Chapter Text
How does it happen that a self can walk into a ceaseless place and break apart while still waiting for clarity to come?
—Derek Chan, Fieldwork
Fujimoto is twenty-three years old when she boards the train for Yamagata.
Out the window, the lights of Tokyo recede like stars winking out in the night sky, one by one.
She measures time and distance by the number of street lights passing by.
It feels like a dream.
She hopes that it is a nightmare. And any time now, she will wake up.
She had heard once about a man who got kicked in the head so bad that twenty years of his life played out while in a coma.
When he woke up though, only a day had passed. And when he asked about his wife and kid, the doctors said that they didn’t exist.
She hopes that is what is happening right now. Maybe she slipped in the toilet and banged her head against the tiles.
In the morning, her editor will come hounding her about missed deadlines, and he will find her comatose ass sprawled haphazardly on the floor.
And then in two days’ time, when Fujino wakes up in a hospital bed, with her thick skull all wrapped up in gauze, she’ll see Kyomoto sitting by her bedside.
She’s lived this before, back when they were both fourteen.
In her mind’s eye, she sees Kyomoto clear as day, her eyes bright and face scrunched up in concentration, pouting in that adorably goofy way that she always does.
Kyomoto will be peeling an apple, maybe, or she will have her nose in a manga, so engrossed with reading that she doesn’t even realize that Fujino has woken up.
Fujino hears something, thin in the distance. It builds into an all-encompassing rumble as the train enters a tunnel and darkness rushes in, smothering all light.
It takes a bit for her eyes to adjust.
For a second, she forgets to breathe.
There’s just the pounding of her heart.
And it’s unbearable.
When the train emerges, she’s greeted by fields of rice stretching endlessly into the distance.
It’s a landscape frozen in time.
Her eyes fix upon the dark horizon as her fingers twitch at her side.
From the sea of her thoughts, memories bubble involuntarily to the surface. Of a thousand trips just like this, into the city and away from it, with Kyomoto sitting beside her.
More than anything else in the world right now, she wants to reach for Kyomoto’s hand.
There are a thousand and one things that Fujino wished she had done differently.
Fujino sits with her pain and swallows her tears.
At some point, she shuts her eyes and begins to doze.
.
.
.
Fujino is eleven years old when she decides to give up.
In her hands, the school newspaper crinkles as she stares down at it.
Why even bother? Drawing manga is such a huge pain in the ass.
She has lost count of the number of times she has drawn until she’s fallen asleep at her desk, and despite the insane number of hours she has poured into improving, despite all the friends and family she has alienated in pursuit of this, it is useless.
No matter how hard she tries to climb, she cannot surmount the ten-feet tall brick wall that is Kyomoto’s talent.
.
.
.
Fujino is twelve years old, and puddles splash with every joyous step that she takes.
She is soaked to the bone in the warm summer rain and she has just experienced the greatest feeling in the world.
Fujino is riding on a high, an absolute high.
She has a fan.
She has a fan!
Kyomoto has read every issue of her 4-koma since the third grade and she’s loved every one of Fujino’s comic strips!!!
She skips along the muddy dirt path between endless fields of rice.
No one’s ever called her a manga genius before! She must be to have earned Kyomoto’s praise!
Fujino sprints, she skips, she’s dancing in the rain, kicking her legs as high in the air as they’ll go.
Her socks and the ends of her dress will never wash clean of mud, but why would the great Fujino-sensei care about any of that!
When she reaches home, she kicks off her sodden shoes and sprints up to her room to start drawing the manuscript for Metal Parade.
The way that Kyomoto's cheeks dimple in a smile that lights up her whole face…
It stays with Fujino for days.
.
.
.
Fujino is thirteen years old, and sharks are her favorite animal.
She can’t stop thinking about that one Junji Ito story about the freaky, deep-water fish…
Metal Parade was a huge hit with her publisher and now she’s wracking her brain for what they should draw next.
She heard a story once about how a shark can never stop swimming, or it’ll sink to the bottom of the ocean, and die! Fujino raises her voice when she says the last part while dragging a French fry across her throat with a flourish.
Seated across from her, Kyomoto nods in agreement, her dark eyes round and rapt with attention as she bites into her Big-Mac.
“And it’s so cool how their teeth always grow back. Row upon rows of razor-sharp teeth! For as long as they live!”
