Chapter Text
Quick notes on DID information and brief explanations of my writing:
A person with DID has two or more different personalities. Each personality is called an Alter. Each alter can be considered completely different people from each other, and they can have different names, backgrounds, family, genders, etc. They can be aware or unaware of each other. The "original" personality of the person may not be their most dominant personality, aka the personality that "stays awake" the longest. (It is possible to have multiple dominant personalities, in which case it is very distressing.)
DID (previously known as multiple personality disorder) is now referred to as such because it is classified under a group of disorders called Dissociative Disorders, which involve disruptions/breakdowns of: memory, consciousness, awareness, identity, and perception. Dissociation can be a coping mechanism, in the sense that people dissociate to "separate" their "traumatic" memories from their "normal" memories, so they can live a "normal" life without being affected by trauma. In the most simplified way, this "separation" can cause the mind to become very fragmented, so different personalities manifest.
*Note on my writing: Gakushuu is abused, and he develops his alters to help him cope with different aspects in his abuse. I won't spoil the specifics of what happens! This is not meant to be a representation of how DID develops in real life.
If someone is not aware if they have DID, they may report random occurrences of amnesia. What really happens is that that one of their alters take over the mind, so when the dominant personality returns back to awareness, they will have a brief period of time where they do not remember anything. (They are essentially different people mentally with different memories.) However, if Alters are aware of each other, it is possible for them to communicate via internal/external methods and make sure that all the alters are "on the same page".
*Note on my writing: Gakushuu has lapses in memory in this way, when his alter takes over. He describes it as "falling asleep" or "sleepwalking", and he often "wakes up" in a different location from where he "fell asleep" in, after some time has passed. Afterwards, he is aware of his alter(s) and begins communicating with them.
It is possible to treat DID! Treatment does not involve "removing" the different alters. It involves helping the alters function as a complete whole, by increasing awareness, communication, and the like.
*Note on my writing: The fictional story of "Jekyll and Hyde" is not a representative case of DID. Gakushuu does read the book as he learns more about having different personalities, but it is not my intention to portray it as a valid resource/case study on DID.
doing
Yukio is the second.
Gakushuu is afraid of the dark. He is afraid of the cold.
He is afraid of spaces so small that he has to sit uncomfortably straight and press his knees against his ribs in order to fit. Spaces where noise sounds too muffled and too loud at the same time, and yet the only thing he can hear is how his quick quick heartbeat seems to jump out of his chest, pound in his ears, and echo in the cupboard.
He is afraid of the way his vision swims, because it’s too dark to make out his fingers even when he holds them in front of his face, so he tries to blink and blink and blink until his eyes ache and static buzzes until he can’t keep his eyes open without them aching.
He is afraid of spaces so small that his ankles and elbows hit the walls, splinters breaking into his skin every time he tries to move, the stray nail at the bottom of the cupboard making him lift his leg until it aches painfully but then poke him when he puts his leg down. His knees press into his ribs and he breathes and it hurts, because his lungs have nowhere to go, and he tries to breathe harder but there’s no air in the cupboard, and his eyes itch and his arms ache and his heart beats so fast that he feels like he’s exercising but he’s not moving at all, he can’t move, pressed in the cupboard that Dad locked him in.
Dad scolds him because he ruins the inside of a perfectly good cupboard.
(“If you want to get out so much, then get out!”)
Gakushuu is afraid of the cold, but the cold numbs the way his fingers hurt, nails bleeding from scratching plywood.
The cool brick of the outside of the house in late Winter is cold, and leaning up against it is almost a relief, because he can straighten his back and press his bruises against something cold. It’s cold on the porch, even underneath the light bulb from the garden fixture that Gakushuu presses his hands to and watch the tips of fingers turn red.
It is not cold enough to freeze, but Gakushuu knows he must stay awake, and he tries to stay awake, so he tries to blink and blink and blink until his eyes ache and red light buzzes until he has to look away from the bulb or his eyes water.
His eyes water, and it stings, and it’s cold, and Gakushuu is afraid of the cold.
He has to stay awake, and his teeth are chattering so hard that his head hurts, but that’s good, because that means he won’t fall asleep.
But Gakushuu wakes up in his house when he’s back in his room, under the covers, and he lifts his hand to his face and realizes he’s still crying.
