Work Text:
All the secrets that you keep
Might get spoken while you sleep.
——Panic! at the Disco, “All the Boys”
Minako comes in from the typhoon looking like a wet cat, and looking for longer than four seconds is Shinjiro’s first mistake.
Is he really to blame, though? She’s the last one into the dorm, first of all, and he doesn’t want to begin to wonder whether it’s because the storm nearly carried her away or because she stopped an ungodly number of times to help an ungodly number of people. Because, for some reason, she seems to make connections with literally everyone she meets. And the poor kid sticks out like a sore thumb besides, dripping onto the mat at the front door after school on a Friday, with everyone from Ken to Akihiko staring at her. Her hair—whatever of it isn’t plastered to her face—hangs limp in its usual ponytail, and he’s kind of surprised she didn’t lose any of her barrettes in the fray. And her clothes are clinging to her, and she’s… shivering.
He shouldn’t notice that she’s shivering.
So he does the only thing he can think of, the one thing he’s good at: he tears his eyes away, and buries his nose in a magazine.
“Oh, Minako, did you get caught?” Yukari says from somewhere behind him to break the pin-drop silence of the lobby. And thank God someone else takes up the gauntlet instead, because he doesn’t think he could deal with the debilitating silence. Or the fact that Minako looked at him, too. Or the fact that she probably hasn’t looked away herself.
She’s so… weird. And it’s not just because of all the times she’s asked him to accompany her. Or all the times she’s taken a bizarre fascination in his hobby. Or even the time she found his fucking pocket watch.
He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to her.
Even though, well, he sort of has to. She’s the leader now, for whatever reason. He doesn’t care. He’ll pull off being alone for as long as he has to.
Even if, for some other reason, he can almost perfectly envision the dopey apologetic smile on Minako’s face as she wrings out her hair and her school uniform on the spot and tries to explain what took her so damn long.
What follows is all a blur of sound to him: there’s the splatter of rainwater on dull carpet and tile, the fast click of shoes. Probably Yukari’s, since it’s her voice that says, “Uh-uh, we are getting you into a bath and up to bed, now.” And then two sets of fading footsteps this time, one noticeably more squishy than the other (which is honestly one of Shinjiro’s worst nightmares, right up there with adding salt instead of sugar to his recipes and the feeling of his sock slipping down in his boots). The low hum and slow, purposeful footsteps that come after tell him that Aigis isn’t far behind, and probably wouldn’t dare to be.
The last thing he hears from Minako is a sheepish giggle and, “Don’t worry, Yukari. I don’t get sick easily. Can’t even remember the last time I caught a cold.”
Shinjiro doesn’t know about that; only idiots don’t catch colds. He would know.
When he looks up from the magazine—which isn’t much more than a lift of his gaze—the two of them are gone. Mitsuru’s fallen back into whatever lengthy volume she’s reading, and Fuuka looks too distracted to go back to whatever she was looking at on her brick of a laptop but too rooted to the spot to do literally anything else. It only takes a moment longer for him to notice that Akihiko’s staring at the stairwell, too. His boxing gloves are a little more slack in his hands, and the look on his face seems… dimmer.
Trust Akihiko to count every missed opportunity. He’s been doing it since they were kids.
“Well,” he says. “Guess we know what she’s doing this weekend.”
Shinjiro scoffs, not because it’s funny, and returns to his magazine. It’s the most recent issue of the cooking channel catalogue, which for some reason says October instead of September—he’ll never get why they’re published that way—but it’s already rolled up and dog-eared at the corners and worn out with whatever sticky notes he could find. And by “find,” he meant “lift from Yukari’s pre-pre-exam crunch time.”
The only problem is, the words are starting to swim together, and it’s probably not because he’s read them at least eighteen times this month.
But before he can look to the stairs again, or wonder why he can see them so clearly or, God forbid, entertain the thought of going up there, Koromaru nudges his knees and sniffs at his hand. It’s what he does lately, when he’s looking for food. Not that Shinjiro minds. He doesn’t want to toot any particular horns, but he’s a damn good cook, and Koromaru is a damn good dog. Especially when, from the looks of it, he can tell exactly what Shinjiro doesn’t want to think about.
“C’mon, boy,” he mutters once the lobby clears out and he feels like he can breathe again. “Let’s get something in you.”
By mid-morning on Saturday, Minako still hasn’t gotten out of bed, which Shinjiro knows less from the footsteps on the floor above and more from the sigh Akihiko lets out when he finally shuffles half-dead into the lobby. He didn’t sleep well, because he hardly ever sleeps well, but he passes on the pot of lukewarm coffee in the kitchen area anyway. Partly because there are fewer things worse than lukewarm coffee—like wet socks getting stuck in shoes—and partly because the last time he drank coffee while on his suppressants, he was laid out for hours, wide-eyed and actually considering that there might be a God.
Akihiko’s bouncing his leg and wringing his hands from his place on the couch, his only company being a plastic tumbler with remnants of some Godforsaken protein shake. Still, this is the good kind of anxious, Shinjiro knows. It’s the itching-to-fight kind, the kind where he’s bubbling at the edges with potential, because Akihiko hasn’t really felt the bad kind of anxious since the fire. It won’t do him much good, though; the rain is hammering on the doors and windows, and the wind outside is howling loud enough to wake up the whole dorm. He’d be surprised if anyone could sleep through this.
Well. Anyone except Minako, maybe.
“I’m getting kinda worried,” Akihiko says instead of good morning. He’s gone from wringing his hands to folding his arms tight, after turning on the TV to static. A beat-up thing like that can’t get good signal, especially in this weather. “I haven’t seen hide or hair of her since last night.”
Shinjiro grunts, and opens the fridge. Whoever stocked it before the storm rolled in—probably Fuuka, and probably with Mitsuru’s money—deserves a medal. Still, he might not be able to stomach much more than toast and a glass of juice this early in the day. And the pills. He can’t forget the pills.
He can’t forget the pills.
“She probably hasn’t eaten, y’know,” Akihiko calls from the couch, because apparently he can’t mind his damn business.
Shinjiro twitches, and grips a bag of sliced bread and a butter dish a little too tight. Sure, Akihiko’s known about the cooking thing for ages, but does he really have to play it up like this? Even all these years later? He plays the Irritating Little Brother angle a little too well sometimes, even if they’re only a month or so apart. “Think you could lay it on a little thicker? I can still see the floor.”
“Look.” Akihiko shrugs, which looks hard to do when his body is wound up like that. “All I’m saying is… you’ve been getting to know her, since you’ve come back. And she’s been leading us through Tartarus besides. It wouldn’t kill you to at least check up on her.”
Shinjiro laughs dryly, because even if it couldn’t, he could still think of a pocketful of things that would kill him. He doesn’t say anything, because so could Akihiko. “I’m not playing nurse to some kid I barely know.”
“Good thing she’s not just ‘some kid you barely know,’ then.” Across the way, Akihiko rests his chin in his hand, all the grinning in his eyes, and glances toward the fridge. Then to the windows, which sound like they’re seconds from breaking, but just strong enough to hold off the rain. Then to the stairs again. “Besides, I’m sure she could be just as good a taste tester as Koromaru.”
Christ. He just has to know everything, doesn’t he. “Why don’t you do it, if you’re so worried about her?”
Akihiko shrugs. It’s probably supposed to look apologetic. “I’m no good at it, Shinji. You’re the cook, not me.”
“Yeah, well. Somebody had to be.”
A begrudging hour and a half and several recipe cards later, Shinjiro’s got a pot of vegetable soup coming down from a simmer. He’s at least thankful that he’s been left to his own devices, either because Akihiko actually had something to do, or because he knows better than to say anything or even keep company when Shinjiro’s this kind of busy. Or because, maybe, basking in being right is the type of thing Akihiko like to do alone.
Not that he wants to think about that. All he has to do is bring this toast and bowl of soup upstairs, make sure the kid actually gets something in her and doesn’t insist that he didn’t have to do all this for her. For one thing, he did have to, if Akihiko is anything to go by, and for another, she doesn’t have to do the whole nice-person song and dance. She just needs to get better, because at this rate, everyone’s going to get antsy if they stay out of Tartarus too long, and he’ll spend all his time flipping the calendar in his room between this month and the next.
He doesn’t need to. It’s not like he doesn’t know what’s coming.
In spite of whatever caffeine and suppressants once made him believe, there really is a God. None of the girls are in the third floor sitting area when he makes his way up with a lap tray; in fact, his only witness is Koromaru, who’s sitting dutifully outside Minako’s door, sometimes pawing at it, tail swishing back and forth. He’d definitely make better company out of the two of them. His ears perk up when Shinjiro approaches, and he whimpers a little and butts the door with his head. How long has he been waiting? Did he stay here all night? Sleep here, even?
He’s too good.
The kid deserves someone too good.
Shinjiro clicks his tongue before the steam from the soup can cloud his face any more. He’s already resigned himself to having to knock, as much as he’d hope to literally any deity that he could just get away with it all anonymously. Koromaru barks once or twice, excitedly, and he has to shush him and deter him from the tray once he sets it on the ground. The sooner he gets this over with, Shinjiro tells himself, the sooner he’ll never have to do it again. Like too many things in his life, it’s starting to become one of those now-or-never type deals.
He’s never been particularly good at those. It requires thinking—overthinking—that he’s never had the time for.
But then, he’s never had the time for too many things.
He finally knocks, still nudging Koromaru away from the tray, and a nasally “Come in!” seeps under the door. She sounds like a wreck, but there’s no time for judging. Go in, make sure she eats, get out. That’s the plan.
Except he stops in the hall and his heart twists, once he creaks the door open enough to see her. And if she looked soaked to the bone last night, then today she looks like literal, actual death. Like one of those sickly kids from an old-timey movie. Even with God knows how many blankets wrapped around her and her cell phone nestled in her lap, her hair is sort of tangled and plastered to her forehead, and her face is splotchy with fever and somehow manages to look pale at the same time, and she’s still shivering. Enough that it’s impossible not to notice.
It’s also impossible not to notice that she’s staring at him. And there’s no magazine to escape to this time.
“Aragaki-senpai,” she says. Even through all the congestion, she sounds a little surprised. Hell, he doesn’t blame her. From the way he’s only paid her so much mind to the way he’s fumbled and avoided her gaze in practically every interaction they’ve ever had, ever, there’s no reason for him to be here.
Even if… maybe a small part of him did want to check. For his own peace of mind. But that small part is easy to squash.
“Why is it always you?” Shinjiro says—even under his breath, she must have heard him—and takes up the tray while Koromaru trots over and hops up onto her bed, nosing her phone aside to drop his head into her lap. It isn’t until he nudges Koromaru away and sets the tray almost unceremoniously on her lap that he notices the scent of flowers masking the room. Maybe to cover up the smell of sleep. He knows what it’s like to have to do that. To mask your inability to even get out of bed. “You’re just a walking magnet for trouble, aren’t you, kid? And what’d I tell you about callin’ me that?”
“You still call me ‘kid.’ So we’re even.” Minako smiles weakly. She’s a walking magnet for anything and everything, and she has to know it. Her gaze drops to the bowl in front of her. “Is this for me?”
Well, duh, it’s for her. The only problem is, for all the time Shinjiro put into making the soup, he didn’t even think of what to say about it. Eventually he settles on, “Just get your energy back. And you’d better eat it all. I’m not leavin’ till that bowl’s empty.”
Wait.
Why did he say that? The plan was—the plan was…
Before he can go back on his word, Minako’s smile widens, and her eyes water up—which he weirdly really hopes is because of the illness. He doesn’t know how long she holds him there like that, only that it’s a relief when she finally clasps her hands together, closes her eyes, and says, “Thank you for the meal!” Congested and everything. She’s not dripping everywhere, thank God, but her voice is squeaky, and all her m’s sound like b’s. It’s…
It’s not cute. It’s gross. Cute is—it’s more like—
No, he’s not doing this. He doesn’t do “cute.” He’s stopped enough of these damn thoughts on his own time. He can keep stopping them. He just needs to focus on what’s happening. To get out of his head and stay here in the moment, focus on how her whole face lights up when she takes the first spoonful, and how she’s polite enough to at least swallow before she chirps, “It’s so good!”
