Chapter Text
When he was younger, maybe nine or ten years old, Toya Aoyagi sat down to eat one day and realized his dining room table had somehow grown larger overnight.
His father, up in his usual seat at the head of the table, was further away from his mother than he had been the previous night. His brothers, too, seemed to have a few more feet of space between them than was typical for siblings, and Toya himself, his small frame and small face and small hands, sat alone at the edge of the table, on an island of sorts, wondering why everyone was so far away from each other.
That was the night of his first piano recital, and he would come to realize years later that the table had never grown. In fact, there wasn’t an ounce of added physical distance between his family members that night; it was something emotional he hadn’t been able to comprehend at that age. Now, at sixteen, he knows. It was the night his family first regarded him as an adult.
He had been so small. But he had gotten through his first piano recital, and that was a rite of passage in the Aoyagi household, so it was enough.
From that day on, he was no longer Toya Aoyagi, youngest member of the Aoyagi family, son, brother, child. He was just Toya Aoyagi, the latest prodigy in a long line of half-famous musicians, most of which he couldn’t even name if he tried.
Toya Aoyagi. Musician.
Toya Aoyagi. Prodigy.
Toya Aoyagi. Empty.
Empty. That’s the word that comes to mind these days, when he puts off another day of practice, misses another rehearsal, stays silent in the face of ridicule or slams the front door behind him so hard the hinges shake and he can still hear the rage of his father from the other side even with the sound of wind rushing towards him, in one ear and out the other, like he’s invisible. A vessel. Empty.
Before he had shut himself outside, Toya’s father had warned him with the same calm anger he always weaponizes. “If you walk out that door, Toya, you’re never coming back.”
Toya had decided to take his chances, seeing as he’s faced the same threat at least a dozen times before, and nobody says a word when he shows up for breakfast the following day after climbing through his bedroom window in the middle of the night. Nobody says a word ever, really.
It’s a warm night in Shibuya, one of those rare ones in October, a good opportunity for a walk. Toya begins trailing away from his house without any particular destination in mind, just somewhere far enough to forget about everything waiting for him back home.
(He had considered not going home once, about a year ago, but had ultimately returned because what other option does he have?)
Stuffing his hands in his pockets and turning a corner into town, Toya shuts his eyes. He likes to see how far he can travel without looking sometimes, just for the thrill of wondering which foot will be the first to stumble, which eye will be the first to crack open, which part of him will let the fear of not knowing where he is take over first. It’s always his right side, for some reason. Tonight it’s his right eye, splitting just slightly, enough to figure out that he’s already an entire block into town.
For such a large city, his hometown is uncharacteristically slow at night. There are only a few hours of silence before it wakes up, and Toya always manages to catch those hours just in time. He cherishes them, holds them close to his chest, cradles them like they could fall through the gaps between his crooked fingers at any moment, yet they always manage to escape him. He always returns home when the city tells him it’s time to wake up.
Tonight he stops outside a small convenience store on the edge of the busy part of town, somewhere with enough light inside to see the concrete in front of him when he sits at the curb, with a cashier inside to come out and wake him up if he falls asleep here. He did once, accidentally, and that had been a harsh morning, a tired explanation for his parents.
Toya pulls his knees close to him as he stares out into the desolate street, hugs them tightly and sets his chin on the caps. Breathes in. Feels the air swim around in his lungs. Exhales.
Peace.
“Hey, uh, can I bother you for a second?”
Toya turns his head so fast he feels sparks fly up the side of his neck. There’s a boy standing next to him, a head of orange hair peeking around a giant bag of- of something, Toya can’t really tell from the ground. He sighs. “...Sure.”
The boy squats down next to him, awkwardly setting his stuff down, and Toya finally gets a good look at him. He looks to be about the same age, a high school student, and Toya just barely manages to register his olive eyes before he realizes those eyes are staring at him, waiting for an answer to a question he hadn’t heard. “Um. Huh?”
The boy raises an eyebrow. “I asked if you could watch this for a minute while I buy something inside.” He glances down at the bag. “It’s kind of a lot to carry around, so.”
Toya looks down too. “Yeah, I. I can.”
A fleeting grin is shot his way. “Cool. I’ll be right back, then.”
Toya watches the boy walk into the store behind him, and there’s an ease in his step that he envies. He’s boyish in a way Toya’s father never allowed him to be.
