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backtodc · 6 years

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As fun as it is to throw salt at Gosho I think this could be a good time to talk about some good DC cases. So, which are your top ten cases so far?

Hmmm, this took some thought–presented chronologically because I couldn’t pick preferential order XP

Billion Yen Robbery (013-016): Even disregarding its long-term impact on the plot, this case on its own had a good twist in how Akemi disguised herself and the lies she told to track down her robbery partners. I’m always a fan of people, rather than going for big heavy-duty disguises, just using little details of makeup and presentation to completely change their appearance. Ran’s big heart was evident in this case and how strongly she felt about “Masami”‘s safety after just meeting her twice, and this one also what is still one of my favourite ninja-Ran moments to date. Potential kidnapper/murderer across the street? Maybe we should call the police, or run down the stairs OR I GUESS WE COULD JUMP OUT OF A FIRST FLOOR WINDOW AND CHASE HIM ACROSS THE STREET AND DO A FLYING KICK TO DESTROY HIS CAR WINDOW AND ALSO HIS NOSE

Akemi’s death opens up a shitton of plot, and, despite how it gets slightly overused later on (not quite to “did you know Bruce Wayne’s parents got murdered” levels but definitely a biiiiit overused) it’s still one of the most genuinely tragic deaths, especially since Shinichi admitted his real name to her to try and offer her some comfort as she died. TEARS Q_Q

A Haunted Mansion Murder Case (017-019): The case that introduced the Ayumi, Mitsuhiko and Genta. I always think of this one quite fondly. It had a genuinely creepy atmosphere–the “haunted” mansion looks the right side of cliche-creepy, especially once it turns out there’s actually someone around, and honestly I can forgive the incidents of the kids wandering off alone and vanishing because they’re six, of course they’re gonna do silly shit like wander off alone in a haunted mansion. And the truth of the matter is something that’s vanishingly rare in Detective Conan, something I wish we saw more often: a crime of passion.

There’s no clever trick to the murder: the son, Akio, just loses the rag under a torrent of verbal abuse and smashes his father’s head in with a candlestick. There’s no clever trick to the cover-up, either; his mother messed with the crime scene a bit and reported it as a robbery, and given that the family’s obviously very wealthy, money probably changed hands if any investigating officer did think to suspect anything other than a robbery. All she’s thinking about is protecting her son from the consequences of his crime; all he can think about is his guilt and horror over the murder he committed. The case goes from genuinely creepy to honestly tragic. It’s a proper emotional story, and at no point do any six-year-olds have to witness a human corpse, which I’m always in favour of. And I like Genta, Mitsuhiko and Ayumi and I’m glad they were introduced shut the fuck up

The Hatamoto Family Case (020-025): This was another case with good creepy atmosphere, a solid closed circle situation, classic big fucked-up family situation but at the heart of it, Natsue and Takeshi are a genuinely sweet couple who really don’t deserve all this bullshit and you spend the case really hoping for them to be safe and things to turn out okay for them, the traumatic deaths of several close relatives aside. The murderer is pretty sad, though I feel like Gosho intended him to be more sympathetic than he actually was–he certainly could’ve done with less abuse from his grandfather and been allowed to emotionally invest in his art more, but the cousins thing aside, murdering multiple people over a girl you’ve never even approached marrying somebody else with whom she’s had an actual relationship and is in love with is… not sympathetic. But I’m also glad that the nice chef uncle came out alright too, and that all three of the sympathetic family members reappeared in later cases since they were all very likeable characters.

Moonlight Sonata (062-067): This one sticks in a lot of people’s minds, and I think it’s for the same reason that the haunted mansion case sticks in mine; atmosphere. This is another one with a good, genuinely creepy atmosphere from the immediate sense of “small town with a dark secret” we get as soon as the Mouri Detective Agency arrives on the island. Gosho was very good at building these atmospheres once upon a time, I would’ve liked to see him write a horror manga. The case is deeply tragic from start to finish, from the murders of the Asoh family, to the fact that Seiji/Narumi got the idea for the “curse” from playing a funeral song for a man who’d just had a heart attack after admitting to murdering their family, to the complex nature of Dr Asai’s grief and guilt that they felt the need to avenge their family but simultaneously called for a detective in the hopes that they’d be stopped, to their suicide at the end because they can’t live with what they felt obligated to do. There are Gosho’s usual… issues… with gender, and given the bigotry that became obvious later he probably had no clue at all what he was doing with Dr Asai’s gender, but I feel like they weren’t handled unkindly for an AMAB character living as a woman? I could be wrong and I wanna open this one up to the trans folk in the audience because I’ve never found a trans fan’s commentary on Dr Asai and how they think they were handled, but goddamn I still cry thinking of their suicide at the end and I appreciate that this was a one-off case that had a visible long-term emotional impact on Conan.

Magic Lovers’ Murder Case (192-196): As well as being an interesting murder involving some quite sympathetic characters, this is a really good case for seeing what Kaitou Kid’s like under the mask (or was like; I feel like he’s lost depth since this?) as expressed through Katsuki Doito. He came along to investigate suspicious user activity, but he joined the magic-lovers’ forum because he is a nerd for stage magic and stage magicians and enjoys nerding out about stage magic and stage magicians. He gets to unapologetically fanboy over his late father with other magicians, with is pretty goddamn cute imo. He also gets to show off knowledge and fondness for other magicians, and his knowledge of magic tricks is useful in solving the case, even though, by his own admission, he’s no detective, and it led to tragedy. We don’t really see how Kid felt about being unable to prevent that murder, since he was still being played as pretty mysterious at the time, but it was a good choice for his second appearance in DC imo since it cemented him as Not A Bad Dude. Also, Conan gets to be one of Those Shonen Protagonists by running across a burning bridge, which, y’know, is always cheesy, but also always kinda cool (the artwork was particularly effective imo)

Twilight Mansion (299-302): I genuinely enjoyed the gathering of the knock-off famous detectives and was pleasantly surprised by Hakuba’s appearance (back when I still held out hope that that kind of thing meant that Kid would get more involved in the plot). The mansion itself is actually quite gorgeously designed and rendered, especially at the end when the exterior crumbles, and again, DAT CREEPY ATMOSPHERE. I guess it’s officially plot-important now, too, which I just wanna say, I officially called nine years ago, but also I was hardly the only one calling BO involvement with Karasuma.

Most of all, in general, I just really like watching and reading things involving skilled people being very competent at what they do, so the fact that ALL of the gathered detectives (save that one dead one) figured out what was up and were able to communicate and come up with a plan without revealing themselves to the brilliant detective BEHIND the whole thing, and the execution of that plan, were all very, very good and I liked it. I might reread this one right now, actually, while I’m thinking about it, I really do enjoy it top to bottom.

Golden Apple Case (350-354): PEAK interesting backstory on the part of Vermouth and Yukiko, a reasonably interesting murder, Yukiko’s RAD driving scene, and one of my favourite Ran moments ever. The confrontation with the serial killer/Vermouth is tense as hell, and the fact that Ran reacts instinctively to save his life and just can’t bring herself to drop him and let him die, to be responsible for a death, no matter whose, is a very powerful statement on the integrity of her character. She’s just to her core, and Shinichi does steal the moment a bit by helping her pull the serial killer up and getting the really good “you might need a reason to kill, but you don’t need a reason to save a life” line, but this still feels entirely like a Ran moment for me. We find out later that this incident had a profound effect on Vermouth, too, and is possibly the entire reason she’s hiding Shinichi’s secret from the BO and explicitly the reason she doesn’t want Ran to come to harm. Shame we haven’t had much Vermouth character development in a while because this stuff was JUICY.