Okay, he doesn’t need to get that in the moment.
“Good,” he mumbles, sitting back in her creaky wooden desk chair. “Finish it. You’re no good lying around snifflin’ and coughin’.”
God, he even made himself wince. Why did he say that, too? He didn’t… he only meant…
But if his words hurt Minako, she doesn’t show it. She even pouts a little. “I’m not that sick.”
Almost as if on cue, she seizes up with a coughing fit into her elbow. Shinjiro wrinkles his nose and pointedly looks first at her, and then to the graveyard of crumpled tissues filling up her trash bin. “Right. You’re ‘not that sick.’ You haven’t even gotten out of bed.”
“I have too been out of bed. I took a shower to clear my senses and everything. Steam’s good for you.”
“You’ve got a whole pond in your throat.”
“Huh?”
“Frogs, kid.” The next time he scoffs, it almost sounds like a laugh. “I know you’re not on your A-game, but try to keep up, would ya?”
Minako laughs, even though no sound comes out. Then she sneezes, and Koromaru bumps her knee with his nose out of pity. “I’m a mess,” she says, and scratches him behind the ears.
Shinjiro keeps quiet. They’re not so close that he can shoot back, You look like one. For now, that’s reserved for Akihiko. Instead, he jams his hands in his pockets and pushes himself to his feet, making for the door in just a few strides.
“Where are you going…?”
When he turns at the doorway, Minako is looking at him almost… pleadingly? She hasn’t touched her soup past the first spoonful or two, and she’s cradling Koromaru as close as she can, with her chin on his head. So that’s where she gets it from—their expressions are practically matching. She must be delirious, on top of this cold, if she’s upset about him going.
“I’m not leavin’,” he says, even though that was the entire point of him getting up. Go in. Make sure she eats. Get out. “You need tea. Even listening to your voice is making my throat hurt.” He winces, again. And tries. Again. “Just… rest. And eat. Got it?”
He doesn’t leave, not right away. Instead, he fixes her with folded arms and a stone stare he can actually feel. And he waits, until little by little, she lets Koromaru go and picks up the spoon. And he waits some more, until she takes another bite, and it must be good going down because she smiles wide and closes her eyes. If he’s ever slated with cooking for her again, he’ll have to remember that she doesn’t mind spicy stuff.
“Good girl,” he says without thinking, and he freezes. In a matter of seconds, he’s out of the room with the door shut behind him before he subjects himself to any change in her expression, and he drops his face into his hands.
Shit.
It takes all of the time Shinjiro spends waiting for the kettle to whistle, and another entire conversation with Akihiko, for him to collect himself. He still doesn’t know how he’s going to make it upstairs after a blunder like that, and he’s wondering if he can hand off the responsibility to someone else. After all, it’s not like he can do things like help her into the bath, or tidy up her room, or…
Whatever. This time, he’s determined to get out of there as soon as he can. If he can weather being called “Nurse Shinji” and the tease of, “What’s next? ‘It’s not like I like her or anything, s-stupid?’”—which he’ll remember for some later, lighthearted revenge of his own—then he can take Minako Arisato’s puppy eyes. He’s seen them plenty as it is—on past walks to the shrine with Koromaru, at the mall café, even in the lobby. He can handle it. He’ll have to, if he wants to make it out with what little sanity he has left. And if he wants to make sure that Akihiko hasn’t eaten all the leftovers.
But then, it’s Akihiko who’ll have to face the wrath of Minako’s appetite. So he’s not completely worried about himself.
The coughing upstairs makes him walk a little faster, but he’s still cautious not to let everything spill over. When he returns to Minako’s room, she’s got her TV on and Koromaru half-nestled in her lap like a big baby. They’re watching some cartoon together—a privilege he must have had only once or twice when he was in the orphanage, and only when he was too sick to move. But she’s squinting and massaging her temples every so often, and she looks like she’s about to pass out any minute, laid out against her pillows like that.
The toast is gone. The bowl is empty.
“Turn it off, if it’s makin’ your head hurt,” he says instead of hello, and sets the mug on her tray. It’s still piping hot, but he wouldn’t put it past her to take a sip right away and then complain about how she burned her tongue.
Minako doesn’t say anything about the TV, but doesn’t make moves to turn it off. She only passes her fingers through Koromaru’s fur, turns to him with those same lit-up eyes, and croaks, “Yaaaay, two of my favorite people.”
He’ll chalk that up to the cold meds. “Koromaru’s a dog,” is all he says.
“You’re not denying yourself, though.”
“I’ll get to that later.” He nods toward the mug. “Drink. And don’t talk so much, you’re gonna rip your throat to shreds.”
“Sorry,” Minako whispers, reaches for another tissue to blow into and toss toward the growing graveyard of them by the trash. “Why don’t you sit down?”
Shinjiro pauses, and looks around the room. He can’t tell her he’s got other things to do, because he really doesn’t have anything to do besides wait for her to get better and read through new recipes, or sharpen his axe and his fists and his words. Or brood. And as much as he hates to admit it, those are all things he can do with someone else’s company; he just doesn’t hate to admit that he knows how to be alone around people. Everybody has to learn sometime. Besides, if he tells her he’s got other things to do, she’ll probably take it to mean that he has better things to do. Which, to be fair, is something he might have said weeks ago, and something he still tries to tell himself, but he’s not going to say it to her face now.
Mute and defeated, he sinks into the chair at her bedside again, hands back in his pockets, and stares at the TV screen. “So what’s this trainwreck about?”
“It’s a magical girl show.” Minako finally takes a sip of tea, and sighs in relief. “Haven’t you ever heard of them?”
Oh, yeah. Miki used to watch them all the time; at the orphanage she’d beg and plead and cry if someone was watching TV when her show was on, and they’d all have to compromise somehow. Even him. Sometimes that meant watching them with her, and honestly, they weren’t so bad. Cheesy, but not bad. He doesn’t know if Minako even knows about Miki, though, so for Akihiko’s sake he keeps his mouth shut. “Not this one. Looks old. Is it a rerun or somethin’?”
“Yeah, a whole marathon.” Minako hugs her legs to her chest, chin on her knees and everything. Like she’s comforting herself, or going back to a time when she used to watch this stuff religiously. “It’s my favorite.”
Something inside him twists again, like now he needs to watch, too, to know who she really is. She’s so receptive to everything, though. So bubbly all the time. What’s there to know that he doesn’t know already, or can’t figure out on his own?
Maybe a lot.
Maybe just like him.
He stays with her through the end of the episode, and the next, and the one after that. Neither of them talks much; every so often he’ll mutter a plot-related question, and she’ll hiss the answer out of the corner of her mouth. But more often than not, he’s stuck glancing at her whenever there’s a transformation sequence, because her eyes light up every time. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say it was her childhood dream to become one of them one day. And maybe he doesn’t think it’s so stupid, to have a dream like that. If Akihiko can learn to fight because of a fire, and if he can learn every possible way to keep himself in control, then maybe pretending to throw a tiara like a Frisbee isn’t all that far off.
“Must mean a lot to you if you still get this giddy about it,” he says during a commercial break.
Minako shifts toward him. She’d look much more curious if it weren’t for the bags under her eyes, or the way she sniffles and coughs. “Don’t you have something like that?”
He shrugs.
“Of course you do. I know it,” she answers for him. “You have to.”
“What d’you mean, I have to?”
“Everybody has something,” Minako says, hugging herself and watching him like she’s some kind of oracle. “You wouldn’t be alive if you didn’t.”
Shinjiro pauses. Shrugs. Gives a little laugh, the self-deprecating kind. “How do you know I am?”
Just before a commercial ends, Minako lifts a hand. Reaches out to him like… like she wants to touch him, grab him by the front of his shirt, but more gently than your run-of-the-mill street kid. Like she wants to… hold him? Or something?
She doesn’t get so far. One brush of her fingers against the ribbed pattern of his turtleneck, and she pulls back like she’s been burned. (He’s too cold for that, always too cold, but she’s never been close enough to know it.) “I just know,” she whispers, and he can barely hear her. “I know you are.”
And he can’t argue, because he won’t dare speak over a magical girl.
When the episode ends, Minako sits back against her pillows, pushes away the tray with the empty plate and bowl, and closes her eyes. Which, to Shinjiro, is a sign to turn off the TV. She doesn’t object when he does, only sighs and continues to breathe through her mouth, soft and even. It’s a good thing she’s got one of those humidifiers in the corner, because otherwise her lips would be all cracked and her throat would be even more sore than it already probably is. And yeah, it’s gross, but he feels too bad to be an entire germaphobe about it.
“Thank you, Aragaki-senpai,” she murmurs, so distant that she sounds like she might go unconscious.
“Told you not to call me that,” he mutters back, and gathers up the tray so she doesn’t have to bother with it anymore. “’Sides, cooking ain’t a big deal anyway. Don’t worry about it.”
He nearly drops the tray, though—either because her smile is so tired and withered and unsettling that something in him wants to drop most things and give her the energy she’s supposed to have, or because she lets out some weird combination of a cough and a giggle and says, “I’m not talking about the soup.”
When Shinjiro wakes, he knows two things. One, it’s got to be the middle of the night, and two, his back is killing him.
The third thing, he only knows once he pushes himself up from his slumped sleeping position: he’s still in Minako’s room. And he’s mortified. Why is he here—no, wait, why is he still here? How did she not scream or kick him out? Who closed the door on them? Who saw them? He—he remembers…
He remembers finding her passed out in bed, smelling like menthol and still breathing through her mouth, with Koromaru curled up loyally at her feet to keep them warm. He remembers not knowing exactly what to do, and doing the only thing he can think of: taking his seat again, and gingerly tucking her in, because a girl can’t get better if she’s cold. And he remembers… watching. Mesmerized. Rooted to his chair, too heavy to get up again, never knowing what was weighing him down in the first place.
He remembers the touch of her fingers that he couldn’t quite feel, and… and a part of him wants to know if he could do the same. If he should—
No. No. God, what is he thinking?
Shinjiro shoots up out of the chair and scrambles for the humidifier, the first thing he can get his hands on. He stumbles, getting out of the room quietly and down the stairs without disturbing anyone. The dorm is eerie at night, even after the Dark Hour’s come and gone; he’d want to sleep through it too, if he could. Even the sound of the faucet seems to echo off the walls, screaming his location to anyone who’d want to come after him. (He’d be ready, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little on edge. Anyone would be. There are worse things to be ashamed of.)
Minako’s waiting for him when he returns, coughing and rubbing her eyes and blinking sleepily at the soft green light that comes from the humidifer when he flips it on again. He freezes—it’s a lot harder to see how sick she is now, and he can’t tell if he’s better or worse off for it—and then straightens up, clearing his throat. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m out of your hair now.”
Still, he doesn’t need to be so used to the dark to feel the slow shift in the atmosphere to something… sad. Wanting, even. It’s kind of ridiculous.
“Do you have to go?”
He really needs to get a better handle on this heart thing, because all this clenching and pulsing and twisting is going to send him to an earlier grave.
“Clingy,” he mumbles, “aren’t ya?”
“It’s not that,” Minako says after a while, even though as far as he’s concerned, it absolutely is that. Even through the congestion and the fever she sounds painfully honest. Or maybe just painful. “I like your company. And you’ve been good about taking care of me.”
Taking care of…?
What?
He sputters, tries to cover it up with a cough, and winces from standing up a little straighter. His back is still sore from that God-awful sleeping position, but she’s smiling, so it can’t hurt all that bad. “Full moon’s comin’ up,” he mumbles. “Aki wants you in good shape. Can’t be kickin’ Shadow ass without our leader, I guess.”
Minako sits up and leans forward in bed, watching him carefully. “Akihiko-senpai does?” she asks. “Or you do?”
