Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gentaro’s head hurts.

It’s the first thing he notices when he comes to, the pounding ache in his skull that swallows his awareness whole before he even opens his eyes. The second is–

“Gentaro?” “Gentaro!”

Ramuda and Dice’s shouts overlap each other. He winces at the discordance.

“Not so loud, please,” he murmurs, fighting to sit up. It’s difficult with his hands cuffed as they are, but someone’s behind him quickly, warm hands easing him forward. He looks up at Dice, who grins down at him, dried blood at the corner of his mouth. His hands are cuffed, too, wrists close together as his handprints burn like a brand into Gentaro’s back.

Ramuda grabs his face in his tiny hands and drags him to face forward again, looking seriously into his eyes. Gentaro makes a muffled noise of surprise and Dice snickers behind him.

“Not concussed!” Ramuda declares. He releases Gentaro’s face, but he doesn’t actually back away. Gentaro’s pretty sure he’s wrong, actually, but then, he’s never been concussed before.

Dice sits down cross-legged next to him, making a triangle of their bodies. “Glad you’re awake, Gen,” he murmurs. “Ramuda and I were startin’ to worry.”

Gentaro’s brow furrows. “Worry? How long was I…?”

“A whiiile,” Ramuda complains. “Not that we can actually tell time in here, but at least a few hours.”

“Ah.” Gentaro wracks his brain. His memories feel scrambled, like there’s something he’s missing. “What…?”

A shadow crosses Dice’s face. “Man, it was fuckin’ bullshit. They ambushed us at Ramuda’s place. I tried to buy you time, but…”

Ramuda puffs up his chest. “We didn’t go! Obviously! We aren’t leaving Dice!”

“You should’ve! I woulda been okay in here! But you–“

The cell door swings open then. All the blood drains from Dice’s face; he scrambles to his feet, takes two steps backward. Gentaro turns to follow his gaze just as four cat-eared Chuo guards stream into the room. They don’t stop to speak to any of them, only grab Dice by the arms and haul him off his feet.

Dice yelps and kicks his legs in the air, trying to wiggle out of their grasp. There’s something panicked in his eyes. Like this, Dice looks like nothing so much as a wild animal, snapping and growling and cursing as they drag him toward the door.

Ramuda makes a guttural, furious sound and launches himself at the soldier restraining Dice’s arms. Dice twists in their grip and shouts something else, voice breaking halfway through. The soldier grunts and struggles as Ramuda tries desperately to pry her hands off of Dice. His nails leave red, raw scratches on her arms.

“Stupid little–”

The soldier’s open palm smushes into Ramuda’s face. Ramuda sinks his teeth into the meat of her hand, hard enough that blood starts to drip down her wrist. The soldier shouts in outrage and swings her arm in a wide arc, slamming Ramuda against the cement-block wall. He cries out, a pitiful warbling thing, and crumples to the floor. The other three soldiers swarm forward to grab hold of Dice.

Through it all Gentaro is paralyzed, pinned like an insect where he kneels on the concrete floor. He feels outside himself, watching his wretched body do nothing as Dice is dragged kicking and yelling from the cell.

Dice is halfway out the door when he looks back, meets Gentaro’s gaze, wild-eyed. Gentaro snaps back into his body as the cell door slams closed. Through the glass of the door Dice is mouthing something, shouting it, but Gentaro can’t hear him at all over the blood roaring in his ears. And then Dice is being dragged down the hall and it’s too late.

Gentaro’s heart is rushing in his ears. When he looks down he notes distantly that his hands are trembling. In an instant he’s on his feet, tripping on the fabric of his hakama in his haste to get to the door.

There’s no good reason for Chuoku to take Dice from them. They won’t get anything from him. Dice is a bad liar, but he wouldn’t ever sell them out.

Not even to save himself.

The realization drags a sob from Gentaro’s throat. His fists slam uselessly against the unforgiving metal door. He’s shouting, he thinks, but it’s distant, like he’s not even here, like none of this is really happening to him. He slumps forward, forehead resting against the cold, unyielding metal, and he bites his tongue hard enough to bleed.

Behind him, Ramuda groans. Gentaro snaps back into awareness again, suddenly aware of the taste of copper in his mouth, the dull ache in his fists. He stumbles back across the room and gathers Ramuda against him, presses his nose into Ramuda’s hair to smell his familiar sugary-scented shampoo.

Ramuda whimpers. His hands curl into the fabric of Gentaro’s kimono.

It’s a long time before either of them speaks. Eventually, with Gentaro steadying him, Ramuda drags himself upright. There’s something dark and bitter in his eyes, and when he speaks there’s no trace of his usual cheer at all.

“I’ll fucking kill them,” he mumbles, almost to himself. Gentaro’s hands finds Ramuda’s and squeeze. Ramuda squeezes back, doesn’t let go. “I swear I’ll kill them all if they hurt him.”

---

For nearly twenty-four hours Ramuda and Gentaro just about tear their hair out worrying. There’s no sign of Dice at all. They can’t hear him no matter how they strain. The soldier who brings their meals won’t say a word to them no matter how much Ramuda needles and cajoles and threatens.

Gentaro’s never seen Ramuda in a worse state in his life. When he’s not shouting and cussing and pounding at the door he’s curled around himself on the floor, staring blankly at the wall, fingernails digging harshly into his own palms.

Gentaro himself is quiet. He’s barely there, really, a vessel for his fears and not much else. He’s present enough to stop Ramuda from breaking the bones in his hands against the door and that’s already more than he can ask.

He’s starting to think they’ll never see Dice again when the door finally swings open. As soon as he processes what he’s seeing, he nearly wishes he’d been right.

It’s unmistakably Dice there in the doorframe, leaning against one side, head tossed over his far shoulder as he speaks quietly to someone out of sight. But this Dice is nothing like Gentaro’s ever seen him before.

His well-loved old coat is gone, as are his torn jeans and that low-necked T shirt. In their place is a crisp Chuo officer’s uniform, clearly custom-made – Gentaro’s never seen a male Chuo officer before, after all – and tailored to fit him perfectly. The bright pink accents match his lovely eyes a little too well and Gentaro feels a little dizzy, a little sick.

All the pieces are there before him. He knows what they add up to, what this means. He knows. But if he acknowledges it – if he has the thought, if he admits to himself what it all means – he won’t survive. Stupidly, stiffly, Gentaro stands. Grips the edge of the table with both hands.

“... Dice? What’s going on?”

He can practically feel the rage coming off Ramuda in waves beside him. When he glances to his left he can see Ramuda’s hands, curled into white-knuckled fists and trembling. Gentaro places a hand on his back, steadies him.

Dice looks at them slowly, like he hadn’t noticed they were there. He’s carrying a stupidly tiny pink backpack that matches his uniform. There’s something Gentaro can’t place in his eyes and that more than anything else makes bile rise in his throat. He grins, then, but it’s such a sickening pantomime of his usual carefree smile that Gentaro has to look away.

He saunters across the room like nothing’s wrong, like he’s done in Gentaro’s apartment, Ramuda’s studio, a thousand times before. He takes a chair from its place against the wall and turns it around so he can sit backwards in it facing them, arms crossed over the chair’s back. He tosses that stupid backpack carelessly onto the floor next to him.