Gakushuu tries not to fall asleep, but it’s always so dark and cold in the cupboard, so tight and quiet and loud. His head always hurts, and he’s always on the verge of running out of breath.
He doesn’t like to fall asleep - he loses time. He doesn’t know what’s going on, because when he falls asleep he always wakes up somewhere else. It must be Dad, who moves him from the cupboard when punishment is over, back up to his room. But it’s always confusing when he wakes up somewhere different, and it makes him scared for a bit, because he doesn’t know what is going on.
He tries to stay awake.
He always fails to.
He’s sleep walking.
That must be what is happening, right?
Dad will never carry him out of the cupboard to his bed, or his desk. Dad doesn’t carry him anywhere, now. Gakushuu's leg is injured but Dad still made Gakushuu walk, even though it hurts a lot and Gakushuu tried to tell him it hurt too much.
He doesn’t remember all these bruises, but he always gets bruises in the cupboard, because everything is squeezed together so tightly he gets hurt.
He’s a little bit too big for the cupboard, and he has to sit even tighter.
He still keeps falling asleep, and then sleep walking, and then waking up in his room.
There is nothing in the cupboard but darkness, and ringing in his ears that are echo-ey and muffled at the same time.
Gakushuu tried to be good, he really tried to be good! But Dad’s angry all the time and he’s angry even when Gakushuu doesn’t do anything, and today he yelled and said Gakushuu was making a mess (he tried to clean it up!) and shut Gakushuu in the cupboard again.
It’s tight, and his chest hurts, and his arms hurt, and his leg hurts.
He doesn’t want to fall asleep but it’s dark, just like it’s night time. It’s cold in this cupboard but there’s no where else to move, and Gakushuu doesn’t want to get in trouble for trying to shake the doors to get out again, because outside is far colder.
He hears the slow beat, beat, beat of his heart in his ears, and he counts them. They’re fast, even though he’s not exercising.
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump…
Gakushuu wakes up.
He’s on his desk, gripping onto a pencil. He must have fallen asleep again. Did Dad want him to do homework?
Gakushuu wrote something on a blank piece of paper.
I am Yukio.
Gakushuu grips his pencil, tighter. That’s not his handwriting, nor Dad’s.
Is there someone else living in this house? Someone named Yukio? He wants to tell Dad… but Dad’s angry all the time, and he’ll put Gakushuu in the cupboard again. Gakushuu doesn’t want to go back into the cupboard, or out of the house.
I am Gakushuu , he writes next to it.
Nothing happens.
Who are you? He writes, again, and then folds the letter up and hides it where no one else but he can find it. Which is a little weird, because Gakushuu wants Yukio to find it and write back, but if he hides it anywhere else then Dad will find it.
Yukio is probably smart and very sneaky, because they’re a whole other person living in this house and Gakushuu didn’t even know.
Gakushuu gets locked in the cupboard again, two days later. When he wakes up, he’s on his bed again, and he has the letter in his hands. Yukio has written back.
Why does Dad lock us in the cupboard?
Gakushuu freaks out.
He knows he shouldn’t yell, or be impolite, or run in the house, but there is a stranger in the house that is saying that his dad is Gakushuu’s dad and they’re locked in the same cupboard. Is he still in there?
Gakushuu bolts into the study, and throws open the cupboard doors.
It’s empty.
“Gakushuu!” Dad is here. “What is all the commotion about!”
“There’s someone… in the cupboard…”
Dad walks over to the cupboard. It’s still empty.
“Is this a joke, Gakushuu?”
“No,” Gakushuu says, shaking his head. “Someone said… Yukio... I wrote a letter...“
Dad glares at him.
Gakushuu is not saying his words right.
“There is someone else living in this house and they say you put them in the cupboard too.”
It’s spring and the snow is melting and the grass is green, and the porch is still cold.
( Someone else living in this house, huh? Is this some convoluted way of disowning yourself? Who are you, then, a stranger in my house if it’s been someone else I’m punishing?
No!-)
Gakushuu cries, but he shouldn’t cry, because crying is bad and Dad hates it when he cries, which means he’s going to leave Gakushuu out here longer.
Gakushuu is hungry and tired and he doesn’t even want to sleep, he wants to-
The letter is still in his pocket!
Stupid, stupid!
He’s too old to sleep-walk and make up imaginary friends!
Stupid Yukio!
