Chapter Text
“The Chilling Mystery of the Misaki Stairs”
Amane grinned, the expression a very particular flavor of smug that had pulled a many flustered expression from her countless times, “So what’re we covering today, Ya~shi~ro~?”
His tongue seemed to taste every syllable of her name and that alone was enough to bring a deep flush over her face and honestly? Truly? It was unfair and Nene had mere seconds to decide on a course of action.
She decided on ignoring him.
Nene looked at the camera and the camera alone, ignoring Mitsuba’s fake gagging from behind the lens, “Hello and welcome back to Kamome: Unsolved! I’m your host Nene Yashiro, here with my schoolmate—”
Mitsuba let out a loud snort, “Demoted to schoolmate—”
“Cameramen are supposed to be quiet aren’t they?” Amane chirped, eyes wide and – debatably – soulless, his grin melting into something a little less explicitly friendly. Mitsuba squeaked and the camera shook minutely at whatever he was doing behind the camera.
Nene soldiered on, bravely, beautifully, “— And today we’re covering one of Kamome Academy’s Seven Wonders!”
“Oh?” Amane prompted, draping his torso over the desk, and a peek from the corner of Nene’s eyes saw that he pulled back the face he usually wore to tease her, “I thought you didn’t want to go messing with the Wonders?”
“Well,” Nene started, fingers twiddling together on the table, “Aoi-chan and I were talking the other day, and I wanted to go take a look…it seemed so romantic.”
She made a happy sigh, prompting Amane to exchange a somewhat bewildered stare with Mitsuba, “…What?”
“Radish-senpai…” Mitsuba started, leaning over to look at her from behind the camera, “That’s a pretty hardcore kink to show the internet, y’know? Our friends and families watch this show, Radish-senpai. I told them that it was a happy, fun, totally-not-breaking-and-entering mystery-trio thing, Radish-senpai. I mean, I support you, Horseradish-senpai, no kinkshaming, but—”
Nene squeaked, “What—?! What are you talking about?!”
Amane rested his chin on one hand, his elbow propped up on the table, “’When you step on the fourth steps of the Misaki stairs, you’ll be transported to another world where you’ll be torn to thousands of pieces.’ That’s the story for the Misaki stairs, Yashiro.”
“…’Romantic,’” Mitsubi repeated behind the camera, voice muffled behind his hand. His shoulder shook slightly.
Amane had the exact same smile on all-throughout the exchange, “Yashiro…” His sigh was fond, but also grating.
“Aoi-chan told me a different story!” Nene insisted, hair flying about as she turned to face Amane, “She said that if you and your love walk all the way up while holding hands, your love will be eternal! Just don’t step on the fourth step, or it’ll be destined to end!”
She worked herself up into standing, hands gesturing all about, finally slapping down on the table’s surface at the end.
“Senpai is right!” a new voiced boomed, and the camera swirled around to show Minamoto Kou at the door, posing dramatically as he usually did. His traffic-safety earring bobbed, “It’s the new rumor around the stairs! Satou told me so!”
“Kou-kun…” Nene smiled tearily, hands clasped in front of her.
Amane pouted beside her, “You’re late, kid.”
“Shit that earring gets lamer and lamer everytime,” Mitsuba muttered under his breath, even as Kou seemed to make every kind of noise possible while coming over. Considering they were filming at the Minamoto residence, he really was late.
“Wh— you’re barely a couple years older than me!” Kou spluttered.
“And that’s a couple years of existence I’ll always have on you.”
The usual bickering broke out, and Nene took one look at them and sighed. Which fooled no one, because anybody who ever looked at the scene could see the fondness intertwined with every breath. Mitsuba quirked a quiet smile from behind the camera, taking his phone out to make a quick snap of the scene, another one for the cloud storage that was already tearing at the seams to keep all 15 GB of everyone’s dumb antics inside. He named the folder ‘friendship is magic, and blackmail.’
“We’re totally off-track here!” Nene cried out eventually, making the boys halt in their tracks, “Kou-kun, you’re the expert, what should we do when we visit the Misaki stairs?”
Kou settled back down from climbing over the table to grab at Amane’s shirt, sitting down on the surface instead. He hummed, one hand curling under his chin, “Well, it’s supposed to work at any time of day, so I guess we could go after classes? There’s usually less people and we don’t have club tomorrow, right?”
