Work Text:
“Homota, we’ve been driving for fuckin’ ages,” Miu whines, knocking her head against the back of the driver’s seat.
Rantaro’s lip twitches. He adjusts his own position as he watches Miu writhe in place, but he does so minutely, so as not to wake Angie, who sleeps against his arm. From the driver’s seat, Kaito turns his head, tutting at her, but he can’t get a word in before she’s speaking again.
“This Gorgeous Girl Genius has seriously gotta piss, y’know, and unless you’re into that, I—”
Kaito groans, “ Quit it!” at the same time as Tenko bursts out, “Iruma-san, no!”
They stare at each other, eyebrows raised, until Tenko leans back in her seat; a silent concession.
“Quit calling me that,” Kaito complains, once he’s sure that he won’t be interrupting Tenko again. “I told you less than fifteen minutes ago. The next rest stop isn’t for another couple hours.”
“I can’t hold it that long!” Miu protests. “Speed or something!”
“I’m not gonna speed!”
Rantaro casts a nervous look upon the sleeping Angie, but her eyes are still closed, her chest rising and falling steadily. Either she managed to sleep through the outburst, or she was never asleep to begin with. Rantaro supposes it doesn’t matter either way, so long as she disturbed. He cards his fingers through her hair, smiling softly, but glances up to follow the rest of the conversation.
“You should have gone at the last stop,” Kiibo remarks, disdainfully. Miu lets out a long whine, flopping dramatically into Kiibo’s lap, and they sigh as they card their fingers through her hair.
“But I didn’t have to goooo theeeeen,” she complains. Rantaro swallows back a laugh.
Next to him, Shuichi’s grey eyes crinkle at the edges. “Are you regretting bringing us all along, yet?” Rantaro grins and elbows him in the side. He rubs Angie’s back while he responds.
“Would you believe that I’m not?” he asks. Rantaro speaks quietly, almost wistfully, as his eyes drag up and down the aisle. He takes in his bickering friends; Miu’s face scrunching up with exaggerated distress, Kaito’s exasperated replies from the driver’s seat, Tenko’s indignant huffs whenever Miu makes another innuendo. “It’s… nostalgic, actually. Familiar. Been a really long time since I’ve gone on a trip like this with so many people.”
From the seat in front of them, Kaede turns around to speak, raising her eyebrows.“A bit nerve-wracking, though, huh?” She smiles sympathetically. “You seemed worried while we were all packing up.”
Well, that would probably happen no matter what. Rantaro trusts his friends with his life, and more importantly with their own lives, but it’s hard not to be scared of losing them anyway. Not to mention that this is hardly a vacation. Rantaro’s only business in the Mid-Western United States is a lead on his sister, Mina. If one of his friends got hurt—or worse, lost— on a trip they only went on for his sake, Rantaro wouldn’t be able to take it.
But Rantaro spent all of high school and the better part of his college years pushing people away. He wasted all that time isolating himself, because he thought that he was cursed, and because he believed that it would be better for the people he cared about if he wasn’t in their lives. He didn’t trust them to know what they wanted if what they wanted was him.
Rantaro has lost too many people, though, to live his life in fear of it happening again. If loss is inevitable, then Rantaro wants to spend the time that he has appreciating the people around him. That’s the only way to live.
“I’m still worried,” Rantaro admits, and when Kaede rests a hand on his cheek, he leans into it, but smiles at her. “But I trust you guys. I know you wouldn’t just wander off without telling me about it.”
“Rule of threes,” Shuichi says quietly. He rests his hand on Rantaro’s knee, and Rantaro puts his own free hand Shuichi’s, squeezing. Shuichi’s hands, smaller than Rantaro’s, are cold, and Rantaro has always hated the cold, but next to the warmth of Kaede’s hand on his face, and the overwhelming heat of his own, there’s something comforting about it. It reminds him less of himself.
From the front seat, Kaito mutters, “Ah, shit,” and Rantaro looks up, his eyebrows raising, Angie shifting against him.
