[Summer; Swimming] Fireworks in Water
Title: fireworks in water
Author: turtleheartz
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Johnny’s Entertainment, Hey! Say! JUMP, with tiny cameos of other senpai
Pairing(s)/Focus: Yuto-centred, one-sided Yuto/Anne
Length: 7,822
Summary: It’s annoying, the way everyone thinks that Yuto can’t do it, especially that sorry excuse of a captain without a single encouraging bone in him.
He wants to show them what he’s made of, to prove them wrong.
He wants to swim.
There’s only one problem-he’s made of fire.
Warnings: cursing, pain descriptions (non-graphic) and the absence of a Yamada
Notes: A huge thank you to my beta (baeta hurhur) + personal cheerleader xingphonic for sticking with me throughout this whole thing. Also to my very beautiful friends who sprinted with me! I had fun (and many tears) writing this, so I hope you’ll enjoy it! #JustKeepSwimming
Everyone knows that water extinguishes fire, putting out its flames.
He takes a deep breath, and the next moment, he is ablaze. The gross smell of singed rubber begins to fill the air, a by-product of his ignition. It’s sort of the very last push, and then he is in the water.
Yuto knows that he is a flame-it’s hard to ignore his energy seeping out of him the moment he dived in.
He frowns, letting his arms take over as they slip into practiced strokes. It’s entirely different from doing the same movements on land, with the added resistance of the water, and on top of that, his body’s resistance to the water. It makes him cringe, but ultimately serves to propel him forward.
His skin throbs despite the full body wetsuit that was supposed to protect him, but he doesn’t seem to feel any added effect.
Regular people may describe such a terrible sensation as burning, but Yuto knows he isn’t burning. When Yuto burns, fire envelopes him in a warm embrace and he feels at home. The cold liquid surrounding him stings, and Yuto knows he is far from home.
It reminds him that he is just a flame, but if he is a flame, he is a flame that will not go out.
When he comes to, the first thing he registers is a sharp flick to his forehead.
Anne-san.
Yuto remembers the first time he met Anne. It was during the first week of school, when he got lost in the maze of winding corridors and somehow ended up in the infirmary.
Apparently Kamenashi-sensei was off for some Superhero talk and Anne was alone, or at least Yuto was under the impression that she thought she was. The nurse was halfway through a scarily on-point Perfume rendition when the tall boy stumbled in.
She stopped immediately, as if she wasn’t singing just a second ago and crossed the room in quick strides, taking Yuto’s face in her hands. After the initial surprise wore off, it finally occurred to Yuto that she was checking for injuries.
Yuto was mostly enamoured by her stunning beauty, and could only blink with his mouth wide open as she squished his cheeks in between her palms, asking him if he was hurt.
She did eventually find out that Yuto was lost, but instead of berating him, she fed him suspicious looking biscuits and pet his head, asking him how he liked the school so far.
The biscuits tasted like absolute shit, but Yuto felt lovely inside.
“Thank you,” Yuto mumbled quietly, stealing a glance at her nametag, “Watanabe-san.”
She smiled, and Yuto swore that his heart already started soaring. “It’s Anne-san,” she said with a wink and a pinch to his cheeks.
Yuto thinks that is the moment he fell in love.
Her face is laden with disapproval, and with minimal movements, Yuto realises that Kamenashi-sensei is sporting the same expression.
He sighs.
“What is wrong with you?!” It’s Kame now, with his angry but well-trimmed eyebrows glaring at him. Most of the time Kame and Anne were angels in white, but right now all Yuto wants to do is to curl up in the limited comfort of the covers-or sleep. Sleep sounds good; maybe when he wakes up he’ll forget about the mind numbing pain shooting up his sides.
“Oi!” Kame glares some more. “You’re not allowed to sleep, you little brat.” That shuts Yuto up. “I’ve got to run a couple tests on you and when we’re done maybe you’ll like to explain to me, your guardian, why you’re volunteering to be in direct contact with your poison.”
Yuto gulps.
“Back so soon for more?”
The voice startles Yuto so much he almost drops his pen.
Takaki Yuya is the captain of the swim team, full of smiles ranging from smug to downright dopey.
“Didn’t you just get injured a while ago?”
Yuto hates that. He scowls.
“If you’re still injured, you probably shouldn’t take part.” Takaki’s voice only serves to egg Yuto on, and before the latter realises it, he’s already fuming. “Don’t want you bleeding in the swimming pool like a girl on her period, right?”
Literally.
His free hand automatically moves to fan the fumes away from the top of his head and he has to repeatedly tell himself to calm down.
Takaki Yuya just doesn’t seem to be helping, because the bastard decides to erupt into fucking giggles.
The giggles eventually subside when met with Yuto’s heated glare, but nothing gets the smirk off Takaki’s face.
Yuto swallows, turning away from Takaki and his awfully taunting smile. The latter’s gaze is probably burning holes in his back (not in a good way), but he picks up the pen anyway.
Yuto has never felt so ashamed before.
It takes a great effort to try and not let it bother him, because Takaki’s gaze is cold and it bothers him, but he writes his name on the sign-up sheet with confident strokes, right under the captain's name.
“Takaki-kun!” Yuto cringes slightly at the hearts he hears in the newcomer’s voice, but scrambles to leave-not without angrily chucking the pen at Takaki’s head.
The pen only bounces off Takaki’s very fluffy hair.
Damn.
He ends up running into Kame in his haste to get the fuck away.
“What,” Kame gestures to the pool’s changing rooms, “were you doing there?”
Yuto blinks, looking down.
“Is this you deliberately trying to go against me?” Kame questions, frowning harder, to which Yuto shakes his head vigorously. “I thought you got over your rebellious phase a year ago,” he sighs.
“I just-” Yuto begins, but stops himself halfway. He doesn’t expect Kame to understand. Kame is a wonderful person, but he doesn’t understand the pain of not being able to survive in his element in a particular medium. Kame’s like Superman minus the kryptonite, because Yuto has never seen a thing that fazed him.
It frustrates him.
Why do people get things like warm baths and cold showers, when Yuto has to deal with a large tank that manually removes the dirt off his skin?
And that Takaki Yuya. He looks at Yuto like he knows the latter will never make it.
It’s not like Yuto doesn’t know his limits, but someone once told him not to limit his challenges, but challenge his limits.
“Well?” Kame is still looking at him expectantly.
“I just want to survive in water.”
“You know that’s impossible.”
“I know people who have.”
“What?”
“People that have survived.”
“What?”
“Just because fire-users are banned from the library, doesn’t mean that we don’t have any access to information.”
Kame lets out a heavy sigh, but it’s enough for Yuto to know he isn’t that mad at him anymore. “Are you sure you’re one of them?”
“I want to survive,” Yuto grits out, finally unclenching his fists. “I want to live without fears; is that so bad?”
Kame looks Yuto right in the eye and Yuto stares right back at him, determined not to back out.
“It seems like whatever I say won’t change your mind, will it?” Kame relents, sounding defeated. “Be careful,” he warns, turning to leave.
“Sometimes it’s good to have fears,” Kame smiles, mostly to himself, but Yuto notices that it is sad. He turns back to look at Yuto. “They keep us in check.”
Yuto stubbornly decides to brave his semi-healed injuries and go straight for the kill.
He places a tentative foot unto the surface of the water and almost immediately, steam pours between his toes. The heat, although comforting, unwelcome because Yuto knows how much energy it drains from him.
He dives in.
He starts off with a kick and eases into freestyle, but he has to come up to breathe so often it feels like he never moved an inch. He struggles with the new patterns of motion for a while more, before slipping back into the more fluid (he laughs a little at the irony) movements of the breadth stroke.
It makes him feel really accomplished when he is able to go beyond his past record of one single lap, and pushes him to go an even longer distance. It doesn’t last; halfway through his third lap the dull sting at the spot under his knee suddenly turns sharp.
Yuto hoists himself up with the help of the ladder, only to find a deep cut right where the sting is.
Shit.
He doesn’t want to think about the other injuries he already acquired on the rest of his body.
Yabu’s reaction when he finds a limping Yuto in the doorway to his lab is to tsk and flick his wrist at Yuto in the general direction of the couch.
The latter squeaks as he finds himself pressed onto the couch by a mysterious force. He squirms, even after the air is gone.
Yabu brings out a large box of unidentified substances, positioning himself in front of Yuto’s injured leg. “Don’t move,” Yabu commands, moving to disinfect Yuto’s wound.
Yuto complies and sits quietly, until the great affliction suddenly intensifies.
He screams at the bite of pain, accidentally letting out a blast of fire in his attempt to not move his foot. Yuto blinks, looking away from the slightly charred ceiling sheepishly.
Yabu only looks up when he’s done dressing that wound, but Yuto can tell he’s seen the damage from his eyes.
Yuto’s genius-scientist-friend-who might not be his friend anymore after this sighs, muttering, “collateral damage,” repeatedly under his breath, although Yuto can definitely still hear him.
Yuto has no choice but to sit very still while Yabu continues to poke and prod at his skin, even when his injuries have been taken care of. He allows himself to get lost in the older boy’s very elaborate set-up, watching that clear drop of substance go through five different tubes and turning into another colour at various points. The final product is blood red.
At some point of time Yuto is pretty sure the older boy really does cross-reference his skin colour to something that looks like a colour chart.
“You know it’s almost impossible for you to develop full immunity to water, right?” Yabu stops suddenly, turning to him.
“But it’s an ‘almost’, right?” Part of Yuto wants to believe he can, but he doesn’t really know how.
“Your cells really don’t work like regular humans’.” Yabu explains, his voice far from optimistic. “This isn’t like an allergy or something, it’s more of a skin defect.”
Yuto only sighs.
“In fact, you might not even be able to develop any immunity. You might just be in for waves of pain.”
Yuto blinks, staring at the floor.
“Get it? Waves? Because like-yeah I know it hurts to laugh, I’m sorry.”
The injured boy grimaces.
It barely feels like a minute before a light blue vial is dangled in Yuto’s line of sight.
He feels better after the first sip.
Yuto really should be doing his essay on energy preservation, but he lays on his flame-proof beanbag, roasting marshmallows with his fingers and popping them into his mouth. His other hand is busy toying with a tiny flame, passing the spark from finger to finger while his furry companion bats at it with her tiny paws.
Pets aren’t technically allowed on campus, but he’d picked up Pizza on a rainy night and was never able to let her go.
She has a strange fascination when it comes to flames, and enjoys chasing after the tiny bursts of warmth on Yuto’s fingers. The latter thinks it’s amusing, because it’s almost the only time he sees her move.
