Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Fufu, indeed, indeed. Thank you, chat." Rui couldn't help but chuckle as his eyes skimmed through the quick messages on the screen.

Tonight was a surprise stream. He didn't announce it beforehand, but his viewer count was still rather similar to what he usually gets.

Rui isn't a small streamer, nor is he a big streamer. He's mediocre in terms of numbers, but he genuinely couldn't care less about that. He started only streaming around the time when he started going to college.

He never really went to school like others his age, Rui applied for the distance schooling program at a prestigious Tokyo university. Unsurprisingly, he got in. There's a reason he has been called a genius all his life after all.

That was around the time his mental health started getting better after high school and middle school.
That was a difficult time for him. Middle school and junior high were filled with constant bullying and mocking from his peers. At some point, Rui's mother grew tired of her son constantly coming home with bruises and fake smiles, so she contacted the school. The response they got back was that the administration can't do anything about it, however, they did propose distance learning. Rui's mother wasn't too keen on the idea, but when she saw her son's hopeful expression, she didn't really have a choice.

And since then Rui started not leaving his room at all. Why should he, after all? All he needed was in his room. His computer, his tools, his sketchbooks, his scripts, and other books, the only thing he might leave his room for is to either use the bathroom or to get some food, but that was also optional.

But even away from school, people found ways to tell Rui what they think about him. In one particularly bad instance, Rui’s window was smashed through after a bunch of his ex-classmates threw a rock through it.

Meanwhile, his mother, seeing as her son now scarcely left his room and when he did, he exclusively wore long sleeves, decided to try and find a good therapist for Rui.

Unsurprisingly, Rui quickly grew bored. After he started therapy, his mental state got decidedly better, however, with that, he also became restless. He even bought some computer games to pass the loneliness, but Rui still wanted to go out. He wanted to go watch live shows and maybe, if he’s lucky enough, even help direct one.

However, given he has no friends and no connections, trying to direct a show on his own is rather difficult. But Rui’s resourceful and creative, so something like this posed no threat to his goal. So he made his own little performers! You can make a show with a cast of small robots, no?

Day after day Rui started going out and putting out smaller children’s shows using his robot cast. Sometimes a mother and her kid stopped by to watch for a moment, sometimes they threw him a coin, but no money could equal the occasional laugh from the passing children.

Well, one day a decidedly not a kid stopped by. One that Rui recognized very well.

The day he reunited with Nene wasn’t overly happy or sad. Sure, Nene was disappointed and made sure Rui knew that too, but she was mostly just glad to see her dear childhood friend finally doing better. After that day, Rui and Nene started meeting up more often.

Rui’s mother was ecstatic the day he decided to bring Nene over to their apartment. She thought maybe her son and Nene had some big fight which caused them to split ways because Rui refused to tell her what really happened (nothing. He just started avoiding Nene in hopes of making her happier that way), however, seeing the green-haired girl pass through their door once more, she couldn’t be happier. Therapy was pricey, but her son was getting better and that’s worth all the money in the world.

As Nene and Rui got talking, they found out they now shared an interest other than theatre, that being video games.

During his self-inflicted isolation, Rui became rather fond of video games. His days only consisted of either working on his robots or playing games. Honestly, it felt great to have more to talk to Nene about. As they grew apart, Rui didn’t know what shows Nene watched, hell, he didn’t even know if Nene still was into theatre.

They started playing more and more multiplayer games together. Nene would come over with her own consoles and new games she bought only so they two can play together. Well, saying that Rui played a lot of games during distance schooling was a half-lie. He did play games, but only those where he didn’t need to sign up for much. Especially older games. Plus he didn’t use Steam, meaning Nene had to teach him everything herself. And with a Steam account, came the talk of what username Rui would be using.

Honestly, Rui himself couldn’t care less. It’s not like he needs it, right? Nene knew better. Anyone who’s ever created an account while leaving the pre-generated username knew better. So she made Rui come up with five possible nicks and then she judged them all and picked whatever she thought was catchy enough and appropriate for Rui to use.

In the end, she was left with two favorites. ‘backstageAlchemist’ and ‘ShowtimeRuler’. Neither was really to her tastes, but out of what Rui presented to her, these were the best. Her own username was just an amalgamation of her name, ‘kusanene’. After listening to Rui whine each time she told him what she honestly thought about his potential usernames, Nene finally settled on a single favorite. Usernames are not something to take lightly, after all. So they went with ‘BackstageAlchemist’. Initially, that’s what they wanted to use for Rui’s Steam account, however turns out that username was already picked, so Rui just shortened it to ‘bckstgAlchemist’. Honestly, he didn’t understand what the big deal was at all, but he didn’t want to risk Nene’s wrath if he were to voice his thoughts.

After that grueling matter was settled, the two finally got to play together. Nene was always better at any shooting games they played, but Rui had the upper hand in logical puzzles and strategy-based games. Eventually, they developed a rather nice system. Nene would go forward and initiate any combat needed for game progression, while Rui would take care of the technical parts. It was fun. More fun than Rui’s had in years. Not that he did much though, given that his middle school years and high school years were spent either in isolation in his room or running around various therapists and other doctors.

Around that time he also stopped his one-man shows with his robots. He simply didn’t find it as fulfilling as before.

But he is an entertainer first and foremost, so when Nene introduced him to a website called Twitch, he was hooked.

Rui started college with plans on making his own channel. He found streaming rather similar to shows, in and off itself, each stream was its own little performance. So while his robots lay abandoned in the corner of his garage, he’s managed to build a rather nice computer from scratch, as well as get a camera.

He knew that Nene started streaming too, in fact, she’s been streaming for a while. Rui sometimes played with her on stream too, but he never showed his face. Nene isn’t a small nor a big streamer, her average viewer count sitting at comfortable 1k viewers.

Rui decided to try to go to college in person. He’s outgrown that scared little kid who he used to be, plus he’s gotten some professional help now, which only encouraged him to try something new (though coming to school wasn’t that new, it has been a while since he’s studied using anything other than distance learning programs).

So, at 18, Rui made his Twitch streaming account. He wanted to figure out a way in which he’d be able to connect both his love for theater and games together. He went the length to make sure he had an on-screen persona, it helped him in all kinds of ways to pretend as if he was just playing a character in one big improv show. He enlisted Nene’s help once more. The dive wasn’t too happy when Rui came up to her, telling her he’d like to start a Twitch channel as well, but Nene knew Rui was just desperate to put on any kind of show. So she hesitantly agreed to help the boy out.

Fast Forward two years. Rui’s 20 now, his Twitch channel took off thanks to his hard work and Nene’s support. The diva’s own channel took off too, in fact, she was even more popular than Rui, not that he cared about that at all. He’s been not only playing games on his channel, but he’s also been incorporating some theater elements in as well.

He'd play mostly interactive games, ones that allowed him to engage with his viewers as much as he could. As his channel grew, the information that many of his viewers were watching his streams because they found him attractive got brought to Rui's attention by none other than Nene. At first, he thought she was just joking, although it'd be out of character for her to joke about something like that, knowing Rui is insecure about his appearance. But when he started paying closer attention to his chat, he realized that yes, Nene was indeed right.

One thing Rui noticed was that people would often compare him to cats. So he did what any other rational teen boy would do, he bought cat ears for his headphones.

It's safe to say the first time he wore it on stream, the chat exploded.

Since then he's been wearing it on every stream, if only to get a rise out of his chat. At some point, he thought I'd be funny if he meowed and upon following up with that idea he realized that yes, it was indeed hilarious.

So tormenting his chat was another thing Rui enjoyed greatly.

He started collaborating with other streamers, mostly Nene. Sometimes Nene invited her friends from school, most notably a boy with split-dyed hair called Aoyagi Toya. After chatting with him for a moment, Rui found out that Aoyagi was Nene's high school classmate and the two became friends due to their shared interest in arcades and other games.

Nene and Rui became a fan-favorite duo due to their dynamic. In fact, their collab streams usually gained more attention than their solo streams, which Nene was admittedly slightly bitter about.

But Rui couldn’t be happier. He’s able to perform shows, or something like that, in front of hundreds of people, and he’s able to get his creative work out there, all while remaining friends with Nene and even meeting new people.

But sometimes he just can’t help but wonder… What would have happened if he never agreed to distance schooling? Would the bullying stop eventually just as others said? Would he just have to get used to it, or would his mother make him eventually transfer schools? Would he make up with Nene, or would their relationship stay strained? Maybe he would have been able to make more friends, join a theater troupe and put on live shows like he always wished. Well, there’s nothing he can do about it now.

He’s happy and content with the life he’s created for himself, no matter the ‘what if’s.

On the other side of Honshu on the outskirts of a city called Imabetsu, a young actor prepares for another round of full-day filming. He’s been on his feet for three days straight because the director just won’t give them a break. Tsukasa is a perfectionist too, however, this is just about crossing the line.

The star is often called a little slow, but even he can read the atmosphere between the staff and fellow actors. No one is happy with the decisions and last-minute changes their director is making.

He isn’t playing a big role this time, he was hired only as a smaller one-off character. The casting director of this series and their PR team were hoping that adding his name to their cast would boost their teenage audience numbers.

Tsukasa is still getting used to his sudden rise to fame. It was pretty unexpected, although he’s always dreamt of being a star actor, someone to bring smiles to as many faces as possible, he grew out of that childhood fantasy that he’d achieve his dream so quickly.

Tsukasa shivered as the cold wind picked up once more. They were filming by the shore, however, the scene they just filmed included Tsukasa’s character drowning, before being miraculously saved by the heroic male lead. It was really cold though. It’s Autumn, no one in their right mind goes swimming in this weather. But it didn’t seem like the director cared, despite the numerous staff complaints. So he just sat there, shivering with a towel on his shoulders. Another extra was sitting next to him, sometimes shooting him concerned looks when Tsukasa got another round of shivers.

This isn’t what he was envisioning his stardom to be like.

Tsukasa joined his first theater troupe in his third year of high school. Admittedly, it took him some time to actually get accepted into one, but at the numerous auditions he’s gone to, he met many influential figures. One of those influential figures seems to have taken a liking to the blonde and invited him to watch a rehearsal. What Tsukasa at that time didn’t realize, was that getting invited to watch the rehearsals of a well-known acting troupe isn’t exactly a normal thing that just happens.

But Past Tsukasa was admittedly more on the naive side, so even when Asahi asked him to help out with some acting, he didn’t think much of it. That was until Asahi finally asked Tsukasa straightforwardly to join Arkland.

He was ecstatic, understandably so. Arkland is one of the most famous troupes in Japan, even overseas they made quite the name for themselves. The actors from that troupe often ended up playing major roles in many well-known movies or TV series. And now, one of the said actors, Genbu Asahi, was asking Tsukasa to join them. It felt like a dream come true, it was a dream come true.

Since then, Tsukasa has been attending Arkland’s practices not as an observer, but as a fellow actor. It took him some time to get into the swing of things, and he’d be lying if he said there were no problems at the beginning, but in the end, it all turned out well.

He even made a few friends in the troupe, other than Asahi that is. One of those friends is a girl with bright pink hair and a cheerfully childish personality, Ootori Emu. Emu is a bright girl, always trying to be positive. Everyone in Arkland knows that something bad happened to Emu recently, but seeing how sad and dejected Emu got every time someone tried to talk to her about it, they agreed to not bother the girl about her past.

Another thing Tsukasa learned was that Emu’s parents were loaded. Evidently, her family owns the Phoenix Wonderland chain. At first, Tsukasa just didn’t believe her, until Emu finally invited him into her home. And god damn, their house was big.

Emu had to sneak Tsukasa in, because, according to her, her brothers wouldn’t find uninvited guests ‘wonderhoy’. And that’s another thing about Emu, she seems keen on using onomatopoeia and the word ‘Wonderhoy’ in almost every sentence. It’s not like Tsukasa minds though, everyone has their quirks.

Tsukasa’s first months as a member of Arkland were filled with, well, there’s no other way to say it, insecurity. Looking at his fellow actors and realizing just how far ahead of him they were, made Tsukasa question if his dream is even achievable.

As time went on, Tsukasa's insecurities began to subside as he became more immersed in the world of Arkland. He found himself learning from his fellow actors, absorbing their techniques and insights, and gradually improving his skills. Asahi, his initial mentor, continued to guide and encourage him, helping Tsukasa gain confidence in his abilities.

The hours spent rehearsing, performing, and bonding with his troupe members forged deep connections. Tsukasa's interactions with Emu, in particular, grew stronger. Despite her playful demeanor, he sensed there was more to her than met the eye. He admired her strength in dealing with whatever had happened in her past, even if it remained a topic they carefully avoided discussing.

Another bump in the road came when Tsukasa’s carrier finally started taking off.

He started getting auditions left and right, which required him to be away from home sometimes even for days at a time. That’s one thing Tsukasa hated. He wanted to stay home, he wanted to make sure his parents were doing alright, and that his sister, Saki, wasn’t overworking herself.

The last straw came when Tsukasa was off in Sendai for some publicity filming. He made sure to have a talk with Saki before he left, urging her to take care of herself and to never hesitate to text him if anything, even the smallest thing, went wrong. Well, maybe the fact that he said that every time before taking a trip is what made Saki desensitized to Tsukasa’s constant worries.

That day, Tsukasa got a call from his parents in the middle of filming. They sounded rather panicked over the phone, which immediately made Tsukasa realize what happened. Saki relapsed.

It’s safe to say that no one was happy when Tsukasa suddenly announced that he needed to leave the set and get home as soon as possible. The director kept on going on and on about how he was ungrateful for the amazing opportunity they gave him, but Tsukasa couldn’t care less. All that was on his mind at that point was Saki’s well-being. He managed to get a quick ride on the Shinkansen and he made it home just a few hours after the call. His parents weren’t really surprised at his sudden arrival, knowing how protective Tsukasa always was over Saki, but they did scold him for leaving the filming, something that could potentially become an amazing carrier for him, so recklessly. Well, if they truly didn’t want him to leave, they shouldn’t have called.

Following that event, Tsukasa started rejecting most role offers which required him to leave home for too long. Saki made a full recovery, it turned out that she just overworked herself, but Tsukasa’s worries were still re-kindled. Saki tried to talk him out of it. She didn’t want her brother to throw away his passion because she got ill a few times.

What finally made her brother relent, was when the band Saki is a part of alongside her childhood friends started getting serious recognition. Watching their lives, Tsukasa was forced to admit that Saki is going well, there was no need for him to worry about her all the time now. Admitting that felt kind of like a big weight off his shoulders.

And so he started accepting more role offers. It took some time to get back into the swing of things, but Asahi and Emu were there to help him out, as always. Honestly, he doesn’t know where he’d be now without their and the others’ continuous support.

Sometimes they even came to watch him during filming. At first, it felt slightly embarrassing, but eventually, he just started to find it heartwarming. Especially when Saki showed up too. She always made jokes and teased Tsukasa, saying that she’ll start screaming his name just like he does at Leo/Need’s concerts, but he didn’t really mind. Sometimes even his high school underclassmen came to watch. More often than not, it was Toya and his friend group, though Akito always looked like he’d rather be anywhere else, Tsukasa did sometimes catch a proud smile on his face as well.

Tsukasa's career continued to flourish. He found ways to make the most of his time on set, learning from the experiences of seasoned actors and forming connections within the industry. The support from his troupe members, especially Asahi and Emu, remained unwavering, giving him the strength to overcome challenges and improve his craft.

As time went on, Tsukasa's hard work paid off. He began landing roles with more substantial screen time, showcasing his versatility as an actor. His performances managed to do just what he wanted them to, earning him a growing fan base and critical acclaim. Yet, amidst the spotlight, Tsukasa never lost sight of his roots and the people who mattered most to him.

Back at home, his sister Saki's band, Leo/Need, was gaining popularity in the music scene. Their dedication and talent propelled them forward, and Tsukasa couldn't have been prouder of her achievements. He attended their concerts whenever he could, cheering them on just as loudly as he did in the past.

But despite all that success, Tsukasa still felt like something was off. He knew what that something was, of course. He wanted to share the joy and the achievements with someone. But, wasn’t he already doing that? He has Saki, Toya, Emu, and the rest, doesn’t he? So why does he still feel like it’s not enough?

Thoughts like that drew Tsukasa to take his first bigger break from acting.

Which is where he is right now. Well, one could argue that whatever he's doing now doesn't exactly count as taking a break, but he really was taking it easier on himself. He just didn’t anticipate getting thrown into freezing water. Well, whatever. At least now he’ll have more reason to just stay home and relax.

