Chapter Text
☾ ♡︎ ☆
All Rei could feel as he stumbled into Seisoukan Apartments was exhaustion, stress and something that felt like a load of bricks on his shoulders. This entire day- no… This entire week had been extremely stressful for the leader of Undead.
It all started on Sunday when an unusually large load of work fell onto him due to some error in the system. He couldn’t recall what caused it, but he simply took it on, not wanting to let anyone down and never wanting to back down from a challenge. Then on Monday, one of Undead’s lives had to be moved from Tuesday to the same night, causing a lot of rushing to do some last minute preparations that if were left incomplete, the live would be compromised or would have to be completely cancelled.
After that, everything just seemed to be going downhill for Undead's vampire. On Tuesday, he had a bad run in with a certain fan and had to deal with them following after him persistently for the whole day, causing him to fall behind on idol work. On Wednesday he realised that he missed a photoshoot and had to reschedule it, receiving a lecture from Keito (of all people) to be more responsible.
Thursday wasn’t so bad. Well it wasn’t bad until he accidentally dropped one of his favourite rings into the sewers. Friday however, made up for a lot the bad things that had happened, the insane amount of jobs that he received finally getting shared evenly between the members of his unit and since Rei had already completed most of the work, he didn’t have anything to do until next week, so he went to bed happy that night!
But this all took a turn for the worst when Saturday morning rolled around. Rei was getting ready to leave ES, having just finished some early morning errands when he ran into Ritsu. Rei, being the doting older brother that he was, tried to have some small talk and teased his little brother a little but then something he said caused Ritsu to snap at him. He..doesn’t remember what he said, all of it being a blur. All he remembers was trying to explain, and then Ritsu yelling, and then him accidentally yelling back, losing control when he felt the weight of everything feeling like it was about to snap. The last thing he remembers was giving a Ritsu a barely audible apology before dashing out of the building, a fuzziness slowly taking over his head and wanting nothing but to escape from the world for a little, even if it was only for a few minutes.
☾ ♡︎ ☆
Wandering around ES together in their free time wasn't anything new to the Aoi twins. Given how large the building is and the sheer amount of people in it meant that there would always be something new and interesting to see or do. It really was never a dull day when you were surrounded by ES idols
Today was one of those days. Both Aoi twins were free for the day, quickly deciding to use the opportunity to hang out with each other. Recently finding that the amount of time they had to be with each other outside of idol activities was increasingly getting shorter with their growing popularity. Neither were complaining though because it meant that they'd grown as idols since they enrolled in Yumenosaki Academy! And best of all, they had done it together!
Halfway through their walk, they noticed how empty the area was, save for the occasional rushing around of those who seemed to be busy. Seeing that there was nothing to do, they decided that it would be best to just head back to the dorms early. The twins walked back hand in hand, happy that they could finally spend some time together.
Upon entering the common room for the dorms, the twins weren't surprised by how empty it was since ES was also empty. But just as they were about to go for the elevator, Hinata noticed a tuft of black hair just barely peeking over the couch. Being the curious teen he was, he decided to separate from Yuuta wordlessly to make his way over to the couch.
"Huh? Aniki?" Yuuta muttered, confused about his brother suddenly leaving to go stare at...something. Quickly moving his legs to follow him, Yuuta stopped next to him, ready to ask what he was looking at but the question died in his throat as he looked down on the couch.
"Sakuma-senpai..?"
Just like his brother, Yuuta stared down at the apparently sleeping Rei Sakuma, but he didn't look the slightest bit peaceful. His eyes were awfully puffy and there were obvious tear tracks on his cheeks, said tears seemed to have trailed down onto the fabric of the couch, a semi-dried puddle beneath his face.
Not knowing whether or not to wake him, Yuuta turned to Hinata with a concerned look on his face, knowing that his brother had noticed the dishevelled look of their senior. But Instead of answering his wordless question, Hinata only gave him a soft smile, moving to crouch in front of Rei as he gently tried to shake him awake.
"Sakuma-senpai...it's time to get up," Yuuta said gently, stepping to move next to his brother for the second time. Yuuta waited for Rei to wake up, watching as his eyes slowly opened, a tired pink from all the assumed crying.
"Rise and shine!" Hinata cheered quietly, seeing that Rei had started to rouse from his seemingly restless sleep. Now, he was sitting upright on the couch, quietly looking down at his lap with his arms at his side, looking exhausted in every way.
