Chapter Text
There is something inherently strange about love.
Nirei thinks one day, as Suo and Sakura sit at his kitchen counter as he bakes cookies.
Suo is great at making tea, but he’s surprisingly a disaster behind a kitchen counter, and Nirei still isn’t one hundred percent sure that Sakura has ever even attempted to touch a chopping board, and Nirei thinks they should probably keep it that way.
But as he rolls the cookie dough into small balls, all he can really think about is how strange it is that the three of them have gotten as close as they have.
Sakura, with his blunt and stubborn tendencies, is someone who has never really understood that people do actually enjoy his company, and that even when he pushes people away, the important ones will find a way to come back to him.
Suo, who’s like a playful cat in some ways, but behind his easy going appearance and style, had something a little darker brewing beneath the surface. Something that was less playful, bordering on something vengeful. It was something that was born of fear and anger, but Nirei did not resent him for it.
Everyone in the world had flaws.
But people still lived and loved.
Nirei still loved his friends.
And he thinks that they love him, but he can never really be sure if they actually love him, or if they tolerate him enough to hang around.
Because it’s not like his good qualities outweigh his flaws.
(Stupid, loud, coward, ugly, weak)
He places the tray in the oven, and sets the timer. He looks back over at Suo and Sakura, who are engrossed in some mobile game that Anzai had put them onto apparently, and Nirei can’t help but smile fondly.
For as often as Suo and Sakura butted heads, over some really petty things.
(Such as the entire debate on if the sky was light blue or pastel blue, that lasted almost an hour and Nirei had to break it up before fists were thrown.)
They found a way to connect back to one another.
“Want some help cleaning up?” Suo offered, looking up from the phone and meeting Nire’s eyes.
“Nope, I’ve got it.” Nirei said, shaking his head. “How’s the game?”
“Stupid.” Sakura muttered out, folding his arms.
“You’re only saying that because you don’t have the delicacy needed to romance someone.” Suo states, smiling wildly and leaning his elbows onto the counter.
Sakura blubbers for a moment, going red and Nirei hides his giggle by bedding down to place the mixing bowl into the dishwasher.
“I thought it was a fighting game?” Nirei questioned, as he bustled around the kitchen cleaning it up.
“There’s one level where you have to win the princess hand in marriage.” Suo explains, shrugging his shoulders.
“It’s stupid, she should just marry you cause it’s right for the kingdom.” Sakura says, clearly frustrated.
“Well, love isn’t always about logic.” Nirei adds, as he wipes down the counter and Suo wordlessly lifts his arms up and Sakura picks up the plate that was on the edge of it.
“It’s about what the heart wants.” Nirei says, as he rinses out the rag.
“Sakura just doesn’t understand why you have to put effort into things other than fighting the other guys who want to marry her.” Suo laughs out, sticking his tongue out at Sakura.
“It just makes no sense!” Sakura exclaims, slamming his hands down on the counter and Nirei jumps, but when Sakura speaks again he lowers his volume back to normal.
“I mean, isn’t fighting the guys and winning enough to prove that I want to marry her?” Sakura questions frustratedly, as the oven timer goes off.
Sakura and Suo start debating something that Nirei doesn’t quite hear, as he turns around and grabs a tea-towel and pulls the tray out of the oven, and places the tray down on the cooling rack he had put out earlier. He turns back around, shuts the oven and turns the timer off.
“Nirei, what do you think?” Suo calls out, as Nirei turns back around to face his friends.
“Sorry?” Nirei questions, tilting his head.
“Is doing stuff, like fighting, enough to make someone fall in love?” Sakura gestured his hands in a punching motion.
Nirei hummed, then leaned against the counter so that he was closer to Suo and Sakura.
“What do you two think?” Nirei asked, pushing against the counter, lifting himself up so that he could sit on the edge of it.
“Shouldn’t it be enough, I mean doesn’t it prove that I can do stuff for someone.” Sakura tapped his fingers against the counter.
“You can’t brute force romance, you need to have some delicacy about it, like getting them things they like.” Suo added, his earrings swinging as he looked between Sakura and him.
Nirei mulled the words over for a moment, then finally opened his mouth to say something about it.
“I think that you’re both right in a way, but I think the most important thing is knowing the person.”
Sakura and Suo look up at him, Suo thoughtfully and Sakura with confusion.
“It’d be weird to try and date someone you didn’t know.” Sakura says, looking very confused.