He looks to his side only to see the extra who gave him a towel furiously frowning at the director. Tsukasa sniffles a chuckle and finally looks back to whatever is going on the set. It looks like they’re in the middle of a scene. The male lead and the female lead are arguing very dramatically about something. Glancing to the side, Tsukasa sees the director hypnotizing the poor female lead. He’s honestly glad he’s just having a short cameo here. Well, this was his last day of filming anyway. He’s probably not even going to stick by for whatever small goodbye party the rest of the cast prepared. He knows it’s a bit of an asshole thing to do, but really, all he wants to do now is get home, talk with Saki and his parents, maybe even catch up with Toya, and then just sleep. He’s so exhausted, not only physically, but mentally too.

Finally, Tsukasa hears the actors around him let out a chorus of relieved groans and sighs. Sounds like the director finally got what he wanted and now it’s time for everyone to pack up and head to their hotels. Tsukasa is not going to a hotel, he’s only going to take a quick and warm shower there, and then he’ll be on his way back to Tokyo.

Just the thought of the warm water on his skin is enough to make him wish he was back at the hotel as soon as humanly possible.

He didn’t forget to shoot a few words to his fellow cast members, telling them all a quick ‘good job’ and some goodbyes, and then he’s immediately off to find his driver.

Not even fifteen minutes later, Tsukasa is already back in his hotel room. He takes a short shower just as he wanted and then he’s off to pack. He plans to get home preferably around noon today. It’s currently around 8 am, so it should be doable. If he were to ask his driver to get him there, it would probably take over 9 hours to get home, but Tsukasa already bought some tickets for the Shinkansen, which should take something around 4 hours.

He sighs and puts his hands on his hips as he looks around the hotel room, making sure he’s finally packed everything. He often forgets things on set or in hotel rooms, although he swears he always makes sure to have everything. Thankfully, it looked like he got everything packed in his small suitcase.

Tsukasa checks the clock on his way out of the room. Great, he’s just on time according to his perfect schedule. Now he just needs to get to the station, make sure to put on a cap and a mask to cover his face at least a little bit, and then he’s off to go home.

The ride to the station doesn’t take long at all, and Tsukasa soon finds himself sitting alone in his private cabin. The perks of being a famous actor.

He watches the landscape change as he leans his chin on his hand. In a few hours, he’ll be back home with his family. He’ll tell them all that he experienced this time on set, they’ll laugh along and someone will most likely comment something about his dream coming true again. It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate it, it’s just getting a bit repetitive.

Tsukasa sighs and opts to take out his laptop. He’ll get some work done at least, and maaaaybe, just maybe, he’ll do some ego searching. He knows it’s not good for his mental health and whatnot, but who cares? It’s not like anyone can stop him, really.

He’s done with work in record time. He doesn’t get many emails anyway, most go through Arkland managers or his personal managers first. He’s also done with ego searching quickly. It doesn’t seem like anymore spotted him boarding the train, and all the other articles he’s read already or they’re just the standard dating gossip, more often than not featuring either Shizuku, Emu, or even some of Saki’s friends.

The blonde turns off the laptop and leans back in his seat. Maybe he can get some quick shut-eye in. Soon enough, Tsukasa’s lulled to sleep by the train’s steady rhythm.

He dreams of a different world. He dreams of a group of friends, who despite all their differences and fights always managed to pull through. He dreams of a small theater troupe and a tall, eccentric director. If anyone would look through the small window on the private compartment’s door in those moments, they’d see a small but happy smile on the star’s lips.

Chapter Text

Nene enters her and Rui’s shared apartment kitchen, already expecting to find Rui by the coffee machine. Ever since he started playing games more often, the ex-director became obsessed with the taste of coffee and most likely horribly addicted to caffeine. Well, Nene couldn’t really say anything, she herself was also addicted to caffeine at this point.

So she only sighs as she opens the breadbox, taking out two slices of bread to make some breakfast for the both of them. Rui meanwhile finishes up with his cup of coffee and places it by the sink, before taking out his phone.

“Would you mind streaming tonight with me?” Rui suddenly asks, making the ex-diva raise an eyebrow.

“Why?” She asks simply. Usually, when Rui wants to stream together, it involves either a new game or some new crazy idea he came up with. Nene would much prefer the first option, but knowing Rui she can only hope.

Rui seemingly anticipated this question and chuckled. “Don’t worry. I was just thinking we could try out this game I found last night,” he reassures her. Well, reassures is a strong word, It’s still possible the game will either turn out trash, or it’s just going be a completely story-driven game, which Nene genuinely doesn’t want to play on stream.

As such, Nene frowns. “What type of game?” she asks cautiously. Seeing Rui’s grin widen, she immediately starts to think of an excuse for why she can’t play tonight.

"It's an indie horror game!" He explains excitedly. "I've played a few games by that creator before, so I wanted to try this new one out too."

Nene sighs. Horror games aren't really her thing, but it also means that Rui will be restricted in how much chaos he can cause. Horror games are usually story-driven, and while Nene doesn't like streaming story-driven games, horror games are usually pretty popular for streamers.

"Alright, but send me a link to the game beforehand." She eventually gives in. Nene wants to check to see what games the studio put out before. Maybe she'll even recognize some of them. And if not, she'll be able to do some quick research on the studio.

Rui only nodded wordlessly, finishing up his breakfast. They then washed their dishes together, but Rui had to excuse himself immediately after because he had to go take an exam today.

He quickly puts on his coat and takes a singular pen, because what else could he possibly need to write a test?

He has to get a move on though, he’s supposed to be at the school in 10 minutes and only the way to the school takes around 15 minutes if he speedwalks. So he does something he usually wouldn’t do and takes the bus. That’s the only reason he made it in time.

Rui doesn’t have to learn for tests, he never has. He’s been called a genius ever since he was a child, despite never having to study at home. Honestly, Rui doesn’t know how he’s managed to pull through so far. Perhaps it's all the encyclopedias and Wikipedia pages he read when he was little? Whatever it is, he’s not going to look a gifted horse in the mouth.

He aces the exam. The fact that he arrived late and still finished before every other student didn’t seem to phase the teachers at all at this point. However, he did notice some of the other students sending him irritated looks.

Because he finished up early, Rui figured he could stop by the mall to get some groceries. He texted Nene to ask if there was anything she might need him to buy and then tried to remember what they were running low on.

As he’s looking around the section with sweets, trying to figure out what he’s going to get for himself, a younger brunette student he’s sometimes passed in the halls of the school approaches him.

“Uhm, excuse me?” The boy asks. He looks nervous, wearing a brown cardigan and ripped white jeans.

Rui tilts his head, turning to face the boy. “Yes?”

“U- uhm, I know this might sound weird but do you happen to stream on Twitch?” The boy asked and finally, it clicked for Rui.

He’s not famous enough to get approached every day, but he’s also not completely indie. On average, Rui gets asked for photos or approached by people telling him they enjoy his streams around every two weeks.

The streamer smiles and holds out his hand. “It just so happens that I do!” His smile widens as he sees the younger boy’s eyes sparkle.

“Really? Would you, uhm, would you mind taking a quick picture with me?” the brunette asks, fiddling with the sleeves of his cardigan. Rui still has a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that someone is this nervous about meeting lil old him.

“Of course!” Rui says and crouches as the boy pulls out his phone to take a selfie.

Rui flashes his signature bright smile as the younger student snaps a quick selfie. "There you go! All set," he says, standing back up.

"Thank you so much! I really love your streams," the boy exclaims, his nervousness giving way to genuine excitement. Rui can’t help but chuckle a little.

“Really? I’m really glad to hear that!” Rui says, genuine happiness infecting his voice. “Could I have seen you in chat?”

The boy's cheeks turn a faint shade of pink. "Oh, I usually just watch. I'm not that active in the chat," he admits with a sheepish grin.

"That's alright! I appreciate you watching nonetheless. Hey, if you ever feel like joining the chat, just say hi. It's always fun interacting with everyone," Rui encourages him. He knows it’d be improbable for him to see the boy in chat, given how many people are usually on his streams, but a little bit of white lie doesn’t hurt anyone, no? Plus he’s genuinely happy to meet a fan.

The boy nods, still visibly excited. "Guess I’ll consider. Thank you for the photo."

"No problem at all. Take care, and good luck with whatever you're up to," Rui says, giving a friendly wave.

Thanks to that chance encounter, Rui completely forgot that he wanted to buy some sweets for their stream and left without even taking a look into the section where the store had their soda candy…

Just as Rui closed the door to the apartment, his phone chimes with a new message.

He takes off his coat and hangs it on the hanger. He leaves the bag with the groceries on the kitchen counter and plops down on the couch, taking out his phone.

> An: Anyway, Vivid has a show next week!

> Mizuki: We’re invited, right? ;3

> An: ofc ofc you especially ;)

> Akito: Stop

Rui chuckles as he reads the messages. A show, huh? He’d very much like to go actually.

> Rui: I and Nene would also love to join!

He sends a simple message before quickly turning around as he hears the apartment door open. Nene takes off her shoes and looks towards the couch where Rui is lying.

“Ah, Nene? You’re home already?” He says, sitting up straighter.

Nene raises her eyebrow. “Yeah, I only went to the dentist. It’s not a full-day operation.” she deadpans while going over to the grocery bag Rui brought.

“You couldn’t at least sort this out?” She sighs and starts taking out all the items Rui brought. The director only gives her a sheepish grin.

"Nene, would you want to go with me and Mizuki to see Shiraishi-kun and Akito-kun's group's performance?" Rui eventually asks once Nene finishes cleaning up the groceries and sits down next to Rui on the couch.

Nene turns to look at him, clearly having to think about this. Spending more time with Rui is one thing, but if Mizuki is added to the mix? A deadly combination.

But it's true that Nene would like to see Toya's progress, and so she nods. Rui's face immediately lights up at her acknowledgment. Then, to fill the silence between them, Rui decides to start complaining about how primitive the exam was and 'Does the administration think we're totally useless just because we grew up with access to the internet? If anything, that should only make us smarter, given we have access to all the information in the world!'.

Nene only smiles through it all. Smile and nod, that's the best way to deal with Rui's rants.

Thinking about it, it's been a while since she's been to a Vivid BAD SQUAD show. She's known about Toya's group since high school, given they were classmates, but she seldom actually visited to watch their performances.

She doesn't even know how Rui became acquainted with both Shiraishi and Akito. Probably through Mizuki.

Akiyama Mizuki was the one who was at Rui's side when Nene wasn't. She's forever grateful to Mizuki for helping Rui and staying with him through the worst of it, even if Nene never really spoke much with them.

From what she knows, it's by pure luck that Rui and Mizuki found each other again after the whole shit show that was middle school. If she remembers correctly, Rui mentioned that it was thanks to Nightcord that Mizuki and Rui reconnected. Rui said that he once commented on one of their first pieces and Mizuki just so happened to recognize his username.

Well, Nene is nothing but grateful for that stroke of luck. If it weren't for Mizuki, who knows where Rui would be right now?

She's snapped from her thoughts when Rui suddenly speaks up.

"I just sent you the game we're going to play tonight, if you want to take a look at it beforehand." The older says, looking at his phone. Nene only silently nods.

Two hours later, both Nene and Ruim are sitting in Rui’s room, in front of a turned-on computer. Rui is browsing through Steam reviews of the game he wants to play. Nene thought he’d already gone through those, but it wouldn’t be unlike Rui to simply forget.

So while Rui scrolls endlessly, Nene opens Twitter to post a stream announcement. As expected, she sends out a simple link to Rui’s Twitch channel the moment Rui turns on his stream.

They watch together as the number of viewers increases slowly but surely, until they think it’s just about time they finally started.

It’s showtime.

Tsukasa stares up at the ceiling of his childhood bedroom, letting himself bask in the nostalgia if only for a little while longer.

He got home at around 1 pm yesterday and then slept the rest of the day, without really talking to anyone much. He knows his family understood, as they let him go to his room immediately without saying anything more than a short ‘welcome back!’. He remembers hugging both Saki and Toya the moment he saw them, but that’s about it.

Tsukasa sighed and rolled over on his bed to check the time. Well, it’s just about time he gets out of bed and properly greets his family after a long while of not seeing them. Suppressing a groan, the actor rolls out of bed, falling to the ground with a dull thud. Soon he hears footsteps rushing up to his room and Saki’s worried voice.

“Onii-chan?! Are you alright in there?” Comes Saki’s slightly muffled voice from beyond the door to his room. Tsukasa has meanwhile gotten up.

“I’m alright, Saki! Just, uh, I just tripped on something!” He shouts back, hearing a chuckle in return. He changes from his pajamas as he listens to Saki’s retreating footsteps. Once he’s dressed appropriately, the blonde finally leaves his room, mentally preparing himself for the barrage of questions his family will throw at him.

And sure enough, the moment he steps foot into the living area, all eyes are on him. That is to say, only two pairs of eyes. The Tenmas’ parents had to leave late last night for some work-related trip, so Tsukasa talked to them before he went to sleep.

Saki smiles brightly as she sees Tsukasa approach. “Nii-chan! Did you sleep well?” She asks with happiness tangible in her voice. Toya nods along with her.

Tsukasa chuckles as he walks over to their kitchen island to get some tea. "I slept just wonderfully!" he replies absentmindedly while fiddling around with the tap. "What about you?"

Saki hums as if she was just asked an incredibly difficult question. "Weeell! I slept just alright! But Nii-chan, we have questions!" she chirps once Tsukasa finally sits down on the couch with them.

He expected this, of course, so he already has prepared answers for whatever questions they may ask. He nods at them both to let them know they can start asking.

Toya leans forward dramatically and shares a look with Saki.

In the next seconds, Tsukasa is bombarded with more questions than he could ever hope to remember.

Tsukasa leans back against the couch, his eyes half-lidded as he listens to his siblings fire question after question at him. It's both overwhelming and endearing how curious they are about his life. Saki's excitement and Toya's oblivious politeness create a lively atmosphere in the room.

"Okay, okay, slow down, you two," Tsukasa finally interjects, raising his hands in a mock surrender. "Let's take this one at a time, or I won't be able to keep up."

Saki giggles and claps her hands together. "Alright, Toya, you go first."

Toya nods seriously, making Saki giggle again.

"Nii-san, first, did you have fun?" The two-toned boy asks, giving Tsukasa a gentle smile. Saki's expression also changes to a softer one as she waits for her brother's answer.

Tsukasa is a bit caught off guard. Asking about his enjoyment first? Well, he shouldn't expect anything less from his amazing siblings!

So Tsukasa smiles right back. "Of course! A star like me can enjoy any acting activity!" he declares proudly, watching as Saki bursts out into another round of giggles and Toya sniffles a chuckle of his own.

He couldn't wish for better siblings.
.
.
.

Tsukasa moved around the counter carefully, looking through the cupboards and the fridge to check what food they had. All the while Saki was looking at him sheepishly from the couch, already knowing there was probably nothing of substance there.

The star sighed eventually, as he realized his search for any food here would be fruitless. He closed the fridge and straightened his back, looking over at Saki.

“Alright, I’ll go buy some food for lunch.” The moment he says that Toya turns around and gives him a concerned look.

“Nii-san are you sure it’s a good idea for you to go outside?” He asks, probably worried about the blonde getting recognized.

Tsukasa smiles brightly as he puts his hands on his hips. “MHM! Of course, a star like me must be ready for anything!” he says proudly before his expression softens a little. “And anyway, I don’t mind meeting my fans!”

Toya seems to consider it for a moment, unsure about his brother’s safety, but eventually, he nods. “Alright, I’m sure someone like Tsukasa-nii-san can manage.” Hearing that, Saki sniffles a chuckle.

Tsukasa makes the decision to ignore Saki’s giggles at his expense, and instead, he turns to go grab his clothes from his room.

It’s just a grocery errand, some would say, but for Tsukasa Tenma, nothing is just an errand! You never know who you might run into, if the paparazzi somehow track you down, or if some fans want to take a picture! A star must be ready for anything, after all!

So he grabs the brown checkered coat from his recent shooting, a brown vest, and below that he puts on a white turtleneck and dark green pants. Before heading out the door, he grabs his messenger bag. He doesn’t forget to shout a quick goodbye to his siblings and then he’s out on the streets of Shibuya.

Tsukasa walks down the familiar streets of Shibuya, feeling a sense of calm and familiarity despite the bustling crowd around him. He's used to the attention, the occasional whispers, and the glances that come his way. After all, being in the entertainment industry for years has made him quite accustomed to the public's gaze.

He walks with his head held high, a friendly smile on his lips, ready to greet anyone who recognizes him. It's a skill he's developed over time- to exude confidence and warmth even in the midst of curious eyes.

He decided to go to a rather small convenience store near their home. While he loves attention, he’d really like to get back to his siblings as soon as possible.

He enters the store, the ding of a bell bringing a welcome sense of nostalgia. Tsukasa takes a moment to look around. It seems the store layout changed a little from the last time he came here. He doesn’t know why he expected it to be the same, he came here last time like two years ago.

On his way inside, Tsukasa accidentally bumps into a young brunette boy who’s blushing while holding his phone close to his chest. The star immediately apologizes and then backtracks when he sees the moment the boy’s eyes widen as he realizes what just happened.