Turning his gaze back to the bag, Toya finally sees that it’s full of art supplies. Brushes, paints, blank canvases, pencils in fancy cases and markers in too many colors to count. Is he an artist? It’s plausible, with his vibrant hair and bright sweatshirt. Toya briefly wonders what his father would think if he tried to pick up painting, but he supposes he already got his answer a year or two back, when he had tried cooking dinner for his mother and failed so miserably he was banned from ever touching the stove again. His father had looked him in the eye and said, “Those hands of yours are only good for piano. Nothing else.”
Toya sighs. Sets his chin on his knees as he looks back out at the street. Someone passes by on a skateboard, flying down the other side of the road, and Toya watches until the figure disappears into the horizon.
The bell above the convenience store door jingles, and he glances back to see the boy exiting, a small plastic bag in his hand. He grins at Toya when he sees him, and Toya tells himself it’s only because his stuff is still here.
“Thanks, dude,” the boy says, and to Toya’s dismay he seats himself directly to the blue-haired boy’s right, setting the plastic bag at the ground between his feet. He fiddles with his fingers for a second before glancing at Toya. “Uh- ‘s it cool if I wait with you? My sister’s on her way.”
Toya shrugs. “Sure.”
There’s a beat of silence. Toya hopes the boy’s sister isn’t too far away.
“I’m Akito.”
There is not a world where I could care any less. “Toya.”
“Cool.” Akito pauses. “Shit, sorry, uh.” He gestures to the bag on Toya’s other side. “I think I left my phone in there. Would you mind-”
Toya’s gaze is flat as he reaches into the bag, fishing around through art supplies before Akito can finish his question and grabbing his phone without a word. As he hands it over to the boy, Akito’s eyes widen slightly, and it takes Toya a second to realize he’s looking at Toya’s hand. He rips his fingers away, letting the boy catch his phone, and shoves his hands back in his pockets. Silence envelops them once more.
“That looks painful,” Akito says quietly, and Toya kind of wants to cry out of frustration. He came here for a moment of peace, and this kid is ruining it, but he finds it a little hard to be too angry when it’s been so long since he last had company.
“It’s fine,” Toya replies, and he refuses to look away from his feet.
“Wait, I think I…” Akito trails off, rummaging around in his sweatshirt pocket. “Ah, here.” He pulls out a handful of stray band-aids and lets them scatter to the pavement between the boys like helicopter seeds.
Toya isn’t sure what to do. He doesn’t want this boy’s pity, he doesn’t want his antidotes, he just wants
(for this warmth to stay next to him)
to be left alone.
Before he can protest, Akito reaches down and plucks one off the ground, peeling the paper away to reveal a small, colorful design, something Toya doesn’t recognize. The boy glances up, sheepish. “I hope you don’t mind the Pokémon. It’s kind of all my mom buys.”
Toya shakes his head, but keeps his hands planted firmly in his pockets, hiding them. “I don’t need a band-aid.”
“Dude, they’re bleeding.”
“They’re just bruised.”
“Still.” Akito shakes the band-aid at him. “I already took the wrapping off.”
Toya pauses, thinking about what his father would say. After a beat, he tentatively removes his hands from his pockets, reaching for the band-aid. “Fine.”
“Wait, let-” Akito takes Toya’s hand in his own, and Toya thinks his heart stops. “Let me.”
He turns Toya’s hand over so his palm is facing downward, gently taking his middle finger and wrapping the band-aid around it. “Hope you like Pikachu,” Akito jokes, but Toya doesn’t react because. Because the boy’s hands are so terribly soft, the pads of his fingers pillowing against Toya’s own skin, knuckles reddened just so, a crack of leftover polish on his pinkie, and Toya doesn’t think he’s ever seen a more beautiful pair of hands in his life.
Toya has always thought his own hands were nothing short of brutish, knobby in all the wrong places, bruised all over with the strain of playing the piano for so many hours of so many days of so many years, and the worst part, the part that makes Toya want to hide his hands so badly, is the way his pinkies sort of twist the wrong way, stuck from a lifetime of stretching his fingers to reach far-away keys. There isn’t a single thing Toya has ever liked about his own hands, not when their only purpose is to remind Toya of how much of his life he’s already wasted and how much he’ll continue to waste.
