Chapter Text
"Hey, Naegi?"
"Yeah?"
"What are we, really?" Fukawa asks.
Looking up from a small stack of study notes, Naegi blinks at her sheepishly. "Sorry, but... could you say that again?" It's late in the evening, and they've spent the last three hours in the silence of the school library, cramming for the end-of-year papers next week. It's been a long day for them both and, quite understandably, his mind isn't operating at full capacity right now.
"I said," she says, holding back her irritation, "what are we, really?"
He makes an endearing little show of thinking about it, tapping his pen against his chin, then smiles brightly.
"We're friends, of course!" There isn't the slightest bit of doubt or hesitation in his response. No barbs or venom either, and yet somehow it manages to hurt her as much as the insults she gets from her other schoolmates. Maybe more. It's the answer she was – illogically – the most afraid of.
"Just friends, huh..." she murmurs, more to herself than anything. From within her, a voice jeers.
Why do you care so much anyway? And honestly, what else were you expecting him to say?
"Well… yeah," he says, confused. “Why?"
She gnaws at her lip. Tell him! Another voice cries out. Just fucking tell him already!
She doesn't fucking tell him. She doesn't know what to fucking tell him. Before she can stop herself, she says to him: "I-It's nothing." There's an edge in her tone that betrays her frustration. Damn it all, what was she so frightened of?
stupid girl can’t you do anything right stop being such a colossal fuck up for five seconds and maybe you won’t be so
And because Naegi doesn't miss it, his eyes fill with worry. "Are you sure?" He speaks to her gently, and she feels an uneasy flutter in the pit of her belly; one that had been plaguing for weeks now, whenever she's around him.
"I said it's nothing!" She snaps, and he flinches. Immediately, she's sorry, but in her cowardice she doesn't say anything to show it. Instead she stands up, gathers her books and leaves, for fear of making things worse.
"Ah! Fukawa-san!" He calls after her. "Fukawa-san! What's wrong?"
An excellent question. Truth is, she isn't even sure herself.
He doesn't follow her like she hopes. She doesn't turn around.
Now you done it, she thinks, as her footsteps echo loudly in the empty halls. You've lost him for good. Alienated him like you've done to everyone else. You don't even have him as a friend now, let alone a...
She pauses.
Let alone a what? What exactly is it that you wanted from him?
The question haunts her all the way back to her dorm. She thinks of the flutter in her stomach, not understanding why it was there. Not understanding why she'd wanted him to chase after her when, truth be told, they really were just friends.
He hates you now, she thinks, lying in bed, a pillow squeezed hard between her arms and chest. The thought is almost painful enough to bring her to tears. You finally drove him away with all your bullshit. And just as well, too; you never deserved him anyway.
Yet unbelievably, he still talks to her the next morning, all misty-eyes and apologies for the previous night. As if he had done something wrong. As if it was actually his fault that she got upset over nothing. He’s back to his chipper, adorable self the moment she ‘forgives’ him, instead of rightfully being mad and screaming at her for being so goddamn unreasonable. And as the day goes on, with equal parts dismay and wonderment, she finds that the fluttering in her belly has somehow gotten even worse.
*
It's becoming increasingly difficult for Naegi not to say something wrong.
Not that you were doing such a great job before, hotshot, he thinks, feeling miserable. These days, it’s so easy to set Fukawa off. Maybe it was arrogance on his part to believe that he finally understood her. Clearly he’s messed up somewhere if all she does is get pissed off at him.
Today was proving to be another monumental screw up. This time, she had yelled at him for a full minute about how much of an idiot he was, and about how she didn’t know why she bothered with him before storming off, leaving him mortified. He didn’t understand; they were talking about hanging out during lunch, and all he said was that maybe this was a good chance for her to start mixing with other people.
“You think I n-need your help with that?” She hissed at him. “You think I’m just that hopeless without your help??”
“Wha… No! I was just–“
“You think I need you s-sticking your nose in my business every f-fucking day?!” That was when the shouting started.
“Man, I don’t why you bother with that girl,” Says one of his classmates, looking off in her direction after she leaves. “She is such a freaking nutcase.”
He starts feeling defensive on her behalf. “She’s not that bad once you get to know her… It’s probably just stress.” Which Naegi himself doesn’t buy for a second. With the end-of-year exams finally over, whatever stress she was under should have been at least somewhat alleviated by now. Unless…
Something else was troubling her. Maybe that was it.
Much to his surprise and relief, Fukawa actually does come to hang out with him, later in the school canteen. “S-sorry about earlier,” she says, sounding genuinely apologetic. He waves it off.
