Hiding The Pain || MonoShin [BOOK 1]

Bonus Chapter - Coping

Shinso copes with the loss of Monoma.

Shinso sat on his bed, scrolling through his phone. Kaminari sat on the floor, leaning on the bed frame. 

He decided to got to his gallery. He didn't take pictures often, it was more or less just screenshots of cat memes he saw. Ever since Kaminari had found out he liked them, he made sure to send Shinso a different cat meme every day.

He scrolled for a few minutes, looking for either;

a) One he has seen before and doesn't remember; or

b) An old one he had taken a screenshot of but never fully looked at.

As he scrolled, he suddenly froze, and just stared at his phone.

Staring him in the face was a picture of Monoma. It was during the Fundraiser Festival. They had ended up taking a picture when Monoma had suddenly squished their faces, and their bodies were moved into a bending position to lean over the table. He seemed more surprised in the picture than anything else, but the glint in his eyes meant that he had expected Monoma to have done something like that.

He could remember that date like it was yesterday.

"And as I was saying- Neito what-" Hitoshi spluttered, as Monoma grabbed his cheek and smushed it against his.

"Say cheese!" The blond grinned, and the flashing sound of a camera could be heard.

Shinso rubbed his cheek as the pulled away and he sat back down on his chair. It felt tingly and warm from the contact, though he wasn't sure why. "Why did you do that?"

Monoma shrugged nonchalantly. "I just wanted to remember the time when we both first started using each other's first names." He admitted truthfully.

Shinso blushed slightly and looked away from him. "Why?"

"It's kind of a big step in our friendship, yeah? So it's important to document it!" Monoma informed. "Here, pass me your phone."

Shinso raised an eyebrow, but Monoma just grinned. Sighing, Shinso surrendered his phone and watched Monoma open his contacts. He pressed on 'New Contact' and put his name in as Neito.

"I thought you would have been a nicknames kind of person." Shinso confessed, watching Monoma open his own phone and send the picture to Shinso's.

"The only nickname I really have is Copycat, but I would rather not have that be my contact name." Monoma said, handing Shinso back his phone.

"Then again, I could just save your name as Eye bags." Monoma teased.

"My name is not eye bags." Shinso deadpanned.

"Could be."

"You're insufferable."

"I prefer the term irresistible."

Shinso snorted. "Yeah, irresistibly annoying."

Monoma pouted, before his expression turned to a more serious one and he looked away. "Do you, um, think I'm... annoying?" The blond asked tentatively, as if scared of what Shinsou's answer would be.

"I do." Shinso started, and Monoma looked straight at him with a glare. "But," he continued, "even if you're annoying, you're still a good person to your classmates, and it's obvious you care for them. You're also good company when you're not around Class A, and you're very passionate about what you want to do, so I think that cancels out how annoying you are."