Besides, he’s oddly comforted that she stayed, despite the flames, or maybe because of the flames.
(Not many do.)
He has half the mind to submit one line: ‘the chemical equation for combustion,’ but he figures Ninomiya-sensei will not appreciate that. The latter may even bring out the weird power suits as punishment, and Yuto has heard rumours pertaining to those particular suits; he really doesn’t want to suffer.
Yuto can see it in Anne’s eyes that she wants to give up on him entirely after only the third practice.
“I just want to beat him,” Yuto breathes, and Kame’s eyes soften.
The hand that presses a new gauze right under his shoulder doesn’t.
Yuto winces.
“It’s not healthy,” Anne tells him, but Kame is quick to warn her, causing her to fall silent.
“Nothing he does is healthy,” Kame chides, but it’s affectionate, coupled by a hair ruffle. “This kid eats marshmallows for lunch.”
Yuto’s next trip to the pool doesn’t end well either.
He thought he had it all planned out, by regulating the number of visits he takes to the pool, but the injuries never seemed to lessen.
Still, Yuto manages to get himself to Yabu’s lab once again, with little half-steps and hobbles.
Yabu wordlessly hands him another vial, and Yuto gulps it down immediately.
The throbbing ceases.
Yuto allows himself to feel relieved, sighing as he sinks a little further into the ratty couch Yabu keeps in his lab.
“Feel better?”
“Yeah,” he offers Yabu a sheepish smile before nodding in thanks, but the older boy doesn’t comment on his-according to Kame-crazy stupid ways.
He thinks it’s better like that.
One can only have one Kamenashi Kazuya in their lives.
Besides, Yabu cares for him in his own way, judging by how Yuto can feel the healing potion spread to his toes; it’s much stronger than the previous one.
By midnight, Yuto is already removing the bandage around his ribs.
Word travels fast, especially in a school where a normal mean of transportation is to teleport.
Yuto knows that Takaki has withdrawn from the competition even before that lackey kid of his, Juri something, comes looking for him.
“You’re the reason Takaki-kun decided not to compete anymore!” Juri looks like he’s trying very hard to glare at Yuto; he even puffs out his chest. Yuto is too bothered by this news to be amused at the situation, so he just glares even harder and turns away.
“Why the fuck did you withdraw from the competition?”
Takaki’s eyes widen but he doesn’t get to speak, what with Yuto cutting him off again.
“Is it because you don’t see me as a worthy opponent?” Yuto has both fists curled around Takaki’s collar, and the latter sighs.
Yuto doesn’t understand why.
“It’s not that-it’s just stupid to punish yourself like this, isn’t it?”
Yuto blinks.
Takaki ‘dopey-smiles’ Yuya is actually making sense for once, but his pride, his god-awful pride is always in the way. “It’s training,” he scoffs, dropping his fists and turning to leave the locker room.
“Hey,” Takaki’s grip on his wrist is cold, and Yuto’s first instinct is to wrench himself away. “I think we got off on the wrong foot.”
“Ya think?” Yuto scoffs, and Takaki finally lets go. “You told me to stop bleeding in the water. It’s not like I can control it, you know I can barely survive in the water.”
“Then I’ll train you.”
Takaki Yuya is crazy, Yuto decides.
“Why would I do that? You’ll kill me,” he replies, studying the look on Takaki’s face.
Takaki’s frown only matches the growing one on his face. “No,” he begins, and his tone carries finality. “I’ll prevent you from killing yourself.”
Yuto absolutely abhors Takaki’s training sessions. In their entire hour together, Takaki only lets Yuto in the water for a maximum of fifteen minutes.
The rest of the time is spent doing breathing exercises.
“How come you don’t let me swim for any longer?” Yuto asks on his second practice with Takaki, and Takaki gives him a look.
“Because you can’t.”
“I can swim!” Yuto insists, frowning at the swimming-trunk-clad Takaki in front of him.
“I don’t mean that you can’t swim, it’s just that you shouldn’t be in the water-” Takaki stops when he realises Yuto is no longer in front of him, but instead making his way to the pool.
“Ten minutes then!”
Scrooge.
Yuto dives in, executing a perfect breaststroke for two laps. He only falters slightly at the last bit, when he misjudges the end of the pool and ends up grabbing water instead of the edge of the pool.
When he comes up for air, he accidentally chokes a little on the water, and that is enough of a signal for Takaki to pull him out of the pool, effectively ending their training.
That idiot even drops him off at Kame’s office, like he expects Yuto to want a lecture from the older man.
After much efforts by Yuto to get Takaki to stop taking him to Kame’s office, the swim captain finally gives in, on the condition that he walks Yuto to his room.
If Yuto is bothered by the sudden loss of personal space, he doesn’t voice it.
“How do you even get clean anyway? There’s no way you can actually bathe or shower, the water will kill you.” Takaki comments, his hand still steadily attached to Yuto’s back as they ascend the stairs.
As if Yuto is so weak to collapse at any moment. That was a one-time thing, Yuto tried to explain, because he’s sure it will never happen again.
Takaki just isn’t having it.
“That,” Yuto points to the DEgerminiser2011, and Takaki blinks. The machine’s exterior isn’t humble by any standards, its doors sporting heavy metal reinforcements.
Takaki cringes outwardly. “Can you even breathe in this thing?”
Yuto shrugs, stepping away from Takaki’s outstretched arm, “Sure. Now if you will excuse me, I’m going to go be clean.”
The green bar signals that he’s good to go, so Yuto steps out of the machine to find Takaki in the midst of a rather intense staring contest with his cat.
“Uhm,” Yuto coughs awkwardly, not knowing whether to interrupt.
Pizza just meows back at him.
“You didn’t tell me you had a cat?” Takaki says, but it sounds more like a question.
Yuto scoffs, “because I’m not supposed to, duh.” He rolls his eyes at the swim captain, beckoning for Pizza. She circles his legs once, twice, before settling right on his feet.
Well.
“It looks angry at me,” Takaki complains.
Yuto laughs, picking Pizza up with both hands. “Look at her, man! She’s adorable,” Yuto coos. “How can she be angry?” The cat settles in the crook of his arm like an infant, pawing his face in a way that can only be described as tender.
Yuto hopes it is more of a “there, there, I love you human,” than a “lol, stupid human.”
Takaki flinches away when Yuto steps closer with Pizza in his arms, but his reaction is nothing compared to the cat in Yuto’s arms’.
Pizza practically hisses, causing Takaki to take another three steps back.
Yuto chortles with laughter, choosing to ruffle Pizza’s fur and ignoring Takaki’s plight.
“Okay, can we just never let me meet her again?” Takaki says with his arms crossed, a good metre away from the cat.
“Why?” Yuto grins, “she’s friendly!”
“I promise I won’t ever bring you to Kamenashi-sensei’s office unless you’re in a life and death situation, and please, just keep her away from me.”
“Deal.” Yuto beams, putting Pizza down. Takaki’s eyes go wide, but the cat only stalks away in the opposite direction, not without sending a glare in his direction.
“Truce?” Takaki offers.
“Eh, I’ll think about it.”
Takaki is especially harsh to him on their next training. Yuto supposes he deserves it.
He still walks Yuto back to his dormitory, and Yuto continues to complain about Takaki’s cold hand.
It’s an odd kind of truce, Yuto thinks.
It is by chance that Yuto discovers that Takaki is failing Potions. In Yuto’s defence, the latter wasn’t doing that a great of a job hiding it.
“How do you even fail Potions?”
Takaki sulks, staring at his stack of notes with detailed diagrams about where to find which herb (which Yuto never bothers studying, since they have a school garden for a good reason).
“Do you even understand these?” Yuto waves the cue cards with Takaki’s scratchy handwriting in the older boy’s face.
“No,” he mumbles sheepishly, sulking even more.
“I’m not any good at Potions either, but I get solid Cs!”
Takaki’s face turns into complete amazement. “How?”
“Uhh I kind of have help on the side?” Takaki gives him a look. “I told you I wasn’t any good at potions!”
Yuto’s “help on the side” is none other than Yabu Kota. He watches Takaki and Yabu blink at each other for a while before they burst into a fit of giggles.
“You two know each other?” Yuto asks incredulously.
“Yeah,” Takaki says, trying to suppress a smile while Yabu gives Yuto the briefest of nods.
“Great!” Yuto beams. “Yabu-kun can help you pass!”
Yabu visibly cringes.
“I gave up on this one a long time ago.”
Takaki scoffs, “you’re just a bad teacher!”
“And you’re really awful at Potions!”
“Guys.”
“How do you even learn anything from this guy anyway? Are you sure he can teach?”
He scratches the back of his neck sheepishly, trying to stall. “I come here like really often, you know? When I get injured and stuff I just sit here and watch Yabu do his thing.”
“How long have you been-”
It’s not like Yuto doesn’t want people to care, but the genuine concern he hears in Takaki’s voice is largely unexpected. He decides it doesn’t matter, “what matters is that I can actually pass Potions when you’re dying in that class.”
Yabu sniggers.
Takaki takes a random cushion off the couch and hurls it at Yabu, but the latter sends a gust of wind with a simple point of his finger, sending the cushion back to it’s original position on the couch.
“Seriously,” Yuto continues, “It’s not like it’s Ninomiya-sensei or anything, it’s Aya-sensei, and she’s pretty chill.”
Takaki turns his head so fast Yuto thinks he might get whiplash. “How do you-Oomasa-sensei scares me.”
“Ah, so you’re one of her sacrifices,” Yuto cringes, an apologetic look on his face. “Sorry bro.”
“She makes us do all these experiments in the dark!” Takaki sputters indignantly.
Yuto just raises a lit finger and says nothing at all.
Takaki still doesn’t pass Potions, but Yabu sends a flying pig to deliver a tub of ointment to protect Yuto’s skin.
Just when Yuto starts to think things might just work out for once, he sees the ring on Anne-san’s finger.
The ring was beautiful, glistening as it caught the light. Anne had pranced around their office flaunting it, yelling, “Look who’s getting married!”
Kame had a great laugh, until she proceeded to almost break his nose.
Yuto managed a smile, and congratulated her.
But now all he remembers is how stunningly regal she looked, the diamonds on her finger shining like stars in the sky.
It’s not like he thought he had a fraction of a chance with her-he’d resigned himself to not-so secretly admiring from afar.
Yet as beautiful as the ring was, it forcefully brought him back to reality, where he was only just another student and no more. She was a star in the sky, and Yuto would never be able to reach her, no matter how hard he stretched or how much he grew.
