Work Text:
Yatora is a big people pleaser. He knows this. He is also a walking contradiction, all delinquent in his cigarettes and dyed hair and piercings but soft and sensitive and honest in his awkward affection. But he is a logical contradiction, a contradiction that's not really one at all, because he knows that a lot of him is what people want to see, and somehow he's happy with that.
One weekend Yatora gets his nails painted by his cousins and he finds he doesn't mind it --- he really likes it, actually. His classmates don't agree.
"What, are you gay, Yaguchi? You a girl?"
Yatora frowns and tilts his head. He doesn't like the tone of their voices. He figures that they don't like this Yatora, so he laughs and says, "My little cousin came over the other day is all. Wanted to dress me up."
He still gets teased anyway, but not with the hard bite of the first questions. It's still a little mean, he thinks, but it's not sharp and hateful anymore. So Yatora makes a little mental note: people don't like pretty Yatora. They don't seem to like pretty boys at all, actually.
It takes a little adjusting, a lot of side stepping and rambled justification, but Yatora lives around it. He picks at his nails all day and asks his mom for acetone when he gets home, showing her the chipped, barely presentable nail polish. He makes up a cousin's birthday when he stares a little too long at sparkly hairclips and cute accessories while out with his friends. He convinces himself that his hair was getting too long anyway, always getting in his face, when he caves and buys one (or four).
Yatora gladly steps into the delinquent persona if it means he can bleach his hair and style it, if he can get his ears pierced and his friends admire it rather than teasing. He once noticed someone with a cool piercing and he couldn't stop himself from going up to them and asking what it was, where they got it. Yatora comes out of it with an address to a piercing shop scribbled on a piece of note paper, his friends teasing him for being a flirt, and two new holes in his ears.
Tragus and helix. Yatora had cried (a lot) but it's worth it when he sees the two pieces of jewelry stuck in his ear. He almost cries again because he's so pretty but he's not allowed to be. So he'll push the limits as much as he can, for his stupid little heart decorated in stickers and glitter.
And then he meets Ayukawa.
He learns about sunk cost fallacy that day.
Yatora is kind of pathetic. He reminds Yuka of herself in middle school, doing things only because that's what people expected of them. Not to mention how Yatora looks longingly at pastel phone cases and plush keychains and skirts in a different way than most boys do. It pisses her off.
So yeah --- they antagonize him a little. But Yatora bites back twice as hard: he's nasty, caustic, and bitter. And he won't stop calling her that godawful name. So maybe Yuka ends up hating him a little bit.
But Yatora mellows after his blue Shibuya morning, and Yuka thinks they hate him even more. He's a stupid goody-two-shoes and Yuka thought they were similar but he's pursuing the art he wants to make and she isn't. Can't. It's funny that Yuka thought that Yatora could ever understand them.
She tells him as much over an embarrassingly candid and raw phone call, and then.
And then.
Yatora is standing in front of her at the train station, wide-eyed and uncertain.
But he steps onto the train first, grimacing all the while, and the doors almost close on Yuka.
They go to the beach.
They see the sun rise over the ocean and Yuka distantly wonders if this is what Yatora's Shibuya morning was like. It's blue, all the way down to her blood, but still warm despite the winter season.
Blue, the most human color.
She thinks she understands what that means, now.
And despite how Yuka has lost all hope in the kindness of strangers, the manager makes the two breakfast and never mentions Yuka's appearance again. It fills her up more than the delicious meal does.
Afterwards, they and Yatora talk some more. It's awkward and honest and disgusting. They continue talking as they strip down, separated only by a folding panel room-divider, and even as they draw themselves in the nude.
Yatora learns more about Yuka than he thought he'd ever want to. He feels a little bad that she's the only one sharing, so he allows himself to be a little vulnerable. Maybe it also has something to do with Yuka's frankly flattering misconceptions of him.
And then.
And then.
They're both only human. And they're more similar than either of them can handle.
"Are you a girl, Yatora?" And somehow Yuka doesn't sound mean. They sound curious, warm even.
So Yatora decides to answer her. "No. At least I don't think."
"Okay. Thanks."
"I just... like being pretty."
And god, if Yuka doesn't understand him. If Yuka doesn't resonate so deeply with that that it makes them want to scream. And Yatora was the last person she expected to understand, Yatora who insisted on deadnaming them and Yatora who hated her for some inexplicable reason. But Yuka thinks she understands that too, in a horrible, sad way, because they think Yatora was scared. Lashing out in a sad, cornered animal way after a lifetime of being told that he can't be pretty and then meeting Yuka.
Maybe she'd be a little nicer to the poor thing, if maybe Yatora could call her by her name, now.