“Ramuda! Gentaro! How’s it goin’?”

It doesn’t escape Gentaro’s notice that two Chuo soldiers file into the room behind him, shutting the door and taking up posts on either side of it. He clenches his teeth.

“Dice,” Ramuda says, voice low, dangerous, “tell us what’s going on. Now.”

Dice furrows his brow. It’s a painfully familiar expression; a day ago Gentaro would have called it cute, if only in the privacy of his own mind. “Huh? Ain’t it obvious? I thought I was the dumb one.”

Ramuda growls at him. “Don’t play cute with me.”

Dice – laughs. It’s a bitter, ugly sound. This Dice is a totally different person, a warped and twisted mirror of the young man Gentaro had known. The Dice who ate all Gentaro’s food and slept on his couch and begged to be bailed out at 3am. The one who protected his secrets without hesitation, who put himself bodily between his Posse and danger at every turn, who fed stray cats before he ever ate anything himself and never could lie about his feelings, not really, and–

“I’m not, though,” he says, breaking Gentaro’s train of thought. “I’m just bein’ myself.”

“This isn’t you,” Gentaro says, but his heart isn’t in it. He can’t look at Dice directly, staring unfocused out over his shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Dice shrug.

“Isn’t it?” Dice cocks his head. “My Ma is a scary woman, y’know. I’m flattered you think I got the courage to rebel against her, but I don’t. Not really.”

“Traitor,” Ramuda spits. Gentaro thinks he sees Dice flinch, but he won’t let himself analyze it. There’s no point. Gentaro’s already packing away all the messy feelings Dice inspired in him, already throwing away the pieces of his heart that crumbled away when Dice -- whoever this Dice really is -- appeared in the doorway.

Dice smiles thinly. “That’s a little harsh. You were workin’ with ‘em too, y’know. Hey, we were kinda like coworkers, huh?”

When he looks, Ramuda’s gaze is steely enough that it makes even Gentaro shiver. “Fine. Why are you here, then? Just to gloat? Point and laugh? That’s such a tired trope, Dai–” Ramuda’s face twists– “Tohoten.”

Gentaro’s blood turns to ice.

Dice frowns. “Man, that’s never been my name. I guess you can call me that if it helps, though.”

“Wait,” Gentaro says. “Dice, you–”

“What, you didn’t know? My Ma is the Prime Minister.”

Gentaro is shocked silent. Apparently Ramuda had known this, somehow, but Gentaro, for all his cleverness, hadn’t figured that one out. Bitterness floods out everything else he’s feeling in this moment. Dice’s mother is the one who–

“To answer your question,” Dice hums, “nah, you’re right. I’m here for a reason.”

“And?” Ramuda says.

Dice frowns, scratching at the back of his head. “Ma says I gotta prove I’ll comply. Uh– I mean, that my loyalty ain’t compromised.”

“Can’t compromise something that doesn’t fucking exist,” Ramuda sneers.

Dice flinches again. Lingering attachments? But he doesn’t have to be doing this. Even if he was a spy all along he could have defected, like Ramuda. He could have told them. They could have–

“If that’s how you feel,” Dice murmurs. “Well, I did tell Ma there wasn’t anything I could get from you after I showed up like this. You guys aren’t nearly sentimental enough to give me anythin’ useful just ‘cause you used to care about me. So I guess…”

Dice stands. He reaches into his stupid little backpack and rummages around for a moment before withdrawing something painfully familiar. A square of olive cotton, yellow applique in the shape of a spark. The symbol of their bond, cut away from where it belongs – belonged – at Dice’s side. “This’ll hafta do. Here, Ramuda. I don’t need this anymore.”

When Gentaro looks Ramuda is shaking with fury. Gentaro has never seen him so angry in his life. He snatches the fabric off the table and grinds his teeth.

“I’m going to burn this,” Ramuda growls. “We’re getting out of here, and I’m going to burn this, and then I’m coming for you. You–”

Both the cat-eared soldiers raise their weapons, stepping forward menacingly, but Dice waves them off.

“Lookin’ forward to it!” he says.

And he flashes them that grin again, and stands, and between one breath and the next he’s gone.

---

Ramuda is still for a long time. Gentaro can’t seem to stop moving. Neither seems to actually help. He can’t get that awful imitation of Dice’s sunny smile out of his head, can’t process the fact that Dice– that they’d been–

He can’t even think it. It’s too incongruous with all the information he has, with every fleeting touch and soft-eyed look and declaration of loyalty. Gentaro paces until his feet hurt and then he keeps pacing, hoping the pain will bring him back to a reality that makes sense.

Through it all Ramuda sits there, cross-legged and alone on the floor, shaking with barely-contained rage. It’s an hour before he comes to life and then all at once he’s on his feet, a guttural shriek building to a crescendo in his throat. He launches himself at the door all at once, fists pounding at it. He’s not even speaking– just snarling, clawing at the doorframe so badly Gentaro worries he’ll tear his nails off.

He hurries over, catches Ramuda’s slender wrists in his hands. Ramuda struggles and snaps at him, more wild creature than man in the moment before he looks up and meets Gentaro’s eyes. His whole face softens into misery, lip trembling.

“Why are you stopping me…? Are you going to betray me too?”

And there’s the word, awful in its truth. Gentaro would have liked to lie to himself for a little longer. “You’re going to hurt yourself,” he says, gently, guiding Ramuda to the lumpy prison bed tucked up against the wall.

Ramuda stares up at him, glassy-eyed, and then -- he’s burying his face in Gentaro’s chest, arms tight around him, clutching at the material of his kimono. Gentaro holds him until they both stop shaking.

Eventually Ramuda pulls back, scrubbing furiously at his red-rimmed eyes. “I’ll kill him,” he mutters darkly. “We’ll make him pay, Gentaro.”

Gentaro breathes out, shakily. He hasn’t moved onto anger, not yet, not really. The bigger part of him is still hoping desperately that it’s all some awful prank, or that Dice hadn’t really said any of that and it’s all a mic-induced hallucination, or --

“Okay,” he says. Because regardless of how he may feel about Dice, he can’t lose Ramuda too.

They fall asleep like that, Ramuda’s head tucked against Gentaro’s chest. Although neither of them will ever admit it, there’s something missing.

---

The metallic creak of the door wakes them both with a jolt. Ramuda is on his feet in an instant, hands balled into fists. Gentaro sits up, wary.

It’s Ichijiku there in the door, looking bored and more than a little disdainful. “You’re free to go,” she says, not even looking up from the pile of documents in her hand.

Gentaro blinks. “Excuse me?”

Ichijiku rolls her eyes at him. “We don’t have any more use for you. Arisugawa gave us everything we need. Neither of you is a threat anymore.”

It makes sense, when Gentaro thinks about it. They’re both public figures. Dice has probably turned over Gentaro’s brother’s manuscript to his mother already. Chuoku will gain nothing from keeping them here, and eventually Fling Posse’s fans will start to question their disappearance.

“What’s the catch?” Ramuda spits.

Ichijiku laughs. It’s a cruel sound, derisive and cold. “What would be the point? We’ve already won, Amemura.”

She turns and strides out the door. Two Chuo soldiers stand outside, waiting to escort them out. Ramuda buries his face in his hands and screams. Gentaro reaches out tentatively, settles a hand on his back.