Well, there wasn’t a single thing he liked about them until now.
Akito wraps another band-aid around the same finger on his other hand, citing something about the creatures on the band-aids needing friends, before turning both of Toya’s hands over in his own and studying his fingertips. They’re discolored, bruised. Gross.
“I play piano,” Toya explains quietly.
Akito hums. “Maybe you should take a break until they heal.”
“Can’t. I have a recital in January.”
The boy huffs, and Toya feels the puff of breath against his hand. “At least keep the band-aids on when you practice. Maybe put more on your other fingers.” He glances up at Toya. “It’ll probably help.”
Toya decides against telling him he can’t do that either. “...Sure.”
Akito nods, satisfied, and gently thumbs over the band-aids one more time, leaving Toya in a stuttering sort of shock when he finally drops his hands. He gathers the remaining band-aids and stuffs them back in his pockets.
“Are-” Toya stops when Akito glances over at him. Swallows. “Are you an artist?”
Akito blinks, brow furrowing. “No?” He pauses for a brief moment, before his eyes find the bag of supplies next to Toya. “Oh, the- no, that’s not mine. ‘S for my sister.”
“Is she good?”
“She doesn’t seem to think so,” Akito shrugs. “But the stuff she lets me see is really good.” He nods towards the bag. “She always sends me on errands at night because she’s too tired after her night school or whatever. It’s annoying, but she always gives me extra money for food and picks me up, so.” Another shrug. “Y’know?”
Toya tries to remember the last time he talked to one of his brothers without feeling like a rabbit in a lion’s den. “Not really.”
“Only child?”
“I have two brothers.”
“Do they play piano too?”
“Yeah. And violin.”
“That’s sick,” Akito says, and he leans back on the palms of his hands. “I wish I could play an instrument. I tried to pick up guitar when I was, like, twelve, but I sucked.”
Toya shrugs. “It’s… harder than it seems.”
“Tell me about it,” the boy nods. “Took me like two weeks to play one scale. Then Ena, my sister, she laughed at me when I played it for her. I just gave up after that.”
The corner of Toya’s mouth quirks up as he glances at Akito. “You were really that bad?”
“I was,” Akito nods, and his eyes are bright when they find Toya’s. “I can sing a scale just fine, but that’s about it.”
“You sing?”
“For fun, yeah. My-” Akito cuts off when he suddenly spots something behind Toya, mouth clamping shut. “Oh, my sister’s here.”
Toya twists around and spots a girl riding towards them on a bike, slowing down until she comes to a halt in front of Akito. Ena. Her brown hair and eyes are such a drastic shift from Akito’s orange and olive that Toya never would’ve guessed their relation if Akito hadn’t told him.
“Who’s that,” she asks Akito as a greeting, nodding at Toya.
Toya is about to answer, but Akito beats him to it. “Toya. He agreed to watch your shit for me while I bought snacks.”
Ena fixes her brother with a withering look. “You left an entire bag of expensive art supplies with a stranger just so you could buy, what, chips?”
“Candy, actually.”
“...Get on here before I change my mind and leave you stranded.”
Akito rolls his eyes, lifting himself to his feet and retrieving his bags before climbing onto the back of the bike. Using one arm to hold his things and the other to hold onto his sister, he looks over at Toya, who’s still seated on the ground. “Thank y-” He’s cut short with a yell as Ena takes off, giving the boys no time to complete a proper goodbye. Toya watches them go, almost entranced until they finally disappear.
He sits in the silence for a moment, but it seems more lonely than peaceful now. Flexing his fingers, he holds one hand up underneath the streetlight, studying the small band-aids Akito had adorned him with. For a second, as a silhouette, his fingers look… nice.
He curls them into his palm, retracting his hand from the light and folding it close to his chest.
Toya sits outside for another hour, just to run his fingertips along the band-aids over and over again, just to remember the way Akito had folded them so gently, thumbed the seal with a featherlight touch, just to commit them to memory before he has to peel them off tomorrow morning.
Just to hold onto that warmth for a little bit longer.
+++
When Toya arrives at school the following morning, he doesn’t have the band-aids on.
To his credit, he had tried to keep them. He thought maybe, if he tried hard enough, he could hide them from his parents. He just needed a long shirt or something, if he could just cover them- but how would he eat breakfast?
