Work Text:
“Hey, Nozaki-kun,” says Sakura one day. “Why do you draw shoujo manga, anyway?”
It’s the night before his deadline. Hour seven of working bent-backed over the pages at his desk, and the casualties are piling up: Hori’s composure, Wakamatsu’s enthusiasm, Sakura’s optimism. Mikorin is somewhere on the floor, passed out. Nozaki vaguely wonders if he’s still alive.
“Hm?” says Nozaki, sketching out a curl in Mamiko’s hair. He’s the only one who’s still functioning on a level higher than autopilot; he’s used to this, after all. Late nights are his most productive hours. In fact, he thinks, it used to be harder, back before he found a team. Back when he had to do it alone.
“It’s because he can’t draw anything else,” says Hori. “Imagine if he started a shounen adventure manga—I’d never be able to leave his house, what with all the detailed backgrounds I’d have to draw for him—”
“But shoujo manga is Nozaki-kun’s life work!” says Sakura, who seems almost offended, though Nozaki can’t fathom why. “He wouldn’t have picked it over some arbitrary reason like that!”
“Actually, that is the reason,” says Nozaki. Both Sakura and Wakamatsu gasp from across the desk, as though scandalized. “I’m best at simplistic settings, like school classrooms, which I can easily reference since I see them every day. Although you’re right, it seems a little restrictive that I can’t draw backgrounds very well. I should try learning again—”
“Don’t,” growls Hori. He stabs his pen down a little too hard on his page. “I can’t deal with those boxes again, I won’t.”
“Well, I think it’s cool Nozaki-kun writes shoujo manga, regardless of his reasons,” says Sakura. She seems to have forgotten she’s in the middle of inking a scene, and instead taps her pen against her cheek thoughtfully. 1 AM does that to people, Nozaki supposes. “Think of all the people around the country right now reading his manga! Wanting a relationship like Mamiko and Suzuki’s, being inspired to work up the courage to confess to the ones they love…”
“Sakura, your face is a little red,” says Nozaki. “Is it too hot in here? Should I open a window?”
Sakura’s face only goes redder. “No, it’s fine, Nozaki-kun,” she says. “I just think it’s great what you do, that’s all. Writing love stories—it’s really romantic!”
Nozaki pauses in the middle of drawing Suzuki’s eye. Romantic? Mamiko and Suzuki’s story is a romance, of course. But the act of writing it—is it romantic? Nozaki thinks of sore fingers and neck cramps, of ink staining his fingernails, of staying up late into the night mapping out the spread of panels on a page. That’s certainly a strange definition of romantic, he thinks. He makes a mental note to ask Sakura what she means later, but for now—
“You have ink on your face, Sakura,” Nozaki says. Sakura yelps, drops her pen.
“Hey, guys, where’s Mikoshiba-senpai?” says Wakamatsu.
Hori points wordlessly under the desk, from where Mikorin’s socked feet are poking out. Nozaki hopes he’s not drooling on the carpet.
“Maybe we should wake him up,” says Sakura. “There’s a page coming up with some roses on it, he’ll love to ink that.”
“Maybe we should take a break,” says Wakamatsu. He stretches his arms out with a sigh. “I’m going to be a zombie in basketball practice tomorrow, Seo-senpai’s going to annihilate me on the court—”
“Don’t worry,” Nozaki says. “I have enough cold compresses for all of you.”
Everyone groans, all at once, which is apparently enough to wake up Mikorin, if the loud bang of him sitting up too sharply and hitting his head on the underside of the table is any indication. “Ouch—what? Where am I?”
Hori pats him on the shoulder as he crawls out from under the desk. There’s ink in his hair, somehow. “Welcome to hell,” Hori says, handing him a pen, and Nozaki stifles a smile, outlines the curve of Mamiko’s upturned face on his page.
