Chapter Text
Gaku had prepared a bunch of things in Ryuu’s living room and was standing in front of Ryuu and Tenn, like a teacher in front of his class.
He noticed that Tenn wasn’t wearing his contacts today, but had swapped them out for his glasses. Another win for Gaku.
He had (finally) given up on strange drawings and instead presented a list to them.
- Love Letter
- Offering to listen to problems + confession
- Working together/invading personal space/
cooking - Marriage proposal delivered by a cat
- Telling him he looks cute
- A combination of 1-5 (Ultimate Plan™)
Without a comment Tenn stood up and took Gaku’s pen from his hand.
- Pushing together
Gaku nodded, Tenn nodded, the two of them turned to Ryuu, who was seemingly trying to vanish in the cushions of the couch, in synch. “Write a love letter Ryuu”, Gaku said.
“We can also help you write a love letter Ryuu”, Tenn said. The boyfriends closed up on their friend.
“I’ve never written one!”, Ryuu said, almost panicking a little, like when they had installed a very bright lamp and interrogated him.
“That was in chapter one”, Tenn said, looking towards no one in particular and Gaku stared at him, puzzled.
“Who are you talking to?”, he asked.
“The readers”, Tenn said and then turned to Ryuu again, as if nothing had happened, “So, do you need help writing one?”
“Wait, first let me ask you a question”, Ryuu said, “You said you talked to different couples for these ideas, right? Why are numbers three and four so strange then? What kind of people did you talk to? What kind of combination is number 3? And what even is number 4? How does that work? Relationships that start like that can only be really weird, right?”
“They were all really wonderful people”, Tenn said, “And their relationships seem to be healthy as well. Gaku, get your notebook. I’m going to ask Ryuu some questions and you’ll write everything down he says.”
Gaku did as he was told and with his notebook out and his pen ready to write anything down Ryuu would say next.
“Say Ryuu”, Tenn said and grinned. Ryuu expected the worst, “What do you actually like about Nikaido Yamato?”
The energy of the furious blush on Ryuu’s face could probably have powered an entire city for days, but he calmed himself down quickly and took a deep breath before answering. “Yamato-kun is a dear friend to me and falling in love with a friend isn’t bad, right? He’s a good listener and when we drink together he’s always fun to be around… but he’s also fun when we’re not drinking of course! Also he’s this genius type person; he’s so good at everything and barely needs to study, and on top of it he can explain everything very well too. He’s basically a natural born teacher, but he could be more too! That makes me question why he isn’t studying law or medicine in some prestigious university with ten scholarships backing him. And also his… uh”, Ryuu stopped for a while to recollect his thoughts, “We’re both the kind of person people would describe as the brotherly type and I think his Dad-Friend approach of that matches my Mom-Friend approach perfectly. Yes.”
“So you’re already planning to adopt?”, Gaku teased.
Ryuu didn’t answer and Tenn interrupted the awkward silence with a clap of his hands. “Okay Ryuu, thank you. Now that you said all these things, we’re going to write love letters with this. Gaku, give Ryuu and me pens and paper so we can write too.”
Half an hour later Tenn was massaging his temples in annoyance, while Gaku finished reading his love letter.
“…when I see you smile my heart soars and begins to dance. Please dance this dance with me and accompany me on a date.”
“Gaku… really, what are you thinking?”, he asked, while supporting Ryuu, who was close to fainting with one hand, “What kind of romance novels do you usually read? And don’t you dare tell me you aren’t reading them; this kind of flowery language doesn’t come from anywhere! Is it Shoujo Manga? You’re reading Shoujo Manga, right? Do you hide them in our apartment or read them at work?”
“I’m not reading Shoujo manga”, Gaku said, offended, “This is all my own personal imagination!”
“I think we had this already, but this is not medieval Europe. Declined. Ryuu, please remind me to never let Gaku have a say to any other romantic text again.”
Ryuu next to him took a relieved breath and nodded slowly. Tenn would be glad too if he would be released of the pain of having to confess his love with a letter like the one Gaku had just given to them.
“Hey!”, Gaku said, “This was a beautiful letter and anyone could be happy to receive it.”
“Yeah, yeah”, Tenn patted Gaku’s head encouragingly, “We’ll hang it on the fridge when we can move in again.”
“You damn brat”, Gaku grumbled, “I’m not the child in this relationship.”
“I think you are”, Tenn said and moved on without sparing Gaku a second thought, “Mine is very simple, but I think it may be too simple for your tastes.”
He had spent about thirty seconds writing “I like you Nikaido Yamato, please go out with me” on the piece of paper Gaku had given him.
“Why didn’t you write that when you confessed to me? It would have made one day of my life easier.”
“I have grown since that day. Not a lot, because my taste is still bad, after all I’m still with you, but I have a better understanding of humans and what written words they will understand.”
“What you said is so mean, but I just can’t be mad at you for some reason.”
Tenn ignored him: “Let’s just look at Ryuu’s version.”
Ryuu only gave them his letter shyly, but as soon as Tenn had skimmed over it he nodded in approval.
“Very heartfelt, full of the right emotions. I like it. Almost makes me fall in love with you, Ryuu”, he patted Ryuu on the back, “Well done! Now we only need to deliver it to Nikaido Yamato and see what happens.”
“I’d like to deliver it personally”, Ryuu said.
“Good idea!”, Gaku threw in. He probably felt a little dejected, because Tenn hadn’t allowed his letter to be used. But with a letter like that… honestly, “Personal delivery adds a more realistic feeling. And he can reject you immediately if he doesn’t like you after all.”
Ryuu deflated next to Tenn and a sharp look in Gaku’s direction immediately made him row back: “Not that he will reject you!”
“Okay…”, Ryuu said, “I’ll text him and tell him to meet me on campus tomorrow after classes end. I can give him the letter then.”
Tenn nodded and with that the first confession was planned.
Gaku came home to Tenn and Ryuu sitting on the couch in Ryuu’s living room, Tenn feeding an unwilling Ryuu ice cream with a spoon.
“Did he…?”, he started asking, but Tenn shook his head, a grave expression on his face.
“I don’t need the ice cream Tenn, I’m not a high school girl who got rejected!”
“The love of your life didn’t show up to your confession. This is ice cream worthy.”
“He didn’t show up?!”, Gaku flopped down on the couch, occupying Ryuu’s other side, “That’s unforgivable. No way. Hashtag Revenge For Ryuu.”
“He just got sick”, Ryuu said, “It’s not that bad.”
“Tenn feed me some ice cream too, I’m feeling sad in Ryuu’s place”, Gaku said, “He just doesn’t have the comprehension to understand the graveness of his own situation. How pure-hearted.”
Without a comment Tenn fed Gaku some of the ice cream, accidentally smearing it over his face.
“Whoops”, he deadpanned, “Sorry, now you have ice cream on your face. I guess we have to go to the bathroom and get you cleaned up.”
He grabbed Gaku’s wrist and pulled him to the bathroom, even though Gaku complained that he could clean himself up and even though it was Tenn’s fault that he was full of ice cream he didn’t want Tenn to act like a mother hen. He sat Gaku down on the toilet seat and stood in front of him.
