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“Sorry, um. How much would it cost… to fill up a whole travel cup with espresso shots?”
Mitsuru stops and stares back at the guy across the counter, his hand gone still on the latte machine lever. At a glance he can’t be sure if he’s seen him in here before. He seems to be one of those people without much presence: baggy clothes and poor posture and a mop of black hair that could use a trim falling over gloomy, tired eyes. Like, extremely tired eyes.
“Cost?” Mitsuru says. “Uh. A lot.”
The customer’s mouth curves downward into a grimace. “Okay. Nevermind. Just three shots, then. In black coffee.”
“Trying to stay awake, huh?” Mitsuru sighs in that way that speaks of heartfelt commiseration, nodding soulfully. The customers usually tip better if he goes through the motions like this. “That’s tough, man. Real tough. What kind of work do you – ”
But without another word this guy has already slapped his payment on the counter – exact change, it looks like – turning his back to him and shuffling away to the table in the far corner.
Mitsuru’s food service smile promptly slips off his face. Customers like him are the worst, he’s often thought: the ones you have to work twice as hard to wring anything extra out of.
When he delivers the guy’s coffee to his table, he finds him scribbling furiously in a beaten-up notebook. The pages are almost completely filled with strange diagrams, equations, notes that have been aggressively crossed out and rewritten spilling over into the margins. The handwriting is nigh illegible. He accepts the coffee with a duck of his head and immediately downs a gulp of it before returning to his notes.
“Oh, I get it,” Mitsuru says brightly. “You’re like an academic type, huh? Real smart science guy?”
The customer pauses in his writing and looks up at him, expression unreadable.
“I’m… an engineering student,” he says finally.
“Engineering! Man, I knew it had to be something like that. Guys like you are just different from us regular folks. All that stuff there,” he points down at the notebook, “is gonna turn into something big, I bet. There some engineering award you could win? I bet you could win it. I can tell. I may not be smart like you but I have a great eye for talent.”
The customer blinks. “…Really? You think so?”
“For sure. Next time you should order my specialty latte and that’ll totally give you a spark of inspiration – ”
“Sano!”
He winces; turns to see Morimoto glowering at him from the door to the backroom. A hint of irate red has begun to creep into his cheeks.
“Literally what did I tell you about bothering the customers? I hope you remember how the lady from last week complained. Please tell me you remember.”
“Right, right,” Mitsuru laughs, sheepish, palming the back of his neck. “Sorry, Boss. Old habits and all.”
“If you’re looking for something to keep you busy, there’s always cleaning,” Morimoto says icily, shoving a spray bottle of cleaning solution into his hands as he slips back behind the counter.
“Aye aye, sir!” Mitsuru takes the proffered bottle with a grin.
Morimoto grumbles something that sounds like ‘goddamn idiot’ before disappearing into the backroom, and Mitsuru’s smile vanishes again. Man, he wishes he could quit this job. Baristas can make a ton per shift, his buddy Hiro had assured him. It’s better money than valeting. Yeah, right. It’s the same, in the end. And at least there he only had a single task to complete; a gig like this expects you to do four jobs in one.
The gloomy customer is shoving his notebook back into his bag, looking harried as he heads for the door with his coffee in hand, and Mitsuru pointedly slides the tip jar a little bit closer to the edge of the counter. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t seem to notice.
But then. He stops with a hand on the door, and turns back to wave at Mitsuru. And he smiles, cheeks dimpling, eyes losing their tiredness for a moment, and Mitsuru finds himself thinking oh, he’s actually cute, isn’t he?
Startled, he lifts a hand hesitantly in return.
A few days later, he’s back again. And much more visibly present, which Mitsuru takes to mean he turned in whatever assignment he had due and finally got a good night’s rest. He even seems a bit nervous as he steps up the register, attempting to fix his bangs and fidgeting with the strap of his bag.
“Glad you decided to patronize our beautiful café again,” Mitsuru says, grinning. “What can I getcha?”
“Last time… you said I should order the specialty latte. So. I’ll take one of those.”