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry!” The brunette immediately apologizes while bowing profusely.

“No, no! It’s alright, I should have paid more attention to where I was going.” Tsukasa tries to reassure the boy, but he doesn’t seem to be too keen on giving up.

“No, really! I’m sorry, I was just distracted because I just met- hold on…” the boy trails off as he gets a better look on Tsukasa’s face. The actor, after years of experience, recognizes the stunned look on the boy’s face and immediately strikes his PR smile.

“Oh my god, oh my god!” the boy repeats nervously while fiddling with his fingers, “Are you… I’m so sorry if this is a weird thing to ask, but are you Tenma Tsukasa?” There it is.

Tsukasa smiles brightly and nods. “Indeed, indeed! That is my name!”

Honestly, this is why Tsukasa loves meeting his fans, he thinks as he watches the brunette’s eyes widen even more, almost sparkling.

“Really?! Oh god, this is the luckiest day of my life.” The boy mutters. Honestly, Tsukasa is flattered, he just thinks the boy might be exaggerating a little.

“Aaaah…! Would you like an autograph? Or maybe a picture?” the blonde asks, trying to give his voice more confidence than he currently felt.

“Really?! I mean, would that really be alright?” The boy asks, obviously incredibly happy. Tsukasa only nods, keeping up his smile.

The brunette turns on his phone’s camera and moves next to Tsukasa to take a selfie with him. Once that’s done, the boy pockets his phone and turns back to Tsukasa. They say their goodbyes, the brunette still apologizing about the bump, and Tsukasa finally gets back to shopping.

He gets approached a few more times as he browses through the aisles, but thankfully he doesn’t bump into any other poor person.

Tsukasa returns home three hours later and is immediately greeted by Saki’s worried gaze.

“Onii-chan! I was so worried! You took so long!” she complains while she helps Tsukasa unload the bag. The star only gives her a sheepish smile.

“I’m sorry, but I can't just leave my fans hanging!” He tries to excuse himself, but in the end, he’s defenseless against Saki’s pout.

Tsukasa takes off his coat and immediately gets to cooking. He and his siblings decided to watch a movie together tonight, and the blonde wants to make some nice food so they can eat while they watch.

As he maneuvers around the kitchen carefully, Tsukasa hears some voices from where Toya is watching the TV.

At this point, the Sun has nearly set and Tsukasa is almost done with the cooking, so he takes a moment to take a look at the TV.

He expected to see the news, maybe some random movie, anything. Tsukasa expected anything other than a purple-haired boy with cat ears.

The star stares at the screen with disbelief. Is Toya watching that? Did he put it on? It’s definitely not something they’d play on the TV normally, so Toya definitely must have searched it up.

Wow, okay. Tsukasa takes a deep breath and wills himself back to the kitchen.

You know what? He’s not going to judge his brother’s taste. Doesn’t matter that his brother seems to like to watch catboys. Doesn’t matter that said catboy had the most beautiful golden eyes, or the silkiest, most colorful hair Tsukasa’s ever seen. It doesn’t matter!

Tsukasa finishes making the food and calls for Saki to come out of her room as they are going to watch the movie now. The star, very discreetly, catches the name of whatever channel Toya was watching before. An app called Twitch, apparently. And it seemed like the catboy’s username was something like ‘backstage alchemist’, although Tsukasa isn’t too sure.

Whatever, it’s not like he’d need to know it. It’s not like he wants to watch the… whatever the catboy was doing.

Despite that, as Tsukasa lays in his bed, he just can’t help the image of the weirdly pretty boy from his mind.

And if he downloaded Twitch and spent the whole night watching vods of the catboy’s (whose user is apparently ‘bckstgalchemist’) streams, who would know?

Although, maybe he should have covered up the dark bags under his eyes.

Chapter Text

Rui woke up at his desk, it seemed like he hadn't managed to make it to bed last night. Well, it doesn't really matter. Today's a free day, he doesn't have any mandatory exams to take.

As he gets up to wash his face in the adjacent bathroom, he vaguely recalls talking to Mizuki about something on the phone before he fell asleep. If only he could remember what it was they were talking about… well, probably nothing important anyway.

Rui chuckles as the memories of last night come back to him. He streamed a rather stupid horror game for three hours. Two hours more than he was planning to stream for, but it was fun, so he didn’t mind.

Rui yawns as he walks over to the living room. Lost in thoughts of last night’s stream, Rui doesn’t notice the uncommon presence in his and Nene’s living room.

“Good morning Nene.” Rui greets mindlessly, not noticing the person’s slightly offended gasp, as he walks over to the coffee machine.

“Wooow. I so generously take the time off my very busy schedule to visit you and you don’t even greet me properly?”

Rui spits out the coffee the moment he realizes that that isn’t Nene’s voice. He turns around with a sheepish smile while cleaning up the coffee stains on the counter.

“Ah, Mizuki! My deepest apologies.” He plays along with the tailor’s jokes.

“Well, I’ll forgive you, only because I feel so generous!” Mizuki says as she watches Rui wipe down the counter. She didn't expect the boy to be so out of it, it was clear he didn't get much sleep, which Mizuki immediately picked up on.

"What made you stay up all night this time? As far as I know, your exempt season should be over now, no?" The pinkette inquires with a grin, trying to tune down the concern for her friend.

Rui didn't expect Mizuki to ask so outright, although his behavior probably warrants that. "Nothing much, I suppose I just streamed a little longer than I planned." He shrugs.

"Ooh! That new horror game? I watched your stream for a short while, Nene was carrying, as usual, ~" Mizuki sing-songs, sensing an opportunity to tease Rui. The ex-director just rolled his eyes in amusement as he made another coffee.

After a second of silence when Rui was too busy paying attention to the coffee machine, Mizuki spoke again. "Anyway, aren't you going to get ready?"

That catches Rui's attention. "Ready? For what?"

The tailor pouts, offended. "Don't tell me you already forgot! We just talked about this last night!"

Ah, so that's the thing he remembers talking to Mizuki about. The problem is, that he doesn't recall anything specific. Only the other's voice over the phone.

"Sorry, you might have to refresh my memory a little," Rui says sheepishly, sipping his coffee.

"We're going to the mall, of course!" Mizuki throws her hands around to accentuate her point. Now that she said it, a faint memory of Mizuki ranting on about a newly opening fashion line she really wanted to check out resurfaces in his mind.

Rui sighs. "Ah, alright. Then just let me get dressed properly." He says, already putting the empty coffee mug into the sink. The coffee helps him wake up, and Rui finally notices that Mizuki is indeed dressed in their more 'show-off' clothes, no doubt taking extra care to look good at the opening.

"No, no, no! I'm going to be picking your clothes, your fashion sense is horrible!" The pinkette proclaims before grabbing Rui's wrist and dragging the boy to his own bedroom.

It takes a moment for Mizuki to be satisfied with her work, But she eventually just accepts that there's not much to work with in Rui's closet, proclaiming getting more clothes for him as a secondary mission in their little mall escapade.

Soon enough, the middle school duo is off to the mall. Rui doesn't forget to shoot a quick text to Nene, telling her that no, he didn't run away, he was forcibly dragged off by their shared tailor friend.

The mall isn't too far away from Rui and Nene's apartment, so it takes him and Mizuki about ten minutes of walking to get there.

When they arrive there's already a small group of people waiting by one of the store entrances.
Mizuki tugs on Rui's sleeve, directing him to the side of the small crowd. "We still have an hour left, let's go get you some better clothes!" She urges the boy up the escalators to the second floor of the store.

Rui can do nothing but sigh, knowing he won't be able to get out of this one.

Mizuki drags Rui through four stores in total, nevertheless, she buys 'only' three outfits. The tailor keeps complaining about how 'boring' and 'cheap' most of the pieces in the stores look, and Rui can do nothing but nod along, as he has no idea what she's talking about when Mizuki mentions breathability.

By the time the two return to the 'grand opening' of the new clothing line, Mizuki looks much more exasperated than anyone else in the mall.

"I can't believe this. They call themselves the 'only high-quality clothing line' and then they present you with something like that?!" The tailor keeps on ranting to herself as they walk back to the mall front.

Run chuckles nervously as he stands next to the offended girl. All he can do is agree with all she says or risk facing her wrath.

Well, another challenge for the tailor's willpower is the opening itself.

Unlike what Rui expected, the speech is given by a rather disheveled-looking older lady. Mizuki seems taken aback a bit too, but eventually, she just accepts it as a fashion statement.

The lady stutters through her speech, making not only Rui cringe on her behalf. She looks absolutely stressed out and everyone notices.

"W-well, thank you all for coming to see, uh, to see this grand opening!" She finishes up the speech and then disappears into the backrooms of the newly opened store.

Finally, they get a chance to enter the store itself. While Mizuki looked thrilled earlier, now she looks just about ready to collapse. The clothes are… mediocre to say the least, even Rui can see that.

Given how hyped Mizuki looked before, she obviously expected a lot more and she doesn't hesitate to vent her frustration to Rui.

"Is that it?!" she starts once they exit the store, "That's what the hype was about?! This is so booring!" The pinkette groans as she and Rui sit down by the nearby restaurant. It was nearly noon, so Rui made the executive decision to steer Mizuki to lunch.

Rui, contrary to popular belief, has been in this very mall before and so he knew of a decent small restaurant on the third floor of the building. While the diner is usually pretty much empty, today it was, for a reason unknown to Rui, almost full.

The young girl who usually tends to Rui's table (and who he managed to become acquaintances with) is nowhere to be seen, instead, a vaguely familiar girl with long black hair approaches their table once they sit down.

"Hello, welcome to the Full Moon Dinner! I’m going to be your waiter for today, my name is Hoshino Ichika, thank you for visiting the Full Moon Dinner.” She says with a curt bow, once she straightens up, she continues. “Have you picked anything to drink yet?”

Rui gives the slightly nervous-looking girl a polite smile. “Thank you, Hoshino-san,” He shoots a quick look to Mizuki to confirm, before finishing, “However, we haven’t picked anything yet.”

The black-haired girl bows and mutters a quick apology. “Ah, of course. I’ll come later, please take your time.” And with that, the girl disappears between the many tables filled with people.

Rui and Mizuki are both silent for a moment, each for a different reason.

Rui is trying to subtly look around if he can figure out the reason why there are so many people at this otherwise calm establishment, Mizuki, on the other hand, is trying to see where their waitress went. “Rui!” The tailor eventually turns to her friend, snapping the boy out of his thoughts, “Do you think I could ask her for an autograph the next time she comes?” Mizuki whisper-yells.

The ex-director looks at his friend like she’s grown a second head. “Why in the world would you want that poor girl’s autograph?” He asks, much to Mizuki’s complete exasperation.

“Oh. My. God.” The pinkette’s voice raises with each word as she almost stands up from her seat. “Do you not know who Leo/Need is? Have you been living under a rock??”

He’s never heard the word (or words?) Leo/Need. But given Mizuki’s reaction, he probably should have. So the streamer hesitantly shakes his head, making the tailor dramatically sit back down with a heavy sigh.

“Oh dear, how could I have let this happen!” She laments, “I know you don’t engage in pop culture much, but I thought that at least as a streamer you’d know the most popular Japanese rock band!” As those words leave the girl’s mouth, she sends Rui an overly serious look.

Ah, that would explain why there are so many people here. Rui has never seen the girl- Hoshino-san -here before, perhaps they’re doing some sort of collaboration which is why they’re there. But why would the ‘most popular Japanese rock band’, as Mizuki put it, collaborate with a small dinner in Shibuya?

He voices the very same questions to Mizuki. “Huh, yeah that is a bit weird,” she nods, “then, why don’t we just ask her?” Before Rui can object, the tailor is already waving their waitress over.

“Hoshino-san! I just have a quick question, how come you guys are here? Are you working part-time, or something like that?” Mizuki asks with an innocent shrug. Contrary to Mizuki’s relaxed demeanor, Hoshino looks like she’s going to sweat a river.

“Ah, we’re just helping Honami- I mean Mochizuki-san -out.”

Oh! Honami is the girl whom Rui usually talks to in this restaurant. If he recalls correctly, this dinner is owned by her parents, but she only helps out occasionally because of work. Huh, who would have guessed that said work involved being in a nation-known rock band?

While Rui has gotten his answer and would gladly let the poor guitarist go now, Mizuki seems to have one more thing to ask. “By the way! If you don’t mind me asking, why are you helping out here now?”

Hoshino looks nervously towards the kitchen. “Well, we, as Leo/Need, are on a break after our last tour right now, and I thought I’d just visit my friend… I didn’t expect so many people to find us here.” The answer seems to satisfy the tailor’s hunger for gossip and information.

Finally, the duo manages to order some food from the, rather uncomfortable, waitress. Rui makes sure to leave her a proper tip, even if she’s most likely not short on money.

So Rui leaves the dinner with more than he bargained for, also a mental note to check out Honami’s band’s performances and ‘catch up’ with pop culture.

As the two wander, pretty much aimlessly, through the mall, a movie poster catches Rui’s eye.

It’s not an outstanding poster or anything like that, but Rui feels like he’s seen the boy on the poster before. He quickly scans his memory for any images, anything. Blonde hair that fades to peach, beautiful sunset eyes which Rui isn’t hundred percent sure are real, slender but well-built figure… No. Rui can’t recall ever talking to anyone like that before. Well, the person must be an actor, so he’s most likely seen him on the big screen before. As Rui’s eyes breeze through the cast members listed on the poster, he commits the name Tenma Tsukasa to memory.

“What are you staring at? Oh! That’s the new movie with Tenma, right?” Rui suppresses the urge to jump. Right, he forgot Mizuki was there, perhaps he really should try to get more sleep.

His friend walks over to the poster, taking an unnecessarily close look. So Mizuki knows the actor, huh? It’s not really a surprise given how much more fluent in social media and pop culture Mizuki is. Even if Rui’s work is, in and off itself, literally a part of the aforementioned pop culture, he’s never really paid much attention to things other than theater and the occasional new game release and some game studios.

He doesn’t even know why this particular poster caught his eye! It’s rather boring, most likely the cliche action movie starring a young and unusually attractive actor.

“Well, Tenma Tsukasa is listed in the cast.” Rui shrugs as he attempts to get Mizuki’s attention elsewhere.

The tailor gives him an incredulous look. “Do not even try to insinuate you don’t know who Tenma Tsukasa is.” She says in a deadpan voice.

Mizuki takes Rui’s silence for an answer and springs to work. “Right, yeah no. We have to fix that immediately!” She drags Rui to the cinema’s attending cashier.

Before Rui can but blink, he’s sitting in a movie theater, about to watch a movie he knows nothing about just because he dared to lay eyes on the actor depicted on the movie’s promotional poster. All the while Mizuki’s daunting words linger in his head. “After this, I’m going to your apartment and we’re watching every other movie with Tenma and we’re also watching all Leo/Need music videos.”

That’s definitely not what he signed up for…

Tsukasa wakes up to what feels like possibly the worst headache he’s ever had.

He even has to take a second just to confirm he didn’t end up drinking irresponsibly in the presence of his siblings, no. The reason behind his horrible curse is something much more sinister. A fucked up sleep schedule.

What in the world caused him, Tenma Tsukasa, to stay up so late!? Oh- yeah. Now he remembers. He was watching livestreams. Livestreams of possibly the cutest and simultaneously hottest boy he’s ever seen.

Tsukasa groans as he collapses back onto his bed, wincing in pain as he feels something hard dig into his shoulder.

Did he, did he fall asleep watching a stream…? Is that why his phone is in his bed instead of on the night table?

Dear god, this is extremely embarrassing for a star such as himself!

Tsukasa takes a moment to lament his horrible and painful fate, before sighing and finally getting out of bed.

He makes his way over to the adjacent bathroom, only to find really bad eyebags under his eyes. Not even the best concealer would cover that up, he thinks.

Tsukasa changes out of his pajamas into some casual T-shirt and sweats and makes his way downstairs. But before he does so, he checks the clock only to find out that it’s already 9 am. He has to hold back another groan at the realization that both his siblings are most likely awake by now.

He tries his best to keep his face averted as he enters the kitchen. Just as it starts to look like he’ll be able to at least make some breakfast for himself without being questioned, Tsukasa hears a familiar voice. A voice that he’d be happy to hear under normal circumstances, but now it just sends shivers of terror down his spine.

“Ah! Onii-chan, you’re finally awake!” his sister chirps as she appears out of thin air behind Tsukasa.

“S-Saki! I’m sorry I didn’t make you breakfast, I woke up late…” The actor chuckles nervously, feeling the scrutinizing look of his sister on his back.

He’s not getting out of this one, is he? Maybe he can make up some excuses about work and having to catch up on emails, but just the thought of lying to his siblings leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

“Hmmm, I can see that.” Saki comments. However, while Tsukasa is fully ready for a full-blown interrogation, he only hears Saki huff.