“What’s the matter, Kaito?”
“It’s just—” Before Kaito can finish, the engine sputters, and the car comes to a sputtering halt. Kaito clicks his tongue, brow wrinkling in the rearview mirror, and unbuckles his seatbelt. “Wait in here, I’ll go take a look under the hood.”
Miu sits up, pulling away from Kiibo and following suit. “Lemme help ya,” she says, and Kaito pouts at her as he slips out of the vehicle.
“What kind of man needs someone else to help him fix a car?” Kaito grunts, muffled through the car doors. Miu makes a face at him as she follows.
“ Someone else— I’m an inventor, you dumb fuck.”
They keep bickering even as Kaito lifts the hood of the car, which, though it’s hard to tell through the tinted windshield, appears to be letting off puffs of white smoke. That doesn’t bode well, but frankly, Rantaro doesn’t know enough about cars to be able to help. He’ll just have to trust that Kaito (local man) and Miu (local mechanical expert) know what they’re doing.
There’s some mumbling at his side, and Rantaro glances down, watching Angie stir.
“Mmmmm…” She trails off, yawning into Rantaro’s sleeve. “...what is happening?”
Angie’s words slur, muffled against Rantaro’s shirt. Seems she really was asleep. Rantaro keeps a hand on the top of her head as she sits up, watching Angie’s nose scrunch with her second yawn. She’s sweet, especially when she’s sleepy like this, her eyes too clouded for that fake smile to stretch her expression just yet. It’s not that Rantaro hates to see her brimming with joy as she so often is, but it’s different, to see her like this. She feels closer to him, more down-to-earth, and perhaps most important, she reminds him of his sisters.
“Morning, Angie-san,” Rantaro murmurs. Angie’s lips quirk in a drowsy smile. “Think we’re experiencing a bit of car trouble at the moment.”
Tenko turns around in her seat, staring at them with wide green eyes. “Angie-san doesn’t need to worry, though! Iruma-san definitely knows what she’s doing! She’s very good at cars!”
Angie rubs one of her eyes, yawning yet again. “Well, that is good… if that is the case, then God can just keep sleeping… no need for His assistance right now.” Heh. She really is sleepy. Moving vehicles just put her right to sleep. Rantaro ruffles Angie’s hair, and she makes a purring sound in the back of her throat, leaning up into the touch.
“Y-Yeah, uh, God can sit this one out!” Tenko makes an attempt at cheerfulness, though the hesitation in her voice is clear. She’s never been the most devout. Rantaro really appreciates her trying, even if she probably doesn’t do it for his sake so much as she does it because she doesn’t want to say boo to another girl. Much less one who’s so close with Himiko. “Maybe Tenko will get out and stretch her legs, though… it’s important to keep your blood pumping, especially on long car rides like this! Kaede, Kiibo, and Angie-san can come too!”
Her eyes settle on Rantaro and Shuichi, narrowing.
“And… Amami-san and Saihara-san, if they want,” she adds, stiffly, which is much more charitable than she would’ve been back in high school. Rantaro suppresses a fond chuckle, in the interest of not getting thrown.
“That’d be nice, Chabashira-san, if you’ll have us.” Rantaro reaches to unbuckle his seatbelt. Angie sighs, shaking herself off, and opens her eyes again.
“Yup yup! God has said that Angie should go on a walk as well!”
Kiibo frowns. “Did you not just say that he’s sleeping?”
“He said it in his sleep!”
“Ah, of course,” Kiibo nods, like this is perfectly logical, as they unbuckle their own seatbelt. Rantaro has to suppress another amused sound, waiting for Tenko and Kaede to leave the car before he slips down the aisle, if only to give Angie and Shuichi more room to get unbuckled.
Distaste aside, Tenko still offers Rantaro an arm as he steps out of the van. He squeezes her arm as he steps down, and she scoffs, lifting her chin haughtily. This time, Rantaro is unable to suppress the urge to chuckle. As much as he considers Tenko to be one of his closest friends, he can’t help feeling like she’s here more for the sake of his sisters than she is for Rantaro himself. It’s as good an incentive as any, really; Rantaro hardly deserves the help, being the one behind the disappearances to begin with, but his sisters deserve to be found. That goes without saying.
