Chapter Text
Mitsumi’s mom and dad liked to say that she came out of the womb running for president.
That’s what they liked to say, at least, but Mitsumi suspected that this over-exaggeration was borne from many years of her running mock elections at home and her parents—and later, Maharu and Kippei—patiently sitting and listening to her long, rambling speeches. One time, Kippei voted for Mitsumi’s fake opponent as a joke and she ignored him for a full twenty-four hours until he apologized and cast his ballot correctly.
President is what she put when she was in fifth grade and they asked her what she would be in 20 years to put in the yearbook. Her teacher said, a little dubiously, “Mizumi—” (she never really learned how to say Mitsumi’s name right; there weren’t exactly tons of Asians in ye old farming community of Merced) ”—you realize that presidents have to be 35 years old in order to be in office?”
“Rules will have changed by then, I’m sure,” Mitsumi said airily, unconcerned.
Her classmates laughed at her. Her teacher gave her a polite pat of encouragement. The only people who believed in her were her family and her best friend, Fumi, one of the only other Asian girls in her school system. Sometimes she wondered if she and Fumi actually got along because they were meant—destined!—to be friends, or because they had been forced together by virtue of their shared ethnic background.
She proved them wrong. She studied hard, got into the YP of HYP, spent four years at Yale diligently studying political science, and got offered a position by Tokiko Takamine, an up-and-rising politician who said, “I’m campaigning in Los Angeles and I want you to come help out.” Luckily Nao-chan, her aunt, lived in Los Angeles, so Mitsumi packed her bags and left; one whirlwind campaign later, she was officially working for Tokiko and living the dream.
Of course, Nao-chan would never kick her out. But Nao-chan had a boyfriend, a devoted one, and he had a wonderful little midcentury house over in La Cañada and it was such a pain for Nao-chan to go there and come back, but Mitsumi became more and more aware that if it weren’t for her presence, her aunt would likely just be living with him.
So Mitsumi moves out.
“That’s why I need a new apartment,” she says now, sitting with her hands and knees pressed together, aware that she has spoken for far, far too long. “Sorry, what was the question?”
The brown-haired guy before her—Mukai, she thinks, and she only remembers that because he told her that she could just call him by his last name, everybody else did—looks down at his clipboard, where he’s been writing (doodling, actually, she can see what definitely looked like stick figures in a Texas holdoff, albeit upside down from her perspective), and says, “Do you have any pets?”
“Ah.” She thinks of her beloved dog and cats back home. “No, not here.”
“Ok. Cool.” He stretches out the words. Coooooool.
The other two guys are staring at her. They have also been introduced to her, but she’s forgotten their names already in the whirlwind introductions. They are both blonds, but one is shorter and looks at her with a sort of wide-eyed puppy look, like Wow! A girl! while the other’s level stare is a little more indecipherable. He is handsome and tall—seriously he looks like a model, like the kind of people Nao-chan promised were a dime-a-dozen in LA—and his sleepy eyes have widened slightly during her long, extended monologue. Neither of them say anything.
“Next question,” starts Mukai.
“Actually, can I ask one?”
“Oh. Sure.”
“Are these all the roommates? Like—this is all of you?”
A crease appears between Mukai’s eyebrows. “Yeah? Why?”
She blushes a little, fidgets. “I just thought—well, the advertisement really sounded like it was written by women.”
In unison, Mukai and the handsome blond turn to shoot accusatory looks at the third person, who starts spluttering in outrage.
“That’s the third person to say that!” says Mukai, at the same time that handsome-potential-roommate says, laughingly, “Kento, I think your coworkers are rubbing off on you.”
Kento points a shaking finger at Mitsumi, face a furious red. “What was it? What exactly in my carefully-written and edited ad made you think that you would arrive and find a bunch of women?”
“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” murmurs Mukai.
“It was the…sun-drenched part, I think.”
Mitsumi and Nao-chan had trawled through every available Craigslist ad, newspaper, and even squinted at telephone poles in an attempt to find Mitsumi a rent that wasn’t highway robbery. This one stood out because she thought, optimistically, that she would have some cool female roommates to hang out with.
Kento looks offended and then squints at her. “But it worked, huh. We’ve got a woman here, right now.”
“Kento, the way you say that…” says handsome man, with a delicate grimace.
Kento ignores him. “So tell me, Mitsumi, what do you think of the apartment?”
She looks around. It certainly is sun-drenched, larger than she expected. The kitchen is especially gorgeous. They’d given her a tour earlier, though, and the bathroom had been…unexpected. What grown person’s house contains urinals, just out in the open?