Shinjiro barks out a laugh, flips open the pocket watch she found; the backlight tells him that at least the Dark Hour’s already passed. “You’re more sick than I thought. Guess the cold meds are workin’, huh, if you’re saying things like that.”
He can’t see much in the dark, but something in the air tells him that she must be frowning. “Aragaki-senpai… I haven’t taken much medicine today.” She shifts in bed, wrings her hands to the dim light of the humidifer. “I mean it. You’ve been taking good care of me. And I do like your company, and… I’m so happy that you care about me.”
Shinjiro tenses—either because she’s not delirious or because she claims he cares about her—and he still refuses to look at her. Whatever deity or force or spiritual thing is out there, he thanks them for the humidifier being so close to her door, and he sighs again, drawing himself to full height. Even if it still hurts his back. “Just get some rest,” he says, flicking his head toward Koromaru as he sleeps. “You got company. Actually good company.”
The last thing he hears is, “Good night, Aragaki-senpai.” It’s soft, and raspy, and it betrays the fact that she really hasn’t taken much of her medicine. And it still bothers him that she calls him by his last name, even though he should feel okay with it, because last names mean more distance, and isn’t that what he’s looking for?
But he near swears it’d sound kind of… musical, if she weren’t so damn sick.
Shinjiro grunts in response, and closes the door behind him, and in the quiet of the hallway he slumps back against the wall and slides to the floor.
Double shit.
In the morning, when he’s slumped over the kitchen counter waiting for yet another kettle of water to boil and the oil in a pan to heat up, his first thought is about that damn humidifier. He shouldn’t be thinking about it, because he doesn’t care, but there’s something about it that’s eating at the back of his mind and starting to make its way to the front.
Maybe it’s just because he spent so much time in Minako’s bedroom yesterday, but today he doesn’t have to worry about that. Not when the typhoon is finally starting to let up, and he can finally kick this cabin fever and go outside to run some damn errands. He won’t die from some angry rain or the occasional gust of wind—he’s lived in worse conditions with fewer accommodations in all his time on the streets. He just needs to get out of the damn dorm, and to get away from her damn room.
Or maybe this is all just because, when he finally got up to head to his room last night, he had the worst luck of running into Mitsuru on her way back to hers, a glass of water in her hand. He froze and bristled as soon as he met her tired eyes, and the only thing he said to her was, “Don’t you say a word, Kirijo.”
“I won’t,” she said with a raised eyebrow.
“I mean it. Say nothing. Especially to Aki.”
She gave him a tired smile then. “My lips are sealed.”
The good thing about Mitsuru is that most of the time, she knows how to mind her own business, and most of the time, she isn’t put off by him when he says literally anything except hello to start a conversation.
And also that, even though he’s pretty sure both she and Akihiko are up at the crack of dawn, she mostly lets him have the kitchen to himself in the morning. Which, even then, is all the more reason to believe that the only reason he’s putting as much effort as he is into making sure Minako is actually getting better is because no one else will get off their lazy ass and do it.
Making breakfast is the last thing on his to-do list in the dorms. And once that’s done, he’s out of here. Because he refuses to actually disturb her just to check on a humidifier. he shouldn’t. disturb her. go in her room. Care.
Or he would be out of here, sooner, if Minako didn’t stumble down the stairs, all feverish and clinging to the railing, her hair down and practically clinging to her neck and her forehead from how sweaty she must be.
He should be groaning. He should glare at her and call her kid and snap at her to go back to her room. But purely out of instinct, he stands up straight, turns off the heat under the pan, and tosses his magazine to the kitchen table without even tabbing the page. He grabs her shoulders to turn her around and at least try to start marching her back up the stairs. God, she’s so warm he can feel all the heat radiating through her pajamas, no matter how thin the material is, and through the little blanket draped over her shoulders. “Back upstairs,” he says. “You’re falling all over yourself.”
Minako laughs silently, and sways on the spot. Poor kid must’ve lost her voice overnight, but that’s what happens when you’re sick and have to sleep with your mouth open. (Poor? Seriously? He doesn’t want to think about how soft he’s going.) “Good morning, Aragaki-senpai,” she says, but it comes out hoarse and cracked, and she winces and touches her throat.
Dammit. At least she’s not calling him nurse.
“I took my medicine first thing,” she whispers, because that seems to strain her throat less. She turns a little in his grip, even though it toes the line between firm and gentle. “Can you make me some more tea, please?”
He sighs, and resists every urge to let his eyes roll back into his head. Mostly because if they get stuck there, he’s not sure he can afford the surgery to fix it. Or even that the hospital would work on a body as screwed up as his. “If it’ll get you back in bed, fine. Just don’t come down again. You’re gonna hurt yourself if you lose your balance and fall down the stairs.”
He doesn’t care this much. He doesn’t. They just need her.
No, Aki needs her. He doesn’t.
He… he doesn’t.
He can’t.
“Go on,” he says. “You’re feverish.”
“No…” Minako yawns. “You’re cold.”
Shinjiro’s blood chills. “Go,” he says again, more of the snap he was expecting from the start, and that damn tea kettle finally starts to whistle as her footsteps fade away.
He takes longer than she’s probably expecting, because he actually spends the time making breakfast for her, too. If that was her first time downstairs all day—or really all weekend—then it has to mean she was foolish enough to take her medicine on an empty stomach, and not being able to taste anything is no excuse not to eat. He’s the only one allowed to be that kind of fool around these parts.
When he finally knocks on her door (which is really the tap of his toes, since his hands are full), she squeaks for him to come in. She’s still got that blanket wrapped around her, along with a pad of sticky notes and a pen in her lap, and she’s flushed and shivering all at once. But at least she’s alert. Perky, even. With a sigh, he lays a tray of toast and miso soup across her knees—something light that won’t disagree with her stomach, but something to make the medicine go down easy—and sets a mug of tea with honey and lemon on her bedside table.
“Look,” he says, “I don’t have the time to hang around today—”
But that’s as far as he gets, because the instant his hands are free, Minako is grabbing at them—both of them—and holding them to her face. “It’s burning,” she mumbles, and he’s so horrified and flustered all at once that he can’t bring himself to rip his hands away. But why not? Why not? She’ll get the wrong idea if she keeps this up, and if he stays still, and—and what the hell is her problem, anyway?
“I’m hot,” she whines again.
“So I’ll getcha an ice pack,” he says, still rooted to the spot. Why isn’t she letting go? Why isn’t he moving? The door’s still open, anyone could poke in, he could’ve spilled her drink or her soup—
“This is fine,” she says. “I’m okay with this.” Her voice squeaks and cracks still, and she turns her head to cough into her shoulder the best she can. It makes Shinjiro wince.
“Kid,” he says with a sigh, but she shakes her head.
“Minako. Call me Minako.”
He’d flick her forehead if he didn’t think it’d give her a headache. Or exacerbate one. Or give her any weird ideas. “I’m getting you a compress. I said, I can’t be on call.”
“Why not?” Minako asks, and God damn if it isn’t taking everything in him to throw all his plans to the angry wind outside and just stay.
“Errands,” he finally says. “It’s starting to let up outside. I got stuff to do today, so let go, kid.”
“Minako,” she corrects him again, and it’s so… infuriating, that she’s not listening to him. That she’s looking at him as fiercely as any sick person can, returning all his sternness twofold. That she’s not… scared of him. Or fazed by him. “I’m Minako.” Her eyes flutter shut, just for a moment, and she slides his hands down to her neck. It’s burning just as much as the rest of her, and he’s starting to think he is, too. “I’m not a kid. I’m only a year younger than you. So treat me like it.”
He watches her like he’s mesmerized by her—he’s not, but he can look like it. it’s almost worth the way her expression changes. how her eyes widen and go a little glassy, and her cheeks flush just a little more.
It’s… kinda cute.
And then he pinches her cheeks. Both of them.
“I’m gettin you a compress,” he says over her whimpering, and he swears he’s not fazed by the way she rubs her cheeks and pouts. At least his hands are free. “And you’re stayin’ in bed. You got a TV, maybe even another marathon, and you got Koro-chan. I told you, you got good company.”
Minako tilts her head. “You’re good company, senpai.” So damn scratchy. She’s gonna kill her throat at this rate.
He was on his way out, but he turns on his heel, leans in close, presses a finger to her lips and speaks low. “Stop. Talking.”
Finally, she quiets down. It’s just hard to tell if the red that spills across her face is from the fever, or because she’s actually blushing. It’s probably the first, because she’d have no reason for the second. And she still doesn’t look scared of him. And he doesn’t. Get it.
The breath he lets out is long and slow. “You got good company,” he says again, “And I’m the last thing you need right now.”
The first time he walks out of Minako’s room, he only leaves her long enough to fetch a washcloth and an ice pack from the freezer downstairs. Thankfully, the only people around don’t bother to, well, bother him, but that might be because he’s making every effort not to even look at them. When he comes back to her, though, she’s… smiling. Drinking deep from her bowl, sure, but smiling all the same. It can’t be the food; there’s way better tasting stuff out there besides tea and soup. If she can even taste.
“What is it?” he asks gruffly, and lays the icepack on her table.
Minako parts her lips to speak at first, then shakes her head, still smiling. She scoots around looking for the sticky notes and the pen, which must have gotten lost somewhere in her blankets, and with a resigned sigh, he fishes them out and hands them to her. He doesn’t want to think about how… kind of adorable she looks when she’s concentrating, poking her tongue out of the corner of her mouth like that.
Maybe, if he has some extra time later, he should poke around town for one of those mini whiteboards—for them to track their stuff to do. Not just for her.
She hands off a folded sticking note, still beaming for some Godforsaken reason, and shoos him out from her place in bed. Which is funny, considering all the time he’s spent convincing her that he has to go in the first place. It isn’t until the door’s closed behind him that he decides to open it up and take a look at her… weirdly bubbly handwriting.
Even if you think you’re the last thing I need, Aragaki-senpai, you’re still on the list of things I need, aren’t you?
The last thing Akihiko said before Shinjiro left for town was, “Pick up some flowers, would you? They lighten up the place when it’s so gloomy outside.” He was grinning when he said it, because of course he was, and he said it like he knew everything that happened upstairs, like he could read his damn mind. And the fact that Shinjiro only got up and left when Akihiko asked if he had any plans probably made him all the more suspicious. But what the hell else was he supposed to do? If he said yes, he’d have to head out right away and actually make good on his word, even if he didn’t… actually have any idea what he was going to do outside. And if he didn’t, then it was all the more reason for an interrogation.
It probably also didn’t help how jumpy he was when Akihiko startled him from behind, or how his heart started racing on the spot. But who else would it have been? Hardly anyone talks to him unless they have to, which is just fine with him, and Minako, well. Minako’s in bed. Or at least, she’s supposed to be in bed. And her note is still in his coat pocket, folded into neat quarters.
She has to be delirious. She shouldn’t need him. Nobody’s supposed to want, let alone need him.
So why does the thought that she does leave his chest all tight and his hands all shaky and clammy? Why does he want to get off at the next station and turn right around to make sure she’s doing all right? Why is he even thinking about stopping in at the flower shop? Or the gift shop? Why does the thought of her handing him that note, or eating his food, or smiling at him, make him ball up his fists in his pockets and clench his jaw so tight he’s almost afraid some of his teeth might break?
Is it because he wants to see it again? Is that why he’s getting his boxers in a bunch like this?
What the fuck…
If he were alone in this subway car, he’d probably rest his head in his hands and mumble it, softly but with feeling. He opts for mouthing it emphatically instead.
He knows it: he looks like a fish out of water when he gets to Port Island Station, feeds the stray cat taking shelter in a cardboard box, and slinks around the shops with the cuffs of his pants half-soaked. Especially the florist’s. Who is he kidding? He doesn’t know the first thing about flowers. It doesn’t matter what he does; he’ll look like a fool. Which is exactly why he finds himself sputtering—again—when a well-meaning associate greets him and asks if he needs any help.