“Aha. A man who knows how to take a recommendation! I appreciate that. You won’t be disappointed, I promise.”
To tell the truth, there’s nothing special about the specialty latte. The psychological placebo effect of telling people something is ‘specialty made’ tends to do all the heavy lifting. That and the smiley face he’s taught himself how to draw in the foam.
The customer stares down at it, wide-eyed, when Mitsuru places it in front of him. He takes a tiny sip and then nods to himself very seriously, as if willing himself to experience the promised spark of inspiration.
“Thank you,” his eyes travel around before landing on his nametag, “Sano-san.”
“Oh, forget that. We’re the same age, right? It’s Mitsuru. Or I’ve been trying out Mitchan lately as a nickname. What d’you think? Does it suit me?” He flashes a peace sign and strikes his most adorable and charming pose.
“Uh. Yeah, I think so? I’m… Toujou. Toujou Satoru.”
“Cool, cool. Good to meet you, Satoru. Now, I hope you don’t mind, but.” He checks behind him covertly to make sure the boss isn’t watching, then holds out a hand, flashing a winning smile.
Toujou looks at his upturned palm, uncomprehending.
“My tip,” Mitsuru helpfully supplies. “For the special latte art service.”
“Ohh.” A furrow has formed in Toujou’s brow. “That’s… Sorry, I didn’t really bring any more money… than for the coffee… Uh. Hold on.” He rummages around in his hoodie pockets, then through his bag, finally procuring something small and pressing it into Mitsuru’s hand. “How about that?”
It’s an acrylic keychain. The design is of a character from a hero show: alien-looking, a white body with purple and blue stripes, a reflective silvery visor over his eyes and a laser sword in hand.
“It’s Star Senshi Ganymede,” Toujou informs him. “I already have one of that keychain, so I don’t mind giving that one to you.”
Mitsuru stares down at the thing for a moment before sighing, resigned, shoulders slumping low as all the energy leaves him like deflated balloon. “Yeah, sure, I’ll take it,” he mutters. He holds it up, dangling the keychain in front of his face, eyeing it blankly. “You like this kind of stuff, huh?”
“I love it,” Toujou says, matter-of-fact. “What about you, Mitsuru-san? Do you watch Star Senshi?”
“When I was a kid, sure. I think I watched… Uh. Helia?”
“Helios.”
“Right, yeah. That guy. He had that amazing attack where he’d just toss the monster into the sun and incinerate ‘em,” he laughs. “That was brutal. Kids’ shows are kind of messed up sometimes.”
“It was all in the name of heroism, so I think it’s fine,” Toujou says seriously. “The newer seasons aren’t as good since they’ve toned them down. The intensity made the stakes feel high. Helios was one of the last great ones.”
He blinks, taken aback by the severity of the response. “Huh. Really.”
This is making him oddly nostalgic. He used to love it, didn’t he? Star Senshi. He remembers sitting in front of the tv first thing in the morning, clutching his hero action figure tightly and watching the battles with rapt attention. The housekeeper would be making breakfast in the kitchen, and she’d yell in at him occasionally to not sit so close to the screen. He’d been thrilled by something so simple, then. But then he’d grown up. His friends had declared hero shows ‘lame,’ and he’d agreed, because what else was there to say? That’s just what getting older was: leaving silly things behind. Having to find something more acceptable to make you happy.
Though he still hasn’t managed that, has he?
“Helios,” Toujou is saying, seeming a bit nervous again, eyes downcast, turning his coffee cup back and forth in its saucer. “Do you… want to watch it? To see if you still like it. I have it all on DVD back at my place.”
The logical part of Mitsuru’s brain is telling him: this is how people get murdered. What does he even know about this guy, beyond one or two basic facts? He certainly doesn’t seem the most well-adjusted.
But the more he looks at him, the more he feels like he does know this person from somewhere. It’s a nebulous sensation nagging at him; déjà vu but a bit to the left. Like maybe they met as kids, on the playground, acting out a Star Senshi battle with sticks for swords, and this reunion here and now was fated. Or maybe they simply sat opposite each other on the train a month ago, strangers traveling along parallel lines, and his admittedly cute face had just stuck somewhere in the back of his mind.