“Ryuu isn’t telling us the whole truth”, he said, “There’s something about his story that’s off. But we can just proceed with our plan. I will find out what’s wrong.”
“I didn’t notice at all”, Gaku said, but then nodded, “If anyone can find it out it’s you.”
“Good”, Tenn looked smug at the compliment, “I say we proceed with part two of the plan.”
“But this time we observe their conversation. I still have costumes we didn’t use yet.”
“Observation yes, costumes no.”
Gaku sighed, “I don’t get what’s wrong with my costumes.”
“Everything is wrong about your costumes.”
Gaku pouted, but didn’t say anything anymore.
“So, phase two of the plan. Offering to listen to his problems and a confession.”
“How do we do it?”
“The next time they meet up for studying we listen to their conversation and give Ryuu instructions. I own an in ear microphone we can use for monitoring. We can place other microphones in the living room and listen to them from receiving speakers nearby.”
“You’re so well prepared for a situation like this.”
“I’m always well prepared for everything.”
“That you are”, Gaku said and ruffled his hair, “Let’s go meet with Ryuu again and tell him about the plan.”
A few days later Gaku and Tenn had set up a microphone in Ryuu’s living room, close to the table where Ryuu and Yamato would be studying later.
Gaku really felt like he was a spy or something like that when they tested the installation, him sitting in his and Tenn’s temporary bedroom on the bed and Tenn lowly talking in different positions in the living room, to check if they really could hear everything that was being said.
They could, which surprised Gaku. What exactly did Tenn own these microphones for? But it wasn’t the time to question his boyfriend’s intentions and if he maybe actually was a spy of a secret organization. He’d surely tell him soon enough, the latest point being when Gaku would be kidnapped, because he was Tenn’s weak point… Nah, there was no way that would happen, right?
The study session came quickly after that, and Gaku and Tenn sat on their bed in front of the low table in the bedroom, where they kept the speakers and the microphone, that Tenn would be in control of. He had made sure that he was in control, so Gaku couldn’t feed Ryuu lines for flirting, but Gaku was fine with letting Tenn take the lead, even though he would love to use the opportunity of getting to take the lead again to put Tenn in some kind of costume.
“Shush”, Tenn mumbled and interrupted Gaku’s thoughts, “It’s starting.”
Gaku listened to the sounds coming from the speakers now.
The apartment door fell shut and voices came closer to the living room microphone.
“So we can finally study here again?”, Yamato’s voice said.
“Yes. Tenn and Gaku aren’t here today”, that was Ryuu. The sounds of chairs scraping over the floor, incredibly close to the microphone. They were sitting down over there, Gaku concluded, or at least one of them was, “I’ll make you a tea, or would you like something else?”
“Tea sounds good”, Yamato answered, “By the way, sorry that I couldn’t come that time you wanted to talk to me after classes. What was that about~?”
Tenn next to Gaku shifted. He seemed to be suspecting something, again. Gaku didn’t really understand, but Tenn had said that he’d figure it out.
A click of the microphone in the room activating when Tenn pressed the button. “Don’t tell him directly right now. Say you’ll talk about it later.”
Ryuu reacted almost immediately: “Ah, it was nothing important. Let’s talk about it later, yes?”
“Sure, sure. Studying first, am I right?”, Yamato laughed, and the next sounds were drowned out by the electric kettle cooking water, way louder than Gaku had suspected it, especially because it was supposed to be in the kitchen, where they definitely didn’t have a microphone.
Tenn had his brows furrowed too, confused.
“I’m sure he’s hiding something…”, Tenn mumbled, a string of words leaving his mouth as he thought out aloud, “but I can’t just walk in, if I’m wrong I might ruin Ryuu’s chances if I reveal that he lied about us not being home, so we just have to move on with our plan…”
Gaku patted Tenn’s arm to get him to focus again.
The noise of the kettle was gone again, and now they heard paper shuffling and Yamato summing up what the last lecture’s main points were. Even though Gaku had always thought that pedagogics weren’t really a difficult subject, he didn’t understand a word. Well, this was an advanced course already, but still, he had expected more of “don’t hurt your children it will mess them up” and less terminological lingo he couldn’t comprehend.
It was pretty boring listening to them talk, especially because Gaku didn’t understand a thing, so after a short while already he felt his eyes fall closed and his head loll. Luckily for him Tenn noticed, and had taken precautions. Well, if one could call slipping ice cubes into Gaku’s shirt and then muffling his surprised noises with his hand ‘precautions’.
“No falling asleep and no noise”, Tenn whispered, his hand still on Gaku’s mouth and holding him in place firmly, while Gaku squirmed. That little piece of shit! His shirt felt wet and disgusting, the ice cubes having molten halfway and still being stuck somewhere on his back.
Now Gaku was more awake than before, especially when he heard the blessed words from Ryuu’s mouth:
“Do you want to take a break?”, Ryuu asked and Yamato made a show out of yawning loudly, way too loud for it to be real.
“Sure”, Yamato said, “Is it time to talk about whatever you wanted to talk about then?”
Tenn quickly activated the microphone. “Yes”, he whispered into it, Ryuu repeating his words, “And now you have to use our plan, confess and tell him you’ll listen to his problems.”
Ryuu coughed slightly as a signal that he had understood and began.
“Yamato-kun, you know that I really admire you. And you always help me so much with classes and other things too. So… if I can help you in any way, please tell me about it, yes? I really like you, so I’ll listen to your problems.”
“Sensei knows you like him”, Yamato laughed, “Who else would help you with classes? And my biggest problem at the moment is probably that I can’t afford a roomba for our apartment.”
Ryuu awkwardly laughed, doing his best to cover the failed attempt at a confession up, and then they just went on with their break, eating something that sounded suspiciously like the cookies Gaku had bought when he went grocery shopping last weekend, and drinking their tea.
Tenn was nervously twisting a pen in his hand. Chewing on his lips his eyes darted over to the plan that they had placed on the backside of the closed door.
“Ryuu”, Tenn commanded then, the button pressed again, “Move on to part three of the plan! Invade his personal space. You’re technically already working together, so just invade his personal space.”
Gaku shivered as he heard the tone of voice Tenn (the shivering didn’t have anything to do with the ice cubes, though those were also still very there and very cold) had chosen for the command. He almost wanted to go into the living room and cuddle up to Nikaido himself, but that wouldn’t earn him any praise from Tenn either... though jealous Tenn was cute. He was still wearing his glasses too. Hah. What a boyfriend he had gotten himself here.
Loud noises from the microphone in the living room interrupted Gaku’s thoughts.
It sounded like someone was ripping paper into pieces right in front of the microphone. What kind of thing could ever cause a sound like that?
When the sounds were gone, the two seemed to have gone back to working again.
“Oh? What’s this?”, Yamato suddenly said over the sound of pens scratching on paper. His voice was unnaturally high, but layered with genuine surprise, “Is that a hand on my thigh? Is sensei being sexually harassed?”
“Is he… feeling Nikaido up?”, Gaku whispered, a little shocked.
“That’s not what I meant with invading personal space!”, Tenn hissed, “What is he thinking?!”