He could say no, but he’ll look like an idiot otherwise. Besides, the sooner he can get the flowers, the sooner he can get out of here. “Just… somethin’ to say, ‘get well soon.’ I guess.”
The associate beams, and it’s like she knew he was coming, because within seconds she’s hefting a bouquet of fresh white daisies out and laying them on the counter, rambling about how they’re the perfect thing for this or that reason. She’s even getting a plastic bag to keep them at least sort of dry.
He doesn’t care what they mean. He just wants to pay and get out of here.
It’s on the train ride back that he bothers to look up this floriography thing, and he guesses the associate was right.
Wait.
He guesses? why is he even considering this? He doesn’t know the first thing about—about gentleness, or innocence, or…
He shakes his head, so hard and so fast that his beanie nearly falls off, and he gets off the train way too abruptly. He’s out of place, and his socks are damp, and he needs to find the nearest dumpster because everyone is staring at him, and at the bouquet in his hand, and he might as well come to his senses sooner rather than later.
At the end of the day, he’s the least innocent guy he knows. And the truth is, he wouldn’t even put himself on the list.
The only problem is, as he’s standing over the line of trash cans just outside Iwatodai station, with the rain beating down on the umbrella he wasn’t allowed to leave without, he can’t get himself to let go of the flowers. in fact, he finds himself gripping them even tighter, practically white-knuckling them. Because he can’t stop thinking about her face. Because he can see her looking at them and smiling from her bed, and he’s such a fucking fool for it.
Shinjiro exhales hard through his teeth, and tucks the bouquet into the crook of his arm.
Across the way, a small shop catches his eye. He hasn’t been to Book On in… actually, he can’t remember the last time he was there. He can’t even remember ever setting foot in there, only passing it by with the thought that he should go in there, someday. But he’s pretty sure book shops these days sell more than just books, especially a place like that. And he’s already thinking about the place, so he might as well peek inside or something.
He’s already walking there as he’s thinking about it—which irritates him, because he’s had about enough of his body and his brain working things out before he’s had the chance to really consider anything—and he pushes the door open to a dim shop overloaded with manga and anything and everything related to it. Way too much stuff for a shop this small. There’s a teenage associate examining and restocking some of the shelves, and a middle-aged cashier at the front desk the only desk in the whole damn place. She smiles at him immediately, coming around the desk to greet him. And then she smiles at the flowers.
“You must be looking for something for somebody special,” she says by way of a welcome.
Why did he get these damn flowers again? Why is he here again? Aren’t they enough? There’s, like, an entire thing about how the thought counts more than the item itself.
Except the lady is going on and on about sentiments and special someones like she’s been waiting for The Perfect Opportunity to talk about it to anyone who’ll listen, so the best he can do is clench his jaw and press his mouth into a firm line in the pauses between. He mumbles something about how he “ain’t so good at this” and “doesn’t usually shop for. People.” Which only makes the lady’s smile widen, like she’s in for a treat or something. What is it with the people around him and wanting to smile so much?
“Well,” she says, like this is suddenly entirely her business. “What does this person of yours like?”
Shinjiro flinches at the notion that anyone could—would—ever be his. Instinctively, he shrugs, but as his eyes pass over the knick-knacks and trinkets along the nearby shelves, he actually finds himself… thinking about it. What does Minako like? what makes her tick?
“Bows, I guess,” he says, and then, “Music.” (The headphones. He should have remembered her headphones first. He’s kicking himself on the inside for forgetting. And then he’s kicking himself for kicking himself.)
The cashier smiles so wide it looks like even her eyes are doing it—“I’ve got just the thing”—and she leads him toward a small shelf of music boxes and tells him to take his time.
There are so many of them, so many different kinds, and they all look so delicate that he thinks he might just break one if he so much as looks at it funny. Some are plain boxes made out of wood, and some are made out of porcelain with a figurine on top or hidden inside. Some he’d have to carry with both hands to keep safe, and some fit in the palm of his hand. Some have a crank on the bottom that he has to twist to hear the melody, and others stay quiet until he opens them up. Altogether, they’re so pretty that, at least for a few moments, he can stop asking himself why he’s here in the first place, and instead he can ask himself what all these simple melodies are.
It’s as he’s realizing Mitsuru could probably name all these classical pieces in her sleep that he notices a small, palm-sized box in the corner of the middle shelf. There’s a sticker on it that tells him it’s on sale—probably because it’s so simple-looking—and an emblem engraved into the top and stained a darker color. It’s… it’s that logo from the cartoon they were watching yesterday. The magical girl thing.
He has to get it. Now, before the cashier says anything about how Minako will love anything he decides to get her, if he cares about her that much. The thought alone already makes him bristle, and his eyes shift from one corner of the store to the other, back and forth, back and forth. With anyone else, he’d probably make some snarky comment about how happiness is a social construct, if it even exists, but this lady’s too nice to take the brunt of his mood.
She might even remind him of… someone.
Shinjiro shakes his head. Clears his throat. He’s silently grateful that no other customers are in the store when he pinches the crank between his hands and turns it, delicately, until he can find the tempo that matches what he heard on TV. He can already feel the cashier beaming from where she stands.
Yeah.
Minako will like it.
Not that he cares.
“Hey, lady,” he calls across the store, holding up the music box. “How much for this.” He tries to makes it sound more like a statement than a question, tries to make it sound like he cares a little less than he quietly does, and the cashier is practically floating all the way to ringing him up. She even puts it in a little gift box on the house, but he jerks and stops her, with a mumbled apology, when she pulls out a white paper bag and tries to do the whole up with a sparkly silver stick-on bow.
He doesn’t care that much.
Or maybe…
He sighs. “Got somethin’ less… shiny?”
“For my customers,” she says with a smile and a spool of dark red ribbon, “I have everything.”
The only thing she doesn’t have, unfortunately, is any wherewithal to spare him for when he gets home and has to weather everyone’s stares. Or, at least, Yukari’s and Akihiko’s.
Yukari coos out of curiosity when Shinjiro walks into the dorm, clutching his umbrella and the paper bag with a death grip, and he’s secretly glad the cashier at the book shop gave him a bag big enough that only the top of the bouquet of daisies pokes out and makes itself known. But Akihiko takes one look at the bouquet, or at least what he can see of it, and his eyes spark, and instantly Shinjiro wants to walk back out into the rain. Akihiko says something about how he didn’t actually think he was going to get flowers, and how come he didn’t get more to decorate the whole dorm, and where is he going to put those daisies, anyway?
Shinjiro doesn’t dignify him with an answer, because it’s exactly what he wants.
“What’s in the bag?” Yukari asks. She’s like Minako sometimes. Her whole face seems to glow whenever she feels literally any emotion.
Shinjiro barely takes a look at her, and begins storming up the stairs to the third floor. “None of your beeswax.”
He’s down the hall before he can bother to hear Yukari’s Oh, real mature, senpai, or whatever brutally objective and socially inept report Aigis has on his physiology, and he locks himself in his room to have what feels like—what’s probably shaping up to be—an entire existential crisis.
Why the hell did he think any of this was a good idea? Flowers? A music box? She’s going to get all the wrong impressions about him if she sees all this, and that’s a Pandora’s box he’ll never be ready to open. The best he can manage is if he tries to sneak them into her room while she’s asleep, and then have absolutely no idea what she’s talking about when she asks about it. And make sure everyone else in the dorm has absolutely no idea what she’s talking about, either. The last thing she needs—no, something she doesn’t need at all—is expectations. No matter what he’s done for her already.
He’s actually considering how he’s going to pull this off, and that he might be way in over his head, when there’s a smart knock at the door. His first instinct is to throw the gifts under the covers; his second is to hope to God it’s not Minako there, waiting for him with her trusty blanket and a thermometer sticking out of her mouth. Or Yukari, demanding to know what’s in the bag because the curiosity might just kill her, and that’s two lives he’d have on his hands.
“Hey,” he gears up to say as he twists the knob. “I thought I told you to stay in bed—”
He shouldn’t be surprised that it’s Akihiko leaning against the doorway, but he is. “She is,” Akihiko says, looking past him at the totally conspicuous lump in the bed. “She hasn’t gotten out of bed all day. Said you gave her orders, and that she was going to stick to them.”
God, Shinjiro hopes she didn’t say—
“‘Like a good girl.’”
Fucking hell.
“So,” Shinjiro says, because he’s dying to change the subject, “She hasn’t had any meds. Hasn’t had anything to eat.” He barely registers how his hands are curling into a tight fist, how he’s inches away from pounding it into his desk. “Then what the hell is everyone else doing? Sitting on their hands waiting for me to do everything? You’re the ones who want her back on the team, so—”
“Easy, Shinji,” Akihiko says, and closes the door behind him. Shinjiro still doesn’t move to uncover the gifts, because if he can hold onto some semblance of dignity, then he’ll damn well try. “We all checked in on her while you were gone. Or, well. We tried to. She just kept… dismissing us. Telling us she was fine, and that she’d manage.” Akihiko rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, and heaves a sigh he’s probably been holding in all day. “It’s not that we didn’t want to. It’s that she didn’t want us to. She was waiting for you.”
Shinjiro’s stomach turns with a number of thoughts and emotions he can’t name. Doesn’t want to name. He doesn’t even want to try. What’s the point, if they’re just going to come and go? He settles for glaring at Akihiko out of the corner of his eye, and ducking his head low. If he can’t see much, he can’t be seen much. He learned that well enough from the stray cats. “Quit fuckin’ with me.”
“I’m not—”
“You just doing this so I’ll stay longer? Try to warm up to everyone else?” He knows this emotion. It’s Fire. Frustration. Anger. “It’s not gonna work, Aki.”
Even if it is working.
“I’m saying this,” Akihiko says, emphatically, “because it’s obvious she cares about you, Shinji.”
“I said—”
“I heard you.” Akihiko looks at him, all earnest in a way only he can nail. It’s not often he gives this look, void of his own spark and full of an honest warmth. “Now, listen to me for once.”
The room is eerily quiet in the moments that follow. Shinjiro can’t remember ever folding his arms so tight. Can’t remember ever not being able to look Akihiko in the eye. First time for everything, he guesses.
Akihiko draws in a breath. “Go upstairs,” he says, “and check on her.”
Shinjiro almost doesn’t want to, out of spite, and also because that would mean revealing the lump in his sheets. Even if Akihiko already knows what it is. “Why? Because you want me to?”
He can feel Akihiko’s eyes drilling into him. “That’s never been the reason,” Akihiko says, and maybe the calm is even more infuriating. “And I think we both know that.”
His mind is such a blur, and his body is so rigid and filled with acid, that he hardly realizes he’s sent his fist flying into one of his pillows until he hears the squeak of the old mattress. Feels his breath heaving. Lets his eyes come back into focus. Months ago, years ago, it might have been a desk. Or a wall. Or even someone’s face, if he was angry enough at the world, if he ever fell out of control again. This is progress, at least, but his body still feels so… toxic. Like there’s something poisonous in him that he needs to get, and he thinks that poison is the very concept of feeling.
He’s pretty sure Akihiko didn’t so much as flinch, but at least he knows not to move any closer. From behind, Akihiko shifts in place, keeps himself level, and Shinjiro has to wonder how much training he put into doing that.
“Look,” Akihiko begins slowly, and Shinjiro hates how it sounds. “I don’t know what kind of moral high ground you’re trying to take by closing yourself off like this, and I don’t know who you think you’re trying to fool when you’re making meals and out buying flowers and souvenirs and denying that any of it means anything. And I don’t know whether you think you’re some kind of master of self-control by doing it. But you’re not doing anybody any favors. Especially not her. And especially not yourself. So stop fighting yourself, because I know you’ve been doing that for the last however many days, and let yourself have something for once.”
Shinjiro grits his teeth. “Aki—”
“I’m not fighting you, either. I’ve fought with you enough times. Get your stuff together, and go upstairs.”