Nirei doesn’t even try to hide his laughter this time, he tilts his head back, lifting his hands from the counter to cover his mouth.
(He had an ugly laugh, and an even uglier face when he was laughing, something he had learnt to cover up in middle school.)
He almost loses his balance, and he probably would have been fine if he fell, his kitchen counter wasn’t that high afterall, so he would have landed on his feet.
But as if Suo and Sakura predicted this outcome, both of them reached across the counter, Sakura grabbing the back of his shirt and Suo putting a steadying hand on his thigh.
Sakura mutters something about him being accident prone.
“No, I mean-” Nirei explains, getting back to the conversation at hand. “Knowing things about a person is probably the most important thing, like-” Nirei pointed at the flowers that were on the coffee table in the living room that could be seen from the kitchen.
“Anyone can buy someone flowers, but not everyone will know or even care to remember what someone’s favourite flowers are.”
“So you should buy them their favourite flowers.” Suo says, with an approving nod and Sakura nods as well.
“Well, you don’t have to buy them.” Nirei explains, getting off the counter and grabbing the plate and making his way over to the tray of now warm cookies.
He puts six on the plate, three for both of them.
“Just knowing is enough, well at least for me that would be enough.”
He places the cookies down in front of his friends, there salted caramel because he knows that they like both salty and sweet things.
And when Nirei sits down on the chair next to Suo, shoves a cookie in his direction, which Nirei tries to refuse.
“I made them for you guys to eat!” Nirei protests.
“How do we know you didn’t poison them?” Sakura grumbles out.
“You watched me make them!” Nirei points out.
“That means nothing.” Sakura points his finger accusingly.
“You could have slipped in arsenic in it while we were distracted.” Suo teases, shoving a cookie towards him and it was clear that neither of them would be touching their cookies until he took a bite out of it.
Which he conceded on doing.
“You two are crazy.” He complains, wiping the cookie crumbs away from his mouth.
“Yeah, we are. But you still love us.” Suo rolls his eyes fondly.
Nirei smiled, as he watched his friends eat. “I guess I do.”
He doesn’t just guess though, he knows, he knows that he loves them and that he’ll probably love them for the rest of his life.
And if they do not love him, that was something that Nirei would just have to learn to live with.
___________________________________________________
Nirei knew that he wasn’t the strongest fighter.
But that didn’t mean that Nirei didn’t understand how fights worked.
Throwing a punch was someone's way of communicating, of saying something and whether it was something about you, to you, or for you.
That’s the funny thing about watching Sakura fight, when he fights he’s always saying something, there’s always a message that he tries to get across when fighting.
When Suo fights, there isn’t always something being said, or maybe there is and Nirei isn’t great at reading between the lines. But when Suo fights, it’s because he likes to fight, he likes the rush that comes with it, he likes to observe and learn from others who fight.
So when the two of them fought, it was fascinating to watch.
But it was also annoying.
Because when Sakura threw a punch at Suo, it was his way of saying:
I respect you, and I want to understand you.
And when Suo threw a punch it was him listening and responding with:
I know, I feel the same.
They could just say that to one another like regular people, but no one at Bofurin was really aiming for the most normal person in the world award. (Himself included).
Suo and Sakura did not fight with him though.
Nirei knew why. He was weaker, smaller and there wasn’t much to talk to him about, or tell him either.
Nirei talks a lot anyway, he says so much about himself and others but he isn’t sure they always listen. It seems that everyone at Bofurin knows how to talk with their fists. Nirei is just someone who’s left trying to decipher the messages that they throw.
“What do you guys want to do when we finish high school?” Tsugeura asks one day, when he, Suo, Sakura, Sugishita and Kiryu, are sitting around one day.
“Haven’t thought about it that much.” Sakura replied with a shrug.
Suo smirked. “ I’ll become an exotic dancer.”
Sugishita mutters something about how much of an idiot Suo is, and shakes his head.
“Well what do you want then, Sugishita?” Suo asked, still smirking.
“I’ll probably just get a job in town so that I can keep an eye on things here.” Sugishita says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the entire world.
“I think I might go into styling or something.” Kiryu answers, looking up from his phone. “But we still have plenty of time to decide.”
“I think I’ll probably work around here too!” Tsugeura loudly exclaims. “I mean who’d ever want to leave a town like this!”
The others laughed or feigned annoyance at Tsugeura’s enthusiasm, but Nirei stayed quiet.