“S-Sorry!”, Ryuu apologized frantically, “I-I didn’t mean to..!”
“A naughty student gets extra homework~”, Yamato said, still in that strange voice, and Gaku and Tenn in the other room looked at each other, horrified.
“This is like that one time you wanted to try watching porn together”, Tenn whispered.
“I didn’t know it was that kind of-“, Gaku interrupted himself, “Are we going to ignore that our best friend is talking in bad porn dialogues with his crush two rooms away from us?!”
“No, we’re not”, Tenn said, and activated the microphone again, “Ryuu, this isn’t working. Don’t let Nikaido Yamato touch you in any way you don’t like, you hear that?”
“You sound like a mom”, Gaku mumbled. Tenn glared at him, but couldn’t say anything because the microphone was still activated.
“Just take it easy for now, okay? I’ll be back with more instructions.”
With that the microphone was off again and Tenn turned to Gaku.
“There really is something up with them”, he said, voice deep and full of concern, “But before we can find out what we need to move on with the plan. Think we can fit number five into this day too?”
Gaku looked over to the plan and thought about it for a few seconds.
“Will he start talking in porn dialogue again if Ryuu tells him that he’s cute?”
“If he does I’m breaking down this door to punch him in the face”, Tenn answered.
Gaku didn’t question this statement, even though he would’ve liked to say that Tenn could just open the door normally. They already had to pay for the repairs in their apartment; they didn’t need additional costs because Tenn broke down a door in order to protect Ryuu’s innocence.
“Then let’s wait until they’re almost finished. We crammed a lot into the first part already, means that it would get obvious if Ryuu flirts too much.”
“Sometimes you’re smarter than you seem.”
“Hey, I’m smart!”
“Not smart enough to not try and extinguish a burning pan with water.”
“We had this already! I was just missing that piece of knowledge!”
Tenn sighed. “Yaotome ‘I work in a restaurant’ Gaku, missing a piece of essential knowledge that could easily cost him his life…”, he said, “Maybe I should be grateful that it happened while I was there. Maybe your life has been saved because of pancakes burning our apartment down.”
“I wish it hadn’t, then I wouldn’t have to listen to your nagging”, Gaku mumbled.
“Don’t say that”, Tenn said and hit Gaku’s arm lightly, with just enough strength for it to hurt a little, “I’m glad pancakes saved your life in the future.”
Gaku let out a breath, and turned his attention away from the conversation, that had turned too dark for his tastes.
“What are they doing now?”, he tried to listen, but there wasn’t a lot of sound.
“I think Nikaido Yamato said something like ‘Onii-san-sensei is going to take a nap while student-Ryuu finishes his work’ and since then there hasn’t been any talking”, Tenn said, because of course Tenn could multitask and banter with Gaku while also listening to conversations a room away.
“He upgraded the nickname for himself, amazing.”
“He did, but isn’t this the perfect opportunity?”
“For what? For taking pictures of them again?”
“Gaku.”
“Sorry, sorry. You should tell Ryuu to wake Nikaido after he finishes and tell him that he looks cute. Sleeping or in general.”
Tenn nodded and activated the microphone: “Ryuu, as soon as you finish your assignment you wake him and tell him he looks cute when he sleeps. But only after you really finish, you hear me?”
A mutter of approval from the living room told Gaku and Tenn that Ryuu had understood.
When the microphone was off again Gaku rolled around so that he was laying on his back now. Arms crossed behind his head he stared up to the ceiling. “Do you really think that ‘cute’ is the right word to describe Nikaido?”
“What word would you describe him with then?”
“I don’t know, but it’s not ‘cute’, that’s for sure.”
“Yeah? What is cute to you then?”
Gaku thought for a while, various things he would describe as cute came to his mind quickly. There were a lot of things that could be cute. The quiet noises of Ryuu studying in the living room from the speaker were the only thing he could hear.
Suddenly Gaku gasped, as if he had gotten an idea: “Tenn, I know how we can work with number four now!”
“I’m not dressing up as a cat”, Tenn shot him down immediately.
“How did you know I was thinking about that?”
The only answer was a deadpan look into his direction.
Gaku hummed dejectedly: “Guess I’ll have to think about something different then… You’d really look cute as a cat though.”
“Oh, Ryuu finished”, Tenn said, ignoring Gaku again, “Pay attention again.”
“Hey, Yamato-kun”, Ryuu seemed to shake Yamato’s shoulder, not too close to the microphone, “Good morning!”
“Morning”, Yamato slurred. He sounded sleepier than one should be after a half hour nap.
“You really look adorable when you sleep like this”, Ryuu said, and Gaku felt his heart throb. The way Ryuu had said the words, so heartfelt and genuine, made him feel like he was watching a life performance of a romance flick. Ryuu’s character really fit that too. Maybe Gaku should suggest a story like Yamato and Ryuu’s to his favourite authors. Maybe one of them would appreciate it.
“Why, thank you”, Yamato said, falling into that strange voice again, “You aren’t that bad yourself.”
“Now!”, Tenn said into the microphone, “Ask him out now!”
But the long awaited moment never came.
Instead they heard a crash, loud enough to be heard from both the speakers and from behind their closed door.
Gaku and Tenn both flinched, but they didn’t move from their position. They couldn’t reveal themselves after all. To know what happened they had to wait for the two men in the living room to talk.
“Ryuu, are you okay?”
“Yeah, it’s… nothing. Just a scratch. And some plates and cups lost I guess…”
“This is bleeding a lot though; let me get a first aid kit.”
Some shuffling and then a gasp: “This looks like a deep cut. You might need stitches... I’ll drive you to the hospital.”
“If you say so…”, Ryuu said, and with that their voices were gone from the living room, had moved to the hallway, where they seemed to be putting on shoes, to drive to the hospital.
When the door fell shut, Gaku got up and walked to the living room without another word to Tenn.
It was a mess, really.
Apparently the tray with the plates and cups had fallen off the table. Every single dish was in shambles, and Gaku immediately got the dustpan and brush from the kitchen, to clean it up, when Tenn stopped him.
“Wait”, Tenn said, “There’s something off about this. Don’t destroy evidence.”
Gaku froze in his movements, and instead watched Tenn investigate the scene.
“The electric kettle is over here…”, Tenn mumbled as he retrieved the electric kettle from a corner of the room, where it definitely did not belong. Then he went to pick up some of the shards.
“Careful, I don’t want you to have to go to the hospital too”, Gaku said.
“I’m not dumb enough to actually hurt myself with shards”, Tenn said and looked at the shards closely, “These aren’t Ryuu’s usual dishes.”
“They’re not?”, Gaku asked. That was confusing.
“They’re older than Ryuu’s, and I mean these are really old. This cup has been fixed before and this one plate has a stamp from… Fifty years ago.”
“Is the history finally coming in handy?”, Gaku teased, but was immediately shot down by Tenn.
“That would be archeology. And finding a stamp on a plate that has been mass produced like these isn’t really a difficult task”, he said and looked over the shards again, “Gaku, can you see any shard with blood on it?”
There was no shard with blood on it.
“Maybe they took the shard with them to the hospital?”
“Why would they?”