He doesn’t have any words for Akihiko. He’s too tired to talk, let alone move around or even spare a look at him. So he shrugs out of his still-damp jacket, tosses it onto the bed an in unceremonious heap, and gets to his feet with the flower and the paper bag in tow. He can’t even look up on his way out of his own damn room, because everything hurts too much—much more than usual—and he doesn’t have the dignity to take it anymore. The only thing he’s vaguely aware of is, in his periphery, Akihiko hanging up his jacket on one of the hooks on his wall.
It’s a good thing there’s a sink on this floor, at least, and one that doesn’t have a mirror in front of it; he can’t even take looking at himself right now. on the way over, he snags a vase to at least put the flowers in, so they’re fed with something more than just rainwater. It means he can’t really hide them or deny anything, but he probably would’ve done a piss-poor job at it anyway. So he’ll let it slide this time.
He barely has a free hand to knock on Minako’s door when he finally reaches it, in spite of all his doubt and second-guessing, but she doesn’t answer anyway. Hdie tries again, with a sigh and three sharp raps—and still no answer.
He can’t believe he’s doing this.
Quietly, he lets himself into her room, trying not to stumble in the dim light. No wonder she didn’t answer; she’s asleep, breathing evenly (through her mouth—gross, no wonder her throat is so sore) with Koromaru curled up dutifully at the foot of her bed, like he’s never once left her in all her sickness. The humidifer’s still on, and full—someone must have filled it recently.
So maybe he can give someone in this dorm some slack, at least.
He could just leave. Set the daisies and the box on her nightstand and go. She’d never know who stopped in. That he was the one who went to all this… stupid… trouble. But he doesn’t, and he doesn’t chalk it up to the security camera, either. He just had the odd feeling that if he leaves, he might find Akihiko staring at him at the foot of the stairs, telling him without a word to turn his ass around and stay right here.
The daisies sit on her desk once he does everything in his power to set them down without waking her, and he takes his usual seat at her bedside, sitting on his hands. Just. Watching her. Her cheeks are flushed, and her hair’s one hell of a rat’s nest. Has she bathed today? Or at all this weekend? Aired out her sheets? She’s… she’s so sick, still. Better than before, but not really there yet, and she really hasn’t left this bed all day, has she. She really listened to him when he said to stay upstairs. When he said to stop talking.
His knuckles brush her cheek before he even realizes he’s doing it, and he doesn’t know what’s more mortifying: that he’s capable of something so fucking tender, or that Minako stirs within seconds of the contact. He jerks his hand away just as she cracks her eyes open.
And she smiles. again. “Aragaki-senpai,” she says. Her voice breaks, and she sounds as feverish as she looks, and… are those tears in her eyes? “You’re back.”
He’ll admit it to no one but himself: he softens at the edges. “Yeah,” he says, and hopes she can’t see him sort of smiling as he tugs the covers up to her chin. “It’s me. Why’re you crying, kid? My ugly mug scare you that much?”
Rebellious as ever, Minako pushes herself to sit up, looking to his hands. She must have been expecting another cup of tea from him; he feels stupid, not to have thought of it. “You actually left,” she whispers, “so I thought you were mad about what I wrote. I felt like I was… pushing stuff on you.” She sniffles, rubs at her eyes with the heel of her hand, and then grabs a tissue; he should probably be grateful that she thought to get one at all, even if it was in the wrong order. “I’m glad you’re here.”
He could say that it makes one of them, but it’d be a lie, and the tired part of him decides he’s stung enough people today. So instead, he says, “What’s up with you, huh? Not lettin’ anyone help you get better. It’s like you wanna be sick for the rest of the week or somethin’.”
Minako shrugs weakly, and coughs into her crumpled tissue. “The food didn’t taste good, and… Mitsuru-senpai said she could get the best of the best when it came to a doctor, but I don’t need that. You’ve been taking plenty care of me just fine.”
Shinjiro can’t help but reach out to feel her forehead, and decides that feelings are as exhausting as her skin is burning. “You really gotta get your priorities straight.”
“I like my priorities,” Minako says with a pout—squeaks, more like—and she gently hefts Koromaru into her lap. He whimpers in his sleep, and she scratches him behind the ears, kissing the top of his head over and over in apology. “You were right. He is good company.” And then she seizes up again, doubling over with a violent cough, and Koromaru stirs and whines and buries his face in her lap.
Shinjiro’s hands absolutely twitch. Because he should have made her tea, and because he wishes it were him, and because he wants to shut her up and it’s the absolute worst time to want it. And the best time should be never, no matter how bent he’s supposed to be on not fighting anything anymore. He snatches up the sticky notes and pen again, all but shoving it into her hands. “I’ll make more tea, just. Just stop hurting yourself, would you?”
Minako seems to study the blank paper, like she suddenly wants to tell him her life story or something. She twirls the pen between her fingers—it’s kind of cool, he’s never seen anyone do that before—and gets to scribbling. This time, she doesn’t fold the paper when she’s done.
I’ll be fine in a couple of days. All I need to do is everything you say, right?
He sighs, ragged and just a touch annoyed. “You’re killing me, kid.”
Immediately, she holds up her arms in an X, shakes her head even though she cringes afterwards, and mouths her name. MI-NA-KO.
She’s really gonna kill him, huh.
And then there’s another scrap of paper in his lap: What’s in that bag, senpai?
He freezes up for a moment, and rigidly drops the bag in her lap. “Nothin’ special,” he mumbles. “Just somethin’ to cheer you up. It’s miserable, being so sick all the time, so… so I…”
At least Minako lets him trail off, because she’s so focused on undoing the ribbon and peeling all the tissue paper away. He pretty sure her eyes are sparkling when she finally pulls out the music box, cradling it in both hands and turning it this way and that. Her fingers touch the emblem on the lid so delicately, and then the crank on the side, like she’s afraid of breaking the whole mechanism just by touching it—as though she could ever break anything besides a Shadow. “It’s beautiful,” she whispers, beginning to turn the crank, but she falls silent as soon as Shinjiro shushes her and shakes his head and jabs a finger at the sticky notes. She gives the melody a single playthrough, feeling out the tempo at her own pace, and then sets the box aside the scribble out a message to him.
It’s not nothing special. It’s really sweet, and I love it. Thank you so, so much.
Shinjiro shrugs and jerks his head toward the vase on her desk, and makes a show of jamming his hands into his pants pockets because he forgot he left his coat behind. “Yeah, well. Figured it was better than just those.”
Minako follows his gaze, and in the split-second that he looks at her again, her eyes go wide in surprise. And his go wide in horror. She probably never even noticed them, wouldn’t have if he hadn’t pointed them out in the first place. And he’s kicking himself on the inside all over again until she picks up the music box one more time, gives the song one more go-around. It’s like even those first few notes pluck at her heart somehow, because that’s all it takes for her to start crying again—the big, fat tears you swear you only ever see in the movies. She even doubles over and everything, tears splotching and smudging her words.
His heart breaks. “Christ… look, I—” Of course, of course it was too fucking much. He’s supposed to be making her feel better, and all he’s doing is making it worse. That’s all he does. That’s all he’s ever done.
But when he reaches for the music box, she draws back, shaking her head and cradling it close like she’s not going to give it up for anything. “Thank you,” she whispers, in spite of the notepad. “Thank you.”
It’s like she knocked all the wind out of him. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t even know if he can speak. But he tries—leans forward on his knees to get to her level and everything. “What’d I tell you about talking?” he says; he knows he’s supposed to scold her, and the fact that his voice sounds so low and so warm makes him cringe a little.
Minako nods in understanding, lays the little music box aside with a longing gaze back toward the daisies. Before he knows it—before he can protest—she’s taken one of his hands in both of hers. They’re soft, and still kind of clammy, and she presses his hand to her cheek. Cradles it just as close as the music box. Like she doesn’t need the paper to tell him not to go.
“Hey,” he says. Still quiet. Still rough. She’s so clingy… so goddamn clingy, and so goddamn soft. “You’re contagious.” And yet he doesn’t do anything to pull his hand back, even as another tear wells up and starts to trickle down her cheek. “I wasn’t trying to make you cry,” he mumbles, swiping it away with his thumb.
Minako shakes her head, like she’s known this whole time, and turns her face into his hand, and he sort of congratulates himself that looking for hand sanitizer is only his second thought. “I’m happy,” she whispers, squeezing his hand tight to keep it in place, and maybe… maybe he really is allowed to have this after all. Maybe he’s in too deep to be making judgment calls about what he deserves and what kind of punishment he’ll get from it. Maybe it’s time for the old fuck-it adjustment to finally kick in.
“That’s all I wanted,” he lets himself say. Which is kind of weird to say when a girl is practically sobbing and sniveling into your hand, because it’s not like that’s the most wanted thing in the world. But he’s not in the business of getting too ambitious any time soon. “Let me go, kid. I’m gettin’ you some tea.”
In the window of time that she lets her grip on him loosen, he withdraws his hand and pushes himself to his feet. It isn’t until he’s halfway opened the door that clapping hands catch his attention, like she’s calling to a pet. When he turns, she’s holding up the pad of sticky notes for him to read, and the top one says, I’m grateful for you, Aragaki-senpai.
It feels like a miracle that he doesn’t have some kind of full-body reaction. Or that he doesn’t instantly dart down the hall to get away from her words as quickly as possible. Instead, he sighs, and says, “What I do doesn’t light a candle to what you’ve done.” And then, as he steps into the hallway, “And it’s Shinjiro. Got it?”
Minako scrunches up her nose—probably because he still hasn’t called her by her name, and here he is, all but demanding she drop the formality. Even though that’s different. But whatever. She’s mouthing something again, and he has to squint to read her lips.
Shinjiro-senpai?
He sighs and shakes his head with the threat of a smile—”Close enough”—and waits until he’s halfway down the hall to double over and clutch his chest.
Why is that so fucking cute?
He doesn’t dare meet eyes with anyone as he’s brewing up another batch of tea, least of all Akihiko, and he fumbles all over himself. It’s kind of another miracle he doesn’t spill any boiling water on himself. He nearly freezes when he hears the distant sounds of the music box coming from upstairs, And it’s all he can do not sprint back up. Anything to avoid the others. Anything to avoid the derision. It doesn’t matter what Akihiko says.
At least Minako can’t turn the crank if she’s holding a mug with two hands.
When he returns, she’s out of bed, though not very far. She’s swaying on the spot a little, and Koromaru is nudging her ankles in protest, but she’s fingering the petals of one of the daisies with the sweetest little smile on her face. It almost makes him wonder what she’d look like with one of them in her hair. All it takes is a stern look from him for her to slink back into bed, taking the mug gratefully, and she slides another message his way.
Will you stay with me this time, Aragaki Shinjiro-senpai?
He sighs deeply. “On one condition.”
Minako’s eyes light up curiously.
“You gotta actually get better. We’re waiting on you.”
She smiles. Grabs her pen. Scribbles again: Even you?
He’s resigned himself to it, he guesses, and digs his fist into his chin. “Yeah. Even me.”
Maybe especially him.
Baby steps.
By Monday morning this taking care ofthe leader thing practically feels like a routine. Shinjiro’s body all but works on auto-pilot, takes him everywhere he needs to go. The bathroom, to wash his face and at least attempt to think about his life without hating something about it. The kitchen, to make breakfast for two, because he’s inevitably going to give half of his plate to a whining Koromaru, and a cup of tea with honey and lemon. And then up to the third floor, where Minako is waiting for him with her knees hugged to her chest and a dog at her side and a smile on her face.
It’s weird, that anyone would ever want to smile at him as much as she does.
But it’s starting to feel a little less unwelcome.
They’ve made a habit of eating quietly while they pass notes back and forth, while he does all the usual things that he’d expect anyone else to do for her: check the humidifier, make sure her tea is hot enough, take the compress away now that it’s significantly warmer and drier, try to casually fluff her pillows or straighten out her blankets where he can. It’s enough of a distraction from the fact that she won’t stop staring at him, in between bites of her meal and kisses to the top of Koromaru’s head.
Which he’s definitely not jealous of. Absolutely not. Who would ever be out here being jealous of a dog?
