Archive of Our Own

Kageyama Ritsu is tired. Twenty-six years of life, and his life’s biggest accomplishment is the deep, deep ache in his bones.

He rests his cheek on the desk, starts gently tapping his fingers on the cold hard metal. A table has no right being this cold, but he wasn’t thinking much when he bought this metal table to furnish his workplace. A soft sigh leaves his mouth. Today looks like a day without any clients. Ritsu is tempted to drift to sleep, but he can’t afford any clients walking in on him in such an unprofessional state. Instead, he thinks.

He thinks about the past. A time when he was the family’s pride and joy, destined for a well-paying and respectable job. Eyes on the future, always moving forward.

What is he now? A coward. A fake. A fool. That silly Ritsu. Couldn’t distinguish dreams from reality. Kept reaching too far for something that would never come. Had the golden egg in his hand, and threw it away for an ordinary chicken. He’s never actually heard the words, but they keep echoing in his head when he lays awake at night. He’s sure people think them, say them when he’s not around.

Sometimes, Ritsu can’t stand the sight of a metal spoon. It reminds him too much of what he could never have. Still, he tries. He tries, even though he knows that it’s hopeless. 

The sight of his office is different. His office grounds him, comforts him, reminds him of what he is. Ritsu hates a lot of things, but he doesn’t hate this office. He doesn’t regret that this is the building that sees the most of his waking hours. After all, this office and this career are the closest thing to his childhood dream that his hands could reach. If there’s one thing Ritsu can appreciate about himself, it’s that he never gave up on his childhood dream to become an esper.

Ritsu is hardly an esper right now, but he’s yet to give up.

“I hope to use magic for life, so I don’t need to work.” Ritsu’s classmate Sato says. They’re having a class activity where they write about where they see themselves as an adult, and share what they wrote with the class. Ritsu scoffs at Sato’s answer. Ritsu is ten years old, and already so cynical. There’s an odd sense of satisfaction in hearing Tsugawa-sensei admonishing Sato for his childish jokes.

“It’s important to think about what you want to do in your future. You have to be serious about it.” Tsugawa-sensei says, turning to Ritsu. “Okay Kageyama, show them how it’s done.” 

Ritsu gives her a polite smile, the same one that he uses to charm all of his teachers. A question couldn’t be easier. “Okay.” He stands, holding his journal in his hands as he addresses the class in a loud and level voice. “My dream is to become an esper one day. I want to have a stable job, but I haven’t thought about it yet. But I wish for a job where I’d have one or two free hours per day to practice bending spoons.”

It’s realistic. It’s rational. He’s probably put the most thought into his future out of anyone in this classroom, Ritsu’s sure of it. So why? Why do his classmates laugh when he speaks honestly? Why is his teacher telling him to go outside like that kid from before, who was clearly not taking things seriously? Why are his dreams being treated like a joke? Why can’t they see how much thought he’s put into this? Why can’t they see that he’s serious? Why do they see his words, his convictions, his emotions as fake? 

More than that, why are his cheeks red in embarrassment? Why does his body tremble, his fist clenched close to his sides? Why does he bite his lips, and look down at the ground? Why does he want to cry?

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t cry, because that’s not what Kageyama Ritsu does. Instead, he takes a deep breath, stills himself, and walks out of the classroom like his teacher instructed him to, calm and collected. He walks past Sato, who was sent out just before him. It’s strange that his classmates didn’t laugh at Sato, and yet they laughed at Ritsu. Did they not laugh at Sato because he wasn’t being serious? 

Ritsu thinks that’s foolish. It’s foolish to make a joke of your future. Sato will joke now, but he’ll be the one struggling to pick a path in his life when it really matters. The rage festering within Ritsu is sure of it. A regular ten-year-old shouldn’t have emotions and thoughts like these, but Ritsu has never been a regular kid. 

He doesn’t return to the classroom that day. It’s the first time Ritsu intentionally skips out on class. He doesn’t make a habit of it.

“Ritsu, have you started thinking about what you want to do?” Ritsu’s mom asks him from the kitchen. It’s just the two of them at home. “You’re going to be in high school soon. With entrance exams coming up, there’s not much time to think. You’ve got good grades, so you can end up at a better school than Shigeo, but—.”