“I don’t know. It was stuck or something?”
“Then they would have said that…”
Tenn picked up a few shreds of paper from the dinner table.
“I think I know what’s going on”, Tenn proclaimed after a while of looking at the shreds.
“Really? What?”
“I don’t want to tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because of pancakes.”
“That’s not a reason!”
“From now on it is.”
“It’s not. I bet you have no idea what’s going on either but just want to seem cool.”
“You’re allowed to clean up now.”
“What if I don’t want to? Because of pancakes?”
“Do you want me to get the ice cubes?”
Grumbling to himself that Tenn was such a mean person and a bad boyfriend, keeping him in the dark about something that could be important for their plan and also threatening him, Gaku began to clean up the living room. The shards on the floor and the scraps of paper, that seemed as if some were missing… did Tenn take them to prevent him from finding out about the truth too?
Luckily for him the tea cups had been empty, so there were no nasty stains he had to remove from floorboard or carpet.
While Gaku had been cleaning Tenn had removed the microphone and other things he had placed in the living room and taken them back to the bedroom, where he was probably keeping them, neatly stored inside a case labelled “TENN’S PROPERTY – DO NOT TOUCH UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES”.
Tenn had more of those boxes back at their apartment, and Gaku was wondering what kinds of other things Tenn had in store. Maybe he was a secret agent or a spy after all. Or maybe the boxes just held endless amounts of pictures of Riku. That could be too.
Gaku returned to the bedroom and sat down on the mattress, but when he noticed the plan hanging on the wall he got up and crossed some things out.
-
Love Letter -
Offering to listen to problems + confession -
Working together/invading personal space/cooking - Marriage proposal delivered by a cat
-
Telling him he looks cute - A combination of 1-5 (Ultimate Plan™)
- Pushing together
“Why are you staring at the plan like this?”, Tenn asked when he came back to the room from wherever he had gone to return the supplies to.
“I’m just thinking about number four”, Gaku answered, “Are you sure –“
“Yes, I’m sure that I don’t want to dress up as a cat, thank you very much”, Tenn said.
“That’s too bad…”, Gaku mumbled, “I would’ve loved to see that.”
“Of course you would. I’m not dressing up as a cat in front of other people.”
“Does that mean you’d do it in private?”
“Gaku…”, Tenn’s expression became threatening again, but Gaku decided to take it a little further.
“So you wouldn’t want to do it if it’s just the two of us either?”
“You just want me to greet you in a cat costume when you come home from work and say:”, Tenn cleared his throat and leant forward slightly, resting his hands on Gaku’s knees. He looked up at Gaku with adorable but also incredibly disturbing doe-eyes. Gaku hadn’t been aware that Tenn could make this expression, “Oh, Gakkyun~ I’m so happy to see you again~ What wouwd you wike fiwst? Dinnyew? A bath? O-ow… Mew?”
Gaku swallowed hard at that, but before he could answer his boyfriend pulled back, wearing his usual expression again.
“Nya”, Tenn added in a deadpan voice.
Gaku felt like he had been splashed with cold water.
“Uh”, he said, clever as always.
“So the answer is no”, Tenn said, “I’m not dressing up as a cat ever, not in front of you or in front of anyone.”
Finally Gaku had recovered again. “Maybe I should just dress up as the cat then”, he said, “I would make a good cat.”
He balled his hands to imitate paws.
“Nya!”
Seeing Tenn blush furiously at seeing him like this made Gaku feel some kind of triumph. Maybe he had been reduced to a stuttering mess when Tenn had done it, but Tenn himself hadn’t been better when Gaku had done it! They were both equal disasters for each other.
Tenn mumbled something that Gaku didn’t quite catch.
“Sorry, what did you say?”, he asked, a teasing smile on his face.
“I said go die!”, Tenn climbed onto the bed and threw a pillow at Gaku.
Gaku caught it in the air and threw it back.
“You can’t kill me”, Gaku proclaimed, louder than it was necessary, “I’m too strong for you!”
“We’ll see about that!”
When Ryuu came home later he was greeted by a silent apartment.
“Gaku?”, he called, carefully, because he never knew what to expect of those two, “Tenn?”
No answer was an answer too, so Ryuu carefully walked towards their room and knocked on the door.
Finally he got a sign of life, in form of a weak mumble from inside.
He opened the door.
The room was a mess.
Feathers seemed to be scattered over every surface in the room and Gaku and Tenn themselves were lying on the bed, where no pillows or a blanket could be found anymore.
His two friends were sprawled out on top of each other, a tangle of limbs. Ryuu couldn’t really see where Tenn began and Gaku ended, and he also couldn’t see who was actually lying on top. He hoped it was Tenn, because having Gaku on top of oneself if one was Tenn and like half a Gaku the experience couldn’t be pleasant.
“Hi Ryuu”, Gaku mumbled.
“Hi Gaku”, Ryuu answered slowly, “What… happened here?”
“We had a pillow fight because we couldn’t decide who should play the cat”, Gaku said, “It ended in a draw.”
Ryuu didn’t really know which cat Gaku meant, but that sounded like a very trivial matter. Typical.
“Liar”, Tenn said, sounding just as worn out as Gaku, “We started the pillow fight because I said that you should go die when you tried to imitate a cat. Also I clearly won. I’m on top of you.”
Gaku hummed, as if he was just remembering that too. “I bet Tenn would be cuter than me though.”
“Would you just stop already?”, Tenn replied, “Nobody is dressing up as a cat.”
“If you’re arguing about that you could just both dress up as a cat?”, Ryuu offered.
Gaku’s head perked up as if he had gotten an idea, and Tenn groaned: “God, now you fed him new thought material, just when I had beaten every single dumb thought out of him…”
“Tenn, we can both be the cat! I’ll be the head and the front legs and you can be the rear legs!”
“No”, Tenn said, “No way. I’m not delivering Ryuu’s marriage proposal dressed up as a cat-butt.”
Ryuu almost choked on air. “Delivering my what?”
“Your marriage proposal. Number four. Marriage proposal delivered by a cat”, Gaku explained, “But we don’t actually have a cat, so we’re trying to find a way to do it without an actual cat.”
“My… marriage proposal. To Yamato-kun.”
Tenn nodded. Gaku nodded. Ryuu shook his head.
“I don’t want to marry him though?”
“What do you mean you don’t want to marry him?”
“I do like him, but that doesn’t mean I want a lifetime commitment?!”, Ryuu rubbed his temples, “Please don’t propose to Yamato-kun on my behalf.”
“We’ll make it another confession letter then”, Tenn decided, “Gaku, you come up with a method to deliver it.”
“I’ve been on that this whole time”, Gaku complained.
“One that doesn’t involve anyone dressing up as a cat or us having to buy a cat.”
“Oh…”
Silence. Ryuu cleared his throat.
“Well, while you two think about that I’ll prepare dinner”, he said and turned to leave.
“Wait a second Ryuu”, Tenn stopped him. He untangled himself from Gaku and got up, “I’ll help you. I wanted to ask you some questions about that hospital visit today. We want to make sure Nikaido Yamato is treating you right after all.”