--
Nozaki’s been having strange dreams lately. They all start out the same way—blinking open his eyes to find that he’s running, and he’s Suzuki, and he’s on his way to find Mamiko. He doesn’t know how he knows this, just that the wind is rushing past his ears and the ground is soft beneath his feet and he’s wearing a neatly pressed suit or a navy sailor’s uniform or—in this case—full-length silver armour. He’s clanking down the shapeless road, holding a ridiculously heavy sword, and there’s a figure down the way, waving out at him from behind a fence. It’s Hori, dressed as a medieval page.
“Hey,” Hori calls. “You’re going to be too late. Everyone else is already ahead of you. Quick, come on, take my hand.”
And Nozaki reaches out, but in the moment before their hands meet the dream shifts somehow, the ground slanting sideways until Hori is rising higher and higher up above him, hand still outstretched, but Nozaki can’t reach, and the sun is too bright, beating down through the visor of his helmet and everything bleeds out into a brilliant white—
“Nozaki-kun, wake up,” comes a voice. The bell is ringing. He’s in his classroom, and everyone around him is packing up their books, pushing back their chairs. Sakura is standing too, peering down at where he’s slumped forward on his desk, and it’s strange, he thinks, having to look up at her for once.
“You slept through the last fifteen minutes of class, but it’s okay,” says Sakura, “you can copy my notes if you want.”
“Thanks,” says Nozaki, and this seems to make Sakura really happy for some reason, so he says it again. “Thank you.”
Later, when they’re in the hallway, Sakura says, “You should try and get some more rest, Nozaki-kun. Our exams are coming up soon, so you need all the energy you can get.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” says Nozaki. He still feels a little off-kilter, like there’s something he meant to ask, once in a dream. Something buzzing around in his skull like a dragonfly. But he lets go of the thought when he catches sight of Hori down the hallway.
“Oh, hey, Nozaki,” says Hori as Nozaki approaches, nodding at him, then staring, alarmed, when Nozaki keeps on walking closer. “What are you doing—”
Nozaki peers down at Hori, from where his chest is almost pressed against him and his shoes are just shy of stepping on his and his chin is brushing the top of Hori’s head. “Just as I thought,” he says aloud, “I’m still taller than you.” Of course he is, he thinks. It was just a dream.
“Ha, ha, very funny,” Hori says, and he looks like he’s ready to yell someone’s ear off. Nozaki mentally sends his apologies to Kashima, in advance.
--
It strikes Nozaki again when he’s on the subway with Mikorin, heading home from the shopping centre, where he’d had to drop by to replenish his supplies and where Mikorin had wanted to check out the new anime figure display. The subway train compartment is crowded, and at one of the stops a pair of girls jostle Mikorin on their way out. “Pardon me,” Mikorin says, with a sweeping bow of his head. The girls giggle among themselves, but don’t stick around long enough to catch the furious blush on his cheeks. Nozaki’s seen it all before. But in his mind he’s already framing the situation in a different context: Mamiko, perhaps, on her way back from the mall, crossing paths with Suzuki on his way to the library, just by chance, in the space between stops, elbows brushing each other—
“Yo,” says Mikorin, waving a hand in front of his face, “you’re spacing out. You okay?”
The curve of a hair ribbon; the lilt of a surprised smile. Nozaki blinks them away. “Say, Mikoshiba,” he says suddenly. “What does love mean, to you?”
Mikorin jerks back, as though Nozaki had reached out and poked him in the face. “W-What kind of a question is that? Why are you asking that all of a sudden?”
Nozaki shrugs, shifts the weight of his plastic shopping bags in his hands. “It’s just a question,” he says. “You don’t have to answer it if it makes you uncomfortable.”
The subway bends around a corner, and Mikorin steadies a hand on the pole. His face is red. Nozaki waits him out.
“Well, you know,” Mikorin stammers. “It’s like, y’know, when you care about someone, and you want to be with them all the time. And it’s when you wanna do cool stuff together, like, uh, d-dating, and playing video games, and watching anime—” He’s picking up speed, having gained enthusiasm at the thought of it. “And it’s when they compliment you, because they think you’re really cool, and charming, and handsome!”
