Work Text:
A flurry of keystrokes. A pause. Then, another flurry of keystrokes, an even longer pause, followed by a muffled laugh escaping Futaba’s mouth.
The laptop screen glows, light reflected off her glasses.
For once, the apartment is empty, and it’s a rare chance for her to have all the curtains drawn, darkness descending early in the mid-afternoon. It’s even greater luck that she’d gotten not just one, but several hours of the place to herself. Normally, at least Morgana would be stuck with her, since Akira carrying him around everywhere isn't all that viable. Now it’s her, and only her.
Akira's always out doing errands, or some part-time job, or volunteering. If he wanted to, he could be home more often than Yusuke. But it’s mostly Yusuke walking through the door, his arms full with textbooks and art materials. Sometimes he’ll greet her if she’s hanging around on the couch, but even then he tends to be caught up in his own head, or rushed by endless deadlines for school. It’s always exams, or projects, or essays. Being in his final undergrad year definitely intensifies that.
She can’t say she envies him. At the same time, it’s nice that he has a goal he’s pursuing, a purpose. One of them has to be a worthwhile prodigy.
Futaba focuses on her laptop, and an incoming message sounds a notification. It’s a video link from Kana, no explanation. She can only guess what it might be; Kana has a penchant for finding anything from cute cat videos to the weirdest of weird multiple part conspiracy theories.
Even with that, she’ll never know one of the greatest conspiracies, sitting right across from her on their private chat.
Maybe never knowing is an exaggeration. There’s a lot they still haven’t talked about. Namely, the kind of obvious dance they do when they praise or compliment each other, messaging for hours and making dumb jokes. Then again, it might seem obvious, but she isn't that much of a genius when it comes to social interaction. It could be obvious, in a sense, but from what she knows, friendships between girls often skew to overly affectionate gestures. As much as she hopes otherwise... she doesn’t want to get caught up in a misunderstanding.
Futaba glances at the time, figuring she still has plenty left before anyone arrives home. It’s risky, but when did that ever stop her before.
futaba 15:32
voice call when you get home?
Even that offer is a bit out there, let alone her brain suggesting a video call, which- no. Not happening. She’d rather hop on a 3 hour train ride to Kyoto than go through that. It doesn’t matter what technology she has, or if she changes into more than sweats and the t-shirt she slept in, or brushes her hair. The camera, like operating on some kind of cruel magic, always makes her look like an even more washed-out version of herself.
Also, she’d probably have to open the curtains.
Futaba’s already cycled through an internal rant, and started mounting inane worries, when Kana’s reply comes in.
kana 15:40
sure!! almost there
ε=ε=┏( >_<)┛
Futaba huffs a laugh. She was expecting an alien emoji or something, which is getting to be Kana’s brand. This is cuter, though, and she takes the chance to get up for a small bag of snacks.
Sitting down, there’s another message waiting for her, and she moves her headphones to cover her ears. After another few moments of Kana settling in at home, Futaba presses the button to start their call.
“Hello? Are you there, heeey, Futabaa-”
“It’s working,” Futaba cuts in, because Kana could and would do that all night. The grin in her voice is easy to sense as she laughs.
“Sorry, sorry. Oh, and another sorry, I have some stuff to work on, so we can’t talk for too long tonight.” Not that it stopped her before.
“Ah, really. That sucks,” Futaba says, taking a chip out to crunch it.
“Why’re you so monotone? Have some sympathy, I’m drowning,” she whines, but she doesn’t sound serious in the least. “Anyways, how’s things there? Why the sudden call, is anything up?”
Futaba shakes her head out of habit.
“Nah, I just have the place to myself for once. Not even Morgana- I mean, even the cat is gone. Akira probably took him to the vet. Or he’s roaming outside,” she backtracks. It wouldn’t make sense that Morgana counts as another ‘person’. She considers her next words, somewhat of a leap compared to writing words out in text.
“Also, it’s nice to hear your voice.”
The words leap out of her mouth before she can stop them. Thankfully, what follows is Kana’s light laugh.
“Everyone’s out, is the problem that you just want some company?” She teases, even though she’s almost nailing it. “We don’t have to be talking the whole time. I can do homework and stay on call. D’ya got anything of your own to work on?”
Futaba glances to another window open in the background, full of code she still needs to get through.