“This is club for me,” Amane input, leaning around Kou to wave at the camera, and very conveniently leaning on Nene’s shoulder, “Yashiro, too.” Which was true, though she still stopped by the practice garden quite often.
“You should be grateful I quit photography club for this shitshow,” Mitsuba huffed.
“So we all just up and left our clubs to be on the show?” Kou said, blinking slowly.
Nene smiled happily, the flush spreading over her face giving her a lovely pink dusting, eyes shining, “You guys—T-Thank you…!”
Amane smiled at her, that rare, close-lipped smile that seemed to give warmth to his entire face. Kou rubbed at the back of his neck, giving her a thumbs-up and Mitsuba blew a raspberry at her from behind the camera.
And he was grinning, “My cute self is worth half the views, it’d just be pitiful to leave Radish-senpai like that.”
“Pfft.”
“Who said that?!” Mitsuba abandoned his station and promptly went off to be offended in front of the camera instead, “Just because you have shit taste…!”
“You are cute,” Kou relented, “But ‘half the views cute’ is a little…”
“Impossible,” Amane happily interjected, “It was me.”
Nene left the table when the third shrieking match that day started. She went over to the camera, the video shaking just a bit with every step without Mitsuba holding it. She smiled into the lens while the boys started throwing pillows at each other in the background, “We’ll come back when we get to the stairs, everyone!”
Before the camera could really be turned off, though, you could hear Nene murmur under her breath, “This is going to be a pain to edit.”
“That was a livestream, Radish-senpai.”
“LIVESTREAM?!”
“The Misaki stairs!” Nene gestured, hands spread out, “Now, we should start testing the rumor!”
Kour gave the camera two thumbs up, grin wide on his face. There was a staff on one hand, a talisman on the other, and his earring now said, “Protection.” Behind him, Amane was putting a finger to his chin and looking up at the stairs, “I brought a lot of the old stuff from the family storage, we’ll be safe, guys!”
“So, history—!” Nene started, hopping a bit on her toes, “They say that these stairs have been here even before this building! Like, back a hundred years!”
“There’ve been pictures,” Amane interjected easily, “Of an old school compound with these stairs at the entrance, with a statue at each side,” another undecipherable smile without any light, one finger slowly pointing at the bottom of the set of stairs, “And a teacher’s death at the bottom. An accident. Probably.”
“Maybe the teacher was Misaki?” Kou opined, doing his usual thinking pose, “Why tear students apart, though?”
“Could’ve been a student that did them in,” Mitsube threw in, “It would make sense.”
Nene frowned at that, “Or maybe the fourth step was just— slippery? Or old?”
Mitsuba hummed, “Sure, senpai.”
“Well, it’s a possibility,” Amane smiled, a boneless shrug to his shoulders, Kou nodding beside him.
Nene smiled at them, fingers wrangling together, and faced the stairs. She gave a small “yosh” under her breath, pumping her fists, “Okay, time to test the rumor!”
Kou cheered, waving his staff over his head.
“If you wanna get mauled into pieces, Radish-senpai, Traffic-earring, be my guest, but I’m staying right here.”
“But it says ‘protection’—”
Amane toed at the first step, and grinned at the camera over his shoulder, “Should I go first?”
“Here comes the money shot,” Mitsuba deadpanned and moved the camera to concentrate on Amane happily skipping up the stairs – one at a time.
“Ooooone~!”
“A-already?!”
“H-hey! Take a seal with you, atleast—!”
“Twoooo~!”
“A-Amane-kun!” Nene started to sprint at the stairs, Kou right behind her.
“I know you’re a skeptic but you should atleast be some kind of cautious, Amane!”
On the third step: “Hey demons, it’s me, ya boi!”
“This is why were goddamned memes half the time,” Mitsuba grumbled.
“Wait!” Nene caught up to Amane, her arms thrown around his middle. The words died in his throat, as Nene lost her balance, as he could see his hat fly off to the top of the stairs, and they both fell backwards.
Mitsuba took his phone out to dial their parents. His thumb hovered over the call button at the sound of groans.
“Amane-kun,” Nene chastised a little, sitting up. Amane did no such thing and was essentially still sprawled over her legs, “That was dangerous!”