Nozaki considers it. “That does sound like it’s romantic,” he agrees. He'd take out his notepad, but his hands are full.
“And it’s when you want to hold their hand,” Mikorin adds, like an afterthought.
Nozaki thinks of all the times he’s held someone’s hand before. As a child, latching onto his mother when crossing the street. Then, as an older brother, making sure Mayu didn’t lag behind in the middle of traffic. Every time he watched horror movies with Mikorin and then had to calm him during the scary parts. Just last night, helping affix cold compresses to Hori’s neck. Wakamatsu’s forehead. The backs of Sakura’s hands, the skin of her palms soft under his own, a strange flush to Sakura’s cheeks as she tilted her face away.
“I don’t think all the times I’ve held someone’s hand can be classified as romantic,” says Nozaki, aloud. “It wasn’t about love. It was more like wanting to keep someone safe.”
Mikorin squints at him, scratches at his collar. “Isn’t that the same thing?”
Nozaki feels as though he’s been caught, somehow.
“And anyway,” says Mikorin. “Shouldn’t you be the expert on this? Being the shoujo mangaka, and all?”
It’s true. Shoujo manga does more than run Nozaki’s life; it is his life. At any given moment in time Mamiko and Suzuki are always with him, in his mind, in a shadow on the street, in the shape of a stranger’s back turning away. Right now in his head Mamiko and Suzuki are twirling pirouettes in each other’s arms, gazing up at each other’s faces. The perfect angle, Nozaki thinks, and he mentally cranes his neck forward to get a better glimpse, to trace the image to memory, but they keep dancing away, out of reach.
“Do you think that’s romantic?” says Nozaki, remembering what Sakura had said last night. “Writing shoujo manga?”
“Um,” says Mikorin. “Well, I don’t think it’s any less romantic than me and my dating sims.” He puffs out his chest, proud. “Love transcends all boundaries, including that of reality, you know!”
Nozaki sighs, and takes that to mean not very. Funny. He’d thought he was onto something for a moment there. He rests his head against the subway pole, watches the city lights blink past. An itch in his palms—to hold someone’s hand, perhaps, or more likely, to pick up his pen, to draw.
--
In the dream, he is Suzuki, and he’s running, on his way to find Mamiko. The wind is rushing past his ears. The city street is filled with strangers and clouded with cigarette smoke, and he’s wearing a thick black trenchcoat, a wide-brimmed hat tilted down over his eyes. He’s pushing his way through the crowd, lost among the blinking neon signs and shadowed alleyways, when he sees a figure down the way, waving at him from across the road. It’s Seo, in a beat-up leather jacket and a pair of shades.
“Hey,” Seo says. She’s smoking a cigarette; that’s where the smell is coming from. “You’re going to be too late. Everyone is already ahead of you. Hurry up, come on.”
And Nozaki steps off the sidewalk, but in the moment before he can reach the other side the dream shifts somehow, the street widening beneath his feet until Seo is farther away from him than before, blowing a cloud of smoke through her teeth, disinterested, and Nozaki can’t reach her, and the noise is too loud, the screech of car horns and rubber tires against asphalt rising up into cacophony all around him until he screws his eyes shut and everything bleeds into a brilliant white—
“Nozaki-kun,” someone whispers. He blinks his eyes open, startled. Darkness—the smoke, he thinks—and glowing lights, like two halves of a whole, two sides of a coin. And then the in-between: the half-formed silhouettes beside him, the side of Sakura’s face obscured from where she’s leaned over him in her seat. “Wake up.”
They’re in the school auditorium. It’s the first showing of the drama club’s new play. All around him, people are watching attentively as Kashima spars with her rival on the stage. Nozaki rubs his eyes. Hori had worked on this play day and night; for weeks now Kashima would launch into her lines at any opportunity, at anyone who would listen. Sakura had helped paint each set with care. It had been Nozaki himself who had secured the tickets—he’d been hoping for inspiration. How rude of him, he thinks, to have fallen asleep.
