Work Text:
smiles,
“You seriously don’t know other card games?”
Yuuya shifted back and forth, looking through the deck of cards. Simple enough. He’d played Uno once, a long time ago, but the Lancers could get kinda rowdy in these games, and he’d been - busy. (Trying to sleep and failing, mostly.)
Serena scowls back at Sawatari’s incredulous question. “It’s not like I was exactly taught, idiot! Watch, I’ll still beat you at this.”
“A-as if!” Sawatari sputters. Yuuya knows from a prior boast that Duel Monsters is also the game Sawatari has spent most of his time playing, so he’s definitely playing his skill of Uno up. Still, it’s the third “annual” “bonding” “game night”. So maybe he is good at it.
Gongenzaka makes eye contact with Yuuya and shakes his head slowly. Okay, so he’s not.
Still, this is the first night Dennis has successfully roped all the Lancers (except for one glaring exception) into playing game night. Reira and Tsukikage are sharing a hand - more so for Tsukikage’s benefit than Reira’s - Serena is grumbling at her own cards, and Kurosaki is silent, watching them all. So it’s the same as normal, really, except now Yuuya’s here to actually witness it.
The game starts simple enough. It worsens when Dennis reminds everyone of some awful “7 0 rules” that involve swapping hands. Dennis and Kurosaki seem to have it out for each other, and that’s a problem as they’re both actually good at the game.
Yuuya keeps having to draw. It’s going poorly. He’s wondering if he can quit and just make the most annoying hand possible when another 0 is played and they all have to rotate hands, so there goes that plan.
Reira and Tsukikage are winning.
“You know, Dennis,” as Yuuya draws yet another card and groans. How can it be that hard to pull a yellow? He pulls the right cards all the time! “You could probably actually finish this round if you weren’t insisting on targeting Kurosaki all the time.”
“But Yuuya, that’s the point -” Dennis starts.
“Don’t get between us,” Kurosaki interrupts. “And we’re playing to 500. It won’t end until it ends.”
Yuuya wants to put his head in his hands. However, he still has cards to pull.
“Here.” Maybe he’s pouting a little. No one can call him on it. “+2. Sorry, Sawatari.”
“Don’t apologize!” Sawatari puts a hand on his heart in mock dismay, and then places a +4. “We’re going to take them down!”
Reira places a +2 as well. Sawatari plants his head firmly into his growing hand.
Serena curses under her breath, but she gets a +2 down as well. She’s down to five cards, just under Reira’s three. They might actually finish.
Gongenzaka places a +4. He has more wild cards than Yuuya ever expected to see.
“Red,” Gongenzaka states.
Dennis winks. +2.
Kurosaki stares at the stack. For a moment, no one moves.
And then Kurosaki all but tackles Dennis to the ground.
“You fucking told him I don’t have any reds, I heard you -” Kurosaki swears, but Dennis is laughing too loud for it to be too audible. Tsukikage covers Reira’s ears anyway.
“The man Gongenzaka would never allow information from the enemy,” Gongenzaka states. However, Yuuya doesn’t think either of them are listening. He also doesn’t think it matters if Dennis spilled information or not.
Every single bonding night ends with those two going at each other's throats, “game night” or not. Sometimes literally. Yuuya watched Gongenzaka pull Kurosaki’s hands off Dennis’ neck once.
(And - and still. Maybe this is what friends are supposed to do. Maybe they’re not supposed to be in a war. Maybe they’re supposed to be around a table, scattered on couches and beanbags and pillows in a strange hotel room, even if it’s not their own dimension. Maybe they’re supposed to be fighting over stupid, trivial things like this, not their lives. Maybe.)
“There’s violence in this game?” Serena asks. Yuuya pales. Oh no.
“Not ideally,” Tsukikage starts, but it’s too late. Serena has her eyes on Sawatari, who’s slowly backing up, his cards all but forgotten on the ground.
(But maybe is just maybe. It would never be like this any other way, so it has to be a good thing. It has to be.)
And then Serena tackles Sawatari to the ground, and all hell breaks loose.
and a lie stretched to the ears.