“Nah, it’s okay,” he beams at her, even though – to be completely honest – it isn’t really; getting yelled at hurt. But that isn’t important now.
“Is everything alright?” He asks her as they take a seat by an unoccupied table. “You’ve been on edge a lot recently.”
Naegi watches as she appears to fight an internal war with herself. Her mouth opens like she wants to say something, then closes. She’s nervous.
“You know you can tell me anything, right?” He coaxes. “I won’t laugh or make fun of you.”
Fukawa wants to believe him. Hell, she does believe him. It’s the reason she’s like this in the first place. But before she can answer, they’re interrupted. Asahina. Oogami. Fujisaki. Maizono. Ishimaru. Oowada. Kirigiri. Hagakure. Their table becomes crowded as Naegi waves them over. The eight of them settle down around her, bringing with them good vibes, good cheer. And Naegi is lost in it, chatting with them about how great it is that the exams are finally over, about throwing some party that she’ll never attend, never be invited to. His question and her answer are suddenly forgotten. She has become irrelevant. She doesn’t know if she wants to seethe or to cry.
The bell doesn’t ring for an eternity. She doesn’t look up from her tray. She doesn’t say anything.
*
Maybe it’s better this way, she reasons to herself. He should be with someone who makes him happy.
This thought comes to Fukawa several days later, as she observes Naegi with a gaggle of his friends from afar. There are girls among that number, all of them far more attractive than her.
It’s not like you stand a chance with him, anyway. Why would he choose you over anyone else?
She has no rebuttal for that. She’s nobody’s idea of a princess. Yet she can’t help but hope. There had to be a reason why he was so nice to her, right? Right??
Don’t kid yourself, Touko. He’s nice to everyone. What makes you so special from the rest?
She forces herself to turn away and stop looking at him. That flutter in her belly – growing ever stronger in its intensity – has become poison now. An ailment that hounds her dreams, steals her focus, torments her by promising something she could never in a thousand years attain. Why did she keep doing this to herself? The logic of the situation was undeniable; better to forget. Better to let go of this childish fantasy and move on.
“But h-how am I supposed to do that?” she whispers, to no one in particular. Her voice trembles. How was she supposed to get over him when he kept being so kind to her? How was she supposed to forget him when he was the only one who ever treated her like a human being?
He should be with someone who makes him happy… But what about me?
Didn’t she deserve to be happy?
Tell him, then.
She can’t. He’s her friend now. If she does tell him, there’s a chance she’d lose him completely.
Fine, a part of her says. Go ahead and do nothing. Wallow in your own misery. Stupid girl. No wonder you’re alone, you pathetic fucking waste. This is why no one loves you; they can see just how wretched you really are. You go right ahead and do nothing, Touko, and you can die alone like you deserve.
Her hands go to her temples. She can feel the onset of a headache coming on. Her eyes are smarting.
Damned if I do and damned if I don’t, she thinks bitterly. How is any of this fair?
From across the school courtyard, Naegi calls out her name, having apparently noticed her. His tone is light and easy, like everything is sunshine and roses and all is right with the world. Stupid. All the pain he’s causing her, and he doesn’t even know.
He calls to her a second time, this time with a tinge of concern. She pretends not to hear, and walks off in the other direction.
*
She hates you now, he thinks, lying in bed, a pillow propped – absurdly – over his face. Two weeks have gone by since he last spoke to Fukawa, who seemed to be making every effort to avoid him. You’ve gone and made her mad. That’s why she won’t talk to you anymore.
What frustrates Naegi the most is that he has no idea how it could have gotten to this stage in the first place. She had gotten upset at him before, sure (plenty of times, in fact), but never quite like this. He feels distressed. What did he do wrong now? She hadn’t even seemed unhappy the last time he saw her. Well, not more than usual, anyway. But she had been in an awful hurry to leave…
He sighs. Might as well be honest with himself.
It’s difficult trying to befriend Fukawa. Mainly because he doesn’t fully understand her. Her persecution complex makes her easy to offend, and it doesn’t help that she’s so shut off by nature. She’s quick to snap at anyone over the smallest things, over slights that no one else saw but her. There’s a lot of poison in her; a disdain for the world in general and everyone in it.
And yet…
She isn’t a bad person. He knows about her old school life, and how it has warped her perception of the world around her. For all her contempt and spitfire, she’s just afraid of being hurt. That much he could see. More than anything, she just needs someone who’d be good to her. And as tiresome as it is dealing with her rants and her tirades and her hissy fits, he values her companionship just as much as he does the rest of his friends. He doesn’t want to just leave things as they are.
He has to make things right with her. Somehow.
