Chapter Text
Claw has been disbanded. Touichirou Suzuki taken by the government. And yet the world moves on.
Even with the newly sprouted broccoli in place of Seasoning City’s staple tower, Salt Middle School seemingly had one thing on its mind. The Culture Festival. Usually an exciting time for the students, there was one that the event summoned only dread for. Ritsu.
Any other year he would be fine with it! The festival was fun to walk around and at least always interesting, but… The theme his class had chosen. No, it couldn’t have been a haunted house like Nii-san’s, or the collection of strange rocks he had heard about down the hall. No. They just had to do something so stupid, so embarrassing, that Ritsu had found it headache inducing to even think about.
A Crossdressing Maid Cafe.
Of course, he had tried to get out of it. Concerns about modesty and Costs of food. Yet those arguments were shut down- and thus confirmed. It was happening. Ritsu felt like he was in some kind of nightmare world set out to embarrass him or perhaps it was all some big joke, but as the event crept forward he was forced to confront it. Forced to confront the dress. Especially now, in the bathroom where he was to change.
Ritsu hated this. Hated that he had to wear this stupid dress and this stupid headband and these stupid socks and stupid mary jane shoes.
At least he was the last to change. The gender-neutral bathroom converted to changing room had one mercy- it was just a single room. Just him inside. It still didn’t make him feel any better. Clenching his teeth, Ritsu began to put the uniform on.
Shorts, undershirt, socks. Dress, shoes, and the cherry on top of his misery sundae, a frilly headband.
Ritsu had been facing away from the mirror all the while. If everybody else was going to see him in this thing, maybe he could avoid the awkward memory of seeing himself in it. But he had to straighten the bows, and to do that, Ritsu had to turn around.
Trying to let out a breath he just realized he’d been holding, Ritsu whipped around and faced the mirror.
He looked…
Like a girl.
Something clicked. Suddenly everything felt right.
Stern expression dropping, Ritsu simply stared. Brushed the skirt down. Truly looked at the dress.
It was exactly what you’d expect from a maid cosplay. A collared black dress with Short puffy sleeves and a white frilly apron. It stopped right above the knees, complementing the knee-high socks adorned with small white bows and black mary janes. The apron had a pocket on the front presumably to store a notepad for taking orders. The whole outfit looked… Cute. Felt cute. Ritsu started to twirl the dress’s skirt and enjoyed the feeling.
…Enjoyed? Enjoyed? Snapping out of the moment, Ritsu’s hands jolted to the side and froze.
Ritsu is the perfect student council member. The perfect student. The perfect son. He couldn’t enjoy this. He was just a boy in some dress, that was the whole joke about this cafe. Boys wearing dresses. Boys don’t wear dresses, they don’t like wearing dresses, and they certainly don’t enjoy twirling the skirts of those dresses.
Ritsu didn’t look like a girl, he decided. He looked like a stupid boy in a stupid dress that he hated. Ritsu grimaced, clenched his fists and exited the bathroom. A shameful feeling washing over him.
— – — – —
About halfway through his shift, the universe decided to move things from bad to worse.
Ritsu had been trying to avoid his reflection in the windows, pushing down the fluttery feeling everytime he caught a glance. The other boys similarly didn’t look at themselves, a handful of them cracking jokes about the whole situation. Ritsu didn’t participate.
He walked up to the table Ritsu was assigned to wait on.
“Thanks for waiting.” he started, “Here is your Mr. bears very beary soda, and your…”
Ritsu hesitated. The overly cutesy menu item names almost physically hurt to say.
“Daydreaming bunny wunny’s hippity hop cola. Enjoy your stay.” he finally choked out. The two patrons commented on the cafe’s crossdressing theme as Ritsu continued dying inside.
“Party of one coming in!” a classmate announced, ushering Ritsu to serve them
“Yo, Ritsu…” the voice was instantly recognized. Shou was here. Oh god.
Ritsu silently guided Shou to his table and handed him a menu. He considered telling him that the whole maid idea was not his, but before he could open his mouth did Shou speak again
“Th-thats one hell of a getup! Though, it looks pretty good on you.”
That took Ritsu by surprise. He dryly chuckled, and covered his face with his hand. This was so embarrassing.
“Don’t make fun of me. It wasn’t my idea.” Ritsu replied
“I was no- whatever. I’ll order the, uh…” Shou awkwardly pointed to one of the drinks listed on the menu. Looks like it isn’t just Ritsu who disliked the names.
Ritsu nodded and took the menu, slipping out to deliver the order. As the ‘chefs’ prepared Shou’s drink he decided to take a quick break until the soda was ready.
The class had divided the cafe into three sections. The largest being the dining area, then the kitchen, and finally the smallest section for the waiters. Luckily nobody else was currently in the waiter’s area, so Ritsu sat on the floor waiting for the familiar ding! Of the kitchen bell.
Back in the dining area, Shou hunched over in his seat, arms crossed and head resting between them.
That dress really did look good on Ritsu.
Shou tried and failed to suppress a blush. He had expected Ritsu’s class to do something dumb and cliche- but not like this! Ritsu’s brother had said something about Ritsu’s class doing a cafe, and Shou had only listened as long as he had to get the classroom number. Maybe if he had thought for a minute before entering he would’ve had time to prepare his heart.