He had peeled them off in the bathroom that morning, the memory of clutching them as he fell asleep being tossed along with them. Nothing personal, he had thought faintly, watching them fall into the trash can. He didn’t mean anything when he gave them to me, and I don’t mean anything by taking them off. It’s fine.
But it’s not fine, not really. Because without the band-aids, he’s even more aware of the bruises on his fingertips, hiding them in his pockets every chance he gets. This sucks.
Toya often keeps his head down in the hallways at school, only looking up when he gets to wherever he’s heading, whether that be his classroom, the roof to eat, or the doors to leave. He has each path memorized like a song, the cracks and lines of the ground seared into his mind, to the point where he doesn’t even need to glance up anymore.
He’s taking one such path this morning, letting the lines along the blue floor guide him to his classroom, hands in his pockets, bag jostling against his back, a flood of conversation surrounding him. And he’s so close, just a few hurried steps away, when he hears something that makes him stop dead in his tracks.
“Toya?”
Body frozen, Toya slowly looks up, just to his right where the voice came from and it’s. Fuck. Fuck.
“...Akito?”
The boy’s eyebrows shoot up, but Toya is too distracted to care about the look he’s giving him when Akito is standing right in front of a window and that- that hair of his, that vibrant orange, that awkward and sort of endearing yellow streak, is blinding him. He lets his eyes fall to the boy’s hands, and that jealousy from the night before pools in his stomach and when he finally finds Akito’s face he thinks he might throw up with how overwhelmed he feels.
“I didn’t know you went here,” Akito is saying, but Toya is finally noticing the two girls he’s standing near, both eyeing Toya with varying degrees of confusion.
“I- Yeah,” Toya replies intelligently. “I didn’t know you went here either?”
It comes out like question and Toya hates it but he hates the way Akito immediately glances down at his hands even more, because Toya, in his state of hair-blinded shock, had accidentally removed them from his pockets and now those stupid finger blemishes are on full display and he really wishes he had faked sick today.
Toya shoves his hands back in his pockets. Akito says nothing.
“So you’re Toya!” One of the girls says, long hair swaying as she elbows Akito. “Akito, man, you didn’t mention how cu-”
“An!” Akito cuts her off, and the annoyance on his face is a sharp contrast to the gentle way he had looked at Toya last night. “Shut up.”
The girl, An, snickers behind her hand. “Fine, fine.” She turns to Toya. “I hope Akito didn’t scare you. I know he looks kinda freaky when he’s being polite.”
Akito’s jaw goes slack, like he can’t believe the audacity of his friend. “You-”
“He didn’t,” Toya cuts the boy off, sensing the beginning of an argument. “He was nice.”
An grins, crossing her arms. “That’s his fake nice, you’ll get used to it.”
Toya pauses. Fake nice? Was Akito only pretending to care about his hands last night? Of course he was. It wouldn’t be the first time Toya has misinterpreted someone’s actions, gotten their intentions all mixed up in his head.
But how did he mess up this badly? How had he been up practically all night thinking about the band-aids Akito had given him, the soft pads of the boy’s fingertips, smooth where they brushed against Toya’s own, the- the boy’s smile, his laugh, his hair, his hands, how had he let himself believe that had been out of anything other than pity? Of course it was pity.
“An, leave him alone,” the other girl, a small blonde, says. “We need to go to class.”
“But-”
“Now.”
An huffs. “Fine.”
The two girls walk off, An shooting Akito one last impish grin over her shoulder. As soon as they turn the corner, Akito sighs, glancing at Toya. “Sorry about her. An can be a lot.”
Toya shrugs. “I don’t mind. They seem nice.”
“Kohane is,” Akito says. “I don’t think I could handle An if the two of them didn’t come as a package deal.”
Toya nods and an awkward silence falls over them, filling the space like a taunt. The conversation had flowed so easily last night, when it was just the two of them, but now it seems so much harder, like if Toya says the wrong thing everyone will turn and point and laugh.
“Um,” Akito starts, biting the inside of his cheek. “You… took the band-aids off?”
Toya winces, feeling guilty. “Oh. Yeah.”