Two Cases Under One Moon (429-434): An ICONICALLY good Bo-fightin’ case where everybody involved is putting in Maximum Effort. Heiji puts on an extremely good show as a fake Shinichi (the boy’s an extreme drama queen and Heiji does that very well), Yukiko’s disguise skills are valuable and well-used, we finally get the revelation that Vermouth has been Dr Araide for a while AND that she’s maybe immortal (…not… that we’ve gotten ANYTHING on that since..) AND we get the VERY interesting nature of her feelings concerning Shinichi and Ran. Also, we get Ran so concerned about Ai’s wellbeing that she hides in a car boot and then jumps into gunfire in order to protect her, GOD that’s SUCH a good Ran moment. Shinichi, Jodie and Akai all also get to be very brave and very smart and very badass, and ugh really I just wanna go back to everything about Vermouth in this case and explore more of that forever. Please. Also more Jodie, whose backstory we finally got in this case after revealing that she’s not Vermouth. What is it with interesting women disappearing as soon as their backstory is out MOVING ALONG

Clash of Red and Black (595-609): This case is a cracking case. This one was long and complicated and many-layered and everybody involved was on their highest gears and it was great. Akai and Conan work as a fantastic team and Conan gets free reign to do some very good detective work for the FBI (I still believe he told Akai who he was during this case, it would make sense and undercuts how concerned I am with all of these grown adults letting a six-year-old run all around an active incident). We get a good look at the incredible power and cruelty of the Black Organization when they cause immense collateral damage just to flush the FBI out. We get the story on both Akemi and Akai’s relationship AND the Hondo family, and OH BOY THE HONDO FAMILY.

It’s also one of the most interesting Eisuke cases, imo, where not only does he do some solid investigation to find Mizunashi Rena, we get a glimpse of some real deep trauma over losing his last family member that’s driven him to be willing to attack Rena with scissors out of desperation to get answers about what happened to his father and sister. I mean, I am most definitely not advocating stabbing coma patients, but for Eisuke a lot of the trauma of your whole beloved family dying or disappearing was just implied and not explored, and then he got booted from the series immediately after things got interesting with him, so bleh. We also barely see Hidemi after this, and ?????????? because she’s a CIA agent who’s in DEEP to the BO after surviving a HORRIFYING situation where she has to proudly boast of murdering a man who was secretly her FATHER, who SACRIFICED HIS LIFE TO PROTECT HER… why are we dicking around so much with Mystery Family instead of exploring this one??? This case is kind of the last hurrah for anything interesting happening with the Hondos so I love it for that.

And I love the complicated counter-bluff involved in delivering Kir back to the Black Organization without looking like they were delivering her. Again, this was apparently in exchange for her assisting the FBI and she barely appears after this…? Nope this isn’t about salting at Gosho moving on

The Life-Threatening Broadcast of Love (804-808): I love this one solely and 300% for the part where Miwako Sato jumps out of a helicopter, shoots a noose off of her boyfriend’s neck, grabs him, wraps her coat around him to protect them and knocks both of them out of the range of a bomb blast at the last second, like the goddamn action hero that she is.

So in no particular order, those are my top ten: how about the rest of you?

#peggaboo #detective conan

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chroniccombustion · 5 years

Text

Caught in the Grey (ch 1)

Genre: Trans!AU, hurt/comfort, romance, angst with a happy ending Rated: T Characters: Souji Seta (Yu Narukami), Yosuke Hanamura, Naoto Shirogane, Investigation Team, Izanagi/Shadow!Souji Warnings: depression, dysphoria, disassociation, self-hatred, implied suicide attempt, suicidal thoughts, mentions of homophobia, implied past child abuse and transphobia, canon-typical violence, mild sexual content Status: multi-chapter, incomplete

Playlist: Spotify | Youtube next chapter ->

He stands on one end of the red-washed roof beneath a sky of blood and onyx and watches himself watch back from the other side.

“I’m fine,” he whispers to the figure across from him.

It shakes its head and sobs. “No,” it answers with two voices – layered over top each other in perfect stereo, one low and one high-pitched. It looks at him with eyes the color of sickness, gold and harsh against the pale, flickering silver of its hair.

“No, I’m NOT!”

Chapter 1: Beauty In the Breakdown

“So let go, let go, and jump in. Oh well whatcha waitin’ for? It’s alright, ‘Cause there’s beauty in the breakdown…”

– (“Let Go”, Frou Frou)

October

“You better have damn good explanation for this!"

Yosuke is livid, incredulous. His voice cracks as he rounds on the girls, asking them how they could have done this, and from somewhere far away, Souji can hear him growing increasingly upset.

He knows that Yosuke has raised his voice in panic and embarrassment, knows that Kanji is nearby, adding his own disbelief to the mix, but everything is… muffled. Distorted. Like he’s hearing it from behind a wall, through a rushing current that’s pounding somewhere inside his head and can’t breathe!

Seta Souji

It’s there, on the list of names under “Pageant Signups” – in scrawled black letters, clear and bold.

Everything is numb.

He curls freezing fingers around the cuff of his jacket sleeve, absently noting that his hands are shaking. He wants to run, wants to bolt, wants to go find a nice, quiet place to hyperventilate, because he can feel his lungs seizing and his vision blurring and he. Can’t. BREATHE.

“…isn’t that right, Senpai?”

Souji looks up. Sharp, manic, eyes wide and chest stuttering. He stares at Rise – because that’s who was calling him, right? – and tries to think. He doesn’t know what she said, has no idea how to respond. Fake it. Don’t crack where they can see. You’re the leader, you’re the leader, you’re the leader…

Crushing down the weight inside his chest he forces himself to soften his eye contact, to school the line of his shoulders so that he doesn’t look like a cornered animal. He evens out his features until all semblance of expression is gone and only a blank mask remains. Jerkily, puppet-like, he gives the slightest nod of his head and consciously pulls up the corners of his lips into what he hopes is a faint smile. His stomach churns.

Rise crows with delight. “See?! I told you, Yosuke-senpai! Souji-senpai believes in us!”

Oh. Oh god.

“Dude, what the hell?!” Yosuke whips around and gives him a look of utter betrayal, his mouth hanging open and eyes bright with indignation. “Why would you agree to this? Do you just want to get paraded around in drag?!”

He feels sick. He feels so sick and he still can’t breathe and the edges of his vision are starting to go all fuzzy and he didn’t mean to agree to whatever she just said.

Oh god oh god oh god oh god

Something acidic climbs up his throat and burns the back of his tongue.

Yosuke is staring at him and Rise is grinning at him and Chie and Yukiko are sniggering and---

“Y-you’re positive we’ll be pretty?”

“Kanji, not you, too!”

