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Itsuki has only had one stroke of luck in his entire twenty years of living and it is the fact that he wasn’t given a roommate when he was still a freshman. Somehow, the number of people that applied for a dorm in his university was an odd number and it just so happened that some god above pitied him and gave him twice the amount of space he really needs.
It’s not that Itsuki has a lot of things he has to store. He came to university with all of his personal belongings packed neatly in one bag and he hasn’t been the type of person to consciously invite anyone in his personal space unless it’s really needed. He does, however, appreciate the fact that he can clean his room how many times he wants to and have space to store a huge amount of chemicals he doesn’t have space for in his cubicle without worrying about them accidentally mixing with each other (or an idiot mixing them together without his supervision).
His stroke of luck ends when he enters his second year and finds two huge luggage cases on the bed across from his own bed. The bag is beige with splotches of orange decorating it and a multitude of stickers decorated of some J-Pop band Itsuki’s heard about in passing and a lot of dog stickers. Internally, Itsuki’s glad he somehow had the foresight to store away the chemicals in another cubicle that he was able to rent out with his raise from his part time job.
“Hi!” A voice suddenly calls out from behind him. Itsuki turns around to see a taller boy with messy pink hair and the reddest eyes Itsuki has ever seen. In his hands are two more bags that looks packed to the brim but he’s holding it like it weighs nothing. “You must be my roommate!”
“Are you an albino?” The question spills out of his mouth before he could really stop himself. Itsuki turns red at the realization of what he’s done. He’s never had a steady parental figure in his life, the most would most likely be the guy mentoring Ryu in making drinks, but he still at least has enough social tact to know what not to say. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer that.”
“Aha!” The other boy laughs, “It’s no worries. I get that a lot but unfortunately, I’m not! I just have weird genes, I guess.”
Silence descends upon them before Itsuki remembers the next social thing he should be doing in first meetings like this. Naoakira's impromptu lessons on social tact that he gives out to Ryu that somehow gets passed to Itsuki via osmosis wins this round.
“Itsuki.” He introduces himself as he offers a hand out. “I’m a second year taking up chemistry, how about you?”
“Rokuta!” The boy introduces himself. “Well, that’s not really my name but like it’s college you know, might as well try out new things which is funny right because you’re name is like five but I’m six, which is like a huge coincidence but you know what they say about coincidences and fate, and like my brother sometimes uses Seven as a pseudonym and like that’s insane to me so that’s why I took six because I wanted—”
Itsuki feels like a migraine is about to come about. Rokuta must’ve noticed because he stops and blinks at him.
“Did I talk too much? Sorry Itsuki! Or I guess it’s senpai now because you’re a year older than me.” Rokuta says, still chirping away. “Ah! That’s what I forgot to do, I’m a freshman! I take up biology but I might switch to zoology, we’ll see. D’you know what they say about biology and chemistry by the way? They say that biology is just applied chemistry—is that true? Can I ask for help here and then, Itsuki-senpai?”
Rokuta’s a good foot taller than him but somehow when Rokuta looks down on him, it still has the feel of a junior looking up for advice. Itsuki just blinks, still overwhelmed by the barrage of conversation he’s currently at the receiving end of.
“Er.” Itsuki barely stammers out. “I guess?”
“Yay!” Rokuta jumps and gives Itsuki the biggest hug ever which surprises him enough to not do anything until it passes. “You’re the best!” An alarm from his pocket suddenly beeps out which cuts through the younger one’s train of external thought. “Oh shoot! That must be my alarm for the freshman orientation.”
Rokuta gives Itsuki one last hug and dumps the two bags on his bed. “I’ll see you later Itsuki-senpai! Let’s have a good year together.”
“Sure.” Itsuki mutters out a solid minute after Rokuta leaves the room, his mind still processing what just happened because of course there’d be another god above him that’ll give him the kind of roommate he doesn’t know how to handle. Itsuki’s past year at university has just been putting his head down, passing his work on time, and giving the bare minimum until it’s time to do lab work. He looks at the chemicals hidden his cabinet and remembers Rokuta is a biology major and decides that he’s probably not the kind of stupid that’ll fuck around with chemicals without asking Itsuki so he lets it go. It’ll take a lot more than that to make him want to die.