Audibly swallowing Ryuu nodded and with that Tenn and Ryuu left Gaku alone.
When Tenn came back to the room later to get Gaku for dinner he found Gaku looking up something on the internet.
“Did you find a way?” he asked, startling Gaku.
“I think I did”, Gaku said, “Remember what Nikaido said his biggest problem was?”
“Not being able to afford a roomba for his apartment?”
“Correct!”, Gaku turned his phone around to show Tenn the website he was looking at, “But because roombas are expensive as hell I found this.”
“Rental roombas”, Tenn mumbled slowly, “That’s… so strange. Why would anyone offer this?”
“I don’t know, but we can rent a roomba for a day. It’s not that expensive and we can use it for the confession.”
“That’s actually quite a good idea”, Tenn said, “I’m surprised. Well done Gaku.”
“What does that mean, you’re surprised?! My ideas are always great.”
“May I remind you of the ‘let’s dress Tenn as a delinquent and make him intimidate Ryuu and Nikaido Yamato’-plan?”, Tenn crossed his arms, “That was everything but a great idea.”
“It was a perfect idea! It just didn’t work in the ways I expected it to.”
“That makes it imperfect.”
“It was very entertaining to me, which makes it perfect again.”
“Shut up, that’s not a valid reason. Dinner is ready by the way.”
Gaku got up from the bed at that and came towards the door. When he walked past Tenn he ruffled his hair.
“I really liked that Tenn too.”
If Ryuu noticed Tenn’s blush during dinner he didn’t comment on it.
“Today I’m going to go to get the roomba we rented”, Tenn announced the next day at the breakfast table, “We rented it for a few days instead of one, because there was a discount if you rent it for longer. We actually only want to use it on one day, so getting the discount wasn’t that smart, but like a not-so-wise Yaotome Gaku once said ‘a discount is a discount’. At least that means that we can try both number four and number six with the roomba, should number four fail.”
“It won’t fail of course”, Gaku assured their friend, “You’ll get your boyfriend Ryuu, don’t worry.”
“Gaku is right for once”, Tenn said, “I’ll bring the cat substitute. Ryuu, you write another love letter, and Gaku, your mission is to leave Ryuu alone for writing at all costs.”
Gaku pursed his lips but nodded.
“Can’t I just use the same love letter I used last time?”, Ryuu asked. He didn’t really want to go through the trouble to write another one.
“We don’t reuse things that concern matters of the heart in this house”, Gaku scolded.
“Okay then… I’ll try to do it”, Ryuu said, “I might be home late today though.”
Tenn got up from the table. “Alright, I’ll be on my way then.”
“See you later~”, Gaku called, “And I’ll get ready for work now.”
“Have fun you two.”
“Thanks Ryuu.”
The door fell shut behind Tenn and with that the apartment grew silent.
Ryuu buried his face in his hands. How was he going to get out of this mess?
Later that day, almost at night, a dark shadow lurked in front of the room that had been Tamaki and Sougo’s a while ago and was hosting two other men at the moment. It was silent behind the door.
Ryuu had come home late, as he had said in the morning. He was holding his camera in his hands, a strap around his neck.
He was determined to finally, finally, get some good photos of his friends.
Gaku and Tenn were hard to convince to let him take pictures of them, especially pictures that showed them doing anything even slightly couple-like. Tenn’s insane ability to sense danger, or a camera, near them wasn’t helping his case.
That was why he had loved Tamaki and Sougo as his roommates – those two were always happy to be the models for his photography. Especially Sougo really liked collecting pictures of them together, even more so after they got together.
Carefully he opened the door to the room.
What he saw would’ve made him drop his camera if not for the strap around his neck.
Gaku and Tenn were sitting on the floor in front of the king sized bed. Gaku was facing the door and Tenn was sitting right in front of him. Ryuu could only see his back. Their hands were interlinked, but this… wasn’t even remotely romantic.
There was an empty paper bag with the logo of Gaku’s soba shop next to him and there was a circle of burning candles that surrounded a box of soba-to-go.
“Bless this shop, oh you soba spirits”, Gaku began to sing-song all of the sudden, “take this soba as an offering.”
Ryuu could do nothing but stare at his friends performing… a ritual?? To summon???? A soba spirit???????? His confusion was so great that he even forgot how to use punctuation correctly. In his mind.
Ryuu didn’t know how much time passed, but the disturbing scene ended with Tenn shifting. He took a look at the box and declared: “It’s still here.”
Gaku opened his eyes: “Oh no, it didn’t work. I guess I’ll have to eat the soba now, so it doesn’t go to waste.”
“You don’t need to find excuses like summoning soba spirits to eat soba, you know. I’ll still love you even if you look like soba yourself”, Tenn sighed, “Just… don’t eat too much. And eat something else from time to time.”
Gaku grabbed the box and began eating with chopsticks he got from who knows where. Then he looked up. “Oh hey Ryuu”, he said, unbothered by Ryuu’s obviously horrified expression and the implication that Ryuu had watched what had just happened. When Tenn noticed what was implied by Ryuu standing behind him he tensed up, but Gaku, without a care in the world held the box up, “Want some soba too?”
“N-No thanks”, Ryuu stammered and backed out of the room, just as Tenn was blowing out the candles, to somehow regain his dignity.
What even, Ryuu thought, what was wrong with those two?
The next day Ryuu had invited Yamato over again, and the two were currently getting ready to go out again, to do whatever those two did when they went out to do something that wasn’t studying.
Gaku and Tenn were standing behind the doorframe; Gaku was holding the roomba he had affectionately named Robert, even though Tenn told him not to get too attached to the small robot.
It really was too cute though! All those adorable booping noises and how eager it was to clean the floor! Gaku really understood Yamato’s love for roombas, even though he thought that Ryuu’s future boyfriend should focus at least the same amount of love on Ryuu.
If he didn’t Gaku and Tenn would come after him. After all they were the ones that composed the relationship, yea, and ones/to whom the relationship was but as a form in wax/by them imprinted and within their power/to leave the figure or disfigure it.
“Gaku, stop quoting Shakespeare in your thoughts, especially this particular scene from Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s incredibly misogynistic, also Ryuu isn’t our daughter and he’s able to take care of his own relationships. Just because we helped a little we don’t have any right to interfere later.”
“You’re right”, Gaku laughed awkwardly, “Theseus and Egeus really are strange characters, aren’t they?”
“Zeitgeist”, Tenn mumbled.
“We’re leaving!”, Ryuu called, and Tenn jabbed Gaku in the side.
“Release the roomba!”
Gaku put the cleaning robot onto the floor at their feet and immediately it began cleaning, doing its job – just that it wasn’t doing it like it was supposed to do it.
They had planned to let the roomba approach Yamato, so that he would take the love letter than had attached to the back of the roomba, read it and walk into the sunset with Ryuu.
The roomba had other plans though.
It turned around and bumped into a wall, only to continue its way back towards them.
“Robert!”, Gaku called, “What are you doing?! You were supposed to bring balance to this story, not destroy it!”
“Gaku stop quoting stuff, or I’ll get seriously angry!”
“I’m sorry Tenn, it’s just that it’s been almost 7000 words already and we haven’t made any progress!”