“Well, it’s up to you what you do in your free time! You’re an adult after all.” She shrugs as she leaves to take her place on the living room’s couch.

Tsukasa can't help but feel a bit suspicious as he watches Saki's retreating figure. It's not like his sister to just give up so easily… Although, maybe she really doesn't really care as much? Tsukasa doesn't know if he should feel disappointed or happy at the prospect.

He makes his tea and makes a quick breakfast. As he sits down at the dining table and looks towards the TV, he can see, clear as day, another one of bckstgalchemist's streams. The sight of the purple-haired boy does spool Tsukasa a little, but then he quickly composes himself. It's probably Toya again, no?

Indeed, his brother is sitting on the couch, staring intently at the screen. But he doesn't seem to be focused on the streamer alone, instead, Toya is staring at the gameplay.

Tsukasa knows that Toya often plays games with some of his friends, but is it really necessary to analyze this game that much? Well, maybe he's just misunderstanding.

The actor shrugs and sighs as he gets up to clean his plate.

Just as he turns around, about to head back to his room, someone grabs his hand. Tsukasa is met with Saki's intense gaze. "Did you even sleep at all, Nii-chan?" she asks, her voice laced with worry.

Ah, he knew this would come, but he let his guard down and forgot. Tsukasa doesn't have the time to react properly and his dark eyebags are fully visible to Saki.

Saki frowns in worry. "Onii-chan, I know I said that you're an adult and can make your own decisions, but…" She trails off, giving Tsukasa a slightly disappointed look.

And isn't that making him feel absolutely awful. His sister looks disappointed in him! And how much more would she be disappointed if she found out that the reason for Tsukasa's bad sleep schedule was a Twitch catboy?

Tsukasa isn't given a chance to defend himself and is quickly dragged off to the living room, where the TV no longer plays bckstgalchemist’s videos.

Saki sits the actor down on the couch, with Toya sending both of them a rather confused look as his gaze lingers on Tsukasa’s face.

“So, now I need to know why you stayed up late.” Saki starts. “You look horrible! No offense.” She gestures to Tsukasa’s eye bags with Toya nodding along gravely.

Does it really look that bad? Maybe he really should have put on at least some concealer before coming down… But he doesn’t like the feel of makeup outside of shooting.

Tsukasa could feel the weight of his sister's concern, and it gnawed at him more than he'd like to admit. Saki had always been observant, even when they were kids, and he knew he couldn't fool her for long. The blonde considered coming clean, but the truth was just too embarrassing to reveal. Instead, he decided to deflect the conversation slightly.

"None taken, Saki," he replied with a weak smile, attempting to downplay his exhaustion. "I was actually up late going through my mail. You know how it goes, sometimes you lose track of time when you're focused on something." He chuckles sheepishly, hoping that would be enough to fool Saki.

The younger girl continues to stare at Tsukasa for a moment longer, before letting out a sigh. “Onii-chan, I thought we agreed that you won’t be working for at least a week!” She chided him, making the blonde lower his head in shame, even if he wasn’t actually working.

Lying to his sister felt horrible, even if it was just a simple white lie.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry. I promise it won’t happen again!” He raises his head, attempting to inject as much determination into his voice as he can. It seems to work because Saki only chuckles and shakes her head.

“Fine, fine. You’re an adult, I’ll leave you alone.” She eventually drops Tsukasa’s case.

Just as the blonde is about to either celebrate because he no longer has to face Saki’s terrifying gaze, or collapse from the guilt, Toya speaks up.

“Nii-san was watching streams when working on e-mails?” The younger boy asks with that kind of genuine curiosity only he can have in such a foreboding question.

Tsukasa sees Saki stop in her tracks and slowly turn around. This is more terrifying than whatever horror game that catboy was playing on stream.

“Uuuuh, I- I mean, uhhh, yes…?” It feels like he suddenly forgot everything he learned as an actor when confronted with both Toya and Saki. While the girl on her own was powerful enough against Tsukasa, both of his siblings combined were unstoppable. Tsukasa could only listen in horror as Saki returned to stand right in front of him with a sickly sweet smile on her face.

“Really? What streams was Nii-chan watching? I’d like to watch some too!” She says sweetly. Since when was his sister so terrifying?! Tsukasa gulps.

Toya doesn’t notice the threatening aura around Saki and answers calmly. “Ah, when I was getting some water last night, I heard Kamishiro-san’s voice from Nii-san’s room.”

Okay, first of all, Toya knows bckstgalchemist’s legal name? Second of all, why didn’t Tsukasa think of that? The walls in their family home are paper thin, of course, others would be able to hear whatever he was watching even if the audio was low!

“Oh really? Kamishiro-san… is that the person Toya-nii plays games with?” Saki’s interrogation of Tsukasa lessens for a moment in favor of her curiosity.

Toya nods. “Yes, me, Nene-san, and Kamishiro-san sometimes play together.” He says with a soft smile. Normally Tsukasa would jump at the opportunity to ask Toya more about his friends and what games he plays despite knowing next to nothing about video gaming, but now he only wishes for Saki to forget about him so he can sneak away unsuspectedly.

His wishes aren’t heard because the next moment Saki turns back to him. “Oh! Then Nii-chan probably saw you watching Kamishiro-san’s stream, right?” She asks Tsukasa.

The blonde suppresses a shiver. “Well, I just, I just wanted to know what it was that my dear brother was watching!” It isn’t a lie, he did start watching the stream vods to see what drew Toya in, but later he found himself watching more and more just to stare at the streamer’s webcam.

Saki pouts as he tries to catch Tsukasa in another white lie. Eventually, just as Tsuaksa thinks she’s about to give up, his sister plops down on the couch next to them.

“Alright! Then I want to see what you two liked about it too!” She takes the TV remote control and switches the program to Twitch.

Toya only nods along with a soft smile, while Tsukasa suppresses another shiver. He has a feeling this isn’t over yet.

Two hours in and Saki is visibly getting bored, Toya as well, although he seems more focused on the game itself than on the streamer’s commentary. Tsukasa, on the other hand, is eating up everything that comes out of Kamishiro’s mouth.

That doesn’t go unnoticed by Saki, who has switched from watching the vod to scrolling on Toya’s Twitter feed, the boy’s phone having been the closest for her to reach without getting up from the couch.

Saki bites down a chuckle as she watches her older brother’s entranced face. He looks completely mesmerized. Yeah, no, he definitely didn’t watch the streams only to see what Toya liked about it.

She holds back a grin as she waves her hand in front of Tsukasa’s face just to get no reaction from the elder, only a rather confused look from Toya, who keeps his mouth shut when Saki points to Tsukas with a finger on her lips.

She turns on the phone’s camera and snaps a quick photo of Tsukasa’s awestruck face staring at the TV and tweets it on Toya’s account with the caption ‘Look at this mess with a streamer crush! -saki’. Likes flood in after a while… She might have forgotten that Toya is rather well known on the internet now with Vivid BAD SQUAD. Well, whatever, the TV isn’t in the photo anyway and they can always play it off as a joke.

Saki nods at her own reassurances, and just as she looks up she sees Tsukasa staring at her with wide eyes as he pulls out his own phone, immediately seeing the tweet.

“Saki… my management probably won’t be too happy about it.” He says quietly. And, that must be some kind of cosmic payback for him lying to Saki earlier, no?

Saki immediately starts apologizing despite Tsukasa continuously telling her he isn’t mad at all, and that he’s sure his management won’t mind once he explains it.

Nonetheless, with two of the three siblings now feeling bad, Toya makes the executive decision to steer them off to get some lunch outside.

The trio ends up ordering pancakes at a small corner shop where Toya used to go a lot with Akito. Thankfully, they don’t run into many fans, which is a miracle given that every single one of them is famous in one way or another.

It also greatly helps to diffuse any of the tension Tsukasa felt before. But, one silly worry persisted. Saki called it a crush in her tweet, that’s not true, right? It’s just a joke. You can’t develop feelings that quickly, plus, Tsukasa isn’t sure that his, admittedly weird obsession with the catboy’s- Kamishiro’s beautiful face and pretty hair and glowing eyes is anything but an aesthetic appreciation. Anyone with eyes would feel that way! No?

They go home before the sun sets, but not immediately after getting the pancakes because Saki insists on going to take a look into the nearby park. And neither of her siblings has anything to say against that, so why not make a small detour?

Their little trip is successful in distracting Tsukasa’s mind a little, so once he lays down in bed, staring up at the ceiling, he doesn’t feel the imminent anxiety from having to explain another silly misunderstanding to his demanding manager, instead he calmly drifts off to sleep with the image of the ducks they saw in the park on his mind.

Saki, on the other hand, has to think of how she should, the next day, break the news to Tsukasa that the very Kamishiro Rui aka ‘bckstgalchemist’ liked her joke tweet.

Chapter Text

Two days ago, Rui got forced to watch like five movies with an actor called Tenma Tsukasa that Mizuki deemed worthy enough. While five might not seem as that many, some of them were two hours long. Therefore it’s safe to say that Rui stayed up way longer than he intended. Mizuki also refused to leave the apartment until they’ve watched all the music videos and movies they selected.

Now, Rui loves movies. He absolutely adores the entire process of filmmaking. In fact, he wanted to be a director when he was younger. But watching three romance movies in a row, each one being just a retelling of the same story, was really painful.

But the thing is, Rui can’t say he didn’t enjoy it.

He doesn’t know what it is about Tenma Tsukasa, but somehow the blonde actor managed to make each one of those boring movies different. He managed to always breathe life into the character he portrayed in a way that no other actors could. The viewer’s eyes get naturally drawn to a pretty face, is what Rui told himself at the beginning, however, the longer it went on, he had to admit that that’s not the case here. Tenma Tsukasa is a truly exceptional actor. But Rui doesn’t like to see such talent being wasted on boring romcoms (not that he has anything against romcoms in particular, they just all tend to be pretty much the same thing.)

Well, it’s not like Rui could do anything about it. He’s a Twitch streamer, not a producer or a script writer, no matter how much younger him dreamed about being one.

He remembers taking his phone out, out of boredom, at some point during the impromptu movie marathon, only to aimlessly scroll through twitter.

There wasn’t anything unusual there, until a photo from Toya’s account popped up on his timeline.

It was a picture of a beautiful blonde boy (man?) sitting in some living room, very intently staring at something. The caption was ‘Look at this mess with a streamer crush! -saki’. Now, Aoyagi’s personal life is none of Rui’s business, he only ever speaks to the boy when Nene invites the both of them to her stream, but even so he doesn’t remember Aoyagi mentioning that he’s related, or even just acquainted, with the Tenmas. Because that ethereal blonde in the picture is definitely Tenma Tsukasa, how could Rui not recognize him after staring at his face for three hours. And ‘Saki’ must be Tenma Saki, from Leo/Need. Another person Rui was forced to look at for a good hour (although he was paying more attention to Mochizuki when she was on the screen).

Absentmindedly, Rui liked the tweet, filing the information that Aoyagi apparently knows the Tenmas into the ‘interesting facts’ folder in his mind.

But that was all two days ago. Two days ago, and somehow, Mizuki has yet to leave his and Nene’s apartment. It seems the pinkette isn’t too keen on leaving any time soon.

Rui doesn’t expect to see them gone when he enters their living room, but he cannot help the disappointed sigh at the sight of Akiyama Mizuki, in their pajamas, sitting on the couch and happily chatting with Nene, who looks like she woke up a minute ago and can’t really comprehend what Mizuki’s saying, so she only nods to everything the other says.

Rui goes to get his usual morning coffee, deciding to not pay his (now two) roommate much attention.

However, no matter how much he tries to ignore whatever Mizuki’s going on about, a certain name catches his ear.

“So, Toya-kun asked me to invite as many people to his group’s live show this week! You guys have already been invited, right?” She asks Nene, obviously expecting an answer.

Rui decides to take pity on his childhood friend who looks ready to fall asleep at any moment, and answers instead. “Yes, Shiraishi-kun already mentioned it before. I agreed on behalf of both me and Nene.” He says as he sips his coffee.

“Oooh! Yeah on the group chat right? Can’t believe I forgot, haha!” The tailor laughs. How she has that much energy at eight in the morning is beyond Rui.

“Don’t forget it’s in two days! On Friday!” They say and Rui only absentmindedly nods in confirmation.

However, while him pitching in did save Nene some embarrassment, it also now makes Rui Mizuki’s primary target. So he’s forced to submit to another half an hour of Mizuki never shutting their mouth and always talking about one thing or another.

It’s only after Rui finally finishes his coffee that Nene seems to properly wake up and starts engaging in their conversation (well, more like Mizuki’s monologue).

Rui still has trouble getting used to the fact that both his childhood best friend and his middle school friend know each other. He knows the two went to school together, but it’s still surreal to see these two worlds blend so seamlessly. Especially with how nicely the conversation flows between Mizuki and Nene.

He goes back to his phone when he realizes that his two friends no longer need him to mediate.

Twitter is mostly the usual chaos. His official account is filled with the tweets of other streamers and the occasional random tweet from someone Rui doesn’t know. So he makes the executive decision to switch to his alternative account that no one other than Nene and Mizuki knows about. Rui sometimes calls it a fan account even though he’s not really a fan page of anyone. Lately though, tweets of fans of a certain blonde actor have been invading his timeline. It’s not unprompted, after all, Rui went out of his way to follow quite a few Tenma Tsukasa fan accounts.

He chuckles as he sees a fan having a meltdown over the fact that Tsukasa apparently has a photoshoot just today, the fan calling it ‘the only food they got in weeks’. Rui isn’t really a fan of that mentality, after all, a famous actor like the blonde does deserve a break every once in a while, but he finds it endearing nonetheless.

He’d be lying if he himself wasn’t a bit excited to see what comes off Tenma’s photoshoot.

“What’s got you all smiley?”

Ah, he’s been caught by none other than Mizuki.

Rui doesn’t reply immediately. “Nothing much, just a twitter post.” He replies, intentionally being vague.

Mizuki seemingly deems whatever they and Nene were talking about before to be more important than trying to get a proper answer out of Rui, because the tailor goes back to pestering Nene, (Who has at some point gotten changed, how did Rui not notice her leaving?), so Rui takes this as his chance to get changed.

During the ten minutes when he was changing, Nene has apparently left, Mizuki only relaying something about groceries, and so the two were left alone once more. Rui’s blood turns cold when Mizuki turns to him with a smirk. This can only mean two things, either Mizuki is going to make him watch another Tsukasa movie, not that he’d mind that much at this point, or they found something completely different to torture Rui with.

“Say, how long has it been since you last streamed?” Mizuki asks with an innocent grin.

This isn’t good.

Rui pretends to think for a moment, trying to deduce what Mizuki could have came up with. They’re obviously going to ask to be on the stream, but why?

“I was actually planning on streaming tonight.” Rui admits, waiting for the tailor to express how much she wants to attend the stream as well.

And sure enough, the pinkette’s eyes light us. “Really!? Great! Actually, I was thinking, how about I join you~?” There it is. Mizuki leans to Rui with a sweet smile.

The streamer only sighs. “I figured as much, but why?” He asks, raising an eyebrow.

Mizuki chuckles. “Well there’s been this trend going around on Twitch where streamers let their fans submit funny videos and react to them! It’s like a live ‘try not to laugh challenge’!” She explains cheerfully.

That cannot be the only reason why Mizuki wants to stream with him. They definitely have another ulterior motive. But Rui can’t deny them, can he? Mizuki is most likely going to stay the night anyway, and he really has to stream today after taking an impromptu break, so even if he said no, Mizuki could just walk right in.

So the boy sighs once more. “Fine, fine. Just please try to not dox us.” He says, much to Mizuki’s obvious delight.

It doesn’t take long for Nene to return, however, during that time she is gone, Mizuki takes it upon themselves to run the apartment through a thorough cleaning. Rui, of course, is an unwilling victim forced to participate.

When Nene returns and sees Rui standing in the squeaky clean kitchen, she nearly faints.

The trio spends the rest of the time doing their own things. Nene retreats to her room to finish working on a school assignment, Mizuki does… whatever in their living room, and Rui locks himself in his room under the guise of working on some emails. Obviously that’s not what he’s doing, no. He’s browsing through the numerous Tsukasa compilations on YouTube. But really, can anyone even blame him?

The aforementioned photoshoot is supposed to drop around midnight, but Rui is still hoping that at least some fan caught a glimpse or something.

All consumed by his fanboying, Rui doesn’t even realize how fast time seems to move. The next thing he knows, Mizuki is banging on his door.

“Rui! It’s stream time!!” They shout through the door, snapping the boy out of his daydreams.

Quick look at the clock confirms that it’s indeed time to stream now. Fuck.