“He’s taken a shine to you, huh,” is all he says about it. “You a dog person?”
Minako nods, hugs Koromaru a little closer and tilts her head as if to say, You, too? The pad of notes is still at her side, and she’s probably found a happy medium between not using it but still not talking.
He manages a shrug—“He’s a good one”—and nods at her to finish her tea. She’s working on it, at least. Even if she does pause to scrawl out a note to him. Even if she does use Koromaru’s back as a sort of flat surface.
You’re a really good caretaker, Shinjiro-senpai. I’m so grateful!
He swallows hard, and digs his chin into his fist, which is better than denying it outright. “Yeah, well. We’re waiting on you. Otherwise you’d be passed out for days, lying in your own sweat and getting sicker every day—Oh, no—” He pulls his hand back, just as she’s making a grab for it to press it to her cheeks all over again. “Not lettin’ you do that again. It’s bad enough that one of us has the plague. Don’t go around makin’ it two.”
But then I’d get to take care of you, she protests. Underneath her message is a crudely-drawn stick figure, posing like one of those magical girls with what looks like a nurse’s cap on its head, and the words NURSE MINAKO surrounded by stars.
He snorts, and tries to ignore the twinge in his chest. “Sounds like a vicious cycle if you ask me.”
But I’d get to spend more time with you. So it’s not so bad.
“We can do that without one or both of us getting sick,” he says, half because he’s too tired to filter himself and half because he doesn’t even realize he’s saying it until it’s too late. He goes stiff, and his eyes go wide, and it falls so painfully quiet between them that a part of him wants to get up and leave. He probably would, if he didn’t think he’d regret it.
Minako lies back against her pillows with a spark in her eyes and a little shock in the O her mouth makes, like she didn’t even consider that was an option. He just wishes it didn’t make his stomach turn every time he saw her like this, whether she’s waking up or just watching him. He wishes she didn’t look like a goddamn fairytale princess. and he wishes he didn’t think that she did.
“Look,” he says with a deep breath. “If… you wanna spend time with me, you don’t hafta be sick to do it. Just makes things worse, and it’s not like you’d have fun. Just…” he sighs. “Just ask me next time, all right?
At first he thinks she must not have heard him, but he doesn’t exactly blame her; he makes a mean breakfast, and he’s probably right that she only ever eats when he’s around to make her food. But then she puts down her bowl, wipes her hands on a napkin, and gets to writing again.
Then, when I get better, can I spend some time with you?
She even puts a little star at the end of her question.
Maybe she wanted to put a heart.
Maybe he’s just wishing she would have.
He sighs deeply, to stave off a laugh of disbelief. “You got me, kid. I really don’t know why you’d want to, but… whatever.” He reaches for Koromaru in the meantime, who rests a paw in his palm and must know better than to bark. “You get better in time, we’ll go… catch a movie or somethin’.”
At least during a movie he doesn’t have to talk.
Minako taps her lips with her pen, a surefire sign that he’s definitely not going to share it with her and he’ll have to find his own, and then writes one more message: I’d be happy to do anything with you, so it’s fine.
This. Kid.
He fills the empty spaces of the morning with sarcastic jokes about watching grass grow or paint dry, suggestions of the most boring and mundane things he can think of, just to scare her off a little. The problem is, she can joke right back, about him being afraid to lose to her at bowling or Skee-Ball or something, all at the same time that she scarfs down the rest of her food. They both laugh about it, even silently, even as they try to hide it from each other, and fall into the talk of little things. School, Tartarus, recipes, how to find the spot on Koromaru’s belly that makes his tail wag into oblivion. The only times he ever leaves are to clear her plate and refill her mug, or to clean out the humidifer, or to let Koromaru out for the thirty seconds he wants to be out before he’s scratching at the door again. By the time he bounds back in to warm up Minako’s feet, she’s scrawling a new message on a new note.
You know what? This is the most talkative I’ve ever seen you, I think.
Shinjiro doesn’t move much, even though his stomach jolts. Mostly, his eyes drift between her and the paper, her and Koromaru. always finding their way back to her, and her ridiculously flushed face, and that mop of hair, and her muted… sweet little smile. With a faint roll of his eyes, he gestures toward the pad, and scribbles out something of his own once she hands it to him. It’s jerky, and barely legible, but it’s there.
Not talking now, am I?
Minako’s laugh may be soundless, but her eyes light up with it, and they fall into an easy, silent back-and-forth.
Wow we’re even! But at least you CAN talk.
Don’t wanna. Too much effort.
But making tea isn’t? Or breakfast? Or buying flowers?
You’re pushing it, kid.
Her next answer is a frowning face, some exclamation points, and her name—all three syllables—written in bold, underlined text. She cradles the notepad close to her and shakes her head when he reaches out, adds one more message: You’re wasting my precious talking space!!!
A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, but he swallows it down. “Maybe if I use it all up, you’ll stop talking and rest, huh? Or shower?” He makes a face; if he were a different person, he might ruffle up her hair.
(He doesn’t think about how he wants to.)
Minako pouts. But you just got here. And I like when you’re around.
It’s adorable. She’s fucking adorable. Somewhere inside himself, he’s screaming about it. Instead, he prods her forehead lightly, scrunches up his mouth the way she does sometimes to be cute, and says, “I’d like it too, if you didn’t look like you haven’t showered in three days.” Which makes her pout, too, but he’s not fazed. “So d’you need a hand with it, or what?”
Minako’s eyes go wide, and her face streaks redder than he’s ever seen it go—which, this past weekend considered, is saying something.
Instantly, Shinjiro can feel all the color draining from his face, and he—he stammers. “Shit, wait—no, I didn’t mean me, fuck. Get one of the girls to help you.” And before she can even part her lips to answer, he gets up abruptly, with his hands jammed in his pockets, and stalks out of the room, stomach turning so much he might vomit. He hates it, but it’s the price he pays for humiliating his own damn self. Letting his own damn guard down. Forget accidents. He ruined a good thing.
Mitsuru and Yukari are just down the hall, and he stares at them so hard he could drill holes into them. “One of you,” he snarls, “help her get clean.”
The girls look at each other—don’t ask any questions—and Yukari is up and scurrying down the hall to Minako’s room. He sinks into the seat she occupied before, and doesn’t look up until the shower starts to run, or until Mitsuru speaks up. One of them happens first; he doesn’t know or care which.
“Noble of you to take such responsibility for her,” Mitsuru says, turning the pages of her book without looking up. “Gallant to get one of us to do it.”
He winces. “We’re not talking about this.”
Before she can reply, he’s up again, storming down the hall and past Yukari, who has Minako’s empty cup and plate in hand and Koromaru at her heels. He’s got angry energy, a ball of emotions he can’t control, and he’s learned his lesson far too well from the last time it happened.
He has one thing under control. He can find another.
The nearby linen closet has a set of sheets and pillowcases—pale pink with little flowers on them. They’d be a nice change from all this boring, gross, germ-infested antiseptic white. And he can get as angry as he wants when he yanks off the old, balls them up and hurls them into the hallway. It’s when he’s wrestling with a fitted sheet, growling at every corner that comes undone, that Mitsuru leans her head in, and shakes her head with a resigned smile.
This is why he doesn’t bother with this stuff. “Don’t you say a word,” he grumbles.
“Here are five,” Mitsuru quips. “Her hamper’s in the corner.”
The entire time Shinjiro hears the shower running, he weighs the pros and cons of sticking around and retreating to his room. If he runs, he’ll save face. Won’t have to ever ask himself if he really does have… feelings… for Minako. If he runs, he won’t have to ever bother trying to answer himself. But if he runs, she’ll be alone. she’ll refuse help from anyone else—because she’s so damn stubborn about it, and he still doesn’t know why.
If he runs, maybe he won’t get to feel like this anymore.
And maybe he kind of doesn’t mind it. At least some part of him gets to be warm.
He’s squashing the sheets deep into the hamper when Minako returns, coughing a couple of times and toweling her hair dry. God, her pajamas are just as cute as her sheets—pink. With little bunches of cherries on them. Is she for real? Is she seriously doing this to him? Is she doing it on purpose?
She’s staring at her bed in awe—nearly drops her towel and everything. Instead, she manages to drape it over her chair, and rummages in her desk until she pulls out a comb and two hair ties. “Did you do this, Shinjiro-senpai?” She sounds a little better. Still raspy, but she’s not coughing. The steam must’ve helped. And maybe the tea, too. But he won’t give himself too much credit, even if someone like Akihiko or Mitsuru would tell him to.
Shinjiro huffs, crosses his arms and takes his place back as she sinks into bed. “What’s it to you?”
She only shakes her head, murmuring a thanks and commenting that the room feels fresher, somehow, and fumbles with her hair, pouting all the while. Eventually, she gets fed up with it.
So does he. “C’mere,” he says with a sigh. “Turn around.”
Minako blinks a couple of times in surprise. “You know how?”
He shrugs. “Someone had to do the kids’ hair in the orphanage, and Aki was garbage at it. You want a French braid or what?”
Minako stares, and she looks like she’d drop that towel for real if she were still holding it. But she nods dumbly, settles up on top of the covers with her back to him—and she looks so small, now that the bed is made and she’s more refreshed. Her hair spills down her shoulders, ready to be done up. Aching to be played with.
He’s slow to start, not because he’s forgotten how to do hair in all these years but because some part of him is afraid that she’s like the music box. That she might break if he touches her. But the thought is stupid, because at her weakest she’s invited his touch enough times, more times than she probably should have, and she didn’t break then. So she probably won’t break now. In fact, she only shivers a little when he gathers her hair at the nape of her neck. It hasn’t dried yet, but it’s still so soft, and he’s pretty sure he spends more time just running his fingers and the hairbrush through it than actually doing anything with it.
Which he hopes she doesn’t notice.
He hopes she can’t read minds either. Because he’s really wondering if she’s soft all over. And how well her hair must complement her eyes in this light. And whether it looks even better under real moonlight.
And whether she really, actually just reached for her little hand mirror and broke the silence with, “I really like you, Shinjiro-senpai.”
She did. She really did, because his whole body is going stiff, and he doesn’t have to think about it. Her hair unravels in his grip, so fucking thin and so fucking soft, and he’d curse about it if he weren’t staring at her so hard, so wide-eyed, in her reflection.
As soon as he gains his sense again, he scoffs and looks away, gives her hair a tug and focuses on his work. “You’re talkin’ nonsense, kid.”
“I’m not,” Minako insists. “I do. I like you.”
he laughs, hollowly. “Then that must suck for you.”
“Senpai,” she whines—a spitting imitation of Koromaru, if he does say so himself. “You’ve taken good care of me, really good care of me. You look after me when we go to Tartarus. You’ve taken me into town and spent time with me. Time you can’t get back. You’ve cooked for me, looked after me when I was sick, made my bed and everything.”
Most of Shinjiro’s focus is on tugging the hair tie into place, but he manages to mutter, “Kind of selfish, huh. Liking someone just cause of what they do for you.”
Why did he say that?
Minako’s reflection looks almost… heartbroken. He wants to kick himself for it. “I like you because you care,” she says earnestly; even if she weren’t sick, he’s sure her voice would’ve cracked. “I like you because you’re a good person.”
Shinjiro’s eyes darken, and his heart twists in his chest, again. “Kid,” he says, and she doesn’t correct him. “You don’t know enough about me to like me if that’s what you really think.”
He’s not sure what hurts worse: the silence that follows immediately after, or the coughing fit that comes when Minako curls her fingers in the covers and says, “But I do. I do like you.” Her hair’s totally undone, too thin to be held in place, as she doubles over and clutches her stomach, and he feels too sick to his own to even clap her back. “I want to learn,” she wheezes, practically gasping for air. “I want to learn what makes you laugh, and what makes you sad, and what you think about when you’re by yourself. I want…”
She turns to him, with enough pain in her glassy eyes that it makes him feel even worse. “I rely on you so much,” she says. “I just want you to feel like you can do the same.”
