Chapter Text
“Alright, but wouldn’t that make the full acronym… HPALGBTQ+ Club?” Mondo asked, looking at Taka with furrowed brows, it clearly having taken a larger amount of brainpower to come up with the said acronym than it should.
In his opinion, this was all going way too fast. In the past three months, he’d somehow gone from a man who was… well, he wasn’t comfortable in his own sexuality, but it was something he’d definitely pushed off to the side to never address again, with a relationship with the Ultimate Moral Compass that was… well, frigid, at best, to somehow slowly unraveling years of ‘internalized homophobia’ (or whatever Taka had called it. Mondo mainly referred to it as ‘the bullshit voice in the back of his head that made him feel really shitty about liking dick’) and in a fast friendship turned first real relationship with Kiyotaka Ishimaru.
And now, he’s sitting backwards in his chair to face him, listening to the ‘brilliant new idea’ he’d texted him about at eight in the evening the night prior (Mondo had been out with the Diamonds, so he hadn’t been able to text back till’ eleven thirty. Needless to say, Taka being Taka, had already fallen asleep or was busy on patrol for curfew breakers by then).
“I don’t see a problem with that being the acronym.” Taka said, raising one thick eyebrow to mondo’s visible confusion, “it’s certainly faster than saying the full name.”
“Okay but why does it have’ta be in english, though?” Mondo asked, a hint of a whine in his low voice, slumping forwards against the back of his chair as he did so, “I’m barely passing that class as it is. Memorizing that whole thing’d be like tryna memorize the whole alphabet all over again.”
Taka pinched the bridge of his nose, a short huff leaving him as his ruby eyes met Mondo’s own lavender ones yet again, a knowing and slightly disappointed look on his face as he spoke again, formulating his response carefully, as to avoid bruising any ego he didn’t need to. Not that Mondo would’ve cared if he did though-- he probably needed it.
“If you want to, you can call it the ‘Hope’s Peak Academy Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and more Club’, but this is why I kept urging you all to take foundational english last year. It’s really not that hard to get the hang of! I can even help you memorize the acronym, if you’re worried about it.”
Taka slipped the slim piece of notebook paper he’d been writing their ‘brainstorming notes’ on back into its designated folder in his binder, his handwriting (still unbelievably neat, Mondo might add, he never got used to how neat it looked-- Taka wrote fast, so he’d expected him to have a doctor’s scrawl-- but no, it looked like a fucking computer font) disappearing as the bright red folder snapped shut, along with the whole thick grey binder itself. Mondo didn’t bother giving Taka much of an answer other than a dismissive grunt, one he’d hoped the other had learned meant ‘we’ll see’ by now.
“Look, Taka--” Mondo started, looking to his boyfriend with fondness, but a fair amount of concern in his gaze, “I love how much ya seem t’like this idea, really do, but… I’m just rememberin’ what happened with the other club you tried to start last month, and…”
Taka’s form tensed as he leaned down to neatly slip the binder back into his bag, clearly remembering the failures of the club he’d tried to put together the month before-- one that had been specifically engineered to be a place for neurodivergent students to share their own experiences and raise awareness to make change in some of the school’s curriculums. He’d talked about it so much that even Mondo had been a little fired up for it.
Yeah, you need a base number of five people to keep a club running past the ‘trial period’ (something Mondo didn’t know until a month or go, surprise surprise) of a week, and it had just been him, Taka, and another kid sitting in awkward silence every other day after school. He didn’t even remember that kid’s name, they talked so little. Saimiki? Saiharu? Sai… something. Needless to say, Taka had been crushed when his pet project hadn’t worked out, and Mondo didn’t wanna see him that sad again, it had a weirdly infectious quality to it, so Mondo had been in a funk all that week as well.
...he definitely hadn’t been in a funk because the club didn’t work out. No, that was just Taka. He wasn’t excited for it too or anything--
“This won’t be a repeat of the last… well, the last incident.” Taka insisted, straightening up again in his chair after he re-buckled his pristine bookbag, “I have a sure fire plan to get us a base of more than five people before we even submit the plan to administration!”
