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“Hey, why do your parents own handcuffs?” Mitsuba’s voice was muffled behind boxes on the other side of the room. Kou hadn’t planned on letting him snoop through his attic, but he had forgotten he was tasked with cleaning it before he had invited Mitsuba over.
“Eh? It’s probably just a toy from when I was younger.” Kou dismissed, continuing to absentmindedly rifle through a box of old comic books.
Mitsuba lifted them up out of the box, shaking them around. The metal clanged against itself. “Dude, it’s not plastic or anything. These look real. C’mon, hold them.” He clambered around and over the various things littering the wooden floor and towards Kou.
He dropped the cuffs in his hand without warning, causing Kou to drop them in surprise. They made a loud noise when they hit the ground. “Don’t just drop heavy things into my hands!” He hissed, picking them up and observing. The handcuffs had a slight rust on them, but otherwise looked like they were in pretty good condition.
“What? Are you really that weak?”
Kou scoffed. “You literally cry every gym day, I don’t want to hear you say shit.”
Mitsuba prickled and snatched the handcuffs back from the blond boy. “I guess the Minamotos really are a bunch of perverts,”
This time, it was Kou’s turn to prickle. “Huh? What do you mean?”
“I mean, what else could these handcuffs have been used for other than pervy things? No one in your family works in law enforcement, right?” Mitsuba was smirking.
“Ew! Gross! These are my parents you’re talking about!” Kou smacked him on the arm, face scrunching in disgust.
As Kou receded his arm from the smack, Mitsuba grabbed his wrist and slid one side of the cuffs on it. The other he cuffed to his own wrist. To his surprise, it locked with a click. “Hey, what the hell?” Kou whined, tugging in an attempt to escape.
“Ow! Stop doing that, you’re gonna cut my hand off!” Mitsuba complained. “I didn’t think they would actually lock…”
Kou sighed. “It’s fine. The key is probably in the box you found it in.” He stood up abruptly, pulling on Mitsuba’s arm harshly and causing him to wince again. He glared at Kou and stuck his tongue out as he rose to his feet slowly, desperately trying to rub the hurting spot underneath the metal cuffs.
“Lead the way,” Kou said, gesturing forward with his cuffed hand, forcing the grumpy pink-haired boy’s hand up along with his. He grumbled as he carefully made his way back over to where he had found those damned things.
The box had only a few other things in it, but they were obviously not a key. Kou took everything out, but alas, his way of escape was nowhere to be found. Mitsuba gawked at the pile of stuff not containing the key and the empty box. “Did you hide it or something so you could finally take advantage of little, cute me? This isn’t funny, you p-”
Kou tugged on the chain in an attempt to shut him up, but that just riled him up further. “Ugh, can you quit being a masochist and just do something!”
“What am I to do, idiot? If anything, you’re hiding the key! Who was the one who discovered the handcuffs in the first place, hm?”
Mitsuba glared at him. “I know it’s hard for a cretin like you to understand, but you are probably the last person on Earth anyone would ever want to be chained to.”
“You put the cuffs on!” Kou protested. “Also, this cretin happens to be your boyfriend, thank you very much.”
“I didn’t think they would actually lock! And don’t remind me, eugh.”
“Just look at where that assumption left us!”
“Do you think I have knowledge of how handcuffs function? Assumptions are all I have.” Mitsuba huffed, desperately beginning to scavenge through the surrounding boxes for the key.
Kou grabbed Mitsuba’s shoulder with his free hand. “Those boxes are already sorted, quit screwing it up!”
“Who the fuck cares about that? I’m currently handcuffed to the biggest pain in the ass since Yugi Tsukasa with no apparent means of escape!”
“Chill, let’s just wait until my parents get home and we can question them about the whereabouts of the key.”
Mitsuba didn’t stop his searching, despite the hand on his shoulder trying to tug him away from the mess he was creating. “And how long is that going to be?”
He took his hand off the other’s shoulder for a minute to reach into his pocket and pull out his phone. Kou sighed at the time displayed on the lockscreen when he pressed the home button. “...Four hours.”
“For real?! God, just write my obituary now!”
Kou pouted. “It’s not that bad, y’know. Let’s just get out of the attic and try to get comfortable.”
“I’ll be most comfortable at least six feet away from you."
Deciding to ignore his snide remarks, Kou leaped to his feet, forcing Mitsuba up in the process, who continued to bitch and moan about their predicament. He started to drag Mitsuba down the stairs.
Too preoccupied with a complaining boyfriend to remember to duck in the small staircase, Kou’s head hit the edge of the ceiling. He fell backward onto Mitsuba and tumbled the rest of the short way down the stairs. He sucked in a pained breath as his wrist twisted in its confines. Mitsuba ended up half on top of him, moaning in pain.
“I can’t stand you, you big, perverted oaf!” He wailed. “I’ll be genuinely surprised if I exit this house in one piece.”
Kou grumbled under his breath as he unsteadily got up, most likely mocking Mitsuba. “Let’s just relax on the couch or something. Teru-nii is gonna come home a bit before my parents, so maybe he can help us.”
“Can’t you call them or something?” Came Mitsuba’s complaint as they approached Kou’s living room. They crashed down on the soft beige couch with the pink-haired boy edging as far away from Kou as he possibly could without leaving an uncomfortable strain on his wrist.
“I’m only supposed to call them when they’re at work for emergencies,” Kou explained.
“This is an emergency!”
“Unless you’re dying, I wouldn’t classify it as so.”
“I feel like I’m dying, though,” Mitsuba protested, head lolling to rest on his own shoulder.
The blond rolled his eyes. “At least you’re not the one who hit his head.”
Kou couldn’t see Mitsuba’s face, but he could just tell it was scrunched up in unamusement. “That was your own fault, you knew you should’ve ducked.”
“Maybe I would’ve been paying attention if you had stopped whining!”
Mitsuba simply responded with a groan, throwing his head back in exasperation.
-
When Teru stepped through the front door and closed it behind him, he expected to be met with the sound of his younger brother and his girly companion screaming at each other over video games.
However, it was dead silent.
Narrowing his eyes, he crept into his kitchen and to his living room. The television was off.
Looking down at the couch, he spotted a pink head of hair poking up. Rounding the corner of the couch, the two boys were pressed against each other. Kou’s body was slouched and leaned against Mitsuba’s, head resting against his shoulder.
After snapping a picture for blackmail, he noticed their hands. A shiny light gray connected them. He carefully kneeled in front of them to get a closer look and upon further inspection, they appeared to be handcuffed.
In specific, they were handcuffed by an accessory he had used for a Halloween costume years ago.
The keyhole to them was fake, for safety reasons. Instead, they were locked and unlocked using a tiny button just below the fake keyhole. Teru gingerly reached a hand over to press the button.
The cuffs pulled themselves open. He gathered them in his hands, noticing the pink rings around both of their wrists. How long were they on? Teru shook his head, laughing as he walked away from the snoozing boys.
Later, they would wake up to the smell of Teru miserably failing to cook dinner, as the resident chef of the house was still asleep. They both sprinted into the kitchen to see the older guy opening up a window to let the ridiculous amount of smoke he created escape.
“Wait, where’d the cuffs go?” Mitsuba cried, eyeing his very much free arm.
“Oh, you mean those fake handcuffs?” Teru asked nonchalantly, taking off his oven mitt to fan at the air with it. “They’re simply unlocked with a press of a button, you know that, right?”
Teru couldn’t hold back his snickers as they both exclaimed, “What?!”