Work Text:
Yuzuriha Ogawa first meets Taiju Oki when he knocks on the Crafts Club door, introduces himself and asks if anyone can make him and his friend a couple of small dolls. The older students find him amusing, but don’t seem to want to bother with his request.
”What about you?” Taiju turns to her, undeterred. ”I’ll get you something in exchange! Do you like soda? Or sweets?”
He’s friendly and direct and kind. Yuzuriha likes him right away. ”Sure, I can make you a few dolls. How many do you need?”
”Three? I think three’s good. Oh, and they need to be about this big, tops.” he shows her with his fingers.
”Okay, that doesn’t sound too bad. I can do it. What would you like them to look like?”
”Thanks so much!” Taiju gushes. ”If it’s okay, I thought they could look like me and my friend? That would be cool!” He digs out his phone and shows her a photo. It’s of him and someone else his age, who has light green hair and red eyes. ”That’s him there.”
She takes the phone and studies the picture, taking note of a few key features on them both that she can put on the dolls to make them recognisable. Then her attention is drawn to what is happening in it. Taiju has his arm around the other boy’s neck and is pulling him into the picture. They’re at some sort of a festival, and Taiju is grinning widely and holding a small kite in the shape of a koi fish. The other boy is holding the koi’s tail streamers. He looks annoyed.
She hands the phone back. ”What about the third doll?”
That brings Taiju up short. ”I hadn’t thought of that. Hey, maybe you should make it look like you!”
He smiles at her. He has big, warm brown eyes. Her heart goes bump in her chest. ”I-I guess?”
”Oh sorry, I don’t even know who you are. I’m Taiju,” he introduces himself again. ”What’s your name?”
”I’m Yuzuriha. It’s nice to meet you, Taiju.”
”It’s nice to meet you too, Yuzuriha!”
-
Taiju’s friend turns out to be as different from him as the picture suggested. His name is Senku, and according to Taiju, he has built a rocket. That is what the dolls are for, Taiju tells them both. Yuzuriha takes them out of her bag and puts them onto the table, feeling like she’s taking a test. Taiju beams at his friend, who looks dubious. It sounds like this is the first he’s heard about them. He looks like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t.
A few days later, Taiju invites her to the launch. He chats merrily with her as they walk to Senku’s place, where they pick up an actual, live rocket. It has Senku’s name and the number 3 on it. Up until now, she wasn’t sure it was real. Taiju slings the rocket onto his shoulder like it weighs nothing, and they head to the park.
Senku doesn’t contribute much to the conversation. He walks a few steps ahead and carries a heavy bag. When the path turns uphill, he starts to wheeze. She offers to carry the bag for him for a while.
He looks at her with that same dubious look on his face, and adjusts the strap on his shoulder. ”Thanks, but I can manage.”
She doesn’t think that he likes her very much.
After Taiju sets the rocket down on the hilltop, and she notices the additional sticker letters near the top that spell out both Taiju’s name and her own, she reconsiders that impression.
-
The first time Senku Ishigami meets Yuzuriha Ogawa, she’s embarrassed about having made a doll that looks like herself.
The second time he meets her, she’s embarrassed that she has a stain on her skirt.
The third time, she’s embarrassed because she spills some fruit shake on her plate. Then someone makes a dirty joke in the next table over and she turns bright red.
She’s all right, he supposes, and Taiju sure seems to like her a lot, but this girl gets flustered over everything.
-
Over the next three years, Senku-and-Taiju gradually turns into Senku-and-Taiju-and-Yuzuriha. She’s not around all the time the way Taiju is, but when he doesn’t see her for two and half weeks because she’s sick, Senku starts to feel like something is missing. After the first week Taiju’s moping is getting blatantly obvious, too, so he suggests that Taiju put together a get-well-soon kit for her and giving it one of her classmates to deliver. Somehow he gets roped into it, and when Taiju shoves a card in front of him, he only protests once before signing his name on it as well.
That evening he’s sitting on the balcony, wrapped up in a sweater and a scarf and welding plastic, when his dad brings him his ringing phone.
”Hi Senku, it’s Yuzuriha here,” says a hoarse but familiar voice. ”Am I calling too late? I’m sorry if I am.”
”Nope,” he says, wedging the phone between his ear and shoulder, so he can continue. ”I’ll be up for a while yet. What’s up?”
”I wanted to say thanks for the gift that you and Taiju sent. It was really nice of you!”
”Don’t thank me, Taiju did it and dragged me into it against my will.”
”Oh, I’m sorry,” she says. ”I didn’t know.”
He groans. There she goes again. ”Never mind that. What have you got anyway that’s so persistent? Is it influenza?”
Yuzuriha is not the kind of close friend that Taiju is, nor does he see her half as much as he does the other students in the Science Club. Still, over time, the constantly embarrassed girl becomes a regular part of Senku’s life.
-
Sometimes things sneak up on you when you least expect them. Yuzuriha has barely learned to deal with having a period when she discovers a whole new aspect of them: awful cramps.
No one has told her that this might happen. Her mom hasn’t mentioned it, the health class made it sound like cramps were some small thing barely worth bringing up, and she has already gone through this twice with no more than little twinges. Because of all that, she hadn’t really expected to suddenly have trouble standing up.
Taiju finds her in the corner of a hallway after the day’s classes, while she is crouching with her arms around her belly and trying to gather herself enough to hobble home. He gets very concerned over what is wrong with her, and she in the end she has to tell him that she has menstrual cramps so that he doesn’t call an ambulance for her.