"Now why don't you look up and tell us what's wrong?" Hinata said as he stood up ,but as soon as he did, he was stopped by a pair of arms suddenly wrapping around him. At first he was taken aback by the sudden movement but he immediately refocused when he heard soft sniffling and felt the fabric on his stomach getting damp. His surprised look softened and he looked over to his brother to signal that he's got this. Humming softly, Hinata slowly started stroking Rei's already ruffled hair, trying to soothe him.
"Shh, it's ok now Rei-kun... Aniki's here"
Now most wouldn’t think much of the title change, marking it off as a simple nickname. But between the twins and some others, it was known that it was a name that Rei preferred when he was regressed. So although Rei didn't explicitly say it, Hinata assumed that he was feeling small because normally Rei didn't openly express sorrow like this to anyone, not this easily.
Though comforted by Hinata's words, Rei only cried harder, gripping onto the others loose shirt in an attempt to ground himself, muffling his cries into his front. Through it all, Hinata simply whispered soft words of affirmation and hugged Rei's head, trying his best to soothe him (and succeeding!). After a while, slowly but surely, Rei's sobbing had dissolved to the occasional hiccups and sniffles. Yuuta took this as an opportunity to do something. Quickly walking over to the kitchen, he filled a plastic cup with water and got some tissues from a nearby tissue box.
By the time Yuuta had arrived back to the couch, Rei and Hinata had separated from their make-shift hug and were now sitting side by side, with Rei clinging onto Hinata and his head resting on his chest. Yuuta approached them, careful not to spill anything as he sat down on the other side of Rei, offering him the water.
"Here you go, Rei-kun. I'm sure you're thirsty"
Still avoiding eye contact, Rei slowly took the cup from Yuuta with both hands and drank, holding it on his lap when he was finished.
"There we go, I'll be taking that now! You did such a good job!" Yuuta cooed, taking the cup from him, making sure to keep his voice down as to not rattle him
The three of them sat for a while afterwards, allowing Rei to relax, not wanting to disturb the peaceful atmosphere that had overtaken the area. It really was a nice moment, with Rei resting on Hinata and Yuuta holding his hand, rubbing circles on the back of it. However this changed when Hinata noticed that Rei's eyes had started to droop and the fingers on his free hand were making their way to his mouth
"Ah-ah, you know by now that you can't do that!"
Hinata said in a playful tone, quickly (but gently!) taking his hand and lowering it, causing Rei to whine in complaint.
"Looks like little fang's still sleepy, I think it's time to take him to his room for a proper nap" Yuuta suggested and Hinata quickly agreed. The common room isn't the best place for undisturbed sleep after all (and people would start coming back soon anyways and he'd rather not have Rei wake up to an onslaught of noise).
"Rei-kun! Let's move somewhere more comfortable, yeah?"
Carefully shaking Rei awake for the second time, Hinata got up in order to prepare to go to Rei's dorm. Making sure to be cautious with his movement to make sure that Rei didn't get hurt. But even though Rei heard them, he only shook his head and made a noise of disapproval.
"Hmm, why not? We’re only taking you to your room"
This time Yuuta crouched in front of Rei to look directly at him and even after his attempt to convince Rei, but there was only a look of defiance on his face
"Don' wanna.."
Both the twins looked at eachother, trying to figure out what to do, seeing as they just couldn't leave him here! As they tried to think about why Rei wouldn’t want to go ,thankfully, a tiny voice interrupted their thought
"Don' wa'a walk"
Making a small (but comically long) 'oh' sound, the twins once again got to brainstorming but this time, on how to move him. Both knew that neither of them could lift and carry him, given that he was only mentally small.
"Maybe we could both carry him? Like we did with Anzu-chan that one time..." Yuuta thought aloud, making the sudden decision to make an exaggerated thinking face to amuse the ever-so-silent Rei in the meanwhile.
"It may be a tad bit scary for him though, remember how much she was screaming when we did that?" Hinata responded with a giggle, remembering their first time meeting Anzu. The train of thought caused him to remember the days in the Light Music Club where they had to wake up Rei with a flute from his (quite comfortable looking) coffin bed.
'Hmmm, whatever happened to that coffin? I know it's no longer at Yumenosaki-'
Suddenly, Hinata perked up with an excited gasp, a super fun and effective idea entering his mind as he remembered where the coffin was,
“Yuuta-kun! I know what to do! Wait riiight here.”