He can’t do this. He can’t do this; even with Yosuke’s blistering gaze now turned towards Kanji, (and fuck fuck fuck even Kanji’s agreeing now!) the room still feels too small, too crowded. He needs to get away. He needs out of this whole situation but he knows he can’t escape because he’s trapped. He’s been roped into doing the one fucking thing he would rather chug bleach than do and there is no way to get out of doing it without making everything so much worse.

The girls would demand a good reason for backing out. Kashiwagi probably wouldn’t even listen, would just dock his grades or something if he skipped. He almost wonders if it would be worth it.

He’d do it anyway if he didn’t think somebody would find a way to do something to punish him for it.

I can’t breathe!

Everything is cold. He can’t feel his fingertips as they twist and wrap themselves deeper into his jacket sleeves, nails digging through the fabric to prick at his palms. Is anyone looking at him? He can’t tell. The room dims; a ring of grey static, like the Midnight Channel, fizzles in around the edges of his sight and makes everything around him dull and blurry. His friends are speaking. He doesn’t know to whom. He can’t pick out their voices anymore, can’t make out any words against the thunderous drumming of the river inside his head. It’s too loud, too dark, too cloistering, too much.

He turns. He doesn’t stop to figure out if anyone is calling after him, following him. He doesn’t care. Through muscle memory alone, he manages to get out the classroom door and into the hallway. He wills his legs to move, to push, to carry him forward in the direction of the nearest bathroom, even if he doesn’t know where he is anymore. The hallway is too long, too crowded, too, too, too, and he can’t.

He pushes the bathroom door open, body trembling so violently that he barely makes it inside before he’s throwing himself into a stall, to his knees. He feels them connect with the hard tile floor, is aware of the impact, but cannot feel the pain he knows will be there when he comes back down. He doesn’t feel anything but sick.

He curls over the toilet as if it could offer him salvation and vomits up everything he’s eaten today. Even long after he’s purged his stomach, the roiling is still there; he coughs until the taste of bile and acid sits heavy in his mouth.

The world is finally quiet by the time he’s able to stand again – though whether that’s from the roar in his ears subsiding at last or because the school is starting to empty, he has no idea. He doesn’t care. He washes his hands, his face, his mouth with water from the sink and refuses to look in the mirror as he does. His hands shake so badly that he’s certain there’s puddle on the floor beneath him. He doesn’t care. His breathing is still too shallow, too thin, comes too fast. He doesn’t look in the mirror. He doesn’t think.

It’s only after he hears a quiet creak that he even remembers other people still exist. He glances up from his shaking hands – why is there steam coming from the faucet? Is the water that hot? – forces his head sluggishly up and his eyes blearily over until he thinks he can see just the barest hint of hallway beyond the cracked-open door.

“Souji-senpai?” someone calls from outside. The voice is low, blessedly quiet, like deep blue twilight and old velvet. “Are you alright?”

Naoto.

“I’m fine,” he tries to say. His throat screams at him, raw and papery, like crusted salt. He tries to clear it and winces as the burn nearly makes him choke. “I’m fine,” he says again. It’s weak, scratchy, but louder than before.

Silence.

He wonders if he’d been too quiet, runs his tongue over his lips to try again. He tastes panic and shame.

“Please don’t lie to me, Senpai.”

Damnit.

Of course, even if Naoto wasn’t a detective they’re still the most observant of the team, the most logical. They’re exactly the kind of friend that wouldn’t be fooled or placated by something as weak as his automatic response. Of course they would notice him leaving, would find him even if he’d somehow wound up on the opposite side of the school building. Of course they would call him out for his obviously bullshit answer.

The door creeps wider open and suddenly there is a swath of blue in the line of the doorway. Naoto swings their head from one side to the other – checking the hall – before stepping further into the bathroom and settling their too-keen gaze upon him.

He looks back down at his hands, watches them turn pink, then red under the scalding water.

Naoto gasps softly. “Oh! Senpai…!” There are footsteps, the sound of the door closing, and then there are hands in his line of sight as Naoto reaches over and turns the water to cold. He still doesn’t feel a thing.

He stands there and lets Naoto keep his hands under the faucet, watching the redness of his skin slowly start to recede.

“I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t look up at them.

There is a pause, a measure of silence before they whisper again. Their voice is calm and level, and he focuses on it rather than the rush of water from the sink, the rush of blood still behind his ears.

“It was only Teddie and Yosuke-senpai that signed us up for the beauty pageant; I tried to tell them that but they had already put your name down as well. I didn’t know…”

Their voice catches slightly, and when he lifts his eyes from his numb fingers he can see them pursing their lips as they stare at their own hands on his wrists.

“I couldn’t stop them. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he whispers back. Because it is okay, even thought it’s absolutely not; he believes Naoto. They’re the newest of the group, but they’re honest, and he knows them well enough by now to know that they’re also the most rational member on the team. They would have agreed to punishing Yosuke for his stunt – he’d like to think they would have stood up for him.

Naoto shakes their head. “It clearly isn’t.” They look up at him then, the movement of their head so sharp and startling that he finds himself looking up at the same time out of shock and catching their eyes. They stare and he can’t look away.

He holds his breath as Naoto opens their mouth to speak. But then, they don’t. They close their mouth again with a soft ‘click’, sighing out their unspoken words through their nose. Their gaze falls back to the mess of hands beneath the stream of water.

“You should see the nurse,” they say instead.

He shakes his head.

No. He absolutely does not want to do that. He’s already going to be poked and prodded enough for the damn pageant, thank you, and at least he can try to keep his friends’ hands on his face and hair and away from the rest of him. The nurse? Not so much.

He tries to say, “I don’t need to”; what comes out instead is a weak, shaky, “I can’t.”

Naoto looks back up at him, their lips pressed into a thin line and their forehead creased in concern. They stare at him for what feels like eons. “...Senpai—“

“Naoto, I can’t.”

And the way his voice breaks, the way his vision blurs, he’s sure he’s close to crying. But he can’t, he won’t, not here, not in front of his teammate, not in the middle of the school building where anyone else could walk in at any moment. He pleads with his eyes instead, because if anyone is clever enough to see hidden meaning in someone’s face, it’s Naoto.

Slowly they nod, and he feels a burst of relief for the first time in far, far too long. He wants to sob.

Naoto sighs and slumps their shoulders, apparently giving in for now. “I understand.” They tilt their head pointedly, searching his face for something he can’t fathom. They must find it, because the ghost of a reassuring smile passes over their features and he feels something inside his chest lift just the tiniest bit. “I really do.”

He should be afraid, he thinks, that Naoto can see through him – even though, out of all of the IT, it was always going to be Naoto that saw him first. He should feel like the floor has been shattered underneath his feet, like he’s falling into blackness again, but no. Not this time.

No one has said anything; no one has spoken the words out loud. It’s Naoto. He’s safe for now.

And he didn’t even have to pull the words from his mouth like shards of broken, bloodied glass. They just knew.

“I’ll do what I can to make sure they don’t go overboard tomorrow,” Naoto is saying. Their fingers uncoil from his wrists and turn the faucet off. (He thinks he can just barely make out the feel of the air on his freezing skin now.) They sigh again. “Chie-senpai and Yukiko-senpai will likely be all too glad to focus on Yosuke-senpai, but Rise-kun…” They trail off, unspoken horrors hanging thick in the air between their lips like oil.