“Well, my shift ends at four,” he hears himself say, and Toujou’s eyes light up.
Toujou’s apartment turns out to be thankfully normal: none too different from Mitsuru’s and his other friends’ sad twenty-something living quarters, with dishes piling up in the sink and bare walls and mismatched thrifted furniture. Only a few exceptions jump out at him as he furtively glances around. The desk here is littered with complicated engineering textbooks and enough documents and printouts that the computer could be caught in a landslide any moment. Visible behind the mass of papers is a framed photo of a class or study group posed in front of a college campus building, though it seems to have been cropped so that Toujou and the older man in a labcoat standing behind him are in the center of the frame, the other students callously cut off along the borders. He looks at that a moment too long before averting his eyes.
A bookcase in the corner is laden with Star Senshi toys – replica transformation devices and figures and plastic masks. And the tv is sat atop a shelf completely lined with colourful hero show DVD and VHS cases.
“Damn, d’you have all of them?” he asks with a laugh, crouching down to skim a finger along the spines.
“Almost.” Toujou sinks down next to him, frowning in annoyance. “I lost my volume eight of Regulus years ago and I haven’t been able to find a replacement. It’s rare and out of print and, well, VHS is dying out anyway. But I don’t know when they plan on converting it to DVD. Regulus is my favorite season. It doesn’t feel right not having the whole show.”
“Regulus, huh,” Mitsuru murmurs. He pulls one of the aforementioned VHS off the shelf. The design of Regulus marks him as being from the seventies, most likely – the red and white suit awkward and flimsy compared to the sleek heroes of today. But his sword is on fire on the cover design, and they’re clearly real flames. That’s one thing the old shows have on the new ones. ‘Reasonable safety precautions’ weren’t yet words in the effects guys’ dictionaries back then.
“Kind of old school, isn’t he? He’s really your fave?”
Toujou’s answering nod is very passionate. “Regulus has the best story out of them all. He’s a tragic hero. That’s how heroes should be, don’t you think? They should have a scar on their heart that makes them better at saving people, because they understand pain and loss.”
Mitsuru ponders this for a moment. “Well, I guess so.”
“Regulus’s family and friends on his home planet were all killed,” Toujou continues. “And when he made new friends on Earth, they ended up dead, too. And then he only had one person left in the world who understood him: his mentor. Who was harsh, and maybe a little cruel sometimes, but he had to be. It was all necessary. It made him a stronger hero in the end, to go through all of that.”
Mitsuru blinks down at the quaint retro hero with his fire sword. “Damn,” he mutters. “That’s dark stuff. Wouldn’t have thought it just looking at him. …How’d you even get into this one, though? Never seen it on tv.”
“My dad. He gave me the full set as a present when I was younger.”
He hums in acknowledgment as he replaces the VHS and slides another one out. “That makes sense. You watch it together, then?”
Toujou goes quiet for just long enough to be significant.
“No,” he says. “I didn’t see him much. Just on birthdays and holidays, really. And after a while… not even those. I’m not really sure where he is now.”
Mitsuru hums again, the previously unnoticed tension in his jaw relaxing. It’s always a relief, in a way, when he doesn’t have to listen to other people’s fond memories of their parents.
“Well. I hear you there, don’t worry. My old man wasn’t around much either.” He throws it out there casually, wryly, with a shrug of his shoulder. “Though I guess it’s the other way around for me. When it comes to who the loser is. Since I’m pretty much disowned now.”
When he turns to look at Toujou, he finds him staring back at him intently, brow knitted together. His eyes seem particularly wide and dark in the dim sunset glow of his room, burnt orange light slanting across the wall behind him.
“I don’t think you’re a loser,” he says. “You seem like a great person to me, Mitsuru-san. You’re friendly, and you give compliments to people you barely know. I think it’s amazing, to be like that.”
His throat feels tight.