He still finds himself walking to the nurse’s office the next day. Anne just so happens to be absent, leaving Kame alone to deal with Yuto’s antics.
Somehow, Takaki finds him.
“Make it stooooop,” Yuto whines, faceplanting back onto the bed.
“Please get him out of here,” Kame doesn’t even bother hiding his exasperation.
“You, my friend, are experiencing heartbreak,” Takaki laughs, clasping a hand on Yuto’s shoulder and giving him a shake. “I may have healing powers but it doesn’t work on the things of the heart.”
The self-declared heartbroken boy doesn’t have any energy to shake Takaki off-he’s in too much pain for that.
“Come on,” Takaki sighs, tossing Yuto over his shoulder. “We need to practice.”
“Thank God.”
“Hey!” Yuto protests, flailing his arms to try and regain his balance. “Nooooo leave me here to dieeeeeee-”
Eventually, Yuto runs out of things to say and complain about, and reverts to screaming and flailing about, still draped over Takaki’s shoulder.
Takaki is running; Yuto has no idea why the captain is, but they fly through corridors and down three flights of stairs, and Yuto is still screaming.
The captain swerves to a stop, putting Yuto down as well. He sighs in relief, watching as Takaki tries to catch his breath.
“Phone.”
Yuto huffs. Even when tired, Takaki is bossy. It somehow makes a good leadership quality; that’s why he’s the captain. Yuto complies, putting his phone in Takaki’s palm.
“What are you going to-” and Takaki picks him up again, throwing him over his other shoulder.
Oh god.
“HOLY FUCK!” It surprises him more than it should, when the water envelopes him and pulls him down, down, down, surrounding him with a painfully familiar icy sting he was never prepared for.
Yuto thrashes about instead of swimming because he’s in his jeans, which are waterlogged, and it is the most uncomfortable feeling ever.
Takaki is quick to help him out of the pool.
Yuto glares, but it falters when he can’t help but shiver, his legs aching. The captain’s smug expression is replaced by one of guilt.
“Sorry,” Takaki mutters, throwing a towel around Yuto’s shoulders. “I-let’s get you back to your room.”
At least he has the decency not to suggest a public shower. Public showers are gross and unhygienic and wet; Yuto would much rather sit in his very dry DEgerminiser2011 back in the dormitories.
The towel on him is warm and fluffy, and his legs don’t feel as numb anymore, but he lets Takaki steer him to his room, very helpfully calling out directions occasionally, even though Takaki probably already knows his way around.
“Are you decent?” Takaki’s muffled voice filters through the solid titanium doors of the DEgerminiser2011 and Yuto sighs.
“Yuto?”
The boy in question only sighs again.
“I’m coming in!”
Yuto stretches out his legs as he hears Takaki fumble with the locks through a series of beeps, staring at his jeans.
“Wait why are you still in your wet clothes?” Takaki asks, confused.
Yuto blinks. “Isn’t this how lazy people wash their clothes? Like get into the shower with them?”
“Look, get out of your clothes and put them in a pile or something, we’ll send it for laundry later. You need to stop being wet or you’re going to get sick.” Takaki reprimands, pausing for a second before continuing. “Seriously, just strip, I’ll leave this thing.”
Five minutes after Takaki leaves the DEgerminiser2011, Yuto realises he has no other clothes with him.
“Can you get me my clothes?”
He hears an exasperated groan from the other side.
At least it isn’t a no.
“Can you save my jeans too? Maybe heal it or something?”
Yuto is clothed when he says this, but Takaki looks so scandalised it was as if he was naked. Like that’s ever going to happen.
His question is ignored in favour of guiding him to the bed. Takaki says nothing as he presses heat packs on the blue forming on Yuto’s skin. The latter sighs, welcoming the heat the surrounds him, as everything becomes warm and hazy and he falls fast asleep. The last thing he hears is Pizza meowing, and the faint plop of a heat pack on the floor.
The way he wakes up is unflattering and just borderline humiliating. He is dreaming of a field of marshmallows, and the minute he tries to take a bite out of one of them, he hears a scream, and he wakes up to find Takaki’s hand in his mouth.
“What the hell, dude?” The captain groans, pressing at the spot where he was bitten. Yuto’s teeth are apparently very sharp.
The boy feels apologetic for a moment, but then stops, because Takaki is in his room.
“Wait, why are you in my room?”
“I was going to take you to go meet my friends! But now that you’ve bit me, I don’t think I feel like introducing you to them already. In case you bite them, you know.”
“I’m not a feral beast.” Yuto grumbles, trying to squirm back under the covers, but Takaki tugs them away.
“You’re also not a hermit, so you need to get out of your room more often!” Takaki chastises. “I don’t know how you survived a whole year without making any friends.”
“Barely,” Yuto mumbles, staring down at the bedsheets.
“Hey, it’s okay. You can be a part of my group of friends!” Takaki smiles, and Yuto tries not to flinch away from the encouraging hair ruffle. You don’t have to be alone all the time, it’s really okay to have friends.”
Pizza meows from where she’s curled up at his feet, as if in agreement. Come to think of it, she hasn’t hissed at Takaki or at least tried to claw his face. The world might be ending.
“As long as you don’t bite them, please.”
Meeting people is scary for Yuto. He tries his best to hide behind Takaki while they navigate through the cafeteria, but he’s also too tall to be unnoticable (no thanks to one of Yabu’s failed potions) and it is just awkward in general.
Takaki slows down when he nears a large and loud group of seven, and Yuto panics internally. There are so many people. Should he introduce himself? Or let Takaki introduce him? Or maybe casually slide into an empty seat and hope that he doesn’t seem too rude? Yuto thinks he might be having a mental breakdown.
“Guys, this is Yuto.”
He finally stops hiding behind Takaki and gives the group a shy smile, which turns into a full grin when he spots familiar faces. There’s a boy with half his hair standing up who used to be in his orientation group when they first entered the school. Yuto thinks his name should be something like ‘Kato’; he isn’t sure. There’s also Yabu, who makes space on his end of the bench by scooting over. He pats the space next to him, gesturing for Yuto to sit down.
“See? Nothing to be afraid of.”
“Do I know you?” The boy with the weird hair asks.
Yuto is surprised he even vaguely remembers him. “I think we were in the same orientation group, weren’t we?”
“Ah, Yuto-kun!”
“You remember my name?”
“Ahem,” a voice interrupts their slightly clumsy reunion, but the owner of the voice smiles. “I hate to interrupt you two, but a bunch of us are feeling real left out here.” Yuto’s eyes widen, flitting down to the table in embarrassment. The boy simply continues. “Why don’t all of us introduce ourselves? Doesn’t matter if we know him or not, it just makes it easier. I’ll start, I’m Chinen Yuri and I’m a shapeshifter.”
Yuto is slightly taken aback by this tiny boy’s confidence, but marvels and claps at how he can turn into a fox in a split second. “Woah.”
Chinen preens.
The boy next to Chinen has a stare down with Keito, who apparently wins, so he puts down his DS with a bored expression on his face. “I’m Ryutaro.”
Chinen nudges the boy. “That’s it?”
“And I can turn invisible.”
Ryutaro vanishes, and all that is left are his clothes in the shape of him. Weird.
Beside him, Takaki whispers, “it still creeps me out whenever he does that.”
When he turns back to Ryutaro, he’s already visible, and visibly preoccupied with the DS in his hands.
“I’m Daiki,” the baby-faced boy says with a sleepy grin, “I can control the earth.”
“That’s why he’s so close to the ground,” Takaki mutters, under his breath, but it’s loud enough for everyone at the table to hear, including Daiki.
“Oi!” Daiki protests. “Just because you’re tall and water friendly doesn’t mean I can’t smash you to pieces!”
“I’d like to see you try,” Takaki drawls, and his subsequent facial expression is really annoying. Yuto is suddenly reminded about why he hated this guy.
Daiki starts to stretch his hand towards the field, and Yuto whips his head up just in time to see a large chunk of earth fly up.
“That’s enough, children,” comes an annoyed voice from Yuto’s left. The piece of earth falls back to the ground, fitting itself back in the hole that was created with a thud.
Yuto turns back to the girlish looking boy next to Yabu, prompting him to introduce himself, but Chinen makes it a point to gesture at Yabu.
“Well, you know me already, I’m Yabu and I’m too cool for you,” he smiles, pointing a finger at Yuto’s face.
Even though he expects it, the gust of wind that hits his nose is still too sudden for him, and Yuto sneezes.
Yabu chortles with laughter. “Isn’t he adorable?” He laughs, taking one of Yuto’s cheeks in his fingers.
Yuto cries a little inside for his poor cheeks.
“I’m Inoo, but you can call me Queen Elsa.” What? “I’m not kidding, you really can, I don't mind,” Inoo nods, with a very unconvincing but somewhat encouraging smarmy face.
“We don’t call him that,” the boy next to Inoo cuts in quickly. “I’m Hikaru, and I create ice.”
“My true Elsa~” Inoo croons, reaching out to caress Hikaru’s face, to which the latter scoots away.
‘Kato,’ who looks too pleased with this development, almost forgets to introduce himself, until Chinen gives him a not-so polite nudge in his ribs.
“I’m Keito!” Eh, close enough.
“Wait for it…” Keito begins, an overly excited look on his face.
“Is he going to-” Takaki blinks.
“Yes I’m afraid so,” Ryutaro whimpers.
Yuto is a little scared.
“E E E ELECTRIC SHOCK!”
“Oh my god.”
“He hasn’t done this in a while,” Daiki admits, “but I still feel so much secondhand embarrassment from this.”
Hikaru cowers, covering his eyes.
“NA NA NA NA NA NA NA~” Keito is still dancing.
Yuto can only watch with wide eyes and an equally wide mouth.
“Is it over yet?” Inoo calls from where his face is buried in Hikaru’s shoulder.
“You shocked him alright,” Yabu confirms.
“Now that you’re marginally acquainted with us, why do you look so down?” Chinen asks, his inquisitive nature showing.
“Maybe it was Keito’s dance,” Ryutaro adds, earning him a dry laugh from Yuto.
“I-” Yuto stops suddenly, reminding himself that these are people he just met, with the exception of Keito, Yabu and Takaki, and it would be unfair to simply unload his problems on them all at once. He sighs.
“Ah, the sigh of heartbreak.” Inoo lets out a long sigh himself, much more exaggerated than Yuto’s. Yuto is torn between being amused or offended by Inoo’s behaviour. Out of the corner of his eye, the latter sees Takaki facepalm.
“Love, is a tragic little thing,” Inoo begins, stretching his arms out for what seems like dramatic effect, but he uses his extended arm to pat Yuto on the face. “Which makes you,” he eyes Yuto sympathetically, “a tragic little thing.” Yuto grimaces slightly under his gaze.
