patches of a lackluster future.

After suffering an awful injury, Ranmaru tends to Anzu's wound at his house. Despite it, she's the same as ever—energetic, chatty, and so very optimistic.

YTTD; Kageyama Ranmaru, Kinashi Anzu, Non-Death Game.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: thanks to my friend haz for betareading!!

“... This place is nice.”

The comment flies out of the teenager’s lips before she can stop it, her pink eyes wandering around the living room. She presses her hands against the couch she sits on, swinging one of her legs back and forth.

A somewhat frustrated grunt leaves the white haired boy in front of her, the bandage wrapped around Anzu’s leg loosening slightly.

“Stop moving…” He requests for what felt like the millionth time. His light blue eyes flick up to meet her gaze, though he seems a little sheepish. “I feel bad enough you got hurt because of me. The least you could do is let me take care of the wound…”

Anzu gives a light giggle, tapping her fingers at her sides. “Y’know, you worry way too much. I told you, I’m fine! ” She leans her head back and rests it on the back of the couch, the section of her hair dyed blue sprawling out. “And I told you not to feel so guilty about it! You’re really stubborn, ‘Maru.”

Ranmaru sighs, undoing the bandage around the girl’s left leg yet again. Due to how many times he’s had to restart—no thanks to his shaky hands or Anzu’s constant movements—the injury on her leg had stopped bleeding. He was thankful that he’d practically hoarded rolls of bandage wrap for years, even if it did lead to a lot of questions usually.

“It’s… still my fault though,” he replies, dropping his gaze back to her once again exposed knee. The hard part—cleaning the scratch to make sure nothing had gotten inside—had been done hours ago, and somehow, Anzu only managed to hiss once during that process. Aside from that, she was mostly quiet, almost watching intently as Ranmaru worked. It made him nervous, but he didn’t complain.

“It really isn’t! Promise!” She jolts in her spot, jerking her leg forward a little. It nearly hits Ranmaru in the face, though aside from the light,, somewhat annoyed clearing of his throat, he doesn’t comment. He shouldn’t be surprised that the girl who acted on impulse more often than not was currently being stubborn in not having him hold the blame—as ironic as that was, considering her earlier comment.

“You spooked me, sure, but it’s no biggie! I’ve been through worse; y’know, working in a circus and all.”

He doesn’t respond right away, focused on getting the first few wraps snugly fit around her leg. His silence eventually prompts Anzu to speak again:

“... Besides, I did kind of startle you too, didn’t I…?”

Even though he doesn’t look up to meet her gaze, he knows she’s staring again. He can see it out of the corner of his vision, as well as hear it in the way her voice falls quieter. She feels a little guilty, he figures.

“You were wearing your clown mask,” Ranmaru points out, tilting his head in the direction of the other’s bag, resting on the table. He still doesn’t look up, both out of concentration and the slight embarrassment that grows on his face. “S-So… yeah, you… caught me off guard.”

There’s some silence, presumably due to the other teenager glancing where he’d gestured. It’s quiet for a few moments, granting him the opportunity to focus on what’s in front of him easily. Then, finally, he hears a snicker. “You can just say I scared ya! Nothing to be ashamed of.”

Despite the lilt in her tone indicating her razzing, he can’t help the warmth that continues to rush to his face. “I wasn’t scared. There’s a difference between being startled and getting scared, I’m sure…”

“You literally screamed! Don’t even try to deny it.” She leans forward, pressing a finger to her cheek. Finally, he pauses his moments in favor of glancing up, only to be met with an expression that holds back a laugh, one extremely befitting of a girl like Kinashi Anzu. “I was on the phone with Sara-san when it happened, do not make me call her again.”

“... Point taken.” He sighs defeatedly, continuing to wrap Anzu’s leg. No matter how different Sara and Anzu were, they seemed to share a common interest in poking fun when they could.

For a moment, it becomes perfectly silent in the room, mostly due to Ranmaru searching for the next destination of conversation—and quickly, too. Last time he left it up to her to direct the topic, they wound up talking about coffee drenched over rice. He had to step out at some point, forcing the duo to talk about something else instead.