Souji nods. He can feel the cold of his hands now, the leftover sting from the hot water still burning beneath his skin; the room is less fuzzy, now the lights less dim and his vision clearer. He feels himself slide back into his body – not lock into place, he’s still too shaky, too jittery – like a sheet of colored plastic overlaid across a different one to form a new color only where they touch. He’s there, he’s just not solid yet.

Souji flexes his fingers. They hurt. “I’m in drama club,” he rasps. “I can do most of it myself.”

The look that Naoto gives him is full of pain and sympathy – much more emotion than he’s sure anyone else in their group has ever seen. “Awful, isn’t it? That playing pretend has become so natural for people like us.”

The laugh that tears unexpectedly from his chest sounds more like a sob.

---

The next morning dawns like bile against the horizon. Souji watches from the window, barely real as he takes in the sickly yellow of the sun as it rises. A glance at the clock shows he’s been awake for several hours now, unable to stay asleep because of the constant, taunting reminder of what today is; the hummingbird-quick beating of his panicked heart bringing him back to wakefulness any time he managed to doze off from sheer exhaustion.

Numb, nauseous, he drags himself over to the desk and grabs his uniform from where he’d habitually set it out the night before. He feels like nothing, like a wind-up doll as he puts it on. He gathers his things, heads downstairs, passes by the kitchen without even bothering to glance inside. He doesn’t want breakfast right now, doesn’t even want to try and keep his stomach under control long enough to make a bento for later. He stops just long enough to give his little sister a hug.

Nanako asks him if he’s okay.

“I’m fine,” he answers with a strained smile.

---

He runs into Yosuke on the way to school, even though Souji’s absently aware that it’s far earlier than Yosuke actually needs to be leaving his house. But it doesn’t matter, so he doesn’t ask. Yosuke looks about as tired as he feels and at first there is silence.

And then Yosuke opens his mouth and starts to talk.

Yosuke rants about how unfair it is that they have to go through with the pageant, about how it’s totally different for the girls to be up on stage, about how real men don’t wear dresses, damnit, this is so stupid! Yosuke gesticulates as he talks and never once looks over to see the hollowness in Souji’s eyes or to see why Souji hasn’t said a single word to agree with him.

Souji tries and tries to tune his friend out but in the end he feels every word as though it were a splinter of ice burrowing ever deeper into his gut.

Yosuke finally asks him if he’s okay only once the front doors of the school are in sight.

“I’m fine,” he says, and pretends the catch in his voice is a yawn.

---

The day stretches and stretches but still seems to go far too quickly and soon he’s being handed a girl’s uniform and a long silver wig done up in a pair of braids. There are stockings, too, and a padded bra stuffed with what looks like socks pinned inside. He takes the uniform and the wig and stifles the burning, sinking, suffocating feeling that spreads throughout his body so that he can make it to the bathroom to change. Rise calls out to him as he walks stiffly into the hall like a man marching to his execution, asking him if he needs help fastening the bra. He keeps walking as if he hadn’t heard her.

He stands in the stall and tries, tries, tries not to hyperventilate, not to give in to the way his vision blackens and his lungs scream and his stomach – still empty from yesterday – lurches and rolls. His heart pounds like he’s been running, like it’s already escaped and is pleading for him to come with it. He barely manages to hook everything together with how badly his hands are shaking – fingers slipping and nearly dropping everything as he slips the bra fasteners into place. He wraps the socks that had been padding it up in his own uniform and doesn’t think about how well the bra actually fits him without them.

He puts the wig on last while still in the stall. He uses his drama club training and feels for the tabs on either side of the wig, pulling on them until they’re next to his temples. He keeps the stall door closed, keeps his back to it and his head down, even though he cannot see the wall of mirrors over the sinks while he hides behind the door. He squeezes his eyes shut as bits of the wig brush across his cheekbones and does not look at the long silvery strands that now frame his face.

The way the skirt swishes around his legs, the way the shirt hugs his chest, the way his hips look fuller, his waist smaller, his hair longer—

He clamps a hand to his mouth as he gags, body heaving to expel his fear and panic, even though his stomach is so empty it cramps. Sweat breaks out over his forehead and he has to blink back the sting of tears behind his eyelids because everything is wrong wrong WRONG!

It takes everything he has to lock himself away and call up the bone-deep coldness. He slips into the numbing distance, pulling it over himself like a cloak, and pushes everything away until there is nothing left inside but nothing.

Gathering up his things, he finally steps out of the stall and breezes past the line of sinks towards the hallway. He watches himself from someplace far away in his own mind as his body looks dead ahead and refuses to even glance at his own reflection in the mirrors.

Naoto is waiting against the wall just outside the classroom when he makes it back. They take a glance at his mask-like face and their expression twists like they can feel every bit of black, oozing wrongness that has filled his veins and settled into his lungs; like they want to cry every tear for him that lurks behind his frosted wall of forced calm.

He hears them whispering to him as he passes, hears them asking senpai are you okay?

“I’m fine,” he responds, voice like a worn-out recording on an over-played cassette.

---

He doesn’t let Rise do his makeup. He doesn’t let Yukiko or Chie do his makeup either. Thankfully, the latter two have Kanji and Yosuke to focus on to keep them from descending upon him. Rise, though, winks mischievously and waggles a foundation compact in his direction.

He doesn’t want her touching him. Doesn’t want anyone touching him. But he stills just before he can tell her he’ll do it himself because even through the cloak of numbness he knows that to do it himself he’ll have to look in a mirror. His mind stutters, reboots, works his mouth on autopilot and tries again to tell Rise she doesn’t need to help but she isn’t listening. She leans into his personal space with a wide, sweet grin, and he doesn’t want to be upset with her when he knows she’s doing it because of her not-so-subtle crush on him, so he can’t recoil or shove her away like his instincts want to. Luckily his mind and his body are so far removed from one another right now that his knee jerk reaction doesn’t reach his limbs through the void.

He feels the ice encase his heart just a little more solidly and pulls himself further back into his head.

In the end it’s Naoto that winds up doing his makeup. He doesn’t remember them speaking up or shooing Rise away, doesn’t know how he wound up sitting in the far corner of the room with Naoto in front of him like a shield even as they lean in close with a brush.

I’m sorry, their lips say; he can read the words up close like this but the sound is lost behind the echoing cold.

He doesn’t answer, doesn’t know if he’s human enough to remember how. He just sits there and lets them dust the smallest amount of pale brown shadow onto his eyelids. Someone whistles nearby, one of the girls saying something about the ‘natural look,’ but he catches next to nothing else. He can’t even tell who it was that said it – the voice muted like his head is underwater and he’s drowning.

Naoto sweeps something minty-smelling across his bottom lip; a tube of tinted balm, it looks like, not lipstick, but he doesn’t bother trying to read beyond what passes through his peripherals.

He sees Naoto rest their hand tentatively on his shoulder – he can’t feel it, can’t feel anything – and another pained, worried look paints itself over their features. Any other time he would feel guilty about making one of his friends worry, but right now he’s so hollow that he barely even notices.

Naoto turns over their shoulder, eyes suddenly sharp, and parts their lips as though they’re about to speak at someone, when Chie and Yukiko appear in front of them both with matching expressions of glee.