“But I’m taller than you?”
“Technicalities,” Inoo waves it off, and launches into a story of him and his (non-existent, according to Takaki and Yabu) first love and how they met at a train station.
Yuto rolls his eyes, and rolls with it.
Lunch soon transforms into an interesting affair. Yuto even finds it a little endearing that Chinen will stop his escape to the dormitories and drag him by the ear to the table. Except the fact that Chinen literally yanks him by the ear, because Chinen is too strong for someone with such a small build.
Turns out that Takaki is already waiting for him there, onigiri in hand.
“You’re eating that?” Several pairs of eyes look at Yuto’s freshly acquired marshmallows in disdain.
“Don’t judge,” Yuto hugs the bag protectively. “Besides, Takaki’s onigiri has umeboshis in it.”
Takaki holds his onigiri to his chest, equally defensive. He points an accusing finger to Yuto, “rice is a staple!”
“All that sugar!” Yabu exclaims, like a mother. “It’s not good for your health!”
Yuto side-eyes Takaki who is eating his onigiri with his annoying smug face. “But I can do this!” He pouts, sticking a marshmallow on his finger and roasting it with another.
“Oooh.”
Ryutaro is quick to grab a marshmallow too. “Do one for me?”
Yuto gladly complies, earning him another round of oohs and ahhs from the table.
However, Yuto realises that having lunch with Takaki and his friends only makes it easier for the latter to drag him to the pool.
Not that Yuto should be any reluctant when faced with swimming, since he did decide to join the team, but Takaki is a mean coach. He still limits the amount of time Yuto can spend in the water, and hasn’t extended it beyond twenty minutes despite Yuto having trained with him every single day for more than six weeks.
Takaki claims that it will help to motivate him and make him swim faster, but Yuto doesn’t really see how that will ever be helpful when he can barely last ten minutes in the water without his skin feeling tingly all over.
It’s still an improvement as compared to when he first started, he lasted no more than three minutes in the pool, emerging unconscious.
“Let’s play some bonding games!”
Yuto isn’t really sure how he feels about Keito and his bright ideas. Sure, Yuto hates awkward silences, but the meet is drawing near. Both Yuto and Takaki are sufficiently stressed out by the fact that time is running out, and they really just don’t have time for this.
There is a dead silence, before Daiki responds. “Whose idea was it to make him prefect again?”
The rest of the table looks to Takaki, who looks up from where he is burying his face in his hands.
“You encouraged him!” He points to Yabu, who only shrugs.
In response, Daiki stands to his full height (which still isn’t a lot) and points back to Takaki. “And you voted him in!”
“We’ll play your game,” Yuto interrupts, just before Takaki and Daiki start bickering again.
“So,” Keito starts, clasping his hands together purposefully. “If you could have any other superpower what would you want? You can only pick a superpower one of us has, though.”
“…this is hardly a game…?” Hikaru interjects weakly, but Inoo shushes him.
“Someone will start and the person whose power was picked will go after them!” Keito explains, and Yuto swears he’s bouncing a little. He doesn’t recall Keito being this enthusiastic during orientation week
“I’ll start!” Chinen volunteers.
Keito positively beams at him.
“I would want my powers! My powers are pretty awesome, don’t you think so?”
“Anyone else?”
“Me!” Inoo cries, sticking his hand in the air like a very enthusiastic student. “I want Hikaru’s powers!”
The rest of the table nods; it’s pretty expected.
But somehow, Keito doesn’t get it. He tilts his head in confusion. “Why?”
“Queen Elsa,” Inoo replies with an eye-roll, all whilst doing a hairflip. “Duh.”
Hikaru still looks mildly disinterested, but Yuto notices how he softens when Keito gives him a pathetically pitiful look.
“I think it’d be pretty cool to have Takaki’s powers.”
Takaki gives him an enthusiastic thumbs up from opposite him.
“I guess it’d be useful whenever I fall sick?”
Takaki beams. “I never fall sick!”
When Takaki doesn’t continue, Daiki gives him a nudge to remind him to take his turn. Somehow, the tiniest of nudges can still go wrong, and it turns into another weird fight of theirs. Ryutaro has to wedge himself between them to get them to stop.
Yuto thinks Ryutaro is a brave, beautiful human.
“Moving on?” Keito says, a little shaken from the mini-argument.
“I’d like to have this guy’s powers then,” Takaki decides, pointing to Ryutaro who is conveniently situated in between Daiki and him-an outcome of their recent squabble. “I would really like to sneak out of class for once,” he sighs dreamily.
“Even if you did, your clothes would still be visible,” Chinen reminds him.
“Oh.”
Ryutaro rolls his eyes. “I want Keito’s powers because unlike you, I’m practical.”
Takaki pouts.
“I’ll be able to charge my stuff wherever I go.”
Keito looks very surprised to hear it but he grins, obviously pleased that someone picked him.
“Me next!” Keito waves his hand in the air just like Inoo did. “I want Yuto’s powers!”
Yuto frowns, “why?” He really doesn’t think his powers are any special.
“You have cool hair!”
Fair enough.
“Yabu’s powers would be nice, “ Yuto says. “I kind of want to know what a warm shower feels like.”
“You mean like a warm bath?” Yabu prompts. “It’s usually that or a cold shower, which is only used to,” Yabu gestures vaguely, pausing for a moment. “Kill boners.”
Yuto shudders. A cold shower will not just kill his hypothetical boner, it’d probably kill him.
Yabu claps his hands together in an attempt to kill the awkward silence, turning to Inoo. “To make it a full circle, I’ll choose Inoo! He has some really cool powers,” he notes.
“Hey!” Daiki protests. When no one responds, he gets up on his feet. “Oi! Does nobody want any of my awesome powers?”
“Not really.”
“We’re good with ours, thanks.”
“You’re not as cute as you think you are, shortie.”
“Height isn’t everything!”
“There, there, children, no need to fight.” Ryutaro raises both his hands up in an attempt to calm them, sending a glare at Keito who sheepishly looks their way.
The prefect shrinks a little further into his seat.
It doesn’t work out as planned.
“Who are you calling a child? Is this another height jab?!”
“Is this because you think I’m stupid? You’re surely very mature aren’t you, calling me a child?”
Ryutaro throws his hands up in the air, visibly exasperated with the constantly bickering pair.
“Every time I try to do something nice, really.” He groans, making himself invisible at once.
After a moment of silence, Takaki extends a hand to Yuto. “Come on, we need to practice anyway.”
The latter shrugs, letting the swim captain drag him to the pool.
Yuto has absolutely no idea what day it is until Keito shows up wearing a Pikachu onesie.
“Really guys?” Keito frowns. “I expected better of you! It’s Halloween!” He exclaims, throwing his arms up in the air.
“Oh darn it!” Yuto frowns. He’d completely forgotten about Halloween. “We could have been making pumpkin cakes or something!”
Daiki looks fairly confused at this information. “I don’t think that’s what they do on Halloween, Yuto.”
“Or something?”
“Let’s go trick-o-treating!” Chinen suggests, which is actually a decision because no one ever disagrees with Chinen.
Yuto grins at the idea, before he remembers how much time they have left. He looks to Takaki hesitantly. “But it’s in two weeks?”
“I guess we can take a break,” Takaki shrugs, sounding indifferent.
Yuto almost misses the tiny smile that creeps up Takaki’s face while he thinks about all the candied possibilities.
Almost.
“Wait, what?!” In Keito’s apparent confusion, he’d somehow managed to ruin his once-accurate Harry Potter hairdo. Now it just looks like someone put a levitation spell on half of Harry’s hair.
Hikaru raises an eyebrow at Keito, putting on his red cap. “Do I look okay?” Yuto thinks he looks more than okay, almost a spitting image of Ash Ketchum.
“Hell yeah!” Takaki beams, his Squirtle tail flopping about as he pounces on Hikaru.
“We make a great team, don’t we?” Daiki smiles, attempting to drape an arm around Yuto, but his movements are greatly limited by his sandshrew costume. Yuto’s charmander onesie is soft and fluffy and all kinds of comfortable, so he puts his arm around the shorter boy instead.
Yabu pouts at them, readjusting his quiver of fake arrows.
Keito is still visibly stunned by this progression of events. “But-but I wore my Pikachu onesie this morning!”
“We were kind of expecting you to be in the same costume tonight,” Yuto explains, giving Keito what he hopes is an encouraging smile.
“Hey, why don’t you have a costume, Chinen?” Ryutaro asks.
Everyone turns to look at Chinen, the only one still clad in his regular clothes.
“You wanted to go as Link,” Chinen replies softly. “I didn’t know how to match with you.”
“You could be Princess Zelda,” Inoo helpfully supplies.
“It’s a little too late for that,” Chinen grumbles. “And I have no idea what she looks like.”
Ryutaro blinks, a pained expression on his face. “I’m really sorry,” he says, gravitating towards to Chinen. “If I knew you wanted to match, I wouldn’t have gone as Link.”
“It’s okay,” Chinen smiles, and Yuto dies a little at how cute they are. “I know how much you wanted to be Link.”
Yuto watches with envy as they hook their pinkies together, sighing at the beauty of their small actions.
“Do you think this dress is sparkly enough? It’s making my butt itchy.”
And the moment is broken.
“I’m doing this out of the goodness of my pure heart,” Chinen declares, much to everyone’s confusion.
He reaches and takes the stuffed owl from under Keito’s cloak and flings it at the distance.
“WHY?!” Keito shrieks, hysterical as he watches his stuffed companion fly away.
Chinen then transforms into an owl with slightly pinkish feathers, settling on Keito’s shoulder.
Somehow, Chinen is able to turn into an owl that resembles Hedwig, save for the pinkish tint on his feathers. Under limited lighting, Yuto doubts anyone will notice the difference.
“Awww,” Yabu coos, stepping closer to the owl Chinen has become. “He almost looks harmless like this!”
Chinen apparently decides that this ruffles his feathers, and slaps Yabu across the face with a wing.
Yabu keeps his distance after that.
Soon, those two weeks are gone.
Yuto is adjusting his wetsuit when he sees an awfully eye catching banner at the stands that reads, “YUTO IS THE FASTEST MARSHMALLOW”
It’s more than a pleasant surprise to find his entire group of friends holding that ugly looking banner, when he never mentioned the exact date of the competition to them. He’d expected Takaki, and probably Yabu, but that was it. It ignites something warm and fuzzy within him to know that every single one of them came.
Cold water be damned, he’s going to burn even brighter.