But she likes it. She likes it a lot more than the dingy little hovel she toured yesterday, the one that smelled like rat piss and cost over a thousand a month. And it’s close to work, and it’s close to a Trader Joe’s . . .
“It’s lovely,” she says, completely honestly. She can envision herself reading a book in a pool of sunlight on the sofa, or making cookies late at night. She can imagine herself having a life here.
“But let’s say we go on a date. You, me, candlelit dinner. We split a bottle of prosecco. You wear a tiny black dress. We get back to the apartment and you open the door to this.” He sweeps a hand around to gesture at the apartment. “Does this make you want to husband me up? Or, alternatively, rip off your clothes and have sex with me? Either are correct answers.”
Mitsumi stared at him, stone-faced.
Mukai says, face in hands, “Jar.”
“Jar,” agrees handsome man, pointing at a glass jar labelled Douchebag Jar. It’s half-full of ones.
To his credit, Kento doesn’t argue, just deposits a dollar into the jar with a huffy little sigh. Mitsumi wonders how much of the jar is from him alone.
“Kento, nobody’s going to want to live with us if you keep making impressions like this! We’re sorry, we really are,” handsome man says, smiling a little ruefully. “He’s harmless, I swear. Just is so into the idea of getting a girlfriend that he sort of loses all social aptitude.”
“We’re trying to Pavlov him into being better,” says Mukai, nodding at the jar.
“Let me make myself perfectly clear,” Mitsumi says, sternly. “I like this apartment. But under no circumstance am I dating any of you. I’ve got goals, men are distractions, and frankly, I’m just looking for a nice and civil environment to live in. If that isn’t what you’re looking for, then, beautiful apartment or not, it’s best we stop wasting everyone’s time. So, Kento, Mukai, and—I’m so sorry, your name has slipped my mind—it’s been really nice meeting you but I think—”
Mukai stands up. “Roommate discussion. Now.”
(A snippet of the roommate bathroom discussion:
Mukai, leaning against the sink, says promptly, “I vote that we ask her to move in.”
“What?” Kento actually straightens up in surprise. “Seriously? Isn’t that a bit…fast?”
“What, do you want another month of increased rent? C’mon, Kento. Given that all the other candidates are either complete freaks or clearly trying to hook up with Sousuke, she’s clearly our best option.”
Mukai smiles just a little when he sees that this clearly gets Kento; Kento nods and taps his fingers against his chin. Neither of them want to room with someone who’s lusting after Sousuke, because that’s always bound to end poorly. As in, it’s happened before. More than they’d like. With multiple people across the whole gender spectrum.
“Well,” says Kento, and then huffs out a sigh. “Well, Sousuke, what do you think?”
Both of them turn to Sousuke, who’s standing there with his hands in his pockets, looking around at the both of them. Under their scrutiny, he shrugs a little and says, “I like her.”
It’s mild praise, but it still gets Mukai giving him a sharp-eyed look; Sousuke rolls his eyes right back at Mukai.
Mukai says, “All right then. All in favor, say ‘Aye’?”
“Aye,” they all say in unison. It’s settled then.
“Welcome, Mitsumi,” murmurs Sousuke, and ignores the next look Mukai gives him.
Kento’s eyes light up. He says, “Do you think any of her friends are hot? Like, she’s cute and all, but it’s the sort of cute where either her friends are completely average or extremely hot. Right? It’s gotta be the latter, right?”
“Where do you think is the optimal place to put a jar in the bathroom?” Mukai asks Sousuke.)
“Wow,” says Mitsumi when they give her the news. The entire time, she’s been sitting in the middle of the living room, increasingly anxious about why they were all muttering in the bathroom. (She hoped that when she was a roommate, they would keep the roommate discussions to the living room.) “Um. Wow. That’s great!”
“It is,” agrees Mukai with a confident nod. “I’ll send over the forms and everything, and you can move in whenever you want. Just know that you’re expected to start paying rent by next week, even if you aren’t all moved in. Sounds good?”
“Yeah—sounds good. Sounds great.” Her head is already spinning with moving plans—Yuzuki has one of those large Subarus, maybe she can borrow it? And Nao-chan, Nao-chan would want to help out. Oh, there was already so much to do. “I should really go and start to get ready. Wow, thanks so much!”
She’s halfway through putting on her shoes, next to the door, when handsome man says, “Oh, Mitsumi?”
“Yes?”
“I’m Sousuke,” he says, and then smiles again, the corner of his eyes crinkling. “If we’re roommates, you should probably know my name.”
She grins back at him, abashed. “Sounds good, Sousuke.” Then she tugs the back of her shoe in place and exits, her head already spinning with everything she needs to do.