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Shu is a man of many hobbies. Since he was young, he’s been learning how to master a plethora of different things; violin, singing, composing, sewing, knitting, cross-stitch, just to name a few. Pretty much anything that appealed to him he would begin to learn how to do for himself immediately, absorbing the knowledge like a sponge absorbs water, and the same thing had happened with lace knitting, though far more recently. After seeing it on the internet, Shu had decided to try it, and he had started small, only aiming to make a coaster as his first piece, not wanting to be too ambitious with it, but when he had gotten the hang of it he’d ended up making a couple of things to add to his winter wardrobe, the first being a scarf, and the second being an admittedly impractical sweater which could only be worn over things like a plain white cotton vest. And, naturally, Mika had wanted a version of this for himself but in black, and always insists on wearing it whenever Shu is wearing his, despite the fact he knows that Shu despises ‘matching’.
Eventually, though, Shu had ceased making specific things with lace knitting as his medium, and had shifted to only ever doing it whenever he had the time and making either small coasters or continually working on a – once again, impractical – blanket every time he picked his knitting needles up whilst watching one of the many films Mika has recommended to him on his television and making note of things he’d like to mention in his review of it, or listening back to a lecture that he’d recorded and adding to his notes. Slowly, lace knitting had become his main way of dealing with any stress or anxiety and before long his drawer had filled with coasters and blankets that he no longer has a use for.
Of course, this only motivated him to keep going, if he had finally found the way to reduce anxiety after so many years of his life spent breaking down whenever he was going through anything stressful, he most certainly wasn’t about to stop doing it just because he’s accumulated a lot of something that he can easily give to his friends and acquaintances. Though, he does fear that he may have found a particular stress that not even 1,000 coasters could possibly distract him from, and it’s the fact that he is completely incapable of reading certain people’s emotions, and that fact bothers him to no end, especially in the case of one Kagehira Mika
The reason Shu’s still sitting at his desk, knitting aimlessly, however, is that he cannot – under any circumstances – talk to anyone about this particular issue, for two main reasons. Firstly, it’s because the entire problem is inseparably linked to the idea of romance, a topic that idols are expressly forbidden from speaking on in terms of their personal lives, and to separate it from that is to remove the issue entirely, so Shu cannot risk consulting anyone based on that fact because it could possibly put his career at risk dependent on who he held his conference with. And secondly, even if Shu did disclose all of the information to someone who he trusted with it, they still wouldn't see the issue, for the sole reason that Mika is so blunt with his feelings when it so suits him! Anyone with their head screwed on correctly would tell Shu that he’s crazy for daring to question something that’s so clearly spelled out to him, laid out in front of him on a silver platter, because they’d never understand that Mika’s bluntness is precisely why Shu believes that he must be getting the wrong idea from his words!
Seriously... the boy really is a handful. Shu had tried to talk directly to him about this particular issue prior to the funeral contest they’d participated in on request of Shu’s Grandfather, but he’d been interrupted by the call from Shu’s brother that had informed them of the 17th staged death of aforementioned Grandfather, dispelling the pair’s argument regarding Mika’s living situation – the living situation that Shu had clearly assumed far too quickly based on the way Mika was constantly leading him on! Really, it was Mika’s own fault that Shu had incorrectly assumed that he wished to live with him, what with the way he begged Shu like a child not to leave Japan whenever he had to return to Paris, then whined incessantly about how he missed him whilst they were separated, and complained nonstop about having to go back home himself whenever he came to visit Shu! And that’s only scratching the surface, to use only this as evidence would be to ignore all the hints he’d given him based on emotions – the ‘leading him on’ factor – which held even more eggs in its basket!
Even just after the funeral contest had concluded, during his conversation with Mika about the ‘real truth’ behind his Grandfather’s past and his relationship with the Landlady, the boy had come up with the ridiculously stupid conclusion that the two had been romantically involved, or, at least, that the landlady had had unrequited feelings for Shu’s Grandfather, when there was absolutely nothing in their extensive research that suggested this! Thus, Shu can only assume that Mika was getting all caught up on their own rendition of what happened – the opera they’d put on for the funeral contest that had been inspired by Shu’s Grandfather’s life, but mostly drew on Shu and Mika’s own relationship!