Once out standing on the pavement, Rantaro stretches his arms over his head, releasing a puff of air.
They’re far out from civilisation. The highway is straight and bare, stretching out endlessly before them. Under Rantaro’s converse, the street is cracked and brown, and every step he takes kicks up dust that he can feel tickling the back of his throat. The plantlife out here is sparse; what few plants there are are browned and small, hardly the type to provide shade. It’s a shame, because the sun is glaring down at them, not a single fluffy white cloud present in the cerulean sky.
With how warm it is, Rantaro almost wishes he was back in the car, zooming down the highway with the windows rolled down, but this isn’t bad either. His skin always crawls in confined spaces, from cars to elevators to crowded squares. He needs to be out in the open, just like this; standing at the edge of a cliff, sailing in the middle of the ocean, or hiking a long, winding forest trail. It’s a desire that’s as comes as naturally to him as breathing. Even after losing his sisters, as his love for adventure began to sour, Rantaro has always needed to be outside, out in the world. He could never live in one spot, confined to a singular location, when there’s so much out there that he hasn’t seen yet.
(No matter how much of his freedom he would give up, if he could just get his sisters back.)
As Shuichi exits the van, sliding one of the doors shut, there’s a loud pop from the engine, and then another burst of pale smoke, and a string of profanities comes from Miu as she drags Kaito to the group by his scruff. Kaito is grinning sheepishly, a smear of soot across his forehead, and Miu is fuming, muttering curse words under her breath until she comes to a stop before the group.
“So! We got good news and bad news! Which one do you virgins want first?”
“Um,” Kaede’s eyes dart to the van, and then to Kaito and Miu, and then back to the van. “Good news?”
“Homota figured out how t’ do somethin’. Good for him. Anyone wanna guess the bad news?”
“Do you gotta rub it in?”
Miu insists, “Any takers?”
“Kaito broke the car?” Angie guesses, brightly, her hands clasped behind her back as she pops up onto her toes.
“I didn’t break the car!” Kaito protests, at the same time as Miu confirms, “Homota broke the fucking car.”
Kaito makes a whining noise in the back of his throat. “Listen, it’s been years since I took auto shop, okay? And stop calling me that!”
“Someday, Homota, someday,” Miu jabs a finger at the middle of his chest, “Chaba-shit-ra’s gonna beat the everloving shit outta you, and then you’re gonna realise how little it means to be a man in this world.”
“Will you fight?” Shuichi whispers, from Rantaro’s side. “Or will you perish like a dog?” Rantaro chokes trying not to laugh at that one.
Eagerly, Tenko pipes up, “Tenko will do it right now if Iruma-san wants!” and Kaito looks at her warily, like he’s not sure he could take her in a fight.
“Let’s not get too hasty,” Rantaro says, so Kaito doesn’t fucking die, putting out his hands in a placating gesture. “There isn’t any signal out here. We’re probably going to have to wait for someone to drive by and give us a hand.”
“Tenko doesn’t see what that has to do with her beating up Kaito.”
“Maybe we should hold off on that until we’re back in Japan,” Kaede suggests. “Save it for a time when Kaito isn’t needed to drive, y’know? It’ll be better for Rantaro’s sisters, that way!”
“Kaede is right!” Tenko agrees, at once, nodding vigorously. “Kaito lives another day!”
His arms folded across his chest, Kaito grumbles, “Thanks a lot,” but at the glare he gets from Tenko, he lifts them in surrender.
Kaito’s death by Tenko now delayed, Rantaro squints down the highway, lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. Someone is bound to drive down the road eventually, right? They might be in the middle of nowhere, but it’s not like nobody ever drives by here. Help should come at some point. There’s no need to worry too much, even if this is a bit of a setback.
