Chapter Text
”Oh, how cute!” Mitsuki exclaims when you show her the bracelet you bought yesterday. ”And for such a cheap price?”
You nod. ”Mina said that the total for all her clothes was almost half of what it would have been.”
”Really?” she all but gasps. ”Then I’ll definitely have to look around for a bit, I didn’t know the sales were that good!”
Over her shoulder you see Katsuki, messy hair and black shirt, throw you a look of absolute loathing. You smile somewhat apologetically in return, fully aware of the situation you just put her son in.
She turns to him. ”We’ll make a day out of it, it’s been awhile since I really took the time for shopping. You don’t mind, do you?” Then she promptly turns her back to him again without giving him the time to respond and happily invites you into her home. By the time she closes the door behind you, Katsuki has already stomped back up the stairs.
”This is your fault, you realise that?” Katsuki glares down on you and the books you’ve spread out on his floor.
You shrug, not particularly sympathetic to the fact that he has to accompany his mom to the mall. ”You were already going there, she knew about the sales.”
”But it was gonna be a short trip, half an hour or something. I guarantee you that this will take no less than three hours, probably longer.”
You look up at him. ”See it as an opportunity to spend time with your mom.”
”I am.” He looks at you blankly. ”Why do you think I’m so annoyed?”
”Is it really so hard, so difficult to go shopping? You’ve gone with us before.” Us meaning his friends. Admittedly, he was never very enthusiastic those times either, except for when you went to get food. And that one time Denki dragged you all to an arcade in eight grade, simply because it gave him the opportunity to be competitive.
”Yeah, come back to me when you guys have cursed me out for not helping you find the right bellbottom jeans or some shit.” He roughly gathers some things from his desk and drops them with a thud beside you on the carpet. ”Whatever, let’s just start.”
It didn’t take much for Katsuki to convince you to come over and study with him. Despite the fact that don’t really want to do it, you always prefer studying with him rather than on your own. He’s a pretty hard teacher who likes long sessions and who definitely does not let you get away with the amount of breaks you normally would take, but he’s good. Both at math and at teaching, you’ll give him that. And despite how he always manages to make it sound like such a burden to help the rest of you study, he himself took on the role of the group’s resident teacher.
This time, it’s just you and him. Denki has formally notified you that he and Hanta are going to play Minecraft and that he therefore will be busy this morning, unfortunately. Then he ignored you telling him good luck on the test. Hanta, at least, is pretty good at math and will probably be alright on his own.
”Seriously?” Katsuki lifts his head from his notebook about half an hour in and sees you counting on your fingers.
”Don’t judge me, at least I'm counting,” you say, as if that’s not the absolute bare minimum.
”It’s an equation, you shouldn’t even have to count.” He gestures vaguely at the pages laid out between you. ”We just went over this.”
”This sucks.” You roll over onto your back and opt for staring at his empty ceiling instead. ”First I can’t use a calculator and now I can’t even count on my fingers.”
”Count in your head if you have to.”
”Yeah, right.”
He doesn’t answer instantly, letting a short silence pass by as if he’s giving you time to attempt it. When it becomes clear that you’re not trying to solve anything and just quietly looking at his ceiling fan, he sits up and crosses his legs.
”What’s up with you?” he mutters. ”You’re not usually this bad.”
Judging from the slight emphasis he places on the word ’this’, you’re not sure whether to take that as an actual compliment or a very backhanded compliment, but any other day you would probably still appreciate it. Today it passes right over your head. .”You know how we were like ’well, that was weird’ this Friday?”
He makes some kind of noise in agreement.
”Didn’t we accept it a bit too easily? I mean, we’ve never been back to the pool since it closed down. No one’s talked about it all, it was practically forgotten. It’s not supposed to be by our school all of a sudden.”
”No shit it’s not. Didn’t we have this conversation already?”
”But you don’t get it, Katsuki.” You roll over on your side and look at him, as if that will make him understand. ”It doesn’t work that way. Either that door lead to the pool building, which doesn’t make sense. Or we had, like, a shared psychosis – I don’t even know if that can happen. Or I don’t know, I just dreamt it. Maybe I did and I’m just still dreaming.”
Of course, you don’t really think you are. The fabric of the carpet beneath you, the slight friction from your jeans, and Katsuki’s breaths beside you are all way too real for you to be dreaming. But you no longer think of what happened as easily as you did yesterday. It’s lodged itself in you somehow as something you can’t ignore.
