Even Before You (a "Run Away With Me, Girl" fanfiction)

(Disclaimer: I don't own Run Away With Me, Girl or any of its characters; all rights go to Battan and Kodansha. Please support the official release. Also, please don't read this until you have at least finished volume 2, as this is based on something that happens near the end of the volume. On that note, I have only read up to volume 2 myself at the time of writing this, so I apologize if there are any developments in volume 3 that would make this story not make sense. With that said, I hope you enjoy!)

Brriing.... Brriing....

The sound of a call going through has never been a more nerve-wracking sound in my entire short life. It doesn't help, though, that my heart pounding and my thoughts racing are even louder sounds to me.

Well, this is it.

I'm going to tell Tama-chan the truth.

Seeing Makimura-san and Midori-chan-san before they left Shodo-Shima today inspired me to do it. They sparkled so brightly together, and I want to find a love that will sparkle just as brightly. Before I could do that, though, I have to do this.

As the phone is ringing, I face the corkboard in my room that I had pinned some of my photos to. One by one, I pull the pins off of the photos and let each of them fall to the floor. All of them were collages I had put together because of how boring ordinary photos were, but with the photo I had taken of Makimura-san and Midori-chan-san earlier.... maybe I could consider adding "ordinary" photos to the corkboard someday.

As I pull off the last pin and the last photo falls....

"Hello, Komari?"

Tama-chan finally answers his phone.

This is it. It's go time.

"Hey, Tama-chan? You have a minute?" I begin the conversation.

"Sure. Everythin' okay?" he asks.

"Yeah," I respond. "I just...."

My voice suddenly drifts off after that.

No, Komari! You can't stop here! Say something, damn it!

"P-pretty chilly today, huh?"

God. Fucking. Damn it.

Once again, I just can't say what I mean. This always happens when I try to tell anyone about this, but it just can't happen now.

I crouch down on the floor of the room, looking down at the photos that had fallen, as Tama-chan speaks again.

"Komari, what's goin' on with ya? Didn't cha have somethin' to tell me?"

"I mean, it's nothing big," is my response.

And of course, it's a lie, just like my relationship with him.

Both of us are silent for a moment. I pick up one of the photos on the floor; it depicts a mailbox flying above the beach.

One of the ones I showed Makimura-san and Midori-chan-san during their stay.

I'm thinking about them again. I know I can't keep lying.

"....No, that's not true," I finally admit, my grip on the photo tightening.

"Komari?" Tama-chan says, obviously sounding confused.

"Tama-chan, listen," I tell him. "I've got somethin' important to tell you."

My heart is pounding even harder. My hand is shaking and gripping the photo even tighter, causing it to get all crumpled. Every single part of me is regretting even deciding to call Tama-chan in the first place and screaming at me to just hang up and never even think about doing anything like this ever again.

Even so, I have to tell him.

"Tama-chan, I....I like girls. I'm a lesbian."

Just like that, I have finally told the truth for the first time.

I should be feeling the weight of the world lift off of my shoulders. There's finally someone other than Makimura-san who knows my secret; I should be happy to finally have someone from my hometown who I don't have to lie to anymore.

Instead, all of my fear and anxiety remain.

Things may have gotten awkward between me and Tama-chan since we started dating, but I still really like him as a friend. He was the one I felt the most comfortable around before we started dating, and now, there's no way we can get that back.

Both of us have gone all quiet again. My legs were getting a bit tired from crouching, yet I can't even move.

This is it. Tama-chan and my friendship is all over-

"Yeah, I kinda already knew."

....What?

I can't believe what I just heard.

"Tama-chan, you....you knew?" I ask for confirmation.

"Yeah. Prob'ly even before you knew," Tama-chan answers.

"Wait, wait, wait! Back up!" I exclaim, standing up and completely loosening my grip on the now crumpled photo, causing it to fall onto the floor again. "The hell d'you mean, you knew?! Before I knew, even!"

"Well, here's the thing," Tama-chan begins to explain. "Back in grade school, I saw ya looking at other girls a lot. The first time I realized how I looked when I thought of you, I realized it was the same way you were lookin' at those girls back then. Plus, remember Suzuki from our sixth year? You used to get all blushy whenever you talked to her."