Mondo couldn’t help but to raise his own eyebrow to that, as that had been… pretty similar to what Taka had said the month before, if not basically the same concept.
“If yer gonna walk around annoying people with a clipboard during lunch again, I’m pretty sure it’s gonna go about as good as it did last time.”
Taka drew his lips to the side in slight frustration as he tapped a finger against his now re-crossed arms, moving to cross his legs under the desk as well, clearly formulating a proper answer to give to Mondo. He’d picked up many small habits of the other in the past months they’d been close, one of which being how he tends to twist up his body when he’s trying to think of the right way to phrase something.
“How we went about it wasn’t the problem.” He started, Mondo slumping over further with a small groan at the insinuation he’d be running around the school with a clipboard instead of eating lunch for another week, Enoshima had already given him enough grief when he’d ‘run around yelling to try and recruit for the ‘retards club’ a while back.
“But! But!” Taka quickly interjected, clearly trying to save Mondo’s resolve before it fizzled out completely, still resolute in getting him back on his side, “we just didn’t talk to the right people. Hope’s Peak actually has quite a few more queer people than I first believed there to be. When I spoke with an upperclassman about it yesterday he said something about there being a link between how ultimate’s minds perceive the world around them, and their willingness to explore their own sexuality.”
“You sure he wasn’t bullshitting you?”
“Language!”
Mondo sighed, shaking his head as he motioned for Taka to continue. Right, he really had to work on growing a filter for the shit he thinks and the shit that comes out of his mouth. Then again, Taka didn’t have much of one as well, but he was ninety percent sure that the other practically viewed foul language as illegal, so maybe he should try a little harder.
“He was the ultimate neurologist, so I don’t think so.” Taka explained, his ruby eyes shining for a moment as he seemed to finally be able to reach the point of explaining his plan, “I was able to attain some references of who to start off asking. Most of them are open about it, so it shouldn’t be that much of a problem.”
“Most of them? What am I supposed to do about the ones that aren’t then?” Mondo asked, a dry chuckle falling from his throat at the mental image of approaching some poor student during lunch, and asking them if they were fruity in front of the entire class.
It really wasn’t that smart of a concept. He wasn’t sure how thoroughly Taka had thought this out, in hindsight.
“Those… aren’t important at the moment.” Taka said, reaching into the pocket of his uniform and pulling a small, folded index card from one of the pockets, spreading it out on the desk between him and Mondo as he spoke, “we just need to focus on these five names-- the ones I highlighted.”
Mondo looked down at the paper in front of him, squinting as he read the names blocked in by bright yellow ink, one of the many highlighters that he knew the other had on him at all times, neatly organized in his bag.
- Kaede Akamatsu
- Gundham Tanaka
- Leon Kuwata
- Kazuichi Souda
- Makoto Naegi
“Taka, I see a lot of problems with this off the bat.” Mondo said, squinting harder at the list, almost as if he could will the kanji to change if he stared at it for long enough.
Sure, some of the ‘problems’ he saw were a bit selfish-- like his particular relationship with some of the people on the list. Sure, Kuwata and Naegi would be no problem, he was good enough friends with both after all. He knew Kuwata would probably be pretty easy to persuade (he was known around the academy for being a bisexual flirt after all-- as well as the star player for their baseball team, but that’s not as important right now), and Naegi was a pretty agreeable person, and not exactly booked up with clubs at the moment, either.
Souda and Akamatsu were another story though. He barely knew either of them-- well, granted, he’d talked to the mechanic more than he’d talked to the pianist, but they were usually less than five sentence conversations about fixing mondo’s motorcycle. Striding into the garage and just shouting “HEY MAN I KNOW WE’VE ONLY TALKED A FEW TIMES BEFORE, BUT ARE YOU GAY?” is a complete other realm. It’s the same with Akamatsu, only worse. He’d never even talked to the woman before, so an unfamiliar burly man running towards her with a clipboard would probably (rightfully) put her off.
And then… there was Tanaka. Why the hell would Taka want his crazy ass in their club anyways? The man was near impossible to talk to or understand, and that was if you 1) had been attempting to talk to him for a while, and 2) you weren’t coming at him with weird, out of the blue questions about his sexuality. If Mondo was being completely honest, if everyone else said yes, they’d already have enough. So… he’d put off Tanaka till last, if he even had to ask him at all.