Gakushuu rips it up, and tosses it into his yard.
Gakushuu falls asleep in the cupboard, and wakes up hours later back in his room.
He’s not asleep. He’s doing things. He wakes up and he’s at his table and part of the assessment questions that Dad is making him do, are finished. They’re all done right, too. He doesn’t think he can do that if he’s sleep walking.
He checks the cupboard again, whenever he wakes up. He does it quietly this time, without running, and opens the door softly. It’s always empty.
He checks under the bed, and in the guest rooms, and in his secret Letter keeping place. There’s no one there.
He doesn’t expect there to be, and he doesn’t know if he’s disappointed or relieved.
He’s scared, because he’s missing time, and he’s sleep walking, and clearly something happens then but he doesn’t know what is happening.
Gakushuu hates the cupboard, hates how he feels in there, but he needs to stay awake. He has to know what happens when he doesn’t fall asleep. Yukio can’t be in here with him, because there is no space in this cupboard at all, barely any for Gakushuu, definitely not for anyone else.
Gakushuu’s head goes muddy at the way that echoes blend in the cupboard, feeling the thrumming in his ears, but he doesn't want to fall asleep.
He has to stay awake.
He pinches himself. Scratches his skin, digs his nails into his flesh, and it stings. It stings so much that Gakushuu doesn’t think he can focus on anything but the pain, but the pain echoes like noises in the cupboard, melding together into numbing…
Gakushuu wakes up again, in his room, bloodied long lines running up his arms.
Gakushuu turns six that winter, and he goes off to school.
School starts and Dad is busy, so he spends even less time with Gakushuu. Gakushuu misses him, but that means he spends less time in the cupboard, too, which is good. This also means he doesn’t sleepwalk anymore.
He makes a friend, Ren Sakakibara, who sits with him at lunch. Gakushuu likes Sakaibara a lot. He’s nice, and funny, and he lives in the same street that Gakushuu does. Although Gakushuu doesn’t think Dad would want him to go visit a friend when he could be studying, and Gakushuu doesn’t want to be locked in the scary cupboard again, so he lies to Ren and says that Dad told him no, even though he doesn’t ask.
Ren's not Gakushuu's only friend, but he's the best one. They sit together at meal times and stand next to each other in lines and look for each other when it's time to play. The other kids are also nice, mostly.
Except for Shoji, who one day pushes Gakushuu into a cupboard and shuts the door.
And Gakushuu doesn't like being in cupboards, but that doesn't mean he's not used to them. He knows what to do in them so he curls up and counts down and he thinks, will he fall asleep, if he's in school?
Gakushuu wakes up and Ren is looking at him, and the end-of-school bell is ringing.
Gakushuu blinks. He fell asleep.
He looks at Ren, who looks…
...Scared.
"Gakushuu?" He says, hopefully.
Gakushuu looks at him."Yeah?"
Ren hugs him. "I was worried! You were acting weird."
"Oh." That's because he was asleep, he supposes he wouldn't act normally. But he was still awake, and the idea of acting differently was new. "What did I do?"
Ren pauses, considering. "I don't know." he frowns. "Nothing."
"Oh."
"Shoji pushed you in the cupboard." Ren frowns. "Sayuri-Sensei gave him a time-out."
Oh, okay. "Good," Gakushuu says.
"You were just acting weird, that's all," Ren says, frowning. "You didn't talk to anyone and you didn't talk to me."
"Oh," Gakushuu says.
Does he talk to anyone when he falls asleep at home? Well, only Dad is home for him to talk to and Gakushuu doesn't think he talks to him.
"Gakushuu," Ren says suddenly. "The door wasn't locked. Why didn't you push it open?"
Yukio only comes out when Gakushuu's asleep, is the conclusion he comes to. And he's very sneaky to be able to come into Gakushuu's room and avoid Dad.
Although Gakushuu is still confused, and he doesn't understand why he's still clearly awake when he sleeps. He asks Sayuri-Sensei, who says that moving around while you sleep is called sleepwalking.
"What do I do if I keep falling asleep and sleepwalking?" Gakushuu asks her.
"There are a lot of reasons for sleepwalking," Sayuri-Sensei says. "You can ask your dad to bring you to the doctor."
"Oh," Gakushuu says, already knowing he won't ask. "Okay. Thank you, Sayuri-Sensei."