That isn’t real, he wants to say. That’s just sucking up. Flattery for the sole intent of parting people from their money. Even those things I said to you.
But instead he grins.
“You’re right,” he laughs. “My old man’s missing out, huh? On how great I am.”
He sips listlessly on the beer that was fetched for him as Toujou busies himself turning on the DVD player and sliding in volume one of Helios. But at the first notes of the opening theme Mitsuru’s head snaps up, turning to stare at the screen. The names of the cast are flashing across in time to the upbeat notes of the song, the actors smiling into the camera, interspersed with shots of the titular hero flying through the sky.
Warrior of the sun, Helios, he mouths along with the lyrics. Came to us like a comet from ages long ago.
How does he still know the words? Just earlier today he’d barely been able to remember the name of the show. But maybe all he’d needed was reminding, to dredge it all up again. And if he were to close his eyes right now, he could imagine nothing has changed. That he’s still a kid, that he’s still there at home, and he’s happy with only this and nothing more.
The opening theme ends and the episode title pops up onscreen, but his vision is blurring strangely, and he finds the words hard to read.
Dust in his eyes, maybe. Toujou probably doesn’t clean this place enough.
They watch six episodes in a row before he registers how dark it’s gotten outside.
“Shit,” he mutters, scrambling to his feet, patting himself down to make sure he has his keys and wallet. “I gotta get home and feed my bird.”
“Your… bird?”
“Ah, yeah. I just kinda… inherited him, I guess. Some guy in my building totally skipped out and left all his stuff behind including this parakeet, right? And the landlady was about to just let him loose but pet birds’ll die out there, y’know? I felt bad for him. He has a messed up wing, too. So. I said I’d take him.” It’s a silly, sentimental-sounding story when he tells it out loud. “I’m kinda fond of him now.”
Toujou smiles up at him. “See? You really are a great person, Mitsuru-san. I bet if you saw a person who was hurt you’d help them the same way.”
“Eh? I mean… That’s just normal, isn’t it,” he laughs. “If someone didn’t do that, they probably didn’t watch enough hero shows as a kid. Right?”
“Right,” Toujou says with an approving nod. He sets the remote down and climbs to his feet as well. “I’ll walk you to the station. Since that’s what a hero would do, too.”
Despite his bemused objections that he’s a six foot tall adult man, Toujou seems unshakeable in this decision. He takes a battered umbrella that’s leaning by the door – “it’s going to start raining soon, you know, the weather report said so earlier” – and the two of them set off into the night.
It does look like rain, actually, the nighttime sky obstructed by low-hanging clouds, the moon only a dim glow behind them. There’s hardly anyone else out and about in Toujou’s run-down old neighborhood, and it’s a bit eerily quiet; their footsteps echo as they pass by an empty playground with a broken swing creaking in the breeze.
“Thanks,” Toujou says softly, breaking the silence. “For watching Helios with me.”
“Eh? You’re the one who invited me over, though. I should be thanking you. It was fun.” Mitsuru can feel his grin slip. “I’d forgotten… how fun it was.”
“Isn’t it? I’ve tried to talk to the others in my lab about it, but. They just don’t get it. Even the ones who are into sci-fi things have all moved on. Star Senshi isn’t interesting to them anymore. Except the Professor, of course. He told me he still likes the old seasons. And that he watches the new ones with his son when he can.” Toujou’s smile broadens, his expression soft. “That’s why he’s the best.”
The Professor. Mitsuru imagines that must be the person from the photo, the one with the glasses and the severe expression, looking more like a military general with his troops than a teacher with his students. Should he ask, he wonders. ‘Who is that man to you?’
But that might cross a line, wouldn’t it? He doesn’t want to be like that with someone who could be a real, actual friend. It would be prying and overly familiar and he’s only just met Toujou.
Hasn’t he?
When they turn the next corner and the train station comes into view, they slow to a halt beneath a streetlamp, buzzing faintly overhead, the circle of yellow light pooling around them. A few intermittent raindrops have begun to fall, speckling the pavement. Toujou fidgets in place, chewing on his lip before blurting out:
“Would you want to go watch a stage show with me?”