Chie’s mouth moves, quirking upwards as she gives a stunned Naoto a thumbs-up. Yukiko, however, tilts her head at him, appraising. Her mouth moves as well; a great wall of static noise blocks out her words but her lips shape the letters ‘O’ and ‘K” and he absently sees his own head turning to mimic looking in her direction.

“I’m fine,” he feels his body say in his absence.

---

It’s over. The pageant is over. Everything is finally, finally over.

He barely even waits until everyone is off the stage before he’s pulling the wig off his head as though it burns him. He tosses it at someone beside him, not caring whom, and immediately grabs for the bag full of his clothes – his clothes – that someone has apparently stashed backstage for him. (Probably Naoto.)

The world is a blur around him and he all but runs to the bathroom and slams his shoulder into the door. He’s already kicking off the shoes before he even makes it into the closest stall. The first thing off is the stockings, which he nearly trips over as he tries to yank them from his legs as gently – but quickly – as he can, because he doesn’t want to tear them. He’ll have to return everything in one piece; he doesn’t know whom any of this belongs to. He whips them over top the side of the stall and lets them hang there, reaching for the skirt next and hearing something ‘pop!’ as he tugs it down almost before it’s completely unfastened. It joins the stockings in a whirl of fabric.

Still in the top, the scarf, the bra, he unzips his duffel bag and starts grabbing at the clothing inside, not even caring what he pulls out first. He separates a pant leg from a jacket sleeve and drops the jacket back into the bag. As he slides his legs into his pants his knees nearly buckle in desperate relief.

Never again never again never again

The frigid wall, the cloak of numbness, the nothing inside his head; all of it starts to peel and crack and unravel as his violently shaking hands fumble with his button. It takes him far too long to get them fastened, scraping his knuckles on he teeth of his zipper, but when they’re finally, finally, FINALLY ON, the breath leaves his lungs like he’s been slashed open and he has to lurch forward to brace himself against the wall. He trembles, gulps in lungful after lungful of air like a dying man and it still isn’t enough, still feels too shallow. All the color has left his vision, leaving only blacks and whites and greys behind in the ever-tightening circle of static sparkling at the edges of his eyes. He feels unbalanced, off-kilter; his head spins as he continues to try and fill his chest with enough air to keep him above the line of blind panic.

He wonders just how much adrenaline a human body can handle in a day before serious damage is done.

But he can’t relax yet. There’s still the rest of the girl’s uniform, and then the makeup, and he doesn’t know if he has enough left in him to keep going right now. He’s running on sheer luck – body too sick and anxious, deprived of any kind of fuel beyond adrenaline and well-practiced autopilot since yesterday afternoon. And even then, not by much, since everything had come up again after seeing his name on the sign up sheet. How he’s standing he has no idea; how he’s going to make it home, he doesn’t want to think about.

He wills his body to move, to peel off the remainder of the costume – because he has to think of it that way, it cannot be anything else – and locate the toughest part of his own clothing to put back on. He doesn’t look down as he practically rips off the bra, nearly drops his next item of clothing into the toilet in his haste and rising exhaustion. He only gets stuck for a moment as it rolls up underneath itself, but he’s done this before, so many times, in fact, that detangling himself has become muscle memory by now. He rights the fabric, tugs it down over his torso, runs the palms of his hands down the smoother, flatter surface of his chest.

Breathe in. Hold it. Breathe out. Almost done, almost done.

The shirt takes several minutes to button. He keeps getting the wrong hole, keeps slipping as he tries to push the buttons through only for them to resist. He’s better now that he has pants on, more in his own body than he has been in hours, but he’s still not entirely there, not completely whole again. He won’t be until he can put this entire fucking day behind him and he can’t even start to do that until he can get his goddamn clothes on, please just button!

He gives up on the last couple of buttons, letting them hang open; they don’t go low enough to show the flesh-colored fabric beneath, so it doesn’t matter. The rest of the shirt is fastened, though, which is good enough for now. He grabs for his uniform jacket and pulls it on without a hitch. Somehow he manages to get his socks and shoes on without sliding down the wall and cracking his head open on the tiled floor.

He’s stuffing the pageant costume into the bag so he doesn’t have to look at it anymore when he spots the pack of makeup remover wipes tucked into the bottom. He owes Naoto everything, anything; anything they want, he will gladly give them. He will run himself ragged in the TV world to earn as much money as he needs to, if only for this one last kindness that his friend has shown him.

He rips open the pack and feverishly starts to scrub at his face with the first wipe he can get his fingers around. It hurts; even through the numbness still plaguing him and the chasm between his body and his mind he can feel his skin starting to burn. He doesn’t remember if Naoto put foundation on him – he doesn’t think they did – but he scrubs and scrubs and scrubs at his eye makeup, at his cheeks, at his lips, until he can taste copper on his tongue and see stars behind his lids. He grabs another wipe and keeps going. He doesn’t dare step out of the stall until the makeup wipes come away clean.

He washes his face with cold water at the sink, both to clear away the film of makeup remover and to quell the rawness of his skin. He watches the water stream around his freezing hands just like he did yesterday and absolutely does not look up at the mirror.

Somewhere out in the hallway he can hear clock chimes; he counts them to himself long after they’ve stopped.

---

He’s almost human again when he reemerges from the bathroom and finds his way back to his friends. Truthfully he wants nothing more than to hug the living daylights out of Naoto and then roll into a ditch somewhere to sleep for a million years. He can’t, though; he knows he has to make an appearance with the rest of the group or even the most oblivious among them will get suspicious. He doesn’t have the energy to think up a lie.

He shuffles his way into the classroom and sinks down into a nearby chair, legs wobbly and threatening to fail him. Once he can focus on something other than keeping himself upright, he takes a moment to properly look around the room. It’s weird seeing it suddenly, (even through the grey veil still clouding the edges of his vision,) since he’s barely registered anything around him for the past two days. He’s exhausted and probably hungry and really just wants to go home, but there’s still that responsible part of him that thinks he should try and rejoin the living and clean up the classroom with his friends. Though, looking harder, it seems like most of the decorations have been taken down already.

Just how much time did he lose?

“There you are! Damn, I was wondering where you disappeared to.” Yosuke steps over to him, also back in his own clothes, and slumps into the chair adjacent him. There is still makeup on his face, and his hair has a crimp mark where the hair tie had previously been. He looks haggard.

Souji doesn’t say anything I return, only gives his best friend shaky smile that goes nowhere near his eyes; he doesn’t think he can manages human words right now.

Luckily it doesn’t seem like Yosuke notices. Instead, he gives Souji a pitiful look and says, “Duuuuuuude, how’d you get your makeup off? Rise keeps saying she doesn’t have anything because she ‘forgot.’” He snorts sardonically and levels an unamused look over his shoulder at where the girls are snapping pictures of Teddie still in full costume. “’Forgot,’ my ass,” he grumbles. “Probably forgot on purpose just to make us suffer longer.”

Souji makes a mental note to ask Naoto if they paid for his makeup wipes out of their own pocket, and how much he owes them for it.

He doesn’t answer – again – but he does expend a little of what energy he has left to lean over and unzip his duffle bag. He doesn’t let his eyes focus on anything inside, just feels around until the familiar crinkle of plastic reaches him. Covertly, he taps the pack of remover wipes against Yosuke’s knee.

