing the button for the rooftop food court. “Fuck you, too!” he sings into the phone, and then he hangs up, barely able to conceal his grin.
Someone giggles, and the next thing he knows, another person has stepped onto the elevator with him. It’s her . She’s in her work uniform, probably just showing up for a shift or returning from a break, and she beams up at him, her eyes lovely behind her long, pale eyelashes. “That was an interesting conversation, Hanamura-san,” she says.
He returns her smile. “Hey, I’ve already told you - just call me Yosuke. Hanamura-san is my old man.”
As the elevator begins its slow rise to the food court, they chat about work. It’s a pleasant enough conversation, but Yosuke realizes that all of the butterflies in his stomach are still. Maybe even gone? Before, he could barely look in her direction without feeling them go crazy in there. He thinks it’s because he knows that she likes him back, since she gave him the chocolate cookies. Or maybe it’s because he’s hiding his secret gift from her?
But a small voice, that same one that’s been speaking up so often lately, decides to add that maybe he just isn’t interested anymore. Which is a disaster, considering all of the time and money he’s wasted learning to sew. Has it really been a waste, though? At least he can call Kanji his friend again, after years of barely talking.
When the elevators open onto the loud and busy food court, they go their separate ways - she goes back to selling bubble tea, and he heads over to the fast food place to buy burgers and fries. He’ll get one for Kanji’s mom, too, because maybe if he’s extra nice, Kanji will make him dinner again soon.
When the sewing machine is all threaded and ready to go, Kanji gives Yosuke a rundown of all the parts, but Yosuke isn’t listening. Kanji is so close to him, as he points out things like the bobbin and foot and who even cares what else. Their closeness is dizzying. Yosuke can still smell the sharp bleach from yesterday’s new application on Kanji’s roots. The room is chilly, because the old house is not built with the most modern insulation, but Kanji’s body is so warm against Yosuke’s, the heat radiating off him and making Yosuke feel feverish. At first, Yosuke folds his arms in on himself, trying to give Kanji his space, but Kanji keeps reaching, their shoulders touching like it’s no big deal. It is a big deal to Yosuke, and he doesn’t understand why. So he relaxes his arms, allows the brushing of shoulders, and each time, Kanji’s instructions fade farther and farther away, until he can’t even hear the words themselves, anymore - just the comforting drone of Kanji’s voice.
“Are you even payin’ attention, dammit?” Kanji growls at him, smacking the back of his head.
Yosuke grunts and turns on him with a scowl, “Yeah! But this is all overwhelming, man. Give me a break! I learn best by doing, anyway.”
“Well, if you fuck up my machine, yer replacin’ it with the nicest one Junes has.”
“I won’t fuck it up. Jeez. Have some faith.”
Kanji retreats to his futon with an armful of yarn and crochet hooks. He’s working on an order from his online shop, some kind of calico kitten, it seems. He sits cross-legged and his fingers go to work. It looks so natural, like he was born doing this kind of thing. Yosuke’s jealous, but he sits there, thinking about all of their friends, and he realizes that none of them have any defining talents like this, except maybe for Yu. Yu and Kanji are two remarkable men in a world full of people who are just struggling to get by. Maybe that’s why Yosuke feels such a strong pull towards Kanji, similar to the pull he once felt towards Yu. They’re like planets, capturing space debris in their gravity. He wouldn’t mind being the moon to Planet Kanji, he thinks.
Yosuke finally focuses on the machine, already set up and waiting for him. He takes a deep breath and picks up the first piece of fabric - he’s sewing the two halves of the arm together first. Kanji already pinned them into place for him to get him started. He lines the fabric up to the presser foot, just like Kanji said to do, and then he presses very lightly onto the pedal. The machine hums to life, and his instinct is to jerk back and drop everything and just give up for the day, but instead he begins to feed the fabric through, slowly, carefully. He stops when he reaches the first pin, slides it out of the fabric, and then keeps going, following the curve of the arm and stopping every inch or so to remove the pins.
In about five minutes, he has a completed arm. He doesn’t remember how to complete the stitch and remove the fabric from the machine, but he’s ecstatic anyway. He spins in the chair to face Kanji. Kanji’s already grinning at him from across the room. When their eyes meet, Yosuke shivers. It’s like static electricity.
“I did it, dude!” he shouts, and fist-pumps the air.
“Did you remember to backstitch?” Kanji asks, which is like dumping a bucket of cold water on Yosuke’s excitement.
“Uh. No?”
“Dumbass.” Kanji rolls his eyes and returns to Yosuke’s side. “It’s no big deal. Here, I’ll show you. But good job, though. Didn’t even run over the pins like I thought you would.”
And he puts a hand on Yosuke’s hair and ruffles through it like he’s petting a dog. Yosuke leans into the touch and grins up at him. “Hey, what did I say? Have some faith!”
