thinking out loud
tsukuda maybe likes girls and ito has to (gets to) help her figure it out | 1.5k | read on ao3
“hey, how did you realize you liked girls?” mao asks one day, she’s lying on the floor of ito’s room with her phone lifted up high in front of her face. suo’s just texted her, at length, a description of why the cafe mao told her to try is disgusting and the worst thing ever. she sent a picture of herself gagging. mao had checked recent reviews left on google, suo leaves reviews everywhere she goes, and suo rated it 5/5 stars. mao flips back to the selfie. has she always thought suo's eyes were pretty?
ito, who’s watching the game mao came over to see with her, turns away from the television with a dopey lovesick smile on her face. “oh,” ito says, “remember our first practice game with warabi back in first year? when nozomi came out of nowhere in the second half and took us by surprise?”
what. mao sits up quickly to stare at her best friend, suo’s texts are almost forgotten. “are you kidding me? you’re telling me you fell in love basically at first sight with onda and you didn’t even know you liked girls?!?” mao throws her phone at ito. ito dodges it.
“well, once i met nozomi it was pretty clear,” ito tells her, the mushy smile on her face getting even softer. mao grabs the next closest object - a soccer ball because ito only ever thinks of soccer, food and onda - and throws that at ito. ito catches it easily. “wait,” ito’s smile starts to turn into something mao is not looking forward to, “why are you asking? i thought you were still in love with oshio-kun from middle school?”
mao’s eyes glance towards the abandoned phone before she realizes her mistake and looks back at ito, a chill running down her spine. ito’s lit up and mao launches herself forward, trying to get a head of ito as ito reaches for the phone.
ito gets to it first, of course. and because mao is an idiot and tells ito everything ito unlocks the phones with a password in two seconds flat. “ha!” ito giggles, holding the phone above mao’s head as she goes through their texts, “are you finally ready to talk about your crush on suo?”
mao tackles her to the ground and they wrestle over the phone. mao, motivated by rage and embarrassment, manages to get it back from ito and tries to force ito back into a sitting position.
“okay that’s enough,” mao tells ito. “back to soccer.”
ito makes a face at her but settles back down and lets mao steal her pillow as they go back to watching the game. when it goes to commercials ito starts elbowing her again, and mao feels her resolve crumbling. most of the time mao makes ito sit down and listen to everything she’s thinking of and planning at length, no matter how minor or dumb.
“so she went to the cafe you recommended…” ito tries.
that’s all it takes for mao to decide the teasing and possibility of ito telling their entire soccer team about her dumb maybe crush (extremely probably, has happened before) is worth it. “well…” mao starts, trying to figure out what exactly it is about suo that’s making her act so dumb and leaving her so confused. “um. i checked her review of the restaurant on google and it said she tried the cake i told her to get and she really liked it and will return.”
ito stares at her, unimpressed. mao makes a face at her, “i’m trying! this is new, okay!” ito’s face softens, just a little bit, and mao nods. she slaps herself on her face and nods, refocusing.
“okay so normally we just send each other disgusting and ugly things we see and make fun of each other and i tell her which games she needs to win so we can destroy her but recently she’s also been sending me selfies and i’ve been sending her selfies and we tell each other about our days and our insults feel a lot less mean-”
“were they ever mean?” ito cuts in, under her breath.
“-and i get stupidly excited when she texts but i’ve always been interested when she texts she’s annoying but kind of interesting you know. the kind of interesting you want to destroy, right?” mao takes a deep breath as she finishes and lets herself bury her head in the pillow she stole from ito earlier. ito leans over her and pats her head.
for a moment they just sit there, mao trying to suffocate herself with a pillow and ito not noticing. then mao starts struggling a bit and ito clues in, tearing the pillow away. ito hits her on the head with the pillow and mao sighs and sits back up.
the commercials are over, and ito will be focused on the game and mao starts planning out how to escape the house before ito can make her talk more about her feelings.
it’s not like mao doesn’t like talking about her feelings or people she likes. when she was really into oshio-kun she made ito listen (im)patiently as she clearly and lovingly described his wonderful qualities and his beautiful soccer.
suo takes away all her words. which, alright, mao can understand how that might not be the type of thing someone who doesn’t like girls says, but in her defense suo is evil and still has the video from their first year of mao being too scared to talk to oshio-kun even though it’s been two years and has had way more embarrassing crushes since then.
“you know...” ito says as the team she’s rooting for gets another goal. her voice sounds a little suspicious, but mao trusts ito. “you could take an online quiz.”
“there are quizzes for this?” mao asks.
ito turns to face her, a smile on her face. “yeah,” she says. ito isn’t even watching the game anymore and mao is starting to worry, but lets ito take her phone and bring up an online test. the questions have bad grammar and are in neon text, but mao makes herself answer them all. ito is giggling over her shoulder and this is definitely a joke, but now she wants to know what the answer is.
“wait,” ito says as mao answers a question, “what do you mean you think about kissing girls all the time?”
“uh,” mao says, trying to hide the screen from ito, “sometimes i think about kissing suo. maybe.”
ito hits her with the pillow again. mao ends up running into the bathroom and closing the door behind her to escape ito and her pillow as she finishes the quiz.
huh, mao thinks staring at the screen. she looks up at the ceiling of the bathroom. there are colourful fish decals from when ito and her sisters were little still stuck up there, no one ever bothering to bring them down. she moves to take a picture to send to suo and stops.
“i like suo,” she tests out. it doesn’t sound wrong. it sounds very, very right. she looks back down at her phone screen to see the yes staring back at her. a notification for a text from suo pops up and mao throws her phone across the bathroom. it catches on the shower curtain and slides down into the bathtub.
“hey, tsukuda?” ito calls from the other side of the door, knocking lightly. mao just wants to scream into her bed or let the ground swallow her whole or move to the usa to play on the womens team and forget about the gay crises she’s having in ito’s bathroom.
none of that gets to happen as ito opens the door and mao falls onto her back. she forgot the door was pull not push. ito stares down at her, her expression warm and mao rolls her eyes before putting her hands up and stumbles as ito yanks her up onto her feet. she walks over to the other side of the bathroom and fishes out her phone and ito walks over to her to see what's on her screen. with ito watching, she clicks on the text notification to see what suo sent her.
suo i saw your team lost the game haha LOSER
“huh,” mao says staring at the text, “do you think she’d shut up if i kissed her?”
ito breaks down into laughter, sinking down onto the floor. mao takes a second to think back on what she says and when it sinks in she collapses onto the ground with ito, quickly catching ito’s laughter.
she likes a dumb, rude girl who sends her insults but also goes to the cafes she recommends and checks the score for when mao’s team is playing.
as their hysterical laughter starts to calm down ito reaches out and puts one hand on mao’s shoulder, “i can’t believe it took you three years for you to realize you like suo.”
mao stares back at her, horrified, “what do you mean i’ve liked suo since first year?!”