“Mm, kinda.”
“Well, there you have it. It’s a plan.”
So easily, Kana pulls her over into a space of comfort, more than the silence and darkness of the near-vacant apartment. Futaba clicks over to the work she’s been putting off so that she can’t get too carried away, a distraction as Kana starts on what seems to be math.
They’re focused for most of an hour before they get sidetracked talking about a new game that just came out. Kana’s enthusiastic about the surface animation and design as befitting her major, while Futaba’s already laughing at glitches she’d managed to find.
In the middle of listening to Kana’s gushing about the varied monster designs and their movements, she boots up the game. It's better to refresh her memory on some of what she’s talking about. Though she can remember the base designs well enough, the way Kana analyzes it is leagues apart from her own understanding, and Futaba smiles at the thought of how much her and Yusuke would love going on some art philosophy rant together.
No sooner after she thinks that, does she feel something steady drop on her head.
Out of reflex, she tosses an arm out to deflect whatever is suddenly in her space. It ends up connecting to something- another arm, in fact, and when her eyes finally focus, there’s Yusuke, standing with a drink can in the hand that Futaba just threw an attack at.
Futaba yells in surprise, and now Kana’s voice is out of focus, worried, while Yusuke only wears mild surprise on his face.
“D-d-don’t scare me like that!”
“Well, you weren’t responding when I called out your name. Akira brought this home for you.” He gestures the can towards her.
“Akira? What, when?”
Coming further back to her surroundings, she realizes that she’d completely missed lights being turned on in the entrance and kitchen, a few bags of groceries now populating the counter. Kana’s still asking what’s wrong in the distance.
“We spent the day together and purchased groceries on the way home. Though, he has work tonight, and so he’s getting ready to leave,” Yusuke explains, setting the drink on the coffee table.
As he turns back for the kitchen to empty the remaining bags, Futaba turns back to her laptop and friend. She hopes Yusuke doesn’t care enough about who she’s talking to.
“Hey, can I call back in a bit? People’re here now,” she mumbles out fast.
“Oh, yeah, it’s cool!” Kana answers. “Whenever is fine. I’ll definitely be here. I mean, unless I fall asleep, then, you might not be able to count on it, but otherwise.”
They share another laugh before Futaba hits the end call button, and puts everything to the side. She’s just in time, because when she stands up to join Yusuke, out comes Akira, dressed up in a business-y looking outfit. It’s just a white dress shirt and plain black pants, really, but Akira isn’t too flashy when it comes to clothes.
“My apologies if our coming home interrupted your conversation,” Yusuke starts, and she should’ve known better than to hope he’d just ignore it.
“I thought she was playing a game?” Akira asks, walking past them to reach for the coffee pot. It’s already past 5pm.
“Yeah, I was, an online multiplayer thing,” she lies, grabbing a package of tofu. She can feel Yusuke’s eyes on her.
“Ah, I see. Pardon my assumption,” he says. It isn’t like Kana's a secret, but… the less they know, the less they can figure out and hover around even more.
“Technically, it’s still a conversation. And you keep apologizing, what’s up with that,” she prods, opening the fridge to toss the tofu in. The inside is mostly bare, aside from less than half a jug of some iced tea, so it barely matters aside from the thud it makes landing on the shelf.
“I’m simply being considerate. Perhaps you could do the same for these eggs,” he says, holding out a carton. She stares at it.
“I dunno. I’m already pretty tired from my other hard work,” she shoots back, and Akira sighs behind them. He’d already finished washing the pot out and putting coffee grounds into the machine, so now he’s just standing, arms crossed in their direction while he waits for his drug of choice. Even like that, he’s smiling fondly.
“You can even make putting groceries away exciting, huh,” he comments. Futaba doesn’t get how he manages to look both fond and smug, but he does, and what’s annoying is she can’t even be mad.
“Exciting is one way to describe it,” Yusuke responds, predictably neutral with an undercurrent of sarcasm.
As much as she finds enjoyment in bugging him, she isn’t going to ruin perfectly good food to do it, so she yields and takes the eggs, placing them gently in the fridge.
“Would it be too much to ask you to put away the other frozen and refrigerated items, while I deal with the rest?” Yusuke asks, and she fakes deliberation.
“When you put it like that… yeah, it would,” she answers.