Because he did want to leave this town one day.
Nirei had spent his entire life in Makochi.
He loved his town, he loved the people in this town, he loved his friends and his school in town, but he knew that one day he wanted to go somewhere different.
Nirei wanted to study teaching, he had planned on studying and becoming a teacher. He wanted to fight things for people in the only way that he really knew how to, and that was by sharing knowledge.
But Makochi didn’t have a university, so he would need to travel to study, and the best place for him to go would most likely be Tokoyo, which was seven hours by train.
“What do you want to do, Nirei?” Suo asked, glancing down at him.
Nirei had never been one to lie, nor did he think that he could ever lie to Suo.
“I want to study teaching.”
Sakura’s head perked up when he heard his comment. “I could see you doing that.”
Nirei shrugged, not entirely sure how to respond to that. “Thanks.”
“You’d have to go to the university in the next town over!” Tsugeura exclaimed. “That’s like an hour by train!”
“If you go you’ll have to get used to getting up early then.” Kiryu said, putting his phone into pocket, and now giving the conversation his full attention.
Nirei laughed, although it felt awkward, a sense of guilt pooling in his stomach, knowing that the place he would probably go was much more than an hour away.
The conversation faded into the background, jumping from one topic to the next, but Nirei found his mind wandering to what a life in Tokyo would be like, a life that was away from everything that he had ever known.
But maybe something different would be good.
Tokyo was a big place, with different people, different things and different places, and different wasn’t a bad thing.
But Nirei had always felt like he was different, he didn’t exactly fit in in town, he had definitely not fit in at middle school, and while he felt like the others at Bofurin liked him, Nirei wasn’t exactly like them.
Nirei also thought that maybe he would do better in Tokyo being different, in the other way that he was. Nirei didn’t exactly make it a secret that his preferences weren’t on the straight and narrow, but he wasn’t loud and proud about this either. To Nirei, it was just one more thing that made him different from everyone else, another thing that could be thrown in his face by people who were cruel enough to do so.
And Nirei knew, that Tokyo definitely had it’s fair share of those who would have issue with him being who he was, but what Nirei also knew, was that there were so many people in Tokyo and they wouldn’t know his name or anything else about him, if they saw him in the street they wouldn’t give him a second thought.
Makochi was different though, mostly everybody knew everybody, and knew everything about everybody.
“You’re awfully quiet today.” Suo noted, when they had left the classroom and were heading out for patrol.
Nirei shrugs his shoulders. “Just thinking.”
Sakura, who was standing behind them, makes a grunting noise.
“You think too much.” Sakura grumbles, taking a step forward so that the three of them are walking side by side.
“You don’t think enough.” Nirei teases, and Sakura nudges him with his elbow.
But he doesn’t do it roughly.
Sakura is never rough with him and Suo isn’t either.
If Sugishita had said what Nirei had just said to Sakura, he probably would have gotten a very hard hit to his arm and ribcage, and it would’ve ended with Nirei having to pull Sakura back and Kiryu having to pull Sugishita back. Then the rest of patrol would have been spent making sure those two stayed away from one another.
Suo, who was laughing at the display, eventually brought his laughter to a halt, and steered the conversation back.
“But really, what were you thinking about Nirei?” Suo asks, but Nirei can already tell that the boy has an idea.
Suo was a very perceptive person, which meant that he was great at understanding and reading opponents, but this also meant that he was perceptive enough to know when something was bothering his friends.
Even if that something was something that someone might not want to talk about.
But Nirei couldn’t lie to Suo, Nirei couldn’t really lie to anyone one really.
“I was just thinking about what university I’d want to apply to.” He answers, it’s not a lie, but it’s also not the entire truth either.
“Are there a few in the next town over?” Sakura asks, lazily messing with the buttons on his jacket as the three of them walk through town.
Nirei hums, hoping to get by with them thinking he was just being contemplative, but Suo opening his mouth ruins any plans of that happening.
“No, just the one.”
Sakura looks up from his jacket, then tilts his head like a confused cat at Nirei.
“Wouldn’t you just go to that one then?” The boy asks, as if he was trying to put together a puzzle without all the pieces.
There’s a moment of silence between the three of them, and Suo is still smiling kindly, like he always does and Nirei is trying to think of a way to articulate all the million things that have been flying through his head.
Because how do you tell someone that you want to leave the only place that you have ever really known?
Sakura had admitted that this town has been the one place that had ever actually felt like a home to him.
