Posting This Cuz I Don’t Know How To Save 😭😭

Posting this cuz I don’t know how to save 😭😭

monday afternoons // yoshiden

tags: sfw, modern/high school au, fluff, dialogue heavy, developing relationship

wc: 3.6k

denji starts going to tutoring. his tutor is kind of a weird guy (in a good way).

Denji enjoyed watching the sunset.

He began paying more attention to the different, vivid colors smearing across the sky on one particular Monday. He was in class, four hours after everyone else had gone home. Denji wasn’t too put out by having to stay late. While his classmates would go home to parents and dinners, Denji always went home to either an empty house or a destroyed one, courtesy of his sister.

That Monday, though, Denji had to stay late. It wasn’t that he was in trouble. Usually, that was the case, so when his teacher pulled him aside, Denji automatically began to prepare for the worst. There was nothing more embarrassing than having to explain to his older brother why he wouldn’t be home. It was never anything too bad, usually just a crude drawing or a poorly timed remark. Aki never let anything slide, though.

Denji knew it would be hard to explain his late arrival this time. Aki would expect the normal excuses of I got caught sleeping in class, I spent too long in the bathroom, I drew a penis on the desk. Denji wasn’t sure how to tell him, I’m failing my math class and need tutoring.

Aki would have probably had a blood vessel burst if Denji told him. Keeping that in mind, Denji quickly decided just to keep it on the down-low and quietly go to his tutoring every Monday.

On the first day, he was nervous. The upperclassman who was supposed to be there was late, so Denji was staring out at the sunset.

Denji knew he had no reason to be nervous. His teacher wasn’t too worried and she said his tutor was excellent. Even so, Denji could feel his face screwing up into a sneer.

Adults lied. It was something Denji made peace with a long time ago, before Aki and Power. Kids were cruel and Denji had no reason to believe that his mysterious tutor would behave otherwise.

Denji’s bitter pondering was interrupted by a loud clatter at the back of the room.

“Uh-” he turned, fully prepared to see a group of returning classmates.

Instead, he was greeted with the sight of a lanky guy gathering up a mess of papers on the floor. His dark, messed-up hair was obscuring his face from view, but Denji could’ve sworn he could make out the tell-tale redness of embarrassment.

“Hey,” Denji snapped out of his surprise and tentatively went to help the new guy. “I’ll get these…”

Denji could hear the smile in the guy’s voice when he said, “Oh, nah, it’s no biggie.”

He gently pulled the papers from Denji’s hands and finally looked up.

“You’re my little protegee, aren’t you?”

Denji couldn’t do much else but nod. The guy’s face caught him off guard. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t a smooth-faced dude with the blackest eyes he had ever seen. If his eyes weren’t so unsettling, Denji might have felt able to speak.

“I’m Yoshida, c’mere,” Yoshida stood, pulled Denji to the center of the room, and dumped an armful of loose papers on a desk. “How do you wanna start?”

Denji arched a brow at Yoshida and hoped it was screaming: are you fucking with me?

The look pulled a snort from Yoshida and he shook his head. With the motion, Denji caught sight of a mess of earrings on his ear. It was strange he hadn’t noticed them yet.

“Here, sorry, sit down.”

“You’re good,” Denji muttered and sat across from Yoshida. “So, uh, I’ve never done somethin’ like this.”

Yoshida nodded as he sifted through his papers. Denji caught glimpses of pages full of difficult equations and unintelligible handwriting. After a moment, Yoshida exclaimed a small ah! before laying out a few papers.

“So, I don’t wanna get right into it,” he said with a strange, small smile.

“Why not?”

Denji was trying to keep his cool, but Yoshida wasn’t acting like anyone he had ever met. Though, he wasn’t sure what he expected. Maybe a hardcore teacher hell-bent on forcing fractions into Denji’s mind, or a classmate who was only there to appease a teacher. Yoshida was far too relaxed and it made Denji’s guard automatically go up.

“It’s just better this way, I promise,” Yoshida said and shrugged. Even though he was smiling, his eyes remained still like a pool of dark, stagnant water. “Is it just math? They didn’t really fill me in that much.”

Denji took slightly too long to answer. The way Yoshida was staring, unblinking, was throwing Denji off. It wasn’t unwelcome, just different. No one looked at him that much unless they needed something from him.

“Yeah, just math.”

“Oh, yay, that’s my whole thing.”

“How?”

Yoshida tilted his head like a confused dog. The black jewelry in his ear glimmered through his hair.

“What do you mean?”

Denji shrugged and felt a little embarrassed. Which was strange, because Denji never felt nervous.

“How are you good with math? I listen and pay attention and everythin’ but it never, what’s the word? Never sticks?”

Yoshida blinked at Denji and shrugged. “Yeah, sticks is about right, I think. But it does stick for me.”

