Chapter Text
It starts with a phone call.
Well.
It doesn't exactly start, the way most things have beginnings. Instead, it feels like a continuation of something unresolved between them-- something taut and fraying, yet somehow still tethered, if only because they both share the quality of being too stubborn for their own good.
Case in point: Ramuda calls him on a Tuesday morning after months of silence. He asks that they meet in a café a few blocks from where Samatoki remembers Ramuda's apartment had been, and Samatoki feels a tugging sensation at his gut that tells him he ought to give in.
It's a strange set of affairs, the way that Samatoki has always felt about Ramuda's demands. On one hand, he hates being told what to do. On the other, he hasn't once been able to say no to Ramuda. He doesn't want understand it, the compulsion to obey someone who so intensely irritates him, but there's not much he can think about that before he accepts Ramuda's invitation.
They're to meet at 3:00 PM on Friday, Ramuda tells him before hanging up.
Samatoki growls. He's still too annoyed that he couldn't say no, and that annoyance fogs his mind up enough that it isn't until later that night that he realizes how Ramuda didn't sound like himself at all.
Here's the funny thing about that: Samatoki had immediately recognized his voice regardless.
It's a decidedly warm afternoon when they meet up, bright and sunny enough that rays of light catch Ramuda's hair. It's faded now, the pink dye, and the tips of it are no longer the cool lavender they'd once been and are instead a nice, complementary shade of minty blue. It makes sense that Ramuda's dressed in something thinner, but the fact that he's still wearing a sweater in a gaudy shade of neon orange amuses Samatoki somewhere at the back of his mind.
He hates to think it, but Ramuda looks nice. When his gaze lands on Ramuda's face, he even thinks Ramuda looks happy, and that's a thought he doesn't really hate.
"Well?" Ramuda says, voice higher than it had been over the phone. "Aren't you going to get anything?"
They're seated snuggly on the table right beside the window pane. Ramuda had arrived first. He's sipping on something blue and fruity looking, and he's looking up at Samatoki through what are most likely false lashes.
Samatoki grunts. "I'm not really into the shit this place sells."
Shifting on his seat, Ramuda makes a face. "Then let's get out of here."
That confuses Samatoki. "Hah? But didn't you want to talk?"
Ramuda smiles at him, and the way he does it is interesting, because back then Ramuda smiled brightly and blinding, like it was a spectacle that the whole world ought to see; now, his smile is small, almost shy, and almost secretive. Samatoki tries not to think too much on it.
"When did I ever say that?" There's an undercurrent of mischief in his tone, a sort of chaos that apparently Ramuda can never be without. "Ah, well. You're right, I do want to talk. If you want, though, it doesn't have to be here. We can move somewhere else and talk there."
'If you want' is a funny phrase to hear from someone like Ramuda. It sounds like consideration. It sounds like Ramuda is making way for someone else's preferences, rather than forcibly tugging them forward and plunging them into his own.
It's disconcerting to witness. Samatoki, however, has learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth, and says gruffly, "S'fine. I don't really care either way."
And he means it, too, because when someone you haven't seen in damn near a year-- someone you'd, at some point, thought in a dazed panic to be missing or even dead-- calls you up and asks you to meet, it hardly matters where exactly you see each other, does it?
"Ah."
Samatoki feels antsy and on edge at the best of times, but really, he couldn't be blamed for how he was feeling right now. What's Ramuda waiting for, here? He was the one who'd wanted to talk. He was the one who'd decided to disturb all of the carefully collated peace, so why the fuck was he being so cryptically quiet?
Scowling, Samatoki glares at him, as though that would somehow crack open Ramuda's skull and spill out all of his thoughts for Samatoki's perusal. It doesn't, of course, and eventually, when he gets sick of the way Ramuda stares at him, Samatoki has to force himself to be reasonable.
"So. What did you want to talk about?" He grits it out. It's hard to maintain self-control when he's this frustrated, but he tries. Ramuda should appreciate it, the bastard.
"I'm waiting for you to ask, actually." Ramuda says this slowly, and that gets on Samatoki's nerves too. He feels like he's being handled delicately, like a child in need of a careful explanation. "I mean-- if you're curious. If you want closure. I don't know. You can leave right now, if you want. But otherwise, I'm pretty much at your disposal, so ask away."