“Obviously we don’t have! You don’t really believe that we can finish this without trying everything on our list?! This isn’t real life, where everything works out logically!”
“Right, I forget that all the time…”, Gaku said, and leant against the wall. Defeated he slid down until he sat on the floor. “Tenn… I think this is the end for me… You have to go on without me… But my conviction is still with you. We’re Nakama to the death Tenn. You can do it! I love you…!”
“Gaku…!”, Tenn gasped and knelt down next to his boyfriend, “Gaku, no, you can’t…! Don’t do this to me! Without you… How will I ever find out what mystery surrounds Ryuu and Nikaido Yamato’s relationship (even though I figured it out already, I’m just not telling you) and how will we ever eat delicious pancakes in our repaired kitchen again…! Gaku, don’t leave me! No! NO!!!”
“Excuse me”, a voice from behind said, “What exactly are you two doing?”
“I’m lamenting my beloved boyfriend’s frustration coma!”, Tenn said, completely serious, “Quick, is there any soba around? We have to wake him up!”
“Oookay”, Nikaido Yamato, who had been standing behind them, said slowly, “Hey, is that a roomba over there?”
“No!”, Tenn said, “It’s not a roomba! And now go leave with Ryuu, like you wanted to before Gaku started quoting Obi Wan Kenobi! Leave me alone in my grief of just having lost my beloved… I am a widower now.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s alive, but go off I guess”, Yamato said and pressed F, to pay respect to the deceased Gaku.
Then he took Ryuu’s wrist, and pulled him out of the apartment door, because he had been standing there, lost, 1,90m of confusion and second-hand embarrassment.
“My knight in shining armour”, was the last thing Tenn heard Ryuu say, before the door closed behind the two.
“Okay Gaku, you can stop now”, Tenn said and smacked Gaku’s head, “We reached 7000 words and can proceed with the last step of the plan – the big mashup™. Our Ultimate Plan™.”
Gaku’s lips opened slightly. Raspy his voice sounded in the otherwise silent room.
“Soba…”
“No soba if you don’t get up now”, Tenn said, “We need to prepare the Ultimate Plan™. They’ll be back in a few hours.”
“I’m surprised you can actually say the trademark symbol out loud”, Gaku mumbled, still weak but slowly regaining his senses, “How do you do that?”
“It’s easy”, Tenn answered, “I just say ‘™’.”
“Trademark”, Gaku tried.
“™”, Tenn said.
“Trademark.”
“™.”
“Trademark!”
“™!”
“I give up, I can’t do this”, Gaku said.
“You’ll get there”, Tenn patted his shoulder encouragingly, “You just have to practice some more.”
Gaku sighed deeply.
“You sound like an old man, stop sighing”, Tenn said, “And now get up already.”
“Maybe I will, if you give me my revival kiss.”
Tenn leaned down and pressed a sweet kiss to Gaku’s lips. “There. Are you happy now?”
“Almost as good as soba”, he got up from the floor and stretched.
“Excuse me? My kisses are definitely better than soba.”
“No way, nothing is better than soba.”
“Sometimes I question if ‘soba’ isn’t just a euphemism for an affair you’re having.”
“I would never cheat on you”, Gaku said, suddenly serious.
“I know Gaku. I trust you. I said that without thinking. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay”, Gaku walked towards their bedroom, “Let’s see what we can do with our plan…”
-
Love Letter -
Offering to listen to problems + confession -
Working together/invading personal space/cooking -
Marriage proposal delivered by a cat -
Telling him he looks cute - A combination of 1-5 (Ultimate Plan™)
- Pushing together
“Somehow this doesn’t really look like things we can combine”, Tenn said, his arms crossed as he stood in front of their plan.
“You’re right”, Gaku said, “It also doesn’t sound like something that would work. Ever.”
“Hey, you’re supposed to be the romantic who believes in our plans here”, Tenn said, “But we can always skip the bees and move on to number seven.”
“Which bees –“, Gaku face-palmed when he realised, “I love you Tenn, but that was kind of out of character.”
“The whole dying scene just now was out of character. I don’t care anymore.”
“Fair”, he walked towards the plan and got his pen, “So, how are we doing this?”
“We still have the roomba, so let’s take the cat part from number five, make it a roomba part and be done with that.”
“Sounds good… And a love letter saying how cute he is and offering to listen at the same time?”
“Perfect. And if it works this time the roomba will also invade Nikaido Yamato’s personal space. That way we have everything in there.”
“Phew, that was easier than expected.”
“Almost as if someone had already thought of this idea about three months ago and is only just now writing this down.”
“Really strange, but also kind of cool.”
“Kind of”, Tenn said, “Good, you’re in charge of training the roomba to get to Nikaido Yamato. I’ll write the love letter.”
“Alright! I’ll use one of the pictures we took of Ryuu and Nikaido to train him to go towards him. That will work!”
“Yeah, it won’t work because that’s not how roombas work, but really, nobody cares about that at this point. We all just want Nikaido and Ryuu to smooch and then go home”, Tenn said, ominously, as if he was hiding something. Gaku didn’t notice anything, of course.
“I’m off then!”
“Good luck.”
“You too.”
Later in the evening Yamato and Ryuu came back from their adventure, or whatever they had done together.
Gaku and Tenn were waiting for them in the entrance of the apartment, this time not even bothering to hide.
“Welcome back”, Gaku greeted.
“We have someone who wants to tell you guys something here”, Tenn said and pointed towards Gaku, who was holding Robert the roomba, now equipped with a new love letter.
He put the roomba to the floor and this time it actually went towards the two men who had just gotten home.
“A roomba!”, Yamato said happily, “And it has a letter addressed to me!”
He took the letter and began reading it.
After he finished the letter he pressed it to his heart. It looked like he had tears in his eyes.
Yamato knelt down next to the roomba and petted the robot.
“Thank you little roomba”, he said, and the cleaning robot beeped happily. Amazing, what kind of influence Yamato had on the roomba. He seemed to get along well.
“I’m glad the roomba offers to listen to me”, Yamato said, “Look Ryuu! He even called me cute, and I don’t know him at all!”
“That’s great”, Ryuu said with a pained face.
“Tenn”, Gaku whispered, “Did you forget to sign the letter with Ryuu’s name?”
“Oh shit”, Tenn whispered back.
“Please tell me that this isn’t true. Please tell me it’s a lie that Nikaido Yamato is standing in front of us and believes a roomba wrote him a love letter.”
“I could tell you that it was a lie but that would be a lie too.”
“I hate this story, why can’t we succeed?”
“I don’t know Gaku…”, Tenn said, and sadly patted Gaku’s arm, even though he had given him the explanation a while ago already.
Ryuu stared at the two despairing friends of his with and affectionate smile and shook his head. Those two really… They really cared so much about this plan succeeding that he doubted that they were still remembering the goal they actually wanted to reach.
Yamato looked at Ryuu questioningly, and in silence the two communicated.
“Just a little more time”, Ryuu seemed to say and then straightened his shoulders, to actually talk aloud, “Goodbye Yamato-kun. I had a nice day today, so let’s do this again sometime. Thank you for dropping me off.”