Itsuki visits Ryu at the bar he’s working at that night. He remembers how loud drunk freshmen can be and doesn’t at all want to risk even being forced to take care of a barely legal teenager who can’t handle his alcohol. That’s a lesson all freshmen have to learn on their own.
“Itsuki!” Ryu waves at him. “You shoulda seen the group of kids that just left the place.”
“Don’t even start on that.” Itsuki glares at him. “If there’s any freshmen in this bar I’ll just go find a different one.”
“Nah, don’t worry about that. Master kicked all of them out before they got too drunk.” Ryu leans over the counter, almost conspiratorially. “Between you and me, though, I think it’s because the Boss said something about wishing all the freshmen would come to tomorrow’s thingamajig.”
“Yohei-san is here?” Itsuki sits a bit straighter and looks around the bar.
“And here I was thinking you were here to visit an old friend!” Ryu mimics a heart attack and wallows in faux-despair. “Years and years of friendship down the drain…!”
Itsuki rolls his eyes. “If I could’ve gotten rid of you, I would’ve already gotten rid of you.”
“Ouch! Blunt as always, Itsuki.” Ryu shakes his head theatrically. “I should’ve never let you meet Master if this was the consequence I’m dealt with!”
“So Yohei-san is here?” Itsuki repeats the question because it’s no use to feed Ryu’s dramaticness unless one wants him to bust out the demonsona he’s been crafting the past few years with such intense dedication that it was almost admirable.
“Just missed him.” Ryu sticks a tongue out at his disappointed expression. “Okay, jeez, way to make a guy feel loved.”
Itsuki shakes his head. “You know I love you.”
“Ugh, disgusting!” Ryu exclaims, hugging his own self. “I know I’m handsome but I don’t swing that way—and even if I did, you’re way too much like a brother for me to love like that.”
“Somehow I feel like you’re just begging to be punched today.” Itsuki cracks his knuckles threateningly and Ryu just laughs.
“Classic Itsuki!” Ryu tries to stop his laughter with his hands but some of it still spills through. “I thought you outgrew your highschool delinquent phase already.”
Itsuki rolls his eyes again. Ryu laughs at him but finally does go and make him his regular drink, just a plain iced tea. Itsuki’s never really been the type to drink, he swore it all off the first time he got blackout drunk during a school trip in highschool and was forced to hike a mountain with a splitting headache.
“What brings you here?” Ryu makes conversation while he prepares his drink. Itsuki watches him over very carefully because he knows if he doesn’t, he might end up with tea that’s laced with tabasco or something as nasty. “I know you’re just not here to make conversation with the great Ryu-sama and drink the best tea in Japan!”
“You don’t have the best tea in Japan.” Itsuki replies, eyes still glued to Ryu’s hands because he’d be damned if he drinks one of his weird mixes tonight.
“Deflecting isn’t a good look on you Itsuki!” Ryu says, and there’s a knowing tone in his voice. For all he can be dramatic and unserious, Ryu has an eerily perceptive sense of other people’s feelings that can be creepy at times. “You can tell big brother Ryu all about your day, free of charge even!”
Itsuki looks up at Ryu who then stares at him with that smiling face of his. Finally, Itsuki relents.
“ Fine .” Itsuki stresses out the implication that he’s being forced to talk about his feelings of all things. “They gave me a roommate this year.”
“And that’s weird for…?”
“It’s not weird.” Itsuki admits. “It’s just—”
“Oh my god.” Ryu stops shaking the tea for a bit only just to stare at the younger man. “I didn’t know you were this antisocial.”
“I’m not antisocial!” Itsuki protests because he’s not. He has acquaintances in his lab partners and he does go to the club meetings at times or to the mixers he gets invited to once in a while. “He’s just— loud .”
“I’m loud?” Ryu points out.
“Yeah but, y’know.” Itsuki’s voice gets smaller. “You’re Ryu, and he’s not.”
Ryu blinks at him, almost in surprise. “Was that a compliment?” His tone takes on a smug tone which makes Itsuki turn red in embarrassment.
“ It wasn’t. ” Itsuki says with emphasis but it does nothing to deter the expression from the other man’s face. “Why do I even bother with you! Just give me my iced tea!”
“Shush, perfection takes time, you know.” Ryu still looks smug but he doesn’t pursue the compliment Itsuki’s given him, knowing how hard it was for the other man to even admit that. “You still want my advice?”
“If you can.” Itsuki begrudgingly admits.