Even with Ritsu’s appearance currently occupying the foremost of Shou’s thoughts, something did bother him. Ritsu seemed so insanely uncomfortable compared to the other boys- even if he did look better than all of them combined. It's not like Shou would be too thrilled if he had to wear one of the dresses either, but jeez, Ritsu looked like he was two steps away from exploding the whole building. And with the way Shou noticed Ritsu’s aura lashing out and curling into itself, he figured it was a deeper thing than just disliking the cafe setting.
Soon enough, Shou hears the ring of a bell and Ritsu returns and- ah. His blush is back in full force. He's carrying a tray with a decorated drink on it, weaving through the tables to reach the psychic. Shou sits up when Ritsu places the glass in front of him.
“Here’s your soda.” Ritsu muttered
“Cool, thanks.” Shou started, “When do you get out? I heard your brother is gonna stay behind for a while, so I could totally walk you home!” Shou tried to look anywhere else but Ritsu when he realized he was staring.
“Oh, uh… My shifts over at the end of the day then I’ll have to change. Shouldn’t be too long.”
“Okay! Great, I’ll just wait here.” Shou replied with the smoothness of a ripe durian.
Ritsu awkwardly picked the tray back up and returned to the kitchen, soon looping back around to serve other customers. As soon as their conversation had ended, the tense look on Ritsu’s face had lessened a bit. Now instead of exploding the school he’d just explode this room! Improvement!
Shou continued watching Ritsu until the crossdressing cafe closed. And with that, the school day had ended, so everyone was packing up their classes. The maids were excused for being the facemen of the cafe. Ritsu had all but ran out of the classroom when they were allowed to leave.
Shou, who’d been waiting outside the door for a few minutes, had jolted in surprise when the classroom door practically slammed open and a blur of black-white-blue dashed out. He froze for a second or two, then went after Ritsu.
“Oi! Wait up!” Shou called out, Ritsu seemingly just then noticed Shou behind him. He slowed for a moment, just to let the other boy catch up.
“I’m about to change so I don’t know why you’re following me.”
“Well, you let me, so it’s your loss!” Shou retorted
That seemed to get a small laugh out of Ritsu, and they soon arrived in front of the changing room. Shou leaned against the wall outside while Ritsu slipped in to get changed.
Inside the bathroom, Ritsu ripped off the dress as fast as he could. Back facing the mirror. He took his school uniform out of the bag and quickly got dressed, then stuffing the maid uniform into the bottom of his schoolbag. Only then turning to the mirror, checking his hair didn’t look completely horrible.
Taking a moment to breathe, Ritsu closed his eyes. Today was horrible. And of COURSE Suzuki had shown up to see it! Stupid stupid stupid! If only Ritsu had pretended to be sick today. That would’ve prevented this whole mess, even with the absence on his attendance record.
Ritsu’s aura then squeezed uncomfortably tight around him as he remembered earlier in the day when he initially put the dress on. Why did he… like looking like a girl? Guilt curled tight into his stomach. It wasn’t right. That feeling was just for a second, he told himself, he's a boy and after that one second he completely hated wearing that dress like everyone else.
Ritsu was always good at lying to himself.
— – — – —
Arriving at his house, Ritsu started saying his goodbyes to Suzuki.
“You sure you don’t want to hang out longer?” Shou prodded
“It’s been fun, but no. Today was exhausting.” Ritsu replied. A look of concern washed over Shou’s face, but was quickly replaced by his signature freckled grin.
“Suit yourself! See ya later, and stop forgetting to text me back!”
Shou snickered at his own remark, then waved goodbye. He soon floated up and turned invisible, and Ritsu watched as his aura flew away from his home. Finally, he was alone again.
Ritsu unlocked the front door and went straight into his room.
If he could fall asleep now he would. But there was still dinner, studying, conversations to be had. But for right now, Ritsu had a moment to himself, so he grabbed his journal and began to write. Ten minutes or so passed before he heard the front door opening again.
Nii-san’s home now! Ritsu smiled to himself seeing the familiar aura come into view. It’d still be a bit longer until dinner, so Ritsu remained in his room for the moment. He continued with his writing, occasionally switching to study for a minute or two before falling back to his journal.
Soon enough, it was dinnertime, and everyone was called to the table.
Shigeo greeted Ritsu with a small smile as a light conversation started. Both their parents had a busy work day and apologized for not showing up to the culture festival. Ritsu quickly assured them it was okay.
“Oh, Ritsu, how was the culture festival? I had a lot of fun.” Shigeo asked. Ritsu, despite anticipating the question, had no readily available response. He cringed and decided he didn’t need to know how much it sucked.
“Me too brother, me too… Haha…” Ritsu didn’t have the energy to sound his usual level of convincing. He poked absentmindedly at his food, before swallowing a bite and hoping no one would second guess his subpar answer. Nobody did, so he continued dinner quietly. When everyone was finished with their food, Ritsu quickly washed the dishes and returned to his room for a tumultuous night of sleep.