“They haven’t,” Gentaro murmurs.

Ramuda scoffs. “Of course not,” he says. But when he looks at Gentaro there’s relief in his eyes, and that’s all Gentaro can hope for.

It’s an awful feeling, the moment you realize you’ve lost everything important to you all at once. It’s one Gentaro goes out of his way to avoid, one Dice had always welcomed. Gentaro never understood it.

He asked, once: “Dice, how is it that you never seem to get tired of losing?”

Dice had blinked at him, surprised. He’d been totally naked save for his boxers, again, in some alleyway Gentaro had magnanimously chosen once again to rescue him from, but he hadn’t seemed ashamed at all. Then, Dice had laughed, that hearty laugh that always had to be surprised out of him.

“‘S not the winning I care about,” Dice had said, hands behind his head. “It’s the thrill. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I want to win. I like winning. But, like, even when I lose, it’s worth it anyway.”

Gentaro hadn’t really understood, and it had shown on his face, mouth pulled into a contemplative frown.

Dice had laughed again. “Listen, it’s like this. If I never lost, there’d be no risk. No thrill. Winning all the time would get boring fast. So, like, I don’t like losing. But it’s important to me anyway. Y’know?”

And Dice had grinned at him, so wide and bright Gentaro hadn’t had the heart to tell him he didn’t, really, not at all.

But as Gentaro knows now, that Dice had been a lie. So perhaps there was no risk, no loss. Perhaps it had all been part of his cover.

Gentaro feels sick.

They pass by Otome Tohoten’s office on their way out of the city. Ramuda looks up as they do; whatever he sees makes his expression darken instantly. Gentaro follows his gaze.

There in the window is Dice, still dressed in his smart little officer’s uniform, gazing out at the city. Curled up there on the window seat, he looks for all the world the brooding morally-gray protagonist of one of Gentaro’s novels.

It’s strange. For all Dice should be celebrating the end of a successful mission, he doesn’t look happy at all. Gentaro clutches at the material of his hakama and looks away before Dice can notice them.

Ramuda clutches onto Gentaro’s arm and tugs him along. “Come on, come on. I hate this dumb city.” He pauses, meets Gentaro’s gaze for a single, meaningful moment. “Let’s go home, okay?

---

Without needing words Gentaro and Ramuda wind up back at Gentaro’s house. Ramuda’s apartment holds too many memories for the three of them, too much history, too much love. Everything Gentaro is determined to forget.

Ramuda rummages through the liquor cabinet and shoves a bottle of something into Gentaro’s hands. Gentaro doesn’t even bother checking the label before popping it open and taking a swig. It’s some kind of whisky, probably too nice for how they’re going to tear through it tonight. It burns his throat and he grimaces.

They wind up sprawled on the floor of Gentaro’s office, Ramuda’s head in Gentaro’s lap. Gentaro cards his hands through Ramuda’s hair. Ramuda sits up just enough to take another swig of whisky. They’ve been carefully avoiding the unlucky elephant in the room, but when Ramuda wipes his mouth on his sleeve, there’s that raw pain in his eyes again, and Gentaro realizes they’re going to have to talk about this. He barely has a moment to brace himself before–

“He betrayed us,” Ramuda says. “He– how could he do that? We’re– I wanted– This was supposed to be real!”

Gentaro frowns. “I don’t know, Ramuda,” he says, quiet as anything. “I don’t understand it either. I never had even– even a moment of doubt in his sincerity.”

“We’re gonna make him pay,” Ramuda says. “Fling Posse is better without him, anyway. Just– just the two of us. We’ll show him. Right?”

The thing is– Gentaro doesn’t particularly want revenge. He wants a lot of things – to have never met Dice at all, to have never trusted Dice so freely, to have never felt his heart flutter and thrash in his presence, to protect Ramuda in the aftermath, to keep Fling Posse alive even if they’re only two-thirds of what they should be – but even after everything, even after these hours and days he’s had to get angry, he doesn’t want to hurt Dice.

But Ramuda is gazing at him. Imploring. And with Dice – gone – Ramuda is all Gentaro has. For his sake – for the sake of salvaging Fling Posse’s wreckage – Gentaro will do whatever he has to.

“We will,” Gentaro promises.

They fall asleep like that, curled up together against the wall of Gentaro’s office. It’s colder than usual.

---

When they wake up, Ramuda announces that Gentaro is in charge of making breakfast and flounces over to the couch without waiting for Gentaro to argue. Gentaro only laughs and goes to the fridge to see what he can scrounge up. It shouldn’t be hard – he’s got one less person to feed than usual, after all.

Gentaro’s whisking up eggs in a pan – he’s really not a good cook, scrambled is the best he can do, sue him – when the TV interrupts his racing thoughts, a familiar, distasteful voice. He looks over toward it. The sound is gone just as quickly, killed by Ramuda’s trembling hand on the remote, and Gentaro sees why almost immediately.

There on the screen is Otome Tohoten. Gentaro’s grip on the handle of the skillet tightens involuntarily. He can’t tell what she’s saying since Ramuda muted it almost immediately, but for all she is the Prime Minister, she’s still not really what he focuses on.

There next to her is Dice, still dressed in his stupid uniform, hair still slicked back unnaturally. Otome – his mother, Gentaro thinks, feeling sick – has one delicate hand resting like a weight on Dice’s shoulder. Dice stares at the ground, hands clenched into fists. He looks as miserable as Gentaro has ever seen him. Gentaro has to squash down a pang of emotion at that – Dice abandoned him, abandoned them, Gentaro shouldn’t care anymore whether he’s happy. He shouldn’t, but. But.

It just doesn’t make sense. How could Dice – earnest, gullible Dice – have kept up such an absolute lie so perfectly for so long? Why did he seem so upset by Ramuda’s harsh words if he’d been planning this all along? If this is always who he was, why is he so miserable now? Why, why, why?

Gentaro can’t think like this, can’t entertain the idea that maybe something else is going on. He’ll just break his own heart all over again.

“Change the channel,” he says.

Ramuda does.

Chapter Text

Ramuda hates Dice.

He hates everything about Dice. Hates being played for a fool, hates how absolutely he’d been tricked, hates how Dice had been the one to make him think maybe he could have something real in the first place, hates…

Hates that even after everything that’s happened he doesn’t really want to see Dice hurt.

But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t. It doesn’t matter because Ramuda’s still going to fucking destroy him, because it hurts too much to see him this way, prancing around on the stupid news in his stupid new uniform with his stupid mom and his stupid tiny backpack. It doesn’t matter because Ramuda is going to fucking take everything from him, because Ramuda doesn’t know how to do anything else.

Ramuda can tell Gentaro doesn’t really want revenge. He’s not stupid. That’s why it means twice as much that he’s going along with it anyway, just for Ramuda’s sake. It’s a reminder that he hasn’t lost everything. Even if it feels like it.

“-- so let me get this straight,” the middle Yamada says. Ramuda snaps back to attention. “You want to ruin your former teammate’s life, and you want our help? Why?”

Ramuda studies his nails. Like he doesn’t really care. Maybe if he pretends long enough he’ll start to believe it. “He betrayed me, Jiro-kuuun. I can’t let that slide, you know?☆”

Jiro frowns. Saburo pushes him out of the way, leaning forward on Ichiro’s shitty ancient couch. “Don’t care about that. Why us, though? Don’t you know better than us what’ll hurt that guy the most?”

