Chapter Text
Jiro’s day started out horrible, and it doesn’t seem to be looking up any time soon. One of his friends is in a mood he should probably be more sympathetic to, but just can’t garner the energy to. Okata is rude on a good day, but when he’s all pissy like this he’s downright horrible.
Jiro isn’t even sure why they’re friends, or when they’d begun hanging out. His best guess is soccer, or maybe basketball. Most of his friends had been made through sports, actually. A lot of them are good people, but a few of them seem to get off on being assholes.
In an ideal world, Jiro doesn’t hang out with any of them, but alas. Somehow, for some reason, he got popular once he entered high school, and now he’s practically forced to spend all his time with the most lame people he knows. Ichiro says that's just what high school is like, he doesn’t quite believe it.
“‘kay, I gotta get to class,” he mutters, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. He hadn't even been planning to go to class, science is always a bore, but he thinks he might go insane if he hears Okata ranting about the two guys he saw holding hands in the hall earlier any longer.
Okata and the rest of the group barely spare him a glance. “See ya later, dude.”
He sighs as he starts heading towards the science wing. No point in skipping anymore, he can’t go anywhere without running into at least one of those guys. And it’s not that he really cares what they think, he needs to get his shit together for the end of the semester anyways. He feels… off, the entire walk down the hall. Okata’s bullshit is nothing new, but it usually doesn’t get under Jiro’s skin the way it has today. Maybe he’s mad no one defended him. Maybe he needs to drop his stupid friends.
He makes it to class just in time, tossing his bag under his desk right as the bell chimes to signal the start of class. The teacher, an old man called Ishii-sensei, closes the door and takes his spot at the front of the class.
Jiro tunes him out, turning his earbud as low as he can and putting on his most recent playlist. He’s been getting into a variety of genres recently, after Ichiro suggested he start playing his guitar more often. He knows Ichiro mostly said that because of how much money he spent on it— an authentic Gibson Flying V isn’t cheap, not even accounting for the speakers he’d gotten along with it. The reason he’d stopped playing in the first place was boredom from playing the same three songs over and over, so he’s taken to playing music 24/7 in search of inspiration. His school notebooks are fuller than they’ve ever been, not with the work they’re intended for but hundreds of chord progressions and half-written choruses he’d probably never sing.
His most recent obsession is visual kei. He’s always been into rock and metal, so it was only natural that his search for recommendations based on his favourite artists would lead him there eventually. He’s not a huge fan of the stage acts, the elaborate makeup and personas and fashion, but the music is amazing. Since discovering the genre, he’s penned four songs he’s at least semi-proud of. They’re not perfect, nowhere close, but he can tell his next one will be getting there.
He taps his pen against his desk, keeping with the beat easily. His favourite songs are loud with heavy drums, hence the singular earbud on the lowest volume. He should probably play his drums more often too, he thinks, though he does play them more often than he does the guitar. The blisters on his hands are proof enough of that.
The girl beside him shoots him an annoyed glare. He smiles apologetically and stops tapping his pen, softly bouncing his leg to the beat instead. She huffs but doesn’t press the issue.
“—for this assignment, you’ll be working in pairs,” Ishii-sensei finishes, glancing around the room. Everyone looks just as bored as Jiro is, possibly even more so. There’s no writing or anything on the board explaining what exactly this assignment is. He knows they’re in a biology unit, but he can’t remember if they’ve covered humans and moved on to plants yet or not. He could probably ask one of his friends in the class later, but then they’ll want to work with him and he knows none of his friends would pull their weight if their life depended on it.
Clearly about to continue, the old man is cut off by a small knock at the door, barely audible enough for Jiro to hear over his music. He hobbles over to the door and cracks it open. The door swings open shortly after, rustling the posters taped to the back of it.
“You’re late,” Ishii-sensei says gruffly.
The kid at the door squeaks, bowing slightly, short and choppy hair falling into their face. “I’m sorry! I have a late slip, sorry…”
Someone behind Jiro snickers. He keeps his gaze down, not wanting to look like he’s staring, but it’s hard not to. He sees this kid around, every once in a while. Always alone, usually with wired earbuds plugged into an old MP3 player and their head ducked down staring at a notebook.
His friends, especially Okata, who is astonishingly old-fashioned, found an easy target in their eccentric clothes and quirky demeanour. Since getting into visual kei, he’s been able to put a name to the style, but he hasn’t formed a strong opinion on them. He tells his friends to fuck off when they’re being assholes, and that’s about it.
The kid— Jiro should really try to remember their name, it’s on the tip of his tongue— sits at the only empty desk, two rows behind Jiro, fiddling with the short hairs at the base of their neck. Ishii-sensei continues rambling on about partner assignments, how after last week's disaster he just can’t trust them to make their own pairs, blah, blah, blah. All Jiro hears is that he doesn’t have to choose, and he focuses back on his music.