He had told Nirei that one night at a sleepover that he had insisted on hosting after a rough fight so that he could keep an eye on both Sakura and Suo, to ensure that neither of them were going to get any worse than they were.
“It’s the first time somethings really ever felt like mine.” Sakura had confessed to him, long after Suo had fallen asleep, but the two of them had stayed awake and had sat with their backs pressed against Nirei’s bed frame as they whispered.
“And I won’t let anyone take that from me now that I know what it feels like to have something that I love.”
“This town loves you too.” Nirei had told him, pretending to ignore Sakura’s flushed cheeks. “The people here really do love you, and they will always love you.”
Sakura had grumbled something that Nirei couldn’t quite hear, though he didn’t ask the other boy to repeat himself. But Sakura does so anyway.
“They love you too.”
Nirei smiles at Sakura, but in his heart he knows it’s a sad smile.
This town didn’t love Nire, that was something that he had learnt a long time ago, and it was something that he had learnt to be okay with.
Sakura thinks this town is accepting and loving of everyone, that this is a place that anyone can go to find a place to call home. That this is the town for everyone.
This town is for everyone.
But Nirei has never been included with everyone.
But that doesn’t stop Nirei from loving his home, even if it doesn’t love him.
“I’ll have to think about it.” Nirei settles on saying, hoping that the conversation will come to a halt.
“Well it’s not like you don’t have plenty of time, graduation is a long time away.” Sakura says, waving his hand around lazily.
“I still have my heart set on being an exotic dancer.” Suo jokes.
“No ones paying you.” Sakura deadpans out, and it seems that their conversation on where Nirei wants to go fades far into the background.
Sakura and Suo continue to bicker back and forth about anything and everything as they patrol the town, on what is thankfully an uneventful afternoon.
Nirei indulges their antics, and wedges himself between them when he feels the teasing is getting out of hand.
But Suo and Sakura almost bicker like two cats, they can get along whenever there's a common goal between them, and they can also get along when they feel like it, but the bickering is part of their fun.
The bickering is their way of giving one another attention.
But Nirei wasn’t sure there was room for him to fit between the two of them.
So he would stand to the side, he wouldn’t get in their way.
But Nirei was selfish, because sometimes he wanted to be in their way, he wanted their attention, he wanted to be part of the back and forth game that was happening.
But just like in the town, there wasn’t a place for Nirei in the game.
Because Nirei had never been made to fit anywhere, he was the odd one out and that was something that he had always known.
That night, Nirei doesn’t find that sleep is coming to him, so instead he finds himself pulling his desk chair over to the window in his room and opening the latch on it so that he can stare at the sparkling lines of the stars in the sky.
He pulls his knees to his chest and rests his chin on them.
The stars shine so brightly here.
Tokyo probably had too much light pollution to be able to see the stars as clearly as he could from here.
Nirei loved looking at the stars, because even though from a distance they all looked very similar, no one star was the same.
Every star had something that set it apart from the millions of other stars in the sky, yet they all managed to fit into the same sky.
It was almost like this town, everyone was so different to one another yet, they all seemed to fit together to paint a picture perfect portrait.
Except for Nirei.
Nirei is not a star, nor is he the sun or moon, or any of the planets that fill the sky as well.
Everything that makes Nirei different, is what ensures that he doesn’t have a place here.
But as he watches the shining stars, Nirei can’t help but long for that sense of belonging, that certainty that he had a place where he belonged.
When he had applied to Bofurin, he had naively thought that it could be the place that made him feel like he was a part of something. But it had only really furthered his belief that he didn’t belong here.
In middle school, people had shoved notes into his locker and into his desk, telling him that he didn’t belong here, that he was a freak, he was unwanted and that everything would be so much better if he wasn’t here.
He still has some of those notes, shoved into a shoebox that he keeps in his closet.
Sometimes he still looks at them.
Sometimes he still thinks that they're right.
Nirei doesn’t get any sleep that night, instead he switches between looking at the stars and going through the notes in the shoebox.
When the sun comes through, he shoves the shoebox back in the closet, and heads to the bathroom and takes a shower and hopes that he will be able to ignore the few stray tears that are streaming down his cheeks.
And if that day he’s a little quieter in class than usual, no one says anything.
But on that day, Suo and Sakura sit a little closer to him, and after patrol Suo shoves a tea-cake into his hand and his two friends insist on walking him home, and then end up spending the night.