Mitsuru blinks. “Like… the ones they have at the mall?”
He nods, eyes bright. “This one’s at an amusement park, though. On Saturday at eleven. It’s going to be a crossover, so the older Star Senshi will be part of it, too.” He falters, then. “Stage shows… I don’t go to them much. It’s always kind of weird being by myself. Since it’s mostly kids and moms, and sometimes they look at me strange. But… maybe if you were there…”
Something warm comes to sit in the hollow of Mitsuru’s chest. He wonders if he should feel so happy to be invited to watch a hero stage show alongside a bunch of screaming toddlers. Probably not.
There are a lot of things he shouldn’t be, but he is.
“Sure,” he says. “I’ll go along. Oh, but we don’t have other’s numbers or e-mails or anything, do we? Damn, okay, hold on.” After some hunting around he manages to pull an old receipt out of his wallet and a chewed-on nub of a pencil out of his jacket pocket, scribbling down his information and holding it out to Toujou. “There you go.”
Toujou accepts it gingerly. Secures it in his own pocket with a pleased expression. “In exchange,” he says, “you should have the umbrella, Mitsuru-san. Since it’s probably farther to your place than to mine. You can return it to me next time.”
He holds it by the opposite end and offers it to him handle-first.
And in this moment the bent and protruding metal tines of the thing cast shadows on the pavement that look very much like thin, sharp claws.
Mitsuru’s breath gets stuck in his throat. The bottom of his stomach seems to drop away until there’s nothing but an empty pit in its place, as he takes an unconscious step back, as his pulse begins to hammer overloud in his ears. A shiver travels the length of his spine.
“What’s wrong?” Toujou is asking. His head is tilted at such an angle that half his face is cast in shadow, but the half he can see looks hurt. “Do you… not want it? Because it’s a little broken?”
“I,” he starts. His mouth has gone dry, and he licks his lips. “That’s not it. I don’t… know what…”
He swallows hard.
“Hey, Satoru,” he says hoarsely. “Do you think we – we might’ve met before? Before the café, I mean?”
Toujou looks back at him steadily.
“I’m not sure,” he says. “I’ve been getting that feeling, too. But does it matter?”
“…What?”
“It’s what Helios said in the finale, right? ‘Humans should live for the next day’s morning, not for last night.’ I always really loved that idea.”
That’s right. He’d loved that, too. The final hero speech after the last battle, on that cliff overlooking the ocean with Helios side-by-side with his human friends, pointing to the first few sunrise pinks and yellows tingeing the horizon. If you have your tomorrow, Helios had said, you can do anything with it. And the past is just that. It’s behind you for a reason.
Haltingly, despite the still-racing rhythm of his heartbeat, he reaches out to accept the umbrella, fingers closing around the plastic handle, and Toujou smiles warmly.
“I’ll send you an e-mail, Mitsuru-san,” he says. “About the stage show. You should hurry so you don’t miss the next train.”
He waves as he turns away, stepping out of the halo of light from the streetlamp, and Mitsuru watches him until he takes the next corner and is gone.
What was that? That fear? It feels silly, embarrassing, even, to have had that inexplicable reaction. Toujou is odd, maybe. A bit offputting. But harmless, he’s certain. Like an abandoned kitten left alone in a world much larger than him.
As he waits on the platform for that train, the rain begins to fall harder, large drops wetting his hair and hitting the back of his neck. It takes him a moment to struggle with the umbrella and get it open, whereupon he discovers that it is patterned with stars and constellations. A subtle, socially acceptable Star Senshi reference, if he were to guess. And possibly bought for him by someone special, judging by the fact that it’s been kept even though one side is lopsided and bent out of shape. He finds himself thinking: yeah, ‘a little broken’ is right.
He’s glad to have it right now, though.
And he’s been considering learning how to do handyman work lately. Maybe he can fix it up a bit before he returns it the next time they meet. He wonders what kind of expression Toujou might show if he managed that.
A cute one, he hopes.