He smiles subconsciously. This song is one of his favourites, and he’d taken a lot of inspiration from it in his first attempt at song writing. The fast-paced drums, the lively sounds of the guitar, and the dramatically angelic voice of the lead singer had secured ArgoξOrchestra as his favourite visual kei band almost immediately. He’d even set aside his disinterest in v-kei stage acts and watched a few recordings of their live performances. Mostly grainy concert footage, probably shot on some kids phone, but it was impressive nonetheless. He’d found himself almost enamoured by the vocalist, but who wouldn’t? They’re gorgeous.
“Yamada Jiro, you’ll be with… Aimono Jyushi. Fukushi—”
“Wait! Can’t I be with Yamada-kun?” Fukushi, the guy who sits behind Jiro and he’s kind of friends with, says.
Jiro slumps back in his chair. He doesn’t care who he’s with. Everyone in class thinks Aimono— that was the name he couldn’t remember— is a total freak for reasons Jiro never understood. As long as they carry their weight, which he knows Fukushi wouldn’t, he can work with anyone and it’ll make no difference in his mind. Aimono is more likely to help him out, and chances are they wouldn’t even have to talk that much.
Ishii-sensei, bless his heart, shuts him down. “I said I would be assigning partners. Unless Yamada has a valid problem with it, he’ll be working with Aimono.”
Jiro coughs. “Uh— yeah, I don’t really care.”
“Then it’s settled,” the teacher says. “Fukushi, you’ll be with…”
Jiro zones back out. Knowing his friends, they’ll make a huge deal of this at lunch next period. He can only hope they can get it through their thick skulls that he seriously, genuinely, does not care.
He taps his pen against his notebook, scribbling a few more lines of the song he’s been working on, ignoring Fukushi’s gaze on his back.
“Sorry man,” Fukushi says. “I tried to save you, but you know how Ishii-sensei is.”
He says it like it’s such a horrible thing. Like Jiro could contract some kind of disease from Aimono, or something. Subconsciously, his hand balls into a fist, but he keeps it lowered and mutters something about how he doesn’t care either way. The six of them are sitting at one of the tables outside, enduring the sweltering heat to reap the benefits of not having to attempt to talk over the overwhelming loudness of the cafeteria.
Okata pats him on the back. “You don’t hafta lie to save face dude, that guys a total faggot.”
That word elicits a wave of laughter from the rest of the group Jiro has to force himself to join in on. Even then, it’s weak— the sensation of his heart dropping into his stomach is far stronger. He doesn’t usually care about these things, he thinks, so why now. He prays they’ve had their laughs and picks at his bento, suddenly not hungry.
Morita, never able to take a hint for his life, continues. “Seriously, he’s such a weirdo. And those scars are totally freaky.”
Jiro hadn’t even noticed them. He knows they’re there, of course— the whole school does. But it’s not like he makes a point of staring at people's scars.
“I heard—” Okata leans in like he’s telling them a secret “—he tried to kill himself in middle school.”
There’s a single moment, suspended in silence, where Jiro thinks they might understand the gravity of that. That they shouldn’t joke about that, should just shut the hell up and go back to complaining about their coaches and training and whatever else.
Fukushi snickers. “Shame it didn’t work.”
Jiro stands up, slamming a hand on the table and cutting off their second round of laughter as soon as it’s started. His face is burning, for some reason.
“That’s not funny,” he says. He swallows thickly when he realizes they’re all staring at him. They usually are, but then it’s more out of some desire for approval than the shock it is now. “My little brother tried to— you shouldn’t joke about that. It’s not fucking funny.”
He grabs his bag and leaves, ignoring their stunned silence and eventual attempts to call him back. The burning in his face, he realizes, is in part due to the tears streaming down his face. He hopes that hadn’t started before he left… how embarrassing. He doesn’t even know why he said that. Any of it, really, but especially the part about Saburo. With any luck, none of them would mention it to anyone. They probably wouldn’t, honestly. Jiro would probably get to school tomorrow and they’d all be acting like everything was the same as it had always been. He sighs, and pulls out his phone to ask Saburo if he wants to get slushies on their way home. He’s not expecting an immediate answer, so he steels himself for the next two periods and the almost definite nagging his friends are sure to put him through.
Saburo, as much as he bullies Jiro for being gluttonous, never turns down an offer of free food. He meets Jiro just outside the convenience store they always stop at on their way home, tapping his foot impatiently. As if Jiro isn’t the one offering him a free slushie.
“You know, the brattiness stopped being cute a few years ago,” Jiro says, leaning against the wall beside Saburo.
Saburo blushes. “Shut up… Jerk.”
“That was weak as shit, man.” He laughs, and ruffles Saburo’s hair. “You good?”
“It’s hot,” Saburo whines.
Jiro bites back his retort of how he’s only so hot because he’s always wearing his stupid sweater. Instead, he grabs him by the shoulder and turns him towards the door. Saburo rolls his eyes, but follows him inside anyway. A small bell chimes as Jiro pushes open the door.
“Hi Kimura-san!” Saburo chirps.
The storeowner smiles as they pass him, heading for the back of the store. They both like him— they’ve done a few jobs for him before, and he gives them discounts sometimes. Jiro glances into his wallet.
“You’re getting a small,” he says.
Saburo groans. “What the hell do you even spend all your money on?”