Katsuki shows next to no reaction to what you’re telling him. ”Do you want me to hit you?”
It takes you a second to realise what you just told him and that he’s not just suddenly threatening to smack you. ”Don’t you mean pinch?”
”Doesn’t matter. Look, it already happened. So what if it was weird, we didn’t ’accept it too easily’ because there’s nothing to do but accept it.” His voice is harsh and his eyebrows are pulled together in a scowl. You’ve never met any other person who manages to look so pissed, even when they aren’t.
It’s not a surprise that he is so adamant about taking things as they come. He always does – and it works for him, because he has such a headstrong way of approaching life. It’s almost too rare that he lets things affect him, choosing to metaphorically (and sometimes literally) elbow his way through life. It may come off as inconsiderate sometimes, but in a way it is something you appreciate; that he doesn’t dwell. You would like to do the same in this situation, but this time it’s hard.
”I think I dreamt something last night,” you tell him. ”I don’t remember what, but the feeling it had came back to me while we were sitting here. It was like...there was a weird pressure in the air, but also like the world opened up. It was new.”
Memories of the dream suddenly washed over you earlier, but so fragmented and abstract that you can’t focus on them when you try again. All you recalled was a sudden feeling, a color, and you pick at your eraser while mentally searching for more.
”…Okay,” Katsuki responds. He’s steadily looking at you since he can tell that you’re thinking hard, but he sounds engaged and its clear that he doesn’t understand. ”What does that have to do with the pool?”
You give up on trying to remember more. ”It just feels as if what we said yesterday about letting this go if it doesn’t happen again. It feels as if that might not be so easy.”
”And this is what’s distracting you from studying?”
”Yeah, pretty much.”
You go quiet, curiously trying to focus on what your dream made you feel. Katsuki, on the other hand, breezes past your problem completely unfazed.
”We’ll see tomorrow,” he answers and pushes your book up right in front of your eyes. ”You have two hours to show me that you get this before I gotta leave.”
You push the book away. ”I can’t. How can I possibly try to study while my understanding of the world is crumbling around me?” But you roll back over on your stomach with a deep sigh and set your things back up.
* * *
The next day in school is as normal as ever. The hallway is already filled with students when you and Katsuki walk through the doors, since the first-years have already had their first class. All the footsteps, chattering, and slamming locker doors are a stark contrast to what you saw the last time you were here, when you mentally try to overlap the image in front of you with those dark empty corridors it seems like a completely different place. It feels good; a comfortable familiarity. Katsuki has been tiredly muttering about the shopping trip yesterday, despite characteristically never being tired in the mornings. Something about how his mom talked his ear off ”as always” and that he doesn’t understand how there can be so many different versions of blouses.
”What even is a blouse?” He rolls his eyes, ”it’s a fucking shirt.” While he pretty much always sounds grumpy, he has a tendency to sound almost childishly annoyed when talking about his mom.
Mina, Denki, and Hanta all arrive to school at the same time since they take the same bus, but Mina hurriedly waves and then instantly rushes past you to quickly meet up with a few friends from one of the clubs she’s in before class starts. Sometimes it’s a mystery to you how she has the energy to be so active all the time. Despite your mother’s protests you dropped all extra activities as soon as you started high school.
Hanta tells you on the way to class that you can all hang out at his house after school. You often do, he has the most game consoles so he and Denki never really stray far.
It’s at lunch that you and Katsuki decide to head to the gym again. You tell them that you have to check something, and when you don’t answer what they complain about the two of you ”keeping secrets” before they completely let it go and head off to eat. So you walk through the same hallways you always walk through and the same hallways you walked through on Friday, only this time lively and bright and not strange at all. Long before you get to the door you somehow anticipate that whatever happened is not going to happen again. You don’t think it could, not with the sunlight coming in through the windows and the students coming from every which way towards the cafeteria. Judging from how completely nonchalant Katsuki looks, he feel the same. And that is assuming that he thought there was any possibility of getting to the pool again, which he probably didn’t.
Still, when you finally get to the doors and open them to reveal your completely regular gym with some students even being there, he says: ”Well, that’s anticlimactic.”