“W-wait, Aniki!”
Ruffling Rei’s hair, Hinata ran off whilst ignoring his brother's protests. He sped through the halls of the first floor (luckily not running into Keito), narrowly missing some furniture and only slowing down when he reached the end of the hallway, where a small storage room was located. Swinging open the door in excitement, he promptly began digging around the room.
‘Where is it, where is it….’
He looked around eagerly, pushing around boxes and other miscellaneous items as he searched but he sadly didn’t find anything. As soon as Hinata started thinking that he was mistaken about the location of Rei’s coffin, his elbow hit something hard and polished, causing him to yelp (bless his soul). However, the pain didn’t matter to him, not with the amount of fun he, Yuuta and the little vamp were going to have when taking him to his room! He hummed happily to himself as he found a dolly further into the room and, with a lot of effort and leg strength, he lifted the coffin onto the dolly, turning it into what he’d like to call a ‘car’ of sorts.
Giving himself a mental pat on the back for his genius idea, he started pushing the coffin back to the common room, hoping that no one would question what he was up to on the way.
Re-entering the room, Hinata felt blessed by the sight of Yuuta and Rei playing peek-a-boo. The silly faces Yuuta was making eliciting sleepy giggles from Rei. Compared to how distressed Rei looked earlier, he seemed a lot happier now, causing Hinata to also smile (joy is contagious after all). Almost forgetting what he was doing while he watched the two play, Hinata continued pushing the coffin closer to the couch, alerting them of his presence.
“Aniki…what is that?” Yuuta had a slightly concerned look on his face, pausing his game with Rei.
“It’s Rei’s coffin but portable! It looks fun, right Rei?” Rei only looked at him in confusion, not exactly understanding his words. What he did understand though was that it was indeed his coffin, so he slid off the couch and climbed inside. After he settled in he immediately started reaching out for Yuuta, not wanting to be alone.
“See? He gets it! Now hop in, you don’t wanna keep our prince waiting!”
At that point, Yuuta didn’t see a reason to refuse, especially with how Rei was grabbing for him. It really made his heart squeeze, those cute lil grabby hands!
“Ok, fine.. I’m coming in”
Sitting up from the couch, Yuuta sat behind Rei and almost immediately he climbed onto his lap and hugged him, like a Koala would to a tree. Looks like someone was feeling clingy!
“Alrighty! The ‘Super-Amazing-Aoi Express’ is ready for take off! Everybody strapped in?”
“Yup yup! All ready to go, captain!” Yuuta saluted, acting as though they were in a spaceship.
Rei giggled at their little exchange and clung onto the back of Yuuta’s shirt to further confirm that they were ready.
“Then we’re off!”
Hinata made a small revving sound before pushing the dolly and moving at a quick pace towards the elevators, occasionally taking his eyes off the “road” to steal a look at Rei, who had the most adorable, surprised (yet excited!) look on his face, he also took a look at Yuuta, who looked absolutely terrified..it was quite funny!
Hinata suddenly turned a sharp corner, causing Yuuta to yelp and Rei to giggle in response. So as they approached the end, he thought that putting his brother through a little scare for the sake of Rei wasn’t such a horrible idea. With that said, Hinata suddenly picked up the pace with no warning. This caused Yuuta to become the one who was clinging onto Rei, who only seemed happier about the speed change
“A~ni~kiiii!!!”
Yuuta shrieked as they approached the elevators, thinking that they were gonna crash, but just as they were about to come in contact with the elevator door, Hinata stopped, using all of his body strength to do so. Both twins took this opportunity to rest, Yuuta relaxing his grip on Rei, and Hinata slumping against a nearby wall, both of them catching their breath. Neither of them cared about the exhaustion (for Yuuta it was mental exhaustion) though when they heard Rei making happy noises once again. Hearing that really made it feel like their efforts were worth it.
“See! Told you it’d be alot of fun!” Hinata said between pants, giving Yuuta a cheeky grin, fully expecting him to respond with a little annoyance
“Hinata-kun!! Warn me before you do that, my life practically flashed before my eye-”
In the middle of Yuuta's complaining lecture, he trailed off when the twins heard a yawn and once again remembered why they were doing this in the first place.