“Thanks,” he whispers to Sakura, and straightens up in his seat. Then he catches sight of Seo, sitting on Sakura’s other side, eyes glued to the battle unfolding on the stage, and he shivers, remembering his dream.
“Kill him!” Seo shouts, hands cupped around her mouth, and the illusion fades immediately. Annoyed whispers ripple through the audience. On the stage, Kashima raises her sword, and it catches the light. The fatal blow, Nozaki thinks, and he looks away, rubbing his head—an ache he can’t quite seem to shake off. The insistent drone of an insect, beating in his brain.
Later, after the show, they wait in the wings, Sakura holding a bouquet of flowers, Nozaki ready with his camera, Seo eating a bag of chips. When Kashima and Hori emerge Nozaki snaps a photo of the two of them, caught blinking by the camera flash. Kashima’s still in her knight costume. Hori’s holding her fake sword, along with a bag of props.
“You were amazing, Kashima!” Sakura says, and she thrusts the flowers forward, stars shining in her eyes. “Congratulations!”
Kashima beams. “Thank you, Chiyo-chan,” she says, and then, leaning closer forward, “but you should know, it was the thought of you in the audience watching me that truly bolstered my performance and kept me going strong.” She takes the flowers from a furiously blushing Sakura, then spots Seo. “Hey, can I have a chip? I’m starved.”
Seo squints at her. “Get your own,” she says, through a mouthful of food.
Kashima pouts. Seo remains unperturbed. Nozaki thinks of something strange. The lights from the theatre, in his eyes. The five of them standing there, in a circle, comfortable. In his head the space between Mamiko and Suzuki is lessening. He lifts his camera again, takes another shot.
“Hey, stop that,” says Hori. He looks exhausted, but the line of his brow is relaxed, his mouth in something almost like a smile. “What about you, Nozaki? How’d you like the play?”
“It was a good story,” Nozaki says.
Hori snorts. “Of course you’d say that,” he says, “you’re the one who wrote it,” and Nozaki remembers now, handing over the script bleary-eyed and sleep-deprived after a long night of frenzied writing, the floor of his room littered with balled-up pieces of notebook paper, scrapped ideas. Strange that he’d forgotten. But then again, he writes so many stories nowadays, and aren’t they all the same story anyway? The righteous prince, the courageous knight, and the princess who has to choose between the two of them, as though their love isn’t enough to be shared. As though it isn’t all just about wanting to close the distance, in the end. Nozaki scratches his head. He’d come to watch the play for inspiration, but turns out he’s just been stuck with himself all along.
“Seo-sama,” Kashima is saying, “have I ever mentioned how lovely your eyes are? Like stars, in the sky. The kind that can only belong to a beautiful soul, a kindred spirit… Generous enough to share your chips with a starving friend in need…”
Seo blinks, pops the last chip into her mouth.
“Give it a rest,” says Hori, to a visibly wilting Kashima. “Haven’t you had enough of acting for the day?”
Kashima clutches her heart in despair. “That’s ice cold, Hori-chan-senpai!”
The bouquet of flowers in her hands goes flying in the air, and Sakura scrambles to catch it in alarm. “If we’re hungry why don’t we all just go for dinner?” she says. “The new noodle place is pretty good.”
Kashima perks up. Seo crunches her empty chip bag into a ball, lobs it into a nearby garbage can, whistles—“Score.” Nozaki thinks, maybe not stuck with only himself after all. In his head Mamiko and Suzuki are turning to face him, as though to say, hurry up, you’re taking so long, and he lifts his camera, snaps another shot. For good measure.
“I’d like that,” he says, to his friends. “Let’s go.”