“Stop it.” He spits out the words before he can even realize he’s said them, and his jaw feels so fucking tight. He just—he can’t take it anymore. He can’t. He wants everything to stop. He wants her to stop talking, he wants this room to stop feeling so fucking small, he wants— “You don’t know a damn thing about me, except what I let you. We need you back in Tartarus—they do. That’s it. So stop wasting your breath on me and just get better already.”
Who is he kidding? He’s never been able to control anything. Why start now?
Her eyes were just glassy before, but now the tears are actually starting to well and spill down her cheeks. And it’s… killing him. No matter how much she needs to hear it, no matter how much this is the way things are supposed to be. It’s killing him inside, and he feels it harder than the pills.
“Hey…” he says, because if he can’t try to control something, then he might as well try to make up for it. “I didn’t… mean to raise my voice at you, okay? You just shouldn’t waste your time or energy on me. Aki, or hell, even Junpei, you’d be better off falling for one of those guys. At least they’re good people.” He flexes his hands hard, jams them under his arms to at least try and keep them from shaking. “Don’t do that to your heart. I can’t make you happy.”
Minako sits in the silence for a while, like she’s bathing in it, and she looks wild, almost, when she looks at him with her eyes flaring up. And she could sound almost as dangerous as him when she says, “You don’t get to decide that for me.”
He balks. “Minako—”
“I said, you don’t get to decide what I spend my time on. You don’t get to decide how I feel about you, or what I think about you, or who I should like or not like.” She winces, clasps her hands together tightly in her lap. “That’s mine. My feelings for you are mine, and you can’t tell me whether I get to have them or not.”
There’s a cold silence that falls over them both, and the most he can do is grip his chair tight and scoot back. Give himself space. give her space. “I better go,” he says, and grits his teeth.
Minako hesitates, like she doesn’t know whether to ask him to stay or tell him he’s right, but that’s all the answer he needs. He gets to his feet, heart cracking, and passes through the doorway, closing it behind him and sliding to the floor with his head in his hands. He doesn’t need to look down the hall to know at least one person must be glaring at him, must be thinking, Dick move, Shinjiro. Way to be an asshole.
Honestly, it only proves his point.
He doesn’t know how many more mistakes he’s made between Friday and now, but maybe this is the worst one.
He doesn’t budge for what feels like hours, but is probably only one. Not even when he hears sniffles and hiccups coming from the other side of the door. Or the beginnings of raspy sobs. Or the squeak of a bed, or Koromaru whining, or the crank of that stupid little music box. If he were her, he would have hurled it at the wall. would have tossed those damn flowers right in the trash.
But she isn’t him. She’s better than him. It’s why he pushed her away, isn’t it? isn’t it?
The tinkle of the music box, slow and sad, oozes under the crack in the door, and he almost can’t take it anymore. He knows he should go back in there. Knows he crossed a line. Knows he should have, should have, should have.
He’s fucking tired of all these should haves. He’s fucking tired of running. Like he hasn’t been dealing with this for two years. Why does he have to do it again? Didn’t he come back to S.E.E.S. so he wouldn’t have to?
Eventually, the music box stops, and he shudders. “Minako,” he says to keep the silence from coming back and haunting him—to at least keep the rest of his thoughts at bay before they eat him alive. “Open the door.”
At first, there’s nothing. Honestly, he wouldn’t be surprised if she was just trying to smoke him out by not responding. But as much as he denied it before, he knows that even if he’s that type of person, Minako isn’t. Probably never could be. So he gives her a little more time, a little more quiet, and gets to his feet, standing there in the hall. Even if she doesn’t need the distance, a part of him still does. Thinks it’s what he deserves at the very least, for screwing this all up.
“Hey,” he says through the door. He knows he sounds like a dog with his tail between his legs—so at least he and Koromaru could sort of match. But even the sad puppy look Koromaru might be giving him hurts more than a snarl or a low growl ever would. Maybe that’s the equivalent of parents saying they’re not mad at you… only disappointed. “Look,” he tries again. “I know what I said was shitty. So can I come in and at least apologize to your face?”
Within moments, the door twists open, and by the time he steps inside and keeps his distance, Minako’s already in bed again, cuddling Koromaru close and watching him expectantly. Not in the way that most people demand apologies, but in the way people want something behind them so things can go back to normal. Which is exactly why this is happening in the first place, isn’t it? Because she’s too good of a person? Because she’s too good for him?
He takes a breath, and closes the door.
“I’m sorry.” It’s not hard for the words to come out, because he’s done too many things that aren’t worth being proud of, and it’s not hard to say things he actually feels. “I ain’t the best and being honest about my feelings with… other people.” He grits his teeth. “But that doesn’t mean I can go hurting you cause that’s ‘just who I am.’ If you want me to stick around so bad, then I might as well try and be better.”
Minako only sniffles to let him know she’s listening, and at least she is. Even with the tissue she’s crumpling in her fist and the tears—the ones he made her cry, fuck—dried and streaked across her cheeks.
“What you said, I—” He chokes. Takes another breath. Shakes his head. “It came outta left field. I mean. Yeah, you hang around me so much, but. Nobody’s exactly going around liking me.”
Minako looks down at her hands. “I do,” she says.
“I know, I know, I—I… I guess I always sort of knew. I just didn’t know. Or wanna know.” It’s the worst time to laugh, but he does, weak and dark and all kinds of self-hating. Or self-aware. He hasn’t figured out which is which. “I’m an ignorant son of a bitch. And an asshole. And I guess you know that, too.”
For a while, she doesn’t answer. She only dabs her eyes dry—and the distance is probably a good thing, because for all he knows, he’d try to wipe the tears away and then regret touching her so soon—and ties her hair into a low ponytail. It’s almost better than the braid. Then she looks at him, her mouth wrinkled with all the emotions she’s probably trying to keep in, and says, “Sit down.”
So he does, haltingly, like some kind of robot, and he watches her watch his hands. Like maybe she did want him to touch her after all. But she doesn’t reach for him, or move very much.
It kills him to hear her talk when her throat is so raw, but she does it anyway. “I’m not asking you to like me back. I just like you, and I know I like you, and that’s what I want to feel. I just… want to be the person you can come talk to, about anything, and joke around with, and maybe laugh if you feel like it, and…” She bends over, with crying instead of coughing, and tries to even out her breath. “I want to support you. So why can’t I?”
“It…” At this rate, he could damn well start crying himself. Like they’re on one of those fix-my-life type talk shows. He almost wishes he would have gone to a therapist or something like that, but, well, in private. They might be kooky people whose opinions he’d probably take with a grain of salt, but anything would’ve been better than that… explosion. “It’s nothin’ you should know yet. It’s just too much for another person. ‘Specially you. ‘Specially when you’re sick.” His fingers are twitching even as he laces them together across his knees. “You’ll find out when you find out. All right? Don’t try and force it outta me.”
Minako’s gaze drifts to the floor. “It’s too much for me, but it’s not too much for you? All by yourself?”
“I gotta carry that weight.” He shrugs. “We all got weight we gotta carry alone.” He can’t tell if Minako agrees or not. Only that she’s quiet. Scarily quiet. “Look, I… know you shouldn’t care about someone like me. But I guess that doesn’t mean you don’t. So care all you want. Like me all you want. Just don’t expect me to know what to do about it. Got it?”
He guesses he could have said it better. He also guesses he could have said it worse.
Minako doesn’t speak, but she does move. Just enough to reach her hand forward. Just enough to nudge his cold hands apart and slide her fingers between his. They’re still kind of warm from the shower, and they smell like hospital hand sanitizer, and it’s too hard to tell now why her face is so pink. Little by little, and with a hiccup, her thumb drags over his knuckles, feels like a fire he doesn’t really know.
“What’re you doing?” he asks. It still doesnt sound like a question. It’s still a rumble under his breath.
“This,” Minako rasps, and gives his hand a gentle squeeze. “This is what you do about it.” And before he can protest or ask what she means, she’s holding his hand to her cheek again. And it’s not to cool her down. “You start here.”
Her skin is still as soft as he remembers it, and he doesn’t know if he wishes he didn’t remember. She’s not doing this out of care or… affection, or whatever. She’s doing this to teach him something. He grunts as if to say, oh, just to save some more face. He doesn’t know why he needs to keep doing that. Why he can’t let go of the scraps of whatever walls he’s built, no matter who tries to crumble them and how.
He doesn’t move much, either. Even if the want—need—to thumb her cheek until all those tears dry up and never come back is ripping him apart from the inside.
Sometimes Akihiko has this habit of comparing literally every new and scary thing to jumping into an ice-cold pool: deep breath, then take the plunge. Sure, it feels like pins and needles and like maybe you just escaped a sinking ship, but the cold doesn’t hit until long after you’ve hit the water.
Letting go feels like that. Holding her face—in both hands, even—feels like that. The touch and the softness don’t sink in until his palms touch her cheeks. The way her eyes widen and her breath hitches doesn’t register until he actually presses harder. “Hey…” she says, and her words are just as slow as the hand that reaches up to curl around his wrist. “You don’t have to push yourself. You don’t have to start right now if—”
“It’s fine,” he insists, so low he has to wonder if he even said the words out loud. He’s too focused on everything under the water. Her eyes and how they start to swim together with all the quiet confusion that lives there. Her nose, and how this must be what people talk about when they talk about button noses. Her lips, and…
Her lips.
Fuck.
“I dunno if I could make you happy,” he says, and his hands fall away because if he looks any longer he might do something stupid and regrettable, whether she might be anticipating it or not. “If something happened, I mean. I barely make myself happy. Dunno why you’d trust me to do that for you.”
“Well… It’s not like I’m expecting you to do it right away. We’re just getting started.”
“Startin’ what?” he asks. Dials it back with an apology. He hates that this is his default, because it shouldn’t be with her. He doesn’t want it to be with her. “Look, I just think you might be counting some chickens before they hatch. If they hatch.”
There’s a pause for a long moment, only for Minako to break it with a word. “Senpai?”
His gaze flicks up enough to catch the tail-end of it on her lips—and then he swallows hard, clenches his fists, looks down again. “Yeah.”
And then she drops it. “Do you like me?”
And so does his heart.
She doesn’t take the way he hesitates as a no. She doesn’t think he’s rejecting her. She just. Waits. (Why? he would’ve stormed out by now if he were in her shoes. Even though he would’ve known it from the start—wouldn’t have even needed to ask.)
He manages a half-hearted shrug.
She moves closer. Just a little. “Senpai?”
“What?”
“If…” She fidgets. “If the answer’s yes… I mean, it’s okay if it is—”
“I get it.” He sighs. “I just don’t know, okay.” How do you know when you’ve never felt it before?
“Well… what do you know?” She clears her throat and sniffles. God, should they really be talking about this when she’s still sick?
He fumbles. With his hands, with his words, everything. “I wanna be here,” he says, because the only way he knows how is to spit things out. “I need to be here.”
She rubs at her throat; it smells mentholated, and he definitely can’t be caught looking there. He’d die. She ducks her head to meet his gaze. “In the dorm? Or Tartarus?”
His fingers curl around the edges of his seat, and tighten. “No.”
She’s red when he looks up, and it’s not because of the fever. “Oh.”
Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. Maybe what he said is just as bad as blurting out how he stares at her too long in Tartarus sometimes, or how he wants to murder any Shadow that gives him so much as a paper cut, or how she almost—almost—makes him want to stop taking those pills, just to keep himself alive a little longer. Just so he can see her smile a little more.
Or that the reason he can’t look at her is because he can’t trust himself not to yank her close and—
“Yeah,” he says—spits—and slumps back in his seat.
Minako doesn’t wince. Instead, she laughs to herself, so soft he actually can’t hear it, and she balls her soft little fists into the top blanket, and she whispers, “I think I need you here, too.”
He tells her to call him Shinjiro when they’re alone, because he doesn’t deserve a title like senpai when he barely goes to school and when he’s a pretty shitty upperclassman himself. It comes after some more quiet admissions on Minako’s part, where she draws the blankets up to her chin and spouts something about he’s special to her, whether he likes it or not, whether he agrees with her or not, and she can’t explain it. She only insists that they’re the kinds of words that need to be spoken out loud, that don’t hold the same weight if they’re written down, no matter how immortal it would make them.