Ramuda is practiced enough at keeping his emotions hidden that he doesn’t flinch outwardly, but it’s a near thing.

You would think so, wouldn’t you? But they’d talked about it, he and Gentaro, and if they ever knew anything about Dice at all, he’s… already lost everything that mattered to him. His freedom, his Posse. It’s not like Dice ever had possessions they could steal or destroy, or people he cared about other than the two of them – and maybe not even that, after all.

Ramuda doesn’t know where to hit to hurt this version of Dice, because there’s nothing of the Dice he knew left. So. Here they are, in Ichiro Yamada’s living room, hiring the odd-jobs brothers to help.

“Arisugawa Dice was an elaborate lie,” Gentaro says, saving Ramuda from having to answer the question. Ramuda shoots him a grateful look. “I hate to admit it, but we were outplayed. We don’t know the first thing about whoever that is on the TV.”

Ichiro nods, slowly. “That’s something we can help with,” he says, all business. “But, Ramuda… Are you sure? There’s– there’s gotta be some misunderstanding. I talked to that guy after the first division battle. He adored you two.”

Ramuda grinds his teeth, plasters on a smile. “Ichirooo.☆”

Ichiro blinks.

“Don’t you think we’ve fucking thought of that?” Ramuda spits.

“Ah,” Ichiro says. The sympathy in his eyes makes Ramuda feel sick and small and pathetic.

“Hey!” Jiro says, getting to his feet. “You can’t talk to Aniki like that!”

Saburo grabs him by the back of the jacket and drags him back down onto the couch. Jiro yelps and then rounds on Saburo, who’s sticking his tongue out, raring for a wrassle. Ichiro stops them both with a hand.

“Sorry, Ramuda. I didn’t mean…” Ichiro scratches the back of his head idly. “I get it. I really, really do. We’ll help.”

(Oh, there’s Ramuda’s stupid newfound conscience, wailing at the memory of how Ichiro and the monk that leads Bad Ass Temple used to be. Ramuda hates Dice especially in this moment, for catalyzing the development of such a pesky organ. He was fine before.)

Ramuda says, “Great!☆ We’ll talk soon.”

He gets up and leaves. He doesn’t bother to look, but he knows Gentaro will follow him.

---

Gentaro bids him goodbye with a hollow smile as soon as they return to Shibuya. Ramuda frowns, caught off-guard, by himself for the first time since their capture, but there’s nothing he can do if Gentaro wants to be alone.

The first day after they meet with the Yamadas Ramuda doesn’t go back to his apartment at all. He’s nearing three days without sleep – hasn’t slept since Dice was taken from them – but then Ramuda doesn’t need to sleep as much as an organic human.

Probably he should go to bed. But he doesn’t feel ready to face his apartment, so he spends his day fucking around in Harajuku instead, posing for pictures with fans and drinking overpriced boba while pretending he doesn’t see the cameras.

He knows what all the magazines will say. Fling Posse’s absence, however brief, hadn’t gone unnoticed. And Dice’s new getup definitely hadn’t. Ramuda hasn’t even been able to log into Twitter because he can’t stand the thought of all the questions that must surely be gathering dust in his mentions.

Ramuda doesn’t let his feet carry him home until he almost coughs up a lung in the middle of a boutique. He waves off the clerk hastily and hails a taxi to take him back to his apartment.

Objectively, it’s a nice place. Ramuda used to even like living there. Key words: used to. Because now Fling Posse – the Fling Posse that had included Dice, that needed him to survive even if they don’t want to admit it – drips from every inch of the place.

Dice, asleep on his couch. Dice, sprawled out across Gentaro’s lap, whining about being bested in Cho-han again. Dice, trying to cook something the woodsman from Mad Trigger Crew taught him, Ramuda dancing around him and getting in his way on purpose just to see that determined little scowl, Gentaro narrating the whole thing with laughter in every syllable.

The Fling Posse that meant everything. The Fling Posse that never existed at all.

When Ramuda wakes up it’s bright out. He’s slept for thirty-six hours; in all that time, Gentaro hasn’t contacted him once. His stomach turns and he dresses in a hurry. He’s lost enough this week – this year, this lifetime.

So: it’s 3:30PM on a Sunday and Ramuda’s making his way up Gentaro’s sidewalk. He knows he probably looks like shit – he cut his hand at some point in the cell and the bandage is haphazard and messy, he hasn’t slept in days and he’s got miserable-looking dark circles, his hair is certainly sticking up everywhere. He puts up his hood.

There’s no answer when he knocks, but that’s not too unusual, so Ramuda picks the lock, like he’s done a hundred times. He half expects Dice to be hovering, worrying that Gentaro will be mad at them for breaking and entering, even if he never has been before.

The house is dark and quiet. This also isn’t unusual. Someone’s crashing about in the kitchen, which is a little stranger, but only because Gentaro is usually more graceful than that. Ramuda slips off his shoes, steals a pair of house-slippers – the same ones he always wears, pink, right next to Dice’s, Ramuda always wanted to ask if Gentaro bought them for him and Dice specifically, he can’t think about that now – and pads across the house into the kitchen.

Gentaro is there. He looks worse than Ramuda has ever seen him. There’s make-up streaked messily down his cheeks, smeared by hands wiping away his own tears. His hair, greasy from lack of care, is half-pulled back into a ponytail that’s mostly fallen out by now and hanging messily around his face. He’s wearing his hakama and turtleneck, but his kimono has been replaced by – a T shirt? – and then Ramuda’s heart drops out of his chest because he recognizes that shirt.

It’s Dice’s Jackpot! shirt, the one Ramuda bought him for that shoot a lifetime ago. He’d known Dice still had it but he hadn’t put together that he must have been keeping it at Gentaro’s.

Gentaro raises his head, frowns when he sees Ramuda. He sets his glass – some kind of dark liquor, Ramuda isn’t close enough to tell – down on the counter and turns to face him.

Ramuda stares in shock. “You…”

Gentaro narrows his eyes. “Is there a problem?”

“What happened to you?”

“Our Dice,” Gentaro announces, swaying, “is, effectively, dead. I cared for him, even if he never existed. I’m mourning. Would you deny me that?”

Ramuda feels it like a physical blow. “I…”

“I know you hate him. I know.” Gentaro grasps for the alcohol, throws back the rest of the glass. “I’m going to help you. That hasn’t changed. So– so turn a blind eye to this, leader. Please.”

Ramuda feels powerless. His hands itch to reach out, to comfort, to care for. But he was never good at that. Between the three of them it had always been Dice who pulled Gentaro back to himself when he got like this, Dice who tempered Ramuda’s anger, Dice who cracked stupid jokes and said ridiculous things until Ramuda and Gentaro turned back to him like the sun.

Ramuda can’t measure up. And he can’t acknowledge what’s missing, because he can’t admit that he loves Dice still. So he looks at Gentaro, into his hollow eyes, and swallows, and turns, and leaves the house.

It’s the best he can do for Gentaro. It’s also not enough.