“Was it.” Akito pauses. “Was it the Pokémon? I’m sorry man, I swear I would’ve given you a plain one if-”
“It wasn’t that,” Toya interrupts, shaking his head. How does he explain why he couldn’t let his parents see them without explaining his entire life story? No normal kid’s parents would get mad at a band-aid, and he doesn’t want Akito to know he’s different. Doesn’t want to chase him away. “I just. Uh. They were- falling off, so.”
It’s a lame excuse, and Akito doesn’t quite look like he believes him, but he simply nods instead of saying anything. Toya almost sighs with relief.
The chimes suddenly ring out above them as a reminder to get to class, and Toya looks around, only just realizing how sparse the hallways have become. He looks back at Akito, unsure of how to say goodbye.
Luckily, Akito beats him to it. “D’you maybe wanna sit with us at lunch?”
Toya falters, thinking of his typical lunch routine, the lonely meals up on the school rooftop. It’s safe up there. But he looks at Akito, at his hands, his hair, his face, and thinks maybe it’ll be better, maybe I can make a friend. Maybe I can get to know Akito more and maybe he’ll give me another band-aid someday, one I don’t have to take off.
He nods. “Sure.”
Akito grins, tense shoulders loosening. “Sweet. Come to room 1-A, okay?”
“Okay,” Toya replies, but Akito is already leaving with a wave, rushing to class.
Toya stands in the hallway, alone. Something tells him that with this one decision, that one single word, he’s suddenly made his life a little bit harder. But he can’t care, not with that grin on repeat in his mind, playing over and over, like a song stuck in his head.
Toya had always thought that piano would be the death of him, but maybe it’ll be Akito instead. There are worse ways to go, he thinks, finally turning and taking those last few steps into his classroom.
Every hour leading up to lunch finds Toya doodling on his notebook paper, watching the trees sway outside the window, and barely listening to the teacher even when she calls on him, to which he replies with a bright, “Uh- Huh?” and is promptly embarrassed by the laughter that ensues. And he knows the disappointed and confused glance he gets from the woman at the front of the room is justified, but he can’t help his absent-mindedness. He can’t stop thinking about lunch.
He thinks he’s excited, mostly, that must be it. But it’s also a bit of fear, a bit of stomach-flipping anxiety, a bit of that I’ve never had any friends before and there must be a reason for that so how do I magically make friends now? Is it even possible for someone like me? He shakes his head when the lunch chimes ring out. Waits in a few painful seconds of stillness. Rises from his seat a beat after everyone else.
No way around it, he thinks, lunch gripped in shaky hands as, for the first time ever, he makes his way to the classroom next door rather than the roof. I can’t back out. Well, I could. But I won’t.
He stops short at the threshold of the new classroom. What if he steps inside and Akito isn’t there? What if he’s there, but he sees Toya’s repulsive hands again and turns him away? What if he got the room entirely wrong? What if the invite had been a joke he missed out on? What if-
He takes a deep breath that feels a lot shallower than it probably is, settling tight in his throat. I could back out. But I won’t.
Toya steps into the room, and it’s no surprise that his eyes find Akito right away. He’s sitting in the back corner, talking animatedly to An and Kohane about something, eyes bright. Toya swallows. The boy looks warm.
Someone suddenly shuffles their way out of the room, sliding around Toya with an annoyed look, and he shifts in place. He’s been standing here for too long, he should be moving, he should be approaching the people who literally invited him to sit with them, but. But he can’t. Standing in the doorway feels like standing in a pit of quicksand, like moving will only make things worse, like either way he’ll die but it’s much easier to let it take him than fight it and shit, shit, is the room getting hot or is it just him?
Akito rises from his seat, ending a conversation Toya hadn’t heard, and then the boy takes a few steps towards the door before finally looking up and realizing Toya is already standing there, clutching his lunch like a lifeline, like a kid on his first day of school, like a total fucking loser, god, why can’t he be normal just once? With his stupid bruised fingers and his dumb knobby knees and his boring grey eyes and-
“Toya!”
-and that voice rips him out of whatever trance he’d been stuck in. Toya blinks, and Akito comes into focus where he stands in the classroom, a small smile on his face. “I was gonna come get you, thought you got lost or something.”
Toya almost deflates. Humiliating. “No. I was just, uh. Late.”
“Nah, lunch has barely started. C’mere.”
Akito motions him inside, and Toya manages to force his leadened feet to follow him to the back corner. They sit side by side, across from the two girls, a little too close together for Toya’s comfort. His fingers curl around his lunch.