But what he doesn't count on is Sayuri-Sensei telling Dad, who asks him with a raised eyebrow and a frown on his face, "you told your teacher you've been sleepwalking?"
Gakushuu is never telling Sayuri-Sensei anything ever again. "...Yeah."
"Well, you don't," Dad says. "You sleep through the night."
Gakushuu sleep in the day either, he doesn't say. He wonders if Dad can even tell. Ren can't tell, just thought he acted weird because he didn't talk. But Gakushuu doesn't talk to Dad anyways so maybe Dad just thinks he's acting normally when he sleepwalks.
Gakushuu thinks he'll tell Ren, so Ren doesn't get too worried in case he sleepwalks at school again. He's going to have to make Ren not to promise to tell anyone, especially not Dad.
Ren's a good friend and he agrees immediately, and then says he'll make sure Gakushuu doesn't sleepwalk into dangerous places like all the shows he watches. Gakushuu likes Ren.
Gakushuu is seven years old when he watches The Incredible Hulk . (Dad lets him watch it but only in English so he can practice.)
The man turns into Hulk. Hulk is awake.
When Hulk turns back into the man, the man doesn't remember what he did, when he was Hulk.
Gakushuu… watches it. Again, and again.
He decides to ask - subtly. Not Sayuri-Sensei, who Gakushuu will never ask anything to ever again, bur Dad. Dad, who knows everything in the world because he's super smart, smarter than Sayuri-Sensei, definitely.
And Dad doesn't think he sleepwalks.
"Dad?"
Dad is busy. He's always busy. He looks displeased that Gakushuu has come to look for him. "What? Are you done looping that movie yet?"
"The hulk…" Gakushuu fiddles with his thumb. "Can that happen to real people too?"
Dad looks at him sharply. "Pardon?"
Pardon means "say that again", which means Dad is irritated.
Gakushuu bites his lip. "When you change to a different person."
Dad stares at him for a while, lips pursed, before he stands and walks out of the office. Gakushuu follows him because he's not supposed to be in the office without Dad.
They walk down to the library, and Dad scans the shelves before he plucks a book out and hands it to Gakushuu wordlessly.
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Gakushuu looks at the empty space in the bookshelf to memorize where to put it back. He needs the step stool, he thinks.
He looks back up at Dad, who looks at him for a moment, before turning around and walking off.
Gakushuu flips the book open. It is in English.
He drags the step stool over from a corner so he can reach for the dictionary.
"Ren?"
"Yeah?"
Gakushuu looks left and right to make sure they're alone in the playground. He shifts closer. "I have a secret. It's related to my sleepwalking."
"Oh!" Ren brings a finger to his lips. "I haven't told anyone."
Gakushuu smiles at him. He likes Ren. "Thank you. My new secret is…" How does he begin to… explain? "Did you watch the Hulk?"
"Yeah!" Ren bounces. "My dad took me to watch it."
"I think…" Gakushuu looks left and right again and then drops his voice into a whisper. "I think I'm like him."
"I know I sleepwalk, but I still do things. It's like Hulk and Bruce. When Bruce turns to Hulk, Bruce is asleep, but Hulk still does things and he doesn't really talk to anyone. When he turns back, Bruce doesn't remember what Hulk does but he knows that Hulk did something."
Ren thinks for a moment. "That doesn't sound like sleepwalking."
Gakushuu frowns. "...Yeah."
They are silent.
"What if we ask?" Ren says.
Gakushuu looks at him. "I'm not asking Sayuri-Sensei."
"Ask you when you're sleepwalking," Ren clarifies. "Hulk and Bruce are two different people - my dad explained it to me. If you're like that, then when you sleepwalk, you're someone else."
Gakushuu looks down at his hands. He's partway through Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It's hard to read.
"Gakushuu?" Ren asks.
"I think…" Gakushuu says, "that's a good idea."
Ren beams. "Okay! How do we do that? We have to wait until you sleepwalk."
"I sleepwalk when I'm in the cupboard."
Ren wrinkles his nose. "Like when Shoji pushed you in last time?"
Gakushuu thinks of all the time Dad pushed him into the cupboard. "Yeah."
Ren falls silent. "I didn't like it when that happened."
"I fell asleep there," Gakushuu says. Cupboards always make him feel bad, and uncomfortable and sleepy - even if it was the school cupboard instead of the one in his house. "I can go in. I think I'll sleepwalk again."