I do remember. I remember thinking Rino Suzuki was really pretty and, even though we were just kids, that I wanted to kiss her and stuff. Of course, I never told anyone or acted on what I wanted to do, and I haven't even seen her since middle school, when she moved overseas; I'm already over that little school crush.

"That's not all, though," Tama-chan continues. "You've never talked about having crushes on other guys.... Oh, and don't think I haven't seen ya sneakin' around my room, readin' my porn mags!"

What the hell? He saw me doing that?! My face is hot from embarrassment, but I don't say anything in response, instead letting Tama-chan continue explaining.

"I didn't wanna believe I had no chance, though. Despite all of that, I've liked ya for a long time, Komari, so I decided to shoot my shot. I didn't actually think you'd say yes, but when you did, I thought that maybe I was wrong all this time and that you actually didn't like girls that way. Maybe you just had a crush on me all this time, like I did for you, and was just hidin' it. Pretty stupid of me, huh? But then, I noticed you were gettin' more and more uncomfortable with me over the past year, not wanting to do all that much with me....and then, the whole you ignorin' my text thing happened. I had a feelin' things're about to be over between us, and that kinda got me thinkin' about things again...."

I stand there in silence and listen for a while, trying to process this information. Tama-chan asked me out even though he had a feeling I didn't like guys, and I accepted instead of just confirming that feeling. I guess we're kind of similar in how selfish both of us can be.

"So, yeah. Sorry 'bout everythin', Komari," Tama-chan finishes.

I stumble backwards and end up planting my butt on my desk chair. Just a second later, my vision starts getting blurry as my eyes become watery, and next thing I know, I'm a sobbing mess.

"K-Komari?! I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean-!" Tama-chan frantically starts to apologize.

"No, I'm sorry!" I cut him off, still sobbing. "I-I'm sorry for lyin' to ya, for not sayin' anythin' sooner, for breakin' your heart like this.... I'm so sorry for everythin', Tama-chan."

"No, no, Komari!" Tama-chan tries to comfort me. "It's okay! It's really...."

His voice trails off. Even as I continue sobbing, I can hear some faint sniffles on the other end of the line. It's pretty clear Tama-chan's trying not to cry himself; he's always been the type to act all cool and not cry in front of others. With what I just said, though, I can't even blame him for crying.

Finally, I'm able to control my sobs. While I'm wiping away my tears with my sleeve, I ask him a question that I really need an answer to.

"Tama-chan, it's obvious that we're over as a couple, but....we're still friends, right?"

"Yeah, of course," Tama-chan answers. "It might take us a while to get completely back to the way we were, but us being friends will never change."

At last, my heart feels light. The weight of keeping the secret has finally been lifted off of my shoulders.

"Thank you," I tell him.

"No prob," he tells me. "And hey, if you ever find a girlfriend with a straight female friend, introduce her to me, alright?"

It was a very stupid joke, but I laugh despite myself.

"What the heck? Ya sure are gettin' over me real quick!" I joke back.

After that, Tama-chan and I chat for a while about nothing in particular. It's like even though we're broken up, our relationship was even better than ever; it's nice, really. We eventually say our goodbyes and hang up, and I finally feel as if the anxiety I had at the start of the call was never there to begin with.

I get up from my chair, crouch down on the floor again, pick up the picture I had crumpled up, and straighten it out.

It'll be a while before I'm ready to come out to anyone else, but right now, I feel a lot better, knowing that I have someone to support me whenever Makimura-san can't, since she lives so far away.

Seeing the flying mailbox again and thinking about the photo I had taken earlier, I'm able to make my resolve once again.

One day, I will find a love like Makimura-san and Midori-chan-san's.

Until then, though, at least I have the love of a friend!

Pancakes of Poison (old short story from 2015)

"Well, then, eat up!"

That was what she said as soon as the dinner she cooked was finished. I'm talking about Sawako Kirisaki, a woman of about age 50. She had short, grey hair, brown eyes, and a young-looking face. She may be acting so nice to be cooking us dinner now, but she actually has a rotten personality. Why is she acting nice? She had also cooked for her daughter.

Sawako is the mother of my wife, Emi. In other words, she's my mother-in-law.

Ever since the day I met Sawako, which was while Emi and I were dating in high school, I had this feeling that she was out to get me. I could see it in her eyes that day - the "I will kill you one of these days" look. That was why I highly objected when Sawako decided to stay with us for the week. Emi, on the other hand, was happy to have her stay, and every time we had an argument, she would always win. This was not an exception.