And so he dives in.
Author: turtleheartz
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Johnny’s Entertainment, Hey! Say! JUMP, with tiny cameos of other senpai
Pairing(s)/Focus: Yuto-centred, one-sided Yuto/Anne
Length: 7,822
Summary: It’s annoying, the way everyone thinks that Yuto can’t do it, especially that sorry excuse of a captain without a single encouraging bone in him.
He wants to show them what he’s made of, to prove them wrong.
He wants to swim.
There’s only one problem-he’s made of fire.
Warnings: cursing, pain descriptions (non-graphic) and the absence of a Yamada
Notes: A huge thank you to my beta (baeta hurhur) + personal cheerleader xingphonic for sticking with me throughout this whole thing. Also to my very beautiful friends who sprinted with me! I had fun (and many tears) writing this, so I hope you’ll enjoy it! #JustKeepSwimming
Everyone knows that water extinguishes fire, putting out its flames.
He takes a deep breath, and the next moment, he is ablaze. The gross smell of singed rubber begins to fill the air, a by-product of his ignition. It’s sort of the very last push, and then he is in the water.
Yuto knows that he is a flame-it’s hard to ignore his energy seeping out of him the moment he dived in.
He frowns, letting his arms take over as they slip into practiced strokes. It’s entirely different from doing the same movements on land, with the added resistance of the water, and on top of that, his body’s resistance to the water. It makes him cringe, but ultimately serves to propel him forward.
His skin throbs despite the full body wetsuit that was supposed to protect him, but he doesn’t seem to feel any added effect.
Regular people may describe such a terrible sensation as burning, but Yuto knows he isn’t burning. When Yuto burns, fire envelopes him in a warm embrace and he feels at home. The cold liquid surrounding him stings, and Yuto knows he is far from home.
It reminds him that he is just a flame, but if he is a flame, he is a flame that will not go out.
When he comes to, the first thing he registers is a sharp flick to his forehead.
Anne-san.
Yuto remembers the first time he met Anne. It was during the first week of school, when he got lost in the maze of winding corridors and somehow ended up in the infirmary.
Apparently Kamenashi-sensei was off for some Superhero talk and Anne was alone, or at least Yuto was under the impression that she thought she was. The nurse was halfway through a scarily on-point Perfume rendition when the tall boy stumbled in.
She stopped immediately, as if she wasn’t singing just a second ago and crossed the room in quick strides, taking Yuto’s face in her hands. After the initial surprise wore off, it finally occurred to Yuto that she was checking for injuries.
Yuto was mostly enamoured by her stunning beauty, and could only blink with his mouth wide open as she squished his cheeks in between her palms, asking him if he was hurt.
She did eventually find out that Yuto was lost, but instead of berating him, she fed him suspicious looking biscuits and pet his head, asking him how he liked the school so far.
The biscuits tasted like absolute shit, but Yuto felt lovely inside.
“Thank you,” Yuto mumbled quietly, stealing a glance at her nametag, “Watanabe-san.”
She smiled, and Yuto swore that his heart already started soaring. “It’s Anne-san,” she said with a wink and a pinch to his cheeks.
Yuto thinks that is the moment he fell in love.
Her face is laden with disapproval, and with minimal movements, Yuto realises that Kamenashi-sensei is sporting the same expression.
He sighs.
“What is wrong with you?!” It’s Kame now, with his angry but well-trimmed eyebrows glaring at him. Most of the time Kame and Anne were angels in white, but right now all Yuto wants to do is to curl up in the limited comfort of the covers-or sleep. Sleep sounds good; maybe when he wakes up he’ll forget about the mind numbing pain shooting up his sides.
“Oi!” Kame glares some more. “You’re not allowed to sleep, you little brat.” That shuts Yuto up. “I’ve got to run a couple tests on you and when we’re done maybe you’ll like to explain to me, your guardian, why you’re volunteering to be in direct contact with your poison.”
Yuto gulps.
“Back so soon for more?”
The voice startles Yuto so much he almost drops his pen.
Takaki Yuya is the captain of the swim team, full of smiles ranging from smug to downright dopey.
“Didn’t you just get injured a while ago?”
Yuto hates that. He scowls.
“If you’re still injured, you probably shouldn’t take part.” Takaki’s voice only serves to egg Yuto on, and before the latter realises it, he’s already fuming. “Don’t want you bleeding in the swimming pool like a girl on her period, right?”
Literally.
His free hand automatically moves to fan the fumes away from the top of his head and he has to repeatedly tell himself to calm down.
Takaki Yuya just doesn’t seem to be helping, because the bastard decides to erupt into fucking giggles.
The giggles eventually subside when met with Yuto’s heated glare, but nothing gets the smirk off Takaki’s face.
Yuto swallows, turning away from Takaki and his awfully taunting smile. The latter’s gaze is probably burning holes in his back (not in a good way), but he picks up the pen anyway.
Yuto has never felt so ashamed before.
It takes a great effort to try and not let it bother him, because Takaki’s gaze is cold and it bothers him, but he writes his name on the sign-up sheet with confident strokes, right under the captain's name.
“Takaki-kun!” Yuto cringes slightly at the hearts he hears in the newcomer’s voice, but scrambles to leave-not without angrily chucking the pen at Takaki’s head.
The pen only bounces off Takaki’s very fluffy hair.
Damn.
He ends up running into Kame in his haste to get the fuck away.
“What,” Kame gestures to the pool’s changing rooms, “were you doing there?”
Yuto blinks, looking down.
“Is this you deliberately trying to go against me?” Kame questions, frowning harder, to which Yuto shakes his head vigorously. “I thought you got over your rebellious phase a year ago,” he sighs.
“I just-” Yuto begins, but stops himself halfway. He doesn’t expect Kame to understand. Kame is a wonderful person, but he doesn’t understand the pain of not being able to survive in his element in a particular medium. Kame’s like Superman minus the kryptonite, because Yuto has never seen a thing that fazed him.
It frustrates him.
Why do people get things like warm baths and cold showers, when Yuto has to deal with a large tank that manually removes the dirt off his skin?
And that Takaki Yuya. He looks at Yuto like he knows the latter will never make it.
It’s not like Yuto doesn’t know his limits, but someone once told him not to limit his challenges, but challenge his limits.
“Well?” Kame is still looking at him expectantly.
“I just want to survive in water.”
“You know that’s impossible.”
“I know people who have.”
“What?”
“People that have survived.”
“What?”
“Just because fire-users are banned from the library, doesn’t mean that we don’t have any access to information.”
Kame lets out a heavy sigh, but it’s enough for Yuto to know he isn’t that mad at him anymore. “Are you sure you’re one of them?”
“I want to survive,” Yuto grits out, finally unclenching his fists. “I want to live without fears; is that so bad?”
Kame looks Yuto right in the eye and Yuto stares right back at him, determined not to back out.
“It seems like whatever I say won’t change your mind, will it?” Kame relents, sounding defeated. “Be careful,” he warns, turning to leave.
“Sometimes it’s good to have fears,” Kame smiles, mostly to himself, but Yuto notices that it is sad. He turns back to look at Yuto. “They keep us in check.”
Yuto stubbornly decides to brave his semi-healed injuries and go straight for the kill.
He places a tentative foot unto the surface of the water and almost immediately, steam pours between his toes. The heat, although comforting, unwelcome because Yuto knows how much energy it drains from him.
He dives in.
He starts off with a kick and eases into freestyle, but he has to come up to breathe so often it feels like he never moved an inch. He struggles with the new patterns of motion for a while more, before slipping back into the more fluid (he laughs a little at the irony) movements of the breadth stroke.
It makes him feel really accomplished when he is able to go beyond his past record of one single lap, and pushes him to go an even longer distance. It doesn’t last; halfway through his third lap the dull sting at the spot under his knee suddenly turns sharp.
Yuto hoists himself up with the help of the ladder, only to find a deep cut right where the sting is.
Shit.
He doesn’t want to think about the other injuries he already acquired on the rest of his body.
Yabu’s reaction when he finds a limping Yuto in the doorway to his lab is to tsk and flick his wrist at Yuto in the general direction of the couch.
The latter squeaks as he finds himself pressed onto the couch by a mysterious force. He squirms, even after the air is gone.
Yabu brings out a large box of unidentified substances, positioning himself in front of Yuto’s injured leg. “Don’t move,” Yabu commands, moving to disinfect Yuto’s wound.
Yuto complies and sits quietly, until the great affliction suddenly intensifies.
He screams at the bite of pain, accidentally letting out a blast of fire in his attempt to not move his foot. Yuto blinks, looking away from the slightly charred ceiling sheepishly.
Yabu only looks up when he’s done dressing that wound, but Yuto can tell he’s seen the damage from his eyes.
Yuto’s genius-scientist-friend-who might not be his friend anymore after this sighs, muttering, “collateral damage,” repeatedly under his breath, although Yuto can definitely still hear him.
Yuto has no choice but to sit very still while Yabu continues to poke and prod at his skin, even when his injuries have been taken care of. He allows himself to get lost in the older boy’s very elaborate set-up, watching that clear drop of substance go through five different tubes and turning into another colour at various points. The final product is blood red.
At some point of time Yuto is pretty sure the older boy really does cross-reference his skin colour to something that looks like a colour chart.
“You know it’s almost impossible for you to develop full immunity to water, right?” Yabu stops suddenly, turning to him.
“But it’s an ‘almost’, right?” Part of Yuto wants to believe he can, but he doesn’t really know how.
“Your cells really don’t work like regular humans’.” Yabu explains, his voice far from optimistic. “This isn’t like an allergy or something, it’s more of a skin defect.”
Yuto only sighs.
“In fact, you might not even be able to develop any immunity. You might just be in for waves of pain.”
Yuto blinks, staring at the floor.
“Get it? Waves? Because like-yeah I know it hurts to laugh, I’m sorry.”
The injured boy grimaces.
It barely feels like a minute before a light blue vial is dangled in Yuto’s line of sight.
He feels better after the first sip.
Yuto really should be doing his essay on energy preservation, but he lays on his flame-proof beanbag, roasting marshmallows with his fingers and popping them into his mouth. His other hand is busy toying with a tiny flame, passing the spark from finger to finger while his furry companion bats at it with her tiny paws.
Pets aren’t technically allowed on campus, but he’d picked up Pizza on a rainy night and was never able to let her go.
She has a strange fascination when it comes to flames, and enjoys chasing after the tiny bursts of warmth on Yuto’s fingers. The latter thinks it’s amusing, because it’s almost the only time he sees her move.