“Alright, that’s enough excitement. Looks like little vamps ready for a nap”
Yuuta said, keeping his voice low once again to keep Rei in a napping mood, and once Rei gave a slow nod, they both quickly composed themselves. Yuuta then leaned over the edge of the coffin to press the ‘up’ button next to the elevator.
Hinata pushed them into the elevator when it arrived, clicking the necessary buttons and then waiting for it to close. When Hinata looked down, he could see that Rei had practically fallen asleep, his fingers in his mouth again, however, he chose not to do anything about it this time since they would soon be able to replace it with his paci.
When the elevator finally started up, Hinata noticed Yuuta's silence. He was about to call out for him but then quickly changed his mind when he looked at his face and saw that he was also asleep. Eternally fond of his brother, a soft smile graced Hinata’s face.
‘Tsk tsk Yuuta-kun, falling asleep and making me do all the work’ Hinata thought, his thoughts holding no real malice as the elevator stopped, signalling that they had arrived. He chose to move as gently as possible as to not wake them, but he still hoped that Wataru was in the dorm visiting Eichi like usual so that he could ask for assistance with carrying Rei. Deciding that he could carry Yuuta to their dorm on his own.
By the time he finished thinking, he had arrived at Rei’s dorm. Taking in a breath, Hinata lifted his hand to the doorbell.. but, before he could even ring it, the door swung open! A singular dove flying out, telling him that a certain magician was indeed there
“Hmm what’s this? It seems to be one of..no..both of Rei’s little helpers and the vampire king himself! To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Hinata knew that Wataru knew what he needed but he always liked to hear it directly from the person instead of asking himself, so he explained everything to Wataru.
~
“Ahh I see.. Well then, your Hibiki Wataru will come to your aid!☆”
Wataru moved out the doorway, now able to get a good look at the two sleeping boys
‘Fufu, how adorable’ he thought, fond memories crossing his mind.
Rei’s face held a look of innocence that he rarely saw nowadays, it reminded him of a time that now seemed so far away…but! Now was no time to be thinking about the past, he had to get this little one to bed.
“Annnd up we go!” Wataru lifted Rei out of Yuuta’s arms with minimal effort, Rei instinctively curling into his side ,as though this was something that happened many times before. Hinata followed behind Wataru in silence,making sure to take Yuuta with him. Hinata watched as Wataru rested Rei on his bed, who seemed content to fall asleep for a few seconds until he suddenly started kicking his legs, seemingly discontent with something.
“Ah it must be the pants, jeans really aren’t for sleeping. Let’s get you into something more fitting!”
Right after Wataru said that, all Hinata heard was a snap of his fingers and in the blink of an eye the jeans were replaced with..sweatpants? …How? But before Hinata could further question Wataru’s ‘amazing’ abilities, the man in question spoke up
“Will that be all, Hinata-kun? Anzu-san won’t be available to care for him for a few more hours, but do not fret! Your Hibiki Wataru will attend to him if he awakens before our dearest Producer returns☆”
“Yes, thank you very much Hibiki-senpai!...Wait, Anzu-chan's his caregiver?” Hinata asked curiously
“Indeed she is! She actually cares for quite a few of the previous seniors of Yumenosaki and some others, Anzu-san is quite the busybody! But most importantly, she enjoys what she does with all her heart and gives her all! Such an admirable young lady, so much so that it could move me to tears..!” Wataru explained with an overwhelming amount of dramatic wording and movements (as usual).
“Ahh I see! Well thanks for doing this for me, I’ll be taking my leave now..Oh and tell Ai-chan that I say ‘Hello’!” Hinata said on his way out, a friendly smile on his face
“Yes, I will do that. Until next time, Hinata-kun☆!” Wataru said with a bow and a wink before taking out his phone, presumably to call Anzu.
~
Hinata left the room, with Yuuta still asleep in the coffin. Starting the walk back to their dorm, He realised how tired he was, the exhaustion of the events that took place in the last hour and a half, combined with the walk he took with Yuuta earlier hit him like a truck, and he’s never looked more forward to taking a nap.
As soon as he got inside their room, Hinata used the last of his strength to carry Yuuta to his bed, and then climbed in after him, immediately feeling the waves of sleepiness taking him to dream land. Just as Hinata was about to fall asleep, he felt his brother wrap his arms around him in a loose hug. Hinata smiled contently, hugging him back before falling into a deep, peaceful sleep.