“I think that you should stop thinking about him.” Ryu says, pouring the iced tea in a cup that weirdly isn’t made of glass and is hard to see through. “If you become friends with him, that’s good and we all should get lunch together—if you don’t then nothing happens. I’m still here, my master is still here, the bossman still has a room ready for you if you really can’t deal with him, and Shiki does see you as a friend, y’know.”
“Shiki’s just happy I teach him chemistry.” Itsuki mumbles out.
“You know how much the kid needs that help?” Ryu points out and he places the cup in front of Itsuki. “This is a liberal arts household, Itsuki. No one here knows how to do numbers except the bare minimum.”
Itsuki finally takes a sip of his iced tea and promptly spits it out. Ryu laughs unrestrainedly while he’s holding a bottle of mayonnaise.
“Do you like it?” Ryu asks, still laughing his guts out. “We’re thinking of adding it to our regular menu!”
“I’m telling Yohei-san!” Itsuki says, flipping out his phone and quickly composing a message to the older man.
“Don’t!” Ryu’s festivity is cut short by the realization he’ll get scolded by his master and leans over the counter to try and grab the phone away from the other man.
Itsuki, for all his worries about having his sense of order disrupted, actually doesn’t see Rokuta in the dorm until it’s close to their midterms, which comes much later. The freshman seems to fly here and there like a social butterfly and while Itsuki does see glimpses of him around the campus, the guy seems to never sleep at their shared dorm. Itsuki thinks Rokuta never ends up learning the freshman lesson of not drinking too much which kind of makes him look at Rokuta’s desk thoughtfully here and there at the realization the new kid has a strong alcohol tolerance.
However, Rokuta does end up learning the second lesson all freshmen end up undergoing: the importance of self management and time management.
Itsuki comes back from his class (he’s studying metals for this year which is not necessarily something he expected from chemistry but is still so cool Itsuki’s so happy he decided to come to this university in particular) and he sees Rokuta slouched over his desk. He can’t see his face but there’s a depressing air that surrounds him as he tries to go over his freshmen chemistry book. Itsuki pays him no mind and takes out his laptop and the notes he took today to digitize them. His review ethic is as follows: take physical notes so he can remember them physically, then write them down online so he can remember them and he can have easy access to them anywhere so long as he has the internet. Itsuki soon loses himself in his chemistry notes, relishing in how the bits and pieces of information slots back in his brain properly. He’s always had a near perfect memory and it’s the first time he’s happy about it since the doctors told him he has eidetic memory.
Rokuta groans from his desk which momentarily cuts through Itsuki’s near intense focus on the task at hand. The older man blinks and looks at the clock in his laptop. He frowns and turns off the laptop, being overdue for a break to rest his eyes. He looks over towards his roommate’s desk and finds that he almost hasn’t moved from his desk with the same exact book sprawled in his desk. Rokuta scratches the back of his head, chewing on the end part of the pencil.
Itsuki hesitates before recalling a recent conversation he’s had with Naoakira (the worst regret Itsuki’s had: not being able to get him for any linguistic class—not that it’s needed for his major but it’s the thought of seeing a familiar face everyday that counts) about being more open to befriending other people. It was followed with an almost desperate plea to befriend even one freshman so as to “instill some work ethic on them” whatever that meant.
For Naoakira-sensei, at least. Itsuki thinks to himself and steels himself to approach Rokuta.
“Want to get dinner?” Itsuki says before he can really hesitate to leave his roommate to go to the dining hall. Rokuta stares up at him, eyes almost sparkling in gratitude.
“Oh do I—” Suddenly he stops and starts sulking. He returns his attention to the desk and fixes his notes. “I’d want to but tomorrow's midterm for my chem class and I still have no idea how to balance formulas.”
“Is that so?” Itsuki refrains from pointing out that balancing elements were taught as early as the second year of highschool but remembers another conversation he’s had with Naoakira about tact.
“That is so!” Rokuta responds, almost mournfully. “I mean, I’m not stupid about it. I’m just better at the ecology and the molecule stuff in biology but the balancing just throws me off sometimes.”
“Who’s your teacher again?” Itsuki asks because it would be strange if Rokuta would be so bad at a simple concept if he gets the more complicated parts of his course.
Rokuta tells him his professor’s name and suddenly it clicks.
“Ah.” Itsuki says. “You got the monster professor.”
“Monster professor?”