They sleep in the living room, blankets and pillows strewn across the floor as a rom-com plays on the tv in the background.
“Are you asleep?” Suo asks him when his back is turned and his eyes are closed.
Sakura had long since fallen asleep, curled at the top of the pile of blankets that they had made, he was the closest to the door, and it reminded Nirei of a cat being ready to swipe if anyone invaded its space.
He’s not asleep, but he’s pretty close to it, so he doesn’t say anything.
Suo must think that he’s asleep, because the boy keeps talking but in a low whisper as if he’s trying to not rouse either him or Sakura.
Suo stops talking, and Nirei feels the blanket around him being adjusted. He hears Suo rustling around, moving and Suo lies down, close enough that if Nirei rolled over his face would be pressed into the taller boy's back.
But Nirei stays where he is.
Not brave enough to reach out, but Nirei had never really been brave, and he probably never would be.
But at some point in the night, Sakura had moved a little closer and Nirei had one hand wrapped around Sakura’s wrist, and the other had reached out and gripped onto Suo’s shirt as tight as he could.
It wasn’t something that Nirei had done consciously.
But he also didn’t pull away when he realised what had happened either.
Actions speak louder than words sometimes, even if the person taking action isn’t entirely aware of it.
______________________________________________________________________
Collecting knowledge was a hobby to Nirei.
He loved knowing things, he liked to ask questions about things and learnt how they worked or didn’t work, he loved to know things about people, friends and foes alike, as there was always a natural curiosity that he had to understand how and why people were the way they are.
Collecting knowledge though, just happened to be a hobby that also worked as a defence mechanism for him.
In middle school, if he learnt when and where some of his more rough classmates were, then he could make an effort to avoid them and come home with a few less bruises than usual.
There’s an old saying, that knowledge is power.
But knowledge didn’t make a person powerful, it was how they used that knowledge.
But Nirei had never felt very powerful, even with all that he knew.
Feeling powerful was a right reserved for those who knew what they wanted, and those who were willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that goal.
But Nirei knew that sometimes getting what you wanted meant that someone else had to suffer.
Nirei had never been very good at taking what he wanted, he wasn’t ever able to drown down the guilt that came with getting something at someone else's expense.
Even knowing that about himself, he had still applied to Furin, knowing that he wasn’t the best fighter, knowing that if he got a spot at the school he could be taking it away from someone else who deserved it more.
Furin had a library, one that wasn’t used very frequently, but it had one and Nirei had found himself spending more and more time in the large room with shelves that reached the top of the roof, shelves that Nirei would never be able to reach without a ladder.
Classes at Furin were something that were held online.
Nirei isn’t sure who exactly established the fact that students would use an online system for classes, but he can also see why it was that way. The truth about Furin, was that many of the students here, had no plans of going to university, most of the students' plans consisted of staying in town and getting jobs here, which they would have no trouble doing seeing as the town embraced most of the students with open arms.
That also meant that a lot of the students ended up not bothering with doing the online course work that was assigned to them.
But Nirei was set on completing all the tasks and assignments assigned.
In their first week at the school, the third years had taken turns talking to each of them to see if they planned on doing the online coursework and what classes that they were going to apply to.
Tsubaki had been the one to have the conversation with him.
Tsubaki had sat down at the desk in front of him and the first question that Nirei got was:
“How long have you been bleaching your hair?”
Nirei had spluttered for a moment, a bit taken aback by the question but he eventually managed to answer that this year had been the first year that he had done it.
“It looks good.” Tsubaki had said with a nod of approval. “But your roots are coming through.”
Nirei nodded, mindlessly brushing a loose strand from his face. “I think I might grow it out a little more before I bleach it again.”
Tsubaki’s eyes practically sparkled when he had said that, then the next question was:
“Are you going to grow it out any longer?”
Tsubaki had sounded so excited, and black locks swayed around freely from the excited movements that Tsubaki was making.
“Just a little.” Nirei had stated a little shy.
Tsubaki finally decided that after the integration about his hair, to finally focus on questions about what classes Nirei was going to do online.
Nirei was planning on taking Advanced History, Literature Studies, English, General Mathematics, Social Studies and Art.
Tsubaki had glanced down at the list he had made, then looked back up at him.
“You know if students even end up taking classes here, they usually only take three.”
Tsuabki passed the list back over to him. “And the most classes that anyone has ever taken is four.”