It's been over for hours when Yuuya stares out upon the City. The Lancer's scattered goods feel a bit more like a home, along with their sleeping bodies on the couches and floor and pillows dotted around, but it's still foreign.
Without their voices, it feels empty.
“Can’t sleep?”
Yuuya’s eyes even look red to himself in the window, but he’ll give it a try anyway. “No, no, I was just…thinking.”
Dennis frowns.
“Thinking about what? You were spaced out during game night, too.”
“Different dimensions. The Friendship Cup. This world.” Yuuya waves a hand dismissively. “Reiji. The fact that we’re in a war.”
Dennis’s reflection in the window - there’s an edge to it Yuuya doesn’t like seeing. It’s not fair, Yuuya realizes. Dennis was just here for the tournament. He was there to bring smiles to everyone, just like Yuuya, without any clue of the darkness hidden behind the edges of Maimai’s tournament.
“Aren’t you mad?” His voice breaks a little as he turns around. “Don’t you want to go home?”
Dennis stares, for a second.
“Don’t we all?” Dennis sighs, and sits down next to Yuuya. “I don’t mind, not really. There’s no one to make smile if everyone’s gone, right? It’s a noble goal.”
A noble goal.
“Our goal is to unite all the dimensions into one,” Serena says. “The noble goal of Academia!”
“I…I’m not so sure, anymore.” Yuuya’s eyes flicker back to the window. The lights of the City shine brightly, while the commons are shrouded in darkness.
For a moment, they sit in silence, Yuuya tracing circles on the window.
“Did you believe in my dad?”
Yuuya doesn’t realize he said it until the words come out. He claps a hand over his mouth, but that doesn’t stop what’s already been released, and he flinches. Talking about his dad is - it’s important, but - he can’t use it frivolously - he only has so much in him.
“When he disappeared?” Dennis asks. Yuuya nods. Dennis hums, fidgeting with a button for a moment, before smiling. “I admit, I lost some faith in him. But that’s how it goes with people, doesn’t it? It swings back and forth, your trust in others. What you choose to believe in, and who.”
“Like a pendulum,” Yuuya mumbles.
“Like your pendulum,” Dennis says. “And I know what I believe in, now. I won’t be shaken so easily.”
Dennis makes it sound so easy . It’s a traitorous thing for Yuuya to think, when his life is weighed on trusting those around him, but it’s an easy thought to have.
“And you’re happy?” the reply comes instead. Does that make Yuuya a liar? For accepting his words on the face, but not letting them soothe his heart?
Dennis doesn’t reply. “Yuuya,” he says instead - and for the first time, they’re making eye contact. “Are you happy?”
Is he happy.
( It’s not fair. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore. I never wanted to hurt anyone. I shouldn’t hurt anyone. It hurts. It’s thrilling. I feel alive. I hate it. It hurts. I’m angry. I’m so angry, all the time. I don’t think I can go back to normal. Is this the kind of person I am? I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be this kind of me. I don’t like it. I have to do this. I have to fight. No one else should fight. I have to fight. I have to win. I have to smile. I have to smile. I have to smile.)
It doesn’t really matter if he is, does it?
Yuuya echoes it, quietly, and then, “Yeah. I’m happy.”
Dennis’s eyes narrow. And then, slowly,
He pokes Yuuya in the nose.
“Liar.”
Yuuya flails a little. “What do you mean, liar?!” He’s never been called out for it before.
“I’m from New York, you know. I’m an actor ,” and Dennis smiles. “You’re not even putting your whole heart into your acting. And I know you usually do.”
“U-usually?” This whole time. This whole time, Dennis could tell a fake smile?
“They’ll be able to tell eventually, you know. Until then, you have to put your entire soul into your performance, Yuuya. Smile enough that it isn’t a lie anymore. Become what you want to be.”
Smile. As long as he keeps on smiling, everyone else will smile too.
Slowly, a grin inches its way onto Yuuya’s face. It’s not real yet. Maybe everyone will see right through it.
But he’ll get better. Better, better. Until no one can tell, anymore.
Dennis winks. “Us entertainers have to stick together, you know. Until everyone can smile for real, let’s have fun together!”
“Right!”
Eventually, it’ll become real. It has to be.
He won’t be a liar forever.