Besides, everyone is where Rantaro can see them. He does a quick head count—Kaede, Shuichi, Tenko, Angie, Miu, Kiibo, Kaito—and then looks back at the road. Things should be fine. They have enough food and water packed in their van that worst case scenario, they can camp out here for the night. It doesn’t look like there’s any rain in their future, so it won’t be so bad. If it does start raining, they can just sleep in the car, cramped though it may be.
On the subject of cars being cramped…
“Miu,” Rantaro turns to look towards his friend, “it might be better if you took your nature pee sooner rather than later. I doubt we’ll be reaching that rest stop any time soon.”
“Nature pee?” Miu sputters. “You’re gonna make the Gorgeous Girl Genius pee in the middle of nowhere?”
Rantaro frowns. “Well, I can’t make you do anything, I suppose, but holding your bladder can actually have really negative side effects, such as—”
“I don’t wanna know!” Miu interrupts frantically. “I’ll just go now! Ka-idiot, Kiibo, come with me, yeah? Rule of threes, or whatever. Besides, I need you guys to shield my breathtaking self as I go.”
Rantaro smiles inwardly. Miu always acts like she doesn’t care, but she has a big heart. It means a lot to him that she was paying enough attention to remember to bring Kaede and Kiibo along with her without being prompted. He’s glad he asked her to come, even if her skills went sort of wasted just now, what with the whole car debacle.
“Hmmm… Rantaro, what now?” Angie comes over to Rantaro’s side, latching onto his arm and tilting her head. “God is bored. We should play a game instead of standing around like this!”
“That’s a good idea,” Rantaro touches his chin. “Admittedly, I wasn’t expecting something like this to happen, so I don’t have any games packed, I don’t think… did any of you bring like, a deck of cards?”
Shuichi shakes his head, apologetically, as he says, “No, I don’t think so, sorry,” and the rest of the lingering group does the same. Rantaro doesn’t see Miu or Kaede bringing cards along on a trip like this, but maybe he’ll ask Kiibo, when they return. “I did bring a couple books, but that might be hard as a group activity…”
“What a wonderful idea, Shuichi!” Angie chirps. She bounds over to the detective and curls around his arm instead. Shuichi startles for a moment, but relaxes into a smile and rests a hand on top of Angie’s head. “You’ll read to us, won’t you? Won’t you, won’t you?”
“Ah, you’d like that?” Shuichi’s smile becomes a touch wry. “I don’t know how well Iruma-san will take to being read to…”
“If we’re doing storytime, then I want a girl to do it,” Tenko huffs. “Tenko doesn’t need to listen to a degenerate ramble on and do falsetto for the poor fictional girls. She’d rather just read over his shoulder!”
Kaito rubs the back of his neck. “We can’t all read over Shu’s shoulder. Wouldn’t that get kinda crowded?”
“I’m sure we can find something to do,” Rantaro says placatingly. “There’s no need to stress out about it. Maybe we can start by eating lunch.”
The suggestion seems to please Angie. “Ah, good idea! God is very hungry!”
“Does he get his sustenance from you?” Shuichi asks, frowning.
“He eats when Angie eats!”
Yeah, okay. This God lore is convoluted as fuck. But it’s not like Angie’s ever seemed to care about continuity. Regardless of how Angie’s god eats, it seems as though everyone is in favour of lunch, so Rantaro walks back to the van for the sandwiches he packed earlier. He’s glad this happened with company, and not while he was driving on his own. He’s not sure what he would’ve done, alone on an abandoned highway with a broken down car. With his friends here, things seem more bearable, like this is just a brief hiccup in a larger journey.
They make him feel that way a lot, actually. Rantaro smiles as he opens the trunk, shaking his head.
The temperature cools throughout the day, which is spent aimlessly, for the most part. At one point, Tenko, Kaito, and Angie go off exploring and come back with a small pile of sticks, and Shuichi does spend some time reading one of his books to the group, but as the sun sets and evening falls, the group huddles closer together, sitting themselves down in a small circle just by where the van broke down.
