Chapter Text
Hugo thinks he only has two other hallmates, at first. He’s the last one to move in (technically, he’s joint last with Yuya, and if he wanted to he could tell himself he beat one of the others at least, except Rin has already scolded him for being the final one and leaving everything too late so really he has no choice but to own the fact that he has fallen to bottom place. Otherwise she’ll just tease him more) and just accepts that the room closest to the kitchen is locked because it’s empty. He doesn’t really pay attention to the pink stickers on some of the cupboards and cutlery and crockery and milk cartons and fridge drawers. Rin tells him it means it belongs to someone else, so he assumes it’s the guy who lurks in doorways and runs his hand through poorly-dyed hair every time he laughs.
He has a grating laugh - it isn’t bad, it just sounds harsh, raspy, like his throat isn’t used to it. Hugo gets used to it quickly, though, because there’s a tall boy in a grey cardigan who keeps giving Hugo a nasty look and his hallmate nudges him and whispers and barks out that weird little wooden giggle. Rin says they’re probably making fun of Hugo’s hair. Then she makes fun of it too.
(And honestly? Hugo’s hair isn’t even that bad, and if it is, it’s Rin’s fault, because she was the one who bleached it, and the Ute guy has a fringe that’s fading from pastel purple to a more natural grey too, so it can’t look too different from the thick, heavy strands of electric yellow that Hugo’s going to do something with, he promises.)
So for the first week or so, he accepts that he’s living with Yuya, who sets the fire alarm off every time he uses the oven, and Ute, who lingers in shadowy corners and stays up too late doing things that make the flat shift and creak in that ominous, nerve-wracking way that shakes Hugo to his core with the fear that someone has broken in, or someone is haunting him, or that he is going to die, and that the room with the door he can’t open is locked because no one lives there. Consequently, when the first post-it note signifying Joeri’s existence finds itself taped above the overflowing sink, detailing in cursive handwriting and passive-aggressive language how everyone needs to sort out their own washing because he will not stand to live in this level of filth, Hugo immediately rings Rin in a frenzied panic.
“You knew you were signing up to live with three other people,” she sighs into the phone. She’s muffled by static and wind and Hugo’s ugly sobs that he can’t quite stifle. “I really don’t see what the problem here is.”
“He’s just here ,” Hugo can’t decide if he’s yelling to convey the awful situation he’s in, or if he’s whispering to make sure that the secret fourth flatmate can’t hear him. “He’s just here and he’s been here the whole time and I’ve never met him. He’s just... He’s just a guy . Who’s here .”
There’s a pause. Hugo’s lips are trembling, and he can tell that Rin is doing that squint she does when she tries to make sense of his thoughts. “Aren’t you- Aren’t you all just... guys who are there... ?”
Hugo flops onto his bed, and groans. “You just don’t get it, do you?”
“Hugo, there’s literally nothing here to get. You’re just yelling.”
“Well, yeah!” He slaps a hand down on his forehead and tries to force a good explanation past the urge to break down into messier sobs than he’s already managing. “Of course I’m yelling! Someone else has been living here the entire time and I had no idea !”
When Rin frowns, one corner of her mouth curls upwards, into kind of a confused smile, and she does this specific kind of exhale that sounds like she’s only breathing with half of her nose. It’s hard to recognise over the phone, but Hugo thinks he hears a slight hitch, and he can imagine her furrowed brows and slight pout. “Okay, that’s a little creepy,” she admits, “but the only reason you didn’t know is because you’re dumb as hell. So like, it’s your own fault really.”
“Rin I am literally calling you from my university. Where I live. And go to. So if you could support me a little bit more I would really appreciate that. I’m smart.”
She snorts. “You can be bike smart and still be a dumbass.”
“Thanks. Thanks, I’ll remember that,” Hugo nods, and wipes at his eyes and nose. “I’ll remember that you think I’m bike smart.”
