Work Text:
[Yeah, I’m pretty sure he likes red velvet, but I think he’d be happy with whatever you make for him.]
Rantaro glances down at his cell phone one more time before sighing and tucking it into his pocket. He’ll respond later, of course, but he’s a bit busy right now. It’s pretty rude to be on his phone in the middle of a grocery store, so he’ll have to answer Kaede’s text when he’s not obstructing the flow of traffic. He chances a quick look at his grocery basket, noting that all he’s really grabbed so far has been a carton of eggs, and purses his lips momentarily before heading to the baking aisle.
It isn’t that Hope’s Peak doesn’t have the proper materials to make a cake, but last time he used the dining hall kitchen, he and Mukuro ended up having a bit of a flour fight, and they made a really big mess, and the faculty didn’t ban them, but… it was pretty obvious how tired Headmaster Kirigiri was when he walked into the kitchen to get more coffee for the pot in his office. Of course, Rantaro doesn’t think that’s going to happen again, since he’s making the cake alone this time, and he doesn’t particularly like having flour fights with himself (they’re lame; he always loses since his opponent always knows what he’s going to do next) but he’d rather just stay out of that kitchen for now.
Thankfully, it’s Saturday, and Saturday classes aren’t that important, so he’s just skipping in order to use his kitchen at home. Slightly less nice, on that note, though, is the fact that he’s missing the entire first half of Shuichi’s birthday, which is exactly what he’s skipping class to do something for. Shuichi probably won’t mind, at least, not when he finds out what Rantaro’s intending to do, but he’s a bit nervous about the potential for a miscommunication in that area.
He’s got Kaede playing defense, though, trying to distract Shuichi from figuring out why Rantaro is gone, so things should be fine. Kaede is very supportive.
Rantaro knows that red velvet is a little more complicated than just making chocolate cake with red food dye. Despite what he said to himself that he’d do a few moments earlier, he moves closer to the wall and shifts his basket to rest in his elbow as he pulls out his phone again, typing in how to make red velvet cake on Google and waiting for his phone to load. As he scans over the ingredients, he finds that everything seems pretty normal, except for the addition of vinegar to the batter. It’s extremely strange but if that’s what the recipe calls for then he’d better stay on the safe side and not take it out. He’s never tasted anything sour before in the times that he’s had red velvet, so he imagines he’ll just have to be careful. It’s probably there for a good reason.
After making a list of all the things he’ll need to grab, Rantaro heads back into the grocery store. Most of the items, as he thought earlier, are pretty much a given for making cake. He’ll have to get a little fancy with the frosting, since red velvet is usually made with a cream cheese frosting, and he hasn’t baked in a while, save for that time recently with Mukuro, but he has plenty of time for trial and error before he’s going to come back to the school grounds and deliver the cake. He’s pretty sure everyone else is planning something for Shuichi’s birthday, like a surprise party, or something, and he could join them, but… well, he’d like this to be special, is all. They’ve been dating for a while now, since they were first years, and… it’s kind of weird to think about, actually, he’ll save it for when he’s actually talking to Shuichi later.
Dutifully, Rantaro loads his basket with all of the items listed on the recipe, as well as a few spices he usually likes to add into his cakes for flavour. He’s not surprised that the ingredient list calls for coffee, since red velvet is chocolate based, the acidity in the coffee will help enhance the flavour, but he’s still so thrown off by the vinegar. Whatever. He’ll Google why they put vinegar in it when he gets home.
After checking out and leaving the restaurant, Rantaro contemplates hopping on the subway or renting a bike to get home with all of his groceries. He doesn’t mind walking, but he only has so much time and when he walks places he tends to get distracted. Recently, he’s had Shuichi with him to keep him on track, but at the moment he’s sort of going alone. Which is understandable, given that he’s, y’know, trying to surprise his boyfriend.
An additional brief moment of deliberation later, Rantaro decides to take a bike. That way he doesn’t have to worry about holding his groceries on the crowded subway and being that guy. He scans the code and all that and plops his groceries in the basket in front before swinging a leg around and sitting lightly on the seat. The bike does a pleasant little jingle as it unlocks and he kicks up the stopper to start on his way. The majority of the bike-ride is peaceful and quiet- at least, as peaceful and quiet as it can get in Tokyo on a Saturday. The sounds of cars and people still fill the area, but even though Rantaro much prefers the peaceful quiet of some of the other places he’s traveled to, he’s used to the hustle and bustle of the city. He likes it, actually.