Besides, he’s oddly comforted that she stayed, despite the flames, or maybe because of the flames.
(Not many do.)
He has half the mind to submit one line: ‘the chemical equation for combustion,’ but he figures Ninomiya-sensei will not appreciate that. The latter may even bring out the weird power suits as punishment, and Yuto has heard rumours pertaining to those particular suits; he really doesn’t want to suffer.
Yuto can see it in Anne’s eyes that she wants to give up on him entirely after only the third practice.
“I just want to beat him,” Yuto breathes, and Kame’s eyes soften.
The hand that presses a new gauze right under his shoulder doesn’t.
Yuto winces.
“It’s not healthy,” Anne tells him, but Kame is quick to warn her, causing her to fall silent.
“Nothing he does is healthy,” Kame chides, but it’s affectionate, coupled by a hair ruffle. “This kid eats marshmallows for lunch.”
Yuto’s next trip to the pool doesn’t end well either.
He thought he had it all planned out, by regulating the number of visits he takes to the pool, but the injuries never seemed to lessen.
Still, Yuto manages to get himself to Yabu’s lab once again, with little half-steps and hobbles.
Yabu wordlessly hands him another vial, and Yuto gulps it down immediately.
The throbbing ceases.
Yuto allows himself to feel relieved, sighing as he sinks a little further into the ratty couch Yabu keeps in his lab.
“Feel better?”
“Yeah,” he offers Yabu a sheepish smile before nodding in thanks, but the older boy doesn’t comment on his-according to Kame-crazy stupid ways.
He thinks it’s better like that.
One can only have one Kamenashi Kazuya in their lives.
Besides, Yabu cares for him in his own way, judging by how Yuto can feel the healing potion spread to his toes; it’s much stronger than the previous one.
By midnight, Yuto is already removing the bandage around his ribs.
Word travels fast, especially in a school where a normal mean of transportation is to teleport.
Yuto knows that Takaki has withdrawn from the competition even before that lackey kid of his, Juri something, comes looking for him.
“You’re the reason Takaki-kun decided not to compete anymore!” Juri looks like he’s trying very hard to glare at Yuto; he even puffs out his chest. Yuto is too bothered by this news to be amused at the situation, so he just glares even harder and turns away.
“Why the fuck did you withdraw from the competition?”
Takaki’s eyes widen but he doesn’t get to speak, what with Yuto cutting him off again.
“Is it because you don’t see me as a worthy opponent?” Yuto has both fists curled around Takaki’s collar, and the latter sighs.
Yuto doesn’t understand why.
“It’s not that-it’s just stupid to punish yourself like this, isn’t it?”
Yuto blinks.
Takaki ‘dopey-smiles’ Yuya is actually making sense for once, but his pride, his god-awful pride is always in the way. “It’s training,” he scoffs, dropping his fists and turning to leave the locker room.
“Hey,” Takaki’s grip on his wrist is cold, and Yuto’s first instinct is to wrench himself away. “I think we got off on the wrong foot.”
“Ya think?” Yuto scoffs, and Takaki finally lets go. “You told me to stop bleeding in the water. It’s not like I can control it, you know I can barely survive in the water.”
“Then I’ll train you.”
Takaki Yuya is crazy, Yuto decides.
“Why would I do that? You’ll kill me,” he replies, studying the look on Takaki’s face.
Takaki’s frown only matches the growing one on his face. “No,” he begins, and his tone carries finality. “I’ll prevent you from killing yourself.”
Yuto absolutely abhors Takaki’s training sessions. In their entire hour together, Takaki only lets Yuto in the water for a maximum of fifteen minutes.
The rest of the time is spent doing breathing exercises.
“How come you don’t let me swim for any longer?” Yuto asks on his second practice with Takaki, and Takaki gives him a look.
“Because you can’t.”
“I can swim!” Yuto insists, frowning at the swimming-trunk-clad Takaki in front of him.
“I don’t mean that you can’t swim, it’s just that you shouldn’t be in the water-” Takaki stops when he realises Yuto is no longer in front of him, but instead making his way to the pool.
“Ten minutes then!”
Scrooge.
Yuto dives in, executing a perfect breaststroke for two laps. He only falters slightly at the last bit, when he misjudges the end of the pool and ends up grabbing water instead of the edge of the pool.
When he comes up for air, he accidentally chokes a little on the water, and that is enough of a signal for Takaki to pull him out of the pool, effectively ending their training.
That idiot even drops him off at Kame’s office, like he expects Yuto to want a lecture from the older man.
After much efforts by Yuto to get Takaki to stop taking him to Kame’s office, the swim captain finally gives in, on the condition that he walks Yuto to his room.
If Yuto is bothered by the sudden loss of personal space, he doesn’t voice it.
“How do you even get clean anyway? There’s no way you can actually bathe or shower, the water will kill you.” Takaki comments, his hand still steadily attached to Yuto’s back as they ascend the stairs.
As if Yuto is so weak to collapse at any moment. That was a one-time thing, Yuto tried to explain, because he’s sure it will never happen again.
Takaki just isn’t having it.
“That,” Yuto points to the DEgerminiser2011, and Takaki blinks. The machine’s exterior isn’t humble by any standards, its doors sporting heavy metal reinforcements.
Takaki cringes outwardly. “Can you even breathe in this thing?”
Yuto shrugs, stepping away from Takaki’s outstretched arm, “Sure. Now if you will excuse me, I’m going to go be clean.”
The green bar signals that he’s good to go, so Yuto steps out of the machine to find Takaki in the midst of a rather intense staring contest with his cat.
“Uhm,” Yuto coughs awkwardly, not knowing whether to interrupt.
Pizza just meows back at him.
“You didn’t tell me you had a cat?” Takaki says, but it sounds more like a question.
Yuto scoffs, “because I’m not supposed to, duh.” He rolls his eyes at the swim captain, beckoning for Pizza. She circles his legs once, twice, before settling right on his feet.
Well.
“It looks angry at me,” Takaki complains.
Yuto laughs, picking Pizza up with both hands. “Look at her, man! She’s adorable,” Yuto coos. “How can she be angry?” The cat settles in the crook of his arm like an infant, pawing his face in a way that can only be described as tender.
Yuto hopes it is more of a “there, there, I love you human,” than a “lol, stupid human.”
Takaki flinches away when Yuto steps closer with Pizza in his arms, but his reaction is nothing compared to the cat in Yuto’s arms’.
Pizza practically hisses, causing Takaki to take another three steps back.
Yuto chortles with laughter, choosing to ruffle Pizza’s fur and ignoring Takaki’s plight.
“Okay, can we just never let me meet her again?” Takaki says with his arms crossed, a good metre away from the cat.
“Why?” Yuto grins, “she’s friendly!”
“I promise I won’t ever bring you to Kamenashi-sensei’s office unless you’re in a life and death situation, and please, just keep her away from me.”
“Deal.” Yuto beams, putting Pizza down. Takaki’s eyes go wide, but the cat only stalks away in the opposite direction, not without sending a glare in his direction.
“Truce?” Takaki offers.
“Eh, I’ll think about it.”
Takaki is especially harsh to him on their next training. Yuto supposes he deserves it.
He still walks Yuto back to his dormitory, and Yuto continues to complain about Takaki’s cold hand.
It’s an odd kind of truce, Yuto thinks.
It is by chance that Yuto discovers that Takaki is failing Potions. In Yuto’s defence, the latter wasn’t doing that a great of a job hiding it.
“How do you even fail Potions?”
Takaki sulks, staring at his stack of notes with detailed diagrams about where to find which herb (which Yuto never bothers studying, since they have a school garden for a good reason).
“Do you even understand these?” Yuto waves the cue cards with Takaki’s scratchy handwriting in the older boy’s face.
“No,” he mumbles sheepishly, sulking even more.
“I’m not any good at Potions either, but I get solid Cs!”
Takaki’s face turns into complete amazement. “How?”
“Uhh I kind of have help on the side?” Takaki gives him a look. “I told you I wasn’t any good at potions!”
Yuto’s “help on the side” is none other than Yabu Kota. He watches Takaki and Yabu blink at each other for a while before they burst into a fit of giggles.
“You two know each other?” Yuto asks incredulously.
“Yeah,” Takaki says, trying to suppress a smile while Yabu gives Yuto the briefest of nods.
“Great!” Yuto beams. “Yabu-kun can help you pass!”
Yabu visibly cringes.
“I gave up on this one a long time ago.”
Takaki scoffs, “you’re just a bad teacher!”
“And you’re really awful at Potions!”
“Guys.”
“How do you even learn anything from this guy anyway? Are you sure he can teach?”
He scratches the back of his neck sheepishly, trying to stall. “I come here like really often, you know? When I get injured and stuff I just sit here and watch Yabu do his thing.”
“How long have you been-”
It’s not like Yuto doesn’t want people to care, but the genuine concern he hears in Takaki’s voice is largely unexpected. He decides it doesn’t matter, “what matters is that I can actually pass Potions when you’re dying in that class.”
Yabu sniggers.
Takaki takes a random cushion off the couch and hurls it at Yabu, but the latter sends a gust of wind with a simple point of his finger, sending the cushion back to it’s original position on the couch.
“Seriously,” Yuto continues, “It’s not like it’s Ninomiya-sensei or anything, it’s Aya-sensei, and she’s pretty chill.”
Takaki turns his head so fast Yuto thinks he might get whiplash. “How do you-Oomasa-sensei scares me.”
“Ah, so you’re one of her sacrifices,” Yuto cringes, an apologetic look on his face. “Sorry bro.”
“She makes us do all these experiments in the dark!” Takaki sputters indignantly.
Yuto just raises a lit finger and says nothing at all.
Takaki still doesn’t pass Potions, but Yabu sends a flying pig to deliver a tub of ointment to protect Yuto’s skin.
Just when Yuto starts to think things might just work out for once, he sees the ring on Anne-san’s finger.
The ring was beautiful, glistening as it caught the light. Anne had pranced around their office flaunting it, yelling, “Look who’s getting married!”
Kame had a great laugh, until she proceeded to almost break his nose.
Yuto managed a smile, and congratulated her.
But now all he remembers is how stunningly regal she looked, the diamonds on her finger shining like stars in the sky.
It’s not like he thought he had a fraction of a chance with her-he’d resigned himself to not-so secretly admiring from afar.
Yet as beautiful as the ring was, it forcefully brought him back to reality, where he was only just another student and no more. She was a star in the sky, and Yuto would never be able to reach her, no matter how hard he stretched or how much he grew.
He still finds himself walking to the nurse’s office the next day. Anne just so happens to be absent, leaving Kame alone to deal with Yuto’s antics.
