Chapter Text
Ginjima Hitoshi, Inarizaki Second Year, 4:49 PM
There are downsides to living in a well-located, decently sized home — especially if the parents of that home are often out of town for the weekend. Namely, it’s a perfect recipe for chaos, disaster, and lots of other things Gin generally does his best to avoid. The simple comforts of his house doomed him long ago to one reality. One in which Ginjima’s house is the defacto sleepover location for not just sleepovers with a couple of his friends but also the entire Inaraizaki boys volleyball team when the occasion calls for it.
Ginjima loves his friends and his team, don’t get him wrong. But he also loves peace and quiet and not having to worry about what the Miya twins might accidentally knock over and break the next time they get into a fight. Although, with the entire team in attendance tonight, he supposes he doesn’t have to worry too hard about what the twins may or may not end up breaking. With Aran and Kita here, it’s the tiniest bit easier to break them apart before things get out of hand — keyword: tiny. After all, Aran and Kita may be here to help reign in anything that might cause major damage, but so is Suna Rintarou. And Suna Rintarou is nothing but fuel on the wildfire that is Atsumu and Osamu with the ability to enable them like no other.
Although, as he looks around the crowded living room, it occurs to him that neither Aran nor Kita is here. In fact, the only third year he sees is Akagi since Oomimi left to pick up more snacks — thank you Miya Osamu for eating chips like a damn vacuum cleaner. It’s Aran and Kita so of course, he doesn’t need to worry too much about it. It’s not like they’re at risk of breaking his mother’s precious heirloom collectibles.
“I’m bored,” Atsumu says from where he’s draped over Gin’s living room couch like the subject of a renaissance painting. “Let’s do something.”
“Like what?” Osamu asks.
“I dunno, something. ”
“That’s not very helpful,” Ginjima says.
“Yeah, if you’re so bored, why don’t you come up with something to do,” Suna says without looking up from his phone.
Atsumu groans. “I hate all of you.”
“Just wait until Oomimi gets back with the snacks, then we can figure out something to do,” Osamu says.
“Can’t ya think about anything other than food?”
“No.”
“Ughhhh.” Atsumu presses his face into the couch cushions and groans.
“I have an idea,” Akagi says speaking up for the first time since Oomimi left. He’s been so uncharacteristically quiet that Ginjima had nearly forgotten he was there.
Atsumu whips around, all traces of his former pouting, pitiful expression are gone having been replaced by a grin that reminds Ginjima of an excited golden retriever puppy. "You do?!"
"Sure do. I'm sure you boys are familiar with good old-fashioned truth or dare?"
"Truth or dare?" Suna wrinkles his nose. "What are we, 12?"
"Are ya trying to say that just because 12-year-old girls like something that we can’t enjoy it too?" Akagi asks. "Shake my head, Suna, I thought ya were better than that."
"Yeah, Suna, maybe if ya ever put down that phone you wouldn't be so closed-minded," Atsumu says.
"What are you now, my mom?"
"Alright, Suna, I'm the grown-up here and I say we're playing truth or dare so whether it's for 12-year-old girls at sleepovers or not. Yer playing and yer gonna be happy about it."
“Who died and made you king?”
“I’m not the king but I am the grownup.”
“You are literally a year older than us.”
“Exactly. So, throw that phone down and circle up,” Akagi says.
"Or I could just go home."
"Now what fun would that be?"
With Suna’s attention split between his phone and Akagi, Osamu sneaks up behind the couch, plucking Suna’s phone out of his hand.
Suna screeches and lunges at Osamu. “Give that back!”
“Nope.” Osamu ducks under Suna’s outstretched arm and out of his reach.
“Osamu!”
Osamu laughs and looks like he’s about to take off running but before he gets turned around all the way, Suna jumps and tackles him to the floor. Osamu crumples to the ground in a heap, laughing until he can’t breathe. Ginjima is just grateful they managed to avoid breaking anything this time.
“Fine,” Osamu says. “I’ll give ya back yer phone if you agree to play the game.”
“Asshole,” Suna says as he snatches his phone back. “Sure, whatever.”
Ginjima isn't sure how he feels about all this truth or dare nonsense but he joins the circle anyway. The last time he played a game like this was probably in elementary school when the dares were things like lick the floor or pick a random name in the phone book and prank call them. He can only imagine the bullshit his friends will come up with now.
“Atsumu you ask first,” Akagi says once they’re all sitting criss-cross in a rough circle and Ginjima finds himself sandwiched between Akagi on one side and Kosaku on the other.
Atsumu grins and it makes the hair on the back of Gin’s neck stand on end. “Truth or dare?”
"Dare."
"Alright, Samu. I dare ya to go outside and lick the first five rocks ya find."
Oh. Maybe things aren't all that different after all.