Taiju looks helpless at first. Then he brightens up and slaps a fist decisively into his palm. ”I know what we should do!” he tells her. ”We should go talk to Senku!”
Given that she is already dealing with one awkward boy who doesn’t understand what is going on with her, she isn’t sure what good adding another one would do. On the other hand, Senku is the sort of person who always seems to have all kinds of useful things at hand, so he could probably get her painkillers. Now if only she can convince herself to straighten herself enough to walk.
”Senku knows everything about puberty, even though he hasn’t had it yet,” Taiju continues, apparently thinking that she needs further convincing. ”And he has ovaries too, so he knows how those work!”
Senku can’t possibly be less helpful than Taiju is being right now. He should at least have all of his facts straight. ”Okay, if you say so. Can you help me stand up?”
-
”I have never had,” Senku says as he rifles through the Science Club’s first aid cabinet, ”nor do I ever intend to have, a single day of periods in my life.” It’s late enough that they’re the only ones in the lab, which is just as well, because it means that she doesn’t have to explain why she’s hunching to anyone else.
Senku produces a small white packet with big blue letters on it. Yuzuriha immediately makes grabby hands for it. Taiju brings her a glass of water. She takes two pills, like it says in the leaflet, and downs them in one big gulp.
While she takes her painkillers, Senku finds a small plastic bag, fills it with water and ties it off tightly before handing it to her. The water inside is warm. She looks at it uncertainly.
”Heat works on cramps, doesn’t it? We don’t have anything better here.”
”Oh, right.” She puts the bag in her lap. Almost immediately, blissful warmth starts to seep into her aching belly. It feels like her bones are melting. The relief loosens her lips, too. ”Taiju said that you would know what to do because you have ovaries,” she giggles.
Senku raises an eyebrow at her. He turns to look at Taiju with that eyebrow still raised.
Taiju claps a hand over his mouth. He mumbles ”buhiz yuzhhyaa” through it.
Senku scowls at him. He turns to look at Yuzuriha again. This time his eyes are narrowed. She feels like she’s being targeted by two red pinpoint lasers. She tenses, and her belly protests. Senku turns back to Taiju and she sags in relief. Then she frowns. Was that rude enough of her that she deserved to be glared at like that? She’s got ovaries, it’s not like that’s an insult.
”That doesn’t mean that I menstruate,” Senku says, ”or that I’m ever going to.”
Taiju looks conflicted. ”They said in health class that everyone with ovaries menstruates.”
”What they teach there is incomplete and over-simplified, and you know about blockers. Really, Taiju, none of this should be news to you.”
”Sorry, dude.” Taiju’s voice turns sheepish. ”I guess I forgot. The teacher sounded really sure about it.”
”If sounding sure about something was all it took, I would have stood on the moon before I turned seven.”
Yuzuriha, who has been following this conversation with increasing bafflement, makes a hasty grab for her water bag when it starts to slide down her thighs. Something about this niggles her memory. She distantly recalls a lecture from second grade: a visiting teacher taught all the classes in their year about how being a boy or a girl, or both, or neither, was sometimes more about your mind than about your body.
”Oh!” she says, perking up.
Taiju and Senku turn towards her.
”’Oh’?” Senku prompts. He has a really penetrating stare sometimes, and right now it’s directed at her. If the earlier one was like lasers, this time it’s a needle-prick, poking a hole into her enthusiasm and letting it all out.
She wilts. ”Nothing. Sorry.”
Senku considers her a moment longer, before he sighs. ”I’m trans,” he says, ”like this pea-brained idiot here basically told you already. A trans man, specifically, before you ask.”
”It’s not really any of my business,” Yuzuriha murmurs, looking at her toes.
”It’s 10 billion percent obviously not your business, but I’m telling you to avoid having more bone-headed conversations like this in the future.”
”Senku!” Taiju shouts. ”Don’t be rude!”
”You outed me pointlessly, that’s way more rude.”
”I’m sorry about that! But you still shouldn’t be rude to Yuzuriha, it’s not her fault!”
”I’m sorry,” Yuzuriha interjects loudly. ”I was rude first!”
The boys stop arguing with each other. Taiju looks like he’s going to disagree with her, too. Senku has raised both of his eyebrows. Before anyone else can say anything, he snorts. ”Let’s just agree that we’re all rude here and move on, all right?”
”Please,” Yuzuriha says. She clutches at her water bag. ”My belly hurts enough as it is.”
This, of course, makes Taiju fuss over her again. Senku doesn’t let him take a fire suppression blanket out of its bag to give her to stay warm with. ”Menstruation doesn’t work like a cold, Taiju,” he says irritatedly. ”It’s not a disease.” Then he glances at her. ”Or are you cold?”
”No,” she says. ”I don’t want to be a bother. But thank you.”
The pills only work somewhat, but she gets home eventually. Taiju carries her bag for her and she hangs onto Senku’s arm whenever she gets a cramp.
-
That evening, Yuzuriha sits down with a proper heated pad and a cup of ginger tea. She boots up her laptop, opens a search engine and types in the words ’trans man’.