There it is again. If you want. Nothing about their situation is anything Samatoki wants.
Well. That's a lie. There's a lot to be glad about here.
They succeeded in their insurgence against Chuoku, managed to stabilize Japan's government, and he'd gotten Nemu back. He and Ichiro managed to settle their falling out and are now friends again; same goes for Sasara, for Jakurai-- frankly, he's only now realizing that Ramuda was the only piece of that puzzle that felt off. It now makes him uncomfortable how idyllic everything else had been.
Maybe it was like one of those optical illusions where something only looks incorrect the moment it's pointed out to you. In this case, it's the fact that everything that had felt right to Samatoki managed to collapse the moment Ramuda'd called.
He's always been good at that, making peace collapse, distorting the things that ought to feel right and shifting the world ever so carelessly into his own favour. Ramuda, the earth-shatterer, Samatoki thinks, and it's an amusing enough thought that he huffs out a laugh. Maybe Ramuda hasn't changed at all. Maybe there's less about their situation than he thinks he doesn't want.
"Fine, then," he says after a long moment of silence, no longer so annoyed as he had been just seconds before. "So tell me: how've you been?"
There are four things worth noting following his conversation with Ramuda.
1.) The government is no longer after him. "One of the perks of being besties with the Prime Minister's son, I guess!" He'd said, almost contradictorily cheerful. Samatoki begins to notice, now, how little of Ramuda's vibrance is genuine.
2.) He's managed to reconcile with the other members of The Dirty Dawg. Samatoki doesn't bother asking further, content to know that they're okay. They won't even be the same, they won't ever be as close again, but they're okay.
3.) Ramuda is happy. Or, he looks happy. It startles Samatoki to find that Ramuda's happiness matters to him at all.
4.) This isn't to be their last conversation. It's nearly midnight by the time they separate, and, before they do, Ramuda tells him that he puts the choice in Samatoki's hands whether or not he wants to continue whatever it is they've got going on.
Samatoki says yes with no hesitation. He gets Ramuda's number and hopes he doesn't regret it.
The next time they see each other is Tuesday the following week, when Samatoki enters his apartment and finds Ramuda sitting on the floor right at the center of his living room.
There are curlers in his hair, and half his fingernails are painted in the same mint blue shade as the tips of his hair. He looks almost startled when Samatoki walks through the door, which is entirely unfair since he was the one out of place in someone else's apartment.
There's a long moment of silent staring between the two of them, and it breaks at a sudden call of, "Ah! You're home early."
Despite himself, Samatoki can feel his face melt into a smile. Nemu doesn't often drop by, usually busy with her now legitimate position within their government, but she does come over unnanounced from time to time. Usually, though, it isn't with a guest.
She walks over to him and plants a kiss on his cheek, and he tugs her close and wraps and arm around her waist, half-hugging her. "We saw each other while I was shopping for new shoes." Nemu explains as she pulls apart. She moves to go and sit on the floor beside Ramuda, continuing, "There was a sale at a really good store!"
Samatoki finds it hard to believe in coincidences like that, but then he hears Ramuda snort lowly, telling Nemu in an almost hushed tone, "Hard to believe you two are related, what with you actually having taste in clothes."
"Oh, yes," Nemu says, and she laughs a bit, the sound reminding Samatoki of chimes. "Remember that Hawaiian shirt he'd wear before? I gave it to him one Christmas as a joke. He wore it practically every day since."
Ramuda makes a face, somewhere around amusement and disgust, and he turns to Samatoki. "I've always wanted to tell you how much of a shitshow your sense of style was, but it never seemed worth the effort."
"Fuck you," Samatoki says, and he tries to sound annoyed-- he really does-- but there's something about the scene in front of him, Nemu and Ramuda getting along, that makes his chest feel warm. It wasn't a bad kind of warm. "Who cares what I look like when I could beat your ass regardless?"
"Ha!" Ramuda throws his head back in laughter, and the curlers fall sideways from his hair.
Nemu furrows her brows, reaching out to fix them. "Careful! Those still need to be on for another half hour."