He can’t imagine that any of the reasons she’d want him to stay are similar to any of his, except for the pure fact that they might be selfish. And if they can have wanting in common, then maybe they really can take it from here.
So he tells her, at least, that he’s willing to try and do this thing. Whether he agrees completely with her or not. Because jumping into a pool is something you do, and you can’t towel off someone who’s still swimming.
Minako wastes no time in testing his name on her tongue, with her fists loose and Koromaru nestling his head in her lap. It’s slow, halted, scratchy, but Shinjiro goes stiff all the same, because, fuck. It sounds just right. He can barely even think about how she didn’t disagree with him out loud, even though knowing her, she probably disagrees anyway. She’ll disagree with anything mean if she can help it.
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, that’s it.” He only lifts his head because if he tried to brush her cheek without looking at her, he’d probably poke her eye out. It’s still soft, and warm, and she looks so damn cute with all those little flyaway hairs framing her face.
Don’t look at her lips, he tells himself. Don’t you dare look at her lips.
Except she says his name again, a little more sure of herself, still testing him out—Shinjiro—and he has to draw his hand back and look away again, his beanie shading his eyes. “You’re gonna make me crazy, kid,” he says earnestly.
Around the cough that follows, he can hear a smile in the scratches of her voice. “Is it a good crazy?”
Before her, he didn’t think good crazy even existed. “Yeah. Good crazy. Look, you need to rest. Stop talking about all this like-like stuff when you’re still kicking a cold. C’mon, lie down.”
She does, and from this angle he can see the worry in her eyes more easily. “Are you going?” she asks. It’s a good thing she doesn’t say his name again. He doesn’t know what he would do if she did.
Instead, he scoots his chair a little closer to her bed. “Nah,” he says, and does a piss-poor job of tucking her in at the side. “Just go to sleep.”
Her hand pokes out from beneath the covers—which is exactly how he knows he didn’t tuck her in properly—and opens and closes, opens and closes. Eventually it reaches for his, and their fingers slide together, and instinct wants so badly for him to yank his hand away. But the way she’s staring at him, the hope and the need for comfort in her eyes, the way she’s looking at him like she wants to fix every sad thing in every sad bone, like she’s willing to wait and sit through all the emotional repairs… he can’t do that to her. Little by little, he gets used to the touch of her skin all over again, wills himself not to jump or even flinch, and covers both of their hands with his free one. “Doesn’t seem like a comfy sleeping position, y’know,” he mumbles.
Minako smiles, and he’s caught between thinking about how the color of her lips match that one crayon that only comes in the fancy 96-pack with the sharpener, and wondering how they would feel against his. “Shinjiro,” she calls—squeaks, more like—and pulls him back to Earth. “You’re staring.”
“Yeah, well.” He clears his throat, looks away, squeezes their hands. “Got a lot to think about.”
“You’re always thinking about a lot of stuff,” Minako murmurs. “It explains why you’re so quiet.”
“Nah,” he shoots back. “I just don’t like people—what’re you smilin about now?”
“You like me,” Minako says, burrowing under her blankets.
It’s then Shinjiro realizes he still hasn’t pulled his hand away. “You’re not people,” he says, and stops himself right before he can say something stupid like, You’re special.
She is special. And not just because she’s one of them wild cards. He just needs time to say it without feeling like an entire idiot in front of her.
“Shinjiro?” she calls again, breaking his thoughts, and maybe he shouldn’t have told her to call him by name, because he’s on the fast track to shutdown.
“What?”
“Will you still take me to the movies when I’m better?”
He prods her forehead. “When you’re better.”
“Is it…” She flushes, and pulls the blankets up to her chin. “Is it a date?”
He freezes up. Stammers a couple of words, until he settles on, “Sure, whatever,” because what the fuck else is he supposed to say when the girl he’s been waiting on and thinking about and aching to touch is asking him if he just asked her on a fucking date.
He’s such a goddamn disaster.
And Minako’s smiling at him anyway. And when she asks him what’s on his mind, he can’t come out and say that he’s been thinking about her for the better part of the past few days. Or that he has so many walls inside him, even backup walls, and she’s somehow able to punch through them all. Or that he doesn’t know how to say what’s on his mind and what weighs on his heart in the first place. Especially when at least half of him is so focused on the low-hanging sunlight that bleeds through the curtain or the pink flaring up in her cheeks again.
The most he can manage is a hand on her forehead that slides down to her cheek, and a gruff, “Today. Myself. You, too.” He pokes her nose. “Gonna need, like, five packs of throat lozenges and a humidifier refill for all that breath you decided to waste on me.”
Minako only hums, “Not wasted…” And then she turns her head toward his hand, brushing her lips to his palm so gently he barely feels it. But it’s there. It happened.
His eyes crack open wide, and it takes everything in him to resist the urge to yank back his hand. He doesn’t want to hurt her. Physically, emotionally, whatever. He can take it. He’s taken enough. “What was that for?” He asks, low and gruff. Mostly he’s surprised he didn’t swear.
Minako shrugs—so carefree, so lighthearted. “Because I wanted to,” she says, and as if she wants to prove her point, she does it again. Makes sure he feels it this time.
It’s only his palm, but her lips are as warm and as soft as he imagined… hoped.
He shouldn’t be imagining. He shouldn’t be hoping.
“Sleep,” he says, gently pressing his thumb to her cheekbone before getting up and announcing he’s changing her humidifier filter, because otherwise it’ll smell like a damn pond. “I’ll be back.”
“Really?” Minako says. It’s somewhere between a chirp and a croak.
It feels weird, smiling. It feels weirder that it comes to him practically on instinct. Even if it’s quick. Even if it’s soft. He nudges the door open, the humidifier filter cradled in the crook of his arm. “Yeah, really,” he says, and makes sure the door is closed behind him—and that the hallway is empty—before he closes his eyes and dares to press his mouth to his palm.
That’s what he remembers before the gunshot.
That’s what he remembers before waking up.
He remembers other things. Taking Minako to the movies on her day off, just like he’d promised her, and trying to pretend like he did start tearing up halfway through a movie about a bunch of rescue dogs. Carrying her back up to her room at the end of the day because she still wasn’t at a hundred percent and more than a little tired. Telling himself not to touch her, or hold her, or anything beyond that, because she was still sick and he was still working around wanting and she never found out that he kissed his own hand, and it was already bad enough that she rested her head on his shoulder in the dark. And it was bad enough that his hands flexed with the want to hold her close. Even though he didn’t.
He remembers telling her that, between the two of them, he’s probably the idiot, if he spent so much time around her and didn’t get even slightly sick. Keeping her close to him in Tartarus once she was fully better, because she insisted on going, and Akihiko insisted on going, and he can only oppose one of them at a time. And he remembers how, every so often in that hellhole, Minako would reach for his hand and squeeze it where no one else could see, and look to him like he was just as important as she was, like she was less than a leader and he was more than some axe-swinging, head-butting loner. And how she would actually ask him if he was okay when all he could think about was grabbing her. If she’d let him.
And how she visited him the night before the full moon, in those fucking cherry pajamas, and told him that she loved him, and that she wasn’t going anywhere because he needed to know it. Because she wanted him to feel it. Like he wasn’t already feeling anything before she walked in. Like he wasn’t already swallowing every urge to hold her now that he could, every urge to—
But when he wakes up in a hospital room, Minako is crying at his bedside, and everything else is a blur, and he doesn’t want to remember anything else except where the dull, throbbing pain in his side came from.
He cracks his eyes open and groans, just enough to let her know he’s awake, and she gasps and jumps in her seat, and her eyes look almost… broken, when they tear away from the monitors and IV unit and finally meet his. And instead of remembering, he sees hours and maybe even days of hurt and worry and exhaustion lingering there.
Minako barely says his name—“Shinji…”—before she’s tearing up again, wiping them away like she could wipe away the bags and dark circles if she tried hard enough. She could probably smother him, knock everything out of him, but she’s so delicate in the way she comes to him, wraps her arms around him and hides her face in the crook of his neck. She holds him like he’s fragile, and it isn’t until her face is out of sight that she lets her body tremble and shake with sobs. “You’re alive,” she says, and then, “This is how it should be.”
He’s surprised he can make it out, she’s crying so much. Gingerly, he splays his hand across her back, reaches up to pet her hair. When was the last time she washed it? When was the last time she got a good night’s sleep? “We gotta stop meeting like this,” he mumbles into her shoulder. “If I’m just gonna make you cry every time you see me, then…”
“Stop.” Her eyes are bloodshot and her nose is bright red, but she wastes no time in kissing his neck and jaw and all over his face. She only spares his lips, and when she sits back on her knees at the edge of his bed, she’s holding his hand to her cheek and nestling into it. “Stop…”
In the quiet, Shinjiro remembers what her lips felt like and how he had to stop wondering about it. And how she looked sitting on top of his desk. And how she cried, with his blood on her hands and blossoming all over his sweater, when he told her not to under green moonlight. He remembers, now, how his head felt in her lap when he told her this was how it was supposed to be, and nothing else.
Except, maybe, he’s been doing a lot of presuming and predicting. And, maybe, life keeps kicking his ass to tell him to stop.
His eyelids are still heavy, but he thumbs her jaw, and then the column of her neck, which is littered with a few red-purple marks. “What happened here?”
Minako’s cheeks turn scarlet. “You did.”
“Huh.” The laugh he lets out is fatigued at best, and he’s too tired to get flustered himself. And maybe, if his body recalls more than his mind, he probably wouldn’t be flustered even if he were more alert. He settles back against his pillows while Minako scrambles with the recliner remote latched onto the side of his bed. “Should I be sorry?”
Her only response is to squirm and shake her head quickly, and she rests his hand in both of hers in her lap when they’re both settled again. “I guess I’ll have to remind you,” she says with a tight squeeze and none of the courage to meet his gaze again, apparently. “But. Later.”
“Minako,” he says, and turns her head toward him. “Look at me.”
She blinks a couple of times, and her eyes fall shut, even as she holds his hand there. Even as the leftover tears sneak out and trickle down her cheeks. “Just tell me what you need,” she says, like all the distance in her is because she’s tired and not because she doesn’t care.
His hands are trembling, maybe from the medication, maybe from the machines, maybe from the warmth of her when he’s been this cold for this long, but at least he can thumb her cheek. “Three things.”
“Name them.”
“One, you don’t do any of this cause you feel like you owe me somethin’.”
Minako hesitates, but only for a moment. “Okay.”
“Two, you tell them doctors I’m fine and just need some food. No other visitors, no noise, nothin’.”
“What about the others? They’re worried about you…”
“Just. Call ‘em. I’ll see them in a day or two. You’re the one here, not them, right?”
She turns a little redder, like she has something to hide, but she won’t tell him what it is. “Then, what’s the third thing?”
The words catch in Shinjiro’s throat, but he makes himself speak them anyway. “Once the doctors do their thing and leave, you use my shower and come get some goddamn sleep.”
When Minako pauses, it’s not the kind that tells him she’s about to deny it, or insist that she’s all right. It’s the kind that tells him she’s surprised he offered this to her at all. “You’d let me…?”
“Well,” he says, “I’m not about to let you walk into traffic cause you’re half-asleep.”
She softens at the edges at his words, and then she softens all the way in, and she just cracks her eyes open enough not to bump into his nose when she takes his face in her hands and kisses him on the mouth. It’s slow, and soft, and full of comfort instead of want, and it almost feels like it’s over as soon as it started. So she gives him one more, maybe to tide the both of them over, and locks herself in the bathroom with some travel-size containers from the sink.
Once every doctor in existence checks his vitals, and everyone at the dorm has been called, Minako comes out of the bathroom in a spare gown looking like an actual person, and maybe letting her into the good side of his bed and kissing her good night is his first shot at success.