You nod in agreement. But if you’re being honest with yourself, you realise now that a part of you felt this coming as soon as you entered the school. It didn’t feel like the same place you saw a few days ago and in a way you don’t think it is. Obviously, you still know absolutely nothing about what happened or the logic behind it, but going by feeling alone this feels to different for the same thing to happen again.
Katsuki turns around and starts walking back.
You wonder if things would be different if it were late again, if it was dark and empty like last time. You had thought that time that the school felt strange and mystical, and you wonder if that matters. This isn’t really something you feel like telling Katsuki, because you suspect that he’d be pretty dismissive of whole thing. After all, you’re fully aware that it doesn’t make sense. But none of what happened does, that’s why it’s hard to get off your mind.
You hurry up to his side. ”We could check the pool. The actual one.”
He exasperatedly looks up at the ceiling. ”We just saw the damn gym, there’s nothing there. Nothing happened.”
”I know…I just wanna see.” You see him start to protest and quickly add: ”it’s like the last piece, you know? If nothing happened here and nothing’s weird at the actual pool then we can let it go.”
”I have let it go.”
Again, sometimes you think it’s too rarely that he lets things affect him. ”Look, I came with you to the school in the first place, right? It’s only like a ten minute bike ride. Then I’ll let it go.”
He lets out an aggressively annoyed sigh, but you doubt there’s any bite behind it. You really don’t think he cares that much, especially since you know how restless he gets after school now that he can’t box.
”Yeah whatever, we’ll go tonight.” Then he grabs your upper arm and tugs you forward a few steps. ”Now stop walking so damn slow so we can go eat.”
* * *
Hanta’s house is very plain. Not particularly big but bigger than yours, not that decorated but nice to be in. The heart of the house, at least in your eyes, is the couch on the upper floor in front of the TV Hanta and his little brother share. It’s big, comfortable, and messy since they never bother to clean it. You feel as if a pretty big part of your childhood has been spent on that couch ever since you got to know him, even if you don’t know why you all always tend to end up there. To watch movies and play games, sure, but sometimes you come to his house to practically just sit. It’s nice, anyway.
This time Hanta has turned on Super Smash Bros and has brought out the chocolate him and his brother keep hidden up here. Or rather, his brother keeps it hidden since he’s not allowed to have candy whenever he wants and Hanta just takes from it. He himself has already gone against Katsuki a few rounds, while Denki has taken it upon himself to sit beside them and make fun of Katsukis game regardless of whether he’s winning or not. Katsuki has then demanded multiple rematches because he argues that he can’t be at his best with Denki annoying him, until Mina has enough and asks to play instead. You pass up your turn when you see your mom calling and instead head down to the kitchen to escape all the noise.
”My shift will be long today,” she tells you as soon as you pick up. ”I brought the last leftovers for lunch but there’s food in the freezer.”
You know what food there is in the freezer. There’s two containers of store-bought Pad Thai that you know has way too much coriander in it, which you don’t like. That is the reason it’s still in the freezer.
You tell her it’s alright and she assures you she’ll try to stop by the grocery store on the way home, before she hangs up. When you turn around to head back up you see Katsuki coming down the stairs.
”What’s up?”
”They sent me down to get drinks,” he scowls, clearly not over Denki’s taunting, and rips open the fridge. You help him by getting glasses for everyone.
”Hey, my mom’s working late today, can I eat with you guys?”
”Yeah,” you hear from inside the fridge.
Mitsuki often tells you both that you never have to ask before coming by for dinner and that ”the more the merrier”, but the times you have stopped by unannounced right before dinner she’s fussed about not having cooked enough food, so you’ve stopped.
”You’re not gonna tell her when we’re coming home?” you ask offhandedly as you start walking up the stairs again.
”Doesn’t matter. You wanted to go to the pool, right? We’ll have to stop and get our bikes anyway so I’ll tell her then.”
You return to the couch to see that Denki is still in the same spot and has switched to constantly praising Mina, fully aware of how much pride Hanta takes in his Smash Bros skills. He wins only a few seconds later and Denki lets out a ”great work Mina” before she lowers the volume and turns to you.
”Sooo what were you guys talking about?”
You raise your eyebrows at her in question.
”When you were walking up the stairs!”
”How did you even hear that?” you ask, thinking about Hanta’s loud protests. The guy in question looks confused behind her, possibly not even aware that the two of you ever left.
