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Yuuto is all sunshine and smiles, bursts of laughter and half formed smirks. He breezes into a room on a breath of good nature and devious intentions, devouring all in a whirlwind of enthusiasm and sparkle.
And all sunshine and smiles, chasing away thunderstorms and smothering others in the thick, cotton wool of overcooked friendship and positivity. It irritates Tatsuki when Yuuto crosses all personal boundaries and displays a total lack of common decency, dragging Tatsuki into his circle of fluffy humour and ridiculous displays of public affection.
It irritates him even more when it all disappears, leaving behind a black hole where Yuuto is supposed to be. A sort of quiet agitation settles over their class, and Kotarou becomes jumpy and nervous. Some idiot always try to take over Yuuto’s role, but all they see is the class clown or the ladies man. The never pick up on the many strange, uniquely Yuuto dimensions in between those two poles, but then Yuuto is always so good at presenting a surface that belies the current beneath. Yuuto, for all his noise and hands and smiles, is also something else, entirely.
What Yuuto isn’t is Tatsuki’s responsibility. He has his own, far more important issues to deal with.
It has been three days since the loud, obnoxiously smug boy has been at school.
“The teacher asked me to drop off your homework,” Tatsuki says coldly as he walks, uninvited, into Yuuto’s bedroom. The blinds are drawn low, leaving the room to a dull haze that reminds Tatsuki a little of a smoggy street at dusk. The air is cloudy and feels unused, and Tatsuki feels strangely alienated.
There is no cheerful greeting or sly comment, Yuuto doesn’t even move from where he is buried beneath two layers of blankets. A smudge of chocolate hair and a bare, exposed foot have escaped from the tight cocoon, but even they seem dull, lifeless.
Tatsuki wonders how long it has been since Yuuto has eaten. He doesn’t even want to know how long it has been since he has showered.
“We have a test tomorrow, you’re going to fail if you don’t put in at least some effort,” Tatsuki continues with reproach, dropping Yuuto’s homework down onto his desk. The surface is already cluttered with half started essays, each one illustrated with amateur doodles in the margins.
The lone foot doesn’t stir despite the noise Tatsuki makes clearing the junk off the desk and onto the ground with a sweep of his arm, and Tatsuki frowns, agitated.
“It’s worth 15% of our overall grade.” Still no movement, and it’s almost ... almost like the foot is mocking him. Tatsuki’s brow drops and his eyes narrow in on the offensive foot. Why hasn’t Yuuto tucked it away with everything else? Surely it can’t be comfortable or practical to sleep like that?
Maybe, just maybe his annoyance with Yuuto’s foot is a little bit disproportionate, however it is an emotion that Tatsuki feels comfortable with and so he grabs onto it. Annoyance is something he can use, it’s something practical. It’s certainly a hell of a lot more useful than the helplessness that is threatening to creep in.
That helplessness is to be avoided at all costs, and Tatsuki shoves it roughly to the side and lets the annoyance boil over in its stead.
Besides. The foot is really, really annoying.
“You are being ridiculous,” Tatsuki finally says darkly. “If you’re going to hide yourself away from the world, at least do it properly.” He tugs down on the blanket so that it covers Yuuto’s foot, his fingers brushing just slightly against Yuuto’s slim, pale ankle.
Hurt-lost-confusion-pain-
Tatsuki isn’t Yuuto, so none of these sharp, clawed emotions are new. There are just flashes of memories, of moments that are shaped in hurt and loss more than figures and scenes. When Yuuto falls into these empty, blank spaces, so lost within his own emotions instead of reading others, all the past aches shove past everything else to the surface.
It shouldn’t surprise him that Yuuto remembers emotions more than events, but it does. Sometimes he forgets that Yuuto is just as powerful as they are, and has the ability to bend the rules just a little simply through existing. Maybe that it is what amplifies Yuuto’s pain, because for just a moment Tatsuki feels as though he is being consumed by the darkest, blackest night, one spiked through with shame and a sharp kind of hurt. Panic briefly clogs all his senses, and then the panic is something far more dangerous and terrifying: a cold, emotionless numbness.
And then, in a flicker, all the emotions are sucked violently back into Yuuto, leaving Takeshi nervy and exposed.
1
Takeshi isn’t the only one who feels the short, shock of sensation. Yuuto flinches, dragging his foot up and curling into a tight ball. The blankets are pulled further over his head, sealing Yuuto completely away. An unexpected pang of rejection hits Tatsuki – he is used to being the one who recoils away from others, it is the last thing he expects from Yuuto. Tatsuki thinks he could deal with some silly tantrum or ridiculous over-reaction, but this is neither of those. Something in his gut twists, and Tatsuki’s gaze refuses to shift away from the hunched lump of bedcovers and boy before him.
Tatsuki doesn’t know what this is, as emotions have never really been his domain. But ... the air is so still, as though it hasn’t been disturbed in days.
With a growl, Tatsuki moves away from Yuuto’s bed.
“Don’t-” The raw, choked plea cuts off, as though it has been chopped from any sequential ones with a rusty, aged saw. Yuuto doesn’t move from beneath his blankets, doesn’t even breathe.
Yuuto’s desperate, unexpected plea doesn’t effect Tatsuki at all. Definitely not.
“I’m not going anywhere, you idiot. Unlike some people, I actually plan on doing my homework this week.” Tatsuki doesn’t say anything more, settling down at Yuuto’s desk and opening up his own books. If he multiplies the numbers in the brackets first, and then divides by seven-
Yuuto isn’t there for their test in the morning, but he returns a couple of days afterwards. All sunshine and rainbows, emerging unscathed after a quiet, rolling thunderstorm. He hides behind his bangs for a couple more days after that, but when Yuuto does sit his test he passes with ridiculously high marks.
Tatsuki, however, never quite forgets the rain that came before.