“Yeah,” Itsuki resists the urge to ruffle Rokuta’s hair the same way he used to do at the other kids back in the orphanage or how Yohei would do so in the rare times they see each other. “I got him last semester and he was the only one who gave me a B minus when everyone was tripping themselves to give me an A. His class is virtually impossible to ace.”
“I see!” Rokuta looks a tiny bit better now, and his grip on his notes relaxed for a tiny bit letting it breathe.
“He teaches things weirdly too,” Itsuki says, thinking back on the fact that last semester and the way he had to rely on notes other people lent him from other classes to better understand some topics. He gets his desk from the other side of the room, placing it near Rokuta’s and sitting down. He opens his hand to get some of the papers which Rokuta happily complies with. “I can spare some time to teach you a bit.”
“Really?” Rokuta looks at him and suddenly Itsuki can almost see the outlines of the dog's ears and a tail on him. “You’re the best Itsuki-senpai!”
“Yeah, yeah.” Itsuki replies, and it’s easy to treat Rokuta like a kid back from the orphanage but he doesn’t exactly know why it is so. “In exchange you have to ace the test tomorrow, okay?”
“ I can't possibly do that! ” Rokuta groans out but Itsuki pays him no mind—it’s not everyday he finds someone willing to listen to him ramble about chemistry even if it’s to save an almost failing grade. If only Naoakira can see him now.
“Have you seen—” The guy on the bed cringes a bit before relenting, “Have you seen Rokuta?”
This guy must not have had the best relationship with his roommate if he cringes at the thought of saying his name. He looks vaguely familiar—like a guy that his female classmates would often talk crazy about. Normally, Itsuki wouldn’t even think about anything they’re talking about since they talk about different guys all the time but he’s retained some of this since it’s all what the girls could talk about lately—which was annoying, especially when all Itsuki wanted to do was to analyze metals in peace.
“You just missed him.” Itsuki decides to take the safe way and approach the situation in a cautious way. “He went to a club orientation, no clue which one though.”
The stranger must’ve seen something in Itsuki’s face because he quickly clears up the situation. “Oh no—I’m not here to do anything to Rokuta or anything like that.” He says. “I’m Miyama Kei, Rokuta’s older brother.”
“Miyama Kei?” Itsuki thinks about where he’s heard this name before and Kei looks worried for a bit. Suddenly he remembers a conversation he had with Rokuta some days ago. “Rokuta’s mentioned you before. He talks a lot about you, but he doesn’t really show pictures so it didn’t register until now, sorry about that.”
Kei almost looks surprised. “You don’t recognize me?”
“Rokuta doesn’t really show me pictures.” Itsuki admits, which thinking about it is funny considering the amount of times he’s been accosted by the guy for numerous selfies. “I never really pressed.”
“It’s fine.” Kei says he's a bit difficult to read but there’s an amused look in his eyes. “Rokuta talks about you a lot, all good things I assure you.”
“That’s—that’s actually a bit relieving to say.” Itsuki might not be the most social person out there, but he knows the kind of talk that surrounds him from the rest of the chemistry department, that’s he’s too strict and uptight and too much of a know-it-all to have any form of functioning friendships. “Rokuta usually comes back to the dorm after a few hours, so you might need to wait a bit.”
“I see.” Kei contemplates on this conversation. “I can wait for him.”
Itsuki shrugs and sits down on his desk, while Kei lies down on Rokuta’s head. He has his headphones on which is fine—great even. Itsuki can’t hold a conversation to save his life and the driving force between him and Rokuta’s conversation outside of chemistry is the freshman’s innate curiosity and desire to just question everything and ask Itsuki anything that pops in his mind. It’s been a while since Itsuki’s had the ability to just sit down in the quiet and do equations. Kei’s music spills out of the headphones in a muffled tune, but it adds to the atmosphere and makes Itsuki concentrate better on his work, to his surprise.
Rokuta comes to the dorm a few hours later, right on the dot and a gasp breaks Itsuki out from his work.
“Kei-nii!” Rokuta exclaims, his bag dropping to the floor. “You came!”
“Rokuta.” Itsuki turns around just in time to see a fully-fledged smile on Kei’s face. Suddenly, his expression turns a bit serious. “I have something to tell you.”
Kei looks at Itsuki then at Rokuta and there’s a feeling of being excluded that Itsuki didn’t expect to hurt so much. Rokuta sighs and picks up the bag from the ground.