“Do you think I should take less classes?” Nirei had asked, looking back down at the list that he had made.
Tsubaki made a humming noise, then tapped on the list, guiding Nirei’s eyes back upwards.
“I think that you are capable of taking six classes, I just don’t want you pushing yourself too hard.” Tsuabki tapped manicured nails on the desktop, they were a dark pink that complimented the highlights in the end of Tsubaki’s hair nicely.
“I can’t stop you from taking six classes, but I want you to think about if you’ll be able to handle the workload from all of them, on top of everything else that we do.”
Nirei knew that it would be a lot of work to stay on top of, but what he also knew was that no university would even dare to look at his applications if he didn’t have four classes.
“Do you take any classes, Tsubaki?” Nirei asked, trying to picture what classes Tsubaki would excel in.
“Sort of!” Tsubaki happily chirped out. “I do an online beautification certificate, but I’m almost done!”
“That’s really good!” Nirei had said, and he could so easily see Tsuabki being something like a stylist or a hairdresser once graduation came around.
Tsuabki settled down eventually after a small tirade about annoying hairstyles that had to be learned.
“Are you planning to go to university, Nirei?”
Nirei nodded. “Hopefully, I want to study teaching.” He added, a little shy.
“That's good!” Tsuabki had said. “If it was a third year, I would definitely tell you that six classes would be the way to go, but it’s only your first year Nirei, so there is still plenty of time for you to figure things out or try out different things.”
Nirei nodded, but Tsubaki lifted up a finger and pointed at him.
“But I also think you’ve got your heart set on this, so what I’m going to say is that you can start with the six classes, but if it becomes too much you let me know and will pull you from one or two classes.”
“Thank you Tsubaki.” Nirei said with a small smile.
Tsubaki waved him off though. “It’s no biggie, but I thought I’d let you know you're the only one really taking classes from the first years.”
“Oh.” Nirei had thought that at least a few people would take one or two classes, but he also guessed that for some people a high school life with the option for no classes was a dream come true.
“I was surprised!” Tsubaki exclaimed, standing up at the same time he did. “But that means that the library is pretty much all yours!”
That was at least a positive.
Tsuabki started walking towards the door, and continued to talk. “Don’t worry Nirei, will block off the library during exams for you as well and I’ll knock sense into anyone who tries to disturb you!”
Nirei had laughed at Tsuabki’s enthusiasm at the time, but now as he sat in the library working through his coursework, he found that the offer would be greatly appreciated when he had to sit exams.
He glanced down at the outline for his history essay, and let out a sigh.
Today he had decided that he was going to stay in the library from the start of the day to the end so that he could finish his draft of his essay, email it to the online overseer for feedback and then hopefully make changes based on it and then submit it by the end of the week.
He had even gotten to school early to work on it, but now morning classes were over and he had only written his introduction and first paragraph. He let out a sigh and stretched his arms, tilting his head back.
On top of this essay, he had a report due on the history of public transit for social studies in two weeks time, he had to read Hamlet for his literature class, he had a page long personal response to write for art, he had to sit a maths quiz tomorrow and then he had a test for his English class on Friday.
So it was going to be a hectic two weeks of work to get through.
Nirei let out another sigh, and took a sip from his water bottle. For a moment he contemplated getting up and going into class to see his friends, but he dismissed the thought pretty quickly. He had a lot of work to do, and the others were probably doing things and he didn’t want to bother them.
By lunchtime, he had thankfully finished up his essay and after double checking it, he emailed the draft to his professor, and was just waiting for a response on feedback. Then he decided to review his notes for the maths quiz tomorrow. He wasn’t too stressed as it was an open book quiz but it was good to be familiar with the concepts.
He had been looking at his notes for about fifteen minutes, the library door swung open, whatever opened it had enough force that the door swung back so hard that it hit the wall, which made Nirei jump from his seat.
Standing in the door was Sakura and Suo.
Sakura had his leg up in the air.
Nirei let out a sigh.
“I’ve told you you’re going to break a door down one of these days if you keep doing that.” Nirei jokes, as his friends come in.
“I told him we have door knobs for a reason.” Suo says with a shake of his head, as he takes a seat next to Nirei.
“My hands were full!” Sakura exclaims, slamming a paper bag down onto the desk.
“I could have opened it.” Suo points out, as he moves Nirei’s notebooks to the centre of the table so that they are out of the way.
