Chapter Text
Fridays were the Inarizaki volleyball club’s rest day, so Kita picked Aran up after class and headed home with him.
They’d fallen into the habit of spending their free afternoon at Kita’s house. He caught up to the homework of the day and then started doing chores, and Aran crammed the week’s schoolwork into those hours.
“I don’t know how you do it,” Aran told him once. “You have the same hours of practice as me.”
“I wake up at four every morning.”
“Weekends too?”
“Yeah.”
Aran blinked like he was getting sleepy just thinking about it and declared, “I’m sticking to my homework speedruns.”
Friday afternoons were also a time when, more likely than not, their younger brothers would be at the Ojiro’s, making it impossible for Aran to focus. Kita had suggested their own productive hangout halfway through their first year of high school and it had stuck, and Friday afternoon always turned into Friday evening and ended with Grandma Yumie insisting she wasn’t letting a boy out of the house that late without dinner, even though Aran lived on their same street.
The display of house slippers in the hall let Kita know that only his grandmother was home. His sister wouldn’t have been back from college yet, and his little brother was, predictably, somewhere else with Aran’s. Kita’s parents’ slippers were not even out, since they were, as per usual, away for work, but Aran’s were, because Grandma Yumie knew Fridays were Aran days.
It was strange that her steps weren’t coming to greet them, though.
“Grandma?”
“Shin?” Her voice drifted down from the corridor, tremulous as a wisp of smoke. “Darling, come help me up.”
That was an unusual request, and she wasn’t talking from the living room, and her voice was too close to be coming from her bedroom. Kita hurried towards her, deaf except for his heart in his ears.
He’d learned first aid and he’d applied it before, when his teammates had gotten hurt during practice. He’d been confident then, he’d known what needed to be done and he’d done it.
Kita knew what he was supposed to do, but he still froze when he saw his grandma on the floor. After all the band-aids she’d placed on his scratches, countless kisses on bruises, every time she’d held him and cooed him back to tranquility, Kita froze.
Aran didn’t. He reached her already calling 119 and asked her to stay still, which made Kita finally move. He sat at her other side, dizzy, while Aran spoke on the phone.
Grandma Yumie raised a hand to wipe Kita’s tears away and his sobs started. Her other arm was being held by Aran, her wrist visibly swollen and her hand limp, like she couldn’t move it. She should ice it, but Kita couldn’t get up, couldn’t get his words out to Aran.
“The stairs,” she explained, nodding at a hole in the second-to-last step. “I was trying to get to the kitchen to call them myself, but my heroes came just in time.”
Aran took great care laying her arm across her body and said, “I’ll be right back.”
He brought Kita an ice pack and instructions he didn’t really need, but he wasn’t sure his hands would’ve moved to hold it up to her wrist if Aran hadn’t told him so. He disappeared again, back with pillows to place between her and the wall she’d insisted on sitting up against.
“They’ll be here in five minutes.”
His grandma was smiling reassuringly, but Kita still hadn’t stopped crying. Seeing her be less scared than he was made him feel worse, and he was already berating himself for panicking in a situation he should’ve been able to act in.
“Shinsuke?” Aran took the ice pack from his shaking hands and secured it to Grandma Yumie’s wrist before throwing an arm around Kita. “Are you okay?”
When he tried to answer, Kita convulsed so hard it seemed like he was trying to shake him off, which was the last thing he wanted to do.
But Aran didn’t misunderstand him. He held him a little tighter and the lump in Kita’s throat eased up a bit, enough that he could say, “Yeah.”
. . .
Aran had gone to the living room when the paramedics arrived, and he moved to the backyard after they set Grandma Yumie on the couch.
“Are you sure she’s alright?”
Aran’s dad had called asking if he knew anything about the ambulance he’d heard from their house. Aran was giving him the same answer for the third time.
“I think so. They’re still here, but she didn’t seem too worried.”
“Call me as soon as you know something.”
“I will.”
“They’re taking so long.” Aran covered the mic to sigh before his dad asked again, “Are you sure she’s okay? Go in there and ask.”
“Dad, I don’t wanna bother the doctors.“
“Aran?” Kita was at the door, back to being the image of calm except that his eyes were still a little red. “She says she wants to talk to you. I think they’re leaving soon, though–“
“Stop wasting time and go!” his dad said as if he wasn’t the one who’d wasted ten minutes on the phone saying the same thing over and over. “And call me as soon as you know more.”
“I will.”
Aran heard his dad’s ‘Hey’ even with the phone away from his ear. He brought it back to catch, “…hang up on your father like that, are you?”
“You told me to go!”
“That’s no excuse!”
That time, Aran sighed very loudly before saying, “I love you.”
“That’s better. I love you too.”