Somehow, Takaki finds him.
“Make it stooooop,” Yuto whines, faceplanting back onto the bed.
“Please get him out of here,” Kame doesn’t even bother hiding his exasperation.
“You, my friend, are experiencing heartbreak,” Takaki laughs, clasping a hand on Yuto’s shoulder and giving him a shake. “I may have healing powers but it doesn’t work on the things of the heart.”
The self-declared heartbroken boy doesn’t have any energy to shake Takaki off-he’s in too much pain for that.
“Come on,” Takaki sighs, tossing Yuto over his shoulder. “We need to practice.”
“Thank God.”
“Hey!” Yuto protests, flailing his arms to try and regain his balance. “Nooooo leave me here to dieeeeeee-”
Eventually, Yuto runs out of things to say and complain about, and reverts to screaming and flailing about, still draped over Takaki’s shoulder.
Takaki is running; Yuto has no idea why the captain is, but they fly through corridors and down three flights of stairs, and Yuto is still screaming.
The captain swerves to a stop, putting Yuto down as well. He sighs in relief, watching as Takaki tries to catch his breath.
“Phone.”
Yuto huffs. Even when tired, Takaki is bossy. It somehow makes a good leadership quality; that’s why he’s the captain. Yuto complies, putting his phone in Takaki’s palm.
“What are you going to-” and Takaki picks him up again, throwing him over his other shoulder.
Oh god.
“HOLY FUCK!” It surprises him more than it should, when the water envelopes him and pulls him down, down, down, surrounding him with a painfully familiar icy sting he was never prepared for.
Yuto thrashes about instead of swimming because he’s in his jeans, which are waterlogged, and it is the most uncomfortable feeling ever.
Takaki is quick to help him out of the pool.
Yuto glares, but it falters when he can’t help but shiver, his legs aching. The captain’s smug expression is replaced by one of guilt.
“Sorry,” Takaki mutters, throwing a towel around Yuto’s shoulders. “I-let’s get you back to your room.”
At least he has the decency not to suggest a public shower. Public showers are gross and unhygienic and wet; Yuto would much rather sit in his very dry DEgerminiser2011 back in the dormitories.
The towel on him is warm and fluffy, and his legs don’t feel as numb anymore, but he lets Takaki steer him to his room, very helpfully calling out directions occasionally, even though Takaki probably already knows his way around.
“Are you decent?” Takaki’s muffled voice filters through the solid titanium doors of the DEgerminiser2011 and Yuto sighs.
“Yuto?”
The boy in question only sighs again.
“I’m coming in!”
Yuto stretches out his legs as he hears Takaki fumble with the locks through a series of beeps, staring at his jeans.
“Wait why are you still in your wet clothes?” Takaki asks, confused.
Yuto blinks. “Isn’t this how lazy people wash their clothes? Like get into the shower with them?”
“Look, get out of your clothes and put them in a pile or something, we’ll send it for laundry later. You need to stop being wet or you’re going to get sick.” Takaki reprimands, pausing for a second before continuing. “Seriously, just strip, I’ll leave this thing.”
Five minutes after Takaki leaves the DEgerminiser2011, Yuto realises he has no other clothes with him.
“Can you get me my clothes?”
He hears an exasperated groan from the other side.
At least it isn’t a no.
“Can you save my jeans too? Maybe heal it or something?”
Yuto is clothed when he says this, but Takaki looks so scandalised it was as if he was naked. Like that’s ever going to happen.
His question is ignored in favour of guiding him to the bed. Takaki says nothing as he presses heat packs on the blue forming on Yuto’s skin. The latter sighs, welcoming the heat the surrounds him, as everything becomes warm and hazy and he falls fast asleep. The last thing he hears is Pizza meowing, and the faint plop of a heat pack on the floor.
The way he wakes up is unflattering and just borderline humiliating. He is dreaming of a field of marshmallows, and the minute he tries to take a bite out of one of them, he hears a scream, and he wakes up to find Takaki’s hand in his mouth.
“What the hell, dude?” The captain groans, pressing at the spot where he was bitten. Yuto’s teeth are apparently very sharp.
The boy feels apologetic for a moment, but then stops, because Takaki is in his room.
“Wait, why are you in my room?”
“I was going to take you to go meet my friends! But now that you’ve bit me, I don’t think I feel like introducing you to them already. In case you bite them, you know.”
“I’m not a feral beast.” Yuto grumbles, trying to squirm back under the covers, but Takaki tugs them away.
“You’re also not a hermit, so you need to get out of your room more often!” Takaki chastises. “I don’t know how you survived a whole year without making any friends.”
“Barely,” Yuto mumbles, staring down at the bedsheets.
“Hey, it’s okay. You can be a part of my group of friends!” Takaki smiles, and Yuto tries not to flinch away from the encouraging hair ruffle. You don’t have to be alone all the time, it’s really okay to have friends.”
Pizza meows from where she’s curled up at his feet, as if in agreement. Come to think of it, she hasn’t hissed at Takaki or at least tried to claw his face. The world might be ending.
“As long as you don’t bite them, please.”
Meeting people is scary for Yuto. He tries his best to hide behind Takaki while they navigate through the cafeteria, but he’s also too tall to be unnoticable (no thanks to one of Yabu’s failed potions) and it is just awkward in general.
Takaki slows down when he nears a large and loud group of seven, and Yuto panics internally. There are so many people. Should he introduce himself? Or let Takaki introduce him? Or maybe casually slide into an empty seat and hope that he doesn’t seem too rude? Yuto thinks he might be having a mental breakdown.
“Guys, this is Yuto.”
He finally stops hiding behind Takaki and gives the group a shy smile, which turns into a full grin when he spots familiar faces. There’s a boy with half his hair standing up who used to be in his orientation group when they first entered the school. Yuto thinks his name should be something like ‘Kato’; he isn’t sure. There’s also Yabu, who makes space on his end of the bench by scooting over. He pats the space next to him, gesturing for Yuto to sit down.
“See? Nothing to be afraid of.”
“Do I know you?” The boy with the weird hair asks.
Yuto is surprised he even vaguely remembers him. “I think we were in the same orientation group, weren’t we?”
“Ah, Yuto-kun!”
“You remember my name?”
“Ahem,” a voice interrupts their slightly clumsy reunion, but the owner of the voice smiles. “I hate to interrupt you two, but a bunch of us are feeling real left out here.” Yuto’s eyes widen, flitting down to the table in embarrassment. The boy simply continues. “Why don’t all of us introduce ourselves? Doesn’t matter if we know him or not, it just makes it easier. I’ll start, I’m Chinen Yuri and I’m a shapeshifter.”
Yuto is slightly taken aback by this tiny boy’s confidence, but marvels and claps at how he can turn into a fox in a split second. “Woah.”
Chinen preens.
The boy next to Chinen has a stare down with Keito, who apparently wins, so he puts down his DS with a bored expression on his face. “I’m Ryutaro.”
Chinen nudges the boy. “That’s it?”
“And I can turn invisible.”
Ryutaro vanishes, and all that is left are his clothes in the shape of him. Weird.
Beside him, Takaki whispers, “it still creeps me out whenever he does that.”
When he turns back to Ryutaro, he’s already visible, and visibly preoccupied with the DS in his hands.
“I’m Daiki,” the baby-faced boy says with a sleepy grin, “I can control the earth.”
“That’s why he’s so close to the ground,” Takaki mutters, under his breath, but it’s loud enough for everyone at the table to hear, including Daiki.
“Oi!” Daiki protests. “Just because you’re tall and water friendly doesn’t mean I can’t smash you to pieces!”
“I’d like to see you try,” Takaki drawls, and his subsequent facial expression is really annoying. Yuto is suddenly reminded about why he hated this guy.
Daiki starts to stretch his hand towards the field, and Yuto whips his head up just in time to see a large chunk of earth fly up.
“That’s enough, children,” comes an annoyed voice from Yuto’s left. The piece of earth falls back to the ground, fitting itself back in the hole that was created with a thud.
Yuto turns back to the girlish looking boy next to Yabu, prompting him to introduce himself, but Chinen makes it a point to gesture at Yabu.
“Well, you know me already, I’m Yabu and I’m too cool for you,” he smiles, pointing a finger at Yuto’s face.
Even though he expects it, the gust of wind that hits his nose is still too sudden for him, and Yuto sneezes.
Yabu chortles with laughter. “Isn’t he adorable?” He laughs, taking one of Yuto’s cheeks in his fingers.
Yuto cries a little inside for his poor cheeks.
“I’m Inoo, but you can call me Queen Elsa.” What? “I’m not kidding, you really can, I don't mind,” Inoo nods, with a very unconvincing but somewhat encouraging smarmy face.
“We don’t call him that,” the boy next to Inoo cuts in quickly. “I’m Hikaru, and I create ice.”
“My true Elsa~” Inoo croons, reaching out to caress Hikaru’s face, to which the latter scoots away.
‘Kato,’ who looks too pleased with this development, almost forgets to introduce himself, until Chinen gives him a not-so polite nudge in his ribs.
“I’m Keito!” Eh, close enough.
“Wait for it…” Keito begins, an overly excited look on his face.
“Is he going to-” Takaki blinks.
“Yes I’m afraid so,” Ryutaro whimpers.
Yuto is a little scared.
“E E E ELECTRIC SHOCK!”
“Oh my god.”
“He hasn’t done this in a while,” Daiki admits, “but I still feel so much secondhand embarrassment from this.”
Hikaru cowers, covering his eyes.
“NA NA NA NA NA NA NA~” Keito is still dancing.
Yuto can only watch with wide eyes and an equally wide mouth.
“Is it over yet?” Inoo calls from where his face is buried in Hikaru’s shoulder.
“You shocked him alright,” Yabu confirms.
“Now that you’re marginally acquainted with us, why do you look so down?” Chinen asks, his inquisitive nature showing.
“Maybe it was Keito’s dance,” Ryutaro adds, earning him a dry laugh from Yuto.
“I-” Yuto stops suddenly, reminding himself that these are people he just met, with the exception of Keito, Yabu and Takaki, and it would be unfair to simply unload his problems on them all at once. He sighs.
“Ah, the sigh of heartbreak.” Inoo lets out a long sigh himself, much more exaggerated than Yuto’s. Yuto is torn between being amused or offended by Inoo’s behaviour. Out of the corner of his eye, the latter sees Takaki facepalm.
“Love, is a tragic little thing,” Inoo begins, stretching his arms out for what seems like dramatic effect, but he uses his extended arm to pat Yuto on the face. “Which makes you,” he eyes Yuto sympathetically, “a tragic little thing.” Yuto grimaces slightly under his gaze.