“I mean, I have to give you some credit,” she says, feigning pain. “You are at university, after all. I’m smarter though. Both in terms of bikes, and in terms of just like, generally knowing shit.”
“Go off I guess,” Hugo rolls his eyes, but he feels a lot better now, a lot safer, and lot less freaked out by the fact someone has just been living in his flat this whole time without him knowing. Rin has that effect. Not that she knows - and Hugo won’t admit to himself that she knows even if he hasn’t told her.
He hears her keys jingle, and then his ears are full of an almost plastic ruffling. She’s probably dropped her phone into her pocket while she opens her door. There’s a wooden slam, and then some yelling, some greetings, voices he doesn’t recognise, and a much more content Rin asks, as she sinks into her sofa, “So are you gonna do the washing up for post-it boy?”
Hugo hasn’t eaten anything but instant ramen since moving into his halls. “Uh, no, none of it is mine,” he says hurriedly. It isn’t untrue, because he doesn’t have anything to wash up, but he isn’t going to admit the reason why to anyone, especially not Rin.
She is right about being smarter than him, though, because she immediately says, “You have been actually eating, right?”
“Yeah. Of course. I eat all the time. Cook things. I’m good at it. Really good. Anyway none of the washing is mine so i’m not doing it.”
“Post-it boy will owe you a favour if you do,” Rin’s tone is skeptical, and Hugo knows saying he cooks well is going to come back to bite him, but she doesn’t push the subject. “Maybe you’ll be able to ask him to talk to you. Like, face-to-face.”
Hugo says he wouldn’t want to speak to someone who leaves nasty messages taped to the wall anyway, but eventually hangs up after agreeing he’ll try knocking on the locked door by the kitchen and speaking to the secret fourth flatmate, so that he isn’t so nervous about him being there anymore. Rin promises to ring back before bed, to make sure he has, because she doubts he’ll be able to sleep at night knowing there’s a stranger in his home. He slips a jacket on over his pyjama shirt and pockets his phone (and his inhaler, because the kitchen is on the floor above his room, and he doesn’t trust the winding staircase he takes to get there).
The locked door doesn’t open when he bangs on it. It doesn’t open when he yells either.
He can tell Yuya is in the kitchen, because he can hear him singing loudly and off-key, but in a way that’s still pleasant to listen to, and sounds right even though it isn’t. Hugo barrels through the door. Yuya has bright yellow gloves that stop between his elbows and his shoulders, and some kind of steampunk goggles snapped down over his eyes. Soap bubbles are smeared onto the edge of his nose, and he stops singing to turn to smile at Hugo when he hears him come in.
“Sorry,” he beams, “I went ahead and sorted out the washing up! For Joeri!”
Hugo scrunches up his face. “Yur-ree?” he repeats.
“Yeah. Joeri,” Yuya nods. “Next door to me? In Room 3?”
The locked room. The secret flatmate. “Oh! Oh, so it’s not pronounced... Joe-airy?”
Yuya giggles. “Ute called him that too. I’m pretty sure it’s Joeri though. I think I’ve heard him Skype someone who pronounces it like that.”
Hugo pulls up a chair at the table towards the end of the room. “So you haven’t actually like, met him.”
Turning back to the sink, Yuya shakes his head. “We bumped into each other in the bathroom once! He was leaving as I was going in! He chews his toothbrush. He doesn’t leave it in the bathroom either.”
“I didn’t know he lived here,” Hugo admits, pulling his phone out of his pocket.
“Oh.” There’s a pause. Yuya must have the tap on full, because the roaring water feels like it’s pelting Hugo’s brain. “Well, he does. And he’s angry.”
“That’s why you’re washing up?”
“That’s why I’m washing up.” Yuya nods. “I was just gonna do all of it, unless you want to clean your stuff?”
Hugo shrugs. “It’s not my stuff.”
Yuya exhales heavily. “I mean, it’s not all my stuff, but I’m washing it anyway. I was kind of hoping you’d jump in, actually, because I’m, uh, not super great at this.”