Some of the information she finds is... well, it’s not like she knows anything about this, but she can still tell that there’s something wrong there. She imagines someone talking about Senku like that and gets mad enough that she sets her cup down with a clunk. Whoever wrote this wasn’t a nice person. It also sounds like they’ve never even met someone who was trans, for all that they claim to know a lot of things about it. Yuzuriha just found that out about Senku a couple of hours ago, and even she already knows some of those things can’t be right.
Other pages are better. One that she finds has a rainbow flag - isn’t that for gays and lesbians? - and it explains things in a simple way, but there isn’t much to go by. It’s mostly about using the right pronouns and names, which doesn’t help her much.
There’s a chat icon in the bottom corner. She clicks on it.
That brings up a little pop-up window within the browser. Welcome to the Rainbow Youth Chat! reads an orange welcome text in the conversation window. We’re online right now. Type your question into the box, and one of our volunteers will get back to you as soon as they can! There are flower emojis in rainbow colours on the header.
She starts typing. Hi my name is Yuzuriha. I want to ask about my friend-- She erases that. Hi, I have a question about trans people. Can I ask that here? She presses ’send’.
The cursor blinks in the message field. She watches it for a while, then gets up and goes to fetch more tea and to heat up her pad, which has cooled. When she returns, there are three moving dots in the conversation field.
Hi! pops up the answer. Sure you can, we’ll answer to our best ability. What did you have in mind?
I found out today that my friend is trans, Yuzuriha writes. I don’t really know anything about that, and we already use his name and pronouns right. Can you tell me if there’s something else I should know?
The three dots appear again.
For the next half an hour, Yuzuriha drinks tea and chats with the volunteer, before her mom comes to check on her and fetch her to dinner.
”Do we know anyone who’s trans?” she asks her parents once they’ve sat down.
Her mom and dad look at each other.
”Uncle Kei used to date someone who was,” dad says, drumming his fingers thoughtfully on the table. ”It’s been a while, so I’m not sure if you remember her. She was from Kanto, I think.”
”Hiroko? I forgot about her. She made those really good runny pancakes. Why did they break up again?”
”You remember his, uh, gambling issue?”
”Ah, that.” Mom sighs. ”It was a shame, I’m glad he decided to see someone about that. Why do you ask, sweetheart?”
”It’s just something that came up in school,” Yuzuriha says.
-
Next day, Senku catches her after her last class and follows her as she heads for the Crafts Club. He rattles off all kinds of menstruation-related symptoms and quizzes her about whether or not she has had them. After going through about ten of them, he says, ”Hang on,” digs into his bag, pulls out a print and hands it to her.
It’s a list of symptoms that should send you to a doctor’s office. He has circled the items that say ”debilitating cramps” and ”severe pain”.
She could tell him that she did some googling of her own last night, but she can barely get a word in edgewise. The longer Senku talks, the more embarrassed she gets. When he starts to poke at her cheek to check if she has increased fluid retention in her tissues, she becomes flustered enough to actually push him away. It’s so uncharacteristically assertive of her that it takes both of them by surprise. They stand in the hallway outside the club room’s door and blink at each other.
”I’m just trying to help,” he says, looking miffed and a little forlorn.
”Thank you, but... don’t help that much, please.”
”Which part? The poking?”
”No poking!”
Senku raises his hands, placating. ”Okay, okay, sure. No poking.”
One of Yuzuriha’s club friends, Riko, opens the door and peers out. ”Oooh, who’s poking whom?”
”No one is poking anyone,” Yuzuriha says hastily. ”All the poking has stopped.”
Riko and other club members crowd into the hallway. ”Hey, you look kind of familiar,” Souta says. ”Didn’t you make a doll of him a while ago, Yuzuriha?”
”I did,” Yuzuriha confirms, glad to have something else to talk about. ”Senku, meet the Crafts Club. Everyone, this is Senku Ishigami. He’s in the Science Club.”
The club choruses a greeting, and somebody makes an impressed noise. ”What did you do with the dolls?” Souta asks jokingly. ”Did you use them for an experiment?”
”Yes,” Senku says. ”We put them on a prototype rocket as passengers.”
Senku is not allowed to leave until he and Yuzuriha have recounted the entire tale of the space-faring dolls, and Senku has printed a screen capture of the feed he recorded of them floating high above the planet. It is swiftly decorated with origami stars and tacked onto the wall in a place of honour.
”Take that, Yokono High School Crafts Club,” Riko crows, throwing a fist in the air. ”They may have got their work into the town hall, but ours went into space.”
”Technically the mesosphere,” Senku corrects. ”I estimate that it was at least thirty kilometres below the Kármán line and ten kilometres below the lower NASA standard boundary.”
”Shhh,” Yuzuriha whispers to him. ”It’s a pretty picture with dolls floating in space.”
After the excitement settles, they show Senku what they’re currently working on: a large joint project, crocheted into the shape of a bouquet. It’s still missing all the flowers, so it doesn’t look so great yet.
”We’re making it for the shrine, for the Hydrangea Festival,” Souta explains.
Senku picks up one end. ”It’s heavy,” he notes, sounding surprised.
”It takes a lot of yarn to make something that big. We had plenty of green for the leaves and stalks, and we just got a large donation of cotton that would be perfect for this, but it’s all off-white or beige.”
”Yeah, that was such crummy luck,” Club President Honoka says sadly. ”We really need colours for this project, especially blue and violet. We might have to empty the snack fund if we want to get this done on time.”
The room lets out a collective groan.
