Under the Icicle (TL)

[shivalries]

Title: Under the Icicle
Writer: ???

This is the short story that came packaged with the Reminiscence Selection Blu-ray set. It features mostly Ritsu and Arashi, with a tiny hint of Izumi near the end.

In a small amount of words, this piece digs pretty deep into why Ritsu and Arashi seemed to gravitate toward each other, and adds a new dynamic to their strong bond. Since the two of them specifically haven't historically gotten a lot of spotlight on their relationship with each other, I really appreciated seeing something like this being put into canon.

Important: There are all sorts of content warnings in this piece and I couldn't possibly list them all, but just be ready for any sort of Akira-typical stuff and you should be fine.
Also, for transparency, it should be noted that the original text avoided any and all third-person pronouns for Arashi, while explicitly using male ones for Ritsu and Izumi.

---

Chatting with a corpse was becoming routine.

Yumenosaki Academy's gardens stretched excessively wide. Tucked away in a corner of the luxurious space sat a lone, forgotten bench.

There, a figure could be seen spreading a towel or a handkerchief over the moss and rust on the seat and sitting gingerly upon it, taking care to avoid getting their skin or uniform dirty, before pulling out a bento box to poke at a homemade lunch.

This was how Yumenosaki first year Arashi Narukami, who had already grown mostly accustomed to life at this school, spent lunchtime every day.

"You like fatty food?"

A languid voice drifted up from directly beneath the bench. If this wasn't a talking cat, then it could only be him.

"So what if I do?"

Irritated at the sudden intrusion on this peace and quiet, Arashi shot back at the voice—then immediately regretted it.

There was no reason to humor him. Whatever one finds unpleasant, one should pretend not to see it, nor to hear it. Nor to know it.

That was how one got by in life—and Arashi had finally learned the ropes to blending in with the dull and dreary herd.

"You'll get fat."

"..."

"You won't be popular that way—no matter if you're a boy, a girl, or something else."

The voice, as always, only ever said distasteful things that could hardly be ignored. Its tone was honeyed, but, rubbed over an open wound, honey could still sting like salt.

"Can you shut up?"

"Gimme a piece of fried chicken and I will."

"You've got a good nose."

"Your seasonings and aromatics are just too strong."

A thin, pasty arm grew into being from beneath the bench, like a hand from the ghostly realm.

"I only have one mouth. I can eat or I can talk, but I can't do both at once."

"So you're saying I need to feed you to shut you up?"

"Exactly, you're smart. A chubster, but smart. ♪"

"Stop calling me 'chubster' or I'll kill you."

"That's no threat to me. You can't kill what's already dead."

Arashi, now quite weary of this bizarre conversation, picked up a piece of fried chicken in her chopsticks and held it out toward the ground.

"Munch munch... Yeah, the flavor's too strong."

"You're complaining after getting food for free? Who do you think you are?"

"What, you don't know?"

After crunching down on the chicken and sucking it dry, the boy below the bench continued, plaintive.

"There's a world-famous superstar here, and I'm his little brother."

✱ ✱ ✱
Gazing at icicles was becoming routine.

Of course, nobody would be stupid enough to sleep beneath an icicle about to fall. The sharp stake of ice would pierce right through your body, and you'd bleed out and die.

And he almost did die, at first. This wasn't uncommon for Ritsu Sakuma at the time, but he could admit his inexperience with communicating led him to this mistake.

It happened one spring day.

Though winter had already passed, it was still frigid after sunset. A droplet, cold as ice from the early spring air, fell from above. He'd thought it was raining, and detested the thought of getting wet.

Once he realized it was not rain but someone's tears, he grew annoyed. The forgotten bench in this huge park was his place to relax. It was just dark enough, just quiet enough for the perfect afternoon nap.

Ritsu had already located several such marvelous places throughout the school grounds. The poor wretches shunned by the world and by reality itself would gather in places like those. They would ebb and flow, blown in by the wind to pool and rest. At last, they would stiffen, freeze, then shatter to pieces, forgotten by time.

That day, Arashi had been crying atop that bench. True to her name, her sobs were a great, ceaseless storm.

Arashi was apparently suffering from a broken heart—a long string of confessions to the same person had at last ended in crushing defeat.

...Or, so Ritsu had supposed from the words Arashi uttered between sobs. It was hardly his business, though. He somewhat sympathized and found it slightly interesting, but in the end, it didn't concern him.

Unfortunately for him, this story that didn't concern him was being shouted right in his ears—a fine way to interrupt his rest. To wrest back his peace and shoo Arashi away, he decided to pretend to be a ghost.

"Leave this place... foolish human..."

He was ignored. No high schooler would seriously believe in ghosts.

Being ignored irked him terribly, so he opted for a nastier approach. Human or cat, no one would linger long in a place that made them angry. Once any intruders understood they'd have a bad experience here, they'd leave on their own.

"Hey, so that person you like... isn't he a teacher here? Akiomi Kunugi, was it? He's not too shabby with a piano, so I have some amount of respect for him..."

Arashi continued to weep icy tears. Ritsu laced his voice with malice.

"I mean, isn't he a guy? A guy falling for another guy is kind of, you know—"

Not a moment passed after he'd said those words that the bench itself was upended.

Exposed and defenseless, Ritsu watched as Arashi's foot came down on him, hard. Over and over and over again.

He'd thought his end had come.

✱ ✱ ✱
"That sure happened, didn't it?"

Time passed, and the cold winter season had come again, bringing new—and real—icicles with it. Naturally, sleeping on the ground in this weather risked freezing to death, so for once, Ritsu was sitting normally on the bench.