As he goes past the middle school near his place, he glances at the building and smiles slightly. He didn’t go there, because prior to being invited to Hope’s Peak he didn’t actually do regular schooling, but one of his younger sisters, Kei, went there for a while before she got lost. (Rantaro tries not to think about it.) He turns his head back in front of him, and just in time, too, because there’s a girl standing direction in his path. Yikes, Rantaro thinks, and squeezes the break on the handlebars, but it’s still not enough to stop him before hitting her so he turns the bike last minute and crashes into the fence on her right.
The bike falls on its side, but since the fence is there to catch him, Rantaro ends up more uncomfortable than actually injured. He manages to pull himself up and catch his groceries before they tumble out… except for his eggs, which, with his luck, fall out of the bag and crack on the pavement.
“Darn,” Rantaro comments, but lightly, because the girl has turned around by now, and is currently staring at him with wide, guilty eyes.
“Oh my god, was I in your way?” The girl, or perhaps, not a girl, has a lower voice than Rantaro was expecting. Her (Their?) hair is brown and rather short. He believes that the hairstyle is called a pixie cut. They’re wearing a school uniform, but it’s a boy’s uniform, and it’s just… hard to tell, he supposes. They’re a lot more androgynous at second glance. “I’m sorry,” they add quietly, looking at the eggs on the ground. “I didn’t even hear you coming.”
“No worries,” Rantaro dismisses, kicking down the stopper and righting the bike again temporarily to deal with the eggs situation. There will probably be some back at his house, but this is a pretty big mess and he should take care of it. “These bikes don’t have bells.” He smiles slightly, flicking one of the handlebars as though to prove his point. “I’m glad it was the eggs that ended up injured and not one of us.”
“...are you sure? Your head is kinda…” the teen (they’re probably a middle schooler, though notably too old to be anything other than a third year, so about as old as Rantaro’s sister Koharu) pauses, as though searching for the right word. “...scratched?” To emphasise their point, they drag one of their fingers over a small spot on their forehead, right next to their left temple. They’re probably mirroring the scratch, so it’s with his right hand that Rantaro reaches up and feels the area that they indicated. His finger comes away slightly bloody, but not too bad.
“This is nothing,” he assures. “I fell out of a tree once when I was fourteen and broke both my arms. You don’t know embarrassment until you’re the kid in class with two casts.” Why is he talking like this? They’re probably not even two years younger than him. (They’re laughing, though, so that’s pretty cool. Even if it’s a bit of a lie, since he wasn’t in formal schooling when he was fourteen.) “Do you know where I could get some paper towels to clean up the egg situation here?”
“Oh! I’ll get them for you!” They beam, and Rantaro remarks to himself that their eyes are a clear grey-brown, almost hazel. Their eyes definitely look brighter when they smile. “You should stay here in case someone steals your stuff. I’ll be right back!” Without waiting for a response, they turn and run towards the school. With nothing else to do, Rantaro leans against the fence and watches their form disappear into the building. They move pretty fast, though, because moments later they burst out from the school again with a roll of paper towels in their hands.
When they return, Rantaro takes the roll from them. “Thanks,” he smiles, and they smile back, apparently a bit breathless. As he starts to clean up the eggs, they speak again.
“Uhm, so, is that a Hope’s Peak Academy uniform?” They ask delicately, and Rantaro nods his head, shooting them a quick wry smile. Of course they’d be curious about it, the uniform is pretty universally recognised by people in Japan. He wouldn’t even be wearing it today, but most of his other clothes right now are in the wash since he and Shuichi just recently returned from a trip. (This one was to Bermuda, but of course their search yielded no results.) “Do you guys not have classes on Saturdays?” They inquire.
“Oh, we do.” Rantaro gets a handful of eggshells with the paper towel as a shield and scrunches his nose at it, rising to his feet and moving over to a nearby carbage can. “I’m just, y’know, skipping,” he then adds, casually, “which is a pretty bad idea so you probably shouldn’t be doing it, if that’s what you’re doing.”