Aran watched the screen and let his dad hang up first, lest he raise another grievance.
Kita stayed in the backyard to call his parents and let them know what was going on. Aran undid his steps back into the house.
Grandma Yumie hadn’t seemed that hurt when they found her, but now her eyelids were almost shut, her usual smile much more subdued. She was very energetic for her age, but now she looked so delicate and weak that Aran felt as if he was visiting her deathbed.
A paramedic placed tape on the bandage on her wrist and got up, so Aran took his place.
“Aran, is that you?”
His voice broke on his first try, so Aran cleared his throat and said, “Yes. Shinsuke said you wanted to talk to me?”
She took in a breath that seemed to take a lot of effort, because her eyes closed. She put her healthy hand on Aran’s cheek and the dam broke.
“Oh, dear, don’t cry for little old me.”
Aran tried to hold it in and asked, “How bad is it?”
“I’m not sure, but you know how it is at my age. If I go into the hospital, I probably won’t come back out.”
Aran had known Grandma Yumie longer than he’d known Kita. Not literally, he’d met them on the same occasion, but he hadn’t talked much to Kita until they’d started at the same high school, while he’d spent time with Grandma Yumie when he went to their house to pick up his brother, or when he walked the youngest Kita back home, or when she was sick and his dad sent him off to Kita’s with bags of food containers.
Grandma Yumie felt like his own grandma, so Aran croaked out, “Please, don’t say that,” shaking like a leaf.
“If it’s not the fall, it could be something I catch in there.”
Aran dropped his head down when he started sobbing and watched the tear-stained couch grow darker. Kita’s grandma rubbed circles into his back, trying to calm him down.
“It’s just the way life goes. I only hope I live long enough to see my Shin find happiness, even if I can’t be at his wedding. To at least meet his first girlfriend. Or boyfriend.” She squeezed Aran’s shoulder with more strength than her voice suggested. “And yours too, dear. You could only be more my grandson if you were dating Shinsuke, and, oh! Nothing would make me happier.”
Aran looked up at a blurry Grandma Yumie and said, “I am.”
“You are?”
That question was all it took for Aran to think maybe lying about that had been a bad idea. But her eyes were open all the way, and she seemed livelier, so he said, “Yes,” tried to hide a wince at her smile and added, “We’re… dating.”
Repetition was Kita’s advice for studying, and Aran repeated the lie in his mind again and again, willing it to feel real. Because Grandma Yumie was beaming, and Aran would see the lie all the way through however long she had left.
Her good hand cupped his face again, pinched his cheek with her usual energy, and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
The question was, how was he going to tell Kita.
. . .
Kita was still saying goodbye to his dad when Aran started whispering something in an urgent voice. He only caught the end of it as he hang up.
“… be my boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
Kita froze again, but Aran didn’t come to the rescue.
It didn’t make any sense that he would ask him out in the situation they were in, with no prior indication of liking him back. Kita probably hadn’t heard him right.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
Breeze picked up and Aran wiped at his eyes. “I said one thing led to another and I ended up telling her we’re dating. Do you mind pretending to be my boyfriend?”
Disappointed but mostly confused, Kita asked, “Why would you tell her that?”
“She said that us dating would make her happy, so I told her we were.”
Kita still didn’t follow. “Why?”
“‘Cause she’s on death’s door?”
Aran’s eyes shot open. He crossed himself. Kita wondered if he’d missed him being religious, but he’d crossed himself right-to-left, so he either wasn’t or was terribly out of practice.
Kita told him, “She only has a sprained wrist.”
“And she needs to stay in the hospital for a sprained wrist?”
“No?”
One of the paramedics came out to tell them they were leaving. Bones and joints were fine except for her wrist, and she could take painkillers, but she mostly needed rest and help, and to make an appointment with her regular doctor for a check-up in a week.
Kita showed them to the front door. When he returned to the backyard, Aran was still unmoving, staring in the direction they’d left.
“Do you think she did it on purpose?”
“Falling down the stairs?”
“No, acting like…” Aran shook his head. “Nevermind. Well, now she thinks we’re dating.”
She was living in a happier world than Kita was. But Aran seemed to regret having told her that, so Kita said, “Tell her we’re not.”
“And let her know that I lied to her?”
“You did lie to her.”
“I know. I feel terrible.”
“You lie to her all the time.”
He’d never seen Aran look so offended. “Not once in my life have I lied to Grandma Yumie.”
“You pretend you like those terrible telenovelas she watches.”
Aran gave a slow nod and mumbled, “Yeah, you’re right. Anyway, what if we wait it out and pretend to break up next week?”
“Fine, but you’re breaking up with me.”
“What?”
“I’m not breaking up with you.”
“I don’t wanna break up with you.”
Kita didn’t want Aran to break up with him either, but he didn’t say that. He did say, “It was your lie.”