Souta and Riko extract a promise from Senku to come visit them again and bring them something from the science lab in turn. Yuzuriha suspects he agrees to it just to get away with minimal fuss.
She’s proven wrong a week later, when Senku barges in without knocking, a large bag under one arm and a portable burner under the other. ”Get your bland cotton yarn out,” he orders. ”I’ve got three different kinds of fixatives and four dyes I made for you.”
-
The Crafts Club’s crochet project hangs on the wall of the kagura building. Senku studies it with his arms crossed while he and Taiju listen as a priest reads out the names of the students who made it. The colour on the dyed yarns is crisp and bright, and it shouldn’t run even if the yarn gets wet. Their first two attempts at dyeing were a bust, but the third and fourth one worked, and he’s looking at the results right now. The Crafts Club has turned the yarns into a large imitation of violet and blue hydrangeas that holds its own even amidst the actual plants that are blooming all over the place.
”.. Souta Bessho, and Senku Ishigami. We would like to extend our thanks to these diligent young people who gifted the shrine with this symbol of a flower that reminds us of life’s many, sometimes conflicting aspects...”
”When did you take up crafts, Senku?” Taiju whispers to him. He sounds upset. ”Why didn’t you tell me? I would have come too!”
”I didn’t take up crafts,” Senku hisses back. ”I just made them some dyes to improve their wan cotton. I didn’t think they’d put my name on the list for that.”
The priest drones on about the transience and mutability of flowers and the virtues of family bonds. Senku is slowly being put to sleep. Then Taiju pokes at his arm and starts whispering again. ”Hey, if you know them well enough to make dye for them, can we go there together next time?”
”What do you need me for? Yuzuriha’s there, go by yourself.”
”But what if she’s busy and gets annoyed at me?”
”Are we talking about the same Yuzuriha?”
-
After the dedication speech finally ends, they find themselves mobbed by the Crafts Club.
”Thank you so much,” Honoka gushes. She makes several aborted motions as if to shake Senku’s hand, and ends up waving her arms up and down instead. ”This is a total success!”
All of them seem to want to gush at Senku about the yarns, and they’ve formed a ring around him so he would have to barrel through them to escape. He doesn’t fancy his chances. Who knew crafts kids were so formidable?
Riko fortunately saves him when she comes running and says she saw members of the Yokono High School Crafts Club by the water pavilion, and the group tromps off like a herd of wildebeest to go leer at their nemeses. Senku would not want to be in that other club right now.
Yuzuriha stays behind. ”Do you guys want to check out the park?” she asks. ”I heard there’s festival snacks over there.”
They do find snack stands in the park. Senku gets himself an apple and watches Taiju and Yuzuriha pass a big bowl of shaved ice with strawberry syrup back and forth between them. Both of them try to give the last bit to the other, and when they can’t reach an agreement, they blush and giggle. For a moment, it looks like they forget that Senku is there too.
-
Senku lies on the floor of his room with his legs propped up on his desk chair. His friend Miyuki, who’s in the same peer group, lounges on his bed. They’ve been working together on a chemistry project, like they do every weekend, and are taking a break. Aluminium processing is too complicated to puzzle out in one go.
Senku reaches over his head for the bowl of hard candy. His fingers skim back and forth over the edge, until Miyuki uses her book to push the bowl a bit closer. He takes one, stuffs it in his mouth and crunches down on it. Then he pushes it back so she can take one too.
”I think my friends Taiju and Yuzuriha might have crushes on each other,” he says. ”It’s been bugging me for days.”
”Really? Why do you think that?”
”They act differently with each other than either of them does with me.”
”That could be just because you’re different from either of them. I’ve had that happen to me.”
”I thought so too, but then we went to the Hydrangea Festival and I watched them get all red and giggly with each other. They looked almost like the couples you see on TV. That’s a pretty obvious sign, isn’t it?”
Miyuki considers it. ”Yes, it totally is,” she decides, with the unshakeable confidence of a fourteen-year-old. ”Have they done or said anything about it since then?”
”No, and that’s what I don’t get. It’s been two weeks. If I noticed it, they should have too.”
”I dunno. Maybe it takes time to work up the courage to say something?”
”That’s so illogical,” he complains. ”They’re just keeping themselves suspended that way. What’s the point of not saying anything if they want to date?”
”Hey Senku,” Miyuki says, rolling onto her back and looking at him with her face upside down. Her thick, black hair spills all the way to the floor. ”Do you think we should date?”
He looks at her, surprised. Then he shrugs. ”Sure, why not?”
-
Three months later, Miyuki texts him this: You never want to do anything nice with me :’(
When he texts back to say that he thinks going out for ramen together is nice, she breaks up with him. He asks why, but she doesn’t answer.
Senku opens his desk drawer, takes out a bag of sweets, the one he went to a special store for, and drops it into his backpack. He gives it to Taiju at school the next day. Later he sees him share it with Yuzuriha.
He’s not bummed about that, not even one millimetre.
Miyuki doesn’t come to the next two meetings. Her best friend does, and she gives Senku an evil eye. Even after Miyuki does reappear, she avoids talking to him. It takes two months before they tentatively go back to being friends, and close to half a year before things start to feel normal again. When he asks her what she would have wanted him to do, she says that she thought that he would have known. They agree that since neither of them can figure that one out, dating each other probably wouldn’t have worked anyway.
Relationships make no sense, and he almost lost a friend because of it. No wonder his dad hasn’t bothered with them.