Ren frowns unhappily. "Okay."
Gakushuu and Ren sneak into the hallway. The big cupboard for all the old books is there, and Gakushuu remembers it being dusty and cramped and dark and echoey. When he opens the door he's reminded that it looks exactly to be so, and he doesn't like it already, but he wants to find out.
He sits on the old book. At least, Gakushuu thinks, he gets to try and be comfortable by himself when he's not just pushed in.
"See you," Ren whispers. He shuts the door.
Gakushuu closes his eyes.
All cupboards feel the same, on the inside
Small, Cramped, his knees pushing the wrong way.
The heaviness of his breaths, the tightness in his lungs just growing tighter. Louder and louder.
His heart, pushed so high up by his knees that they're at his throat, in his ears.
Pounding.
It's hard to breathe.
He opens his eyes, but there's nothing to see.
He closes them.
He opens his eyes.
Ren is looking at him. "Gakushuu?"
The end-of-school bell is ringing. "Yeah?"
Ren is frowning at him. His eyes are big, and watery.
“What’s wrong?” Gakushuu asks him.
“You sleepwalked again…” Ren worries at his lower lip. “But… you talked to me, this time.”
“Oh,” Gakushuu says. “What did I say?”
Ren shakes his head, and inexplicably says, “not you.” Then he slides a piece of paper over.
It's a handwriting he’s seen once.
"He says his name is Yukio."
Hi, Gakushuu.
Gakushuu stands on tip toes and peers over the sink to stare into the mirror. The boy who wears his face stares back - eyebags from staying up all night, red rimmed eyes from rubbing when they itched while reading, those round cheeks that those people his father takes him to meet always pinches and says makes him look cute.
Blonde hair that he pushes away from his eyes and tries to tuck behind his ears, but a few strands fall loose anyways - the same colour as Mom’s hair, the woman who Gakushuu sees on the picture frame on the mantle. He thinks he misses her, but he doesn’t really remember her - he doesn’t really remember much of anything.
Pale violet eyes that he shares with Dad, boring into the mirror.
That’s Gakushuu .
Hulk and Bruce Banner looked different. But Gakushuu knows Yukio doesn’t look any different from him, because nobody else (except for Ren) knows when Yukio is here or when Gakushuu is here.
Gakushuu stands up straight and tries to lift his head like the way Dad always does.
That’s not him in the mirror - well, it’s still the face of Gakushuu Asano looking back at him, but Gakushuu doesn’t feel much like himself. It looks forced, and it is tiring to stand like this all the time, Gakushuu can feel his back hurting already. That’s a completely different person in the mirror… but it’s not Yukio - Gakushuu doesn’t know what Yukio looks like, but this isn’t right.
He relaxes his shoulders. That looks more like him - that’s how he always stands.
Gakushuu wraps his hands around himself and curls over into his own arms. The boy in the mirror looks small… like he’s used to squeezing into small spaces, like cupboards.
Gakushuu slowly sinks to his feet, and he curls up in a ball on the bathroom floor. He can’t see the mirror but it doesn’t matter anymore because he knows what Yukio looks like. Well, he doesn’t really, because Yukio probably looks different from him, but he knows what Yukio feels like, at least.
He brings his legs up to his chest and puts his head there. It’s uncomfortable to stay like this, but he’s in the bathroom, and there’s plenty of space for him to move around if he wants to, so he doesn’t feel the strain of trying to squeeze in somewhere he hardly fits. He relaxes his legs a little.
He says, out loud, “Yukio?”
Something makes him shiver. He feels a little sleepy - he doesn’t want to sleep! He needs to… to…
“Wait, Yukio,” Gakushuu says, “I want to talk to you…”
He thinks of Bruce Banner and the Hulk. They don’t really talk to each other, but they know that each other exists in the same body.
A strange feeling - like an almost-forgotten memory trying to remind him of something, or like an odd craving - tugs at the back of his mind. Gakushuu feels a little bit more sleepy, and his brain is trying to think something but his thoughts are getting a little… confused…
But Gakushuu can’t fall asleep if he wants to… talk to…
“...Yukio?”
“Gakushuu,” someone says, in Gakushuu’s voice. He didn’t say that - he heard it! But-
“Yukio?” He says, to himself, but he’s getting a lot more tired....