“Faith in you? Nah. Never,” Kanji teases him. He leans an arm across Yosuke to show him how to use the backstitch button to secure the end of the stitch, and he explains that it’s important to use it at the beginning, too. Yosuke goes forward with the machine and then back, just a few millimeters, with Kanji looming over and behind him, his arm draped around the back of Yosuke’s seat. “See? It ain’t so bad, is it?”
“No,” Yosuke agrees, smiling over his shoulder at Kanji, “I could do this all day.”
Friday, March 13th
1 Day Until White Day
Their to-do list on this final day is small. Both rabbits have been sewn, although Yosuke had to stay up late at Kanji’s place getting the pieces of the second one together. All he has to do this morning is work on their faces, stuff them, and then hand-stitch the heads to the bodies. Kanji tells him it shouldn’t take longer than a couple of hours, tops, and anything Yosuke doesn’t finish before he has to leave for work, Kanji promises to get done himself.
Yosuke shows up late in the morning with a box of donuts and two coffees (“Ma can’t have coffee,” Kanji had told him when he’d called to ask). Kanji is acting weird; he’s got a huge smile on his face, and he’s way too eager to get Yosuke out of the kitchen and up to his room.
“I got a surprise for you,” he tells Yosuke, and he lifts up the head of the first rabbit, Yosuke’s orange rabbit with the one eye.
Except it doesn’t have one eye anymore. Kanji has found the second button, and the rabbit gazes back at Yosuke with eyes the same color as Kanji’s, the grey-blue of stormy skies.
“Holy shit!” Yosuke says, “Where’d you find it?”
“It was just rollin’ around in the drawer. I found it last night after you left!”
Yosuke launches himself at Kanji for a hug.
Kanji surges forward to meet him, catching his mouth in a kiss. Feverish, urgent. He grabs Yosuke by the face, trying to encourage his lips to open or respond with sweeps of his tongue.
Yosuke stares back at Kanji’s closed eyelids, at his dark lashes the black of his natural hair color, which are impossibly close to his own face. His hands drop, trembling, to his sides, and he isn’t sure if he wants to shove Kanji away or cling to him. As his indecision builds, so does his anxiety. He’s shuddering. Breathing hard. He doesn’t even really remember the names of all the girls he’s kissed, but he’s never been kissed like this before - never been kissed like it meant something before.
Kanji pulls away from him.
Yosuke wants to beg him to come back, he wants to taste his mouth again, but in his indecision, the choice was made for him. Kanji is retreating, and he looks horrified . “Oh, fuck,” he says, “Fuck. I’m so sorry. I’m such an idiot. I’m sorry. Ted said - ”
“What did Teddie say?” Yosuke whispers. It’s all that he can find of his voice.
“He… he’s been telling everyone that you’re into me. I - I thought... ”
“Wh- what ?” Yosuke manages to stutter, “Why would he think that?” And as soon as the words are out, he regrets it so much. He can see, from the way Kanji shrinks in on himself, going from six feet tall to six inches tall right before him - he’s hurt Kanji so badly. There are tears in Yosuke’s eyes now, thick, veiling his vision. Why the fuck does he want to cry? This is the worst timing ever. What’s wrong with him?
“I-I gotta go,” Yosuke says, “I need to think - I need to - Teddie… he…” He reaches for Kanji, grabbing him by the arms, giving him a little shake. “I’m not mad. Or grossed out. Or anything. I promise. I just… I have to…”
Have to what? Well, talk to Teddie for starters. He could punch that bear right in the fucking head. He clenches his teeth, suddenly seething. He’s made so much progress getting close to Kanji over the past week, only for Teddie to undo everything.
He puts a hand on Kanji’s cheek. “I have to go. I promise I’ll be back. I just need to think. Are you okay?”
Kanji shrugs but then nods, and it makes Yosuke ache inside to see him act so weak and small.
Yosuke’s all ready to make a scene at work - it’s not like he can get fired, right? - but then Yukiko is there, and his fury deflates into something pathetic and quivering and uncertain. She and Teddie are in the grocery department, having a friendly conversation in front of the chilled shelves of eggs and yogurt. Teddie looks surprised to see him, since he isn’t supposed to come in for another two hours.
Yukiko’s face lights up at the sight of him, and she reaches to embrace him until she sees the rage in his features. “Yosuke… are you alright?”
He clenches his hands to fists at his sides, trying to control the urge to just start smashing things. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he snarls at Teddie, “You’re lucky you’re at work right now, or I’d kick your ass. When you get off, you’re dead meat, do you hear me? Dead fucking meat.”
“What did I do this time?” he asks, and he has the nerve to laugh about it, even as his cowers behind Yukiko a little.