“Give me a moment, ‘kay?” Rokuta says. “I’ll wait for you outside, I just need to fix something here.”
Kei nods and promptly leaves the room, leaving Rokuta and Itsuki alone.
“My brother’s kinda weird.” Rokuta says to him once they’re alone. Itsuki looks surprised but Rokuta pays it no mind and continues. “I love him but he’s really awkward and he doesn’t know how to phrase things properly—which is so weird considering he used to be part of Visty.”
“Visty?” Itsuki might not be up to date with anything pop culture related if it’s not in a form of literature, but he’s heard the people in his department play their songs so much that he’s at least heard some of them. “Miyama Kei from Visty?”
“Yeah, he's Kei from Visty.” Rokuta sighs. “You can’t really see it right? But when he gets into his element, it’s not that difficult to believe.”
“I—I see.” Itsuki stammers out.
“We’re secretive about it too, at least until he left Visty.” Rokuta admits, “There was an incident when we were young you see, so for some time I really couldn’t even say I was a Miyama without the threat of fans going weird on me. I couldn’t even say my real name and bounced between a lot of nicknames. Now he’s retired, something about finally having enough to support me without doing idol work—it’s just.” Rokuta sighs. “I don’t want you to think he’s weird or anything like that.”
Itsuki realizes that Kei and Rokuta might be a bit too similar to him and Ryu. Sure, he might see Ryu as a pain in the ass and would rather die than be seen in public with him—but it feels uncomfortable to hear those words from people in the theater department when they talk about the psychotic break he had last year which made him take a leave of absence.
“I don’t think like that about your brother.” Itsuki says truthfully. “I mean if I were to judge your brother for avoiding people then I would be a hypocrite, wouldn’t I?”
Rokuta stares at him almost contemplatively. “Y’know, now that I think about it, you’re a lot like Kei-nii by a lot.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means that you’re coming to dinner with us.” He says and, before Itsuki can react to the statements, uses his herculean strength to drag the older man out of the room.
Itsuki, not being able to even protest a little about it, just accepts his fate and cheers for a free dinner.
The night ends with Itsuki being successfully rendered drunk by Rokuta’s machinations, a contract signed whilst Kei and Itsuki sing and talk about the philosophy of cleaning. Kei’s too drunk to even understand anything that comes out of Itsuki’s mouth but he still follows along, adding tiny tunes and saying that this’ll be perfect as a music jingle for some random cleaning product he saw online. Rokuta is just all big smiles and keeps on serving alcohol.
It feels like providence. Like the three of them have known each other for so long, which dooesn't make sense at all because he's only know Rokuta for barely a year and Kei for barely a day. It sill doesn't change the fact that it just feels right. Like it wasn't actually only the Miyama siblings that's a unit but it's always been the Miyama siblings with Itsuki. He banishes all kinds of thoughts like that before they can fully take form and feel jealousy over a family unit he's never had at all.
“Your name isn’t Rokuta?” Itsuki suddenly realizes over lunch a day after the dinner from hell because this is a thing that they both do now. Rokuta makes time for Itsuki even outside of chemistry help that it kinda blows Itsuki’s mind to have a different friend that’s not Ryu or directly was because of Ryu.
Rokuta blinks up from his half-eaten karaage, his mouth still full and chewing. A few months ago Itsuki would’ve just cringed at the thought but now he just passes the other a tissue paper without any word. “I didn’t tell you? I think I definitely told you Rokuta was just a nickname.”
Itsuki considers their first conversation which wasn’t definitely properly processed. “Huh.”
He takes a piece of karaage from Rokuta’s plate who shouts in distress as a form of emotional compensation and he leaves it at that.
Itsuki notices things from his apartment slowly go missing. He doesn’t really pay it any mind since it’s not his things that’s going missing but even if it is—it’s not yet his chemicals that’s gone missing. He takes stock of them every night before he goes to bed, dutifully checking a list of what he has in stock and what he hasn’t. The chemicals aren’t anything bad per say, they’re just a little bit stronger cleaning chemicals than what you get from the local supermarket. Itsuki values his cleanliness after all.
