Special Interests

by FloppyDisco

Summary:

Yusuke wants to paint Futaba's passion for coding, and asks her what it comes from. He learns he has more in common with her than he thought.

 

Short little self-indulgent fic.

Yusuke sat in Futaba's room as she typed away at her keyboard. She coded as he sketched, each of them masters of their own art. Though simply knowing the other was nearby was enough to make this enjoyable, they often commented on what they were doing. While the dark-haired boy didn't understand what Futaba was saying when she talked about her coding, he still appreciated the passion behind her words. That was the subject of this sketch actually. He wanted to capture her drive to be better and her love for her art, but he was having trouble exactly placing where that came from. He figured the best way to solve this was to ask her directly.

"Futaba, I admire your dedication to your work, however, I don't quite understand it. Would you be able to explain?"

Futaba paused, then turned around in her chair. "Oh. It's a special interest of mine."

Yusuke raised his eyebrows "Special interest? I'm afraid I don't know what that means."

Futaba rubbed her thumbs together as she prepared her thoughts. "It's…a symptom of ASD. I fixate on one topic and have a desire to know everything about it basically throughout my whole life. It partially dictates my interests, because if something is related to my special interest I'm more likely to enjoy it." Great, now she was rambling, Inari wasn't gonna want to hang out anymore-

"Oh, so similar to me with my art?"

"Well-" The orange haired girl stopped. She had been about to explain that no, it's not quite the same, but she realised something. Yusuke's love of art was actually very similar to a special interest.

The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. His eccentricity, the way he twirled a brush or pencil between his fingers whenever he felt stressed, his reluctance to make eye contact, his complete lack of social awareness. Yusuke was probably just undiagnosed. It's not like Madarame cared about him aside from as an art machine, he wouldn't have taken the time to get him accommodations.

"Yes actually, very similar." She knew Yusuke, he needed to come to this conclusion himself, and she would have to guide him. "Whenever I'm nervous, or just need sensory input I do something called stimming, either I flap my hands, I rub my fingers together, or I use a fidget toy." She saw the interest in his eyes, she was getting somewhere.

"Like when I feel the tips of old brushes?"

Futaba nodded. "Yeah!" She was getting more enthusiastic now. "Another thing is I have problems reading social cues, and have a hard time understanding social taboos. Which makes me sound rude to people sometimes."

Yusuke was looking past her, thinking. "I often have those problems as well, and I take things literally more often than not."

She was getting through to him! Now for the finishing blow. "That's something I have trouble with too. You seem to have a lot of the same behavior as I do, have you ever tried getting a diagnosis?"

The artist blinked, took a second to process, and then responded. "I. I hadn't ever considered that. Quite honestly, I knew very little about mental health until I met all of you."

Critical hit! "If you ever want to get an evaluation, I think I could set something up with my therapist."

He smiled. "I would like that very much."