Chapter Text
2018A: Day 3
“Were you worried this time round?” Itona asks.
“Hm?” Gakushuu stirs some sugar into his tea, leaning against the kitchen counter. Itona kind of wants to jump him like how alternate-Itona managed with his Gakushuu but Itona still wants to live.
“Not really,” Gakushuu says, flashing him a grin, “I knew you’d come and save me.”
Is he blushing? No. No he’s not. Itona aims for nonchalant. “Confident, were you? Maybe Irina and I were enjoying life without you.”
“Our paths barely cross anyways, if not for this whole damn device,” Gakushuu says. He sets the cup on the counter and steps forward. “You’ll enjoy life without me, regardless. Unless,” he takes another step forward, “you missed me?”
Oh, no, yeah, he’s blushing. “Maybe,” Itona mutters.
Gakushuu laughs softly. “Thank you. I hope Karma wasn’t too horrible to deal with?”
“He’s been,” Itona winces, “same old Karma, I guess.”
Gakushuu, because he enjoys making Itona suffer, takes yet another step forward and touches Itona’s arm. Itona doesn’t short circuit or anything like that.
“All limbs intact,” Gakushuu says, “you two must be getting along well.”
On the contrary. “Nothing like a mutual friend in danger to bring old classmates together, right?”
“Mutual friend,” Gakushuu snorts. He takes up his cup of tea and heads to the living room. “Making sure the two idiots aren’t killing each other.” Itona follows. The Gakuhous are still staring at each other spitefully. He watches as Gakushuu sits in between them and kick his feet up on his father’s lap, and beckon his alternate-self over.
“So,” says alternate-Itona, sliding next to him, “how’s the relationship going?”
“Am I super obvious?” Itona sighs
“Kind of,” alternate him says, “it’s okay.”
“It’s not going. How’s yours?”
“Same,” alternate-Itona sighs, “Gakushuu knows. He’s just,” he makes an aborted hand gesture, “I mean, to be fair, neither of us have asked the question yet so he doesn’t have anything to answer to.”
There’s an awkward pause between them. Itona clears his throat. Alternate-Itona snaps his head up to stare at alternate-Karma, who’s giving him a strange expression with his counterpart next to him. The two boys wander off, and eventually Itona finds himself next to his universe's Karma.
“How are you finding the alternate universe?” Itona tries.
Karma eyes him skeptically, then relaxes. “Fine,” he says, “surreal.” Then, “You know, I don’t care if we saved the world together, Gakushuu’s my friend. You better watch yourself.”
Itona blinks once, twice, then, “ are you giving me the shovel talk right now ?”
“Yeah,” Karma nods, “he likes you. I can tell.”
Itona glances over at Gakushuu, who’s now ribbing his father about something or another and smothering his alternate-self with his legs. “He likes you too.”
“Oh, I know that,” Karma says, unnecessarily smug. “I’ll guess we’ll have to see what happens, eh Itona?”
Itona frowns at him. “His feelings aren’t a contest .”
“You really are naive, aren’t you,” Karma sighs, “I would watch you flounder for my own amusement but I’m feeling open for some healthy competition, so let me give you some advice. if you want to survive this game you have to play it like it is: a game; there are real feelings here but remember that this is Gakushuu Asano you're talking about. You think he’s some clueless little girl hopping around with flowers in his basket? He’s stringing us along and enjoying every second of it. You want to be his puppy like those two losers in this universe or do you want to make him chase you as hard as you chase him?”
Itona looks over at Gakushuu again. “I-”
“He’s a menace,” Karma says, a smile playing on his lips, ‘he’s got plenty of people falling at his feet already. Have some style, would you.”
Itona scoffs. “You say that like you don't like him as much as I do.”
“Harsh, Itona,” Karma sighs, “I’ll give you that. You don’t have to treat Gakushuu like some glass toy. The boy lives for conflict, and he thrives on challenge, like both of us, you can push and pull hard. Speaking of, I’ll bet you 10 that he’s going to start a fight between the Gakuhous before we go.”
Itona frowns. “But he just broke one up.”
“That was because the kids were scared,” Karma says, “he’s not going to leave without seeing them beat the shit out of each other, verbally or otherwise.”
“You and Gakushuu need to stop calling them kids,” Itona says, “they’re our age.”
“Kids,” Karma snorts.
“I’ll take that bet,” Itona says.
Itona loses. It only takes 15 minutes after that for the Gakuhous to start yelling at each other again, and everyone dives for cover. Gakushuu is watching with visible glee as his counterpart has a look of immeasurable horror on his face, and then Gakuhou punches alternate-Gakuhou on the face.
“Gakushuu!” Ikeda shrieks.
It’s not Gakushuu but his alternate self that jumps to his feet, breaking apart the two men and yelling in some foreign language and pushing them back. Gakuhou snaps at him, Alternate-Gakuhou says, “don’t shout at my kid,” Gakuhou says, “don’t touch mine ,” and Gakushuu starts ugly-laughing.
“I’ll give you another 10 if you stop them,” Itona says to Karma.
“Are you insane?” Karma says back, “I’m not risking my life for 20 bucks.”
“Let’s have a conversation,” alternate-Gakushuu growls, and kicks Gakushuu in the stomach. “You too. In private .”
The four disappear behind closed doors with no small amount of protesting and grumbling, and then it’s quiet. Then, “this is giving me so much deja-vu,” alternate-Itona says. No one speaks much in that time, and when the group emerges again, Gakushuu is still ugly laughing, alternate-Gakushuu is quietly but assuredly pleased, and the Gakuhous are unnervingly quiet.
“That’s my boy,” Gakushuu says, clapping his alternate counterpart on the back as he puffs up in pride, and then skips away tugging his father along. Itona doesn’t ask what happened, no one does. Both versions of Gakuhou looks miserable.
“Alright guys,” Gakushuu says. He tosses the time device like a ball in his hand and grins. “Let’s go home.”