Because, of course he had taken inspiration from their own relationship, and of course he had switched the gender of Mika’s character ‘Ore’, the parallel of the Landlady, in order to make both leads male! Does the boy truly lack so much in intelligence that he failed to realise that this was a hint of Shu’s own? That he was showing him that his presumed feelings were requited? Honestly, the nerve of him, if anything, it would be ‘Boku’ with the unrequited feelings!
Even just before he’d said that, Mika had already been behaving all coquettishly towards Shu, when he had been talking about his Grandmother’s unwavering love for his Grandfather, Mika had said that it’s ‘just like Shu loves him.’ Shu’s Grandparents had been married, for gods’ sake! For over fifty years, no less! And, despite the marriage’s arranged nature, they were most definitely in a romantic relationship! They loved each other the way Shu wishes oh-so-desperately that Mika would love him! If Mika realises that that’s the way Shu loves him – unflinchingly and unchangingly – all he wishes for is that Mika would stop stringing him along and playing him for a complete fool, and just make it clear to him already whether he means to go about courting him or not!
If he were to be quite honest, he would say that he’s starting to believe that Mika may not be in love with him in that way, as he had thought he was. That the ‘hints’ he’d been giving him have not been hints at all, and that Shu had made every bit of it up in his mind with his unconscious bias, hearing everything Mika says with the ears of a man in love and inventing double-meanings that aren’t truly there? It would, in turn, make sense of why Mika had had no reaction to being accused of leading Shu on if he simply hadn’t been.
This thought makes Shu sit down his needles, freeing his hands so that he can bury his face in his palms – there's no point in continuing to knit with the number of mistakes he’s making. Has Shu really been the mother of fools this whole time? Had Mika been joking when he asked to call him ‘Darling’ during SS? Had he been joking when he got upset at the thought of Kohaku being ‘his type’? Had he only been being friendly when he told him his mind was full of thoughts of him? Or every time he called him pretty? Described his hair as ‘beautiful and silky’ in a magazine interview which got published? He’d thought the whole time that Mika was completely head over heels in love with him and that surely he would make some kind of move on him soon, but it just never came...
Had he been the one head over heels, who was just projecting his affections onto Mika in the hope that they’re requited?
Shu jumps when he gets a notification from his phone and spares a glance towards it. He sees that it’s a message from his group chat with his roommates who all aren’t currently present though he doesn’t really look at it, not even taking note of who exactly sent it, and he gets distracted looking at his lock screen instead. He feels a pang in his chest looking at it, the picture of Mika sitting across a table from him when they had their expensive on-board meal on the Seine in Paris – yet another time Shu had tried to make his feelings obvious and push Mika into doing something by quite literally taking him on a date.
He’d looked so beautiful that night, going above and beyond with Shu’s request to ‘dress nice’, having worn a dark blue, pin-striped double-breasted suit with a black tie, and he’d slicked back the left side of his hair, with only a few baby hairs obstinately refusing to stay in place and falling over his forehead. Mika had even acted like a gentleman all night – as much as someone as clumsy as Mika can feasibly be – linking arms with Shu as they walked around, pulled his seat out for him so he could sit down, and been awfully considerate of him all night.
Shu had been so so sure that Mika was finally going to it – that he was finally going to ask him to be his partner in love as well as art. Hell, Shu would appreciate it if Mika just proposed now, if it was going to take him another lifetime to ask him to do that too if it was taking him this long just to ask him to be in an official relationship! The memory of that night is now soured slightly in his mind, however, merely at the thought that Mika may not have been feeling the same rush of oxytocin to his head that Shu had, that he might not have been looking at him across the table thinking about how hopelessly, tirelessly, irrevocably in love with Shu he is, as Shu had been with him...
Another notification comes through, and this one motivates Shu to unlock his phone – it's from Mika.
“Good night, Oshi-San! Sweet Dreams!” is what the text reads, and Shu feels disoriented by the whiplash of his thoughts about Mika versus the way the boy behaves. There’s no way someone who acts so sweet and innocent (albeit with a strange side, to say the least) and gives all of his heart to Shu so openly, would ever try to hurt him purposefully, right? If anything, it was either Shu’s mistake and he was misconstruing his words, or Mika truly is in love with him and is just taking longer than one would expect to do something about it...
If that’s the case... Shu supposes that he’ll wait for him, because any amount of time is worth it for l'amour de sa vie, and so he texts him back, with hands shaking slightly with nerves, “Good Night Kagehira, sleep well, I love you,” before then turning his phone off completely, throwing it onto his bed, and going back to knitting, finding that, now, the practice has started to calm him once again.