“What if we say we agreed we were better as friends?”
“Fine, but you’re telling her that.”
“Shinsuke. Help me out here.”
Kita knew perfectly well that he was being childish, but he didn’t feel like being mature. “You started it.”
Aran frowned and asked, “Are you alright?”
And Kita nodded and told him he was going to check if his grandma needed anything.
She needed help sitting up, a glass of water, and to know why her beloved grandson hadn’t told her about getting a boyfriend.
“Uh…” Aran held Kita’s stare, but he didn’t intervene. “It’s kinda new, so… we were keeping it a secret for a while.”
“Even from your grandma?”
Kita had to apologize, several times. Aran, the coward, remained silent, leaving Kita to deal with the lie by himself.
“Aran, dear,” he startled when she addressed him, “with my son and my daughter-in-law away, I could really use your help here. Would you stay the night?”
“Me?” He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. “You’ll be with your grandkids.”
“I would feel much safer if you were here too. Now that I’m bedridden–“
“Grandma, it’s just a sprained wrist.”
She patted Kita’s head a little too hard and sighed, “I’d just feel better with a strong young man around the house, that’s all.”
Aran looked at Kita as if to check, “Shinsuke’s here.”
“What if something happened to him?” Grandma Yumie put her wounded hand to her chest. “I don’t wanna take any chances. I nearly went and died today, you know?”
Kita turned to Aran, convinced he wouldn’t fall for the same trick again.
Aran pursed his lips, blinked fast, and whispered, “Of course I’ll stay.”
Kita regarded her with suspicion. His grandma’s smile was innocent and sweet as ever. Her honeyed voice asked Aran if he needed to pack a bag, and he did.
He hugged her goodbye, returned a kiss on the cheek after she gave him one. Kita got up to walk him out, but Aran said, “Don’t leave her alone.”
“Take my keys.”
After a nod and a step and a half, Grandma Yumie said, “That’s it? That’s your goodbye?”
Aran turned slowly. She scoffed.
“What if Aran had an accident like I just did?”
“He lives literally two doors away.”
“And I was walking downstairs in my own home!”
Aran gave him a helpless look. Kita took the step that separated them.
He wasn’t sure when his crush on Aran had begun. He felt like he’d been hiding it for as long as he’d known him, so the idea of pretending to be his boyfriend was exciting. But Aran had started the lie, so Kita would tell him, whenever his grandma wasn’t within earshot, that he had to start taking some responsibility for it.
For the time being, Kita threw his arms around him, and Aran hugged him back, and all his apprehension about faking something he wanted to be true dissolved into contentment.
Aran himself had told him people didn’t need a reason for their emotions. Kita wasn’t sure he understood that. He knew why he was happy: because acting as Aran’s boyfriend, even if it wasn’t true, made him happy. But Aran had also told him to let himself be happy, and he was very happy right there in his arms, so he tried to make the most of it.
Kita said, “Be careful out there.”
Aran gulped and gave him some pats on the back. “Yeah, you too.”
“I’m staying here.”
“Oh, right.”
Grandma Yumie clicked her tongue when Aran started to leave again.
“My biggest regret is that I didn’t kiss your grandfather goodnight the day he died. When I woke up next to him, he was already gone. You should never leave without a goodbye kiss.”
Kita’s eyebrows shot up. Aran’s sat way higher up his forehead than they usually did when he faced him.
It seemed like the world had been set on pause until Grandma Yumie added, “It could be your last.”
What was for sure was that it would be their first kiss. And Kita’s too.
Aran took a tentative step towards him, then stopped. It seemed like Kita was still the one carrying the lie on his back, and even though he’d been very confident in his hugging skills, he wasn’t feeling confident at all now.
Another step made them almost chest to chest. Kita tilted his head up. Aran’s eyes were wider than Kita had ever seen them, full grey iris on display. He was just standing still, so Kita gave him a quick eyebrow raise.
It wasn’t an ideal first kiss, but Kita had never been one to romanticize, so he wasn’t that disheartened when Aran finally reacted and gave him a quick peck on the lips before stuttering that he should be on his way.
. . .
Since he was going back anyway, Aran had left his schoolbag behind. Which meant that, while he had Kita’s keys, he didn’t have his own. It didn’t take a minute to go between their houses, so he’d been pondering ringing the bell or turning around when his dad opened the door.
He said, “Come help me with dinner,” which was strange, because Aran had been called a kitchen hazard before. But Aran had most definitely not called his dad to update him like he was supposed to, so he wasn’t going to argue.
“Grandma Yumie’s okay, just a sprained wrist.”
“I know. I called her myself, since my son wasn’t going to call me.”
“Sorry, I was just–“ He didn’t move from the door. “Dad?”