First it was his hydrogen peroxide, which he doesn’t think of as anything weird. It’s one of the more common cleaning chemicals and Rokuta definitely knows enough chemistry to know what it is that it’s certainly plausible he took some in an emergency. Then it was his bleach, which was concerning because it wasn’t taken in small milliliters but rather the entire bottle was just missing. And then his ammonia went missing and suddenly Itsuki starts looking at Rokuta almost suspiciously—who definitely is avoiding him now.
Itsuki can’t exactly find the perfect time to bring up the chronic stealing problem the other boy certainly is exhibiting and he’s not strong enough to bring it up to anyone of authority in their dorm because Rokuta just won’t do that . He hasn’t given any reason for Itsuki to think he’s that kind of person outside of some chemicals going missing which could’ve happened on an accidental mistake Itsuki might have made (which the likelihood of happening is close to zero but sometimes the impossible can happen—see: Ryu and Itsuki getting out).
Then it happens.
Itsuki goes to sleep one night in his dorm and then wakes up in a completely different room from before. Rokuta stares at him almost grinning happily as Itsuki slowly realizes he’s no longer in his dorm as he tries to go through his morning routine. The older man turns around slowly to Rokuta.
“Rokuta, where are we?” Itsuki manages to get out, taking the entirety of his willpower to just not freak out at all.
“Our apartment!” Rokuta happily exclaims. He has a paper in his hand which Itsuki quickly grabs and scans, the paper revealing itself to be the layout of the apartment they’re currently in. “It was really difficult to move everything all alone you know, you had a lot of chemicals in your room! Luckily Kei-nii helped a bit!”
Itsuki does his breathing exercises, the way Naoakira taught him all those years back. “Why did you just kidnap me from our dorm room to an apartment that’s… Five minutes away from campus?”
“Kidnap?” Rokuta tilts his head in confusion. “But you said it was completely okay though?”
“When did I—” Itsuki recalls the conversation they had almost a week ago. “Oh.” He stops completely in his tracks. “I thought that was a joke?”
“It wasn’t!” Rokuta looks worried now, “You even signed the lease, you know?”
Rokuta hands over his phone which has a photo of a contract that he vaguely recalls signing a few nights ago. Itsuki curses internally at being so unguarded every time he gets into one of his tangents about chemistry.
“You can’t back out now!” Rokuta exclaims, and Itsuki sees once again the outlines of a dog’s ears and tail slouching in sadness. “The lease is for a year and we already processed your dorm exit application! Naoakira-sensei even signed it!”
“I see.” Itsuki calms himself, but before resigning to his fate—he endeavors one last question. “Who’s paying for all of this?”
“Kei-nii is!” Rokuta answers, “He still has Visty money and you know, he’s in very big demand in terms of producing.”
“So I don’t have to pay any rent?”
“As well as groceries and utilities!” Rokuta nods. “Kei-nii said he’ll handle all of that so long as we handle the rest like cooking and cleaning. I call dibs on cooking, by the way.”
Itsuki, a rationalist through and through, examines the cards on the table. On one hand, all of his things have been touched which means he needs to reorganize everything and disinfect twice as much—there’s also the part where he somehow got his entire being moved without him knowing, which is terrifying. On the other hand, based on the layout of the department, he has more space to himself which means he can continue the independent research and experimentation he’s been doing last year that he had to stop this year after Rokuta (not that Itsuki is complaining now ), outside of the extra space, he’s somehow nearer to the campus and don’t even have to spend any money from his part time job which means he can have things like savings and better research equipment and not scrounge month to month anymore.
The utilitarian side of Itsuki wins, having been bought by the allure of more research equipment, beside he’s always liked organizing so really if Ryu’s taught him anything it’s to look at the positive side of things.
“Alright,” Itsuki concedes and Rokuta brightens up. “But you do know this means that you have to ace all the chemistry exams you take, right?”
Rokuta gulps. “That’s fine by me!” He stammers out nervously, staring at something behind Itsuki.
Itsuki turns away from Rokuta and finds Kei by the door.
Kei shrugs. “Don’t look at me Rokuta.” Kei says, and there’s a small smile forming on his face. “I graduated with a music degree so I can’t help you on this front.”
The face on Rokuta makes Itsuki laugh out loud. It’s the loudest he’s laughed in years.
In an unassuming building somewhere in Japan, a boy wakes up from a long dream he’s long since forgotten in a white cell. It’s his normal cell, one he’s been accustomed to for all he can remember, the only difference is there’s a pink haired boy lying unconscious on the floor.