Well, he says to himself, no time like the present. He tosses the pillow off of his face and gets off the bed. He has about a half hour before curfew begins. He speeds off to Fukawa’s dorm.
The door to her room creaks open slightly when he knocks. Apprehensively, she peeps from the little gap to see who it is.
“Oh!” She sounds, oddly enough, relieved to see him. “I-It’s just you.” The door opens wider.
“Um… H-hi,” she croaks, nervously. “What is it?”
That’s weird… He would have thought she’d be angry that he was here. Did he make a mistake? Pushing the thought aside, he puts his hands together in front of him in a grandly penitent gesture and bows his head. Which is a bit excessive, he has to admit, but is probably the best way to show he’s being sincere.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
Fukawa blinks twice. “…Huh?”
Without lifting up his head, he says, “Whatever it is I’ve done to make you upset, I am truly and deeply sorry for it.” Then adds, “and if you tell me what it is exactly I did wrong, I promise I’ll never do it again.”
When he does lift his head, he finds that she’s looking at him like he’s gone insane.
“Wha… Wh-what are you even t-talking about, you idiot?!”
*
Her annoyance disappears once Naegi starts explaining. It’s replaced by a strange species of bewilderment and... regret?
“You thought I was mad at you?” She asks, quietly.
“Well, yeah.” He’s perplexed. “Wait… does that mean that you’re… not?”
Gnawing on her lip, she shakes her head. Her hands are clasped in front of her skirt, where she’s wringing her fingers into the cloth.
“Then… why’ve you been avoiding me?”
Her expression brings him back to that day at the canteen, to the internal war she’d been fighting with herself. He feels guilt when he remembers; she had been trying to tell him something then, and he had gotten side-tracked and forgot about it.
For Naegi, a minute of silence passes by. For Fukawa, that same minute is a discordant cacophony of screaming thoughts.
tell him tell him for god’s sake just tell him already
don’t you say a fucking thing he’ll never accept you you’re going to drive him away
stop being so pathetic you worthless worthless girl and just do it just tell him
“I,” she begins, recalling the excuse she formulated just for this very situation. “I’m w-w-working on a n-new novel r-right now.
liar liar liar liar filthy fucking liar
“I wanted some a-alone time so I c-c-could think about how to p-put it to-together, that’s all.” Her voice is shakier than it’s ever been. The smirk she puts up for him is fake and uneasy. “C-can’t h-have that with you c-constantly clamouring for my a-attention and y-yapping at m-me, can I?”
no no no stop what are you doing why are you doing this
it’s for the best no one should be shackled with a curse like you he should find someone better and be happy
Naegi doesn’t look convinced.
“Is that really all?”
no tell him no you miserable waste of skin fucking tell him no
She nods, meekly. Something within her shrieks.
And to her horror/relief, Naegi actually believes her.
“Thank goodness!” He breaks into a smile. “I thought you hated me now. I was so worried.” He laughs.
“Y-yeah, sorry about t-that,” she says.
fuck it all you deserve this you revolting sack of shit whatever happens from now on is your own damn fault you useless fucking coward you’re going to be unhappy for the rest of your fucking life you’re going to die alone die alone die alone die alone
He’s talking to her now, but she isn’t listening. She can’t hear him over the noise inside her head. All she gets are little snippets. Something about a trip. This coming Sunday. Everyone’s going.
“You should come join us!” He says. “If you have the time, that is.”
“I’ll… try and make time.” She doesn’t look at him. She doesn’t want to let him see the tears beading in her eyes.
“Great! I’ll stop pestering you now,” he chuckles. Then turns to leave. “Bye, Fukawa-san! Good luck with that novel!”
As she watches him go, there is wetness on her cheeks. It comes down slow at first, then spills over in rivulets. Sobs escape her lips before she can stop herself, barely audible and coming out in hiccups and sniffles. Naegi doesn’t hear her. It’s been a long time since she’s been reduced to this; years of enduring scorn, heartache and abuse both at home and at school had left her jaded and cynical. She had believed – conceitedly, perhaps – that she had run out of tears years ago. Of all the things to bring her to this state, it had not been a cunningly worded insult or a prank gone too far like she would have expected, oh no. It was, of all things, a person who had only ever been nice to her.
And then it hits her; the realization. She doesn’t want it to be like this. Spending the next two, maybe three years watching him from afar, too afraid to tell him the truth, being forced to endure this yearning. And the regret that would follow long after, wondering what his answer would have been, had she only the bravery to find out. She couldn’t bear that.
Something akin to both drunken courage and desperate madness overtakes her. She runs to him.
“Wait!” Weakly, at first. Then louder: “Wait!!”
Her arms are around him clinging tight before he can fully turn to face her. He yelps in surprise.