“Hm, that’s unfortunate. It seems I won’t be able to cook dinner for us, then.”
“And that would be…?” He’s really terrible at this. That kind of threat would only matter if, first, either of them had decent eating habits, second, Futaba couldn’t just order something herself, and lastly, he was actually capable of going through with it.
“A secret answer for you to unlock once you’ve finished the mission, probably,” Akira butts in while reaching to grab a travel mug, his coffee now finished.
“Of course… fine, I’ll do it.”
Despite all their minor issues, when they actually have time and ingredients available, one of their favourite things to do is cook dinner together and sit down. A real family affair. Or at least, Akira and Yusuke make dinner, while Futaba sets the table, then cleans up after. Morgana would help too if he wasn’t cursed to shed fur.
Speaking of which, she hadn’t heard him piping up during all of this. He’s still not back, and meanwhile she finishes with putting stuff away, the bother to keep teasing Yusuke not worth it. That doesn’t stop their light bickering, Futaba offended when he exerts his tallness over her to put away something up high in a cupboard.
After Yusuke puts together a quick snack for Akira to take on the road, he’s off, bag and coffee in hand. Futaba makes a face at their embarrassing lovey-dovey couple farewell. Honestly, is it really necessary to kiss every time?
Dumb romantic saps aside, the small pit of worry for Morgana is still quietly building in her stomach. The worry dissipates easily not long after Akira’s departure when there’s a noise at the front door, and she opens it to find Morgana completely fine, aside from being slightly dirty with grass and bits of dead leaves in his fur.
“Do you want to know what happened to me today? The worst thing ever!” He starts, running inside, but soon enough gets sidetracked cleaning at his fur.
“Uh, lemme guess... You died?” Futaba asks. She’s his only audience, while Yusuke concentrates on dinner in the kitchen. His focus on cooking is near the same as with painting, and she's glad they can count on him. Just because she can memorize a recipe doesn't mean she's any good at executing it.
“I could’ve! Some neighbourhood kids captured me with catnip…” He explains, slumping over in apparent exhaustion. Futaba crouches and brushes her hand over him, catching some more bits of leaf.
“So embarrassing…”
“I’m impressed you escaped,” she says, rubbing at his cheeks now.
“Ow! Why can’t you have some sympathy? I could’ve been abducted for real!” Futaba smiles at him, wondering why that sounds familiar.
“Well, you’re clever, you wouldn’t have stayed kidnapped forever.”
The next moment it hits her- Kana.
“True… also Yusuke is cooking, isn’t he? Did they pick up some food? Is there anything special for me?” He asks, already moving on to mumble about fatty tuna, and eel, and a whole list of other seafood before she just tunes him out.
She’s glad she doesn’t have to hear him whine about her abandoning him in his time of need. Thankfully, Yusuke already seems to be on his way to finishing dinner, her attention suddenly distracted by the notion of food and a now growling stomach.
As they eat in relative, comfortable silence, her mind wanders back to Kana.
She probably can’t call again until later on, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still message to continue their conversation about cool monster designs.
After they're done eating and cleaning up, she flops on the couch with her phone. Hesitating, it takes a moment for her to open their usual chat app, just in time to see how Kana apparently forgot about work and ended up playing with makeup, and glitter, and whatever else in the bathroom. The result is a selfie, sent specially to her.
Another thing she’s glad about is how Akira isn’t here to be perceptive and ask about the smile she can't keep off her face. It's probably painfully obvious, different from when she’s laughing at some general internet meme. She doesn’t know if his relationship with Yusuke made him any more knowledgeable about that stuff, but even with that, he gets her, sometimes better than she knows herself. He hadn’t said anything outright, but he probably already knew she was talking with Kana. She didn’t want to give him too much credit, and asking would definitely sell her out, but she wouldn’t be surprised if he’d already sensed her crush.
Grudgingly, she has to admit Yusuke also understands her a fair bit, but he can be… slow on the uptake. Also, that kind of conversation is already awkward enough without adding his intricacies into the mix.
Someday, sooner or later, when she feels more sure of herself… Then, definitely, she’ll summon the courage to set out, whether for her brother’s help or Kana herself. Of all the challenges in her life, this is the most exhilarating.
Boarding a Kyoto-bound bullet train can’t be any more difficult than facing the whole world and a god, after all.