---

Odd Jobs Yamada is a strange little store. It’s barely big enough for Ramuda and Gentaro plus the brothers to stand in comfortably; the shelves of knickknacks and convenience items take up more space than the aisles do. The counter is wooden and in one corner someone has carved ‘JIRO SUCKS,’ but JIRO has been crossed out and SABURO scratched in above it.

Saburo himself is sitting on the counter, kicking his legs a little, laptop balanced on his knees. Jiro is restocking a shelf. Ichiro is nowhere to be seen, but there’s some sort of power-tool shrieking in the back room, so Ramuda can hazard a guess.

The bell jingles when Gentaro pushes the door open. Ramuda looks up at him apprehensively. They haven’t talked about what happened at his house the other day – neither of them has tried. It seems like the kind of thing that’s better put behind them. Or maybe it doesn’t – maybe they need to talk about it, but Ramuda has no idea how, so he doesn’t, because he can’t.

Saburo looks up at them as they enter. “Oh, Fling Posse,” he says.

At the sound of his voice Ichiro emerges from the back room. Jiro stands and puts the rest of the Q-tips he’d been stocking into a basket on the desk.

Ramuda forces a smile, waving at them. “Hello, hello, Buster Brats!” he says. He bounces close enough to ruffle Saburo’s hair and giggles when Saburo squawks and pushes him away.

Gentaro sighs, but there’s amusement in it. “We’re told you have something for us?”

Ichiro nods. “We’ve been putting out feelers wherever we can. There’s not much to go on, but…”

He gestures to Saburo, who turns the laptop around so Gentaro and Ramuda can see. It’s a security video of a hallway in a high-end-looking apartment complex, dated two days ago, around 11PM. As they watch, Dice comes onto the screen, unlocks the door, and slips inside.

It’s Dice, unmistakably – Ramuda would recognize him blind – but his demeanor is all off. He’s dragging his feet, head bent low, hands clenched around some sort of file. The footage is blurry, but Ramuda’s never seen such a defeated-looking Dice in his life, not even when he and Gentaro have had to scrape him off the ground after a brawl, more bruise than skin. He grinds his teeth. Gentaro looks away from it.

The footage switches, but it’s all the same – Dice entering and leaving that same apartment, always in uniform, always with that shuffling gait. He looks more like Doppo Kannonzaka than he does like Fling Posse’s Dice.

But then, he’s not Fling Posse’s Dice, is he? Not Ramuda’s Dice.

“This is the security camera outside an apartment just beyond Chuoku,” Saburo says. “The rent is coming from an account I haven’t managed to encrypt yet, but I’d be willing to bet it’s the prime minister. I managed to put a tracker on his phone, and he only ever goes to the Party of Words’ headquarters and back here.”

Saburo pauses for a moment, lets them digest. Then: “Like, seriously, the guy is a hermit. He doesn’t even go to the grocery store, someone delivers bare essentials once a week. He leaves, and he stays at the office for like twelve hours, and then he comes back here. That’s it.”

Ramuda digests this. “Can you get access to his calls?”

“Yeah, but there’s nothing interesting. He talks to the Prime Minister and one other person and that’s it. And never about anything personal.”

“Who’s the other person?” Gentaro asks.

“Well…”

Ichiro cuts in, “We’ll get to that. Jiro, why don’t you tell them what you found first?”

Jiro nods. “I went and talked to some of the guys where you said he used to hang out. Gambling dens ‘n stuff in Shibuya.”

Gentaro gives him a curious look. “They let you in?”

Jiro just shrugs. “Yeah, well. Apparently Arisugawa’s been hanging around there since he was about my age, anyway.”

“... really?”

Ramuda understands Gentaro’s confusion. The flicker of hope in his voice is annoying, but only because it mirrors the one Ramuda’s trying desperately to squash. It’s just that it matches the backstory Dice gave them exactly. So either all the people Jiro had talked to were being paid to keep up the lie, or – or something about him was real. No matter how insignificant.

“Did anyone say anything about him?” Ramuda presses.

Jiro shrugs. “Lot of people vaguely remembered him, but couldn’t give me anything useful. A couple got really mad when I mentioned him ‘cause he owed them money.” He frowns. “There was one guy who said something weird, though.”

Ramuda blinks at him.

“This one guy claimed to have known Arisugawa since he first showed up. Called him a scrappy little kid with a bad haircut and a worse attitude, but it didn’t sound like he hated him. And the one other thing he remembered about Arisugawa was that he… really, really hated talking about his mom. Would get up and leave a conversation over it.”

“That’s…” Ramuda frowns. It doesn’t make sense. None of it makes any sense at all. If Dice really did run away as a teenager, really did have problems with his mother, then there’s no reason for him to be working for her now.

Ramuda almost wants to believe that something else is going on – that he’s been brainwashed, maybe, or blackmailed – but if it’s brainwashing, a Ramuda would have had to do it. And there are no other Ramudas right now. And if it’s blackmail, why wouldn’t he tell them? Doesn’t he know they could have–

It’s a dangerous train of thought. One Ramuda can’t– won’t– indulge. He won’t let Dice ruin him again.

Ichiro leans forward on the counter. “And I… talked to the other person. Nemu.”

Ramuda’s eyes widen before he’s even really processed it. He feels like a bell that’s been hit. “What?”

Ichiro shrugs. “I mean, it’s not like we’re best friends, but she doesn’t hate me. We talk, sometimes. Anyway, she… she wouldn’t say much about Arisugawa. But she seemed worried about him.” Ichiro raises his head, meets Ramuda’s gaze. “Ramuda… I don’t think he’s doing well.”

---

Neither of them speaks the whole way back to Gentaro’s house. Ramuda is wracking his brain trying to figure out what to say, what to do, how to make sense of all this, so he doesn’t notice the figure on the doorstep until Gentaro freezes next to him, grabs his arm.

Dice is there, still clad in that awful uniform. There’s a package in his hands and when he sees them he gets to his feet, starts toward them. There’s something nervous on his face. Ramuda would call it desperation if he didn’t know better.

Gentaro puts himself between Dice and Ramuda. Ramuda’s not sure who he’s protecting, but the gesture warms his heart anyway.

“Please– just hear me out?” he says.

Ramuda narrows his eyes. “You have thirty seconds.”

Dice looks equal parts distressed and relieve, but he shoves the package toward them with both hands, not looking directly at them, like he’s presenting Valentine’s chocolate. Ramuda would think it was funny if he weren’t so absolutely miserable at the sight of Dice’s face, so close after such a long time.

Gentaro takes the package warily. Something rattles inside it.

“I don’t– maybe you won’t believe me, and that’s okay, but– but, please, please take them.” He looks directly at Ramuda when he says this. Ramuda half expects him to get to his knees and beg. “Whatever you think of me, I’m begging you to trust me on this. Kill me if you want, I don’t care. I don’t… I don’t want you to die. So please.”

Ramuda stares at him, wide-eyed. He doesn’t know what he can possibly say to that. Doesn’t know what any of it means. Doesn’t want to kill Dice, no matter what else.

“I don’t want to kill you, Dice,” Gentaro murmurs, hoarse, echoing Ramuda’s thoughts. Something like joy breaks across Dice’s expression but it’s dampened just as quickly, and he shoves his hands into his pockets.

“... okay,” he says. “I– I can’t stay. Sorry. Bye.”

Dice turns, and walks out of their lives once again.