Rui gets everything set up in record time, being only five minutes late to open Twitch, now with Mizuki seated happily next to him. Rui already informed his mods of Mizuki’s stream idea, to which the mods agreed and helped Rui set it up. Now all he needed to do was to go live and send out a tweet.

Immediately people start flooding in. Seeing the number rise makes Rui relax a little, this is a normal stream after all, doesn’t matter what Mizuki will try to pull on him, this is the familiarity that calms him down.

Rui entertains the chat for a while, introducing Mizuki who gets recognized as the ‘Nightcord Singer’ anyway, taking pride in the title. It doesn’t take long before Rui deems it alright to start letting people submit their videos.

First minutes go as well as expected, people sending in usually either funny TikToks or random videos of animals and little kids falling over, until around half an hour into the stream.

Rui starts noticing the chat spamming over and over a certain word he doesn’t recognize. At first he thinks it’s raiders, but upon further inspection he realizes that no one has raided him. That’s when he notices Mizuki snuffling a chuckle. Oh. So whatever this is, it has something to do with the reason why Mizuki decided to join him tonight.

“Mizuki, do you happen to know what ‘RuiKasa’ means?” The streamer turns to his tailor friend with the question, however he doesn’t get an answer. Instead, Mizuki starts laughing even harder.

“O- Oh my god! Oh my-” She doesn’t even seem to be able to catch her breath due to laughing.

Rui frowns and decides to ask his chat instead, but receives only similar replies of ‘OMGG’ and ‘WWWWWTF’.

So he makes the executive decision to ask Twitter.

Worst decision he ever made.

What pops out as the most liked tweet is a post made by, what appears to be, a fan account, quoting Toya’s tweet with the caption: ‘Imagine he’s watching Alchemist’s vods lol’.

Oh. It’s a ship name.

A ship name for him and Tenma Tsukasa.

Well. What is he going to do about this?

Thankfully he doesn’t have to think too long, because soon enough another submitted video pops up, diverting his attention if only for a second. That’s what Rui hoped for, but the video is titled ‘Tenma Tsukasa being a dork for 5 minutes straight’.

Rui startles when Mizuki finally bursts out laughing. “I didn’t- I didn’t think they’d send it in so early! Oh my god!” She laughs and makes Rui pause the video, so he can glare at her properly.

“Mizuki…” He warns. The pinkette most likely knows about Rui’s budding celebrity crush, given they were the one to watch the movies with him, and the one to even introduce Rui to Tenma Tsukasa in the first place.

Mizuki waves her hand around as they try to catch their breath once more.

“Alright! Alright, I’m sorry” She says, while obviously not being sorry in the slightest.

Well, it’s all in good fun, right? If that’s so, maybe entertaining them and the chat wouldn’t hurt. After all, Rui is a performer first and foremost.

So he brandishes an amused smirk as he turns back to the camera. “Actually, me and Mizuki watched a bunch of Tenma-kun’s movies the other day…”

Tsukasa sighs as he enters the big corporate building.

Having a photoshoot for a magazine this early is never comfortable, but it’s just something a star like himself must deal with, he reasons.

At least he knows that this particular photographer is amazing at making her subjects look beautiful. After all, he knows the girl personally.

Tsukasa smiles widely when he notices the short girl with two side ponytails.

“Ah! Kohane!” He calls out to her, startling the poor girl.

However, she smiles as well when she sees who it was that called out to her. “Tsukasa-san!” She excitedly says back.

“You’re here early.” She follows with, making Tsukasa frown a little.

“Well of course! A star like me is always early!” He says and strikes one of his signature poses. It’s always nice to see old friends from highschool, even though he and Kohane never went to the same highschool but got introduced through Toya instead.

Kohane chuckles, before seemingly realizing something. “Oh! If you’re here early then we can also start early and have the photos done sooner.” She mutters to herself, before looking around.

“Tsukasa-san, please follow me to your changing room!” Her voice trembles slightly, making the actor frown. Where did her confidence go, or was that only a momentary burst? No matter, he’s never really known Kohane all that well, especially lately, so for all he knows, this could be normal for the younger girl.

Still, he doesn’t want her to feel intimidated, so he smiles softly. “I’ll be in your care!” He flashes her one of his signature smiles, which, thankfully, seems to make the photographer calm down at least a little bit.

After Kohane leads Tsukasa to the changing room, he’s greeted with the stylist. He doesn’t recognize the woman, which isn’t really anything unusual. She looks experienced at least, with long pink hair and a slight frown.

The slightly scary woman takes one look at Tsukasa before smiling to herself and disappearing off in the adjacent room, leaving Tsukasa alone. Not for too long though, because she’s soon back, holding a white hoodie with some flower pattern on the hems of the sleeves, and a black turtleneck, presumably to go under the hoodie.

Tsukasa nods, already knowing how photoshoots work. He’s going to change, the stylist will take another look at him to see if she'd be happy enough with it, and if she is then he’ll get passed along to the makeup artist and the hair stylist.

Thankfully, the woman seems satisfied on the first try and so the blonde gets to move along, now to the makeup artist. He gets himself mentally ready for, at the very least, an hour of sitting still.

And so, in just an hour and twelve minutes, Tsukasa is apparently ready to move to the hair stylist. He’s met with another woman, this one with shorter brown hair and a much more welcoming smile.

“Tenma-san, please take a seat here.” She motions to the only chair in the room, in front of a big mirror.

That’s another hour of sitting still. Thankfully, the hair stylist seems pretty happy to make small talk with Tsukasa, making the time pass by quicker than usual. While his hair is getting done, the pink haired woman from earlier returns, this time with a set of acrylic nails. The nails are a cacophony of orange, yellow, blue, pink and purple. While it does look a bit chaotic, Tsukasa really likes it. Lastly, the hair stylist, who he learned is named Meiko, clips on a pair of fake earrings on his helix.

Then he’s finally ready for the shoot itself.

While he was getting ready, Kohane and the rest of the studio team had already finished up the shoot.

It was a classic full orange backdrop, with some orange-ish and yellow gems tied on strings from the ceiling. It’s simple enough, but from Tsukasa’s experience, the simple sets always turn out the best.

He’s given a prop in the form of a stick with a plastic star with a small crown in the middle of it.

With that, the last of the set adjustments are done and Tsukasa turns to the camera, brandishing a smile.

It’s time for him to show off too.

Tsukasa groans as he finally arrives home. He immediately jumps on the couch, startling Saki, who was making herself a drink in the kitchen.

“Nii-chan! Go change! I’m not going to clean off the makeup from the cushions!” She shouts after him, making the blonde chuckle. Indeed, he doesn’t want to make his poor sister clean up his mess.

The photoshoot itself took around five hours. Tsukasa arrived at 7 am and was finally done at 1 pm. Then he had a short break for lunch, and was quickly wheeled off to an interview this time. Both the interview and the photoshoot were pre-scheduled from before Tsukasa announced his break from acting, so there was nothing he could do about it. Well, at last it entertained his fans.

Answering the interviewer's questions was automatic for the blonde. It was always the same questions anyway, or just a very similar question phrased differently. In the end, they were all trying to get the most about Tsukasa's personal life they could get. Tsukasa was already skilled in never giving a proper answer to those.

Thankfully, this was an interview for a magazine. So while he was being asked by a person, his answers will be transcribed down to paper. That also meant no need to watch his facial expressions all that much.

Soon enough, the interview was over with.

With all of his work for today done, Tsukasa returned home at around 6 pm. Which is where he is right now, trying to get the makeup off his face after which he is planning to jump into their shower and relax under hot water.

Of course, he has to make some dinner for his amazing siblings too, but he has enough time for that. Toya isn't even home yet, he texted their group chat earlier saying that their producer will keep them a bit longer because they need to go over their next live show plan.

Once Tsukasa deems himself clean enough, he finally ventures downstairs to get to work on today's dinner.

He sees Saki sitting in the living room, watching some K drama on the TV.

While Tsukasa starts cutting up some onions, Saki starts asking questions about his day.

"Soooo, how was the shoot?" is the first question she asks.

The older one only chuckles, trying not to cry from the onions. "Went alright! The hair stylist lady, Meiko I believe, was really nice!" he wipes the tears with his sleeve. "I'm sure the photos will turn out great considering Kohane was the photographer!"

He hears Saki shuffle behind him. "Wait, Kohane?! As in Azusawa Kohane?! My old schoolmate?!" Saki immediately questions, delight obvious in her voice.

"Haha, yes! The one and only!" Tsukasa retorts, taking delight in the happy squeal Saki lets out.

And he is immediately hit with a barrage of questions, while trying to explain to Saki that he didn't really speak to Kohane all that much.

Eventually, even their brother arrives home.

Tsukasa serves the two dinner and they chat as they eat, despite the blonde having to remind Saki to not talk with her mouth full.

"Oh, that reminds me," Toya says in the middle of a really important conversation about what shade of yellow is Tsukasa's hair, "Nii-san, Saki, Vivid BAD SQUAD will have a show in two days, would you two like to stop by?" How the shades of yellow reminded him of that question is a mystery.

Hearing that, Tsukasa starts nodding vigorously. "Of course! I'd love to see my amazing brother's show! Yes!!" He exclaims, making Saki giggle.

"Yeah! Just tell us when and where and we'll be there! One hundred percent!!" Saki adds on, making Tsukasa nod even more. "Oh! Would that also mean I'd get to see Kohane there! Amazing!"

Toya lets out an amused sigh as he writes down the address and time their show will be starting. He knows that neither of his siblings would remember it otherwise.

Finally, at 8 pm, Tsukasa lays down on his bed with an exhausted sigh. Just as he's about to call it a day early, he gets a notification.

'bckstgalchemist is live!'

Immediately he throws away his plans of getting a nice 8 hour sleep. This is much more important.

Tsukasa sets up his laptop (it's just much more comfortable like that, okay? The phone screen is too small!) and opens Twitch.

First Tsukasa notices the lack of any game on screen. Then he notices someone else sitting just in frame. A girl with a pink ponytail and pink mascara.

His immediate thought is that he's seen her somewhere before, and the next thought is one that he'd much rather keep to himself. Well, at least now he knows how some of his own fans might feel.

Tsukasa watches the stream while laying on his stomach, kicking his feet in the air like a smitten school girl. If one of his siblings were to walk in on him right now, he'd never hear the end of it.

The actor watches in fascination the different expressions on Rui's face. The slight furrow of his brows as he tries hard to suppress a laugh at a particularly funny video, the fond eye roll at Mizuki's (because that's what Rui called them) comments, and the way his eyes widen and almost sparkle when certain videos play.

Tsukasa briefly contemplates sending in a video of his own choosing, but then decides against it. He's happy just watching.

Until he sees that word fly in the chat.

You see, Tsukasa, as a self proclaimed bckstgalchemist expert fan, knows most of what twitter has come up with. So he's also seen the infamous 'Imagine he's watching Alchemist's vods' tweet.

In fact, Saki was the one to show him the original post, begging him to let her like it. Tsukasa very quickly ensured that Saki wouldn't like that post and risk exposing the object of Tsukasa's stupid celebrity crush, but the fans ran with the concept anyway.

It was just yesterday that Tsukasa first saw the tag #ruikasa on his timeline. At first he didn't really notice the tag and only saw art of himself, he was about to absentmindedly like it, before he finally registered that there was more to the fanart.

It was art drawn of him and Rui, gazing at each other, very lovingly.

That day, Tsukasa's neighbors from across the street came to tell him to keep more quiet.

Case in point, Tsukasa cannot let Rui look up the RuiKasa tag.

How's he gonna do that though? He can't just message Rui on Twitter, that would both be incredibly weird and would probably make the streamer even more curious. It would also tell the entire world that Tsukasa does in fact watch Alchemist's streams.

So, Tsukasa watches on, completely helpless, as his favorite streamer searches up the ship name of himself with Tsukasa.

He watches as the look of realization settles across Rui's face and prepares for the worst. Perhaps Rui's heard of him before, after all, he did mention he really likes movies and theater, and perhaps he absolutely hated Tsukasa's performance. If Rui said anything like that, Tsukasa would have to turn off his laptop and go take a really cold shower.

Before the Alchemist can say anything, another video plays, this time a compilation of Tsukasa's himself.

The blonde covers his face and groans. What timeline even is this!?

This cannot be real, he decides. Maybe he fell asleep watching the stream and this is some bizarre, vivid dream.

Tsukasa's brought back when he hears Rui say his name.

"Actually, me and Mizuki watched a bunch of Tenma-kun’s movies the other day…” The streamer trails off ominously, looking at the camera.

At that moment, Tsukasa is absolutely certain that Rui's looking at him. It's fan behavior, really, but that sentence was so ominous, Tsukasa cannot suppress the terrified shudder.

"He's an amazing actor, isn't he?" The streamer turns to his friend, as if for confirmation.

Mizuki chuckles, "Hehe, if that's what you wanna call it!" She winks at Rui, making the taller sigh.

"You were the one who continued on to watch every single movie Tenma's ever appeared in! Didn't you say you watched even stuff like commercials?" The pinkette continues to tease the streamer.

"Alright, alright! You've had your fun!" Rui tries to calm Mizuki down, before they continue speaking.

But Tsukasa's mind has stopped a while ago.

Bckstgalchemist said he's an amazing actor…? And he watched his movies…? Even commercials????

If Tsukasa didn't think this is a dream before, now he certainly does.

He's a grown man, for fuck's sake! He's a grown man, fangirling over a streamer like a schoolgirl! He should be so above that now!

But here he is, laying on his stomach, watching the Alchemist's streams, covering his furiously red face and screaming into a pillow.

This is unreal.

There's no way Rui's a fan of his, right? Maybe he was hate-watching, is that the right term? But then why would he say that Tsukasa is a good actor?

This feels too good to be true.

As his crisis starts slowly calming down, Tsukasa's ears go back to registering what Rui and Mizuki are saying.

"- I'm saying is, that you never know! Maybe he's like, a big fan!" Mizuki exclaims with obvious delight.

Rui looks tired, ready to retort something back, but then he stops and smirks.

"You know what, Mizuki? That'd be pretty amusing, wouldn't it be?" He says, making the pinkette stop giggling and look at him curiously.

Rui turns to the camera with a grin. "If Tenma Tsukasa just so happens to watch this stream, or if he just sees this clip, I would not mind a quick dm~"

The moment those words leave Rui's lips, Tsukasa's mind stops for the second time.

He vaguely registers Mizuki laughing very loudly and Rui saying something with the word 'impossible' and then 'He's a big celebrity, Mizuki. There's no chance he'd ever see this. And even if, why would he pay attention to this?'.

Once again, Tsukasa is struck with the thought that this must be a dream.

Well, if this is a dream, why shouldn't he indulge it a little.

So he does exactly that, he opens twitter, goes to the bckstgalchemist account, and opens direct messages.

As if in a daze, he sends a quick and short text, before closing his laptop and closing his eyes.

Sleep does not come to him easily that night.

> 'A little birdie told me you don't mind a quick dm :D'

Chapter Text

Rui sighs as he shuts his computer off. Mizuki left to take a shower a while ago, obviously staying yet another night. Honestly, Rui doesn’t understand how Nene can put up with Mizuki’s constant stream of thoughts (as if he’s any better), but then again, neither Mizuki nor Nene have a good sleep schedule, so they probably both stay awake anyway.

The streamer doesn’t check his phone immediately, instead, he makes sure to put his keyboard in its proper place. Despite the usual organized chaos that rules over Rui’s workspace, for some reason, streaming is different.

Hearing the water in the bathroom turning off, Rui decides to move from his work desk to his bed. He should go shower after Mizuki comes out, but it seems like he still has some time, so the ex-director chooses to check Twitter for any fan reactions.

The blue notification of ‘1’ over the direct messages icon startles him for a second, but maybe it’s just Aoyagi since the boy seems to use Twitter for dming a lot more than he probably should.

So Rui swipes over to take a look at the individual who decided to talk to dear ol’ him at almost midnight.

”Tenma Tsukasa @tenmakasa” wants to send you a message! accept?

Rui clicks out of the tab, opting to ignore whatever the fuck he just saw and scroll through his timeline instead.

That couldn’t have been real, right? It’s probably just Rui’s tired brain showing him things he’d want to see.

But, just to make sure, Rui decides to go over and look at his messages again. And sure enough, there it is. ‘Tenma Tsukasa wants to send you a message!’.

Rui stares at it for a while, as if his gaze could make it disappear and he could go back to pretending that Tenma didn’t acknowledge his existence.

When that doesn’t work, the second thing Rui does is click on the profile itself. Maybe it’s like a parody account or a gimmick account. But sure enough, what pops up is Tenma Tsukasa’s official Twitter account, even sporting the verified badge and around 3 million followers.

The streamer sighs. If he opens the message, Tenma would know he saw it, right? He does have his read receipts on.