Which brings us back to Night 5 of Sawako's visit, where the three of us were eating our curry dinner. Well, Sawako and Emi were, anyway. I was staring suspiciously at my food; there was no freaking way she could be cooking high-quality food for me without there being a catch.

I was sure of it.

The food Sawako had cooked for me and Emi over the past five days had poison mixed in it that was specifically for me.

The ultimate sign was that Sawako never let anyone into the kitchen while she was cooking. She always claimed that she "wanted it to be a surprise", but I knew better; she actually didn't want Emi or me to see her mixing the poison in. The poison was finally starting to work, too; since that afternoon, I've been having this strange stomachache, as if my insides were about to explode. That was how her food was poisoning me; it was a time bomb that would explode as soon as my body had enough.

"Kyou, what's wrong?"

I snapped back to reality upon hearing the voice next to me. There, my wife sat with that look in her pale blue eyes. It was the look that would get any man to drop down on one knee and propose to her right away (that is, if she wasn't already married). Every time I see that look, I can't go against her will.

Why do you think I always ate whatever her mother cooked?

"Nothing! Nothing at all!" I lied while quickly scarfing the curry down my throat.

It may have tasted good, but that's how it's supposed to be with poison disguised as food.

I was going to die, and it was because of the mother of the woman I love.

"Hey, Kyousuke?"

I jumped upon hearing Emi say my name. She had always called me "Kyou"; she never used my full first name unless she had something serious to talk to me about.

Oh, and I should probably mention that we were lying together in bed during the late hours of the night. Sawako was asleep in the guest room, presumably dreaming of my demise.

"What's wrong, Emi?" I asked, turning toward her with my hands on my still-hurting stomach.

"Is something wrong?" Emi asked.

"Honey, I'm fine. Trust me," I told her while taking one of my hands off of my stomach and running it through her long, black hair.

"You always do that when you're trying to hide something from me," Emi said, with the moonlight coming from the window allowing me to see the smirk on her face. "I dated you for six years before we got married last month, so I should know."

I pulled my hand back. Emi was right; I couldn't hide it. That was why I looked into her eyes and told her the truth.

"I think your mother's trying to poison me."

"What?!" Emi immediately responded out of shock.

"I said-" I was about to repeat myself.

"I heard you the first time, Kyou!" Emi cut me off. She then gave me an amused smile and continued, "It's just that....well, I knew that you hated my mom, but this?! Wow, Kyou. Just....wow."

"I'm serious!" I told her. "I can feel the poison settling in! My stomach hurts right now!"

Emi's amused look soon became a worried one as she placed one of her hands on my forehead for a brief second.

"You do seem to be running a fever," Emi told me, "but I'm pretty sure it's not because of my mother poisoning you."

"Is too!" I argued admittedly childishly.

Emi sighed and told me, "Look, Kyousuke. You're probably just catching some weird stomach virus. Just take something for it in the morning. You will be fine. My mother is not poisoning you. Got it?"

I reluctantly nodded.

"Good," Emi responded with a smile on her face. She then closed her eyes and told me in an almost silent voice, "Good night, Kyou."

My stomach wasn't feeling any better from Emi trying to reassure me that her mother wasn't trying to poison me (which I still don't believe), but not even that could stop me from grinning when I saw how beautiful she was when she slept.

Of course, she was always beautiful, and that's what made me want to make her my wife in the first place.

"Good night, Emi. I love you."

Those were the words I whispered before I fell asleep, stomachache be damned. I could have sworn that I heard her tell me that she loved me, too.

Please don't let her telling me she loved me one last time be my imagination. Otherwise, Sawako's poison was going to kill me before I could get one last reminder that Emi loved me, and I loved her.

Well, this is it.

My final meal.

I could tell that it was my last, as my stomachache had gotten a whole lot worse overnight. In fact, as soon as I got out of bed, I felt a shock of pain in my stomach, and I almost collapsed right then and there. That was how I knew that the poison was kicking in, and I would be dead by noon. I was imagining what my funeral would be like as I slowly walked into the kitchen, leaning against the wall for support. Sawako and Emi were already sitting at the table, eating pancakes, and another plate with another pancake on it was placed on the table, waiting for me.