The game starts off peaceful enough but that could only last so long.
“Truth or dare,” Akagi asks.
“Truth,” Suna says.
Akagi taps a finger on his chin and hums. “Who is the best guy in Big Time Rush.”
“Jamie. Obviously.”
“Jamie? Really? Why?” asks Atsumu.
Suna shrugs. “I dunno he’s kind of head empty, ya know.”
Atsumu wrinkles his nose and gags. “But Logan is right there. He is just sitting there all quiet and smart.”
“You can be head empty and smart.” Suna’s gaze drifts to Osamu and Ginjima resists the urge to snicker.
“Sunarin, no offense, but yer taste in men is awful.”
“I could say the same about you.”
“You take that back!”
Ginjima pulls his knees up to his chest as the fighting continues, resigned to their collective fate. Once Suna and Atsumu get going, there is no stopping them. Kosaku pats him on the shoulder and Gin is grateful for the solidarity.
“Alright everyone,” Atsumu yells, “we’re taking a vote. Who is the better member of Big Time Rush: Jamie or Logan?”
“THIS IS CARLOS ERASURE,” Akagi shouts, getting to his feet. “And what about Kendall! Huh? Ever think about him?”
“This ain’t about Kendall and Carlos! Ya gotta pick either Logan, the correct answer I might add, or Jamie. No exceptions. All in favor of Logan, raise your hand.”
Three hands.
“And all those voting for the worser—”
“Worser isn’t a word, idiot,” Suna says.
“Shaddup, Sunarin! Nobody asked ya!”
“All those voting Jamie?”
Three hands.
“Looks like we got ourselves a tie,” Akagi says. “How are we gonna break it? A fight to the death?”
“Fuck you guys,” Suna says, getting to his feet. “Let’s just ask Aran and Kita.”
“Sunarin!” Atsumu calls.
Ginjima takes a deep breath. “Just let him go.” He doesn’t mention that it’s probably safer for his mother’s fine china this way.
Suna Rintarou, Inarizaki Second Year, 5:07 PM
Suna doesn’t eavesdrop — at least not intentionally. He’s definitely overheard his fair share of secrets whether someone was speaking far louder than they intended or perhaps if just didn’t notice that Suna was nearby, but he tries not to make a habit of it. So naturally, when Suna is walking back from the bathroom at a sleepover hosted by Ginjima and attended by the entire team, he definitely did not mean to overhear Kita and Aran from behind Ginjima’s closed bedroom door. Regardless of his intention, that does very little to change the fact that he very much can hear them and that what he’s hearing has caused him to stop dead in his tracks, heart thumping so loudly that he’s sure Aran and Kita must be able to hear it, even from behind a closed door.
“One of us has to leave first.”
It’s Kita, there’s no doubt about that. But this is voice, a tone, of his that Suna isn’t familiar with. At its core, it’s still Kita — steadfast and certain. But it’s smothered in heavy melancholy that hits Suna like a volleyball to the face with its pain and unfamiliarity. Kita, though sure, sounds sad. Suddenly, Suna feels like a little kid witnessing a parent cry for the first time — that sobering realization that one of the people who make up the foundation of your understanding of the world is just as human as you are.
Suna’s heart rate picks up, ice filling his veins as he tries to make heads or tails of the meager scrap of the conversation he unwillingly overheard. He wants to keep walking. He wants to run back to the living room to the fun and the games and the junk food and forget whatever it is he just heard and its implications but his feet have either gone numb or have detached themselves from his body completely because he can’t take a single step no matter how hard he tries.
He’s starting to panic now because he really, really doesn’t want to hear anything else. If he caps his eavesdropping at one sentence then surely with enough strategic overthinking he’ll be able to twist and mold what he heard into something far less anxiety-inducing. But Suna isn’t that lucky.
“There is no other version of this story,” Kita continues.
Aran sighs. Heavy and forlorn and unlike anything Suna has heard from Aran before. “I know. I know. I’m sorry. I just — I never expected leaving to be so difficult.”
“Neither did I. Ya — “ Kita pauses. A sharp intake of breath. “Ya know I didn’t want it to be this way.”
“I know. But Shinsuke, please, we promised. This isn’t the place for a scene.”
“I know.”
Suna clutches his chest. This is worse than he thought. They can’t be... No, they can’t.
“It’s hard for me too, Aran. But you know as well as I do that this is a very old story. One with no other ending.”
“Alright.”
It’s silent for a moment, long enough that Suna thinks that maybe they’re done talking and if so he better haul ass back to the party but then Aran speaks again. “I’ll do it. I’ll go. But... But can we lay here together for just another couple of minutes? I’m not ready to say goodbye yet.”
“I think that can be arranged,” Kita murmurs. It falls quiet. The only sounds Suna can hear is the blood rushing through his ears, crashing like waves, and the rapid-fire thumping of his heart slamming against his ribs.