He should be more realistic. Tenma probably messaged him to tell him to keep his comments to himself, well, Tenma would probably use a more formal and media-trained way to say it, but whatever. There’s no way Tenma would message him for any other reason. But either way, it’d mean that the actor watched Rui’s stream, no? Not necessarily, perhaps Tsukasa just saw some talk on his timeline, or maybe someone else told him.

Rui mentally prepares himself and clicks to open the message.

“Rui!! The bathroom’s ready!” He hears Mizuki yell from across the hallway.

The boy takes this as his chance to ignore the message for a little bit longer, as he goes to take a shower instead.

Despite taking as long as he could, Rui inevitably finds himself back in the same position. Staring at the black screen of his phone, he knew that once he turned it on, he’d be presented with whatever Tenma Tsukasa felt the need to tell him.

Taking a deep breath, Rui decides to just get it over with.

The moment he sees the message itself, Rui turns off his phone, grabs the closest pillow he can reach, and screams like a high school girl with a crush.

After five minutes of kicking his feet around like a lovesick fool, Rui finally decides that he should grace The Tenma Tsukasa with a response.

>’That would be correct. May I ask from whom-’

Too formal.

>’oh? Someone has been watching my stream :3 ?’

Too informal.

>’Who’s this?’

That’s just straight-up disrespectful.

Rui groans as he plops back on his stomach, half burying his face in his pillow. Why is writing a stupid message so difficult? And really, when Rui font his first random Twitter message (courtesy of Aoyagi Toya) he didn’t really need to think about his reply this long.

>’I’m sorry if my comments made you feel uncomfortable, it truly wasn’t my intention.

Rui sends the message before he can overthink it even more.

It is, after all, his primary concern right now. He wouldn’t want to make his (celebrity crush?) admired actor uncomfortable because of a stupid joke. Then he remembers the existence of the ship ‘RuiKasa’ and cringes. If Tenma saw any of that, Rui would just hurl himself off a cliff at this point.

As Rui waits for a response, which, really, why does he assume that Tenma would reply immediately? Any rational person would be asleep at this time, especially someone who needs to be in top condition like an actor slash model slash singer and whatever else Tenma Tsukasa qualifies as.

However, Rui’s lamenting is interrupted by a message.

Unlike his earlier hesitation, now Rui opens Tenma’s dms immediately.

>’Not at all! I actually thought it was rather funny.’

The streamer reads the text again. And again. And again, just to make sure he didn’t get his words mixed up.

He… didn’t mind? Plus he thought that stupid bit was funny?

If Rui’s being honest, the bit wasn’t even that entertaining. It was half just Mizuki teasing him, and another half Rui projecting. But whatever, it’s not his business what Tenma Tsukasa finds funny or not.

>’That’s good then ! :3 But if I may ask, why message me then?

Rui taps send before he can think more about what he typed, his curiosity taking over.

As he sees the three dots at the bottom of the screen pop up, Rui can’t suppress the excitement that wells up in his chest.

Fuck he’s so pathetic, Rui groans. He’s a grown adult, why is he still acting like this over a silly celebrity crush? Although, to be fair, not many people get the chance to actually talk to their celebrity crush, let alone privately.

The actor takes significantly longer to reply, but Rui waits patiently, his heart speeding up every time the three dots appear.

>’I must say I really enjoy your streams! :D I just wanted to say that!’

Rui’s brain stops at that moment, and he swears he can hear the first of the seven trumpets sound.

>’Sorry if that was a weird thing to say! I guess I’m just tired so my words aren’t translating properly haha!

That message brings Rui back to Earth and makes him realize he’s kept the actor waiting.

>’It’s not weird! I’m just a bit stunned :3’

Rui sends the message immediately, before shooting another one right afterward.

>’Does that mean you’re a fan of mine ;3 ?’

He doesn’t know what possessed him to type that out, not to mention send it. Perhaps he’s just actually tired, but there’s something at the back of Rui’s mind that keeps nagging him to not let the conversation end just yet. This is his chance. His chance to finally talk to someone whom he admires, be it as a fan or as an ex-director. And right now, Rui’s not in the mood to let such a chance slip by.

However, the reply he receives makes him rethink his decision.

>’I suppose you could say that! >;D’

Rui has to put his phone down and continue screaming into his pillow. Now he’s sure that his roommate(s) heard him.

When Rui enters the kitchen, looking like death herself, Nene just sighs. It’s not uncommon for Rui to pull all-nighters, but the instances where he has been reduced significantly since they ended high school. Honestly, Nene doesn’t even remember the last time Rui pulled an all-nighter.

For a moment she just stares at him, hoping that her expression conveys her concern and disappointment appropriately, but when Rui doesn’t react, she decides to just ask him outright.

“Why didn’t you sleep?” Nene asks, sipping her tea and eyeing Rui over the edge of her cup.

The streamer seems to finally notice she’s in the room. “Oh, I was talking to Tsukasa-kun.”

Nene blanked for a moment, before shaking her head and setting her tea on the table. “Who?”

“Uh, Tenma Tsukasa,” Rui replies, staring intently at the coffee he’s making. One would think that with this level of concentration, Rui would notice that the coffee’s spilling over.

Nene stares at the boy in disbelief. “Tenma Tsukasa, as in the actor? That Tenma?”

Rui just hums in lieu of an answer.

Honestly, why is Nene even surprised at this point? Rui always manages to get himself in all kinds of weird situations, but casually mentioning that he spent the entire night texting a famous actor is a bit much even for Rui’s standards.

“Are you sure? Like, are you sure you didn't just dream that up or something?” Nene retorts, unable to believe Rui’s words.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” Rui answers as he finally takes his cup of coffee, after wiping the kitchen counter of course, and sits down next to Nene.

He takes one sip of the coffee, before placing the cup on the table and groaning as he buries his head in his hands.

“Nene, I spent the entire night talking to Tenma Tsukasa.” He announces as if he just now realized what happened.

And because Nene doesn’t know what to do in this situation, she just gingerly pats Rui’s back with a quiet “There there” and lets the boy process whatever he needs to process.

Thankfully, Rui manages to pull himself together after some time. Although he does blush like crazy any time he looks at his phone, Nene would still consider it a win.

By the time Rui finally calmed down, Nene had moved her concerns elsewhere. And that is, why has Mizuki not left their bedroom yet?

After they woke up, Mizuki told Nene that they’d need to be on a call for a while, but the diva didn’t expect them to call this long. Perhaps she should just check if Mizuki’s still even in the room.

Just as Nene’s debating walking down the hallway to her and Mizuki’s bedroom, the tailor in question barges into the living room with a suspiciously bright smile. Both Rui and Nene immediately go alert.

Mizuki strolls over to the kitchen happily but doesn’t actually make themselves anything. Instead, they lean against the kitchen counter and give Rui a smile that would make the devil scared.

“Ruuuuiiii~” the tailor sing-songs, “Would you mind helping me out with something today?”

Rui turns to them slowly, like a deer caught in headlights. “And what would that something be?”

At that, Mizuki just giggles. “Well! Me and the rest of our music circle have a photoshoot today, and I thought you could perhaps come with me!”

Rui frowns, not trusting that that’s all Mizuki wants. “Why?”

“Because~” The pinkette leans forward towards Rui, “I wanted to introduce you to my girlfriend!”

“But I’ve already-” Rui tries to argue that he’s already met Shinonome Ena, Mizuki’s girlfriend, but they don’t let him finish.

“It’s really important to me that the two very important people in my life get along well, you know?” They proclaim with a hand over their heart.

“Alright, fine. Just tell me when we’re leaving.” Rui gives in. He can’t really think of anything that Mizuki would want to do to him now, so he decides to just go with the flow and see where he ends up.

When he sees the devilish smile on Mizuki’s lips, he immediately regrets that decision.

As time passes, Rui finds that his phone has not once left his hand. If he does say so himself, he has a good reason to always be on his phone now.

When the ew-director woke up, because he did sleep, even if only for two hours, he immediately opened Twitter to see if perhaps last night was only a sleep deprivation-induced fever dream.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, the hundreds of messages from last night were still there, laughing Rui in the face.

It took a while for the streamer to come back to Earth after finding out that, yes, he did indeed chat with his favorite actor the entire night, but when lunch rolled around, Rui was pretty much mentally present.

Well, he still kept smiling and blushing at his phone so often that he didn’t even manage to eat most of his food, but Tsukasa was much more important than such trivial needs. Over the course of two hours, Rui learned that Tsukasa made a Twitch account only so he could comment in Rui’s chat. That prompted Rui to ask the star for his username. It did take a moment to get the answer out of the actor, but eventually, Rui was left with the answer of @starstenma being Tsukasa’s Twitch handle. It was a rather fitting username, the streamer thought.

Unfortunately for him, it was around time for him and Mizuki to get going.

The tailor had a suspiciously stacked bag over their shoulder as they urged Rui to enter the black Uber they apparently called. It was times like these that Rui was reminded that his friend was actually rich from their music.

Mizuki kept chuckling to herself the entire ride there, even the driver sent them a few worried looks. To his credit, he did at least try to mask the sigh of relief when Mizuki and Rui finally left the car.

The duo stands in front of a big, official-looking building and Rui isn’t given much time to look around before Mizuki drags him inside.

There, they’re met with three familiar faces.

“Mizuki! You’re lucky you got here on time!” A brunette girl marches over to the duo, completely ignoring Rui in favor of lecturing her partner.

“Hehe, sorry Enanan! But we’re on time, aren’t we?” Mizuki chuckles as she smiles at her girlfriend.

Ena puffs out her cheeks before responding. “Barely!”

“Ah, I don’t want to interrupt, but we should get going to the shoot…” Sounds the hesitant voice of Yoisaki Kanade, whom Rui’s only seen in passing if he excludes some high school meetings.

Next to her stands a boy with short dark purple hair and dark, almost blank purple-cyan eyes. Asahina Mafuyu, another person whom Rui only met a few times, even before his transition.

“Ah! Hear that Enanan! Let's get going! You too, Rui!” Mizuki grabs Ena’s hand and starts walking further into the building. Rui lets out a sigh as he follows after the four musicians.

It takes around an hour for the four to get ready. At first, Rui thinks he’ll be able to spend the time waiting by simply chatting with his new friend, but he’s promptly reminded that Mizuki wanted him here for a reason. One that Rui was about to find out now.

Because when the music circle was around halfway into their styling, a lady with long pink hair and a slightly threatening smile came up to Rui. And the director was not given a chance to defend himself before he was promptly dragged off to a chair and a mirror as the pink lady got to work.

Rui found himself once again lamenting agreeing to Mizuki’s request.

All in all, the photoshoot wasn’t even that bad. Asahina explained to Rui that it was a photoshoot for the branding of their newest single, I Nandesu. And while the director didn’t expect to get dragged in as well, he’d be lying if he said he didn’t at least enjoy it a little. He has to give it up for the stylists, they truly know their stuff.

After all is said and done, Rui even voluntarily spent some time third-wheeling with Mizuki and Ena in a cafe that Asahina recommended to them.

Mizuki let Rui take a look at the pictures they took of him, and looking back, the streamer doesn’t know how he managed to pull off those poses, but the pictures aren’t half that bad. Which is why he agrees to let Mizuki post them on social media later on. (A part of him also hoped that Tsukasa would see them and perhaps he’ll even like them.)

Rui found himself rather energized, despite the lack of sleep and the busy day he had. Perhaps it was the fact that he spent most of it chatting with Tsukasa, the actor had some sort of energy restoration power on Rui.

So the ex-director decided that an impromptu stream would not be a bad idea at all.

Saying that sleep does not come to Tsukasa easily would be an understatement.

The blonde sleeps for ten minutes, before his sister dearest wakes him up, saying that he really shouldn't fall asleep with his laptop running unless he wants it to break.

Such a stupid mistake. The blonde groans. This stupid mistake now forced him back into consciousness and made him think about the rushed message he sent.

As Tsukasa packs up the charging cables and puts the laptop in its rightful place, he can't help but spring up at a sudden notification from his phone.

His curiosity wins him over and he opens his phone the moment he lays down in bed.

>’I’m sorry if my comments made you feel uncomfortable, it truly wasn’t my intention.

Oh god. Oh my god.

He replied.

Kamishiro actually replied to Tsukasa’s delirious message.

And what is he supposed to do now? Kamishiro assumed that Tsukasa was uncomfortable about the joke, should the actor reassure the other that it was fine? Yes, he definitely should do that.

So Tsukasa’s fingers move before he can properly think about what he’s doing.

It takes a second for the streamer to reply, but Tsukasa doesn’t really care.

>’That’s good then ! :3 But if I may ask, why message me then?

Well and isn’t that a peculiar question?

Why did Tsukasa message Kamishiro? The simple answer would be that he has developed a concerning obsession with the catboy, but that might just be a bit too honest for the blonde to accept.

Why did he message Kamishiro then? Was it just to play along the bit? To make new connections like Tsukasa’s manager always tells him to? To simply make a new friend?

Yes, that must be it.

Tsukasa would be lying if he said he hadn’t been feeling weirdly empty these past few months. It’s one of the reasons why he decided to take a break after all. The blonde thought that he’d feel better after spending some time with his siblings and family, but for some reason that pit at the bottom of his stomach seems to only grow, swallowing any and all positive emotions Tsukasa feels. Then there are those dreams. Dreams of a fantastical world full of talking plushies and flying trains. Dreams of shows on a small rundown stage, alongside three other people, make dream-Tsukasa feel incredibly warm.

Perhaps those dreams of another life are only feeding into the insatiable emptiness.

But then there’s Kamishiro Rui.

Kamishiro Rui, a Twitch streamer around Tsukasa’s age. A college student with a peculiar hatred of vegetables and a love of robots.

Any time Tsukasa watches the boy’s streams, he feels the pit shrink a little, and the warmth he feels in those dreams returns, albeit only a little bit.

What is he saying? This is not something an actor, a rather well-known actor at that, should be thinking about a fellow entertainer. An entertainer who doesn’t even know him. Sure, Kamishiro might know Tsukasa as an actor, but they’re not friends. They’re just two people, two strangers who happen to work in a similar field.

Tsukasa feels the pit grow a little more.

>’I must say I really enjoy your streams! :D I just wanted to say that!’

The blonde types out. It’s a pretty normal thing to say, right? Ah, but didn’t Kamishiro mention that he’s a fan? Would a message like that make him uncomfortable?

>’Sorry if that was a weird thing to say! I guess I’m just tired so my words aren’t translating properly haha!

He shoots another message immediately afterward, too scared of scaring Kamishiro away.

Goodness, all that internal monologue about parasocial relationships, and yet Tsukasa still refuses to let go.

When Kamishiro asks if Tsukasa’s a fan of his, the blonde closes his eyes and takes a deep breath to calm the internal crushing high school girl of his.

>’I suppose you could say that! >;D’

Tsukasa does not get much sleep that night.

Unsurprisingly, Tsukasa is the first one in the living room when Saki enters. Surprisingly, he looks like he just had a fight with Death.

Saki knows that her brother hasn’t been sleeping well lately. And it’s been much more noticeable ever since she actually learned about her brother’s infatuation with that one streamer. But really, he should take better care of himself.

“Onii–chan…” Saki says, preparing to go into another rant about sleep hygiene and proper self-care.

She’s interrupted by Tsukasa, who looks up at her with wide, sparkling eyes.

“Saki I talked to him!” The blonde announces, almost in a daze. “I talked to him the whole night…!”

That look in Tsukasa’s eyes stops Saki from berating him.

She knows her brother’s lonely. She knows Tsukasa and she knows he’s always been a romantic (although the blonde seems to consider blood romantic too, but that’s a talk for another day), and while the actor himself might not realize it, his loneliness doesn’t stem from missing his family.

Of course, Saki is happy he came to visit, she loves her brother! But seeing the way his eyes dimmed late at night as he stared off into the distance as if searching for something. The way he seems like he’s lived another life in the mornings as he happily talks about his recent dreams of theme parks and music. Saki knows her brother’s lonely, not in the friends or family way, but in the life-partner way.

Seeing the unfiltered joy in his eyes makes Saki’s chest feel warm. She’s happy for him, truly she is, but… Kamishiro and Tsukasa live completely different lives.

Tsukasa must know that too though, Saki thinks.

Perhaps she should let him indulge for a while, she trusts he’ll know where to stop.

“Is that so?! How come?” The keyboardist sits down next to Tsukasa, deciding that she’d rather listen to her brother’s excited rambles about his celebrity crush than get her breakfast.

Okay, when Tsukasa said that he talked to Kamishiro the whole night, Saki thought he was exaggerating.

She assumed that they maybe talked about jobs for a while and maybe games if Tsukasa’s into that now, but nooooo. The two idiots were literally talking the entire night. And not about work or other things you talk to new acquaintances about, no. Those two idiots were flirting. Shamelessly and unapologetically. Thank god that they kept it in their private messages, or this would have been a PR disaster for both Tsukasa and Kamishiro.