He turned his face. Aran rolled his eyes and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“That’s more like it.” He grabbed Aran’s face to make him duck a little and kissed his cheek back. He finally let him into the house, asking, “Now, when were you planning on telling us you’re dating Shinsuke?”
Something smelled amazing, but it wasn’t enough to distract Aran from asking, “Wait, how long was that phone call?”
His dad ignored the question and told Aran to stir a pot while he got a cutting board out.
“Shinsuke’s coming to family dinner next Sunday.”
Aran hadn’t denied it, and now it felt too late. Maybe he’d keep up the lie with his parents too.
He asked, “This Sunday?”
“I said next Sunday. This Sunday you’re not coming either.”
Aran started to turn, but his dad told him to keep his eyes on what he was doing.
“Why am I not coming to family dinner?”
“You’re staying the weekend over there to help Yumie.”
“No, it’s only for tonight.”
The pot started to overflow. His dad scoffed and told him to take over slicing peppers.
“I told her you were staying until Monday, so pack accordingly.”
“You just volunteered my weekend?”
His dad looked away from the pot which, as if mocking Aran, didn’t start overflowing.
“I’m letting you stay the weekend at your boyfriend’s house with no parental supervision and you’re complaining? What kind of a teenager are you?”
One on the verge of a mental breakdown. “Thanks?”
“That’s what I thought.” He glanced down and gasped as if he’d just seen Aran murder someone. “What are you doing to those peppers?”
Aran could’ve sworn he’d been cutting them like his dad, but there was proof to the contrary. His dad’s slices lay on the board like perfect outlines of four-leaf clovers. Somehow, Aran had flipped the bell pepper and started cutting vertically, not two slices the same size.
His dad shooed him away. “Just go pack.” While Aran walked away, he heard his father tell the empty kitchen, “Thank God he pulled a boy like Shinsuke, because he’d starve to death out of this house. Or poison himself.”
Aran didn’t bother complaining. Kitchens hated him and he’d made his peace with it.
His head was swimming as he climbed the steps to the first floor, from too many emotions at once. At least he could sit in his bed for a minute and relax and organize his ideas.
Unless two thirteen-year-olds had broken into his room.
“I will never forgive you.”
He blinked at Jiro, Kita’s little brother. He was sitting at Aran’s desk chair, fingers drumming on the armrests, head tilted back so he could look down at him.
Aran almost asked, but he decided he was better off not knowing. He turned to his brother and said, “Hi, Noran.”
“Hi, Aran.”
Jiro said, “You owe me two thousand yen.”
Aran snorted. “I don’t. Get out of my room.”
“You started dating Shin and made me lose a bet with my sister. It’s your fault, so pay up.”
How were news traveling so fast? Whatever, Aran didn’t want to know.
“That’s not how bets work, and that’s your fault for betting on that.”
“I thought you had a crush on Hatsuko!”
He’d sort of had one, mostly based on her being cute and there, but Kita Hatsuko had crushed his crush on her well and good. Learning she didn’t like guys had been enough, but getting to know her had made Aran glad he’d never had a chance in the first place.
She’d mostly ignored him during the years when they’d only seen each other when Aran played messenger, and she’d been nice enough when he’d started hanging out with Kita, but now that he was a regular at her house, she was ruthless.
One day, he walked in with Kita after going to the movies and she told Aran, “I see you’re trying something new with that jacket.”
“Yeah, I–“
“Try returning it.”
His crush on Kita’s sister was weak at its peak and long dead.
Noran said, “You have to call mom.”
Aran wasn’t sure he could handle any more scares that day. “Did anything happen?”
“She’s sad you didn’t tell her about Shinsuke.”
“How did she find out? Isn’t she at work?”
“She called and I told her.”
Aran was starting to seriously wonder if he’d walked into a wormhole on his way home. He also wondered, “Why would you tell her?”
“She asked how my day was going and that was part of my day.”
Aran knew the innocence in his voice wasn’t pretense, but he still wished he was more loyal to his brother than their mom. Especially because she was upset about Aran not telling her something that hadn’t existed up until minutes ago.
The traitor added, “She did the gasp.”
Aran gasped too. His was a shocked gasp, while the one his brother was talking about was their mom’s patented disappointed-in-herself gasp, I-thought-my-son-would’ve-told-me gasp, did-you-feel-like-you-couldn’t-tell-me? gasp. If Aran had heard it firsthand, he would’ve cried.
He brought out his phone to send her an I-love-you-mom-I’ll-call-you-later text and said aloud, “Snitch.”
“But she asked…” he said, turning to Jiro for reassurance.
To back him up, Jiro said, “He’s the bad son.”
“What are you still doing in my room?”