Yosuke looks down, confused, before taking the pack with barely-contained glee. He fixes Souji with a face-splitting grin. “Oh man, you are the best, Partner!” He hurries to stand, shooting Souji a quick, “be right back,” and nigh on sprinting towards the door. He nearly runs into Kanji as he’s leaving, the other boy apparently just now returning from changing out of his own costume with the dress draped over his arm.

Yosuke actually grabs kanji by the elbow and drags him back out into the hallway with a hushed, “come on!” The two of them disappear around the corner.

It would be funny, Souji thinks; probably should be funny, but the whole situation is some kind of overly-customized personal hell, and he’s about two steps away from saying “screw it” and slinking out the door to make his own escape.

He never gets the chance.

Somewhere, at some point in his life, Souji must have cashed in all of his good luck and used it up forever because its only once Yosuke and Kanji have vanished that he realizes there’s no one left to distract the others. Rise spots him first and, with a bubbly, “Senpai, you’re back!” she hurries over and into his space.

“Look!” she beams, holding her phone out towards him, screen turned where he can see. “I took pictures of all of you!”

He makes the mistake of almost looking – even knowing full well what’s probably on her phone screen, he instinctively turns his gaze and catches sight of long silver braids.

Immediately he freezes, doesn’t let his eyes finish focusing on the image now shoved in his face. He can’t. He’s tried so hard, made absolutely sure that any mirror he passed, any reflective surface, any window for god’s sake, was kept just out of his line of vision. He’s tried, for two solid days to keep from looking at himself, to keep from thinking, and now it’s all about to come unraveled because Rise has photographic evidence of this complete massacre of a day.

He shifts his gaze over to Rise’s face instead, looks just past the edge of her cheek and doesn’t meet her eyes. He thinks he might feel his lips twitch cordially upwards at the corners – autopilot yet again – and thinks he might hear himself say something. It might be, “so I see”; it might be, “please kill me.” He isn’t sure. The room is starting to waver in his vision and the river inside his skull has begun trickling to life.

Whatever it was he said must not have been too bad, because Rise just giggles and leans back on her hip, pulling her phone with her. She grins down at it and starts poking at the screen, likely flipping through her pictures.

He wonders if he could make it to the door before she pulls up another one to show him.

Chie and Yukiko wander over, much more relaxed than Rise had been, and while that part is appreciated it’s rapidly becoming too crowded in the little sliver of classroom he’s found himself trapped in. He lets his mind pull away from his body, giving his friends a fake smile and a nod while he tries anxiously to see if he can spot Naoto anywhere. He can’t pinpoint the exact moment his subconscious started hyper-fixating on them, viewing them as safe, as shield, but he won’t complain. For once there is an anchor, a lifeline, even if Naoto can’t really do much right now; it’s been so long since he’s had any form of hope when his panic surges and rolls, tugging at him like a vicious tide. Even just knowing he wasn’t alone in this cage of people would be enough to ground him.

But Naoto isn’t here. Naoto isn’t here and Yosuke – who could have at least pulled their attention away from him – is off in the bathroom and there’s nothing to keep his heart from quickening in his chest like a frenzied moth.

“Hey could you send me those?” Chie is saying to Rise, blessedly not looking at him for the time being. “I’m gonna lord this over Yosuke’s head for weeks!”

Yukiko launches into a laughing fit and the level of static noise in the room ramps up to just shy of too much.

“You got it! Senpai, do you want me to send some to you, too? I got a bunch of cute pictures of you backstage~”

No, please no.

He pulls himself back into his own head on a burst of sheer adrenaline, clutching onto his fight or flight moment of sickening clarity to open his mouth and beg her not to---

A whirlwind of blue dress and blonde wig throws itself at him, practically into his lap, and suddenly Teddie is latched around his arm like a vice.

“Ooh ooh! Send one to me, Rise-chan! Send one to me!” He pulls a little yellow Junes-brand phone out of seemingly nowhere and shoves it into Rise’s hand. “I want a bear-utiful one of Sensei!”

Without even seeming to pause for breath, Teddie wraps back around his arm and sighs dreamily. The blonde wig brushes against his face. It feels too much like the silver one had.

Longer hair, a smaller waist, fuller hips, the swish of a skirt…

His chest is full of cinders.

Teddie beams up at him. He stares back with wide eyes, only vaguely seeing.

“You should have won, too, Sensei!” Teddie says – very loudly, right near his ear. “Just think of it! We could have been heartbreakers together, on the hunt for bear-utiful admirers!”

The cinders in his throat climb higher, choking him, burning everything in their path.

Teddie sighs again. “Sensei makes such a pretty girl.”

Everything whites out.

It’s like being dropped into dark, freezing water; his body is paralyzed, rendered immobile in the sharpest, most bone-deep way, with every inch of skin so cold it feels like a thousand shards of ice digging into him and twisting. It forces the air from his lungs, suspends it in time so that he cannot draw another breath to replace it. He feels the frigid water seep into his mind, his mouth, his chest, feels the way it drains everything from his body until he is so numb he can’t even call his limbs to shake. There is no sound, no voices – only the muted rush of the water as it claims him and fills his head with silence.

---

There are flashes of black and grey in his vision.

From far, far away, he catches a glimpse of himself in the school hallway as he throws himself out into it and against a wall. He sees Yosuke and Kanji, coming casually towards him, sees their faces as he passes, shocked and confused.

He sees the door to the stairwell. He sees the landing halfway down.

He sees Naoto near the bottom, close to the exit to the first floor, heading upwards in his direction. He sees their look of terror as they notice him, the recognition dawning in their eyes, sees them reach out as if to intercept him. He sees himself dodge, sees his body swing itself over the railing and past the last couple of steps, landing wrong and slipping, falling, catching himself with the palms of his hands and using the last of that momentum to fling himself out the door.

He sees the front entrance of the school. He sees the walkway beyond.

He sees nothing after that.

---

The world is dark around him as he slowly blinks his eyes open. He is back in his room at his uncle’s house; he can just barely make out the outline of the desk, the couch, the TV in what faint moonlight filters in through the windows behind him. The wall is hard and unforgiving at his back; the floor is cold on his already-cold legs. Vaguely he notes that he is bare from the waist up, the skin of his arms and chest and shoulders all exposed to the chill of the room.

His hands sting and his knees ache. He has no idea what time it is.

“I’m fine,” he whispers to no one. His voice, though weak and raw, echoes like a temple bell in the maddening quiet of his dark, empty bedroom. In what sounds like a dark, empty house.

He licks at his lips, closes his eyes. He leans his head back again and rests it against the wall. “I’m fine.”

His next exhale is wet and trembling, like the dying breath of a drowning victim, pulled from the river only to die with water in his lungs. There is something crusted under the fingernails of his right hand. He touches it with the tip of a finger from his left hand and finds it thick and sticky beneath the first layer. Something smells sweet and coppery. There is a long stripe of stinging pain across the side of his left arm when he shifts it. He doesn’t focus on it.

There is a buzzing noise and a square of light shines from his pants pocket in the perfect outline of his phone. He lolls his head to stare at it until it goes away. It comes back what feels like a few moments later. Again and again, he watches as it blinks until going dark once more.