“I’m not skipping!” They protest, eyes wide and concerned. “I’m just-” they flounder for the proper thing to say. “Uhm, it’s, a bit complicated.”
“Don’t worry, I was just teasing.” Rantaro tells them, and they visibly relax, perhaps glad to see that he’s not chastising them. He supposes that’s understandable, considering that he’s a high school student, and all, and they’re in middle school. After a moment, he adds, “You seemed pretty lost in thought there. I don’t want to be weird or nosy since I’m a stranger and all, but is everything alright?”
They consider his question, which he appreciates. It seems they’re a pretty thoughtful person. “I’m just a little conflicted right now.” They tell him, then take a length of the paper towels to bend over and start cleaning up pieces of broken shell in tandem with him. “Like I said, it’s complicated,” they smile a bit, in a self-deprecating way that’s not entirely unfamiliar to Rantaro. “But most things are, I guess.”
“That doesn’t mean this isn’t worthy of some conflict.” Rantaro muses, picking up the three eggs that survived the wreckage and wondering how he’s going to manage to bring them home with him in one piece. “Do you need advice figuring it out?”
“...I mean, probably,” they shrug. “I wouldn’t want to trouble you when I don’t even know your name, though.”
“Rantaro,” Rantaro responds, which they really should’ve expected, saying something like that, but they widen their eyes again anyway, and he smiles at them. “And yours?”
“Uhm, Miyo. Actually, it’s, Miyoko, but I like Miyo more. I think it’s- a better name, for me.” With a name like Miyoko, Rantaro has no idea how he’s going to figure out their pronouns with context clues. But based on that it’s not impossible that they’re non-binary or genderneutral, so he supposes he’ll just ask at some point. Later, though. “And, as for my, uh, situation, it’s not even anything that bad, I’m just kind of confused. Because- well, okay. My family is going to be moving to North America in a couple years, when I’d be going into my second year of high school. Canada, I think, but they haven’t told me the name of the city yet.” They explain quickly.
“Moving is hard,” Rantaro tells them. “It’s not bad to feel a bit worried about that.”
“I’m not exactly worried about moving to Canada or anything, I think I’m pretty good at English and I do want to see the world, it’s just the timing is so awkward, and my parents gave me a choice knowing that, which is pretty much the worst possible thing they could do for me.” Miyo elaborates further, and Rantaro waits for them to specify what choice their parents gave them. “So, I could either, uhm, enroll in high school and do my first year in Japan, but then move and leave all my potential new friends and teachers and do a completely different curriculum in America, or I could just take a gap year sort of thing this next year, and risk being super behind on the learning and being way older than all the other kids in my class when we move to Canada.” They pause. “I’d just take the first year of high school, but the emotional upheaval sounds… rough.”
“Huh.” Rantaro considers their words, deciding to just rip off the parts of the carton that are wet and use the rest of it to hold the three remaining eggs. “I don’t know what I’d do in your situation, but are there any other downsides to taking your first year of high school here?”
“I mean, I guess not.” Miyo shrugs. “I don’t know. It sounds like a bit too much to go to a school and like people only to leave the next year.” They pause, then, “I’m not sure what I’d even do if I took a gap year, though.”
“I know it’s cliche, but have you ever heard the saying, it’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all?” Miyo nods, giving Rantaro a flat look, and he chuckles but continues. “If you took a gap year, you would definitely be losing the opportunity to meet the new people who you’d meet if you took that one year of high school, right? Maybe it’s better to take the risk. Though,” he adds, because he feels he ought to, “it would also make sense to choose the other option.”
“It wouldn’t, really,” Miyo calls his bluff. “I’d just be sitting around for a year because I’m worried about making new friends and losing them.” They dump all the remaining garbage into the bin and stand up, dusting off their hands on their pants. “But the nature of existence is losing and gaining, right?” They’re a lot more confident than they were at the beginning of the conversation. Perhaps they’re more comfortable now after talking a bit. “I think I was always going to choose to do a year here, I just wasn’t ready to confront what that meant.” They smile again. “You’re a nice person, Rantaro. Most people wouldn’t listen to someone vent when they just met them.”