--
He finally remembers to ask one day when it’s lunch, and they’re in the schoolyard, and Nozaki is bending down to retrieve his drink from the vending machine. It’s a blustery day, wind in his eyes, and Nozaki pauses for a moment, something sliding into him like the slot of a coin. It’s perhaps not the most appropriate time, his hand still stuck inside the vending machine, but he turns around from where he’s knelt on the ground and says to Sakura, “What did you mean, that time?”
“What time?” says Sakura. She’s texting Mikorin, telling him where to meet up in the school to eat lunch together. Her bows are crooked, in the wind.
“When you said that you admired me for writing shoujo manga.”
“Oh!” A faint blush spreads across Sakura’s cheeks, in surprise. “You—you remembered that, Nozaki-kun?”
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” Nozaki admits.
“Well,” says Sakura with a stammer. “I do think it’s amazing, what you do. You’re only a high school student like me, but you spend your time making a living, making a name for yourself… Well, a fake name, but you know what I mean… It’s really, um, responsible—no, no, this isn’t right…”
She’s frowning, and her face is awfully red, and Nozaki would ask if she’s all right, but she seems on the verge of some mental breakthrough, and he doesn’t want to interrupt her. Instead he waits as Sakura flounders for the right words, in faith that she’ll find them.
“What I wanted to say is!” Sakura bursts out, all of a sudden. “I really admire you for drawing shoujo manga! Because I—I think it reaches a lot of people, who can read your words, who can run their fingers over your drawings and touch the expressions in the faces you create… And maybe young people, you know, people who are scared or nervous or alone, maybe they can see themselves in the pages… Maybe they can gain hope, or courage, or inspiration, to seek what you have captured in your art. To reach out to the ones they want to love…”
The blush is gone, replaced by a thoughtful look on her face, a sort of surety to her words. As though she truly believes everything she says, and it surprises even herself.
“Because you write love stories,” Sakura says. Her voice trails off, and she turns to look at Nozaki.
“Why do you draw shoujo manga, Nozaki-kun?” she says, after a pause.
For the first time in his life Nozaki is surprised into thinking about it. Is there any other choice? Is there anything else to draw? Isn’t this what it all comes down to in the end—the love story? And to tell a love story—it merits responsibility. He needs to get it right. He needs his notepad, his pen, his camera; needs the choreography for Mamiko and Suzuki in his head, stumbling over each other in trial and error. Everywhere around him, on the television, on the street, everyone falling in love with each other the way rain falls to the ground, and he needs to get it right, for it’s a law of nature, isn’t it?
Isn’t it?
And yet when the storm breaks out overhead, when he brings his pen and paper to take his notes, when he brings his camera to take his photographs—he brings his umbrella, too. Everyone else, their faces turned up to the sky, tasting rainwater. Nozaki thinks, maybe that’s the miracle. The slow dance that has entranced the rest of the world, that in turn entrances him. He thinks he can respect that. He can live with that, from under the cover of his umbrella, content to try and capture what he sees, in order to reflect it back at them. Maybe then, they’ll finally see what they’ve been capable of, all this time.
“Because it’s the only thing I can draw,” Nozaki says, and he distantly realizes it’s the same answer he’d given back in his apartment the other day, but it still rings true. It’s still the only answer.
“I see,” says Sakura, and she’s looking up at him, and her eyes are shining strangely. “I really am your fan, Nozaki-kun.”
“You know,” says Nozaki after a moment. “It’s not necessarily being the writer, or the artist, that’s admirable at all. It’s in being the reader, too. Seeking out a story so that you can recognize yourself in it, and being loyal to it, as a fan… Choosing to find your own meaning, and to name that feeling within yourself hope, or courage, or inspiration, or whatever you need to move forward in your own life…”
A pause. The wind ruffles his hair. “I think that’s very brave,” says Nozaki. “Don’t you?”
When he turns his head again it is to see Sakura, mouth open, hair flying around her face, poised as though on the edge of some revelation. He waits for it, but there is nothing.