Eventually, he absentmindedly settles on a certain question that bounces around in his brain. Before he knows it, the sound of his own voice enters his ears, despite the words feeling to be completely unplanned.

“... What’s it like?”

“What’s what like?” Anzu tilted her head, her eyebrows furrowing.

“Working in a… circus," he quickly clarifies, as if speaking any slower would have killed him at that very moment. "And performing at birthday parties. And just… y’know. Whatever else you do, I guess.”

The words seem to flow out of him like a waterfall, even when he did his best to make sure he was being careful. He didn’t want to say anything stupid, of course, despite his curiosity. Even though his anxiety bit at his skin like the bitter cold in the winter, he pushes himself to ask anyway.

“Oh!” The teenager’s shoulders perk up, her eyes lighting up as if she’d seen a shooting star. She grins, placing her hands on top of her lap. Surprisingly, she somehow managed to keep her leg still throughout it. “It’s… really great, y’know? I’m technically only an intern at the circus, so I don’t get the full experience yet, but it’s super fun to watch all the others practice.”

Ranmaru nods. That seemed like pretty surface level stuff, though his interest was surely piqued, even if he couldn’t show that very easily.

“You wouldn’t believe how friendly they are too! Whenever they’re on break, we all kinda sit to the side with some food and tell stories. There’s this one guy who only worked there for like, a month or two, but he mentioned his two little sisters and the time they both got trapped on the roof together. He’s kinda bad at storytelling, but it was pretty entertaining nonetheless…”

Eventually, Ranmaru finds himself zoning out a little, her words meshing together and flying past his ears like the wind. It wasn’t that the story had begun to get boring, but more so that his focus finally began to settle on only one thing—and this time, thankfully, Anzu didn’t move much, only shifting her leg around occasionally as she explained and motioned her hands around.

“... ‘Maru? Hey, ‘Maru!”

He blinks, looking up at her. She leans in close to him, a little too unaware of personal space as usual, pink and blue hair swinging to the side when she tilted her head.

“Were you even listening?” Anzu inquires, though she doesn’t seem particularly bothered, if her tone is anything to go off of. Over the course of the last year, Ranmaru learned that she got more enjoyment out of simply rambling, as opposed to actually being heard.

“’Course I was,” he lies, glancing away from the teenager. He reaches over for the pair of scissors on the floor next to him, forced to uncomfortably mess with the object until he’s able to hold it in his right hand steadily. He would have much preferred using his left hand, but that’s what he earns for not thinking it through, he supposes.

“Yeah, right!” She exclaims in disbelief, setting her chin on her elbow. “I’m not dumb, silly. Oh well, it’s not like I mind anyway… Did ya at least hear what I was asking?”

Ranmaru’s silence seemed to answer the question itself. Eventually, he sheepishly shrugs in response, snipping the roll of bandage off. It thumps against the wood floor before rolling off to the side.

Anzu sighs, dramatically leaning back against the couch once more. “See, if you had been so kindly paying attention to little old me—” She gestures to herself, placing her hand on her chest. “—you would’ve heard me asking about your plans for your future! Surely, you’d know what you wanna do, right?”

Ranmaru pauses for a moment. The pair of scissors lingers pressed against the bandage around Anzu’s leg in his grasp, his eyebrows furrowing as he stares down. Had the wooden floorboards always had this much detail? He never really noticed it.

“You seem like you’d be a doctor, maybe?” The suggestion was obviously uncertain, and almost entirely wrong. She seems to have come to the same conclusion herself, judging by the shake of her head that he catches out of the corner of his eye. “No, no, definitely not. I don’t think you could handle anything more than a couple droplets of blood…”

She clears her throat, abruptly.

“I-In the nicest way possible, of course! It’s not like it’s… bad to not like blood— Does that even make sense?” The clown girl continues a series of incessant mumbles and apologies, running a hand through her hair. This was no different than the scene that happened right before they stopped by his place, after she’d gotten hurt.

“It’s… fine, Anzu,” Ranmaru assures, forcing a small chuckle to put the other at ease. “I get what you’re saying. And even if you exaggerated it a little… I guess you’re right.” Although the sight of blood was something that wasn’t foreign to him, he hated the mental image he got of someone bleeding out, or the sight of gory scenes in movies, or—

He resumes finishing up the bandaging process, shaking his head. No use in making himself feel sick right now.