-
On a dark, overcast day in late autumn, Yuzuriha and Senku walk home from school. Unusually, Taiju isn’t with them, due to failing an exam twice in a row and having to stay behind for remedial instruction after school.
”He didn’t seem like he was very worried about it,” Yuzuriha says. ”I would be worried if I got sent to a resource room.”
”It’s happened loads of times before. He always passes in the end, but sometimes it takes a while. It’s nothing to fuss about.” Senku looks up at the sky. ”Damn, it looks like it’s going to rain. I didn’t bring an umbrella.”
He’s right: big, fat droplets of water land on her palm when she holds out her hand. ”Me neither. Let’s hurry, maybe we can make it inside before it gets much worse.”
No such luck; they barely pass two blocks before it’s pouring buckets. It’s hard to see, and the water is really cold, but at least they both have warm coats that protect them somewhat.
Senku points at the awnings on the other side of the road. She nods, and they round a nasty-looking brown puddle that has already formed beside the sidewalk and dash into the street.
A scooter comes out nowhere, honking its horn frantically at them. Yuzuriha throws herself back to get out of its way. She collides with Senku, who didn’t get out of the way in time. He trips, grabs her arm and takes her down with him, right into the mud puddle. The water is icy and goes right through her clothes. Senku shrieks right before she does. They scrabble to get back up and knock each other down again.
Drenched, freezing and dirty, they run the rest of the way to Senku’s house, which is the closest. Senku takes several tries to open the door, and he swears as he fiddles with the keys, while Yuzuriha jumps from one foot to another and tries not to hurry him up.
Once they’re inside, Senku fetches two towels and a bucket. Then he starts taking off his shirt.
”Oh! I should go into the kitchen--” Yuzuriha stutters, clutching at her towel.
He pauses and looks at her askance. ”There’s room for us both in the shower, so there’s no need for one of us to wait. What’s the problem?”
He’s always been practical, but this is a whole new level to it that she hasn’t anticipated. ”How are you so nonchalant about seeing a girl naked? Or being seen naked by a girl?”
Senku shrugs. ”Dad and I go to a mixed onsen every summer when we visit Gran. The little village where she lives only has the one, and I’ve been going since I was little. You’ve got nothing under there that I haven’t seen before.” He leers at her a little; it looks kind of unfriendly. ”Probably likewise for you.”
Yuzuriha pulls the towel up to her face. ”You’re still a boy. Even if... you know.”
”I do know.” Senku’s voice gets sharper. ”Is this some sort of a virginity thing? It wouldn’t matter one millimetre even if you care about something like that, because I couldn’t ’deflower’ you even if I wanted to.”
Did he just--? ”Senku!” Yuzuriha yells, her face burning. ”Don’t say things like that!”
”Tch. I’m not going to stand around freezing my ass off for the sake of your delicate sensibilities. You’re welcome to do so if you wish.” As she watches, consternated, he pulls off his socks, undoes his belt, drops his pants and underwear onto the floor, dumps all of his clothes into the bucket and walks into the bathroom with a towel under his arm, completely shameless.
She inadvertently looks at his butt as he goes. She’s never seen a boy’s butt before. It’s not like anyone will know that she peeked.
It looks nice, even if it is covered in goosebumps.
She shakes herself.
She’s going to wait. It’s more decent than going in there at the same time.
She fiddles with the crispy green towel that Senku handed her.
She’s really cold. Her arms are shaking and she can’t feel her toes.
After a few moments, she starts to feel a little angry. Why is she making such a big deal out of this? Senku didn’t care if they saw each other naked, so why should she? She’s frozen and uncomfortable, and she desperately wants that hot shower. Who is she trying to impress?
Mind made up, Yuzuriha gets up and undresses. She folds her muddy clothes neatly and then wonders why she bothered. She drops them into the bucket on top of Senku’s clothes, stashes her towel under her arm the way he had done, pulls her back straight and marches in through the bathroom door, imagining that she’s marching into battle.
Of course Senku has his face under the spray and isn’t looking. She closes the door a bit more loudly than she needs to. He backs out of the shower, rubs at his eyes and squints at her. He looks really different with his hair down. ”Oh, you came after all.”
”I did,” she says bravely. He moves aside to give her a turn and hands her the soap, and that’s that.
She can’t help but steal a couple of glances at him while he washes his hair, though. Senku looks lean and smooth. He’s not muscular, but that wouldn’t really suit him, anyway. He was right on one account: what he looks like down there is pretty much what she’s already used to seeing in the girls’ locker room.
”Gimme,” Senku says, holding out his hand and wiggling his fingers. He has soap suds on his face and his eyes are scrunched shut. Yuzuriha puts the shower head in his hand and starts to rifle through the bottles on a shelf for conditioner.
They shower long enough to wash off all the mud and to prevent any dropping off of toes, and dry themselves off without leaving the warmth of the bathroom. Yuzuriha feels loads better. She wonders why she thought this would be such a big deal.
They rinse their shoes and prop them up beside the room heater, and dump the bucket into the washing machine. Senku disappears into a closet and returns with an armful of thick, comfortable clothes. Then he goes back and digs out the kotatsu, which they carry to the middle of the living room. Senku sets it up and plugs it in, while Yuzuriha takes the chance to look around.