“Well, well, well...” He got up, turned Aran’s chair around, and sat with his arms on the back rest. That left them higher than his face, so he had to stand on his knees to look at Aran and say, “Since you’re dating my brother, we should have a talk.”
“You should get out of my room, actually.”
“Not until you give me the two thousand yen you owe me and listen to my speech.” He cleared his throat and made his voice deeper. “If you hurt my brother–“
“I’m not dating your brother,” Aran said quickly. “We’re gonna pretend to date for a week, for Grandma Yumie. It’s a long story. Now get out of here.”
“So you’re not dating Shinsuke?”
“That’s your brother’s name, yes.”
“Why don’t you wanna date my brother?”
“What?”
“Don’t tell dad,” Noran said. “He’s looking up new recipes for when Shinsuke comes over and I wanna try them.”
“No one’s telling anyone anything,” Aran warned them.
“Of course we’re not telling anyone,” Jiro said with a smile. “For two thousand yen.”
“I will carry you out of my room if you don’t leave in the next ten seconds.”
“I bet grandma was so happy about it… She’s gonna be so sad. Devastated, even.” He turned to Noran and asked, “Did I use ‘devastated’ right?”
“Yes.”
He put a hand to his chest and repeated, “So devastated.”
“I’m not getting extorted in my own home.”
“Aren’t you?”
Aran could feel his pulse on his forehead. He did have his wallet on him, and it was probably the quickest route to get rid of them.
“Here’s two thousand yen. Disappear.”
“Noran too. Or he’ll tell your mom.”
His brother seemed surprised at that, but then he turned to Aran and nodded.
“Noran.”
“You’ll make mom sad again. She loves Shinsuke.”
This was turning out to be a very expensive lie, but Aran took another two thousand yen out of his thinning wallet.
“He’s a bad influence on you.”
Jiro fanned himself with his bills and said, “Me? Do you think lying sets a good example for your brother?”
Aran exhaled slowly and repeated, “Get the hell out of my room.”
The two little rascals finally made themselves scarce.
. . .
Noran and Jiro greeted Grandma Yumie and immediately ran upstairs, making Aran call out to them with a warning about her needing rest and the broken step. They reappeared with a volleyball and disappeared again, to play in the backyard. Kita wondered about the glare Aran dedicated to their backs, but he decided to ask after walking his grandma to her bedroom.
He didn’t get to, because by the time they got back to finally start with their homework, the front door opened again.
“Grandma?”
“She’s up–“
“I’m upstairs!”
Kita’s sister checked on her first, and then she returned to the living room with her arms open.
“Aran, come here!” Only her eyes peeked from above his shoulder, but she rolled them at Kita and said, “Finally, after years of,” Kita shook his head, “Shin having the biggest cr–” Kita waved his hand in front of his neck so she’d stop talking, “friendship with you, it finally happened!”
“Crendship?”
She gave him a very convincing frown. “I said friendship. Clean your ears, Aran.”
Convincing enough to make Aran say, “Sorry.”
“Shin, help me carry this to my room?”
He made his way to her quickly, reaching out for her backpack. “Yes, of course.”
Once in her room, Hatsuko whispered, “What was that?”
“We’re not really dating.”
“Huh?”
Her disappointed face became excited by the end of his explanation. Kita couldn’t imagine why it would be the case.
“So he told her you were dating.”
“That is the first sentence I said.”
Hatsuko smiled and sighed, “You know what? I think it’s time.”
“Time for what?”
“I’ve been letting you ruminate on your crush for years. If you’re not gonna do anything about it, I will.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s staying the weekend, right? I’ll have a plan by tomorrow.”
There was no plan to be had. The only way in which their fake relationship could become real was if Aran learned Kita liked him, and that wasn’t going to happen, not until he knew if Aran liked him back.
Before doing something the result of which Kita couldn’t reasonably deduce, he evaluated the risks. The worst case scenario of not telling Aran was that nothing changed. The worst case scenario of telling him was losing him.
So Kita always chose not telling him, no matter how many times his sister begged him to go for it because, like he’d told her many times, “I don’t think he likes me back.”
“Shin, you’re not the easiest person to be around.”
He wasn’t sure why the sudden insult, but he said, “You’ve told me before.”
“Yet he’s always around you.”
“We’re friends and teammates.”
“I don’t see the whole team coming over every week for dinner.” She lowered her voice to add, “And thank God.”
But there were many explanations for her counterargument.
“We’re neighbors and our brothers are best friends.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t start hanging out because of Noran and Jiro. You started to hang out in high school, ‘cause you like being around each other.”
“‘Cause we’re friends.”
“No, remember? You’re boyfriends right now.”
“Fake boyfriends. For a week.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Hatsuko refused to explain further, so Kita left. For homework with Aran.