Gentaro shuts the door behind them and toes off his shoes. He stops there in the doorway, trembling, staring down at the package. Ramuda takes it from him and whisks it off to the kitchen. Gentaro follows, shuffling, numb.

Inside is a letter and a package of candies. Ramuda takes out the candies, hands shaking. They’re different than his old ones; he can tell that right away even through the packaging. The manufacture date, the lab numbers, the side effects printed neatly on the box – all of it is different. He looks up at Gentaro, uncomprehending.

Gentaro has pried open the letter and is staring at it. There’s not much writing on it; Ramuda moves around to Gentaro’s side to read it.

Ramuda and Gentaro,

These are the candies for the new clones. Rei-san seemed to think it could hypo hippo hypothesey maybe work better for Ramuda than the old ones.

Sorry about everything.

Dice

Gentaro sets the letter aside. A long moment passes, Ramuda and Gentaro watching each other, neither quite sure what to say.

“I think there’s something else going on,” he says.

Ramuda’s lip curls. He turns back away, toward the counters, rummages around in the drawer of take-out menus. “We’re not talking about this. You wanna get take-out?”

Footsteps. Gentaro’s hand closes around his wrist. “Ramuda. If there’s– if there’s any chance at all that he’s still there, then–”

“Then, what?” Ramuda scoffs, turns around, leans up against the counter. He ignores the way he feels like he’s arguing with himself, too, when he says: “Then, let’s march Chuoku and rescue him? Don’t be stupid. He fooled us. You should hate him.”

Gentaro’s expression darkens. “You saw him,” he spits. “Did he look like a traitor? A triumphant double agent? He looked like a prisoner, Ramuda.”

“Wow, the Party’s got some really luxury prisons, then. Wonder where that treatment was when we were in the slammer…?”

“He never goes anywhere but work and that damn apartment. He doesn’t speak to anyone about anything but work. Based on everything the Yamadas told us–”

“So he’s a workaholic traitor then! Big deal!”

Gentaro growls, frustrated. “He’s still trying to save you!”

“This isn’t one of your fairy tales! He’s not coming back, okay?!” Ramuda’s breath comes in shaky gasps.

Gentaro is quiet, watching him, for long enough that the fight almost starts to seep out of Ramuda’s bones. Then – “You’re really just going to abandon him?”

And Ramuda explodes. “What do you want me to do, Gentaro?! I can’t believe in him again! I can’t! I won’t give him that power over me again! I wouldn’t…” he gasps. His cheeks are wet, and he scrubs at them furiously. “I have to move on, Gentaro. I have to, or I won’t… I won’t survive it.”

One moment Gentaro is across the room, staring at him, eyes wide, mouth parted. The next, Ramuda is wrapped in his trembling arms. And he can’t keep it together any longer.

“I’m sorry,” Gentaro murmurs. “I’m sorry. It hurts. It’s awful.”

Ramuda sobs until he can’t any more. He feels wrung-out, just wants to sleep. He just wants to sleep, but –

The phone rings. Ramuda answers it without thinking, but he doesn’t even get a chance to chirp a falsely-chipper greeting before he’s cut off.

“Ramuda-san,” Saburo says over the line, “I really think you’ll want to see this.”

Ramuda looks at Gentaro. Gentaro stares back, half-terrified, half-hopeful. They bolt to their feet.

---

Odd-Jobs Yamada is closed early for the day when they arrive. All three Yamadas are gathered around Saburo’s laptop, and they give Ramuda and Gentaro triplicate distressed looks as they enter.

“I finally got into Chuoku’s security system,” Saburo says grimly. “This is from a few days before you were released.”

He turns the laptop around. Dice is there, on the screen, restrained by two guards. Ichijiku is there, leaning against a bookshelf. Otome stands behind her desk, arms folded. She’s speaking; the audio crackles through Saburo’s speakers.

“– stop being difficult, Dice.”

Dice snorts. “Come on, ma. Ain’t I always?”

Otome’s lip curls. “You’ll transfer into my employ, effective immediately. You will convince Ramuda Amemura and Gentaro Yumeno that you have been working for the Party of Words all along. You will remain here in the capital.”

“No,” Dice interrupts, “no, no way–”

“This is not up for debate, Dice,” Otome cuts him off, eyes sharp, voice sharper. “The only choice you have is whether you come willingly, and perhaps spare Amemura the singular experience of rotting to death in a jail cell.”

“… What the hell?”

Ichijiku cuts in, then, boredom clear on her face as ever. Dice looks startled, like he’d forgotten she was there. “Look, kid,” she says, “We’ve got you either way. It’d be annoying to lose your ability, but it’s not so powerful we can’t manage. Either you comply, and we release them, or you still comply – under the influence of some new technology – and they never see the light of day again.”

Silence. Dice’s face is slack with horror. An impossible choice, but Dice has no option but to choose–

“...If I do this…” Dice grits his teeth, looks away. “If I do this for you, you’ll let them go?”

“You have my word, Dice,” his mother says. “I do not actually wish to hurt you, you know. This is for your own good.”

Dice digs his nails into the palm of his hand. “Like hell,” he spits. “Fine. Fine, I got it. You win, ma.”

Otome smiles. She rounds her desk, puts her arms around a rigid Dice. “I’ve missed you, my son. Welcome home.”

Ramuda feels sick.

Chapter Text

Dice wants to go home.

But then, Dice wants a lot of things he can’t have.

It’s bittersweet, the thought that he wants to go “home.” Dice has never really had a home before. Not as a child, a mismatched cuckoo chick in a sparrow’s nest, and not as an adult, alone every night just trying not to starve or freeze to death. He went without for so long that he’d convinced himself he didn’t need something so stable-boring as “home.”

His posse changed that. The three of them together had made a home of each other. And now he knows what home tastes like, and he yearns for it, even as he can never go back.

The door to his office swings open. Dice barely raises his head to look. He doesn’t need to, to know who it is: only his mother, Ichijiku, and Nemu ever come to visit him, and his mother hasn’t been in since his disappearing act with the candies.

“Arisugawa,” Ichijiku says, no small measure of disdain in her voice. Dice flinches. It’s never been quite so much of an insult, before, that he doesn’t share his mother’s name. “I knew you weren’t to be trusted. Your mother is too soft on you. We should have killed all three of you the second you stepped out of line.”

Dice leans back in his chair. “Ma promised me their safety if I cooperated. Part of that is makin’ sure Ramuda gets the medicine he needs, yeah?”

Ichijiku’s lip curls. Nemu steps out from behind her and gives Dice a sympathetic grimace. Ichijiku says, “It is only out of respect for your mother that I haven’t destroyed you yet. Remember that.”

She sweeps out of the room. Nemu stays. Dice watches her wearily.

Nemu walks around his desk, perches on the edge of it next to his chair. She says, “You really won’t survive here if you keep antagonizing her,” she murmurs, looking past him out the window.

I never expected to survive here, Dice doesn’t say. “I really don’t do it on purpose, though,” he tells her instead, voice approaching a reedy whine. “She’d hate my guts no matter what I did.”