There’s a big, framed poster of some kind of a space nebula on the wall. The tatamis on the floor are neat but worn. A TV sits on top of an old wooden drawer. It’s smaller than the one they have at home. The kotatsu’s blue blanket looks a little faded, too, and it has a couple of star-patterned patches on it. When she and Senku go to the kitchen and get the tea set out, she notices that one of the cups is chipped at the bottom. The spoon that Senku uses to measure tea leaves from an old tin into the pot looks like it has been bent in the middle and then twisted back into shape.
With all the stuff that Senku always seems to have for his projects with, and his endless collection of customized laptops and smartphones, Yuzuriha always imagined that everything in the Ishigamis’ home would be shiny and new. She’s a little surprised to see that it isn’t the case.
While the tea brews, Senku goes through the cupboards and the fridge and pulls out snacks. They make a few trips back and forth to deposit everything on the table before settling down and making themselves cozy. The air below is already nice and toasty.
Yuzuriha pours tea for them both and then sips slowly from her cup, enjoying being warm again. Her hair is up in a towel and she’s swaddled in a big, thick, comfortable sweatshirt and Senku’s gym pants. On the other side of the table, Senku has a towel on his shoulders. His hair is starting to inch back up. He has pulled on a lumpy knitted shirt that has strange ribbed sleeves and some sort of a picture on the front. It looks like a flattened, six-wheeled car with bits sticking out. It also has two large googly eyes tacked on top it. The shirt looks like someone’s practice run, and it makes her cringe a little to look at.
”Is your shirt hand-made?” she asks.
”Yeah,” Senku replies, glancing down at it. ”Last year Gran got it into her head to teach herself knitting. She got over it, fortunately for everyone involved, but not before she produced a bunch of things and forced them on me and dad. This one’s supposed to have a Mars Rover on it, if you can believe that. Dad has one with the ISS and it looks worse.” He plucks at his shirt’s front and makes the googly eyes roll around. Contrary to his words, his expression is fond.
Yuzuriha looks at him over the rim of her teacup. For all that Senku sometimes acts outrageously and talks like a callous jerk, he’s actually a nice person when it comes down to it. Dumplings over flowers, like her mom’s favourite saying goes.
And now he’s the first boy she has seen naked. She wonders if her face is red again. Maybe she should pull the sweater up over her head.
”So, was the shower awful?” Senku asks, as if he has somehow heard her thoughts.
”No,” she says, trying to sound more confident than she feels. ”You were right. I saw nothing I that hadn’t seen before.”
Senku scowls. ”Told you,” he says into his cup.
Oops, she thinks, looking at the way his face suddenly closes off. Quick, Yuzuriha, say something nice. ”Don’t worry, you’re pretty cute,” she blurts out.
Senku blinks at her in surprise. Then he turns his head to the side. As she watches, a dusting of colour spreads over his cheeks. She’s never seen him blush before. Then he looks straight at her again. ”Nice to know I compare favourably to your boys’ love manga.”
She gasps and feels her face start to burn. ”How do you know about that?” she demands. ”Have you gone through my bag?” She had never thought he would be the type to do that kind of thing!
Senku laughs. ”Of course not. It was just a lucky guess. No one with half a brain is as much of a good girl as you make yourself out to be. I figured there had to be something.”
So he hadn’t known; he had tricked her into admitting it. ”Ohhh--!”
”Don’t blow a gasket. Here, try one of these.” Senku uncorks a bottle of umeboshi and dumps several plums into a bowl, which he pushes towards her. ”Also courtesy of my Gran.”
She snatches one and stuffs it grumpily into her mouth. It’s tasty and not too sour. She wonders why they were in a bottle, but considering the baffling knitted shirt, perhaps that’s a moot question.
”It’s none of my business what you read,” Senku continues, ”and I don’t care even one millimetre about what other people do in their spare time, in case that was unclear.”
That’s probably true, she reflects as she chews. Senku rarely seems fazed by anything, and he has a habit of minding his business and letting other people mind their own. It makes it easier to tell him things, especially once you know him better.
Taiju probably tells him all kinds of stuff.
She swallows. ”You know, Senku... you and Taiju are pretty close. You would know if he had an embarrassing secret hobby of his own, wouldn’t you?”
Senku smiles with more teeth than seems strictly speaking necessary. ”Why, Yuzuriha, are you fishing for information?”
She feels herself flush again, and then decides that she is getting tired of being constantly embarrassed over the things that Senku says. ”So what if I am?”
”So nothing, just curious.” Senku puts his cup down, laces his fingers together and props his chin on them. He looks a bit like a cartoon bad guy. ”And you’re right, I would know. As it happens, Taiju’s deep, dark secret is...”
Yuzuriha waits, hardly daring to breathe. She hadn’t thought he would actually tell her.
”... that when you really get to know him, you find out...”
She leans in, her heart fluttering in her chest.
”... that he’s a dumbass.”
”What?”
Senku starts to cackle. He slaps a hand repeatedly on the table and points at her. ”Your face!”
She crosses her arms and glares at him. ”That was mean!”
”You totally set yourself up for that.” Senku wipes his eyes and chuckles a few more times. ”Honestly, there’s not much to tell, even if I would. We both know that Taiju is ten billion percent innocent. Hell, if he had been in the shower with us earlier, his head would have exploded. I might have been smothered to death with a towel, unless he decided to take himself out first, or turn you into a towel mummy so that neither of us could see you.”