Saki listens with a strained smile as her brother goes on and on about how ‘Rui’s ideas for movies are really cool!’ and ‘Rui said the props could be done like that instead!’. She’s happy for him, really she is, but those are two adults. Two adults, out of them at least one has a crush on the other, and they’re capable of flirting the entire night away, without even noticing, and making it their first real conversation?!

I mean, what is she going to tell her kids? ‘Unkle Tsukasa and unkle Rui met because they could not stop fucking flirting and they didn’t even know they were flirting.’?

At some point, Saki has moved over to the kitchen, to start making some snacks for her and her girlfriends for their meetup later that day, and Tsukasa apparently still has enough to talk about.

Given the boy looks like a walking corpse, he sure does have a lot of energy when it comes to Kamishiro Rui.

Ah, young love, Saki sighs. Was she and her girlfriends also so starstruck?

No, definitely not. This is just her brother’s slight case of idiocy and emotional constipation shining through.

Saki is a bit hesitant about leaving the blonde alone the whole day. Toya left early, before Saki even woke up, to practice for Vivid’s upcoming show, and Saki also had practice later on, so she’d have to leave Tsukasa alone at home.

Tsukasa is a grown man, responsible for his own actions and decisions, sure. But he’s also severely sleep-deprived and very much lovesick, and that is a dangerous combination if Saki’s learned anything from KDramas.

Nevertheless, all she can do is remind Tsukasa to not post anything on his official social media and to maybe not leave the house.

Tsukasa knows he shouldn’t leave, of course, he does. He’s not a child, and frankly, if he didn’t love his sister so much, he’d feel rather insulted. He spilled his entire heart to her and she treats him as if he’s going to run out naked.

The blonde huffs as he plops back down on the couch, after having walked Saki to the door.

He’s not planning on changing from his pajamas, he doesn’t have anything planned for today. That’s a lie, Tsukasa’s plan for today is to relax and chat with Rui.

So relaxing is exactly what he does. Tsukasa fetches himself a blanket and wraps himself nicely snug and warm in front of the TV. He thought about putting on some new shows, to keep himself updated, but ultimately, the knowledge that he could just talk to Kamishiro Rui at any moment would distract him so much he wouldn't remember anything from the shows.

That results in Tsukasa putting on Rui’s old streams, unable to suppress the grin when he realizes that he can talk to the real deal right now.

Tsukasa doesn’t even pay attention to the vods, all he pays attention to is his and Rui’s chat.

Good three hours pass with Tsukasa doing nothing but constantly typing away on his phone.

He doesn’t know why, but just the knowledge that there actually is another person on the other line, another person who just happens to be the most attractive person Tsukasa’s ever seen, and this person is showing interest in him as an individual, not an actor, is enough to make the blonde’s heartache warmly.

Tsukasa would call himself a romantic, despite his sister’s complaints that blood isn’t romantic (but in Tsukasa’s expert opinion, what could be more romantic than the substance keeping one’s heart running?), but even he can imagine how this would look to an outsider. Tsukasa swinging his feet, giggling while texting someone.

This is a simple professional relationship! Nothing more, nothing less. Tsukasa knows his management forbade him to date anyone for at least two more years, so even if, somehow his and Rui’s relationship progressed past the point of simple friendship, Tsukasa would not be allowed to do anything more. The thought itself makes the pit in his stomach reemerge.

But look at him, thinking about dating a boy he literally talked to only for a day.

Tsukasa’s mood plummets when the streamer tells him that he’s going to be busy for the next few hours, so he decides to try and make himself productive.

He puts more of Rui’s vods on the TV (for background noise, nothing more) and decides to get to cleaning. It’s not that their kitchen, or the house as a whole, is dirty, cleaning is just the blonde’s go-to when he has a lot on his mind, or when he’s simply restless.

Tsukasa spots a few messages from Kanade on his phone, telling him that they’re about to get started with their new shoot. He shoots a few thumbs-ups back, before getting back to cleaning. Honestly, Tsukasa is proud of himself for not stopping to stare at Rui every time his cleaning journey gets him closer to the TV.

Around 7 pm, Tsukasa found that he’d cleaned everything there was to clean.

He debates if he should really just go to watch the new shows his manager recommended, after all, Rui’s unavailable now, so Tsukasa wouldn’t get as distracted.

However, the moment the blonde sits back down, he gets a Twitch notification.

’bckstgalchemist’ has gone live!’

Tsukasa would never admit it to anyone, but his heart does a little spin as he reads the words. Looks like he won’t have to watch them, most likely boring, shows for his pseudo homework.

He immediately turns the TV off and runs up to his room, streams are always better in bed, after all. Especially with Rui’s beautiful voice.

As he tunes into the stream, he sees there are already about 60 people there.

Rui, as beautiful as always, is sitting leisurely in his chair, doing half spins.

“-was with a friend of mine, we went to go meet up with their girlfriend and also prepared a little surprise for you all~” Rui’s voice sounds from the speakers. Tsukasa has to focus every nerve in his body to not start giggling just at the sound of Rui’s voice.

Perhaps it’s the giddiness that’s been following Tsukasa the entire day, or perhaps it’s the starvation for any contact with Rui, but the blonde finds himself actually typing in the chat, hoping that Rui would recognize his username. There’s a reason Tsukasa told Rui his Twitch handle.

>starstenmas: HELLO RUI!!!

Of course, Rui doesn’t really notice the message as more and more people tune in, drowning out Tsukasa’s greeting.

But the blonde doesn’t give up just yet.

“Today I don’t really have any games planned, no stream plan either. Perhaps I could tell you guys some stories, hm?” Rui speaks. Tsukasa swears that the boy has the smoothest voice known to man.

>starstenma: ANYTHING JUST KEEP TALKING!!

Tsukasa rolls over to his stomach and lets out a quiet squeak as he types out the message. It’s really stupid, but Tsukasa could not care less right now. He knows that, whatever this high is, will leave him soon enough and he’ll most likely regret everything he types later, but just for now, he’ll indulge.

Rui starts telling his story. He starts by talking about some interesting things that happened to him in uni, then moves on to stories about his friends, and then switches completely to movie ratings.

Every segment of Rui’s impromptu stream is followed by Tsukasa’s all-caps messages.

The streamer eventually pulls up Google, to illustrate a point he’s making about a recent movie that came out. Tsukasa remembers watching it, it was rather boring. A classic love triangle movie with some dark undertones.

“And so, what I believe the problems are, are not only the set design but also the casting choices. Well, the story as a whole isn’t exactly original, but we can overlook that for now.” Rui continues on talking as he looks up a poster of the very movie he’s talking about.

>mafuruipilled: YEA AHH
>wdruikasa: Rui right as always!!!

Tsukasa chuckles as he sees the messages fly by, and then he blushes when he hears Rui chuckle at the exact same moment.

>starstenma: The casting director reached out to a few well-known names too. Pretty sure they tried to get Ootori on board.
>starstenma: Or so I've heard !!!!!! :D

It’s probably not the smartest idea to share insider info in a livestream chat, but it’s not like anyone can trace it back to Tsukasa. Also, the blonde doubts that people would give much credit to a random chatter.

“‘The casting director reached out to a few well-known names too. Pretty sure they tried to get Ootori on board’ uhmm, yeah. Their productions usually rely on big industry names, rather than the quality of the movie itself.” Rui responds to Tsukasa’s comment, making the blonde pause.

Did Rui recognize his handle, or was he just reading out whatever comment caught his attention?

>nightnness: Honestly, the story was really bad.

Rui nods as he reads that comment out loud, “Yeah. Overall there were many reasons why the movie didn’t perform as well as it could have.”

Rui pauses for a moment as if he just realized something important.

Tsukasa and the rest of the viewers can hear Rui quickly typing something on the keyboard, but it takes a second before they can see what Rui is doing.

The streamer drags in a Word window, with the basic summary of the movie’s storyline.

The blonde thinks that Rui goes more in-depth into what could have been done differently to make the story more appealing, but what diverts his attention is one single comment in the live chat.

>inandesurui: Did everyone see Akiyama’s new post?

Akiyama Mizuki, that’s the name of one of Rui’s close friends, if Tsukasa remembers correctly.

Out of pure curiosity, the blonde looks up Akiyama’s account just to see what user ‘inandesurui’ is talking about.

And there he is, in all his glory, Kamishiro Rui.

A professional photo of Kamishiro Rui.

A photo that reminds Tsukasa of the way Kanade described their ‘I Nandesu’ backdrop.

Kamishiro Rui.

Wow.

No words are coming to Tsukasa’s mind.

The streamer’s voice fades into the background, as Tsukasa’s entire brain focuses on that single picture.

He’s… beautiful would not even be the right word to describe Rui.

Ethereal, maybe.

‘He’s wearing a skirt!!’ Tsukasa’s brain suddenly screams at him.

Fuck, everything about that photo is making the blonde lose his mind. And the added bonus of Rui’s voice flowing slowly in the background makes Tsukasa think he could just die right now and he’d be happy.

Not once in his life has Tsukasa seen a more attractive person. The blonde thinks that if this were a manga or an anime, there would be a panel of his nose suddenly erupting in crimson the moment his gaze fell on the picture.

In a slightly delirious state, Tsukasa makes sure to download the image on all devices and makes it his wallpaper and lock screen on both his phone and his laptop.

Next, his fingers open back up the live stream, deciding that he absolutely needs Rui’s explanation on this.

He can’t just drop a picture like this out of nowhere! It could give unsuspecting people, for example, Tsukasa, a heart attack! For one reason or another, Tsukasa completely neglects the fact that he could just message Rui privately, and goes straight to the live chat.

>starstenma: RUI
>starstenma: RUI
>starstenma: RUI
>starstenma: RUI
>starstenma: RUI EXPLAIN YOURSELF

>nightnness: @starstenma can you please stop spamming? Rui picks out messages himself/nm

The blonde flushes in embarrassment, but just as he’s about to type out a response, Rui reads out his messages.

“Huh? What’s wrong, Tsu- user starstenma?” This is both a confirmation that Rui remembered Tsukasa’s handle, and a confirmation that he’s actively looking out for said handle in chat, but Tsukasa doesn’t care about that right now.

>starstenma: AKIYAMA ! PICTURE ! HHHHHUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The blonde hopes that the message conveys his feelings well. Judging by Rui’s slightly concerned expression, it does not.

“What picture? What-” Rui pulls up Mizuki’s Twitter page. The picture of him on Niigo’s ‘I Nandesu’ set is the first thing that loads.

Tsukasa sees the exact moment when every person in chat registers the sight, because the chat stops completely, if just for a second.

Then the messages roll in.

>nightnness: WHAT
>wdruikasa: OH MY GOD???
>mafuruipilled: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH RUIIIIIIII
>inandesurui: I NANDESU RUI IS REAL OMG
>ruiidanya: ruikasa kiss when?

Tsukasa’s own messages get promptly lost in the sea of ‘WHAT’s and “OMG’s. He can’t blame them, Tsukasa himself had a very similar reaction, although he’d be willing to bet that none of the other viewers spaced out for five minutes and were rendered unable to function for a good while.

“Okay, alright, that’s the- the surprise I mentioned at the beginning of this stream.” Rui chuckles nervously as he tries to calm his chat down. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t work.

>starstenma: RUI WHAT YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME
>starstenma: YOU’RE SO PRETTY !!

If Tsukasa paid more attention to Rui’s face, he would have seen the streamer’s cheeks go red the moment his eyes skimmed over Tsukasa’s messages. Unfortunately, the blonde was too preoccupied with arguing with people in chat to notice Rui’s blush.

>randomuser123: Tbh he looks kinda weird in that pic…
>starstenma: @randomuser123 how does it feel to be so wrong?

It takes ages for Tsukasa to calm down, even longer than it takes for Rui to calm his chat down.

“Hah, well, with that I want to thank the Niigo crew! I know I was a rather impromptu addition, but you guys did all you could to move the shooting around me, even when you didn’t have to. So thank you for that!” Rui says, clasping his hands together. “And chat! Go listen to Niigo’s ‘I Nandesu’. That shall be your homework for tonight~”

The chat is immediately flooded with ‘YESSIR’s and ‘ALREADY ON IT’s.

After calming down a little, Tsukasa can already feel the embarrassment setting in.

He really just went insane over a man in a live chat. If his management knew about this, Tsukasa would never hear the end of it.

The blonde feels a sense of Deja vu as he quickly shuts his laptop and lets out a silent scream.

He really has it bad. Perhaps those cliche romance stories really are right…

Exhaustion soon sets in and Tsukasa finds himself falling asleep. Thankfully he’s at least in his pajamas this time.

Twitter.com

@inandesurui:
I might be reaching here, but user ‘@starstenma’ in Rui’s chat tonight seemed like they knew Rui? At least their messages made me think so. Are they someone famous?

→ @lilykasas | replying to: @inandesurui
Don’t think so, although they could be a Tsukasa Tenma fan! Judging by their handle stars*tenma* :>
→ @inandesurui | replying to: @lilykasas
That could be it, i just didn’t realize the fandoms are this intertwined already.
→ @lilykasas | replying to: @inandesurui
Yeah it was a little sudden >u<

→ @ruiidanya | replying to @inandesurui and @lilykasas
Ruikasa should kiss

Chapter Text

He pries his eyes open eventually.

Last night was rather eventful and he has only Mizuki to blame. But really, he allowed them to take a picture of him, what else did he expect from the tailor?

Rui refrained from opening Twitter for as long as possible. Instead, he got himself some breakfast, the leftovers from what was left from last night.

Nene was out again this morning. Apparently something to do with work, Rui hadn't asked much. It's not that he didn't care, but it was too early for when Nene told him, he's glad he registered that there was someone talking to him.

He's not sure where Mizuki is, but in his half-asleep state, he really couldn't care less.

As he silently sips on the cup noodles that they hadn't eaten last night (and really, who eats ramen in the morning?) he scrolls through his Twitter feed. He tries his best to ignore, or just completely avoid, anyone talking about the photo from last night. However, he'd be lying if he said he wasn't curious. As far as he'd seen, the fans’ reaction was overwhelmingly positive and Rui would be lying if he said it didn't stroke his ego at all.

The circled ‘3’ above his Twitter DM section is also rather tempting, but Rui knows it's better to wait until he feels more awake before opening those up.

So it takes him a while before he gets to those. Meanwhile, he makes sure to do his morning hygiene especially long, as if that could make the messages disappear. He doesn't even know why he's stalling if anything, he should be more excited to open the messages now!

By the time Rui sits down on his bed, phone in hand, it's already almost noon. Having no excuse to hold back now, Rui clicks open the messages and is surprised to see three chats lightning up. Although that could have been expected, given the glowing ‘3’, Rui thought it was just one person (Tsukasa) sending him three texts.

’@AmiaNiiCord: Ruiiii! Sorry for the photo, but it's rlly funny >=< ! And I'm sure Tenma liked it ;);););) :*’

Okay, an apology from Mizuki was not something he'd expect. As out of character as it was, the teasing end of the message made Rui feel like it was really written by Mizuki, and not an imposter.

He didn't need to think much about his response, sending back a simple ‘:’(’ and calling it a day.

’@baddogskito: Hope you didn't forget about tonight’

An ominous message, but that's to be expected from Akito. The ginger has always been a dry texter, even if Rui hadn't talked to him much.

But… What was supposed to happen tonight? Ah, right, the show. Vivid BAD SQUAD’s debut liveshow after their recent hiatus. Rui can't believe he'd forgotten! Well, actually, he can. Quite a few things have happened, so even if he was often reminded about the show, he still managed to get distracted by other things. Most notably Mizuki's picture.

> ’Of course I didn't forget! It's at 9 pm, right?’

Rui replies, slightly surprised when the read receipts immediately light up blue.

> ’baddogskito: At 10 pm.’

Oops

> ’Of course! I was just counting on coming early to look around for a while.’

> ‘baddogskito: yeah. just don't be late.’

With that Akito does offline.

Rui immediately writes the time down in his calendar, so he doesn't forget.

Seeing that Akito most likely doesn't want to talk anymore, Rui's attention shifts to the last message.

’@tenmakasa: You didn't tell me about any photoshoots !!’

Rui can't help the smile on his face. He did expect a message from Tsukasa, after all.

’In my defense, it wasn't exactly planned’

Rui replies, before noting that Tsukasa isn't online and turning off his phone with a sigh. Well, the rest of his afternoon, up until the show, is free. He might as well get some brainstorming done for stream ideas.

And maybe he'll take a quick look at his archive tag while he's at it too… After all, the fans often have more ideas than Rui. Although he’d never admit ever opening the site.

Rui sighs, turning his phone off. Nene should be returning soon, it’s almost lunch after all. He himself should do something more productive too. Looking around his room, he realizes it has really gotten a bit dirty. Well, looks like now he has a plan for the rest of the morning.