Kita didn’t get nervous often. He stuck to routines, and he didn’t get nervous about things he’d practiced. Studying with Aran on Fridays was routine, but that wasn't just any Friday. What Kita was used to, was not paying any mind to his crush and enjoying Aran’s company without thinking about other things, such as how they’d kissed or how Kita wished he would kiss him again.
Focusing on textbooks seemed like it was going to be hard, but Aran was already at the table, working as if it was a normal Friday, and Kita simply joined him, and from there it was easy and evening fell fast.
They didn’t let Grandma Yumie cook, on account of her sprained wrist. Kita said he would, but then Aran offered to help, and before Kita could ask him not to, Hatsuko stepped in and told them she’d do it herself. Kita had almost asked her not to cook either, but she’d insisted she could handle tofu burgers, and they were Kita’s favorite, and there was no way his sister could mess those up. Aran, though, Aran could have.
The first time they’d found themselves together in the kitchen, Kita had been warned he was no good. Since he’d already tried Aran’s dad’s cooking, Kita had assumed he meant in comparison to him.
Then he left him in charge of frying eggs, and Aran cracked the first one a little too hard, getting a ton of shell shards into the pan and all of the actual egg out of it. Kita turned around for a second to grab a cleaning rag and heard Aran hiss after he’d tried to get the eggshells out of the burning oil with his bare hands.
Kita had gone on to give him safer tasks throughout the years, but Aran kept finding ways to stab himself with a fork, or to flip over a mixing bowl and cover the whole kitchen in dry ingredients. Once, Kita asked him to bring a cooled cake out of the fridge and Aran somehow managed to rip the handle out.
“Feeding each other is good luck for a budding relationship,” Grandma Yumie assured them.
But tofu burgers weren’t the most romantic thing to share.
“Um…” Aran turned the burger and offered Kita the side that hadn’t been bitten into. “Here?”
Kita didn’t believe in luck. “How could taking a bite out of his burger help our relationship?”
His grandma sighed, “It’s just nice to share food.” She took a spoonful of the soup she’d made when they’d left her unsupervised and held it out to Hatsuko. “Say ‘ah’.”
She drank the soup and said, “Thanks,” before breaking off a piece of her burger and bringing it to her grandma’s lips. “Say ‘ah’!”
“Say ‘ah’!”
“I’m f–“ Rejection got muffled by Jiro’s burger crashing against Noran’s face. He seemed to decide the best course of action was to accept the bite.
“Now me!”
Noran held his burger out reluctantly. “Hey, that bite was huge!”
“You should’ve bitten more out of mine then!”
“I’ll make it up with fries,” Noran said before his hand dove towards Jiro’s plate, for some of the fries they’d finished cooking after catching Grandma Yumie in the kitchen a second time, peeling potatoes.
Kita thought, since everyone was doing it anyway, he’d follow his grandmother’s advice. Luck wasn’t real, but just in case.
He went his sister’s route and tore away a piece of his burger. It had the right amount of tofu, too little of the bun, no tomato at all, and too much lettuce. He’d never tried cutting burgers with his hands before, so he took mental note of his mistakes, to do it better if there was a next time.
When he looked up to offer it to Aran, he turned at the same time, holding fries up for Kita to take.
They laughed and their hands reached the rest of the way. Aran didn’t seem to mind the poor cut of burger. His idea of going for the fries had been smarter, though.
He wiped at something on Kita’s lips, crumbs or sauce or grease, while he was still chewing the fries, resulting on him licking Aran’s finger.
“So how good’s that good luck?” Hatsuko asked, taking Aran’s attention away from the blood rushing to Kita’s face. “They’re gonna get married now or what?”
Jiro gasped, “If they got married, I’d finally be Ojiro Jiro!”
“No,” Noran frowned, “you wouldn’t.”
“But if Shinsuke took Aran’s last name?”
“He’d be Ojiro Shinsuke?”
“And we’re brothers. Brothers have the same last name, so I’d be Ojiro Jiro.”
“That’s not how it works. You’d have to get married to me. And take my last name.”
“Wait, we could’ve just done that all along?”
Jiro and Noran had met in elementary school, and they’d become instant friends because of the last name thing. That was also when Aran and Kita had met, but being same-aged neighbors who both liked volleyball hadn’t done the trick, even though it was already more in common than Kita had had with most other tries.
When he was younger, Kita was always being forced into attempted friendships by his family, and he was used to whatever neighbor or family friend quickly losing interest in him. That’s why he hadn’t really expected Aran to talk to him more than necessary when they’d landed on the same high school, but then they’d started walking home together every day after volleyball practice. And now, there they were.
“We can’t get married yet,” Noran said matter-of-factly. “We’re too young.”
“You can’t get married, period,” Hatsuko muttered. “Now that your brothers are dating, that’d be a really weird family dynamic.”