Recently it’s been v-kei CDs, but Saburo doesn’t need to know that. Instead of responding, he shoves a small cup into Saburo’s hands. This seems to satisfy him and he goes straight for the blue raspberry. The lime and cola flavours are out of order, as usual. Jiro wonders if Kimura would let him take a shot at fixing them someday. After a brief moment of deliberation, Jiro decides on cherry. They head back to the front counter to pay (no discount this time) and leave the store chatting about school.
Jiro likes hearing about what Saburo gets up to, which comes with the unfortunate caveat of Saburo interrogating him back. It’s kind of cute though. All his questions are met with brief explanations, which is typical, and then a parroted question back.
“How are your classes going?” Saburo mutters.
Jiro groans. “I have no idea what’s going on in science. I don’t think my partner does, either.”
“Who’s your partner?”
“Nobody you would know,” he shrugs.
Saburo hums and kicks a rock down the street. Jiro realizes he doesn’t actually have any way to contact Aimono. Not ideal, when they’re supposed to be working together for the next… however long they have to finish this project. He should probably hunt them down and get their number sometime tomorrow. He’ll have to slip away from his idiot friends first, though.
The next day at school, he keeps an eye out for Aimono. Yeah, he could always ask during science, but Fukushi sits between the two of them and Jiro gets mad just thinking of seeing him.
Fukushi has kind of been avoiding him all day, hanging out with his other friends— who Jiro is also friends with, leading to him having caught glimpses of his vaguely apologetic grimaces when they pass each other. He should be sorry, Jiro thinks. The rest of his friends, predictably, have been acting like they normally do. Every once in a while he catches one of them staring at him, but he ignores it and, for the most part, them. He’s put his attention and energy into working through listening to ArgoξOrchestra’s entire discography, picking out chord progressions and drum beats he particularly likes. He’s actually been making great progress on his songwriting, despite all the frustration his friends are causing him recently.
Morita taps him on the shoulder near the end of algebra. “Yamada!”
Jiro bites back a groan, turning around slowly. Morita’s eyes are wide, dumb grin on his face.
“Yooooo…”
Usually, Jiro would find his antics entertaining. Might even laugh at them. But today…
“Not in the mood,” he says.
Morita groans quietly, as if it isn’t his fault Jiro’s pissed off at him. Morita is like that, always a little slow on the uptake. Makes it hard to ignore him.
“Are you mad at me?” He practically whines. “Swear I didn’t know about your lil’ bro.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Jiro says. “You shouldn’t joke about that stuff either way…”
“Would you have given a shit, though?”
That gives him pause. He’s no better than the rest of them, really, ‘cause he wouldn’t have. He’s let them say worse things and not given a fuck at all.
He tosses his eraser at Morita’s face. He catches it with an annoying laugh.
“See? Now stop pretending to be mad at me, Okata has been driving me insane.”
He lets Morita go on about Okata’s latest transgression for the rest of the class, not really listening.
Jiro heavily considers skipping science. On one hand, there’s not much he’ll accomplish in class even if he does go. He could work on his song anywhere, and probably get more done if he isn’t being harassed by Fukushi and interrupted by the teacher. On the other hand, he needs to get Aimono’s number somehow and they only have this one class together. That decides it, then.
He’s one of the last people in the room. Fukushi and Aimono are already at their seats, annoyingly enough. He firmly ignores Fukushi, taking a seat and rolling his eyes when he starts stage whispering his name.
The teacher takes his spot at the front of the class and immediately launches into a lecture, unfortunately completely unrelated to the project.
Well, that settles it. Jiro pulls out his notebook, still ignoring Fukushi who has graduated to tapping him on the shoulder, and goes back to scribbling down lyrics.
When the bell chimes for lunch, he doesn’t get up to leave. Fukushi does, jostling his shoulder as he passes. Jiro seriously doesn’t know what he thought that was supposed to accomplish. Once Fukushi’s out of the room, he turns around in his seat and makes eye contact with Aimono.
“Yo,” he says.
Aimono jumps, staring at him with wide eyes. Their outfit today consists of a black top underneath a gray denim vest, a black denim skirt with an absurd amount of belts crossed over it. A silver headband pushes their short hair back, their bangs springing out at the sides. All the black looks hot as shit, Jiro’s sweating in just a tank top and basketball shorts. Aimono’s wearing knee-high socks too, black and white striped. He forces his gaze away from the thin, pale scars littering their thighs and forearms. Right, eye contact.
“You’re, um, Yamada-san, right?” Their voice is surprisingly childish for their height and appearance. Kind of mousy.
He nods. “Can I get your number? Just for, like, the assignment and stuff.”
Aimono nods, pulling out their phone. “Um, while you’re here… we can’t really work on this at my place…”
Jiro had been hoping they could, less chances for Saburo and Ichiro to embarrass him that way, but it’s fine. He says as much and Aimono shows him their number. He slings his bag over his shoulder and bids them goodbye, heading out to meet his friends for lunch. As he turns the corner down the hall, his phone buzzes.
Unknown Number: hi (´･ω･｀) it’s aimono!!