Suna takes a step backward then trips and stumbles over his own feet.
Oh.
Oh no.
Suna’s heart races as he fumbles his way back to the party. He stumbles again, this time right into the arms of Miya fucking Osamu.
“Yer looking a little green there, Suna. Are ya feelin’ okay?”
“Aran and Kita are breaking up!!” He shouts without thinking.
Osamu’s brows pinch together, a little crease forming in the space between them. “Whatdya mean Aran and Kita are breaking up?”
Suna opens his mouth to explain what he heard but the click of the door unlocking from behind them sends his heart racing all over again. Panic overtaking the rational side of his brain, Suna does the only thing he can think to do. He fists a hand into Osamu’s worn gray tee-shirt and all but drags him to the nearest open door, shutting it behind them.
“What the — “ Suna slaps a hand over Osamu’s mouth as footsteps go down the hallway. Osamu looks at him like he’s grown a second head or started speaking in tongues but he doesn’t try to wriggle out of Suna’s grip which is more than he could hope for.
Suna waits until he’s sure whoever — though from what he overheard, presumably Aran — is long gone before speaking. “ I said,” he hisses, “Aran and Kita are breaking up.”
“No,” Osamu says though Suna feels it more than he hears it, a low rumble against the palm of his hand since Suna, in his panic, still hasn’t removed his hand from its spot across Osamu’s face. Suna pulls his hand away.
“No,” Osamu says again, disbelief and horror creeping into his voice. He shakes his head. “There’s no way.” he crosses his arms over his chest, his mouth settling into a hard line and Suna is stuck with the image of a wrought iron gate being lowered with a loud clank. Re: conversation over. Case closed.
“I know what I heard.” Fire flares in Suna’s chest as he crosses his arms and frowns suddenly feeling like a little kid who got caught telling a tall tale just a little too wild to be true. But trust him, he knows what he head, loathe as he is to admit it. He doesn’t want this to be true any more than Osamu does. Aran and Kita are the glue that holds this bunch of idiots together. THey’re what make them a team. And they’re...they’re... breaking up. Waves crash in Suna’s stomach, appropriate considering he feels like he’s been washed out to sea, lost and confused by everything that’s happened in the past seven minutes. Yes, Aran and Kita are graduating at the end of this school year and the team will carry on without them and they’ll be okay. That’s how this goes. The natural cycle. Suna knows this. But that’s months away. This wasn’t supposed to happen now. Not yet. Certainly not at a party with the entire team in attendance.
Neither of them catches the new set of footsteps drawing near. Suna is too caught in his spiral to notice and Osamu is all but shut down — Suna can’t tell if his head is simply empty or if his thoughts are just as tangled as Suna’s are right now.
“What the hell?“
Suna blinks at the sudden light flooding the bathroom and up at the very confused face of Ginjima Hitoshi.
“Suna?....Osamu? What are ya...?” Gin trails off, confusion quickly replaced by a cross between frustration and annoyance. “No. I don’t want to know.”
“It’s not—” Suna tries.
“Nope. Don’t wanna hear it,” Gin says, crossing his arms over his chest.
“But—”
“What you two do in a darkened bathroom is between you two and you two only. But whatever it is, my bathroom ain’t the place to do it”
Tired and still reeling from what he overheard from Aran and Kita, Suna just nods weakly, Osamu trailing behind him still in a daze as they make their way back to the living room.
Miya Atsumu, Inarizaki Second Year, 5:24 PM
It doesn’t take a genius to know that something is up when Ginjima returns to the living room with Suna and Osamu in tow. Atsumu doesn’t know what is going on — and from the way, Gin looks like he wants to wash his eyes out with bleach, he isn’t sure he wants to know — but Miya Atsumu has never been known for his self-preservation instincts so, naturally, he’s going to poke and prod until he finds out anyway. Whether he will regret this decision, in the long run, remains to be seen.
Suna takes in a long, shaky breath and suddenly he looks nothing like the 16-year-old high school idiot he is and far more like an old man, withered and torn down by the atrocities he’s been an unwilling participant to. Suna’s expression makes the juxtaposition between him and Osamu even more laughable. Whereas Suna looks rough and worn, Osamu appears lost-in-in-the-sauce with a faraway look in his eye that Atsumu knows to mean that Osamu checked out a long time ago.
Atsumu raises a hand and points a finger at the three of them. “Something,” he says gravely. “Is not right.”
He is where it gets interesting. To this statement, Ginjima shudders, looking as weathered and pained as Suna. And Suna manages to flush from the tops of his ears down to his neck — embarrassed about something — and yet still he manages o look a little green around the edges — like he could be sick at any moment. Then there is the Osamu, his head just as high in the clouds as it was a moment ago.