“Sakura?” he prompts. “Was there anything else you wanted to tell me?”
She closes her mouth, smiles at him, kind, the wind rising all around them. “No,” she says, “that was all. Come on, Nozaki-kun, let’s go find Mikorin.”
--
In the dream he is Suzuki, and he’s running, and he’s on his way to find Mamiko. The wind is rushing past his ears. He’s wearing a school uniform and he’s running down the sidewalk with the cherry tree branches rustling in the wind overhead, the sun a setting smear in the distance.
“Nozaki-kun?” comes a voice. It’s Sakura, on the other side of the road. “There you are. We’ve been waiting for you.”
Nozaki slows, but doesn’t stop. “What?” he says. “I’m not Nozaki. I’m Suzuki.”
“What are you talking about?” Sakura says, with a laugh. The others are all there—Mikorin with his jacket slung over his shoulder, Hori and Wakamatsu, Kashima and Seo. Grouped together by the side of the road, looking at him like he belongs there.
“You know you don’t actually live in a shoujo manga, right, Nozaki?” Mikorin’s saying, shoving his hands into his pockets with an easy grin, like it’s that simple.
Nozaki stops, and it suddenly strikes him that he’s tired of running. A realization that sets in with a weariness in his bones, but at the same time, the relief of rest. Peace. He starts across the road, and in his carelessness stumbles over a stone on the sidewalk.
“Careful,” says Sakura, holding out a hand, and Nozaki takes it, easy. “Are you tired? We can rest here for a bit, if you want.”
“That would be nice,” says Nozaki, and they all sit down on the curb by the side of the road as the sun sets quietly around them. A dragonfly buzzes, distantly. Seo grabs Wakamatsu’s backpack to squash it flat against the asphalt, ignoring his squawk of outrage, but she misses, and it leaps up into Hori’s hair. Hori doesn’t notice. Sakura gasps, and Mikorin’s cowering, but it’s Kashima who reaches up, gentle, to cradle the insect in her cupped palms, lower it to the earth like an offering.
“Look,” she says. “It’s flying.”
He wakes up to drool solidifying from where his cheek is pressed against his desk. There are muffled voices around him, so he keeps his eyes closed as he listens.
“…he’s been a zombie all week.” It’s Sakura’s voice. They’re in his apartment, working on his manga—he must have fallen asleep. It’s strange that they haven’t woken him up. “I don’t think he even realized.”
“I kinda wanna draw on his face,” comes Mikorin’s voice.
“Ooh, we could draw something cute,” says Sakura, “like bunny whiskers, or a heart.”
“I could do my underwear marking,” says Hori.
“How is that cute?” Mikorin says, scandalized.
Nozaki thinks about love. He thinks it must be the kind of thing you see in dreams, like flowers, like the sound of the rain tinkling through silver windchimes, like the shape of someone’s silhouette against the setting sun whose face you can never quite see. He wouldn’t know. In his own dream he sat on the sidewalk and lay his head in Sakura’s lap as Mikorin pressed the cold surface of his vending machine soft drink against his forehead and he closed his eyes to the background music of Hori and Kashima’s gentle bickering, of Seo vaguely humming a song, of Wakamatsu saying out loud, absentmindedly, “I think I’ve heard that tune somewhere before.” And he thinks, it is not anything more. It is not anything less.
“I’ve finished my share of the pages,” comes Wakamatsu’s voice. “Here, let me help with the rest. We’re almost done, right?”
Hori hums in assent. “He’ll be surprised when he wakes up. Bet he didn’t think we were capable of taking care of his story.”
He’s wrong on that one. More than his story, Nozaki thinks, they’re capable of taking care of him. Mamiko and Suzuki are in good hands. In the morning his neck will cramp and he might have a pair of briefs drawn on his forehead in permanent marker, but Nozaki allows these thoughts to fade to the back of his mind, allows the corner of his mouth to curl up into a smile as he drifts off into a dreamless sleep.