Neither is Hugo. “I... Did you put in soap?”
“Yeah. Yeah, there’s soap.” Yuya turns back again. His goggles look fogged up, but it’s hard to tell, because they’re orange. “Do you think I used enough?”
Sighing, Hugo pushes himself out of his seat and slides over to the sink. The post-it note above has gone soggy with perspiration, and there’s water spilling onto the floor. The pile of washing is much larger than Hugo had realised, and he feels a stab of pride knowing he hasn’t contributed to it, even though that’s only because he is an absolute mess at being an adult, and functioning. “Uh.” He has no idea. He grabs the open bottle of value washing liquid he thinks Ute’s cardigan friend left them, and squeezes it everywhere. “More can’t hurt, right?”
“Right.” Yuya nods.
Hugo says, “There might be too much water though.”
Yuya chews his lips. “I... Okay, I’ve been thinking that for a while. There’s, um. There’s too much... in the way of the tap...”
If Rin had been there, she would have tried to move things, and smartly fix the problem, but she isn’t, and Hugo isn’t Rin, so he does the first thing that comes into his head, and starts yelling at the sink. Yuya jumps.
Hugo shouts, “STOP! Stop having water in there!”
Half-whimpering with the surprise, half-yelling at the accusation, Yuya says, “I’m trying!”
“Not you!” Hugo points. “The sink!”
“Yelling at it isn’t going to help it! Yelling at the dishes isn’t going to clean them!”
“Have you tried it?! Maybe that’s the secret!”
“Can you just get the mop out of the bathroom?!” Yuya bellows. “That would help a lot more than just... just yelling!”
There’s a hand on Hugo’s shoulder, and that stops him replying. Yuya falls silent too.
The secret fourth flatmate pulls Hugo away from the sink, and shoves Yuya to the side. His eyes flick to Hugo, for a second, and they are dark and heavy, a deep pink that Hugo didn’t even think was naturally occuring in flowers or salts or crystals - he’s never seen it outside of brightly coloured paints and dyes and it feels weird to look at it in an organic context. They also seem to be filled with some kind of sinister menace, but also smugness.
His hands are small and thorny, and Hugo’s shoulders ache as he stumbles backwards. The secret fourth flatmate, the post-it maker known as “Joeri”, elbows Yuya a little further from the sink, and turns the tap off in a fluid motion.
“If you can’t even handle this,” he says, and his voice is higher, more mirthful, than Hugo expected, though the expression he’s wearing is nowhere near playful, “how are you hoping to handle being at university? You do realise that’s where you are, right? And that you’re adults?”
Yuya looks at his feet. Hugo yells, “Yeah, of course we do! We don’t need some snotty-nosed, passive-aggressive, shitstirring busybody flatmate who barely ever has the decency to leave his room, to point that out to us!”
Joeri’s lip twitches. He turns towards the sink.
“Go play elsewhere,” he dismisses them with a flick of his hand, and Hugo feels his fists clench in anger. “It seems I’m the only person who can handle this base level of work. I don’t know why I expected even this month from you.”
Hugo storms out of the room without a second thought. Mostly he leaves as quickly as he can because he’s too angry to think of a good comeback.
Later, he regrets leaving Yuya in there on his own with the other flatmate. He also regrets texting Rin about the cute way his flatmate’s brows sit atop his tired eyes, and about how stubby and soft his nose looks, and about how his voice sounds almost melodic, because Rin is now convinced he has a crush on his nasty asshole post-it writing hallmate, which he doesn’t. He hates Joeri. He tells Rin that, passionately, when she phones a little later, and pretends his voice didn’t catch and break while he protested, and pretends she doesn’t laugh at how squeaky and defensive he sounds, and pretends his heart doesn’t flutter just a tiny bit when she teases, because the idea of speaking to him again isn’t entirely unpleasant and is, maybe, just a little bit exciting, in fact.
psst..... pssttt..... you can check out gutter's (@guttersvoice) art for this au here !!