“So!” An starts, and the girl next to her jumps. “Toya. I don’t think I ever got to properly introduce myself.” She sticks her hand out. “I’m An!”
Toya doesn’t really want to shake her hand. Luckily he doesn’t have to, because Akito mutters something about An already making a bad impression and she uses both of her hands to shove at him until the boy swats her away.
The blonde girl directly across from Toya sighs. “I’m Kohane.”
“A.k.a. the cutest thing in this entire school,” An says jokingly, and she turns to pinch the cheek of the girl next to her.
Toya watches Kohane turn red and tell An to shut up. He thinks they’re both pretty and wilts in his seat a little bit.
“Anyway,” An says, turning back to Toya. “Akito said he gave you those embarrassing Pokémon band-aids. Where are they?”
Akito opens his mouth to say something, but Toya shakes his head. “They weren’t embarrassing.” He scrambles to think of an excuse. “They just, uh…”
“Fell off, right?” Akito offers.
Shit, right. “Yeah. They fell off.”
Nobody looks like they believe him. Toya kind of wants to die, just a tiny bit.
“Well I’m jealous,” An continues after a beat of silence, crossing her arms over her chest. “Akito never gives me band-aids.”
“That’s because you never ask him,” Kohane says, sipping her juice. “You always make me put them on for you.”
An pauses. “Okay you’re right. But he could at least offer!”
Throughout the next forty or so minutes, Toya comes to realize that most of the conversation between these three is driven by An. She bickers with Akito any chance she gets, flatters Kohane almost as much, and tries to include Toya at every turn possible. Toya likes her. She’s fun.
He likes Kohane too, even though she doesn’t talk as much as her friends. They’re similar in that way, both focusing on their lunch and listening to the conversations going on next to them. Toya thinks they could be friends.
And Akito is… different, from last night. Under moonlight and alone with Toya, he was gentle, all soft-spoken words and steady hands. Here, with the midday sun bathing him in a bright glow, he’s snappy and full of energy, always biting back at An until Kohane stops them.
Toya spends a lot of time studying his face when he talks, the lift of his mouth and the quirk of his eyebrows, and because of this he doesn’t miss how often the boy glances over at Toya’s hands. They’re subtle looks, to his credit, but Toya catches each and every one. He can’t make sense of why.
When another set of chimes rings out, far too quickly for Toya’s liking, he’s sad when he stands up to leave. He likes these people, likes listening to them talk and chiming in and feeling like they don’t mind that he’s there. Is this a regular thing? Should he ask?
An groans as she and Kohane climb out of their seats. “God I hate math. Can we ditch?”
Kohane fixes her with a flat look. “No.”
“Besides,” Akito says, leaning back in his seat. “We get our quizzes back today, and if I beat you, you have to buy us all juice tomorrow.”
“That’s not even fair!” An huffs. “I didn’t know I’d have to buy four juices, I only agreed to three!”
“Then let's hope you did better than me,” Akito says, tongue in cheek, and Kohane pulls An away before the two can start another argument.
Toya, secretly pleased, turns to follow them, but Akito suddenly grabs his wrist and he thinks he might pass out. “Toya, wait.”
He turns back to see Akito shuffling around in his bag. After a few seconds, he pulls out a small box and presses it into Toya’s hand.
That yellow creature from the night before is smiling up at Toya, accompanied by a cat and a duck. Pokémon band-aids. He looks back up at Akito, brow furrowed. “What-”
“They’re for you,” Akito rushes to explain, absentmindedly rubbing at the space below his ear. “Keep ‘em.”
Toya stares at the boy a little bit longer, at the splotches of embarrassed red on his cheeks, before he lets himself smile. “...Thank you.”
Akito slumps in relief, but his half-grin is bright. “No problem.” He pauses. “Uh. You’re gonna be late, though.”
Toya’s eyes go wide as he snatches his lunch off the desk and rushes out of the room, the slight sound of Akito’s laughter following him out the door. And it takes him getting all the way back to his own classroom, to his own desk, to his own seat in the corner of the room, to realize that the package the boy gave him is unopened. He gave me a new box?
The thought makes Toya feel warm. He puts the band-aids in his backpack and ignores the funny feeling in his stomach.