“Kanji kissed me, you dumbass!” he hisses, trying to keep it quiet so the whole store doesn’t find out.
Yukiko lifts a hand to her mouth, stifling a giggle. “Yosuke, what’s wrong with that? Is that really a bad thing?”
“N-no!” Yosuke says, and then he’s not even angry anymore, just confused and hurting. “No, it’s not. But… why did you tell him that I like him? You told Yukiko I like him, too, didn’t you?” Suddenly her text messages from the other day make a hell of a lot more sense. He had assumed at the time that she was encouraging him to go after the girl he liked, not Kanji.
Yukiko purses her lips, looking puzzled. “I thought you were making a White Day gift with him? That’s what Teddie told me…”
“A White Day gift for a girl!” Yosuke groans, “A girl who gave me chocolate cookies on Valentine’s Day! Kanji was helping me learn to sew!”
“Are you talking about the girl from the bubble tea place?” Teddie asks, “You know, she gave all of us chocolate cookies on White Day, right? Even I got some!”
Yosuke throws his hands over his face to muffle a moan.
“Oh, no…” Yukiko sighs.
“Yeah,” Yosuke mutters, “ Oh, no is right.”
“But Yosuke,” Teddie says, “I’ve seen you the past few days. You spend all your free time over there. You’re always smiling over your phone when he texts you. I really, honestly, thought you were head over heels! And I couldn’t bear to keep a secret like that to myself! I thought, if I just let it slip to Kanji, then it might speed things up a little!”
Yosuke isn’t even sure what to say, because he knows Teddie isn’t wrong. He was spending all of his free time at Kanji’s place. He could have been finished with the first doll two days ago, but he’d drawn it out longer because being around Kanji made him happy. Even just texting Kanji made him happy, which was why he couldn’t keep the dumb grin off his face whenever they messaged each other on their phones. And he realizes that this is where those butterflies in his stomach are. They hadn’t left. They just came to life around Kanji now, not the new girl.
“I didn’t need things sped up,” he mumbles, feeling defeated, “I needed to figure shit out on my own. This is all weird to me. And now everything’s fucked up, because he kissed me and I just freaked out on him.”
“No it isn’t, Yosuke,” Yukiko says, “Just communicate with him. Kanji has a big heart. He’ll understand.”
“And then, when you get married, I can be your bear of honor, right?” Teddie suggests, elbowing him playfully in the ribs.
“What the fuck? No. Ugh.”
"Not the best timing, Teddie," Yukiko warns him.
Yosuke doesn’t know what to do. He should go over to Kanji’s and talk it out, he knows. Yukiko is right. If anyone in the world were to understand, it’d be Kanji. But he still isn’t sure he can face the guy. Not yet. He does have those feelings for Kanji, but he isn’t sure that he wants to pursue anything. Five days ago, he’d thought he was completely straight. Well, mostly straight, anyway. There has always been that small voice inside, questioning everything. So now, what? He’s… bisexual? Or he is straight but into Kanji? What the hell does any of this mean? It’s a hell of a lot to realize about himself in the span of five days.
“I don’t know what to do,” he groans. He kind of wants to cry again, but he knows that’s not going to help. Maybe later, when he’s alone in his room, he can get all the crying out.
“Well, if you want things to go back to the way that they were before, then you just need to explain that Teddie misunderstood, and that you value his friendship,” Yukiko tells him.
“But you were a lot more fun to be around when you were all giddy over Kanji,” Teddie interrupts her.
She shoots him a look that silences him, and she continues, “If you think this relationship is something you want to pursue, then you need to be honest with him. I know that’s something you’ve always struggled with, and you don’t like being honest with others about your true feelings, but it’s more important now than ever to just let him know how you feel. And you shouldn’t take anyone’s opinions into consideration but your own. Don’t let Teddie or your reluctance to hurt Kanji sway you one way or the other. Listen to your heart.”
Yosuke thinks that he doesn’t have to listen to his heart at all. The butterflies swarming in his gut are loud enough to make the message clear. He nods and runs a hand through his hair, then lets out a sigh. “I can’t decide this right now. I need time…”
“Do you want to take a sick day, Yosuke?” Teddie asks him, “I can call someone in to cover your shift.”
“No thanks,” Yosuke says, “I think it’ll help if I keep busy…”
Yukiko puts a hand on his shoulder and gives it a reassuring squeeze. “My afternoon is free. Why don’t we have lunch together before your shift starts? We don’t have to talk about this at all. We can just catch up. Maybe it’ll help you clear your head and come to a decision?”
He nods. A distraction sounds good. He isn’t sure whether he can eat, though. In fact, he kind of feels like throwing up.