“As opposed to falling down the stairs?” he asked, one hand pressed against his cheek.
Nene whimpered, fingers twiddling together, eyes shining, “I’m so sorry…”
Amane gave her a small smile from her lap, “I’m fine, it’s fine. That’s what Kou is here for, right?”
“You still didn’t get any talismans!” Kou exploded, hands thrown upwards, “Seriously, Amane!” He tugged the older boy upwards, until they both stood, “Supernatural stuff can be dangerous! We gotta be as careful as possible!”
“You said the rumor was around couples, didn’t you? It wouldn’t have worked if I was just the one there, right? I would’ve been fine,” Amane flicked at his earring.
Kou squinted at Amane, “Better safe than sorry.”
“Ghost-hunting show? What ghost-hunting show?” Mitsuba snorted, earning everyone’s attention, “We’re a goddamned FRIENDS drama.”
Amane snickered, “We can still call ourselves a ghost show so long as someone wants to go test the stairs.”
Head tilted backwards, he gave Mitsuba a narrow smile. Both Nene and Kou exchanged worried glances.
Mitsuba blanched.
“Why don’t you go?” Amane shoved Kou at Mitsuba with force they were all reminded he had, always did, and beamed, “Someone needs to go get my hat, anyways.”
Nene found herself inching towards the camera, a smile tugging at her lips. Kou seemed to fluster, hands waving every which way while Mitsuba whirled around on the spot to point an accusatory finger at Amane.
“Why me?!” Mitsuba demanded, “Forcing me in front of the camera to take advantage of my cuteness – I knew it! You liar! Jerk!”
“Simple!” Amane clapped, then turned to go ahead and drape himself over Nene, “You need it.”
Kou and Nene blinked at each other even as Mitsuba flushed to a truly alarming shade of red. The look on Amane’s face was a cross between satisfied and knowing.
“What?!”
Amane’s grin dripped with smug, leaning further on to Nene, “Noooothing~”
Nene rolled her eyes, steadying the camera with some difficulty considering the human barnacle attaching himself to her, “Just the stairs, you two! Be careful on the fourth step!”
Kou rubbed at the spot behind his ear. Whatever protest Mitsuba was about to make was silenced when the blonde held out his hand, “C’mon, let’s get it over with.”
“I—”
Mitsuba looked back towards Nene, towards Amane. Nene gave him a warm smile, and he could feel himself smile back, just a little. Summarily ruined when Amane stuck both his hands out to block their vision.
Mitsuba scoffed.
“Tch— fine! I haven’t made a real appearance in a while anyway. I’m sure the viewers miss my cute face.” He spun around, taking Kou’s hand with probably more roughness than needed, prompting a snort from Amane.
“Woah—!” Kou staggered in the wake of Mitsuba’s pace, but with each harried step, carrying them forward up and up and up and –
Oh.
Kou looked up as the sunset lit up behind Mitsuba, already at the top, hand outstretched back and linked with his. His eyes seemed to glow, softly, kindly. Beautiful.
Kou felt something in his throat bob at the sight.
And was promptly ruined by: “Listen, Kou, I know I’m cute but if you keep staring like that I’m gonna get creeped out.”
Amane burst into laughter at the bottom of the stairs, for some reason, almost scaring Nene out of her skin. She summarily dumped his butt on the floor in the process.
They went back downstairs, hat in tow, Nene meeting them at the bottom with a bright grin and sans Amane-barnacle, currently disposed of due to the lack of a cameraman, “So? How do you feel?”
Mitsuba and Kou looked at each other, and yet Kou couldn’t seem to hold the other’s gaze, “Pretty normal, honestly. Like…like usual.”
Mitsuba shrugged, hands going through his hair. He didn’t seem to want to look at Kou at all.
Kou’s smile felt wobbly on his face, and it slid off. He scratched at his cheek.
“Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be like?” Nene suggested, so innocently and sincerely that even Amane had to take a few minutes to process that.
“Huh?”
“Anyway!” she beamed, spinning around to face the camera even though the boys started to talk over each other in the background, voice clear over the cacophony of male, indignant squawking, “That was ‘The Misaki Stairs,’ everyone! I hope you enjoyed this episode! See you next time!”