Yuzuriha puts a hand in front of her mouth to stifle a giggle. Senku’s attitude makes a lot more sense when you think about that. Then her amusement fades. How would Taiju react if he found out that she and Senku had showered together? Would he look at her differently? Would he think it meant something? ”We probably shouldn’t tell him about that, should we?” It sounds dishonest even as she says it.
”Probably not,” Senku muses. ”It has nothing to do with him.”
”But then we would be lying to him.”
”Is it lying if we avoid bringing it up? If you think about it, what is the terrible secret that we would keeping from him? That we took a shower at the same time because we were muddy and freezing our butts off?”
”That’s true, but...” It makes her feel uncomfortable to keep things from Taiju on purpose, especially since she looked at Senku. Even though she doesn’t want anyone to know about that. ”It still doesn’t feel right.”
Senku sighs and rubs at his temple like he’s getting a headache. ”Look at it this way: he could get it into his head that you and I have some sort of a relationship going and decide that he needs not to get in our way.”
”That’s true,” she has to admit. What Senku is saying sounds awfully like something that could actually happen. She can even hear Taiju’s voice in her head, saying I’m so happy for you two! I’m going to give you all the space you want! I’m so gone you won’t even be able to see me!
What if it meant that he would no longer want to spend time with her?
”I don’t want to deal with the hassle of Taiju trying to be chivalrous,” Senku says, ”and I doubt you do, either. Not that you like him or anything,” he adds pointedly.
”Not that I like him or anything,” Yuzuriha quickly agrees, then goes on more thoughtfully. ”You know... I think you’re right. It could be a really big misunderstanding, so it’s actually really sensible to avoid that.”
”So we’re agreed then? No telling Taiju things that will make his head explode?”
Yuzuriha giggles out loud. ”Yes, we’re agreed.”
”Good.” Senku picks up the tea pot and shakes it, making the liquid inside slosh around. ”More tea? There’s plenty left and it’s still hot.”
Yuzuriha holds out her cup. ”Thank you, please.”
The rain doesn’t let up, so later she calls her parents to let them know that she tripped into a puddle and is staying over at a friend’s place. They hang their clothes out to dry and make a bed for her on a guest futon, a little ways off from the ones Senku sets out for himself and his dad, who he says is coming in late. He finds her a spare toothbrush, they wash up and say good night.
She’s started to drift off when a key rattles in the front door’s lock and Senku’s dad lets himself in. He turns the light on, immediately turns the light off again, tiptoes toward the kitchen and trips over the kotatsu. He doesn’t swear, but he jumps around on one foot and whispers, ”Ow ow, oh my sweet mother rearing piglets ow!”
”You’re the most embarrassing astronaut candidate in the history of space flight,” Senku moans and pulls the pillow over his head.
Yuzuriha stuffs the duvet into her mouth to stop herself from laughing.
-
”You know, Yuzuriha,” Senku says to her a couple of days later, while they wait outside the kitchen to get their respective class’s lunches, ”you should really just tell Taiju. It can’t be that hard, and he’s not going to pick it up through osmosis that you don’t like him or anything.”
She’s confused for a moment, before she remembers the conversation they had. ”Oh, right. But what if he’s not interested? He could feel really uncomfortable about it! Not that I like him or anything,” she adds hastily.
”Of course not. But honestly, how do you think people end up together? If you want to date someone, you ask them.”
”That’s way too direct,” Yuzuriha insists. She can imagine him doing so, but not everyone is like Senku, and not everyone appreciates it. Taiju is straightforward, too - which kind of makes it worse actually, because if you ask him something like that and get a bad answer, you can’t even explain it away with him being blunt, like you could with Senku, because Taiju is always so nice about everything. ”It would be much better to find some way to test it out beforehand.”
”You could always try a bit of show-and-tell.”
”Senku, please! Why do you have to be so crass?”
”Argh, that’s not what I meant! I meant that you should give him a hint. Like hand him one of your manga and tell him you think that kind of thing is great.”
That’s actually not a bad idea. She considers it. The she reconsiders it. That plan has a huge, glaring flaw. ”There’s one thing I’m not sure of: those are all about two boys. What if he thinks that it means that I think that he should date another boy instead? Like... you?”
Senku looks deeply alarmed. ”Damn, you’re right. I didn’t even think of that.”
-
”This is stupid,” Senku announces as he leafs through another manga. ”This is possibly the stupidest thing I’ve done this year.”
Yuzuriha would like to disagree. ”What about when you dropped a fruit gum into a beaker to dissolve it, and it exploded instead?”
”Second stupidest, then, and that was an accident.”
It’s late afternoon and she and Senku are at a bookshop, browsing through a large selection of young adult romance. The bookcase they’re standing by is ten shelves high, and it’s only one of three. She’s never been here before, and has no idea what they stock, but this shop was the first one they found.
Senku brandishes two manga at Yuzuriha. ”This one’s got vampires that look like they’re melting, and this one is about underwear models who hate everything.” He shoves them both back on the shelf. ”Explain to me why we’re doing this, again.”
”It was your idea, Senku,” she reminds him and holds up a copy that shows a pretty blonde girl with a fish tail on the shoulder of a handsome boy. ”Mermaids?”
”No fantasy creatures, it’s too far out there. The more familiar it looks, the better.” Senku eyes the bookcase skeptically. ”We’ll be here all day at this rate. We should just give up.”