He snips a small piece of medical tape from the spool, carefully placing it where the bandaging on Anzu’s leg ended. He adjusts it a couple times, being careful to watch for any reaction of discomfort from the other teenager. Instead, she only stares as he works, yet it was obvious there was a reason for it.

She was waiting for an answer to her question.

“... I guess I don’t really know,” Ranmaru finally admits, pressing the tape down with his thumb. He’s unsure if he’s just arrived at this conclusion in the moment, or if he’s only just now accepted it. “Logically, I should know, considering we’re already in high school, but it’s… hard. I’m not really good at anything, so I assume I’ll have to get some office job or something. Anything that isn’t a fast food worker, really.” A dry chuckle escapes his throat, in hopes to lighten the mood his honest response brought, but he finds himself greeted by a surprising silence.

He dreads looking up for those few moments, the feeling of the girl’s eyes burning into his white, fluffy hair. He wonders if she would burn him alive solely just by looking at him, even when that was too far of a possibility to even be reasonable. Anxiously, he drags his finger across the creases in the bandaging, the recently bitten edges of his nails getting caught in the fabric.

Eventually, Anzu hums, and he couldn’t quite tell if he was glad she was breaking the silence or if it just made him feel worse.

“You know…” She giggles, scooting forward and placing her legs comfortably on the floor now that he finished bandaging her leg. “You’re a little like Sara-san and Joe, in a way. You all seem pretty… lost about what’s coming for ya, if that makes sense.”

It didn’t. It didn’t make sense. He couldn’t exactly figure out a reply, but he glances upward, confusion dancing across his face.

Anzu picked up on his unsaid prompt to continue, pushing back her hair so it wouldn’t stick to her neck. “It came up in a conversation once. Joe was trying really hard to act like it didn’t matter, but he said he was probably going to end up behind a cash register after high school. Sara-san seemed unsure altogether, said she’d probably become a lawyer or something. Definitely didn’t act stoked or anything, though.”

“... That’s not really something I’d expect from either of them,” replied Ranmaru, almost doubtfully. “I mean… Sara seems to have everything figured out, and Joe… he acts like he could do probably anything he wants. You’re just making this up to make me feel better, aren’t you…?”

“Nope!” Her response was quick, and too certain to be a lie. “I actually brought up the subject, mostly because I was curious. I didn’t think I’d get that answer, but y’know! You learn something new everyday!”

“I just… can’t see it. Joe has the spirit to actually go places. And Sara’s got high enough grades for any college to want her. What’s the deal with them?”

“Well… that sorta implies that’s all it takes to know, doesn’t it?” The cheeriness in her voice dims, her words holding a sense of nervousness within them now. “It takes a while to figure out what you wanna be! I mean, my biological mother apparently went through three different occupations before settling on circus-work.”

“She was a clown?” He inquires, partially hoping that it’d move the attention off him for now. “That’s news to me… Is that why you wanna be in the circus?”

“An acrobat, actually,” she corrects. “Or so I’ve heard, anyway. But yeah, that was the reason I joined! It turned out I was really good at the whole thing, though, and look at me now!” She throws her arms back, the oversized sweater she wore flapping around.

“When I was younger, I thought if I became a professional clown or something I’d find her, y’know? That was all the motivation I had, but I ended up being pretty good at that stuff.” Anzu grins, her hands moving around just as quickly as her mouth. Her pink eyes rest on Ranmaru, as if trying to reassure him of something. What it was, however, wasn’t very clear.

“I… see,” he responds, though it was obvious he wasn’t connecting where she was going with this. “I guess that makes sense.” For Anzu, anyway. It hardly applied to him, he realizes. He wasn’t someone who was fit for performing in front of others, much less something as wild and big as a circus.

“Urgh… You’re giving me that weird look again,” Anzu points out, frowning. “I didn’t even say anything weird this time! Did I?”

“N-No… You didn’t,” he assures, running one of his bandaged hands through the white locks of his hair. “I just, uh…” Unable to come to anything else to say, he falls quiet.