Saturday, March 14th
White Day
Yosuke couldn't sleep all night, but he couldn't think about anything, either. His thoughts were an incessant buzzing, a white noise that he couldn't turn down the volume on. He was pleading with himself for sleep, even if it was just five minutes of it, just to be able to get away from his misery. But the tossing and turning continued until night turned to morning, and it was too late. There would be no sleep with the sun pouring in through his windows, and with the knowledge that, somewhere out there, Kanji is hurting and worrying just as much as he is.
He decides to go for a walk by the Samegawa Flood Plain, because just laying here doing nothing is only making his misery worse. He throws on some sweats and heads out, even though the air is freezing and harsh in his lungs. Because it's so early on a Saturday, and because it's White Day in particular, Inaba looks like a ghost town. He passes a couple kids on bikes, heading towards the high school, probably for club activities. Otherwise, it's just him and the winter, and the birds in the sky, and the concrete beneath his sneakers.
A few blocks later and his walk turns into an all-out run. It's like he's fleeing the decision that he knows he's already made in his heart. But with each stride, he's not putting any distance between himself and what he must do. The weight of it remains on his shoulders, and he cannot shake it off.
When he's too tired to keep running, Yosuke stops and checks his watch. Tatsumi Textiles opens for business soon.
Kanji is working up front instead of his mother. There are no customers at the moment, and he's sitting on the step at the entrance crocheting a new doll, probably to fulfill another online order. Yosuke knows he makes a lot of money selling his crafts nowadays. He's proud of Kanji for that. "Hey," he says, and Kanji gazes up from the ball of yarn in his lap. He doesn't look surprised to see Yosuke at all, and Yosuke isn't sure if that's a bad sign or a good one.
"Hey," he parrots back at Yosuke, and he's blushing. Yosuke pities him; Kanji has probably been just as torn up about this all as he is. "I figured you'd come around today for these." Kanji sets his crochet project aside and gets up to fetch a paper bag from the back. Yosuke opens it a little to check the contents, even though he already knows what they are; the two rabbits, of course. Kanji finished them, just like he had promised that he would.
Yosuke lifts the orange one out of the bag, and he smiles as he admires it. It's hard to believe that he made this thing mostly by himself. Kanji had to stuff it and sew the head on, but the rest was all him. He loves this thing, for how it's brought him and Kanji together the past few days. And those button eyes are adorable. He really doesn't want to give it up, but he's already made his decision.
"I want you to have him," he says, passing the rabbit to Kanji.
"What?" Kanji refuses to take it. He holds his hands up and shakes his head - no. "I can't, man. You worked so hard on it."
"Exactly. That's the reason why I want you to have him."
"I don't understand..." Kanji mutters, but he does take the thing, and he looks at it with unease, like it's about to transform into something dangerous that's going to bite his hand off.
"You were right," Yosuke tells him, "I don't like that girl. I never liked that girl, not really. She's nice and all, but... liking someone in a... um, romantic way, well, it's something deeper."
Kanji's lips twitch in the slightest hint of a smile, like he knows where this conversation is going, but he doesn't want to jump to conclusions just yet. "Yeah? Well, that's the first smart thing I've heard you say all week."
Yosuke grins back at him. "Listen, I'm not even going to argue with that. You aren't wrong!" Kanji actually laughs, and at the sound, those damn butterflies have come back to life again in Yosuke's stomach. "I've never made anything in my life before, aside from stupid shit my teachers forced me to make in grade school. So I'm proud of that guy. I feel like I worked my ass off."
"You did."
"There's honestly no other person I'd rather give him to than you. A-And..." Yosuke's face has gone bright red. He doesn't even think he can get the next part out, "And I want to keep the other one. His partner. Because you made him, you know? So you'll have something I made, and I'll have something you made. I'm not good at this sappy shit, Kanji. What I'm trying to say is that... well, I guess Teddie was right. And I'm sorry I freaked out when you kissed me. And the next time you kiss me, then I promise I'll kiss you back. I mean, if you ever want to kiss me again, that is."
"W-Well..." Kanji stammers, "Maybe you should get your ass over here and find out for yourself?"
Yosuke sighs, and it feels like the first time he's been able to really catch his breath. Dropping the bag holding the other rabbit, Yosuke takes the few steps to close the gap between them, and he raises his arms, stroking his hands down over Kanji's shoulders. He's never kissed someone taller than him before - well, besides yesterday, of course - and he feels a rush of excitement when he has to tilt his head up and raise up off his heels. Kanji lifts a fist, like he's going to punch Yosuke in the head, but just gently taps his knuckles to Yosuke's jaw. They both smile.
"What are you going to show me how to make next?" Yosuke asks, and he kisses Kanji slow and sure, with no hesitation. Like fabric through a sewing machine, it feels a lot like two scraps of something that stitch together to form one whole.