“I understand how you feel,” Nemu acquiesces. “They’re precious to you. I—” she cuts herself off. Dice winces. This is the unnerving thing about Nemu. She’s got a sort of halting way about her that’s just shy of natural, like she’s always running up against some invisible barrier whenever she tries to speak. Her face goes blank and her eyes glaze over and then she comes back to herself all at once, but colder than before, just a little cruel. “But you’re not making this any easier on yourself.”

Dice never knows how to react to her when she gets like that. He likes Nemu anyway, though, much as he wants to hate everything and everyone in this place. In some ways he gets the sense she’s just as much a prisoner here as he is, if not more. And more than that, she’s the only person here who ever treats him with even a scrap of kindness, and– and Dice isn’t as strong as he used to be, apparently.

“Yeah,” he says. “You’re probably right.”

Nemu nods and turns to go, but pauses at the door, looking back. “I meant to warn you. Ichiro-kun was asking about you.”

Dice blinks. That’s outta left field. Dice didn’t know Nemu knew who Ichiro Yamada was. Hell, Dice barely knows who Ichiro Yamada is. They’ve never clashed in a division battle, and Dice knows he was in TDD with Ramuda, but Dice hasn’t thought about him pretty much ever.

“… What? What did that guy wanna know?”

Nemu shrugs. “He didn’t really ask any specific questions. Just… what you do here, what you’re like. If it’s true that you’re with us. I don’t know why he was asking.”

“I’m not in Fling Posse now.” It feels like glass in his mouth, but it has to be said. Maybe the more he says it, the less it will hurt. “And I ain’t exactly in a great spot with Chuoku either. I can’t get him anything, and I ain’t an enemy anymore.”

“I told him that. I don’t know. I just thought I should warn you.”

Dice digests this. “Yeah,” he says, eventually. “Thanks, Nemu.”

She closes the door so, so quietly behind her.

---

Dice drops his uniform coat and hat on the ground as he enters his apartment, not bothering to hang them up. There’s no point.

He’d really tried at first, with the hair and the ironing board and the obedience, partially because he was afraid they’d retaliate against his Posse – not his, they’re not his anymore, against Ramuda and Gentaro – if he didn’t, but partially because he couldn’t bear the thought of that disdainful gaze turned on him again.

But the last time she’d seen him, she’d taken one look at the hair he’d tried so hard to comb and the jacket he’d been so careful to iron and told him he looked sloppy.

So if even his best isn’t good enough, what’s the point of any of it? Dice will follow her orders to the letter. He won’t give her a reason to hurt Ramuda and Gentaro. No less, but no more, either.

Dice sits down at the kitchen counter and buries his face in his hands. It’s unbearable. He really, genuinely doesn’t know how he’ll be able to bear spending the rest of his life like this, going out only to work for his mother and coming home only to sleep. It’s the life he’d rejected as a teenager, the life he’d spent years on the streets to avoid.

He wonders how they’re doing. If Ramuda is taking the candies, if they’re helping. Dice had barely understood every third word Rei Amayado said about the new medicine, but as far as he can tell it’s supposed to fix whatever’s wrong with Ramuda on a more long-term basis. He’ll still have breathing problems, and he’ll have to take other drugs, probably, but anything that keeps Ramuda from straight-up dying is good in Dice’s book.

And sure, it’s possible Amayado lied to him, but Dice believes in the power of human kindness, okay? And also, he can’t figure out what reason Amayado had for helping him out, but he also can’t figure out what he’d get from lying to him. Dice couldn’t pay him. A favor from him doesn’t mean a lot. Helping Dice with this won’t get Amayado points with his mother.

Dice doesn’t understand what Amayado stood to gain from helping him, so he’s forced to believe he gained absolutely nothing at all. He doesn’t know what to make of that.

It makes his head hurt.

His apartment is sparse and clinical, set up almost like he imagines a barracks would be, complete with a shitty lumpy bed and a single lamp. Objectively, it’s more comfortable than living out on the streets, getting rained and snowed on, chased out of parks and away from storefronts. He’s got a shoestring grocery budget courtesy of his mother, but it’s still objectively better than eating only at the mercy of his friends.

He’s miserable. God, Dice never wanted this life. He misses the stupid streets, all the excitement and terror that came with them. He thinks Gentaro and Ramuda would laugh if they could see him now, play-acting at being a government drone.

Three years ago, he’d never, ever have believed he’d willingly accept a life like this. Not for his own sake, and certainly not for someone else’s.

How much he’s changed. How much love changed him. Made him whole and scooped him out, all at once.

Dice goes to bed early.

---

He wakes up to a summons from his mother.

Dice only really sees her once a week, if that. Usually Nemu or Ichijiku keep tabs on him in her stead. His mother is too busy to deal with him every day, Ichijiku told him once, and he’d pretended it didn’t sting.

He doesn’t understand why she wanted him here at all. Still, he goes.

“Enter,” she says when he knocks on the door of her office. Her voice is as severe as always. He does.

Otome doesn’t even look up at him as he enters. He closes the door behind him and crosses his arms, frowning as she signs some document or other with a flourish and moves it into a pile to her left. Dice wonders if this is some weird power play or if she just genuinely could not give less of a shit about him. He thinks he knows the answer, wonders why it still depresses him.

He clears his throat, trying not to fidget too noticeably. She finally looks up at him. There’s disdain in her fuchsia eyes.

“Dice,” Otome says. He nods, somewhat nonsensically. She sighs in response. “What am I going to do with you?”

Of all the ways his mother ever speaks to him, this is the absolute worst. The patronizing distaste, the barely-concealed disgust. She speaks to him like he’s a particularly disobedient dog – a disappointing waste of time and resources. He barely holds back the flinch at her tone, says nothing. There’s nothing to say.

“Didn’t I tell you I would handle Amemura’s treatment? I gave you my word, Dice.”

“You weren’t handling it, though,” he mutters. “You were gonna just let him die. I couldn’t watch it happen.”

“You weren’t to have any contact with them. You know this.”

“Yeah, well, punish me for it, then. Like I give a shit.” He’s already lost the only precious thing he’s ever really had. What else can she do to him?

She could kill them, the rational part of his mind hisses. She could kill them both.

Her eyes narrow sharply. “I don’t think I appreciate your tone,” she warns him. She pushes her chair back and stands.

Dice fights the urge to take a step backward as Otome rounds the desk. She’s shorter than him, but she still always manages to make him feel so, so small. He says, “Look, I–”

Otome cuts him off. “You are my son. I only want what’s best for you. Why do you insist on acting up like this when you know how much it hurts me?”

She watches him for a long moment, as if genuinely waiting for an answer. Dice can’t meet her eyes, fixes his gaze on the ground beneath his feet. When he says nothing, Otome sighs.

“... This is your only warning. If you disobey me again, the consequences will be unpleasant for both of us. You’re dismissed.”

Dice practically bolts from the room.

---

This abject hopelessness isn’t like him. It makes him understand the salaryman from Matenro a little bit better, which is a horrible thought that has him stumbling through the balcony door onto the porch, desperate for a cigarette. He hates how maudlin this whole business has made him; it’s like he doesn’t even recognize himself. He’s become somebody he hates.

He hopes Gentaro and Ramuda are happy. He can almost hear their voices, calling his name – Dice. Dice! Dice, you dummy, look down here already–!

Wait.

Dice almost drops his cigarette. He stubs it out hastily on the concrete floor of the balcony and scrambles to his feet. “Gentaro? Ramuda?”