Jiro protested, “That’s not fair!”
Kita saw Grandma Yumie massaging her temple, and he was about to say something to Jiro, but Aran asked Noran, “Why don’t you two have the sleepover at our house instead? She needs to rest.”
“Dad said I could stay if I didn’t bother Grandma Yumie. And he also said to tell you to make sure I didn’t bother Grandma Yumie.”
Hatsuko told her brother, “I have to study and I want quiet. If you’re not gonna be, go sleep at Noran’s.”
Jiro whispered dramatically, “Grandma almost died today and you won’t let me stay with her?”
His sister looked at Aran with pleading eyes. “The other day he was talking about getting adopted by your parents so he could have your last name, so take him. Please.”
“I’ll tell mom and dad you wanna give me away!”
“Stop yelling. And you owe me two thousand yen.”
“I’m thirteen! Where would I get that kind of money?”
A sharp intake of breath. Aran’s nostrils were flaring.
Kita asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yup.”
While they cleared the table, Jiro asked if they could have the big bedroom for their sleepover.
“Shin and Aran should stay in mom and dad’s room,” Hatsuko said casually, without even looking up from her phone. “You two stay in your room.”
Kita and Jiro shared a room with twin beds. When Noran stayed over, Kita took the couch, so he’d assumed, if Aran ever stayed the night, they’d do it the other way around. Sleeping in the same bed had never been part of the plan.
He caught his grandma’s eyes and said, “That wouldn’t be appropriate.”
“Oh, nonsense.” Grandma Yumie waved his concern off. “You’re two nice and polite boys. And you know God’s always watching.”
He’d already been getting flustered at the thought of sharing a bed. Now Kita wanted the earth to open under the house and spit him out somewhere he could be embarrassed on his own.
“Grandma, you’re gonna give those two a heart attack,” Hatsuko said between chuckles.
Aran got up to start clearing the table. The light dancing on his face gave away his glowing cheeks.
. . .
Aran had been saved from doing dishes because Grandma Yumie had asked for his help finding that day’s telenovela’s episode online, since she’d missed it with the accident.
“You should watch it with me,” she said in a low voice, so the others wouldn’t hear over the cacophony of water and metal and ceramics. “Remember I told you María Lorenza got thrown into an asylum? Well, turns out, that was her secret twin, Lorenza María.”
Aran gasped and said, “Oh, my God.”
“So when she found out what they’d tried to do to her and done to her sister, she asked her mafia boyfriend for help.”
“Wait, wasn’t she dating the doctor, Pablo Lorenzo?”
“María Lorenza was dating the doctor, but she caught him cheating with one of his patients again and dumped him.” Aran nodded his agreement with María Lorenza’s choice. “Literally, she pushed him out of a third floor window and he landed in a dumpster.”
“Serves him right.”
“Lorenza María’s dating the mafia boss. On this episode, María Lorenza’s planning how to break her sister out with the handsome mafia guys, and you won’t believe who’s there undercover.”
“Not Samuel, María Lorenza’s cop brother?”
“Precisely Samuel.”
Aran wanted to watch it so bad. “Okay, I’ll tell Shinsuke that we should do homework here to keep an eye on you.”
The rest of the evening wasn’t very productive, Aran being too busy trying to contain his reactions at the twists and turns while Kita glanced at him in confusion.
Once everyone else was in their rooms for the night, they walked around the house, Kita tidying up anything that had been left out of place.
Aran noticed he hadn’t said it, thought maybe he should. “I’m sorry about the lie. And for dragging you into this.”
Kita shrugged and said, “It’s fine.”
“If you want me to tell her that it’s not true, I will.”
Kita picked up a blanket that seemed perfectly folded to Aran and got to work on folding it back up.
“I don’t want her to get upset, so we can just do what you said.”
“Okay.”
“Besides, our brothers seem to be having fun with it.”
“They know it’s not true.”
“Ah,” Kita smiled slightly, “that explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“You seemed stressed at dinner.”
He’d been. “Your sister was having fun with it. Does she know too?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll have to come to family dinner next Sunday, by the way, if we haven’t fake-broken up yet.”
Kita’s eyes widened at the implication of Aran’s dad cooking. “You can break up with me next Monday.”
Aran laughed, “Okay. But, seriously, if that was awkward earlier, or if you were uncomfortable–“
“I wasn’t. I felt very comfortable.” He frowned and added, “Mostly,” and Aran felt his face getting hot again at the reminder of Grandma Yumie’s comment.
But Aran also mostly agreed. “It was actually surprising how not uncomfortable it was.”
“I wasn’t that surprised.”
Now Aran felt even more embarrassed at having said that. But Kita didn’t leave him a lot of time to dwell on it.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yes?”