He doesn’t really have to be here, but she’s worried that if he leaves, she’s going to abandon the whole idea. At some point, she started to really want find a manga for Taiju. ”Just a bit longer. Please, Senku?”
”Rrrgh,” Senku says and grabs another one.
Eight shelves and twenty-five minutes later, he calls out, ”Hey Yuzuriha, come look at this.”
She stuffs three volumes about incredibly life-like robot boys back into place and shuffles over to him.
Senku holds a manga open for her and points to a character on the page. ”See, she looks a lot like you.”
It’s true; the cartoon girl has the same hair as her, and her outfit is very similar to their school uniform. She’s even wearing headphones in one of the panels. Yuzuriha looks through the rest of the pages and finds that the story is about two friends who each like the other but hesitate to admit that, and it progresses from pining to hand-holding to a love confession and a first kiss on the second-to-last page. The last page shows the couple still together as adults. The boy looks generic, but he’s tall and has short hair.
”Senku, this is perfect!” She clutches at the manga and hugs his arm with one hand. ”Thank you!”
Senku’s ears turn pink. ”Don’t thank me. It’ll make my life a lot easier when I don’t have to do this sort of thing any more.”
-
Yuzuriha and Senku stand in the school yard, waiting for Taiju so that they can, supposedly, all go to their usual café together. The plan is that once Yuzuriha deems she no longer needs moral support, Senku is suddenly going to ”remember” something he has to do and take off, so that she and Taiju can spend some time alone. They’ll probably giggle over food again.
”Did you give him the manga?” he asks, because Yuzuriha looks kind of shifty. It’s a really odd look on her.
”I did,” Yuzuriha confirms. ”I’m so nervous, I feel faint!”
”Try to count to six while you breathe out and four while you breathe in. It’s just going to be harder if you start to hyperventilate.” It’s what Miyuki told him she did when she asked her best friend out for the first time.
Yuzuriha gives him a pained, long-suffering look, so maybe it’s different for her.
Taiju arrives, waving and shouting greetings as he jogs up to them.
Senku nudges Yuzuriha’s foot when it starts to look like she isn’t going to say anything.
”Hi Taiju,” she parrots awkwardly. ”What did you think about the manga that I lent you to read because I thought you might like it?” Her voice wobbles, and it’s possibly the least nonchalant thing that Senku has heard in his entire life.
”Oh yeah, I did like it!” Taiju’s face lights up. ”I’ve never read a story like that before. It was so touching, and, like, sweet. I was so worried that those two wouldn’t find out about each other’s feelings, but then they did!” His voice turns wistful. ”I really hope that one day I’ll find a love like that, too. You know really well what kinds of things I like.” Taiju sniffs loudly and laughs. ”Look at me, I’m being silly. I’ll give you the manga back later, Yuzuriha, okay? Sorry I made you guys wait, we can go now. I want a huge plate of pancakes!” Without waiting for an answer, he strides towards the gate.
Senku and Yuzuriha gawk at his back. Then they look at each other.
”Did that just happen?” Yuzuriha asks him uncertainly.
”It did.” Senku pinches at the bridge of his nose and frowns so hard he can almost feel his face creaking. ”I underestimated the power of sheer blockheadedness.”
”Are you guys coming?” Taiju yells. ”I’m starving!”
Twenty minutes later they’re sitting at the café. Taiju shovels down pancakes at full speed. Yuzuriha clutches a glass of bubble tea that she has barely touched. No one has said anything since the pancakes arrived.
Senku thinks longingly of the Apple phone sitting on his desk at home, waiting for him to take it apart. Heck - compared to this, even cleaning his room is starting to look appealing.
Another minute ticks by.
”I read a manga about the Antarctica,” Senku says. ”It was pretty good.”
”I heard that there’s a good manga about the Antarctica,” Yuzuriha responds. ”Should I read it too?”
”You should. It’s a good Antarctica manga. It has science.”
”Science sounds like a good idea in the Antarctica.”
”It is. It’s cold down there.”
”I read Detective Conan again,” Taiju says. ”I love Detective Conan.”
”Detective Conan is good too,” Yuzuriha agrees and smiles at him tentatively. ”Can I borrow one? I haven’t read it in years.”
”Sure! I’ll lend you all of them, and then you can tell me how many of the cases you guessed before the bad guy was revealed!” He smiles happily at her. There’s a bit of jam on his cheek.
”Oh!” says Yuzuriha, and reaches out with a napkin. ”Let me get that for you--”
Taiju blushes and stammers. Then Yuzuriha blushes and stammers.
This is the worst. Why are his friends like this? Does love make people stupid? Or, in Taiju’s case, stupider. Bone-headed conversations about gender pale in comparison with bone-headed interactions had by people with mutually unacknowledged crushes. Senku is never, ever, ever going to do this to himself.
-
”It was good that I tried that out,” Yuzuriha tells Senku the next day, clutching at her bag and looking at the floor. ”It would have been awful if I had asked him straight and he said no.”
”I’m ten billion percent sure it was just too convoluted for him and he didn’t get it.”
”Thank you, Senku. It’s really nice of you to say that.”
”Look, I’m running a rocket fuel test today. Do you want to come see more explosions involving sugar?”
”... sure, okay.”
-
”I’ve made up my mind!” Taiju bellows as he bursts into the lab. ”I’m going to confess to Yuzuriha!”
It takes everything Senku has not to start banging his head against the reaction chamber.