“Hi,” he hears himself say back.
Gakushuu blinks, and blinks, and yawns, and…
Gakushuu wakes up at his desk.
His hand is gripping a pencil. On a piece of paper, Yukio’s handwriting says, Sorry. I think we can’t both be awake at the same time .
Gakushuu chews on his bottom lip. That makes sense. Otherwise it would be very confusing, if they had two people trying to do two different things with the same body. They have to share.
Gakushuu doesn’t know if he likes the idea of sharing yet. He didn’t like it in the cupboard, and he thinks it’s unfair that Yukio is always in the cupboard. He doesn’t like being confused all the time, because he doesn’t know what happens when he’s not awake. It also scares Ren.
...but they can be asleep at the same time, right? Since none of them needs to be awake at night. He doesn’t know how it works… but he’ll try to talk to Yukio.
...what does Yukio look like?
Gakushuu runs back to the bathroom mirror. He stands on his tiptoes, and squishes his own cheeks in.
For some reason, he imagines Yukio as a boy with white hair.
Yukio
Snow
“I met him.”
Ren startles, eyes wide. His voice drops to a whisper and he leans forward. “Yukio? How?”
“In my head,” Gakushuu whispers. “At night, when we were both asleep. It was like I was dreaming.”
“Oh,” Ren says.
Gakushuu fiddles with his thumbs. “We have to take turns being awake. We can’t both be awake at the same time because only one person gets to be Gakushuu.”
Ren furrows his brow. “But you’re Gakushuu.”
Gakushuu nods. “Yeah. I am Gakushuu. But Yukio is also me. Like Hulk and Bruce Banner. But only one of them can be there at one time.”
“Okay,” Ren says. “So you’re Bruce Banner?”
Gakushuu pauses, considering. “Yukio doesn’t hit things. He’s very quiet.” Then something comes to Gakushuu’s mind, and he frowns.
Ren prods him with a pencil.
Gakushuu frowns. “Yukio… he always wakes up when I’m in the cupboard.”
Ren stops poking him.
This is the part Gakushuu doesn’t really understand. Yukio is not afraid of the dark, or the cold, or small spaces. Yukio sits quietly in them, and he’s calm, and he can close his eyes and meditate and think of things as he sits.
“Yukio says… um… he is okay with sitting in the cupboard. He knows I’m scared, and he wakes up so I can sleep through it.”
Ren blinks in surprise. “Oh.”
“Mhm,” Gakushuu says. “He doesn’t like to talk to people, so he’s asleep then and I stay awake. He’s a little shy, but he’s very nice.”
Ren nods seriously. “Okay. Can you say thank you to Yukio for me?”
“Why? Did he help you last time?”
“No, but he helps you.”
Gakushuu blinks, and he brings a hand to his heart. “Oh. Yes. I will say thank you.”
It’s nighttime, and Gakushuu sleeps, and dreams.
When he dreams, he sees his room. Yukio is there.
“Ren says thank you,” Gakushuu tells him.
“Oh,” Yukio says. “Um. Ok.”
Yukio tugs at his hair. It is longer than Gakushuu’s, and snowy white, and falls in front of his eyes.
“I like Ren,” Gakushuu prods. “He’s my best friend.”
“He’s nice,” Yukio says. He blinks his large eyes at Gakushuu.
It’s a little weird, but it’s not really weird. This is just like a dream, and Gakushuu’s talking to someone in his dream. He just happens to know that this person he’s talking to… also happens to be him.
Gakushuu helps Yukio braid his hair, although he leaves two long strands at the front loose because Yukio keeps tugging on them. Then Yukio yawns and says, “I’m tired. I’m going to sleep.”
“Night night, Yukio,” Gakushuu whispers to him.
“Goodnight,” Yukio whispers back.
Gakushuu wakes up at the breakfast table.
Dad is looking at his newspapers.
“Good morning,” Gakushuu mumbles quietly, but Dad hears it. His gaze snaps up to Gakushuu, eyes narrowing, the newspaper crinkling at the edges where his hand grips it.
“Good morning again, Asano,” Dad says.
Yukio must have already said good morning to him, then.
Gakushuu silently continues eating.
He returns Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde to Dad, who looks confused for a brief moment, like he’s forgotten he’s loaned it out.
He gives Gakushuu a strange look, and then puts it back in its place on the shelf.