"Wanna join us?" Ramuda asks as Nemu finishes tightening the curlers back into his hair, and she looks at Samatoki with a pleading expression. He tries to rationalize why he shouldn't, but really, he's pretty much done for the day, any work he might have capable of being held off for another few weeks.
Samatoki sighs. "Fine," he says, sitting next to them, and he tries to ignore the widening of Nemu's eyes. It shouldn't surprise her, because he always gave in to her requests-- always made a point of setting aside time to spend with her, even if the activity was something as insipid as a makeover-- but then again, it wasn't Nemu who asked just now, was it?
Theres a bag full of nail polish at the edge of the table, and Nemu offers it to him. "Black," he says, not bothering to look at the contents, and Nemu frowns.
"You always pick black," she says and turns to Ramuda. "He really does have no style at all, does he?"
"Mhm." Ramuda picks a bottle from the bag and offers out his hand. Samatoki stares at it, confused.
"I don't really have the faith in you that you'll be able to do this cleanly," he explains to Samatoki. "So give me your hand. I'll paint your nails for you."
There's a small, charged moment of tension there, as though Ramuda offering to do this is some sort of peace treaty and Samatoki's acceptance of it would be the equivalent of signing off an agreement to cooperate. That's not the case at all, but the tension is still there, and they're lucky that Nemu's now too preoccupied with her own nails to see them.
Samatoki stares, stares, stares, and then he gives Ramuda his hand.
Later that day, when Ramuda's long since left, he realizes that the nails of his middle and ring fingers aren't actually black, but a deep set navy blue. He huffs, but then he looks at it again and can't complain too much; it doesn't actually look half bad.
Nemu decides to stay the night. It makes Samatoki glad that she's still comfortable staying with him even if it's been some time since they lived together.
Right before she heads for bed, he asks her, "What made you invite him over?"
He has no idea why he asks the question. It's an incredibly transparent thing coming from him, and he hates being transparent.
Nemu smiles, though, kind and gentle in a way he thought he might never see again, not after she succumbed to Chuuoku's spell. It relieves him to see her be herself again. "He looked like he could use the company." She looks him in the eye for a second, searching, and when she seems to find what she's looking for, she tells him, "You look like you could, too."
She heads for her bedroom, waving him goodnight, and he leaves it at that.
Days pass, and Friday finds him in a job within the confines of Shibuya. It's one of the quicker ordeals, an easy trade-off in a dark alleyway. Samatoki finishes it before the sky even turns dark.
He's about to leave when a strange, strange idea pops up in his mind. He picks up his phone from his pocket, hesitates, puts it back, and then grabs it again. This is ridiculous, he thinks, and he knows of no better way to deal with ridiculous situations than by running at them head on. It's a trait Ramuda had always made fun of him for, that kind of impulsivity, but then it's that same impulsivity that causes him to type:
> busy ?
He glares at the message as it sends, and he waits a couple minutes for there to be a reply. There isn't, and Samatoki shuffles off to find somewhere to eat, trying not to be disappointed.
He buys himself takoyaki from a street vendor, and, just when he finds a good spot to sit nearby, his phone chimes.
not anymore <
A few seconds pass by, and then:
why, whats up? <
It's noticeably... barren, the way Ramuda types now as opposed to the messages Samatoki used to get from him. There are none of the stickers or emojis that he's used to seeing, nor are there any of traces of teasing. Samatoki would have expected something like "aww, didja miss me?" or "don't get lonely, sama-sama!", but there's none of that this time around.
It's so normal, and that in itself shocks Samatoki too much. Even at his most ordinary, Ramuda still finds ways to subvert expectations. He sets his food aside and types:
> in shibuya rn, wanna meet up?
It looks weird. He replaces it.
> in shibuya rn. U free to hang out?
It still looks bad. "Hang out"? Seriously? The phrasing might be up Ramuda's alley, but Samatoki wasn't a teenage girl looking for a chick to shop with.
> in shibuya rn.