Next to him sat Arashi, holding an open bento box. The lunch didn't smell so strong this time; it was excessively healthy, packed with vegetables. Clearly the one who made it didn't want to gain weight and be hated for it.

Arashi was still in love.

"Gimme one of those cherry tomatoes."

"You could try bringing your own food sometimes, you know."

"I feel more loved when I get it from someone else."

As Ritsu reached out for Arashi's food, the box's lid stopped his hand. Cheeky. After a long and fierce struggle, he emerged victorious, and popped his spoils into his mouth. It tasted like nothing.

See nothing, hear nothing, know nothing. Continue on like that, and soon you will feel nothing. An unused function will always atrophy.

"I'm impressed you can talk with me so normally."

"Huh? Why?"

"The first time we met in this place, I lost my head and stomped the living daylights out of you."

"Oh yeah, you sure did."

"I thought I'd killed you."

"Wouldn't have blamed you. I'm the one who pushed the wrong button."

"I even woke up super early the next morning and rushed over here to try to hide the body and destroy any evidence."

Arashi seemed to grimace, remembering the events of that day.

"But when I got here, the bench was back to being right side up, and there you were, blissfully snoozing away underneath. I almost thought I'd dreamed or hallucinated it all."

"The defendant pleads innocent due to hallucination."

"I'm sorry, geez."

"Yeah, well, I did you wrong, too."

"So that makes both of us."

Arashi was slowly picking away at her lunch, eating just enough to have energy to live. Perhaps she tasted nothing, too.

"I'm sorry, Ritsu-chan."

"For what, Arashi-chan?"

"Oh, don't. I don't like that name. Arashi. Makes me sound so stern."

"Then allow me to grant you a new name. Henceforth, you shall be known as Gonzou Gonzales Narukami."

"You wanna get stomped again?"

"Your Honor, the defendant shows no remorse."

"Neither do you."

After finishing up lunch, Arashi daintily dabbed her mouth with a handkerchief and began to fix her makeup.

"Really, I'm sorry."

"For what? I don't mind the smell of makeup, for the record."

"I didn't think of you as human."

"...If not human, then what? A vampire?"

"Nothing so specific. Like, a ghost or a zombie, or a hallucination, like I mentioned before... something not alive."

It sounded like a joke, but Arashi was deadly serious.

"You don't think that's actually super rude? Treating somebody as less than human?"

"I'm fine with it. I mean, anybody who isn't me or Ma~kun is basically an insect to me."

"So an insect almost beat you to death, huh?"

"All manner of dangers roam this earth."

"You know, we..."

Arashi slumped back into the bench, as if at a loss, exhausted under the weight of life. She stretched her long legs and gazed up into the sky.

It was cloudy that day. As it had been for a while now.

"...We've had so few humans in our little worlds. Just us, and the one we love most in the whole wide world. Anyone else could live or die, and it wouldn't matter."

"But now there's a teensy bit more humans."

"Yup, a teensy bit."

"I used to shut my eyes in the darkness and pretend reality didn't exist. I only dreamed. I didn't notice there was so much human life around me."

"And now that you've noticed, you can never look away. That goes for me, too."

"Yup, we're in the same boat. ...Oh, whoa—"

Ritsu had decided to join Arashi in leaning back against the bench, but the moment he did, the old, rusty structure caved beneath their weight and flipped neatly backward, as if it'd slipped on a banana peel.

"What are you morons doing?"

Someone passed by the two of them, leaving them only with these few frosty words. That someone had some music scores tucked under his arm, while balancing a CD player with its cord on his shoulder.

Izumi Sena was in his gym clothes, no doubt out for some practice. And, just as likely, he'd find some open space to plug in the CD player to play the music of someone he probably loved, and begin to sing and dance upon this stage where everything had ceased to be.

As if fettered by a curse, he alone would continue singing and dancing, now and forever.

"A little girl with red shoes... ♪"

"Another day of sumo on the mountain... ♪" [1]

Despite Arashi and Ritsu both singing clashing tunes, Izumi paid them no heed and continued on. As the early sun slowly submerged into evening, his back glowed a deep, bloody red.

Arashi and Ritsu helped each other up and chased after him—neither of them liked to be ignored, after all, despite having each lived a life closing their eyes to the world.

And for that, perhaps, they both felt a little regret.

"Izumi-chaaan! What song are you practicing today?"

"Izumi-chan, Izumi-chan! I'm thirsty! Buy me a can of juice? ♪"

"Buzz off! Now you actually wanna bother me?!"

To Izumi's credit, it really was rather sudden.

But to Ritsu and Arashi, this was starting to become routine.

---

[1] Arashi is singing a nursery rhyme based off the poem "Akai Kutsu" (Red Shoes) by Ujo Noguchi. Though not the same story as in the song, this could also be a reference to the Western tale "The Red Shoes", which is about a girl cursed to dance forever (sound like anyone here?)

Ritsu's lyrics don't match up to any song in particular, but "sumo" (or more specifically, "sumo no keiko") matches up with the lyrics to the children's song "Kintaro". Interestingly, the lyrics talk about bears (kuma) and beasts (kedamono)--perhaps symbolizing Ritsu and Arashi. Izumi could also be Kintaro in this story, holding his "axe", aka the musical weapons in his hands.

Japanese fans have also pointed out that "ouma" (horse) and "sumo" in the lyrics kind of sound like "Ousama" and "Suo"... Was Kintaro about Knights all along?! ↑