At least Sawako was kind enough for my last meal to be my favorite food.

"Good morning," I greeted weakly as I sat down.

"Kyou, what's wrong?!" Emi suddenly cried out upon seeing me. "Does your stomach still hurt?!"

"I'm fine," I replied, obviously lying and in pain. "I'm just going to enjoy my last meal before this poison ultimately kills me."

Emi gave me a look as if I had officially gone crazy and told me, "I thought we discussed this last night!"

"Kyousuke, you shouldn't force yourself to eat if you're not feeling well," Sawako told me with a look of I'm-pretty-sure-is-fake sympathy.

I ignored her, though. I used the knife next to my plate to cut up a small piece of my pancake to poke my fork into. As I struggled to lift my fork with the delicious pancake piece on it to my mouth, it was a battle between the lack of appetite caused by the poison and that fork in my hand.

....

My lack of an appetite won, but it cheated.

My stomach suddenly started hurting even more than it was before.

This was it; the poison was going to kill me before I could even eat my last meal.

Before I had realized it, I had fallen off of my chair and landed on the wooden floor below me. My body curled up into a ball, and my arms instinctively wrapped themselves around my stomach. Emi rushed to my side and sat next to me, crying her eyes out, but the pain blocked out whatever she was saying to me. Sawako had left the scene by then; she was probably doing a victory dance because of her poison finally working.

As I lied there, the last thing I did before blacking out was admitting defeat against my mother-in-law.

Heaven looks a lot like a hospital room.

At least, that's what I thought when I opened my eyes. I felt kind of woozy, and there was an IV stuck in my arm as I lied in the bed. The walls were white, and there were a couple of chairs next to the bed. Sitting in one of the chairs was Emi. Upon seeing that I was awake, she rushed to my side and grabbed my hand, tears spilling out of her eyes and a wide smile spreading across her face.

"Thank God!" she cried. "Thank God you're awake!"

I knew Emi couldn't be here with me unless Sawako had accidentally mixed poison into her food, too. For that reason, I just had to make sure.

"....Am I dead?" I asked.

Emi let go of my hand, wiped away her tears, and replied in a joking tone of voice, "Well, if your idea of Heaven is a hospital room after an appendectomy, then yeah, I guess you are dead."

"Wait, appendectomy?" I asked, now totally confused.

"Yeah. As I told you, Mom wasn't poisoning you at all," Emi explained. "You just needed your appendix taken out. You're fine now!"

Come to think of it, most of my pain had been on my right side. I guess if I was being poisoned, that detail wouldn't have made a lot of sense.

"In fact," Emi continued, "as soon as you collapsed, Mom ran out and called an ambulance to bring you here! Someone who wanted to poison her son-in-law wouldn't call an ambulance for him, would she?"

"Hey, where is Sawako, anyway?" I asked.

"She went back to her house a few hours ago," Emi replied. "She packed her stuff and went home early because she wanted us to have some alone time as you recovered."

I glanced out the window and saw that it was dark outside. If I recall correctly, it was the bright hours of the morning, not the dark hours of the night, when the poison - I mean, my appendix - almost killed me.

....How long was I unconscious?!

Ignoring that thought, I looked into my wife's eyes and asked, "Emi, you know I love you, right?"

"Of course I do," Emi replied with a smile on her face. "You tell me that every day, although you almost missed today."

"Well, because I love you, and because she saved my life," I told her honestly, "I'll try to appreciate having your mother around from now on."

With her beautiful smile still on her face, Emi leaned toward me and gave me a kiss on the cheek right before she made a rather sassy remark.

"Well, next time, you should eat her pancakes without thinking they're poisoned."

"I'll look forward to tasting them, although there is one taste I like even more," I told her, winking at her to make sure she knew what I meant.

Emi playfully rolled her eyes and told me, "I guess I'll go along with this. After all, my beloved husband should get a little treat after going through as much as he did."

After that, I got to feel Emi's sweet lips against mine. We made out in that hospital bed that night up until the point where my appendix scar re-opened itself and the doctors had to stitch it back together. It was worth it, though, because it happened while I was kissing the woman I was happily married to.

For the sake of that woman, I would have to deal with her mother every now and then. At least she's not as wicked as I once believed she was.

....I'm pretty sure Sawako still wants to kill me for taking Emi away from her, though.