“You gonna show me how it sticks?”

Yoshida paused and regarded Denji as though he was really seeing him for the first time. Then, he laughed and this time, it was genuine and straight from a good place in his heart.

Denji was surprised to find that his nerves abandoned him and stayed gone for the rest of the session.

—

As the year transitioned from early Autumn to Winter, Denji continued to stay late on Mondays. After the initial session, Denji began to gradually become accustomed to Yoshida’s strange demeanor.

A lingering blank stare. That perpetual thin smile. The relentless, yet comforting teasing.

Denji still wasn’t sure what to make of him. It had been three months of Yoshida occupying his Mondays, and even after three months, Denji was no closer to understanding him than he had been at the beginning.

What Denji did know was limited. He knew that Yoshida was smart, like, crazy smart. Denji would puzzle over a single equation for a half hour and Yoshida would solve it in five minutes, tops. It wasn’t just math, it was practically everything. Denji found it difficult to not feel stupid around him.

Yoshida knew exactly what to say to get the outcome he wanted. He knew classic Japanese literature inside and out. He knew what to say to Denji to encourage him through the painful last minutes of their sessions.

“Are you paying attention?”

Yoshida’s smooth voice gently pulled Denji back. He would feel embarrassed, but that feeling had long since escaped him, at least around Yoshida.

“Yeah,” Denji quipped and smoothed his hand over his worksheet. “The sky looks nice. It sets earlier now, right?”

“Huh?”

“The sun, dumbass.”

“C’mon now,” Yoshida hid his smile by dragging a hand over his face. As placid as he always seemed, Denji had noticed that he was more expressive around him. “No swearing.”

“You gonna tell on me?”

Yoshida snorted and slapped Denji’s hand with a pencil. “Nah, Hayakawa is already a prick. I don’t need him up my ass for picking on his baby brother.”

Denji couldn’t help his smile. “Okay, whatever. What’s the formula for this?”

“Here,” Yoshida walked around the table to sit next to Denji. “I’ll start it, then you try and remember the rest of it.”

“I have a hard time remembering,” Denji sighed and wracked his brain for the remainder of the formula. “Is there a song for this one?”

“Nope, you could make one up though.”

Denji scoffed as Yoshida erased his writing.

“If you make up your own song I bet you’d remember it better.”

“I can’t sing, dude.”

Yoshida sighed and wrapped a heavy arm around Denji’s shoulder. It was clearly a friendly gesture, but Denji froze under it.

Oblivious to Denji’s stiffness, Yoshida continued, “It doesn’t matter if you can sing or not, you just gotta make something up to remember it by. Like,” Yoshida frowned and thoughtfully squeezed Denji’s shoulder as he searched for what to say. “Fuck, catchy? Yeah, you make up something catchy that you can remember during a test.”

Yoshida removed his arm and the place he squeezed burned even after his hand was long gone. Denji didn’t have time to think about it before Yoshida was walking him through more equations.

By the time the session ended, Denji’s mind was swirling with exponents and square roots and the blank smile Yoshida always had, which seemed to only soften around Denji.

—

The Winter months continued without fail. The snow arrived and school was forced to close down for a few days. All over the city, shops closed and restaurants boarded up their doors to prepare for the storm. Finals were rapidly approaching, so Denji swore to himself he would study while he was forced to stay holed up at home.

However, the lack of school meant two things for Denji: One, no tutoring. Two, no Yoshida.

Denji was conflicted. Over the past several months he had sort of come to realize something about himself. It wasn’t something he could just casually admit to himself though. So he spent his time with Yoshida lost in his head.

Could he ever say anything? He couldn’t even admit it to himself, let alone to Yoshida’s face.

Even so, Denji couldn’t ignore the way Yoshida was always staring and smiling. Denji told himself that Yoshida looked at everyone that way, even when he knew it wasn’t true. Denji couldn’t ignore how patient and calm he always was. If he were anyone else, Denji was certain that he would’ve abandoned him by now.

Anyone else would get fed up with how long it took Denji to absorb formulas and process a problem. Anyone else would chastise him for his near lethargic pace when solving a difficult word problem.

Denji threw his head back and groaned. Aki was gone, so Denji could be as crass and immature as he pleased. Even Power was gone today, so Denji was left alone with his contradicting thoughts.

The landscape around their apartment was coated in white as far as the eye could see. If Denji squinted, he could make out snowplows clearing the streets and spreading salt. As pretty as the sight was, Denji was bored. To make matters worse, it was a Monday. Right about now, Denji would be heading up to the room where he and Yoshida held their sessions.

As Denji stared out at the slowly falling sun, he suddenly realized that Yoshida had given him something a few weeks prior. Denji immediately rushed inside to find the slip of paper. As he dug through piles of dirty clothes and junk, he struggled to remember what it was.

