Work Text:
Try as she might, Izumo couldn’t stop the traitorous tears that burned at her eyes. She was humiliated, inside and out, and all she could do was shake and cry behind the lockers of the Old Girls Bathroom.
She had failed.
Miserably.
Paku, her best friend, her ONLY friend, was hurt because of her inadequacy. Because she had let herself become compromised. Because she had let her emotions take over after just one blow to her confidence. Because she had let herself become weak, and had lost resolve in front of her familiars, when she should have known that she couldn’t depend on them.
Izumo had forgotten. She couldn't rely on anyone. Not even family.
Not even Paku.
She had failed.
And Okumura had jumped in.
He had slammed into the washroom before Izumo could even scream and cover herself, punching things and weilding that STUPID sword bag like it was a bat of all things.
He told her to tear the summoning papers.
She did.
Uke and Mike disappeared, the scent of sweet rice and smoke barely noticeable over the overpowering stench of the kin of Rot. Then that damn Moriyama came in, helped Paku more than Izumo ever could have, and chaos reigned, for a while.
Before Izumo could even think, it was over.
It was over, Izumo was in her underwear and nothing else, and all she could do was hide in her overwhelming humiliation.
Her tears were hot on her already burning cheeks, her breath coming in shuddering wheezes, desperate to be silent.
Okumura found her, anyway, in that innocent, bumbling way that almost made her think that he had done it on accident. Not that it mattered. She would kill him for seeing her like this, curled up small and naked and inadequate, sobbing into her knees.
“It’s...humiliating..” Izumo grit out between clenched teeth, refusing to look at him. He would see her ugly, blotchy face, her snotty nose. He would see how weak she was, and how weak she had always been. “Don’t look at me!! I don’t want anyone to…see me like this…!” The words kept pouring, thin and breaking between her panicked gasps, until her blurry vision was obscured by dark fabric that landed soft upon her head. Her breath caught, and she looked up, unable to hide her shock.
Okumura was standing above her, half naked and flushed from cheeks to the collarbone, his eyes refusing to meet hers and his shoulders tense.
“Just..” his voice wavered and cracked, then strengthened, becoming just a hint deeper as his posture straightened and his chest puffed out, “..put that on and get outta here.”
Before she could protest, or scream in embarrassment, or even possibly thank him, he was already rounding the corner back to the others.
Izumo left before the shouting could begin, clutching the front of Okumura’s shirt to her chest like the armour it was.
Her heart felt lighter than it had in years.
----
“...Good morning.”
Okumura startled very slightly, then made a gagging noise as he spit out his toothpaste into the dormitory sink. He hacked for a moment before turning to look back at her, grinning weakly.
“H-hey,,,, guh...g’mornin’…”
Izumo felt incredible enjoyment at knowing that he had nearly inhaled his toothbrush, but didn’t allow herself so much as a smirk. She had more important business to discuss, such as her humiliating display of weakness, and how if he blabbed to anyone about it, she would gut him and use his innards as yarn for her next crocheting project.
(He would make a lovely balaclava)
And then……...
“..I washed your shirt. Here.”
Not unlike a big, airheaded dog when faced with a tennis ball, Okumura’s eyes lit up in instant joy as he took the offered shirt, crowing, “Oh man, really?? That’s so cool of you, PolkaBrows! I really misjudged you!”
“P-po….!!! Wh..!!” Izumo sucked in a sharp gasp, fury building up inside of her, before she tamped it down with a visible shudder.
Okumura blanched and backed away a few inches, seeming to sense that he had crossed a line that his puny mind hadn’t known existed. The newly-re-gifted shirt served as a pathetic shield from Izumo’s wrath.
She held her breath. Then released.
“....Okumura Rin,” she began, steadying her voice to her usual tenor.
“Y...yes?” Okumura squeaked, still clutching at the shirt like it was a life raft and Izumo was a roiling ocean.
Izumo paused a moment. Took a few more steadying breaths, heedless of the mounting anxiety of the boy in front of her, then ducked her head in a crude approximation of a bow.
“Thank you. For what you did. I really owe you one, so...really. Thank you.”
Izumo didn’t have to look up to know that Okumura was facing her with an expression of bewilderment, but when she peeked through her bangs, she was annoyed at his face, anyway.
He looked a hair’s breadth away from sprinting from the room, but he was grinning like he had just won 2 million yen.
“I-i-i-it’s nothing, really! I was uh, j-just um..”
Was he REALLY scratching his head, blushing and acting like it was no big deal, what he did for her? Izumo was through. She was done.
“It was NOT nothing!!” she all but shouted.