Samatoki sends that and waits for a response, finishing his food as he does. He gets a reply halfway into his second bite.
cool! <
It is incredibly stupid how nice Samatoki feels at seeing an exclamation point, and it only gets worse when Ramuda follows up:
wanna come over? <
There is giddy excitement at his gut at the invitation. He replies almost too quickly, finishes his food so fast he nearly chokes on it, and heads over to the address Ramuda sent, ignoring how he really is starting to feel like a teenage girl getting excited over visiting a friend's house.
When he gets to the new apartment, Ramuda opens the door wearing a shabby looking oversized shirt and a pair of shorts that reach half his thighs. It's a very plain thing to wear, and when Samatoki points that out, he's met with, "Well, duh! I'm in my own house; who would I be dressing for?"
As he steps through the threshold and follows Ramuda inside, Samatoki remembers how Ramuda had told him once, "You should always be dressed to impress, Sama-sama!"; that was back then, though, and Samatoki almost hopes that this is Ramuda's own weird way of conveying the fact that he's willing to be more honest now.
The moment is ruined when Ramuda turns back and, grin etched widely on his face, says, "Were you hoping that I'd dress up for you?"
Samatoki's brows furrow, and he shoves lightly at Ramuda's shoulder. He only gets laughed at in response.
(Later on, Samatoki will think about the sensation of touching Ramuda like that, of how it feels no different than how Ramuda would touch him before, showering him with affection by hugging him or linking their arms together-- but then he'll realize that it was him who'd initiated the contact this time, and maybe that means all the difference in the world.)
Ramuda leads him into the kitchenette, where there's a small dining table fit for, Samatoki approximates, three people at most. He's invited to sit, and he does.
"Want something to drink?" Ramuda asks him, and he rejects the offer. "Alright, then."
Taking a seat next to him, Ramuda sets a pink drink down on the table between them. It's another fruity-looking beverage, entirely appropriate for Ramuda's aesthetic.
It's quiet for a bit, then Ramuda smiles at him. "You haven't taken it off."
"Huh?"
"The nail polish," he clarifies, and Samatoki looks down where his hands are on the table. Most of it has cracked off; prettifications like this aren't very suitable for his line of work after all, but Ramuda looks genuinely pleased that it's still there even despite how shoddy it now looks.
"Yeah, well," he replies. "Figured it wasn't really worth the effort. 'Sides, it'll probably disappear all on its own given what I do for a living."
Ramuda stares. Samatoki doesn't like it, and his excuses pile up, "And anyways, s'not like I removed the nail polish Nemu put on me when we were younger, either."
"But I'm not Nemu," Ramuda says, and fuck did Samatoki not miss that-- the way Ramuda would say something so cryptically and somehow expect Samatoki to get it.
"Anyways," Ramuda continues, brushing off that previous statement as if Samatoki wouldn't realize it was meant to have some significance. "I can redo it; blue looks better on your nails than black, honestly. But not blue like my hair! Blue like, uh, the sky in Van Gogh's Starry Night! Or, no, that's a lot of different blues... so, maybe like the ocean?"
For all intents and purposes, it seems that Ramuda has never shaken off how talkative he is. He goes on about the different shades of blue that would suit Samatoki, and Samatoki just stares and listens, not minding at all. The pitch of his voice is far lower than it used to be, no longer as grating as Samatoki'd once found it. Ramuda's voice is just low enough to have a rasp at the edges. Or maybe it grew raspy because he'd always forced his voice to go so high before.
In any case, by the time Ramuda realizes what he's doing, he stares back at Samatoki and cuts himself off.
"Uhh, I was rambling just now, huh? Sorry about that..." He looks away, embarrassed, and that confuses Samatoki by a lot. Embarrassment isn't a good look on Ramuda-- and Samatoki thinks this knowing that practically everything suits him.
"The fuck're you apologizin' for?" Samatoki says, and he winces internally at how harsh he must sound. It just grates at him, a little bit, that Ramuda would choose now of all times to act shy when Samatoki's already spent quite a large part of their friendship getting accustomed to how loquacious he can get. He clears his throat and tries again, "We're here to talk, right?"
