Chapter Text
Rintarou first feels warmly about a boy when he enters his fifth year of primary school.
He has just moved to the Hyogo prefecture with his mother and sister, leaving behind the familiarity of the Aichi prefecture.
His father is no longer around, Rintarou is suddenly the only boy in the house, and he's still an awkward mess of limbs with a Tokyo accent that distinctively sets him apart from the other children.
Kita Shinsuke is in his art elective, one open to all grades. He's a sixth year, freshly twelve years old, and his best friend is Ojiro Aran.
Rintarou and Kita have never spoken a word to each other aside from a short greeting at the beginning of the year. It included Rintarou stumbling over his greeting and Kita smiling at him warmly, uttering a polite "let me know if you ever need any help!"
He left Rintarou blushing for the next two hours.
Albeit the small, almost insignificant, conversation, Rintarou can't help but feel something every time he spots Kita in the hallway.
One day over dinner, Rintarou asks his mother whether or not feeling funny in your stomach when you see someone—as if something is trying to escape—is normal.
She replies by cooing and pinching his cheek, exclaiming that her "baby son finally has his first crush!", and proceeding to give him the second degree.
"What's her name? Is she cute? No wait, don't answer that, I already know she is. Is she in your class? I bet she's wonderful. Can we meet her? What does she look like?" Rintarou's ears ring and his mind goes blank. Sheshesheshesh—
"Pretty eyes, mum. That's all. I just think they're—" His sister gags and starts mumbling to their mother about how her friends say boys have cooties.
His mother placates the girl for a moment, humming along and then turning to Rintarou.
"Say no more, I already love her!" Rintarou's heart sinks.
His mother had automatically assumed he was talking about a girl. He liked a boy, though. Was that wrong?
That night, Rintarou tosses and turns for hours, mulling over the conversation from dinner.
He is vaguely familiar with the concept of sexuality—his mother spoke about it with him briefly when her friend who was a girl introduced another girl to them as her partner—but he doesn't think he knows enough to understand how he identifies.
Well, he thinks, I think the same things about boys that they do about girls. What does that mean?
Regardless, his mother hadn't reacted when he had said 'they' in place of 'she'. That was something, right?
Whatever, he would just try to get over Kita - that seemed doable. He could just forget the whole thing had ever happened.
~
Kita starts dating a girl in his class just before the start of Rintarou's first winter break in Hyogo, and he figures that this is the best possible way to push the crush to the back of his mind.
Their relationship is just as innocent and casual as you'd expect two twelve year olds to be capable of. It isn't so much a case of serious boyfriend and girlfriend than it is two young kids who are good friends and occasionally hold hands.
The crestfallen face of an unfamiliar brown-haired boy sitting between Ojiro and another brunet, nose scrunching as the happy couple stood up on their regular lunch table to announce their relationship, doesn't completely escape Rintarou's notice.
Belatedly, he thinks that maybe he hadn't been completely alone in his emotions after all.
The second time Rintarou falls, for lack of better words, in like, it's with a boy named Ushijima Wakatoshi.
It's been four and a half years since the Kita Fiasco, as Rintarou calls it in his head and the diary he refuses to admit he keeps.
Rintarou is in middle school now, on the cusp of graduating into high school, and he is starting to come into himself.
He has shot up in height a fair amount, now towering over his mother and sister, but has not gained much in the muscle department. He's finally convinced his mother that he can do his own hair and it falls in loose bangs, framing green eyes that his elderly neighbours fawn over.
He's handsome, they say. Rintarou is inclined to believe them.
Girls have started confessing to him, although he doesn't have much interest in the chocolates and cards they give him. He accepts them gracefully, sure, but he never allows the girls to believe he's interested in being more than friends.
The boys in his class occasionally give him jealous looks and grill him on why he never accepts confessions, but Rintarou pays them no mind.
Eventually, everyone assumes that Rintarou is simply an apathetic person and that's why he's turned down almost every single girl in their grade (and then some).
The boys don't isolate him, really, but they are cautious around him. They act as if they aren't sure how to interact with him which is fucking stupid because Rintarou has never changed.
He's no different than the boys in his class; he just doesn't want a girlfriend.
The girls don't take offence when he turns them down anymore, but they still give him attention as if they're hoping to be the one to sway his indifference.
Rintarou doesn't necessarily mind the attention, but he doesn't know how to feel when it results in most of his peers believing that he believes he's above them, pre-determining for him whether or not they should be friends.
Inevitably, he spends a lot of time on the internet, consuming random assortments of media. He starts making grand plans for his upcoming high school experience in hopes of creating some of those life-long friendships his mother is always going on about.
Rintarou spends the majority of his last year in middle school being sought after by girls but feeling very much alone.
~
Volleyball club is the only place Rintarou feels as though he can exist normally amongst his peers, so he throws himself into it.
Sure, their stands are filled with girls from his school, but he pays them no mind and relishes in the team dynamic.
Ushijima Wakatoshi eventually floats into Rintarou's orbit because he now obsesses over volleyball. And, well, Ushijima is one of the best, so why wouldn't Rintarou know who he is? He's commanding, extremely powerful, and admired by practically everyone for his skill — not just his looks.
Ushijima Wakatoshi is everything Rintarou feels he isn't, and perhaps that's what makes him so fascinating.
He comes from the Miyagi prefecture, far away from Hyogo, but Rintarou finds himself enthralled with the skill and obvious passion of the older boy nonetheless.
Rintarou first sees Ushijima on YouTube as he's researching the teams he might encounter when he starts playing seriously in high school. Ushijima has a respectable amount of videos on him from his middle school days, and there has been a significant increase in content dedicated to his first year in high school alone.
This is clearly a boy that the entire country is starting to look at.
Even putting volleyball aside, Ushijima is attractive.
Rintarou doesn't think he has a type, but as he watches a tiny video on his phone of Ushijima swinging a well-muscled arm and bypassing the block in front of him with sheer strength, who can blame him if his cheeks warm and he suddenly realizes oh wow, he's hot.
Ushijima Wakatoshi is a year older than Rintarou. This means he has, therefore, reached the wondrous age of sixteen.
Rintarou is enthralled by this. Ushijima is mature, he could drive a motorcycle if he wanted to (and wouldn't that be a sight?), and he's in high school.
Rintarou, a scrawny middle school third year, listens to the tales woven about the happenings of Ushijima within the high school volleyball circuit with bated breath and wide, curious eyes. Envy mixes with infatuation, swirling around Rintarou's brain and heart until he can't tell the two emotions apart.
This crush on the older boy doesn't last long, maybe a few months, but it's enough to cement into Rintarou's head that he is gay.
That would be all fine and dandy, he thinks, aside from an inkling thought that quickly becomes all-consuming: if not showing affection to girls had isolated him so much in middle school, what would happen in high school?
Rintarou now knows he likes boys.
He only wants to receive attention from boys. He only wants to give attention to boys. But would that be okay?
While he does understand more about himself now than he did when he was ten, the word 'gay' is as daunting now as it was confusing back then.