“I’m fine,” he whispers as the lead in his bones pulls him down to curl up on the floor against the side of the couch.

“I’m fine,” he whispers again as he lets the exhaustion settle across him like a weighted blanket and slips his eyes close.

“I’m fine,” he whispers like a mantra as sleep finally takes him.

His dreams are full of fog and shadowy places that he does not recognize; a crumbling indoor maze with whispering voices, a rooftop surrounded on all sides by impossibly high chain link fence. He stands on one end of the red-washed roof beneath a sky of blood and onyx and watches himself watch back from the other side.

“I’m fine,” he whispers to the figure across from him.

A wail of anguish rises from their chests, long and loud and keening, and the figure lurches forward to bury its face in its hands.

“No, I’m NOT!”

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forkanna · 3 years

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[AO3] [WATTPAD]

NOTE: So I know everything's been pretty sunshiny the last few chapters. Hold onto your butts… it'll get better again soon, I promise.

Sunday was quiet. Relatively. Rise spent almost the entire day working at Marukyu for her grandmother, slaving over the stove and tending to every small detail. By now, the novelty of this had worn off for most of the town, and even the greater population of Japan; there were only so many times they could gawk at an idol performing menial tasks before they realized they were just watching someone perform menial tasks. It wasn't nearly as interesting as the otaku would hope.

Yukiko did call her later that evening to ask her a few things about Ebihara. Rise tried to be upset, but at the end of the day she wasn't all that shocked Chie had told her girlfriend.

"I'm terribly sorry!" Yukiko offered in such an earnest voice that she even felt bad for saying anything at all. She could just picture her bowing on the other end of the phone line, even though she couldn't see her and the gesture was futile. "Please, I accept full responsibility!"

"Huh? How can you accept responsibility for Chie having a big mouth?"

"Well, I… I do?"

"It's fine," she chuckled as she stripped off her clothes, getting ready for a nice, soothing bath. She appreciated them all the more now that she had a steady job. "Really. But can you do me a favor and not ask Ai-chan any of this stuff? Not that I totally get it, but she seems kind of sensitive about this…"

"O-of course! I wouldn't dream of upsetting her!" A slight pause. "But Rise, what are you going to do? I mean, I know I'm not really one to talk, because… well, Chie told me she explained our situation to you."

Splashing her hand in the water to make sure it was getting hot, she set the phone down far enough away that the shower head wouldn't hit it and started rinsing off. "More like I called her out. But it was really cute that she thought none of us noticed."

Another pause. Again, she could practically see Yukiko bowing in her mind, and the wheels turning as she tried to figure out a response. She was so methodical that way. "You did?"

"Let me guess: you wanna know how I figured it out, so you can do a better job of hiding it in the future?"

"Yes, yes exactly," she sighed. "Am I terrible? That it's my greatest concern, instead of for you and-"

"No, no way! I get it, you don't want to make waves around Inaba and make people drop by the Amagi Inn for the wrong reasons." As she began to lather up her hair, she said, "It's probably too subtle for the boys to pick up on it. You know how oblivious they are. But I see you guys standing really close all the time, and the way you look at each other… there are stars in your eyes. Girls know when girls are in love."

"Yeah," she whispered with such tenderness that Rise felt her own heart skip a beat. "Love."

"Yeah. Um, so I guess if you really want to keep it a secret, just stand a little further apart and try to avoid those longing gazes. Even though I think it's really cute that you like each other so much."

"You do?! Wow… I- th-that is, I thought you might be disgusted or think we were ridiculous."

Rise rolled her eyes as she scrubbed between her toes before reaching for the showerhead again. "What? Me, the girl thinking about dating a boy who dresses like a girl? That's a pretty big glass house for me to start throwing stones in."

"Yes, well, not everyone can be entirely logical when it comes to these matters. But about that… you didn't answer my question. Are you going to date Ebihara-san? Since he's… a deviant."

Yet again, she found herself wincing at one of her friends using a word like that, even though she had thought it herself a couple of times. "I think so. I mean, every time I try to talk myself out of it, I remember kissing her, and that's it. I'm gone, I'm dead. Can't fight real feels like those."

"Believe me, I understand that one perfectly," Yukiko's tinny voice chuckled from the speakerphone as Rise tried to make quick work of shampooing her pair. So much grease collected in it while she was frying up tofu, no matter how hard she tried to protect it from the fumes. "Before all that Midnight Channel business? I definitely was very traditional, I never would have entertained the idea of… of what you or I are going through. Either of us. But now I understand the world is a much bigger place, and has all kinds of people. We all just want to be loved and accepted."

"Wow… you sound like an idol. We say stuff like that all the time, even though not all of us mean it. Don't get me wrong, though, most of us do; we just ham it up and make sure we sound extra positive for the cameras."

"Oh, stop," the obviously flustered innkeeper chuckled. "I'm no idol material; I'm not you or Ebihara-san. But thank you very much."

"Are you bowing right now?"

"Hurk!" Definitely caught her in the act. "I, u-um, I think I hear my mother calling me to help her tend some of the guests! Have a good night, Rise-san!"

"Byyyyyeeee," she sing-songed just as the line went dead.

Though a lot of those thoughts bumped around in her head as she soaked in the tub, staring up at the ceiling. Her relaxation time was impeded by anxiety.

By now, she had provisionally accepted Ai really was a boy who dressed as a girl. And she seemed comfortable with "girl" so she saw no reason to call her anything else. If some manner of proof came along that proved it was all a lie, she would deal with it at that time, but for now she just wanted to support her friend.

And more.

"I think this might be the real thing," she whispered out loud despite being alone in the bathroom. And she felt the truth in her own words: she had only ever felt that way about Narukami, and that hapless boy never quite returned her affections. He cared for her, very obviously, but not in the same way. So liking someone and having them like her back…

Magical. Even just a simple memory, like riding back on the train from Shinjuku with her head on Ebihara's shoulder, was enough to make Rise giggle and flail her legs in the water, covering her face. Sitting on the riverbank with her, singing at a karaoke bar with her, sitting around in Aiya, listening to ancient city pop in her room… just the various spells in her favourite little witch's arsenal.

Even though she couldn't pinpoint the exact second they had gone from friends to more than friends, it had happened. She had it bad for the teen queen of Yasogami High.

"So that's it," she told herself firmly, smacking her fist into her open palm. "Boy or girl, it doesn't matter; I'm telling her tomorrow that I'm all hers. And nothing is going to stand in my way!"

~ o ~

How wrong she was.

The instant she walked into school, Rise knew something big had happened. At first, she had been able to ignore the weird whispering in the hallways; kids were always doing that. She didn't have to let it detract from her main mission of the day: a confession of love. One she had spent all evening trying to get just right, wasting pages and pages of notebook paper. She didn't even know if she would get to see Ai today but wanted to have it ready just in case.

It wasn't until just before lunch, ironically, when she finally figured out what everyone was gossiping about. Ironic because it was just when everything started to die down and things were going back to normal.

"So I guess it really was just a stupid rumour," one of the two girls sitting in front of her in class whispered to the other.

"Yeah. How do these things even get started?"

"I don't know! If it had been anybody, especially from the upperclassmen? I'd guess Satonaka-senpai. Like, wouldn't be that shocking about her."