Ramuda stares back with wide eyes, and that's appropriate considering that this is the first and only time Samatoki has ever encouraged him. Still, Ramuda doesn't seem the type to take miracles for granted either, so he keeps on going, smile brightening. "I was just saying, bright colors wouldn't look good on you as a base; accents, sure, but you'd look better in dark, cool shades like navy blue or moss green." His face wrinkles. "Actually, probably not green. That's more Gen-chan's alley."
Samatoki raises a brow at that. "Been keeping touch with the rest of your old team, then?"
"Of course," Ramuda says, and there's something to be said about how he doesn't hesitate at all, almost as though there's something he's trying to prove. "They're my posse, after all!"
We were your posse too, Samatoki thinks, and then stamps the thought down. Grievances like that aren't going to do him any favours. He looks back down at his nails, the polish chipped and fading.
"I'll take you up on that offer," he says, and when Ramuda seems not to understand, Samatoki clarifies, "Redoing my nails. You can come over next week, since the polish'll probably be mostly off by then."
"Sure," Ramuda says, and he says it calmly but Samatoki sees how the corners of his eyes wrinkle up when he smiles.
Since when had Samatoki taken so much pleasure in indulging him so? He doesn't want to think about that, either, so he changes the flow of the conversation.
"Anyways, how's your business doing? Still designing clothes, I guess?" He asks, and Ramuda chatters away.
He learns three more things about Ramuda after that:
1.) Most of his selling is done online now, usually via commissions rather than showcasing designs and waiting for them to be sold out as a store would. He's doing well, or at least that's the idea Samatoki gets from looking around his apartment.
2.) He doesn't seem to enjoy clutter as much as Samatoki initially thought he did. In vivid contrast to his old apartment, Ramuda's new one is sleek and organized, the walls a muted shade of grey with the furniture having the same aesthetic. It isn't lively at all, but it looks lived-in and cozy all the same.
3.) He still keeps up with his two friends from Fling Posse. The author makes sense, but how he managed to stay friends with the Prime Minister's son is still not something Samatoki can figure out. At the very least, Samatoki was right about the dining table being able to hold three people.
He wonders how often Ramuda sees those two, given how the two of them have managed to meet up no less than thrice in the span of less than two weeks.
As promised, Ramuda heads over to his apartment again the next week on a Tuesday. He toes his shoes off at Samatoki's doorstep and enters holding a plate of cookies.
"I tried really hard but I don't think they came out very well at all," he says, pouting as he sets the plate down on Samatoki's kitchen countertop.
Samatoki takes a bite out of one and grimaces. It feels crumbly in a strange way, the edges burnt yet the inside too soft. "What recipe is this supposed to be?" He asks.
"Huh?" Ramuda tilts his head, confused. "I didn't use one."
Ah. That would explain it. Samatoki rolls his eyes. "You aren't some prodigy baker, y'know." He takes another bite of the cookie; the texture is all wrong, but it tastes edible, if a little too sweet. He's used to being a taste-tester, Nemu having been quite an avid experimenter in the kitchen, so he's capable of withstanding a lot of weird flavours. "Try actually using a fucking recipe next time."
"Next time?" Ramuda says, the mischievous lilt in his voice returning. "So I'm making you cookies again~?"
"If you want," Samatoki says. It's a cathartic thing to say, like he's giving back all the trouble Ramuda had thrown at him. "Use your own fucking kitchen, though; I don't need a fire at my place."
"Boo!" Ramuda frowns for a second, but it's immediately replaced by a boyish grin. "I never said anything about using your kitchen, though-- that all came from you."
Samatoki scoffs. "Let's call it a preemption."
"Sure," Ramuda says, but for good measure he adds on, "If you want."
There's a bit more conversation after that, but eventually they settle onto the floor and start with the manicure.
Ramuda leaves five hours later, when the darkness starts drowning out the sunlight from the windows. Samatoki ends up with skull decals on his fingernails, along with a promise to catch a movie with Ramuda on Friday at the 109.
The movie they watch is an entire shitshow, and Ramuda seems to delight in this fact. He loves to talk about things, but moreover does he seem to enjoy criticizing them.
As an example of this, the two of them leave the movie theatre with Ramuda out of breath from the sheer amount of things he's had to say about only the first quarter of the movie. "And... the thing with her catching his hoodie? Like, is that not creepy, how she fucking kept it all that time?"