Suo doesn’t shove them though, Nirei can see that that boy gently folds the corner of the pages that he was looking at, then gently stacks them in the middle in a neat pile. He treats them with respect as if they were his own books and not something of Nirei’s that deserved to be tossed around.
It makes something in Nirei’s heart tighten, it was a change from middle school when people would come up to his desk and shove his books and notebooks off of it and laugh at him when he had to pick them up.
“Well you didn’t.” Sakura grumbles out.
Nirei closes his laptop and puts it back into his bag.
“What have you guys been up to?” Nirei questions.
Suo pulls out a takeaway container from the bag. “Not much today, Sugishita and Sakura bickered about whether the water was wet or not.”
Sakura crossed his arms and glared at the desk as if it had personally offended him.
“Then we all went and picked up lunch.” Suo placed a takeaway container down in front of him.
“Eat up.” Sakura suggests.
And something tugs at Nirei’s heartstrings.
“You guys bought me lunch?”
“No, we bought it for our other loudmouth blonde friend.” Sakura grunts out, tossing a plastic fork towards him.
“Wow, you’re such a socialite Sakura.” Nirei teased, opening up the container of fried rice in front of him.
“Am not.” Sakura complains, as he shoves a spoonful of rice into his own mouth.
They enjoy a quieter lunch, a few conversations about what Nire’s studying and what the others have been up to today or were planning to do.
“I don’t know how you manage to do all that work.” Sakura says, gesturing to his pile of notebooks in the centre of the table.
Nirei shrugs. “That’s probably only half the work that I’ll have once I get to university.”
Suo taps the top of the notebooks. “Have you figured out what university that you want to go to?”
Nirei hesitates to answer. The one in the next town over, would be a practical choice and would be closer to home, but that also meant that it was closer to home, and Nirei wanted something that was far away from here.
He wanted something different, he wanted something new.
“I’m still thinking about it.” Nirei settles on saying.
Sakura looks at him and blinks like a confused cat. “Isn’t the closest one the best?”
Suo shakes his head and cuts in before Nirei even has a chance to think of a response. “Well you have to look at the reviews and the courses that they offer, and then pick from the best one.” He smiles towards Nirei. “Afterall, I’m sure that Nirei wants to learn from the best.”
“I guess that makes sense.” Sakura concedes. “You wouldn’t want to learn from someone who’s not good at teaching to be a teacher.”
“That would be a bit of a disaster.” Nirei says.
After that, they all finish up their lunch and clean up. Suo and Sakura head back to class, and Nirei says that he’ll see him when it’s time to patrol again.
Nirei is once again alone in the library.
He used to go to the library a lot in middle school, it was one of the few places that people wouldn’t go to cause a ruckus, and Nirei could get away with minding his own business in the library by reading a book at one of the tables out of sight from the other students.
He glances back down at his notebooks, and decides that he's just going to take a quick stroll around the library before getting back to work, and he figures he might find a copy of Hamlet in here as well while he’s wandering around.
The library wasn’t as big as the one in the town centre, but it was a lot bigger than Nirei thought it would be, considering that Furin is not an academics based school. There were about twenty shelves with seven rows each, ten on one side of the room and ten on the other. The desk that Nirei was working at was at the centre of the room and pushed up against the wall at the back of the room so that it was near one of the windows.
What the library also had, was a massive map of Japan framed against the wall on the left hand side of the room.
Sometimes Nirei found himself standing in front of it, he’d linger for a few moments, just appreciating the size of it, but inevitably he’d find his eyes drawn to the marker labelled 東京: Tokyo.
Then his eyes would would wander down to the south of the map, and he would inevitably see the hand drawn red circle on the map that said: あなたはここにいる: You’re Here!
Makochi was small enough that it wasn’t included or labelled on the map here, so someone had taken the time to figure out where they were and circle them on the map, so they could be seen.
But it was only the people that were already here that would see it.
You had to already be here to know where Makochi was, and that was something that was both a little sweet and a little sad.
Sakura had never explained how he had come to find Makochi, or how he had heard of Bofurin, but that was his story to tell one day if he ever felt like sharing. But Nirei would not ask, because some things do not need words put to them to understand.
As much as Sakura and him were different in so many ways, the two of them knew something about each other without it ever having to be put into words.
Suo and Sakura could have their fights, and understand everything from one another that way.
But Nirei could look Sakura in the eyes and see what was left unsaid:
I’m hurt, someone has hurt me in a way that I’ll never forget.