Whatever Yamato and Ryuu had communicated – Tenn had a slight suspicion (who was he kidding, he knew what was going on) but he couldn’t be sure (come on, the readers must have gotten it at this point too, Tenn thought, looking directly into the reader’s eyes, Or wait, he forgot, that he hid some of the evidence… maybe they hadn’t figured it out after all) and couldn’t talk about it at the moment – Yamato had gotten it and nodded. “See you~”, he said, and with that he was gone, the door falling shut.
“Sorry about that you two”, Ryuu said, “I guess he’s too dense after all…”
“That was the last plan!”, Gaku lamented, “Everything has failed now! There’s nothing left we can do…!”
“You’re mistaken”, Tenn said, a diabolical smile creeping onto his face, “I’ve been wanting to do this since the very beginning… Finally my time to shine has come.”
“What…?”
“We’ll push them together after all.”
“Tenn, you’re our saviour! We should build a shrine for you.”
“Stop the flattery Gaku”, Tenn said, “Well Ryuu… It’s getting late quickly, so I will try to catch some sleep now.”
He left the two standing in the hallway to return to his and Gaku’s bedroom.
“Right”, Gaku remembered, “I got an e-mail that our apartment was going to be finished tomorrow, so we were thinking about holding a small party soon, on the weekend maybe.”
“That’s great”, Ryuu said. Internally he was cheering. He would be free of the nuisances he called his friends soon!
“Well, I think I’ll join him then. We’ll have to plan a party after all. Good night Ryuu, sweet dreams of your Nikaido~”
“Th-thank you”, Ryuu said, “You too I guess? Dream of… Soba?”
“Awesome”, Gaku disappeared into the room too.
Again Ryuu shook his head. How often would he have to think about his friends with this strange affectionate shaking of his head and a smile?
Of course the last time hadn’t been enough to make Ryuu back down. He was still dead set on getting at least one picture of Gaku and Tenn.
Today, after their newest failure and with trying to catch up on sleep before they could move to their apartment again it was the perfect opportunity.
He had set an alarm for himself, so he could go check on his friends when he was certain that they had gone to sleep already.
Just as carefully as he had done the first time Ryuu opened the door.
Luckily there were no candles in sight this time. The lights were still on, but the men on the bed seemed to be asleep.
Tenn was sprawled out on top of Gaku, his head resting on his boyfriend’s chest.
Contrary to Gaku being shirtless to sleep Tenn wore an oversized, dark t-shirt that looked suspiciously like the t-shirt Ryuu had seen Gaku wear in the evening. His lower back was covered by the blanket.
A book was lying next to Tenn’s hand, probably forgotten over small affectionate gestures of a half-asleep Gaku. The latter’s hand was tangled in Tenn’s hair, the fingers relaxed, but looking as if they had been stroking the light strands not long ago, combing his boyfriend’s soft hair, massaging his scalp.
Ryuu had to supress a sound that threatened to escape his throat because of the adorable scene in front of him.
Quickly he had found the perfect angle to take a photo of them – he really was lucky they had left the light on. If one looked closely one could even see Tenn’s free hand, the one that hadn’t been holding his book, squeezing Gaku’s shoulder lightly, as if looking for support during his sleep.
He knew the perfect location for this picture. The frame had stayed empty for the longest time now, between pictures of other friends and his brothers. Gaku and Tenn were a difficult subject to take photos of, but this one photo really was superb. He’d treasure it forever, or at least until another opportunity arose to take an even better picture.
Ryuu smiled with another look at his friends and shut the door, not after putting the lights out.
“Good night you two”, he whispered against the wood of the closed door.
The party was wonderful.
The apartment really looked just like it had before the fire, apart from the giant banner that said “Welcome back – Because of Pancakes” and the long table Gaku and Tenn had borrowed from a neighbour. It was the buffet.
(“Why is the buffet only pancakes?”, Mitsuki had asked when he, Nagi, Iori and Riku had come in earlier.
“Because before we had to move out we wanted to enjoy some delicious pancakes in our apartment. Now we can finally do that”, Gaku had answered with a pained expression, “Tenn didn’t even allow me to bring a single serving of Soba...”
No other words had been exchanged between Mitsuki and Gaku since then, but he seemed to enjoy the pancakes, at least right now he was being fed some by Nagi.)
Tenn was waiting for Yamato to arrive, so he could finally push him into Ryuu.
They had decided that that would be his task today, while Gaku took care of all other guests. That was mainly because Iori and Riku would be there too, and Gaku had wanted to prevent Tenn from going into big-brother mode and challenging Iori to a rap battle to the death over his brother’s honour or something like that.
That meant that Tenn had to wait for the perfect opportunity to push Nikaido Yamato into Tsunashi Ryuunosuke, preferably without knocking half their furniture over or starting another fire.
Finally something green came into Tenn’s field of view, but it turned out to be Yuki, who had just arrived with Momo in tow.
He was holding something in an obnoxious green colour in his hands, and Gaku, who was standing by the door and greeted him, immediately asked what it was.
“That’s my new instrument. I gave up on the triangle, now I play the otamatone”, Yuki answered, “It is very fulfilling. Would you like to hear a song?”
“He’s very good at it!”, Momo chirped from behind him.
When Yuki actually began to play his what-was-it-called-again Tenn thought that Momo had probably gone deaf thanks to the sounds this monstrosity made.
There was a rhythm actually, and different sounds too, but Tenn couldn’t imagine that only one single otamatone could ever sound good on its own – there needed to be at least a few others, to complete the harmony.
“Yuki-san”, Tenn said loudly, to make his voice heard over the “music”, “Could you please stop playing your otamatone? You’re scaring the pancakes.”
“No! Not the pancakes!”, Nagi called and immediately began talking to Yuki, so that he would stop scaring the food.
“Can pancakes get scared Sou-chan? Maybe I should scare the food more often; it could change how it looks…”
“Food can’t get scared, Tamaki-kun, at least if it’s already dead it can’t.”
“Uwah, why do you always have to say stuff that’s so scary Sou-chan?”
Tenn turned his attention away from the guests and towards Ryuu, who was sitting on the sofa and seemed to be waiting for something. He was munching on a pancake.
Tenn smiled. Today was the day. Finally. Finally he would see his theory confirmed. The theory that Ryuu had been –
Before he could think his thought to the end he spotted Yamato in the corner of his eye.
Now some cool spy-mission music from an old cartoon should start playing, Tenn thought as he got into position.
The green haired man didn’t seem to suspect anything, as he just walked towards Ryuu, without a care in the world. Probably to greet him.
Tenn stalked up behind him, his steps as silent as those of a wild cat.
When Yamato leant forward, probably to hug Ryuu, Tenn took the chance and pushed.
As planned Ryuu caught the falling man in his arms, but of course the sly fox of an onii-san managed to turn around mid-fall (HOW?!?!) and was now sitting in Ryuu’s lap. Tenn wanted to strangle him. Actually, he was about to strangle him when Gaku interrupted with a call from the other side of the room.
“Just get together already! What else are we supposed to try? That was our last plan!”