That's another fun thing about this new Ramuda that Samatoki's getting to know. He curses. A lot. Samatoki snorts.
"Well, it's a cheesy romance movie. I have no idea what you expected."
"Oh, I definitely expected it to be garbage." Ramuda looks up at him and grins, his canines poking out. "Why else would I have picked it?"
Samatoki is horrified to find that he knows Ramuda enough now to understand the logic behind his choice. "Yeah, whatever. As long as I get to pick next time."
Ramuda stops walking when he hears that. "Next time, huh?"
"You keep doing that," Samatoki notices. "Why does it surprise you so much, that there's gonna be a next time?"
Ramuda tenses up. "Because! Reasons."
Samatoki's gaze doesn't let up. "And the reasons are?"
Brows furrowing and lips thinning, Ramuda refuses to look Samatoki in the eye. He heaves in a huge inhale, before turning back to Samatoki and saying, "I don't wanna lie to you right now, 'kay? But the truth is kind of... hard for me. To talk about."
Samatoki waits, because it seems as though there's more Ramuda wants to say, but all he does in the end is sigh. A couple more seconds pass, and then, "This is a nice afternoon, Sama-sama! Would you really wanna ruin it talking about bad stuff like that?"
A discomfort clutches at Samatoki's chest all of a sudden. He knows why it's there, and he doesn't want to face it, but he will. He feels irritated because Ramuda's performativity is resurfacing, and Samatoki doesn't like that, not after weeks of effort were spent in trying to get to know him on a more substantial level.
"It doesn't ruin anything," Samatoki almost grits out in his annoyance. He reins that irritation back in, though, because even he can tell that this sort of conversation requires more elegance that that. "It's... look, Ramuda, I'm not the best person when it comes to being patient, so I can't promise you that I'm gonna handle this well."
He's reminded suddenly of the way he'd had to train himself into gentleness, back when he and Nemu were children, back when his little sister needed an older brother who would treat her with fragility. Ramuda isn't Nemu, though, and he isn’t fragile at all. Samatoki sees that in stark clarity when Ramuda grabs at his arm and forces him to look.
"That's-- okay." Ramuda takes another inhale. "That's okay. I don't need you to handle this well. God, I don't need you to handle this at all! It's my problem, so I--"
"But we're friends."
The world seems to halt, for a second. Ramuda can't seem to believe that that just came out of Samatoki's mouth, and frankly Samatoki can't believe it himself either.
"Yeah," Ramuda agrees, after a long pause. He lets go of Samatoki's arm. "Yeah, I know. I just don't... feel comfortable talking about this. Not yet, at least."
That much Samatoki can understand. That much he can sympathize with, and that much he can do.
"Alright," he tells Ramuda. "That's fine."
He hesistates for a second, isn't sure whether or not this is something he wants to admit. He's almost tempted not to, because Ramuda hadn't offered him any honesty just now, so why should he bother to reveal his own thoughts? But then, he'd said it himself: the two of them are friends, and friendship doesn't work transactionally like that.
"Listen, if it really bugs you that badly, we don't have to talk about it." He puts his hand on Ramuda's hair, pats him sideways the way he used to do with Nemu when to calm her down when they were kids, but he very much understands that they are not the same. Ramuda is not Nemu, because if he were, Samatoki wouldn't be saying this: "I just don't want you to hide from me... I worked real fuckin' hard to get to know you, okay? Don't waste all my effort by acting out your old self."
Samatoki feels himself redden upon saying that. It's fucking embarrassing, being open and honest like this, and it frustrates him even more when Ramuda does nothing but stare at him.
He thinks he's about to explode. There's a litany of curses at his disposal, and he's about to utilize quite a few of them when Ramuda snorts, shy and sort of embarrassed for him too. When Samatoki takes back his hand from Ramuda's hair, Ramuda offers his pinky finger to him.
"'Kay, Tokicchi," he says. "...I won't hide from you. Pinky promise!"
Samatoki groans at how childish that is, grumbles in complaint that they're too old for games like this, but when he lets Ramuda link their pinkies together, Ramuda smiles so genuinely that Samatoki thinks the immaturity is worth it.