A formula cheatsheet? A guide? A number? Was it Yoshida’s number?

Denji stopped and pulled out a thin slip of notebook paper from a pocket in one of his discarded jeans. Sure enough, it was Yoshida’s number with a message scrawled under it.

If you need anything at another point in the week.

Denji sat cross-legged on his floor, blinking at the slip. He could’ve sworn that Yoshida said he had other students throughout the week, which was why they only got together on Mondays. Denji decided to not worry too much about it and just went to the phone.

Someone picked up on the third ring.

“Yellow?”

“Oh, of course, you would say that,” Denji said and his smile was apparent in his voice.

A laugh echoed through the phone. “Oh shit. Hi Denji.”

All the playful bravado fled Denji’s arsenal of comebacks. Yoshida’s voice was still smooth as ever, but Denji thought he heard a pinch of excitement in his words. Was Yoshida glad he called? Was he as thrilled about it as Denji was?

“Hey.”

“What’s up? The snow got you down?”

Denji shrugged, then remembered Yoshida couldn’t see him. “Kinda, also, I just shrugged and thought you saw even though you’re in my phone right now.”

“Yeah, I’m just some guy in the phone, sorry to disappoint you,” Yoshida snorted. “You ready for finals?”

“Yeah, I think so. I made up a song and shit for all the formulas I can’t remember.”

“Okay, nice.”

They fell into a strange silence that wasn’t awkward or tense. Denji felt a smile threaten to creep onto his face and he willed it away. Was he allowed to smile? He wasn’t doing anything fun, just talking to Yoshida. Was it okay for him to want to talk to him?

“So, you won’t still tutor me after break?”

There was a pause, then, “No, but, we can still hang out, if that’s cool.”

If that’s cool…

Of course, that would be cool. More than cool, actually.

“Yeah,” was all Denji said.

There was a quiet moment where Denji thought he should’ve said more, but before he could, Yoshida gave him a time and place for after finals and hung up. Denji stood with the phone in his hand for a long, regretful moment.

—

Denji stood nervously in front of what he assumed to be Yoshida’s apartment.

It was small and clean and seemed like just the place Denji expected Yoshida to live. He knocked once and stepped back to wait.

It didn’t take long before Yoshida cracked open the door and peeked out at Denji.

“Hey!” Yoshida pulled Denji inside. Even though his voice was dull and his face was as blank as ever, Denji could practically feel Yoshida’s excitement. Denji told himself to not get his hopes up.

“‘Sup,” Denji smirked and let Yoshida quickly drag him through his home.

“Yeah, my mom is gone this weekend but here’s our kitchen and that’s-”

“You got food?”

Yoshida turned and shot a deadpan stare straight into Denji’s soul. “No, my mother starves me,” he droned, opening the fridge door and chucking an apple at Denji. “That’s actually not real.”

“Oh shit,” Denji took a bite and wiggled his eyebrows. “Ghost food? For real?”

Yoshida nodded with the gravest expression Denji had ever seen in his life. It was like someone had just died right before his eyes. It got hard to tell when Yoshida was being serious or just messing around.

“Yeah. For real.”

Denji shook his head and followed Yoshida into his room. It was small but cozy, the space was mostly taken up by a low bed. The walls were covered in posters paying tribute to bands or movies.

“You’re a movie guy, huh,” Denji remarked as he observed the walls.

He could feel Yoshida’s eerie stare on his back, but it didn’t unsettle him the way it used to. It was almost endearing now.

“Uh-huh, have you seen that one?”

“Nah, all the movies I watch are so shitty,” Denji groaned and tried not to think about his latest family movie night. “You know my sister Power?”

Denji turned and Yoshida nodded.

“She doesn’t let us watch anything but those stupid animated kid's shows. It's always those or some fucked up slasher. No in between.”

Yoshida snorted a laugh and stood, walking up until his chest was flush with Denji side. Yoshida was a little taller, so Denji’s eyes traced his neck and traveled up to make contact with Yoshida’s.

“Do you wanna watch something?”

Denji couldn’t do anything other than nod and wonder why some guy had the ability to completely disarm him. They stayed standing still looking straight into the eyes of the other for a moment that seemed far longer than it actually was. With Yoshida so close, Denji could finally see that his eyes weren’t black, just a very warm, deep brown. Yoshida’s gaze shifted back and forth like he couldn’t decide which of Denji’s eyes to stare at. Then, he swallowed thickly and Denji found it hard to keep himself from looking at his throat.

“Uh,” Denji’s voice sounded strange and hoarse so he ducked to clear it. When he stood straight again, Yoshida had backed away a little. “What do you wanna watch? I don’t really know what’s good.”

Yoshida still had the same, ever-present smile on his face, but right then, it seemed a little different. If Denji thought hard enough, it seemed like it was more at ease, content.