“What the fuck happened to the three of you?” Kosaku asks, beating Atsumu to it.
Ginjima groans and dramatically flails a hand in the direction of Osamu and Suna. “I can’t with them. Please I don’t want to talk about it.”
Atsumu wrinkles his nose. “Ew, Suna, what were ya doing back there?” He gasps. “Wait! Is that why yer blushing like a middle schooler on their first date and holdin’ hands for the first time?”
“That was,” Ginjima says, “specific.”
Atsumu shrugs. “Come on Suna, just admit it.”
“No! There’s nothing to admit to.”
Atsumu clicks his tongue and hums. “I dunno, Suna. Ya sound awfully defensive.”
“We weren’t doing anything. It’s not my fault your pea-sized brain can’t comprehend that.”
“Well, ya must have done something because Ginjima looks like he’d rather be dragged to hell this minute than recount what he caught you and Osamu doin’. Spare yer good pal Gin the trouble and just tell us what happened.”
Miya Osamu, Inarizaki Second Year, 5:24 PM
Osamu, at this moment, is no different than a Dell desktop computer from 1996: his brain cells lag behind, trying and failing, to process this new information until ultimately the blue screen of death takes over and his only options are to turn it off and back on again. Except when he tries, all he manages to conjure is the Windows shut down noise over and over and over again like static where his thoughts should be.
If it was 1996, Osamu might be able to pin the blame for his inability to think a single thought on the landline telephone being used at the same time that he’s trying to access dial-up internet, therefore, destroying any chance at a stable internet connection. But it’s not 1996. It’s 2012 and home telephones and family computers hooked up to a too-small desk in the kitchen are growing obsolete in the modern household. No one is on the telephone. Nothing is blocking the connection. Osamu’s head really is just that empty.
Slowly, very slowly, (so slow in fact, one might call it a snail’s pace) Osamu’s brain undergoes the arduous task of rebooting. The tiny gremlins in his head are working overtime, and with no promise of overtime pay, to get Osamu to a place where coherent thought is at least possible. If questioned on their work, these brain gremlins would likely explain that while it ain’t much, it is honest work. And in today’s economy, really, what more can any brain gremlin ask for?
Those brain gremlins — their blood, sweat, and tears — drag Osamu by the ear back into the land of coherent thought.
Errrr... semi-coherent.
As he comes to, he becomes more and more aware of the conversation happening around him.
Something, something, alone in the bathroom.
Blah, blah, Ginjima nearly scarred for life.
A vague threat on Atsumu’s life from Suna.
“That’s disgustin’! Sunarin! We’re ya makin’ out with my brother in Ginjima’s bathroom? Really? Of all places? The bathroom?”
And just when Osamu’s brain comes back online, after all that work, all that effort, it takes only two sentences for all of it to vanish. Poof. Just like that, all that progress crumbles to dust as Osamu’s brain shuts down with speed that could rival the roadrunner on those cartoons Osamu’s grandma always had on for them to watch with their breakfast on Saturday mornings — that or even a crab in Genshin, those quick legged little motherfuckers.
If you listened hard enough and very, very carefully, you might be able to catch the distant agonized screeching of Osamu’s brain gremlins as they go through the 5 stages of grief and prepare for another arduous, long, painful day. One can only hope that they unionize. And soon if all this unpaid overtime is going to become the norm.
Making out and Suna in the same sentence. Osamu making out with Suna. It’s not something he ever considered before now. But the prospect is enough to send his fragile brain into overdrive before inevitably crashing. Somewhere an error message flashes: Osamu.exe has topped working. Do you want to send an error report to the developer? Gay panic has corrupted the file.
“Osamu,” Suna hisses. He nails him hard in the side with his elbow. “Stop staring at me.”
“Wah?”
“Oh my god, ya kissed him stupid,” Atsumu cries.
Osamu is pretty sure he should say something. He should mention that there was absolutely no kissing but now that he thinks about it, he kind of wishes there had been. Or could be. Between this absolutely earth-shattering revelation about Suna fucking Rintarou and the news that Aran and Kita are breaking up, he can’t find it in himself to speak a single word.
“Sunarin, that’s cruel. You knew he only had a few brain cells rattling around up there to begin with.”
“I didn’t kiss anyone! If you’d just listen to me, we have bigger problems here.”
“Bigger problems,” Osamu mumbles.
“Oh,” Akagi says. “God job Osamu, that was almost a full thought. It’s nice to have you back with us.”
“Bigger problems,” Osamu says again. There is still far too much to process in his brain. Too many thoughts and a filing system that was outdated even in the 90s. But one stands out among the tangled web.
“Aran and Kita are breaking up!”
Five heads all whip around to face Osamu. For a moment, one very brief moment, there is nothing but dropped jaws and silence.
Then all hell breaks loose.