“What problems?” Taka asked, snapping Mondo out of his analytic gaze as he stared at the card, his boyfriend’s arms now uncrossed as his left index finger tapped against the false wood of the desk in front of him, “I got all of my information from the most reliable sources I could.”
“Nah, ‘s not that, I just…” Mondo trailed off, not entirely sure how to phrase his qualms with the plan, “I don’t think I’m on good ‘nough terms with some of em to ask if they’re gay, or anythin’ like that.”
Taka’s eyebrows raised as he glanced between Mondo and the card in front of him, before furrowing in confusion and light concern.
“Well, you won’t be asking all of them.” He informed him, Mondo unable to contain a small sigh of relief at that, “I will be asking some, since it would be terrible etiquette for me, and me alone, to plan something before explaining it to you and letting you do all the work. Do you really think that lowly of me, Mondo?”
Mondo’s eyes widened before he sputtered a bit, ah goddamnit. He’d fucked it up again-- Taka probably thought he’d messed up somehow now, leading Mondo to question his work ethic or whatever. Really, this had happened enough times that you’d think Taka would catch on to the fact that Mondo is just kind of dense.
“No! That’s not what I meant at all--” Mondo shouted, the rest of the room falling silent at the sudden volume of his words, eyes going in his direction.
Mondo sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose a bit before turning his attention back to Taka, making a conscious effort to calm himself down a bit with a deep breath,
“What I meant was, I was being slow and I didn’t know which ones I was askin’. It just didn’t come out right.”
“Ah--” Taka said, seeming relieved, yet slightly embarrassed at the misconstrue of communication as a slight red began to dust his cheeks, “well which ones would you be more comfortable asking? Akamatsu is open as a lesbian to most of her friends, Tanaka is very well known for being openly gay, Kuwata is very obviously bisexual, there’s a lot of substancial evidence pointing to Souda being trans, and Kirigiri informed me that Naegi was somewhere under the umbrella of queer.”
Huh. A lesbian, gay, bi, trans, and queer.
Wait.
“You really just wanted to fill out the acronym?” Mondo asked, putting the pieces together fast enough it surprised even him, seeing a small amount of guilt enter Taka’s smile at the accusation.
“Well…. It was the easiest way to get a base number of enough students to fill in the requirements. Plus, a larger diversity of identities would help us get a more unique array of opinions.” He explained, a finger still tapping against his crossed arms as he shook off the guilt in his smile.
It was very procedural. Well, it was a very Taka thing to do, that’s for sure. Mondo shook his head with a small chuckle, glancing back to the list of names. He had to split it up in a way that seemed fair, or else Taka either wouldn’t have it, or he’d do it and Mondo would feel guilty for making him go around with the bigger share.
“I’ll take… Kuwata, Souda, and Naegi.” He said, after a few seconds of deliberation.
Sure, taking both Kuwata and Naegi was a little bit of cheating, since they were both in their class, so Mondo could probably catch them at the same time if he knew how to time it right, but he knew that Taka knew this as well, so they basically had to both go out of their way to bother people about it twice, and that was fair. He hoped it was fair enough for him, at least.
Taka seemed to squint a moment as he thought about it, before nodding, seeming pleased with Mondo’s choice in judgement.
“You are closer with Naegi and Kuwata than I am, and you’ve talked to Souda before, at least. I will try my luck with Tanaka and Akamatsu. It… probably won’t be that much of a stretch persuading them. They seem like very nice and open people.”
‘Nice and open’ wouldn’t exactly be the words Mondo would use to describe Gundham Tanaka, but that’s neither here nor there. Mondo smiled, reaching across the desk to hold Taka’s hand in his own.
“Hell yeah man! I’m sure we’ll get enough people for this one’ta work. If you can’t convince em’ I’ll drag em’ in myself.”
Taka scoffed, probably at Mondo’s empty promises of pseudo-kidnapping, but the encouragement seemed to bring a smile to his face, nevertheless. They certainly did have their work cut out for them, but maybe, just maybe, it would work this time.