It was a sight Denji could get used to seeing.

—

With the coming of the new semester, Monday afternoons shifted from being days devoted to reviewing into hours dedicated to consuming media and hanging out. The trees began to shroud themselves with leaves and birds returned to the newly clear skies. Even with all the new life surrounding him, Denji still was conflicted.

Yoshida was sitting next to Denji on his couch. Yoshida’s couch had become Denji’s second home, he spent most of his time after school there. They’d work on homework together, eat together, then watch movies together. It was nice, but it hadn’t done anything to help clear Denji’s mind.

“Ew, what the fuck.”

Yoshida punched Denji’s arm and barked a laugh at his reaction.

“I thought you liked stuff like this?”

Denji stared at the woman on the screen, her top slung low to expose the rounded tops of her breasts. He did like stuff like that, but Yoshida was right there and the last thing Denji needed was to embarrass himself in front of him.

“I do…” he said after a moment. He could feel Yoshida’s eyes on him.

“What about it?”

The question was spoken softly like Yoshida was worried he would scare Denji off by asking. There was more underneath the spoken words, but Denji didn’t feel like mulling it over too much. His mind was screaming that this was finally the right moment, begging him to not let it slip by.

“I dunno,” Denji answered without facing Yoshida. “Just, she’s pretty.”

“Yeah? What about her?”

Denji felt the cushions on the couch shift as Yoshida leaned in a little closer. He felt small, yet excited, as he stayed trapped beneath Yoshida’s eyes. It was risky, it was exhilarating.

“She’s,” as Denji searched for his next words, he realized that the girl sort of resembled Yoshida. Is that what he wants me to say? “I like her hair, it’s kinda like yours.”

“You like my hair, huh?”

Denji swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah, I can always smell your shampoo. It smells nice.”

“You just go around sniffin’ people?” Yoshida laughed and he was so close his breath tickled the shell of Denji’s ear. “You’re a funny guy, y’know that?”

“I don’t sniff people, c’mon,” Denji said, smiling, and tilted his head back to rest on the back of the couch. “You think I’m funny?” Denji couldn’t hide his grin as he put the ball back on Yoshida’s side.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Is that all you think of me?”

There was a beat. A silent moment when Denji wondered if he had misread or gone too far.

“I think a lot about you, honestly.”

Denji held his breath and kept waiting. He was terrified that if he dared to look over or take a breath, the moment would disappear and that he would be back in his room.

“I- Do you?”

“Yeah,” Denji admitted it like he was confessing a dark secret to a priest. Now he really couldn’t look. He couldn’t move.

“Are you scared, cause, I am,” Yoshida whispered and for the first time, Denji could hear the raw emotion in his voice.

“I am, is this allowed?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean- Like, you’re a guy? Is this okay?”

“Yeah,” Yoshida said and Denji felt something tug at his shirt. “Dude, look at me.”

Denji obliged and almost flinched from the weight of Yoshida’s gaze. He always thought Yoshida’s eyes were strange and glassy, but Denji could finally see the depth of them. Beneath the glossy, dark surface, Denji could make out a sea of swimming emotions.

“Hey, dude.”

Yoshida snorted and flashed a crooked smile. “Dude?”

“Yeah?”

“You gonna keep calling me dude, or?”

Denji felt a smile pull at his lips without his permission. “I mean, want me to call you baby girl?”

Yoshida’s face screwed up and he leaned forward, pressing his head against Denji’s shoulder.

“God, please don’t.”

“Uh, do you like me?” Denji was so transfixed by the way Yoshida’s sweet-scented, dark hair pooled around his shoulder it was a miracle he could even speak.

Yoshida leaned back and Denji could instantly tell he was struggling to hold back a bright smile. One of the ones reserved only for Denji.

“Do I really need to tell you?”

Denji smiled so hard that his cheeks squished up into his eyes. He probably looked stupid, but Yoshida looked so happy and content he couldn't bring himself to care.

“Man, okay,” Denji said and in a moment of feeling bold, he reached up and felt the mole right below Yoshida’s mouth.

Yoshida, for once, was at a loss for words. He just stared and smiled while Denji examined his birthmarks and teenage blemishes and the piercings weighing down his ear.

“Denji, do you like me?”

Denji huffed a laugh as he fiddled with the piercings. “Dude-”

“Not dude.”

“Okay, uh, baby girl-”

“Please shut up,” Yoshida smiled and tangled his fingers in Denji’s wild hair. They got caught in his tangles, but Denji didn’t notice.

“So, we like each other, yeah?”

Yoshida nodded. “Yeah, I think we do.”

“What’s next? I don’t-”

Yoshida pulled Denji in and he forgot all about what he was worried about. Nothing mattered, it was okay to like boys too and it was okay to not know what would come next.

Denji would take it one day at a time.