“But I’m taller than you?”
“Technicalities,” Inoo waves it off, and launches into a story of him and his (non-existent, according to Takaki and Yabu) first love and how they met at a train station.
Yuto rolls his eyes, and rolls with it.
Lunch soon transforms into an interesting affair. Yuto even finds it a little endearing that Chinen will stop his escape to the dormitories and drag him by the ear to the table. Except the fact that Chinen literally yanks him by the ear, because Chinen is too strong for someone with such a small build.
Turns out that Takaki is already waiting for him there, onigiri in hand.
“You’re eating that?” Several pairs of eyes look at Yuto’s freshly acquired marshmallows in disdain.
“Don’t judge,” Yuto hugs the bag protectively. “Besides, Takaki’s onigiri has umeboshis in it.”
Takaki holds his onigiri to his chest, equally defensive. He points an accusing finger to Yuto, “rice is a staple!”
“All that sugar!” Yabu exclaims, like a mother. “It’s not good for your health!”
Yuto side-eyes Takaki who is eating his onigiri with his annoying smug face. “But I can do this!” He pouts, sticking a marshmallow on his finger and roasting it with another.
“Oooh.”
Ryutaro is quick to grab a marshmallow too. “Do one for me?”
Yuto gladly complies, earning him another round of oohs and ahhs from the table.
However, Yuto realises that having lunch with Takaki and his friends only makes it easier for the latter to drag him to the pool.
Not that Yuto should be any reluctant when faced with swimming, since he did decide to join the team, but Takaki is a mean coach. He still limits the amount of time Yuto can spend in the water, and hasn’t extended it beyond twenty minutes despite Yuto having trained with him every single day for more than six weeks.
Takaki claims that it will help to motivate him and make him swim faster, but Yuto doesn’t really see how that will ever be helpful when he can barely last ten minutes in the water without his skin feeling tingly all over.
It’s still an improvement as compared to when he first started, he lasted no more than three minutes in the pool, emerging unconscious.
“Let’s play some bonding games!”
Yuto isn’t really sure how he feels about Keito and his bright ideas. Sure, Yuto hates awkward silences, but the meet is drawing near. Both Yuto and Takaki are sufficiently stressed out by the fact that time is running out, and they really just don’t have time for this.
There is a dead silence, before Daiki responds. “Whose idea was it to make him prefect again?”
The rest of the table looks to Takaki, who looks up from where he is burying his face in his hands.
“You encouraged him!” He points to Yabu, who only shrugs.
In response, Daiki stands to his full height (which still isn’t a lot) and points back to Takaki. “And you voted him in!”
“We’ll play your game,” Yuto interrupts, just before Takaki and Daiki start bickering again.
“So,” Keito starts, clasping his hands together purposefully. “If you could have any other superpower what would you want? You can only pick a superpower one of us has, though.”
“…this is hardly a game…?” Hikaru interjects weakly, but Inoo shushes him.
“Someone will start and the person whose power was picked will go after them!” Keito explains, and Yuto swears he’s bouncing a little. He doesn’t recall Keito being this enthusiastic during orientation week
“I’ll start!” Chinen volunteers.
Keito positively beams at him.
“I would want my powers! My powers are pretty awesome, don’t you think so?”
“Anyone else?”
“Me!” Inoo cries, sticking his hand in the air like a very enthusiastic student. “I want Hikaru’s powers!”
The rest of the table nods; it’s pretty expected.
But somehow, Keito doesn’t get it. He tilts his head in confusion. “Why?”
“Queen Elsa,” Inoo replies with an eye-roll, all whilst doing a hairflip. “Duh.”
Hikaru still looks mildly disinterested, but Yuto notices how he softens when Keito gives him a pathetically pitiful look.
“I think it’d be pretty cool to have Takaki’s powers.”
Takaki gives him an enthusiastic thumbs up from opposite him.
“I guess it’d be useful whenever I fall sick?”
Takaki beams. “I never fall sick!”
When Takaki doesn’t continue, Daiki gives him a nudge to remind him to take his turn. Somehow, the tiniest of nudges can still go wrong, and it turns into another weird fight of theirs. Ryutaro has to wedge himself between them to get them to stop.
Yuto thinks Ryutaro is a brave, beautiful human.
“Moving on?” Keito says, a little shaken from the mini-argument.
“I’d like to have this guy’s powers then,” Takaki decides, pointing to Ryutaro who is conveniently situated in between Daiki and him-an outcome of their recent squabble. “I would really like to sneak out of class for once,” he sighs dreamily.
“Even if you did, your clothes would still be visible,” Chinen reminds him.
“Oh.”
Ryutaro rolls his eyes. “I want Keito’s powers because unlike you, I’m practical.”
Takaki pouts.
“I’ll be able to charge my stuff wherever I go.”
Keito looks very surprised to hear it but he grins, obviously pleased that someone picked him.
“Me next!” Keito waves his hand in the air just like Inoo did. “I want Yuto’s powers!”
Yuto frowns, “why?” He really doesn’t think his powers are any special.
“You have cool hair!”
Fair enough.
“Yabu’s powers would be nice, “ Yuto says. “I kind of want to know what a warm shower feels like.”
“You mean like a warm bath?” Yabu prompts. “It’s usually that or a cold shower, which is only used to,” Yabu gestures vaguely, pausing for a moment. “Kill boners.”
Yuto shudders. A cold shower will not just kill his hypothetical boner, it’d probably kill him.
Yabu claps his hands together in an attempt to kill the awkward silence, turning to Inoo. “To make it a full circle, I’ll choose Inoo! He has some really cool powers,” he notes.
“Hey!” Daiki protests. When no one responds, he gets up on his feet. “Oi! Does nobody want any of my awesome powers?”
“Not really.”
“We’re good with ours, thanks.”
“You’re not as cute as you think you are, shortie.”
“Height isn’t everything!”
“There, there, children, no need to fight.” Ryutaro raises both his hands up in an attempt to calm them, sending a glare at Keito who sheepishly looks their way.
The prefect shrinks a little further into his seat.
It doesn’t work out as planned.
“Who are you calling a child? Is this another height jab?!”
“Is this because you think I’m stupid? You’re surely very mature aren’t you, calling me a child?”
Ryutaro throws his hands up in the air, visibly exasperated with the constantly bickering pair.
“Every time I try to do something nice, really.” He groans, making himself invisible at once.
After a moment of silence, Takaki extends a hand to Yuto. “Come on, we need to practice anyway.”
The latter shrugs, letting the swim captain drag him to the pool.
Yuto has absolutely no idea what day it is until Keito shows up wearing a Pikachu onesie.
“Really guys?” Keito frowns. “I expected better of you! It’s Halloween!” He exclaims, throwing his arms up in the air.
“Oh darn it!” Yuto frowns. He’d completely forgotten about Halloween. “We could have been making pumpkin cakes or something!”
Daiki looks fairly confused at this information. “I don’t think that’s what they do on Halloween, Yuto.”
“Or something?”
“Let’s go trick-o-treating!” Chinen suggests, which is actually a decision because no one ever disagrees with Chinen.
Yuto grins at the idea, before he remembers how much time they have left. He looks to Takaki hesitantly. “But it’s in two weeks?”
“I guess we can take a break,” Takaki shrugs, sounding indifferent.
Yuto almost misses the tiny smile that creeps up Takaki’s face while he thinks about all the candied possibilities.
Almost.
“Wait, what?!” In Keito’s apparent confusion, he’d somehow managed to ruin his once-accurate Harry Potter hairdo. Now it just looks like someone put a levitation spell on half of Harry’s hair.
Hikaru raises an eyebrow at Keito, putting on his red cap. “Do I look okay?” Yuto thinks he looks more than okay, almost a spitting image of Ash Ketchum.
“Hell yeah!” Takaki beams, his Squirtle tail flopping about as he pounces on Hikaru.
“We make a great team, don’t we?” Daiki smiles, attempting to drape an arm around Yuto, but his movements are greatly limited by his sandshrew costume. Yuto’s charmander onesie is soft and fluffy and all kinds of comfortable, so he puts his arm around the shorter boy instead.
Yabu pouts at them, readjusting his quiver of fake arrows.
Keito is still visibly stunned by this progression of events. “But-but I wore my Pikachu onesie this morning!”
“We were kind of expecting you to be in the same costume tonight,” Yuto explains, giving Keito what he hopes is an encouraging smile.
“Hey, why don’t you have a costume, Chinen?” Ryutaro asks.
Everyone turns to look at Chinen, the only one still clad in his regular clothes.
“You wanted to go as Link,” Chinen replies softly. “I didn’t know how to match with you.”
“You could be Princess Zelda,” Inoo helpfully supplies.
“It’s a little too late for that,” Chinen grumbles. “And I have no idea what she looks like.”
Ryutaro blinks, a pained expression on his face. “I’m really sorry,” he says, gravitating towards to Chinen. “If I knew you wanted to match, I wouldn’t have gone as Link.”
“It’s okay,” Chinen smiles, and Yuto dies a little at how cute they are. “I know how much you wanted to be Link.”
Yuto watches with envy as they hook their pinkies together, sighing at the beauty of their small actions.
“Do you think this dress is sparkly enough? It’s making my butt itchy.”
And the moment is broken.
“I’m doing this out of the goodness of my pure heart,” Chinen declares, much to everyone’s confusion.
He reaches and takes the stuffed owl from under Keito’s cloak and flings it at the distance.
“WHY?!” Keito shrieks, hysterical as he watches his stuffed companion fly away.
Chinen then transforms into an owl with slightly pinkish feathers, settling on Keito’s shoulder.
Somehow, Chinen is able to turn into an owl that resembles Hedwig, save for the pinkish tint on his feathers. Under limited lighting, Yuto doubts anyone will notice the difference.
“Awww,” Yabu coos, stepping closer to the owl Chinen has become. “He almost looks harmless like this!”
Chinen apparently decides that this ruffles his feathers, and slaps Yabu across the face with a wing.
Yabu keeps his distance after that.
Soon, those two weeks are gone.
Yuto is adjusting his wetsuit when he sees an awfully eye catching banner at the stands that reads, “YUTO IS THE FASTEST MARSHMALLOW”
It’s more than a pleasant surprise to find his entire group of friends holding that ugly looking banner, when he never mentioned the exact date of the competition to them. He’d expected Takaki, and probably Yabu, but that was it. It ignites something warm and fuzzy within him to know that every single one of them came.
Cold water be damned, he’s going to burn even brighter.
And so he dives in.