Overhead, the stars shine bright. There are no street lamps out here, only winding, endless dusty roads, and the sky is painted in splotches of pink, purple, and blue. Rantaro feels like it’s been ages since he’s seen the stars out in the open like this, even though this isn’t even the best that they can be. There’s just something different about seeing it all with friends, experiencing the world not as a lonely traveler, but as a boy who is loved.
Kaito, sitting next to Rantaro, points up at the sky, and Rantaro follows his finger until he spots the bright red dot he’s looking at. “Y’know what planet that is?”
Well, not at first glance, but there’s only one red planet close enough for Rantaro to see with the naked eye. “Mars?”
“Bingo,” Kaito grins. “The Red Planet. I wanna be one of the first men up there.”
“Yeah?” Rantaro glances in Kaito’s direction, smiling slightly as the other man begins to ramble.
He’s always been a dreamer. It can be difficult, sometimes, to tell the difference between what’s all talk and what’s the truth, when it comes to Kaito. But he’s so passionate about the stars, more so than Rantaro has seen him with anything else. There’s this quality about him, when he talks about space. His eyes ignite and his smile stretches broad across his face, and weak lungs or not, Rantaro knows whenever he sees Kaito like that that there is truly nothing the universe could do to keep him from the stars.
It’s his destiny, and in a way it’s almost sad, to have anything be your destiny. But there’s something hopeful, too.
Rantaro shivers as he listens to Kaito talk, and Kaito stops mid-sentence, his eyes widening. “Oh, are you cold? Shit, man, you should’ve said something.”
“Not really, I just have a lower cold tolerance, I should be fine,” Rantaro starts, but Kaito’s already shrugging off his coat, draping it over Rantaro’s shoulders.
“You don’t gotta pretend for me, man,” Kaito grins, and claps Rantaro’s back. His hand is warm, even through the fabric of his jacket. “It’s okay. We’re bros, remember?”
Rantaro bites back a smile at the sincerity in Kaito’s voice. “Right.”
Pleased, Kaito nods, and opens his mouth to speak again before he’s interrupted.
“Kaito, what star is that?” Kaede asks, from across the circle. Kaito perks up, but looks at Rantaro first, like he’s hesitant to step away.
“Go, go,” Rantaro waves him off, “Kaede needs the Luminary of the Stars more than I do right now.”
Kaito laughs, but stands, heading over to where Kaede, Tenko, and Miu are curled up together to stay warm.
Eventually, Shuichi takes Kaito’s place, pressing a little closer to Rantaro. Obligingly, Rantaro lifts the edge of Kaito’s jacket, and wraps it around the both of them, pulling Shuichi in snug. Shuichi smiles slightly, cozying up to Rantaro.
“Thanks,” he says, quietly.
“Us cold people need to stick together,” Rantaro states. He takes one of Shuichi’s hands in his and squeezes, and Shuichi giggles, resting his head against Rantaro’s shoulder. Rantaro gives him a gentle smile before he lifts his head, just in time to catch sight of Angie as she flops down into Rantaro’s lap. She doesn’t speak, but rather closes her eyes, getting comfortable on Rantaro’s thighs.
Obligingly, Rantaro strokes Angie’s hair, and she lets out a pleased hum, leaning into the touch, her eyelids fluttering. She must be tired. It makes Rantaro happy, that she can come over to him when she wants to feel safe, tucked up and cozy against his legs.
On Rantaro’s other side, Kiibo turns their head, electric blue eyes glowing thoughtful in the darkness. “Rantaro, would you consider telling us a story?” they ask, tilting their head to the side.
“A story, huh?” Rantaro hums, lifting his hand from Shuichi’s to touch his chin. “I wouldn’t mind, no. What kind of thing did you have in mind?”
“Tell us one about your sisters!” Kaede pipes up, from where she’s got Miu’s head in her lap, an excited smile on her face. “You always look so soft when you talk about them! It’d be nice to hear more.”
