Chapter Text
Mishima didn’t even seem to notice when Akira walked to his desk, and that was the first sign that he wasn’t quite himself: usually Akira didn’t have to do much to get Mishima’s attention. When standing awkwardly next to his friend and saying his name didn’t do the trick, Akira tried waving a hand in front of his face. Mishima recoiled like the other had just magically appeared from nowhere.
“Oh god, don’t startle me like that…”
Akira returned his hands to his pockets. “You’re looking pretty rough. Was the test that bad?”
Mishima blinked a few times at the blackboard, as if it could provide him with information needed to answer Akira’s question.
“…I…don’t remember a single thing I just wrote on that paper. Which test was it, again?”
“Contemporary literature.” It was one of Mishima’s stronger subjects, so Akira had assumed he would take a break from studying to catch up on sleep the previous night.
“…Oh, right.” Mishima covered his mouth with his open hand and let out a massive yawn. “Some smartasses thought it was a great idea to post about nine hundred god-awful memes on the Phan-Site at 2 A.M. It took hours to clean that mess up…” He made a face. “Ugh, prolly some NEETs who have way too much free time…”
Mishima turned to look at Akira. His gentle, half-lidded face was kind of adorable, even though those black circles were something awful to look at…
“Did you come to ask about requests? Sorry, I haven’t found anything promising yet, but I can check out the new posts before the exams end tomorrow and-“
“That won’t be necessary. Actually, I’ll hold on to this for a while,” Akira said, swiftly snatching the phone Mishima had just fished from his bag. Mishima stared at his empty fingers blearily for a second before his brain processed what had just happened.
“Wha- hey!” He complained weakly as Akira pocketed the device.
“Don’t worry, I’ll give it back… if you humour me and come to my place to hang out today.”
That woke Mishima up a little bit. He looked up at Akira with utter confusion.
“To your- as in, your house? Why?”
Akira shrugged, “Why not? We haven’t done anything in a while, so I thought it would be a good change of pace. We can study, too.”
Akira had expected more resistance but Mishima left it at that, averting his eyes as he nodded in agreement. Mishima had never been at LeBlanc before; the number of times they had done things not directly related to the Phantom Thieves was not very high to begin with, and the rare exceptions had always taken place somewhere out in town.
For once, it may have been a good thing that the train was packed: Mishima looked like he could fall asleep while standing, so he surely would have been knocked out cold if he got a seat in the pleasantly swaying car. Akira didn’t intend to have his friend fall asleep – yet.
Sojiro didn’t say anything besides his usual grunt of “You’re back” when Akira and Mishima entered the café, focusing on wiping the counter instead. The boys, on the other hand, went straight up to Akira’s attic room so as not to bother the clientele (which consisted of exactly two elderly ladies from the neighbourhood having their weekly fill of gossip). Mishima, whose curiosity had shaken some of the sleepiness off him, tried to look around as discreetly as possible. It was a valiant effort.
While Mishima was distracted by trying to take in every single detail in Akira’s room in a matter of seconds, Akira took the moment to silently congratulate himself on a job well done so far.
Now for the final phase of the plan.
“Okay, we’re here. Why don’t you get some shut-eye first?”
“Excuse me? I thought you said we would…”
“Studying with someone who’s about to drop is a pretty wasted effort,” Akira explained casually as he rummaged the storage closet for an extra pillow, “You’re not going to be very helpful right now.” He found what he was looking for and tossed the fluffy object to Mishima, who caught it surprisingly easily. Even under Kamoshida’s bullshit coaching, some skills were bound to improve.
Mishima mumbled something that sounded like then why did you invite me in the first place, but he settled on the sofa so Akira didn’t press the issue. He pointed at the more comfortable surface in the corner of the room.
“I don’t mind you using the bed.”
Mishima looked like he was scandalized by the very idea.
“I-I’m fine here, thanks. I might not even fall asleep, you know, in a new place and all. Just going to rest my eyes for fifteen minutes, that’s it.”
It didn’t even take fifteen seconds. As soon as Mishima’s head hit the pillow, his breathing began to grow deeper and his face muscles gradually relaxed. He was out like a light.
Mission accomplished.
Of course, Akira could just have sent the other boy home after extracting a promise he would take a nap. But if there was something going on with the Phan-Site or something else, Mishima might still end up forgoing sleep and continuing to burn the figurative candle from both ends. This way, Akira could be absolutely certain that the time was spent appropriately. That was a valid reason, right?
…He had never seen Mishima’s sleeping face before.
It was completely different from every other face he had been shown: of course it was far from the tortured expression from when Kamoshida had still been at the school, but even when it was just the two of them, Mishima never looked quite like this. He did seem happy, but kind of high strung – never letting the silence sit for too long between them, always on the lookout for topics to discuss (90% of the time, it was Phan-Site this, Phantom Thieves that), always listening to Akira closely as if to catch the perfect timing to laugh at his jokes and react in a desirable way. Always…trying a little too hard for it to feel comfortable.
Now, he was like a different person. Completely at ease, all guards down. He was supporting his right cheek with his palm, which made the soft flesh push forward in an almost childlike manner. His closed eyelids were so still for once, Akira could practically count his eyelashes – well, if he had a considerable amount of time for the task. Mishima’s lashes weren’t particularly long, but there were a lot of them. His breath came out in a steady rhythm, and his lips were parted just so…
Akira had already opened the camera app of his phone before it occurred to him that he was acting like a creep. Returning the phone on the table with some reluctance, he shoved his hands in his pant pockets and wondered what he should do. Starting to study without Mishima after practically forcing him to sleep somehow felt unfair. He couldn’t watch any movies or train, the noise would wake the sleeping boy up. Eventually, he settled on making some infiltration tools, those always came in handy. He left the door slightly ajar so Morgana could enter whenever he grew tired of gawking at the window of a nearby sushi restaurant, and settled at his work desk. He hummed to himself as he wound pieces of silk yarn around a tin clasp – he was gradually getting better with his hands, nowadays he actually managed to finish his lockpicks instead of just making a mess half the time – and glanced at Mishima’s peaceful expression every now and then.
He really should try this again sometime.
OMAKE:
Mishima felt himself emerge from the depths of sleep. He considered staying in the fuzzy dreamland but it was getting more difficult, like trying to stay underwater when your lungs are full of air. Eventually, he let himself wake up at a natural pace, slowly returning to the waking world as his body began to awaken with his mind. For once, no ear-piercing alarm to wrench him violently away-
When he heard a meowing cat, he knew something was off.
Now that he thought about it, the surface he was lying on wasn’t his bed. It was much harder and narrower. The scent of the room he was in was all wrong, too – his room never smelled like coffee and curry like this one did.
At this point, his brain began to provide him with helpful flashes of recent events to catch him up to speed. He had been invited to Kurusu’s place, gone up to his room and…nothing after that. He couldn’t recall anything about what they had actually done, or how he had gone home…
Wait.
A terrible idea just came to him. His eyes snapped open, and he saw Kurusu’s cat staring at him.
Oh no.
Mishima jumped to a sitting position and felt some stickiness on his right cheek. He totally had drooled, hadn’t he? It often happened when he completely blacked out, ever since he was a child. His hand flew to his face and he realised he probably had pillow imprints on his face, too. What did he look like? What time was it? How long had he been making a fool of himself like someone who lacked basic manners, falling asleep when he was invited to Kurusu’s home? And why was Kurusu looking so pleased about it?
Mishima vowed he would never let this happen again.