Ritsu cuts his mother off. “I know. I know what I’m going to be.” Ritsu just isn’t going to say it to his mother, of all people. He knows what his mother wants, what she respects. A regular family with regular children with regular careers and their own regular families. Everything she expects from Ritsu. Everything she yearns to see in Shigeo. 

Ritsu loathes when his mom compares him to Shigeo. He could accept if the comparisons put down Ritsu and elevated Shigeo, if they matched the words that echo inside of Ritsu’s mind day after day. If she saw Ritsu as the family disappointment and Shigeo as the gifted child. But for her, it’s the other way around. If only she understood how Ritsu feels. But she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand, and she will never understand that everything she decries in Shigeo is everything Ritsu wants to be.

There’s only one thing written on his list of future prospects, to the concern of the school faculty. “Esper.”

Whenever his mother asks him questions about his goals in life, he stays quiet. He stays quiet, eats his broccoli, and doesn’t breathe a word about what his true wish in life is. Not for years. As far as she’s concerned, he’s merely unsure. His mother couldn’t be more wrong. He knows what he’s going to be, and he’s going to achieve his goal. 

He chooses a respectable high school with a good reputation. He honestly picks it because it’s not too far from Shigeo’s high school. It certainly isn’t the best out there, but it’s not terrible either. A professional esper doesn’t need to go to the best high school, either way.

Ritsu easily gets into the school. His charm, intellect, physical ability, and leadership make him popular amongst both the students and the faculty.

It’s not enough. He despises the way that they judge him based on the things he couldn’t care less about. Nothing matters more to him than pure psychic power. 

He’s seventeen when he bends his first spoon. But it’s not because of psychic power. It never is. It’s sheer anger and physical strength that warps the handle of the spoon into a soft curve. The handle’s curve is so gentle in comparison to the hurricane of emotions warring within Ritsu. It’s then that an astronomically small part of his subconscious comes to a realization.

Psychic powers don’t come seventeen years late. He’d have to be a fool to keep hoping. But Ritsu always is and always will be a fool. 

The question comes again from his mother. This time, he’s eighteen. “What are you going to do, Ritsu?” The question could mean a variety of things, but in this situation, its meaning is clear. With the application window for universities and colleges closing in, it seems like now or never. Dedicate yourself to your path in life now, or forever suffer.

The situation is different than when his mom asked him the question in middle school. There, it was just the two of them in the house alone. Here, his entire family sits around the dinner table. Shigeo is poking at his vegetables, silent after a day at work. Ritsu’s brother never ended up going to college. But Ritsu? Ritsu is one of his school’s top students. Whether or not he’s going to college isn’t even a question. 

In middle school, he could respond to the questions of his future with silence. There’s nothing wrong with a child not being sure of their future. Now, though, Ritsu is an adult. There’s no option to be appear unsure. At least, that’s what it feels like as his mother peers at him through tinted glasses.

Ritsu isn’t unsure. He’s never been unsure. The problem is that he now has no excuse for not answering the question. So he doesn’t give an excuse. Actually, he says nothing.

The last vegetable on Ritsu’s plate is brutally stabbed and shoved into his mouth. He’s silent as he stands up, putting away his placemat and his dishes. As he stalks away to his room, he pretends he can’t hear his family calling his name. He pretends he can’t hear the concern in their voice. 

Ritsu doesn’t bother turning on the light when he enters his room. Instead, he just lies down on his bed and seethes in the dark. He glares at the ceiling like its his worst enemy, but it isn’t really.

He wishes he had more confidence. It’s not confidence in himself that he lacks. Ritsu has so much confidence in himself. Confidence that he’ll one day develop powers, confidence that he’ll become a professional esper, confidence that he’ll become able to protect himself and his brother from whatever terror lurks inside Shigeo, confidence that he’ll eventually be worth something. But for all that belief, he's had nothing to show for it. Just fantasies he keeps close to his chest, fantasies he refuses to voice to the world. Were he not a coward, he would proudly tell his mother that he’s going to become an esper. 

Still, Ritsu tries. By the young age of twenty-one, he’s already running his own miniature psychic business in a rundown building. He’s still a fake, for pursuing a dream that even a middle schooler knows is hopeless. He’s still a fool, for continuing to believe that one day, some day, he will actually manifest psychic powers. He's still a coward, too scared to face his family once he achieves a facade of his dream career. 

But at least he has a conviction as strong as the spoons that refuse to bend under his will.