Nirei doesn’t know who or what has hurt Sakura, but he does know what it’s like to be hurt in a way that you carry it on your shoulders everyday for the rest of your life.
The other day, there had been a note left on his desk. He had been the first one into the classroom that day and when he saw the note, he had that horrible feeling of his heart plummeting towards the ground.
It’s happening again, and you were stupid for thinking that it wouldn’t.
Nirei stared at the piece of paper for far too long, fearing what he would see when he turned it over, that some variations of threats and insults would be written on it, but it would all boil down to the same meaning.
You Don’t Belong Here.
When Nirei had finally worked up the nerve to turn the piece of paper over, he was met with the words:
Hey Nirei! You left your literature-notebook here the other day, so I went ahead and put it on your desk in the library! You must be studying really hard, that thing is full of so many notes! Let us know if you need anything, we might not be able to help academically but we can get you anything you need! – Tsugeura
Nirei almost cried while reading the note. Tsugeura had been so kind to not only put Nirei’s notebook somewhere safe, but he had gone out of his way to acknowledge that Nirei was working hard and to say something nice about him.
He thanks Tsugeura profusely when he sees him in class that day, and the boy shakes his head and proclaims that it’s not a big deal at all, and to Tsugeura, it probably isn’t a big deal.
But to Nirei it was a big deal.
Every kind act of his classmates is met with disbelief that they see Nirei.
They see him, and do not think to mock him or to go out of their way to hurt him, but instead they go out of their way to be kind to him and that they actively try to make things easier for him.
He looks back at the map again.
“It’s quite a big map!” A loud voice exclaims from beside him, causing him to jump.
He turns around and sees Umemiya, who looks a little sheepish.
“Sorry.” He says, as he clears his throat. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“That’s okay.” Nirei reassures him. “I was just a little lost in thought.”
“Happens to the best of us.” Umemiya gestures with his hands vaguely. “Thinking about anything in particular?”
Nirei looks back at the map, his eyes darting back to the small red circle. “Just that we’re quite far away from a lot of places.”
Umemiya lets out a chuckle. “Yeah this town really is quite a bit away from any of the major cities.”
“Have you ever travelled out of town?” Nirei asks, watching as Umemiya looks at their small red circle on the map, with what Nirei could only describe as a sense of pride.
“I’ve been to Tokyo a few times!” Umemiya states, lifting his hand up to trace his finger from Tokyo to Makoich. “But there really is no place quite like home.”
Nirei stays quiet.
“Have you ever been to Tokyo?” Umemiya asks him.
“No.” Nirei says with a shake of his head. “But I want to one day.”
“It’s a pretty cool place!” Umemiya takes his hand off the glass. “Though it’s so big and easy to get lost in!”
“Yeah, it would be pretty different from here.” Nirei states, taking a step back from the map.
“It would.” Umemiya nods, then places a hand on Nirei’s shoulder. “But different isn’t always a bad thing.”
Nirei looks at Umemiya, and similar to Sakura, he sees that flash in his eyes, not one that says something hurts though, more like a look of understanding.
“Yeah, it’s a good thing.”
Umemiya smiles at him. “You’re a good kid Nirei, no need for you to stress about the future right now, okay?”
Nirei looks up at him, appreciation glistening in his eyes. “How’d you know I was thinking about that stuff?”
Umemiya snorts and pulls his hand away from Nirei’s shoulder. “Let’s just say you aren’t the only one at this school who’s had some curiosity about life outside of this town.”
“What did you come to the library for?” Nirei ends up asking, as the two of them walk through the rows of bookshelves searching for a book after Nirei mentioned that he was looking for a copy of Hamlet.
“Oh!” Umemiya says, as his eyes scan the rows on the uppermost shelves. “Here it is!”
Umemiya reaches for the book and then passes it down to Nirei.
“You’ll have to tell me if it’s a good book!”
Nirei nods and holds onto the book tightly. “Thanks for finding it.” He says, and Umemiya just grins at him and says that it was no problem and that he was going to head off to go speak with the other third years about something.
It wasn’t until he was gone, that Nirei realised that Umemiya hadn’t answered his question about why he had come to the library, but he just shrugs it off and decides he should actually get back to his work.
He placed the copy of Hamlet down on top of his notebooks, he would read it once he was done with all of his other work for the next two days.
But every now and again, he found himself standing in front of that map, wondering if the life he had in this town would be all that he would ever know