”I’m observant,” she shrugs. ”So, where are you going?”
”I’m eating at Katsuki’s.”
Minas eyes brightens slightly. When you first became friends she accepted quickly, albeit a bit reluctantly, that none of you liked each other romantically – you’re sure she stills holds out hope though. Still, even if it’s not romantic she really enjoys every opportunity she gets to see Katsuki acting ”soft”, as she puts it. Like him making efforts to help Denki with his schoolwork despite often calling him an idiot for never studying on his own. She says it’s a cute friendship dynamic, just like she says about Denki and Hanta’s friendship. It’s a pretty endearing quality Mina has, simply appreciating relationships so much in general.
”Right, but you mentioned a pool?” she pushes.
”How the fuck did you hear that?” Katsuki wonders while you look at him, aware that Mina is unlikely to drop this if you don’t tell her.
At your questioning gaze he simply shrugs his shoulders, seemingly uncaring of whether you tell the others or not. Since nothing happened he probably reasons that it doesn’t matter either way, since nothing will come out of it, until you quirk your head in Hanta’s direction and he pauses. You can almost see him weighing the two against each other - Mina’s nagging or Hanta’s paranoia. Personally you think that you can ignore Hanta’s theories, but Mina likes to push. Just like she’s doing now, an encouraging look on her face where she sits facing you, the boys behind her doing the same. Katsuki aggressively rolls his eyes.
Telling the story out loud really does not give it justice in any way. Katsuki’s way of storytelling is blunt and straightforward, leaving in no more details than necessary. You interrupt him since you understand that what he is saying definitely is not enough to understand what happened, but when you try to tell them more you discover that there really isn’t much to say because what even happened while you were in there? You explored for a bit and then sat down until it got more and more unsettling. You don’t say that, though, because Katsuki would never let you tell them that you left because you got scared or whatever. Instead the story dies out, not much to the ears of those who weren’t there. Despite that, the others seemed to think it was at least a bit interesting because it goes completely silent when you’re done. Hanta slurps his drink with wide eyes and the home screen of Smash Bros has gone dark.
Denki is the first to say something. ”So you were just going to keep this to yourselves?”
”Yeah, cause nothing happened.” They stare blankly. ”Nothing more,” Katsuki clarifies.
Denki raises a skeptical eyebrow. ”Do you hear yourself?”
Mina nods in agreement and thoughtfully eats a small piece of chocolate.
”It was just weird,” you defend, ”we couldn’t just tell you. Or I mean we could’ve, but…look, you don’t get it, you weren’t there.”
”Exactly.” Denki gestures dramatically. ”We weren’t there to see all the cool shit and then you were not even gonna tell us it happened.”
Katsuki mutters something about him being annoying and some type of argument breaks out that doesn’t quite seem to stay on topic. You’re almost surprised that they even believe you, but on the other hand, only hearing about it might not make it seem as strange as you thought.
Mina, who’s been quiet so far, interrupts whatever they were fighting about and turns to you with a displeased look. ”I hate that the two of you live so close that you can do cool stuff all the time, like go on adventures in the woods or whatever you do. We never get to join.”
Hanta, who’s also been quiet, puts his glass down finally. ”We live close together, we can do stuff.”
”Yeah, the two of us see each other all the time, join us.”
”But you guys don’t do anything!” Mina whines. ”All you do is play video games.”
Denki blinks. ”I don’t see the problem.”
”And we already hang out with you all the time?” Katsuki nods pointedly to a makeshift scoreboard laying on the floor in front of the TV, something you use to keep score every time you’re here and play literally anything where you can win. ”Not our fault you decided to live on the other side of town.”
”Yeah but we don’t do as fun things when we’re here,” Mina pouts.
”You talk as if we’re just tripping over portals leading to abandoned buildings left and right.”
”At least you go outside.”
Denki and Hanta loudly protest, both equally as offended at Mina’s words. ”Hey, we go outside!”
You look at them skeptically. ”You haven’t left your house since Pokémon Go.”
Mina nods, obviously displeased at having missed something interesting and then having to find out together with the guys on top of that.
”We go to school!” they protest again but Mina interrupts them.
”Whatever,” she stands up firmly and determinedly looks down at you and Katsuki. ”You’re going to the pool tonight?”
”Guess so.”
”So we all agree that we’re coming with you, right?”
Denki and Hanta nod.