“Don’t sweat it,” Rantaro smiles. “You remind me of my younger sister, is all.”
“Do you live around here?” Miyo asks with raised eyebrows, looking over their shoulder at their school and then back at Rantaro. “Maybe I have some classes with her.”
“You might’ve, at one point,” Rantaro blurts, then wonders why. He supposes he’s being honest because their show of comfort with their vulnerability is making him feel a bit more comfortable with it. He’s sure it’s not going to happen again, and he’ll probably never even see Miyo again, so there’s no use feeling icky about it, it’s just kind of… strange. “Sorry, that’s- a weirdly vague and cryptic thing to say.”
“No! I mean, yeah, it’s super weird and cryptic but I’m sorry anyway, I hope she’s not, uhm, passed away, or anything,” Miyo begins, and Rantaro shakes his head.
“No, just- she’s-” he wonders why he suddenly has verbal diarrhea. “Missing…?” Oh, there it goes. “I’m looking for her, though, so… it’s under control.”
“Does she have green hair like you?” Miyo questions. “I could keep an eye out.”
“She wasn’t lost in Japan,” he explains, and that’s true of all his sisters, so he doesn’t have to elaborate on that. “And um-” who is he talking about? Maybe Koharu, since Miyo is around her age? Three of his sisters do have green hair, but not all of them. “No? Yes? I have multiple lost sisters.”
“Ah, I see.” Miyo nods, as though that’s perfectly normal. “I’ll keep one eye peeled, then. I’m going out of the country in a while, after all.” They smile a bit. “I don’t know much about rich people or Hope’s Peak, but you’re like, the heir to the Amami family, right? They have a lot of daughters.”
“Yeah, that’s me.” Rantaro nods his head.
“Cool! I’ll keep an eye open and if I see anything I’ll just Google your phone number.” Miyo grins, and before Rantaro can say that that’s probably a pretty bad means of reaching out to him, they turn and start to head back towards the school. “I should get back to class, thanks for talking to me. Also, you should really take care of that scratch on your head.” Rantaro feels his forehead again, suddenly remembering that the scratch is there. “And you got ingredients for red velvet, right? That’s what it seemed like. You don’t need red food colouring for it if you don’t want it, the combination of the vinegar and the buttermilk will turn it a nice maroon colour minute the taste of food dye.” They shrug. “Just a suggestion, though.”
“Oh, thank you!” Rantaro calls out. He supposes that’s why the vinegar is here, then. Good to know. “I appreciate it.” He smiles, and Miyo smiles back, then turns and runs back to the school. When they disappear into the school building, he realises they left him with the roll of paper towels, and he didn’t get to ask for their pronouns.
In the future, then.
Later, when Rantaro’s finished the cake and is waiting for it in the oven, he finally gets around to answering Kaede’s text.
[i’m almost done with the cake, how’s the celebration going?]
Kaede responds almost immediately, which makes Rantaro feel bad for leaving her waiting for so long.
[You’re such a slow baker lol Mukuro wasn’t exaggerating]
[you can’t rush perfection. also mukuro is a bully and doesn’t even know how to bake so >:(]
[Lmao, anyway, we’re almost done but Shuichi is definitely wondering where you are. He’s too nice to say anything about it though. Kokichi is being salty so you should hurry]
[i’ll be there soon]
[You’d better have a really great present to make up for making Shuichi worry that you forgot or left on his birthday…]
[NO ILL CRY IF HE THINKS THAT ILL CRY PLEAS E TELL HIM THATS NOT WHATS HAPPENINDFSBHD]
[Haha, I’m just teasing. See you soon.]
[you’re going to burn in hell.]
Rantaro puts away his phone. He hopes Shuichi likes his birthday present- he found this pretty matching set of earrings while they were in Ho Chi Minh City (eating banh mi, of course) and had to undergo many machinations in order to discreetly purchase it but he’s pretty happy with it. He bought some other things just in case, but he doubts he’ll have to use them, because Shuichi’s pretty stubborn about enjoying the gifts he gives. It’s adorable but also makes it hard to tell if the detective is genuinely pleased or just not willing to admit that he could possibly dislike anything Rantaro gives him.
Boy, he’s really a goner with this one.