Everyone grew quiet at that. One could have heard a soba noodle drop. That was how quiet it was.
“Yeah, about that -”, Ryuu began, but was interrupted by the man in his lap.
“- Actually we’re already together”, Yamato said and grinned.
“What?!”, Gaku cried out. “I knew it!”, Tenn said at the same time.
“What do you mean you knew it?!”, Gaku turned to Tenn, his face a mess of confusion.
“Well”, Tenn smiled. He knew he was better than Gaku this time, because Gaku hadn’t picked any of the obvious hints up. Well, he hadn’t shown him all of them, of course, that may have been the reason that Tenn was smarter in this situation. But still, this time Gaku was the dumb one.
Actually, now that he thought about it, Gaku was always the stupid one out of the two of them.
“The two of them started dating before we started numbers two, three and five. While they were away from our sight they used the electric kettle and ripping paper to cover up noises they didn’t want us to hear! You see, Yamato… Ryuu… I see through your lies.”
“HOLD IT!”, Yamato called, his finger pointing into Tenn’s direction vaguely, “How can you be so sure that this is true?! You have no actual evidence, just assumptions! You haven’t actually seen any of that happen, did you?!”
“Yamato-kun, what are you doing? Just now you said we were dating yourself…”, Ryuu looked a little lost, his boyfriend, still pointing at Tenn with that ridiculous pose, and looking very fired up, sitting in his lap.
“Sore wa chigau yo!”, Tenn called, now taking a very similar pose to Yamato’s, “I do have evidence! On said paper I found secret messages the two exchanged while they were “studying”! Also the dishes you broke that presumably cut Ryuu weren’t his at all. That means, you just broke old dishes you didn’t need anymore, to have an excuse to take him away from that situation!”
Tenn breathed in. “I must commend both of your acting though. You had me convinced that Ryuu actually got hurt, until I found that no shard had any blood on it. A very good counterplan to ours.”
“Oh no! He got us!”, Yamato proclaimed then, “The despair is going to consume me!”
“You better stop letting despair consume you, or we won’t congratulate on your relationship with Ryuu”, Gaku said.
“That’s right”, Tenn smiled, “Congratulations, both of you.”
“Yamato-san! You finally asked him out?”, Riku called from his spot by the wall, where he and Iori had been sitting, and eating pancakes.
“Actually he asked me out with a heartfelt love letter. It really made this old man swoon~”
“You’re not old, stop saying that”, Mitsuki smacked Yamato on the arm lightly, before hugging his friend, “Well done, Tsunashi-san. Make this guy happy, will you?”
“I’ll do my best”, Ryuu answered and smiled.
“Oh! Congratulations, Tsunashi-shi, Yamato! Love always wins in the end, just like in Magical Kokona!”
Nobody really understood what the blond was talking about, except maybe Mitsuki, but everyone nodded along and laughed.
“Ryuu-kun, you have my blessing”, Yuki said, “Please send me private pictures of Yamato-kun, so I can blackmail him.”
“Th-There’s no way I would-“
“He’s joking”, Yamato intervened, “I don’t need your “blessing” or whatever, but thanks I guess.”
Momo gave the two of them a thumbs-up (actually, knowing Momo he had probably known about their relationship before Tenn or even Yamato and Ryuu themselves did) and Iori, who really didn’t know any of the two very well nodded respectfully.
“Ryuu-aniki, now we can go on double dates with Yama-san and Sou-chan!”, Tamaki grinned and wrapped his arms around both Yamato and Ryuu in a surprise-hug, “Actually, if you and Yama-san are together now, does that mean I should call Yama-san “Yama-aniki” too…?”
“Please don’t do that”, Sougo said from the back, “And you shouldn’t squeeze those two so much, if you want them to live to tomorrow.”
Towards Ryuu and Yamato Sougo expressed his happiness about their relationship, and then took Tamaki by the arm, to take him somewhere else.
“So you got together after number one after all?”, Gaku asked, his arms crossed, “Does that mean I didn’t have to get jealous over Tenn feeding Ryuu ice cream?”
“He did that?”, Yamato laughed, “And yes. I accepted his love confession, but you two were having so much fun with your strange plans that we thought we’d let you do it a little longer.”
Gaku and Tenn looked at each other for a moment, silently communicating.
“Well, I guess if you two are happy now we can forgive you”, Tenn said then.
“How generous of you”, Yamato grinned.
“Why, thank you”, Tenn said, and grinned as well. He wouldn’t lose against someone like Nikaido Yamato in a battle of sarcasm, “Gaku, how about you ask everyone for their preferred soba and get us some now?”
“Oh so now you decide it’s time for soba?!”
“Yes, I’m allowing you to eat soba now, having only pancakes as a buffet is a little cruel after all.”
Gaku grumbled a little, but turned around to take everyone’s orders, and when he had done that he left the apartment to go to his shop, to prepare the dishes.
“So, what’s next?”, Yamato asked, when the door had closed behind Gaku, “Will there be a sequel where we have to help you propose to Gaku?”
Tenn furrowed his brows. “There won’t be a sequel. We’re way too young to marry.”
“Also”, he breathed in and smiled, “Everything turned out well already, didn’t it? This is a nice ending. Because of pancakes.”
Silence. Was this the end?
“Stop saying the title all the time!”, Gaku said suddenly. He had come back way more quickly than Tenn had anticipated. He hadn’t wanted him to show up again anymore until the story ended. Apparently these feelings had shown on his face, because Gaku explained himself.
“Someone on the street where the soba shop is tried to microwave something wrapped in aluminium foil, so I couldn’t get through to the shop. Everything is full of fire trucks.”
“Are you serious? We’re ending this with another housefire?”
“For a moment I thought we’d really have to get a sequel called “Because of Soba”, because the soba shop burned down, but luckily it wasn’t so.”
“As I said, there won’t be any sequels”, Tenn sighed, “Can we just have a time skip until the guests leave, have a cute conversation in our own apartment and fall asleep, ending this story? Or no, better, we just end it like this.”
Hours later Gaku and Tenn were cuddling on their couch in their living room, finally free from having to work around Ryuu. Not that they had minded, but it was a little more relaxing, being able to do what they wanted to do without taking a third person into consideration.
“I’m glad we decided against the time skip after all”, Gaku mumbled over Tenn’s shoulder, “That would have made for a cheesy ending. This way it’s funnier.”
“I don’t know, it felt a little rushed”, Tenn said, “As if it was incomplete.”
“Well, I’m glad we have privacy again. It was getting tiring, being watched in everything we do.”
“It’s natural for us”, Tenn said, “Isn’t it?”
“Not in this world.”
“Hm, you’re right.”
“Ryuu finally got a boyfriend. Can you believe that? Our baby bird is leaving the nest.”
“Baby bird Ryuu, oh my god”, Tenn chuckled, “I can’t believe you referred to our best friend as a baby bird.”
“He is one though, have you seen him?”
“You’re right and I hate that I have to admit that.”
“I’m always right”, Gaku grinned.
“Not when you try to extinguish burning pans with water.”
“Way to rub salt into the wound.”
“In this situation I should rub syrup into the wound.”
“Why syrup?”
“Because of pancakes.”