From the ground below his balcony, Ramuda and Gentaro are looking up at him. He hadn’t gotten a good look at them when he’d delivered the candies, and he drinks in the sight of them now – the shade of Ramuda’s hair, the delicate way Gentaro carries himself.

They shouldn’t be here. It’s so, so dangerous for them to be here. His mother, he knows, has the place rigged to the gills with security cameras. Dice needs to get them to leave, immediately if not sooner. But.

He’s missed them so much. And Dice is not, when you get right down to it, a selfless person. He’s impulsive and reckless and greedy. And he’s done a good job playing the part up until now, but his heart is exhausted after that conversation with his mother, and he doesn’t have it in him, tonight, to pretend he doesn’t adore them.

“You’re here!” he exclaims. The smile that overtakes him is so wide it almost hurts. He hasn’t made a face like this since he left them. “What are you guys doing here?”

“We’ve got a bone to pick with you,” Ramuda tells him. Dice winces. He doesn’t really want to hear this – it had been bad enough looking into their eyes as he broke their trust the first time, and he doesn’t know if he can do it again without breaking down and begging for forgiveness. He needs to pull himself together and send them away before it gets that far.

“Ramuda, I–” he starts.

“We know about your deal with your mother,” Gentaro says.

Dice shuts his mouth with an audible click. Then– “What?”

“You didn’t betray us, did you, Dice? You gave yourself up to protect us. Right?” Ramuda sounds confident, but there’s an air of desperation around it, like if he’s wrong about this it’ll finally shatter something fundamental into pieces.

Dice’s heart lurches. “That’s…”

“The smallest Buster Bro found the video footage of it,” Gentaro cuts in. “It’s okay. We know– we already know you’re doing this to save us. So come home with us already.”

It’s something he hadn’t even dared to hope for, when Nemu told him that Ichiro had been looking into him. Dice’s heart feels full and wrung-out all at once. “If– if you know, then…” He steels his resolve. It’s a beautiful dream – Gentaro’s always are. Dice shakes his head to banish it, shouts, “Then just shut up and let me save you!”

Gentaro frowns. Ramuda sighs at him in exasperation, as if Dice is being unreasonable. “Listen to what we’re saying, dummy!” he snaps. Dice blinks in confusion. “It’s not a win for Fling Posse unless we’re all free! I thought you understood that!”

“But I–”

“Dice,” Gentaro says, and his voice is suddenly so, so gentle. “Fling Posse isn’t the same without you. We’re not the same without you. You– you’re irreplaceable to us.”

Dice stares at them. He can feel the fight draining out of him, traitorous hope flooding into his bones in its place. “I– I can’t. She’ll kill you,” he tries, but it sounds half-hearted even to his ears.

“I’d like to see her try,” Ramuda growls.

“That’s…”

Gentaro murmurs, “Come home, Dice.”

And – without even meaning to, without conscious thought – Dice takes a step backwards. Another.

“Dice–” “Dice?”

He makes a running leap off the balcony. Gentaro and Ramuda squawk in unified horror as he crashes into the hedge in front of them. The branches scratch at his skin, and even though the shrubbery breaks his fall he’s sure it’s still going to bruise, but he doesn’t even care, too busy dragging his posse into a merciless hug.

Ramuda clutches at his shirt, pressing his forehead against Dice’s chest. When he laughs, the sound is tearful and relieved at once. Gentaro wraps his lithe arms around Dice’s waist, tucking his face into the juncture of Dice’s neck.

“Jeez, what was that? Dummy,” Ramuda mumbles.

Dice isn’t sure if he’s talking about his extended stint as an actor or his ill-advised flight from ten feet up, but either way, he doesn’t really have an answer. “‘M sorry,” he says, figuring that whichever Ramuda means, it’s probably warranted.

“Dice,” someone else says, high voice dripping in disappointment. Dice’s body locks up on instinct. “I really expected better from you.”

Dice looks up. The Prime Minister of the goddamn Party of Words is there, striding through the underbrush behind his apartment building, flanked on either side by guards. She looks as bored by Dice’s existence as she always does, but there’s an edge of fury in the way she carries herself. His mother hates to be defied.

“Ma,” Dice says weakly. Gentaro and Ramuda are bristling, too, as they untangle themselves from him – Ramuda shoves Dice behind them as he reaches for his mic, and Gentaro does the same, stepping closer to Ramuda.

Otome sighs. “Dice,” she says, “come here.”

Dice freezes. He doesn’t know what he can possibly say. He doesn’t want to go to her. He doesn’t want to, but–

“Drop dead, you old hag,” Ramuda snarls, voice gone deep and dark as the ocean.

Well. Okay.

Otome raises an eyebrow. “Such a disobedient puppet. Are you really so attached to my useless son that you’d defy me so openly?”

“Please don’t talk about them that way,” Gentaro says pleasantly, adjusting his sleeve. “I’d like for this to come to a peaceful resolution, but if you continue to disparage my posse, I will be forced to make my attack.”

“Dice,” his mother says, “call off your dogs and come here. I’ll forgive you just this once.”

Dice meets her eyes. “...No,” he murmurs.

“I’m sorry?”

“No. I–” Dice is shaking. Ramuda reaches back and grasps one of his hands, holding it tightly. Dice squeezes back. “Fling Posse is– it’s where I belong. It’s the only place I’ve ever fit. And– I could have given it up, if they’d let me– I would have. But if they’re here, asking me to come back, I– I’m going with ‘em.”

Otome’s gaze is hard and cold as steel. “I should kill all three of you right here.”

“But you can’t, can you?” Gentaro says. Dice startles, looks over at him. He looks deep in thought, like something’s just occurred to him. “You’ve paraded Dice around as your loyal dog for weeks now. If he dies suddenly, it won’t look good for you, will it? Politically speaking. The same goes for the two of us, who were publicly detained and then released so recently. Am I right?”

Dice turns back to his mother. She actually looks… frustrated? Dice has never seen her like that.

Ramuda grins. “It’s Fling Posse’s win.☆”

Otome grits her teeth. Dice doesn’t dare to even breathe as she signals something to her guards. And then – she leaves. Without another word.

It’s so anticlimactic Dice can hardly believe it. When she’s out of sight, Ramuda whoops and throws his arms around Gentaro’s neck. Gentaro catches him with a breathless laugh. Both of them look to Dice – reach out, in unison, and draw him in.

Dice bursts into tears.

“Ah– no, Dice, don’t cry!” Ramuda frets, hands fluttering around Dice’s face.

Gentaro chuckles fondly. “There, there. It’s alright.”

Dice drags them both closer. “‘M sorry,” he says again, “I just– I love you guys so much. I didn’t think I was ever gonna see you again.”

“Dice,” Ramuda says, suddenly serious. “You’re not allowed to do anything like that ever again. Okay?”

“I–”

“Dice." Gentaro frowns at him. “Whatever happens – we’ll solve it together. The three of us. That’s non-negotiable. Do you understand?”

Dice nods, helplessly. “Yeah. Yeah, I– I got it.”

“Good,” Ramuda says, and then a smile breaks over his face again, gentle like the sun. “If that’s settled… let’s go, okay?”

And – together, finally – Ramuda, Gentaro, and Dice go home.