Rin froze mid-stammer, his embarrassed grin stalling on his stupid face.
Izumo couldn’t stop, all of her fear and mortification spilling up out of her like so much sulphourous fire. “It’s not nothing,” she said again, her voice breaking dangerously, “You...you outed yourself for me!! You gave me your shirt and you stood there n-naked and...and you didn’t even care!!!!!!”
She was shouting, she knew, and Rin just stood there stunned, his face slack and pale.
She couldn’t stop.
“H-how can you be so CONFIDENT?!” she demanded, glaring down at the floor with clenched fists and shaking limbs, “H-how can you...how...how can you just not CARE?!?”
Izumo breathed heavily in the following silence, shoulders hunched, afraid to look up. After a moment, Rin shifted, leaning on one hip, to rest his weight against the sink.
He heaved a sigh, bone-deep and tired and yet somehow cheerful, and Izumo’s mind went silent.
“I guess..” Rin began, speaking softer than she had ever heard before, “..I guess it was never really an issue for me. Being a guy. Being trans. The Old Man accepted me right away, heh, ‘cause he was so cool he never took anything seriously. The guys at the monastery, too. And Yukio? He knew all along. At least, that’s what he said. I’m sure that nerd read all the books and websites about it, just so he could school me on my own life. Shitty four-eyes…”
Izumo wiped viciously at her eyes, destroying any tears that might have come and unwilling to look away from the boy in front of her. A part of her still screamed for answers, for absolution, for SOMETHING.
But Rin just shrugged and smiled.
“I guess I just forgot that it was a big thing! I never got in fights for THAT in middle school….but believe me, there were, like, SO many other reasons that guys started fights with me. It’s actually insane…”
Izumo could only stare as this amazing, moronic, incredibly strong boy brushed off what she knew was definitely years of confusion and medicine and hardship. Her mind baffled under the weight of the sheer optimistic idiocy in front of her, until all she could say was,
“Buh...but you just went out? Shirtless? In front of all the guys and Moriyama?!”
Rin blinked, processed, and then let out a guffaw.
“Oh, yeah! I stopped wearing a binder when I entered cram school, but luckily I'm pretty little so sports bras work okay usually!” Rin beamed, a little off-balance, but mostly that tired sort of relieved you get to when a long conversation is nearing its end. “It’s a shame I didn't have one on this time, though, MAN…Koneko and Shiemi looked ready to faint, it was awesome! Shima looked like he died a little bit inside, and both Bon and Yukio definitely wanted to kill me..! Which...is the usual…”
Rin trailed off, dejected and pouting, like he didn’t expose his naked upper body to a bunch of teenagers who had no previous idea that he was transgender.
Izumo wanted to cry, and laugh, all at the same time.
She wished that she had that sort of confidence.
Some of the dejection must have shown on her face, because Rin became serious once more as he faced her, his eyebrows drawn together in a fierce line.
Then, he smiled.
“You have friends who accept you, y’know. You just gotta have confidence, PolkaBrows!”
Izumo twitched, feeling her whole face flare up in furious red. “My name is Izumo,” she spat, stomping her foot in childish indignation, “Kamiki Izumo!”
“Okay, then,” Rin said with a smile that was somehow even softer than the last, “Just have some confidence, Izumo.”
“DON’T CALL ME BY MY FIRST NAME!!!! AND DON’T YOU DARE TELL ANYONE ABOUT THIS!!! OR THAT I WAS CRYING!”
Rin laughed and winced away from her anger, and it was okay.
They passed their Exwire exams, and celebrated together.
Friends were made.
And then
-
----
-
Fire.
-
----
-
Rin was so alone.
Izumo would have to be a fool not to see that. A fool, or a coward, like the rest of her “So Called Team” of “Fellow Exwires” who rode the bullet train with them.
They were all cowards. And traitors.
All of them.
She watched as they brushed past Rin’s attempts to socialize, some with contempt and some with blatant fear.
She watched as those fearful exchanges hurt Rin more than any hatred could. She watched as he shrunk down and down into his seat, his fluffy tail curled close around him and tucking quickly under his shirt, his shoulders hunched like that could protect him from their glares.
They claimed friendship, and teamwork, and had only survived the Training Camp due to Rin’s efforts, yet they refused to look at him.
It made her sick.
It made her feel dizzy with furious anxiety.
It
Izumo flopped down onto the seat nearest Rin, spitefully aware of the attention she grabbed. Rin was gobsmacked, staring and idiotic as he always was, but Izumo was not about to lose the only grey ally she had in this shitstorm of a black-and-white war.
Rin was more than what he was born to be.
And so was Izumo.