"Right? But at least now we know they were wrong about Ebihara-senpai. Still don't know how these things get started."

"Yeah…"

Rise had to fight the instinct to look up from her book, or even worse, to demand they explain themselves. Why were they talking about Chie and Ai? Of course, one topic did immediately come to mind — but she told herself it couldn't be that. Why would they be discussing something that no one knew about?

At lunch, she searched all over until she tracked down Ai in the courtyard. She was off in the corner, looking grumpy as ever and holding a bento that hadn't even been opened yet. That didn't bode well, but she found herself hoping that she could turn her frown upside-down. Or die trying, perhaps.

"Heeeeey, girl!" What kind of awkward, generic greeting was that? A nervous one. Rise cleared her throat and tried again. "This seat taken?"

"Yes."

Ouch. It was a lot colder outside than she had previously thought. But she couldn't let herself be deterred; she had worked too hard to build up her courage, and she wasn't going to let that go to waste. Especially since those rumours probably meant she needed cheering up more than ever.

"So I've been thinking a lot," she began as she sat — pointedly ignoring the way Ai sighed. "About… you and me, and um… I have something to say. Well, a lot of somethings," she laughed as she started digging in her pocket for her notes.

"What a coincidence! So do I." With a tight, dangerous-looking smile, Ai turned to look straight into her eyes. "Do you know what 'tucking' is?"

"What's… 'tucking'? I mean, like, tucking someone into bed? Sure."

"No, not that. It's something a trans woman or a drag queen does to hide the 'extra goods', if you get me. Just push everything back between your thighs, and skin-on-skin does the rest; doesn't tend to want to slip through unless you move around too much."

Rise had no ready reply for that. "R-right. That's, um, that's pretty cool. I guess. Is it cool? Is it bad? I don't know that much about-"

"Imagine my surprise," she cut across her, "that I had to employ this tactic today because my life depended on it. Like, I would have been in deep shit without tucking."

"What happened?" she asked immediately, leaning closer. "Your life depended on it?!"

"Yes. Because a lot of girls in the locker room were demanding to know if the rumours were true."

"Rumours? Oh — right, something about you and Chie?"

That actually did bring Ai up short. "What? What about Chie?"

"I don't know? That's all I heard, and I didn't even hear very much. Some girls were saying they thought it would be Chie-chan instead of you, but I didn't know what they meant."

"Ah. Because she's so obliviously butch; got it." Then she shook her head. "They wanted to know if they were true, and tucking was my only way out. Lucky for you and for them, they bought it."

Rise blinked up at her for a second. What was she talking about? By now, she was starting to feel ashamed of not quite catching up to her potential-girlfriend-or-boyfriend's storytelling, and she frowned hard. "Ai… you're really mad, and I'm sorry, I must not have my smarty-pants on today or whatever. I'm just not getting what you-"

Her voice faded away when she saw her stand up to glare down at her. Then she lifted her skirt, reached underneath-

"EEP!"

"There you go!" she hissed at Rise even as she hastily looked away. A few students on the other side of the courtyard started to turn in their direction. "Get a quick eyeful before the show's over, you bitch!"

What else could Rise do but turn back to get a second look? Though there wasn't much to see; smooth, pale skin, a single mole near her hip, and a well-maintained landing strip of pubic hair. And…

And that was it.

"Oh… you don't have a…" Gulping hard, she grimaced and whispered, "I thought you said you were a boy."

"How dumb are you?" Ai demanded, brow furrowed in her rage at her. "I literally just explained what I'm doing!" Then she grunted in sheer frustration as she rearranged her clothes into place, sitting down heavily on the bench again.

"Oh. Wait — no, I get it! You're saying that- that your…" She extended her pinky, wishing she hadn't picked up that gesture from Chie but needing it now. Ai's eyes rolled. "It was tucked back between your legs?"

"Wow, she does have deductive reasoning skills! Somewhere in there! I thought you said you guys were some kind of 'Investigation Team' or whatever?"

Glancing around again at the few onlookers, though most of them seemed to have decided the show was over and turned back to their lunches and conversations, Rise leaned in to whisper, "You lied to those girls? In the locker room? But… I mean, you said it was life and death, and it wasn't. They were just curious because they heard the rumour."

"Right. And what do you think would happen if I showed them my little bonus appendage? They'd clap and say it was cute and we'd all go out for smoothies?" Rise only blinked owlishly, so she facepalmed. "It's like you're trying to piss me off. Or you need to stop letting Chie use your head as her martial arts practice dummy."

"HEY! Listen, I know I'm not keeping up super well with this, but I already told you I'm- this isn't something I've ever thought a whole lot about, so can you chill?!"

Both of the halves of this fractured whole blinked in surprise at her outburst. Just as Rise was swallowing and trying to find the words to apologise, Ai rose to her feet again, having made sure to pack up her belongings as quickly and as quietly as she could.

"No, I can't chill. Because I don't want to be beaten within an inch of my life by well-meaning football players who think they're knights in shining armour. I don't want to die because you were too stupid to keep your mouth shut — because yes, it had to have been your fault the whole school is whispering about whether or not I'm a girl or a boy. But hey, lucky for me, I figured out a way to throw them off the scent, so maybe… just maybe I won't have to change schools and towns again. I guess we'll see."

Standing up a little belatedly, she reached out to catch her by the elbow. "W-wait, wait, Ai-chan, I- you got me all wrong! I didn't start a rumour about you, I promise! That's not how I- do you really think I would, with how people treat me in the industry?! I hate that kind of crap!"

"Doesn't matter. I haven't been telling anybody else, so news flash: it has to be you. There can't be anybody else. So nice try, Risette, but I don't believe you anymore."

Her face was so stony, her voice so cold. Eyes like chips of ice. Rise felt her heart sinking as she watched her regard her with… not just anger, not just disdain. This might even have been hatred. Her bottom lip wobbled as she made small squeaking sounds that were something like words. It took a few tries.

"I… I didn't… I really didn't."

"Enjoy your perfect little life with your perfect little friends," she offered with a poisonous smile. "While you can. But you have crossed the wrong bitch; you did the one thing I absolutely cannot forgive. You broke my trust on the most personal level you could have, and came really close to ruining my life. So get ready for me to return the favour."

"Wha…? Alright, what is that supposed to mean?" Rise shrugged helplessly. "Are you going to tell everybody I'm a boy now?"

"Ohhh, that would be juicy. But no. You aren't going to get to find out my master plan until I put it into play."

Panic started to flare in her heart and veins as she looked from side to side, seeing everyone watching her. Watching Risette — waiting for the next morsel of juicy gossip to drop right in front of them. Eager scavengers. "P-please, listen-"

"I'm through listening." Now Ai's voice was deceptively sweet as she paced backward. "And you? You're just through. Wait and see." She paused, and bitterness crept into her tone as she offered one last thought: "I really… started to think you were different. That weakness is on me. But the rest is on you."

Then she was gone, and Rise was left with nothing but whiplash and dread. Already, she could feel an hourglass being turned; she was living on borrowed time. If she couldn't somehow figure out what had happened and fix what had been broken, both her potential relationship and her entire career would soon be going down the tubes.

To Be Continued…

#we'll face ourselves #forkanna writes #persona 4 fanfiction #rise x ai #p4 fanfic #jess rambles

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