“Wha! Fukawa-san?!”
There’re a lot of things she wants to say right now, but she’s shaking too hard. Her sobs have gotten stronger.
“Don’t go,” is all she manages.
This is it, she thinks, for one terrified moment. This is the part where he pushes you away and runs off screaming. This is the part where he tells you to get the fuck away and never speak to him again.
Naegi does none of that. Instead, his hands come to her shoulders. Not to pry or shove her away, but to hold her steady. To calm her down. “Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” His voice is soothing. “What’s the matter?” The pad of his thumb comes to wipe her cheeks, and she pulls him closer without being aware of it. He allows himself to be drawn in.
“Fukawa-san?” He asks.
She tells him.
*
Naegi does eventually work out – sometime later – the meaning behind Fukawa's question that night in the library four weeks ago. Seated on a bench in Hope's Peak Academy's sizable indoor garden, his face grows hot and he feels foolish; how could he have missed something so glaringly obvious?
"What are we, really..." he repeats aloud, musing. Beside him, Fukawa lifts her head from his shoulder to face him, one arm still wrapped around his.
"Oh, well, let's see," she chimes sardonically, making a great show of thinking about it. "We're friends, of course."
His grin is rueful, embarrassed. "Don't be like that," he says dolefully, as she sinks back down to nuzzle against his shoulder again (albeit a bit awkwardly; she’s taller than he is). "I honestly didn’t know what you were talking about."
"You would have if you w-weren't such a nitwit."
“Ouch,” he says, and laughs. She laughs with him. "You're one to talk,” he says. “Aren't you the one who ended up having a crush on a nitwit?"
They're both as red as each other now.
“For whatever it’s worth, though…” he begins, sounding a little more serious this time.
“Yeah?” She turns to look at him.
“…Sorry I didn’t figure it out sooner.”
“Mmm. T-That’s okay.” She goes back to leaning against him, letting out a contented sigh. She doesn’t need an apology for that; it no longer mattered to her. Fukawa was happy. In the quiet serenity of the garden, she has found a small semblance of peace for the first time in a long while. The noises inside her head – for now, at least – have been silenced. In the months that would follow, there would be plenty of time for other fears to surface
(he doesn’t really care about you he just pities you)
(he’s gonna get sick of you sooner or later dump you for someone prettier and sexier)
but for the moment, there is comfort. A warmth that keeps the demons at bay. Right now, that’s all she needs.
“Not such a great place for a first date, is it?” Naegi says sadly, meaning the garden. Fukawa doesn’t agree – it’s more than fine enough for her. Before she can tell him so, he says: “Let’s go somewhere nicer next time.”
A cheeky grin makes its way onto her lips. “Sure, if you’re p-paying.”
He laughs again. “Cheapskate. Aren’t you supposed to be the hotshot writer? I’m flat broke.” Naegi would – ironically – end up paying for most of their next date quite willingly, in spite of her protests.
“Loser,” she says, with no real malice. “I don’t w-what I ever saw in you.”
It amazes her how easily the banter flows. Rarely had she ever spoken more than two sentences to anyone else she knew (unless she was on one of her hysterics), and here she was; not just maintaining a conversation but enjoying it. This isn’t a new thing with Naegi, in all the time they’ve known each other, but it’s only now that she realizes how much she likes it.
And then there’s the idea that someone actually enjoys speaking to her like this. Naegi, who she’d been so sure would reject her. Naegi, who had kissed her tears away the night she confessed and held her tight. Granted, he's probably the only one as of now who could stand being around her, but...
But...
Crap. Why'd she have to go and put it that way?
She’s pulled back to reality when Naegi pecks her gently on the side of her head. She makes a little noise of surprise.
"Penny for your thoughts?" He asks.
Fukawa shakes her head. Her cheeks are red again.
“It’s nothing,” she says. “S-something stupid is all.” And she means it. The idea was unwarranted and unworthy of any further attention. There are better things to think about.
Naegi raises an eyebrow. “Nothing, huh. You know, the last time you said that…”
A short burst of soft giggles. “For real this time, I promise.” She assures him.
“For real this time,” he mimics her. “Of course it is.” And she gives him a playful swat.
“You dork. When did you b-become such a smart ass?”
He answers with more laughter. It’s a sound she’s growing to love.
“Seriously, though.” He regards her fondly. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”
Though the cynical side of her tells her that this won’t always be true; though experience tells her to expect nothing but the worst from people; and though there will be moments – painful moments – when she forgets, or doubts, or outright disbelieves this, in all the time they’ll spend together, Fukawa answers him now with absolute certainty.
“I know,” she says, and leans forward to meet his lips.