Kita’s face sported the seriousness he showed when he commented on the mistakes people had made during in a game. Aran had seen that face less and less directed at him, but it still made him straighten up.
“You actually like those telenovelas, don’t you?”
Aran faked a laugh and said, “I mean… I like hearing Grandma Yumie talk about them.”
“You seemed pretty engaged earlier.”
There was no getting a lie past those stern eyes. Aran said, “Fine, I love them.”
“Why would you lie about that?”
“I don’t know. You think those shows are bad.”
“I don’t like them, but my grandma does and I still love her. You didn’t need to pretend you didn’t like them.”
Aran did try to pretend his heart hadn’t jumped at a specific point of his sentence. He was starting to think pretending wasn’t his strong suit, and he had over a week of pretending ahead of him.
But first, he had to sleep next to Kita and, for some reason, his heartrate hadn’t gone back to normal by the time the bedroom door closed behind them. But the bed was big enough that he could imagine it was just like sleeping on contiguous bedrolls, like when they were out on a training camp.
What wasn’t like on those weekends out was how he woke up in the middle of the night to find Kita’s sleeping face right in front of him. Worse than that, his head was on Aran’s arm, and his cheek was all smushed up, and it was adorable.
Aran tried to focus on going back to sleep, but when he turned towards the ceiling and shifted a little to get comfortable, he noticed his hand over his stomach, and Kita’s over it. His fingers were laid so perfectly over the space between Aran’s that all he needed to do was lift his up a little and they would fall into place.
His hand did it without running it through his brain.
Betrayal struck again when his head snapped to the side to check if Kita had woken up from doing that. He hadn’t, but his eyelids were fluttering now, sleep upset after the sudden movement.
Aran’s first instinct was to close his eyes.
Pretending to be asleep meant he wasn’t able to see if Kita had woken up or not. He only felt him move his hand until it fit better into Aran’s.
He could feel his heartbeat thumping against the palm of his hand, which meant Kita could feel it too, if he was awake. Aran wasn’t sure at the moment how the heart worked during sleep, but his bet was on slower than that.
Kita inhaled and fell quiet, as if he’d been about to speak and then changed his mind. Aran’s breath decided to hitch.
Kita took his hand away and Aran almost held on to it. It started gently shaking his shoulder.
“Aran, you’re having a nightmare.”
The whole Friday certainly felt like a very strange dream. Aran did his best impression of his own sleepy voice and asked, “What?”
“I think you were having a nightmare.”
“Oh. Sorry I woke you up.”
Fixing the blanket back over Aran’s shoulder, Kita told him not to worry. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
“The nightmare?”
“My grandma says if you tell someone about your nightmare, you won’t have it again.”
Aran used to do that too, sort of, but he knew it wasn’t very scientific, and Kita was anything but superstitious.
“Does that work for you?”
Kita frowned and said, “It doesn’t make any sense, but it does.”
Aran offered, “When I was little, my mom said that if told my nightmares to the monster under my bed, he would eat them and I’d have good dreams.”
“Your mom told you there was a monster under your bed?”
One night, when he was six years old, Aran woke up crying from a nightmare. His mom checked under his bed and told him there wasn’t anything there, but in his nightmare he’d checked too, and the monster had only been hiding, biding his time.
His mom checked again and started whispering unintelligibly. When she got out, she informed Aran that he was right. There was a monster, but she’d had a talk with him and it turned out he was living under his bed because he ate children’s nightmares. He’d missed that one, but if Aran told it to him, the monster would have it for dinner and he wouldn’t dream about it again.
“And did that work for you?”
“Yeah,” Aran admitted.
“Do you wanna tell me about the nightmare?”
“Oh, it was nothing important. Let’s just go back to sleep.”
“Jiro used to get them a lot, many years ago, but if I hugged him, he’d sleep through the night.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You could try that.”
Maybe he knew Aran was lying. Maybe he could take the chance to feel for Kita’s heart rate. Maybe he was the liar. Maybe they both were.
“Okay.”
Aran reached for Kita, but he said, “No, turn around.”
“Huh?”
“That’s what would work.”
So Aran said, “Okay,” and lied on his side.
Kita’s arms were around his waist, and his chest was pressed up against his back, but Aran couldn’t tell their heartbeats apart. He took in a deep breath, to try to slow his down, but then Kita’s nose tickled the skin above the neckline of his shirt and it got messed up again.
He could feel Kita’s voice on his shoulder blade like it was touching him when he asked, “Do you feel better?”
“Yeah,” he answered, because he did.
“I think it works this way because you can watch out ahead and feel like I’ve got your back.”
“Like when we’re playing volleyball.”
“Yeah,” Kita’s soft laugh echoed through Aran’s body, “exactly.”