Fujino gives her all into channeling the vibes of a ferocious predator: makes a goofy face as she gnashes her teeth together.
“Woah!!!” Kyomoto exclaims, her mouth still full, thoroughly impressed.
Kyomoto is looking at her right now with stars in her eyes and burger stains on her cheek.
It’s such a mundane moment, they’re just pigging out on fast-food, but something compels Fujino to pause for a moment to appreciate the view.
Kyomoto tilts her head quizzically to the side, wondering what made Fujino stopped talking so suddenly. When she does, her comically fluffy black hair obscures even more of her face.
Somehow, all that does is make Kyomoto look even cuter.
Fujino’s heart steeps in sudden warmth. Her hands itch to commit the sight to the page.
She knows it’ll have to wait and settles for the next best thing.
Biting back a grin, Fujino reaches a hand out to wipe away the sauce from Kyomoto’s face.
It’s sweet, Fujino thinks as she pops her thumb into her mouth.
“T-thanks,” Kyomoto stammers out, her blush darkening.
Fujino steals a fry from her before continuing, and stops fighting against the urge to grin.
All through the train ride back to Yamagata, Fujino waxes poetic about the movie Jaws as Kyomoto looks sideways at her with stars in her eyes.
“It's about the tension, you know?”
“Hm. What do you mean?”
“You know, like how the shark doesn’t even appear until more than halfway through the movie! Instead, they just keep building your fear with how it keeps destroying stuff with the cool music in the background!”
Fujino does a poor rendition of the Jaws theme song by drumming on the plastic seat beneath her with her palms and grins toothily when Kyomoto laughs.
It feels good.
She’s happy in a way that’s hard to put into words.
Fujino has been chasing Kyomoto for so long, on the page and in her mind, that this feels like such a refreshing change.
When Kyomoto gingerly admits that she’s never seen the movie, Fujino takes it upon herself to arrange for a movie night.
For now, they’re just bouncing ideas off each other, but one day, she decides…
One day, she’s going to write a manga about sharks.
She hopes that Kyomoto will like it even more than Metal Parade.
Fujino can’t wait to begin.
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.
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Fujino is fourteen years old, delirious from lack of sleep, and still high on caffeine.
Kyomoto sits right beside her under the kotatsu. Their elbows jostle as they fidget and munch on shrimp-flavored Calbee chips.
They’ve just finished watching a documentary about a dumbass cult leader who managed to convince his dumbass followers that he was capable of levitating.
Riding high on the fact that they managed to submit their latest one-shot a whole two days before the deadline, Fujino has gotten it into her head to try and emulate his levitation trick, and she has roped Kyomoto into getting it all on camera.
“How do you think he did it?” Kyomoto asks, hands trembling with nervousness as she holds the camcorder in both her hands.
“Well…”Fujino massages her throbbing temples with her fingertips as her face scrunches up in thought.
“Maybe it’s a trick like in those old black-and-white movies? People did these insane stunts, and the secret was that they acted it all out in reverse then played the film backwards. So maybe—”
“I-Instead of levitating, he was falling?” Kyomoto finishes the thought, her slate-grey eyes lighting up in awe.
“Exactly!” Fujino snaps her fingers and grins.
Yes, Fujino thinks, preening at the look of admiration Kyomoto shoots her way. I’m totally a genius.
She experiments a few times by jumping first from a sitting position, then off her bed, but the runway between the air and the ground is too short.
When they rewind the footage, all Kyomoto had managed to capture were blurry images of Fujino and grunts of pain when she landed repeatedly on her ass.
When Fujino leaps off her desk, she winds up landing funny and fracturing her leg.
Kyomoto ends up filming all of it.
For a whole half a second, Fujino is airborne…
And then she’s groaning on the floor, body curled into a half-moon crescent of sheer agony as she clutches her leg, and Kyomoto is rushing to her side, tears streaming down her face.
All throughout the muted drive to the hospital, Fujino’s father and older sister take turns lecturing her.
Fujino’s head is still throbbing from the lack of sleep and her left leg is hurting so bad right now. She didn’t think that it was possible to be in so much pain.
And, to be honest! Ugh! She really doesn’t need them to rub it in!