“Only if Amami-san is comfortable with it, though,” Tenko adds, shifting her weight against Kaito’s shoulder. “Tenko wants to know more about Amami-san’s lovely sisters, but not if it’s uncomfortable. Rehashing the past to be painful, and though it’s good to open up, it’s okay not to be ready. Tenko and everyone else will still be here until you are.”
Rantaro knows that, actually. He knows it with his entire soul. It took him until his third year of high school to open up to Shuichi, and then more years after that to finally tell the rest of them. It felt selfish, back then, to indulge in the comfort of others, and a part of him was scared, too, that they would hate him for his mistakes, not want to be around him anymore. A part of him still feels that way, like the clock is just ticking down until they all realise what a mess he is and leave. He wouldn’t be able to hold it against them after everything he’s done and failed to do.
But Shuichi stayed, when he learned. Kaede, Kaito, Tenko, Miu, Kiibo, and Angie, they stayed. The rest of their class, though they aren’t here, when Rantaro finally worked up the courage to confide in them, they stayed too. They stayed right by Rantaro’s side, where they’ve been, without fail, since before they even graduated high school.
It’s… a kind of graciousness, a kind of patience, that some days Rantaro still doesn’t feel like he deserves. In the quiet moments, it’s all too easy to see the blood that coats his hands, to see the anger in Kasumi’s eyes when he finally found her, or the way Hikaru broke down when he came to get her from the airport. He can never fix what he did. Things will never be the same as he remembers them being, back before all his sisters got lost. Even if everyone is alive and wants to come home, even if he manages to fill the house once again, it will be… different. Some days Rantaro doesn’t know if he’s strong enough to cope with that.
Right now, though, in this moment, with Angie’s head in his lap and Shuichi’s on his shoulder, with the highway empty and their van broken down, with the stars shining bright overhead (but not as bright as they could be), Rantaro thinks that maybe a little bit of difference is good. It’s not good to suffer. Nobody deserves to be in pain. But maybe sometimes you have to break in order to shine. Rantaro wouldn’t be where he is now without all of those mistakes, no matter how they keep him up at night.
He misses his sisters so badly that it hurts, and that goes for the ones he’s found, too, the ones who are different from the girls he left behind, who lived entire lifetimes while they were waiting for him to find them. But as much as Rantaro has lost, he’s gained, too, and he doesn’t know where he’d be without this group. They make him feel stronger, better, like he’s good enough to bring his sisters home. They make him feel like he deserves to.
“I’m ready for it,” Rantaro whispers. He shifts his position, straightening up, but not enough to jostle Angie or Shuichi. He smiles, swallowing thickly so that he doesn’t start crying in front of everyone. “How about the story of how my sister Mina lost her first tooth?”
“Is she the one we’re looking for?” Kiibo asks.
Rantaro nods. “The very same.”
When Miu speaks, her voice is muffled slightly by the fabric of Kaede’s pants, her eyes narrowed. “How much of a story can you get outta that, anyways? Her tooth fell out. The end.”
“Don’t be mean, Miu!” Kaede huffs.
“It’s alright, really,” Rantaro chuckles, before Miu can start whimpering. “It was an unconventional tooth-losing. Mina really wanted her tooth fairy money, and Aki really wanted to close a door with a tooth tied to it.”
There is a moment of silence.
“Ah,” Shuichi intones. Kaito shudders, like he’s imagining the pain.
“You can’t just say that and then stop talking! Continue the story, Ran-tiddies!” Miu huffs.
“Weren’t you just complaining about it?” Kiibo asks skeptically. Miu sticks her tongue out at them, and Rantaro laughs, shaking his head before he does as instructed and resumes the story.
They’re all so loud, and chaotic, and messy, and when they finally reach their destination, it’ll be a pain in the ass to keep track of all. But it will be worth it, and there’s no way Rantaro is going to allow himself to take his eyes off of a single one of them. No way in hell.
It’s been a very long time since Rantaro has had something this precious. He’s not losing it again.