Silence befalls both of them. He feels uneasy.

“... Well, um—” Anzu fidgets nervously, a sheepish smile dancing across her face. “I’m just kinda saying… Do what ya wanna do, y’know? It’s not the end of the world if you’re not the best at it, because y’know… nobody’s perfect! And if ya don’t end up liking it, then that’s no biggie either! I think that’s the best part of life… You’re not sealed into anything; there’s the option to change your mind whenever!”

Towards the end of Anzu’s ramblings, she let the smile on her face grow more confident, the words flowing as she spoke. It was almost like some kind of pep talk, her positivity radiating off her like the sun’s warmth. It was almost hard to follow, her bright optimism feeling almost blinding. His silence continues for a little longer after she stops talking.

Anzu’s words don’t exactly help Ranmaru figure out his future, and he doesn’t expect them to. That would be outright ridiculous, he knows, but her advice helps him out in another way. He still has time to figure it out, in fact, he has a lot of time. It doesn’t completely ease his nerves regarding the future, but he finds that part of him wanted to hear that for a while.

Eventually, he settles on a simple reply: “... Thanks.”

For the first time throughout this entire conversation, Ranmaru manages a smile. It didn’t feel very convincing, but he’s grateful nonetheless. It wasn’t usually like him to express his concerns like that, and he’s glad it wasn’t something that his friend decided to poke fun at—not that he thinks she would have, but he’d be lying if he were to say the worry hadn’t crossed his mind.

“Yeah!” The girl replies with a giggle, swinging her legs back and forth a couple times before hopping up to her feet. She glances down at the bandaged part of her leg, tilting her head to the side for a moment.

Ranmaru follows her gaze, but he’s only able to look for a couple moments before he hears her voice again.

She laughs, resting her hand against her cheek. “Hey! We’re matching now!”

“Huh?” He returns her gleeful gaze with one of puzzlement. She motions between the two of them, pointing at her leg and then at his arms. It takes a second for him to understand before he slowly nodded. “... Oh. I guess we do.”

The bandages weren’t something he liked being pointed out very much, though with it being something difficult to hide, it was obvious people would mention a lot. He’d learned to get used to it, so it didn’t really bother him much anymore.

“Gak! I mean it as a compliment…!!” Anzu exclaims, almost as if sensing the minor discomfort in Ranmaru’s lack of response. “You’ve had yours longer than mine, of course, but y’know— It’s like solidarity! Call us ’Bandage Buddies’ or something like that!”

The reasoning puts him a little more at ease. There’s something about it that makes him feel better, even if it was strange. At least she didn’t say anything bad about it. Ranmaru finds himself chuckling, the ridiculousness of it sort of amusing. Bandage Buddies… That sounded silly.

Even then, it kind of stuck to him, like gum on a shoe.

“Sure, yeah… That feels fitting,” he says with a nod. The corners of his lips curl upward again, much more naturally than it had a moment before. “You do have a history of getting yourself hurt, Anzu. It’s a little ridiculous…” He chuckles, clearly jesting.

The other teenager gasps in mock offense, placing her hand over her chest. “I do not! I’m very graceful, I’ll have you know!”

“Uh huh… right.” Ranmaru tucks his hands into the comfort of his pocket, watching the dramatic expression on Anzu’s face quickly disperse. She laughs again. It’s nearly impossible for her to keep a straight face for the bit, and they both know that.

He lets out a small exhale, another chuckle escaping him. He’s not one to laugh a lot, but it’s hard to fight the lighthearted joy that followed wherever she went.

If being a clown was what she wanted to do, it was obvious she’d be great at it.

Ranmaru watches as Anzu wipes her tear-filled eyes, her gaze drifting off to stare out the window. He thinks she’s zoned out after a few moments, but he doesn’t say anything to snap her out of it. Instead, from where he sits on the floor, he too stares out the window, the glass having recently been cleaned by his mother. The sun shines down on the sidewalk, especially brighter than he’s ever noticed before.

… Bandage Buddies. What a dumb name, yet befitting for a dumb pair of friends like them.

He smiles again, this time to himself.

Published December 27, 2022. (Archived December 28, 2023.)