She has to pick her battles here though. She can’t risk pissing off her father. If he punishes her by confiscating all her drawing materials, she can't just run away and seek refuge at Kyomoto's house (a feat totally achievable in any other circumstance).
Fujimoto has to settle for making weird, disdainful faces at her older sister as she lies, her body stretched across the backseat of the car, her legs upon her older sister and Kyomoto’s laps.
It turns into a game of endurance.
Eventually, Fujino’s sister rolls her eyes at her then turns to gaze pointedly out the window.
Fujino can’t help but give a victory leer as she catches the eye of her sister’s reflection in the window of the car.
She’s a bit of a sore winner, especially when the situation right now sucks so friggin’ horribly.
She is soon distracted though, by the curious sensation of how Kyomoto is trembling under her as she writes something upon Fujino’s pant-leg with her index finger.
She can’t quite make out the characters. Fujino scrunches her eyes shut, trying hard to decipher what Kyomoto is trying so hard to say.
Eventually, she parses out that Kyomoto is probably spelling out sorry. Again and again.
Fujino tsks. Geez! She thinks with a frown. It’s not like it’s your fault!
Fujino shimmies forward awkwardly until she can reach out to hold Kyomoto’s hand.
Their fingers interlace. Kyomoto’s palms are sweaty from nervousness and stress, but still… it helps, somehow. The sensation is both grounding and comforting enough to distract Fujino from how much her leg hurts right now. Maybe it helps Kyomoto, too.
Fujino makes it a point to put on a brave face when Kyomoto meets her gaze, and after some moments and a few wet sniffles, Kyomoto lets out a shuddering breath and stops trembling.
The cast on Fujino’s leg stays on for a few months.
Dumbass, signs Fujino’s sister.
Get well soon, signs Kyomoto.
And underneath that, she doodles a cartoon shark opening its jaws wide.
Kyomoto visits her every day, staying by Fujino’s side even though they’re not even working on a new manuscript right now.
At some point, Fujino has to shoo her older sister out of her room because she keeps lecturing Kyomoto about how though Fujino was a lost cause, she expected Kyomoto to be more responsible and to please call me the next time Fujino decides to be a total moron.
Fujino wakes up one day to see Kyomoto sitting demurely in a chair that she’s moved to Fujino’s bedside.
Kyomoto is reading a manga that Fujino had recced her the other day. Fujino knows the title from the cover. It’s from her favorite volume of Berserk. The one with the epic fight where Guts and Zodd team-up against Ganishka.
Fujino spends half a minute just looking at Kyomoto as a smile tilts her lips up.
Instinct cajoles her into action.
Fujino feels like the hapless protagonist of a Junji Ito manga, the way she’s lost control of her own body, spurred by some invisible magnetic force, to reach for Kyomoto.
Fujino doesn’t expect to startle her, but of course she does.
Kyomoto jolts in her seat, throws the manga in Fujino’s face and yelps about a g-g-ghoooooost!
Fujino flinches briefly from the sting of pain, and the book lands on the bed, its pages rumpled and ruffled.
It’s the first time she’s seen Kyomoto like this, with her face flushed pink in embarrassment right up to the tips of her ears.
The moment of confusion soon passes and then Kyomoto is rushing forward to fuss over her.
Fujino can’t help but laugh as Kyomoto squishes her cheeks together and they take turns apologizing.
“Enough with the apologies already! It’s my fault for startling you, anyway. Besides! You have noodles for arms!” Fujino says through fits of laughter. It’s a little hard to talk properly with her face pressed between Kyomoto’s palms. “You’re not gonna leave a bruise.”
“B-but I still hit you!” Kyomoto stutters out as she tilts Fujino’s head this way and that, determined to check it for signs of injury. “It’s still better to check… Don’t worry! I… I learned some first-aid after you got injured.”
Kyomoto’s eyebrows pinch together in determination and her long fringe falls forward to obscure her face. Geez, Kyomoto looks so cute right now! It feels almost unfair.
Fujino can never get mad at Kyomoto like this. All she ever wants to do is give in. Plus, it feels nice to have her so close.
Something is bubbling up inside of Fujino from the depths of her heart.
It’s been building steadily all this time.
Like a geyser, maybe.
Or a volcano.
She wonders when it will erupt.
And if she’ll get swallowed up in the undertow.
And how things will forever change.