With music blasting in his ears, Rui almost doesn’t notice that Nene has returned, carrying a bag with food. He probably wouldn’t have noticed anything at all, had the girl not snapped her fingers in front of his face. Blushing slightly in embarrassment, Rui had apologized for not greeting her, although Nene didn’t seem to care all that much. All she told him was that she bought some lunch and they should go eat.

Sitting at the dining table is a habit that neither of the two roommates honors. Nene usually prefers to eat in peace in her own room, while Rui likes sitting down on the couch instead. This time, however, they both sit in strained silence at the table. Nene keeps her gaze trained on her phone, only sometimes remembering that there’s food in front of her, while Rui is lost in thought about their evening plans and their third (unofficial) roommate’s whereabouts.

Seeing as Nene has taken her headphones off the director decides to seize the opportunity.

“Nene, do you know where Mizuki went?” He asks, tone nonchalant as he takes another bite of his lunch.

The girl raises her head to look at Rui. “I’m not sure. I think they said something about Shinonome-kun,” she mutters and goes back to her phone.

That would make sense. Mizuki probably wanted to (lovingly) tease Akito before the Vivids’ big return show. But speaking off…

“Do you know if there’s a dress code for the show tonight?” Rui throws out another question.

“Probably nothing. It’s just a livehouse, Rui. Not a fancy event.” Nene utters, not looking up this time.

Rui only hums in response. At least he doesn’t have to worry about picking out an outfit. But then again, there’s a chance he’d run into someone who’d recognize him. Plus, the Vivids’ Great Return has been the talk of the town for a while now, and there will probably be some important people in the livehouse. After all, Vivid BAD SQUAD is no small, indie group anymore. Not even a half-a-year hiatus could change that.

Important people… Rui imagines running into Tsukasa there. He knows the chances of that happening are almost nonexistent, but his lovesick mind cannot help the connection.

Ah, he should really do something about this. Rui’s heard of puppy love, but he didn’t expect it to catch him red-handed when he was already an adult. Well, it’ll pass. As much as it might hurt to admit, Rui knows, realistically, that the chances of him dating Tsukasa are incredibly small. Not to mention that he’ll probably be over the actor in a few days, maybe weeks.

They finish eating in silence but neither of them minds. Rui is still lost in his thoughts and Nene is frowning at her screen with discernible frustration.

Eventually they part ways, each one going back to their separate rooms. Before he even gets the chance to ponder about what he should do now, Rui gets a massage from Mizuki.

> ’Mizuki: I’ll wait for you and Nene at the live house! :D There will be a lot of people there but you two are VIPs, so I’ll lead you through’

Oh, well, at least he doesn’t have to worry about getting stuck outside anymore. He shoots back a quick thanks, before forwarding the text to Nene, who responds with a thumbs up reaction.

Rui boots up his computer. He should get some work done finally.

Time passes quickly when he’s focused on something. Soon, his calendar’s alarm goes off, reminding Rui to get ready for the show. He sighs, glancing at the desktop clock. Half 9 pm, he has an hour and a half until the start of the show. Rui finishes typing out the email he was in the middle of and turns off his computer. He stretches out his hands, relaxing as his back immediately feels marginally better than before.

Rui opens his closet, searching for anything that could fit the event. Nothing too formal, but nothing too homey either. He should look presentable enough, but also keep in mind that he’ll be standing for a good while, which means he should pick something comfortable too… Rui frowns. This is just impossible! He’s never been one through fashion, remembering the many times Mizuki has tried to teach him anything only for Rui to almost immediately forget everything they said.

His inner turmoil is interrupted when Nene opens his door, obviously expecting the streamer to have some trouble with picking out the right clothes. Wordlessly, Rui steps to the side to let Nene get a better look at what she has to work with.

Judging by the frown that quickly settles on her face, not even the diva expected the sight that greeted her.

After five minutes of silent staring, Nene finally grabs an outfit. A black turtleneck, a colorful shirt-vest with blue sleeves and green-purple middle, wide black pants with blue inside seams, and a long white belt. Nene leaves, to which Rui assumes she’s done and he’s supposed to get dressed now, but then the girl returns, holding a silver necklace.

“Return this to me after.” These are the only words she says, as the necklace lands on Rui’s bed, next to all the other clothing, before she leaves again, closing the door on her way out.

Rui stands stunned for a good moment, before shaking his head back to reality. In times like these he’s really grateful to live with Nene.

The doors of their cab open, and Rui has to shield his eyes from the bright neon lights assaulting his vision. They’re still on the street, but somehow it feels like they just entered a really busy shopping mall in the middle of a rave.

There are people everywhere. Rui can’t see a single familiar face.

He feels someone grab his hand, and looks over at Nene, who’s giving him a questioning look. Rui shakes his head, signaling to her that he’s alright. Nene just sighs and starts dragging the taller toward a bigger crowd of people. Rui quickly realizes it’s a queue, but Nene doesn’t stop at the end of it, instead, she beelines for the absolute front of the line, completely ignoring the annoyed looks from those who are standing by the side.

The confusion leaves Rui when he notices what made the diva skip the line. A head of pastel pink hair is standing next to the security guards. Ah, that’s right. Mizuki said they’ll wait for them to lead them in.

As they near the tailor, Rui breaks out of Nene’s hold and waves back at Mizuki, getting a happy grin from them in return.

“You two are just on time! Come in, come in!” Mizuki laughs when they get within talking distance, taking them each by the shoulder and leading them behind the security, who don’t bat an eye.

The moment Rui and Nene enter the house, all of their senses are assaulted at once.

There’s loud off-vocal music blasting from ceiling speakers. Bright lights flash a different color every second. People talking by a pretty big bar in front of a relatively empty dance floor. Looks like there are not many people here yet. Only VIPs must be allowed in for now.

Nene tugs on Rui’s hand and that’s when Rui realizes that Mizuki has not stopped moving and is now waiting for them a few steps ahead.

Rui scratches the back of his neck sheepishly, catching up to them.

“It’s pretty impressive, isn’t it?” the tailor says with a hint of amusement in their voice, as if reading Rui’s mind.

The streamer chuckles. “Indeed. Although I shouldn’t have underestimated Shinonome-kun and the others.”

Mizuki laughs and Nene just rolls her eyes. “Come on you two. We might as well go check in with them.”

Finally, Rui lets himself relax. This seems like it’s going to be a fun night.

Tsukasa wakes up to the sound of someone harshly tugging the curtains on his windows open.

He rubs his eyes, sitting up to take a look at the person who dared to wake him up.

“Saki? What’s going on? Did I sleep in on something?” Tsukasa immediately starts panicking. His sister never wakes him up, unless he accidentally sleeps in on something important. Seems like today’s another classic case of that.

Saki turns to him, a seemingly nonchalant smile on her face. “Nope!” She chirps, “Nothing important at aaaaall!”

Ah. Tsukasa has forgotten about something which was important to his sister specifically.

Swallowing the guilt that threatens to overflow, the actor frowns at his sister. “Saki… I’m really sorry for forgetting.” He tries.

“I already said there’s nothing important going on!” The girl continues with her passive-aggressive happiness, a habit she’s picked up in high school, but Tsukasa could never figure out from whom, perhaps it was from one of her girlfriends.

The blond looks around his room, trying to find anything, perhaps a post-it-note, that could help kickstart his memory.

His eyes land on an already prepared outfit on his desk. What was it he was preparing for- oh.

“Oh no!” Tsukasa springs up from bed, rushing to the bathroom, without even sparing another look towards his exasperated sister. Saki, expecting such a reaction, just sighs and shakes her head, leaving Tsukasa to do… whatever he does in the mornings.

Meanwhile, the young actor feverishly applies morning skin-care products to his face, while brushing his teeth simultaneously.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

It’s Toya’s group’s big return to the music scene(™) today! How could he have forgotten? Surely a random streamer is nowhere near Toya on Tsukasa’s list of priorities.

But despite telling himself that, Tsukasa does shoot a quick message to Rui, asking why he was kept in the dark about the, allegedly impromptu, photoshoot.

Tsukasa quickly gets himself dressed in the plain white shirt and brown overcoat and pulls on the dark green pants that Emu made him buy a while back. He figured this outfit could even go well with his hair, so he decided to not waste time straightening the curls. He grabs the fake glasses from his desk before quickly running down to the living room.

As expected, Saki is there waiting for him.

“Toya left already?!” Tsukasa asks, breathing as if he just ran the marathon.

“Yep! About ten minutes ago.” His sister informs him, already grabbing her shoulder bag. She picked out a black blazer, a white sports-style jacket, a pink skirt, and black thigh-high boots for herself.

“There's toast on the counter! Just grab some as your breakfast and let's go!” She urges him.

Tsukasa curses himself under his breath. He really should have set an alarm. Saki even had to- no, he promised himself a long time ago that he’d stop babying Saki. She’s more than capable of taking care of herself.

Tsukasa still remembers the day Saki announced to him and their family that Leo/Need will be going on their first world tour. Both he and Saki cried tears of happiness then. He remembers almost making Saki pack a toaster with her. Said girl had to stop him (and subsequently take out at least ten other useless things Tsukasa secretly packed for her), angrily explaining that she doesn’t need help with every single thing. And really, when the blond saw his sister live for the first time, watching a live stream from Germany, she looked just alright. No, she was glowing even. But that might have just been the pride Tsukasa felt at that moment tainting his memory, whatever. The point is, that Saki is very much independent and capable (and something even scary) and Tsukasa, as the good older brother he is, reminds himself to lay off.

What time is it anyway? The two siblings promised Toya that they'd attend his last practice before the show and the big preparations that needed to be done. That should also be around lunch and just about time for Tsukasa and Saki to go scout for a good restaurant or whatever. That also means they'll have to be in public, which means at least sunglasses and a cap.

During his impromptu internal monologue, Tsukasa grabbed a, slightly overdone, toast, his cap, tried to reach for his sunglass, only to realize that he was already wearing the fake glasses so he'd have to fordo those, and finally reached the exit of their apartment with Saki waiting by the door and checking her phone.

“Ready to go?” the girl asks, looking up from her phone with an easy smile.

Tsukasa, with a mouthful of toast, only nods, to which Saki gives a heartfelt laugh.

“Alright then! Let's set off!”

When the siblings arrive at the usual Vivids’ hangout spot, they breathe a sigh of relief, seeing as An is still yapping to Kohane about something and Akito is sending Tsukasa an apprehensive glare from a nearby bench, still in what looks like casual clothes. Toya is nowhere to be seen.

“Toya’s changing.” comes a curt sentence from Akito. Well, that answers that question. Saki shoots a thankful smile in return.

“Oh, Tsukasa-senpai, Saki! You've made it!” An finally notices the additional presence. “We're running a bit late because someone,”(she sends a glare in Shinonome’s direction) “got stopped on his way here by fans.”

Akito only gives a halfhearted grumble in return, before shedding his vest and leaving with a bag in hand to go change.

Tsukasa is just thankful that they're not too late.

The Vivids’ practice is a mesh of singing, sweaty dancing, Akito shooting a few light-hearted insults An’s way and then smiling proudly when he thinks no one's looking. Tsukasa watches attentively the entire time, eyes not leaving Toya and never forgetting to cheer. Saki leaves a few times to talk to her girlfriends on the phone, but then also joins in Tsukasa’s cheers.

Checking the time, Tsukasa briefly wonders just how long the four singers reserve for practice. He's heard they've been practicing relentlessly for the past few months, so he wouldn't really blame them for cutting practice short, but then again, as an actor, Tsukasa is familiar with some of the pre-performance nerves.

“Alright, let's take a breather now. We've got most of it down anyway.” The statement coming from Akito confirms Tsukasa's thoughts. As everyone starts chugging water as if their lives depended on it, Tsukasa makes his way over to Toya.

“How much longer do you think you're going to practice for?” he asks calmly, not wanting to seem like he's bored, even though he'd be lying if he said it was an enriching experience.

Thankfully, Toya only nods with an understanding smile. “Probably only a few more rounds, not too long. You and Saki-san can leave now, it's almost lunchtime anyway.”

Tsukasa nods, smiling back at Toya in silent thanks, before leaving to go grab Saki.

It doesn't take too long to find a good venue. It certainly helped that Saki seems to have done much more research than necessary, given they already knew most places around anyway.

They grabbed a corner table in some small yet nice restaurant, Saki texting Kohane to tell her where to find them once they decide to abandon the practice.

True to his word, Toya and co. arrive not long after.

From his phone screen, Tsukasa can see the digital clock of 9 pm glaring at him as he anxiously paces up and down the hallway in the live house’s changing rooms. He can feel Saki’s amused eyes trained on him, he's aware he's acting as if it was him going up there on the stage instead of Toya, but he can't help but be nervous for his brother. Toya has assured Tsukasa numerous times that he's confident in himself and their group, but Tsukasa still can't squash those worries down.

Soon, Toya exits his dressing room and after stopping by Tsukasa to, once again, assure him that he's not hungry or thirsty and no, his head doesn't hurt either, the Vivids’ make their way backstage, where Tsukasa opts to not go, least his unfounded anxiety gets even worse.

As time grows closer to the dreaded 10 pm, people start slowly filling in. As Saki explains, it's really only VIPs at first, but Tsukasa doesn't spot anyone recognizable given the lighting conditions. Whatever, he's here for Toya and their group anyway.

The more people that enter, the louder the noise gets. Tsukasa couldn't be more thankful to be in the VIP area so he doesn't have to squeeze against the numerous sweaty attendees. Glancing around a bit to look for Saki, Tsukasa relaxes upon seeing her in the company of her familiar bandmates.

Leaning back against the VIP sector’s bar, Tsukasa considers ordering something to keep him in high spirits throughout the night, knowing he'll most likely end up exhausted if he doesn't order anything, the blond remembers he's supposed to be the designated driver and therefore should not drink.

It's fine, he tells himself. The nerves will calm down once he sees the Vivids up on that stage. He's only ever been this anxious during the premiere of his first movie and this time it's not even him that'll have the eyes of hundreds of people watching his every move. Maybe that's what makes him so anxious, the fact that he can't be up there in case something goes wrong.

But then again, Toya's an adult. Just like Saki, Toya can take care of himself. And if something does happen, he's got Akito, An, and Kohane to turn to, so really, it's fine.

Tsukasa doesn't even notice that the VIP area starts becoming quite a bit packed as well.

Loud music blaring, Rui stands as far away from the stage as he can while still staying in the VIP rows. It's not that he doesn't want to watch the performance, quite the contrary actually. Being close to the stage just makes it more difficult to see anything, plus there are just too many people there.

He's lost sight of Mizuki almost immediately as they enter, but at least he's fairly certain that Nene's huddled somewhere near the bar, not much of a fan of sweaty live house-goers.

Nursing a glass of some cocktail in his hands, Rui feels only slightly tempted to contemplate his life. He's happy to be here, of course, he's just not quite sure what to do now.

The show has just started, but Rui's already feeling out of it. This entire day has been a sort of haze. As if he's just waiting for something. Like the entire day has been just needless exposition to the actual story which is the live house show. In which case it'd be a story more suited for someone like Shinonome, not Rui.

Noticing the glass in his hands is now empty, Rui relaxes at the opportunity to busy himself with getting another one.

Muttering ‘excuse me’s and ‘sorry’s as he makes his way through the sea of people the streamer finally gets to the bar and even that short walk feels like a journey across a stormy ocean.

Waiting for his drink as he gives the glass to the bartender to refill, Rui glances back at the stage.

He can see Akito’s group pretty well from here, which makes him consider staying here for the remainder of the time, but he shuns that idea away rather quickly. While it's definitely not a bad idea, Rui feels like staying by the bar would just be inviting people to start talking to him, if that's even how bars work.

With the refilled glass in hand, Rui slides the money over to the barman before deciding to bead back to the VIP row.

But as he's walking to his past spot, lost in thought, he feels himself collide with a figure, his drink presumably spilling all over the poor guy.

“Ah, I'm so sorry. I didn't pay-” Rui cuts himself off.

In front of him, wearing a white shirt with a brown coat draped over his shoulder is a figure Rui could recognize anywhere. The shock that must be on his own face is mirrored back at him in those familiar sunset eyes.

“R- Rui?!”

It's the sound of Tenma Tsukasa’s voice that finally snaps Rui out of his shock-induced zone-out, and likewise, it's also the sound of Tenma Tsukasa's voice that threatens to send him into another one.

It makes sense, in hindsight, that Tsukasa would be here. Aoyagi is the Tenmas’ close friend after all. That also means Tsukasa isn't here for Rui, but that's an insane thought to get upset about. How would Tsukasa even know Rui was there?

The ex-director realizes he's been staring in silence for maybe a bit too long now. “I- Yeah- Tsukasa-kun?”

And yeah, that's probably not the sentence Rui imagined himself saying to Tsukasa upon their first in-person meeting. But he didn't have much time to prepare now, did he?

Seeing the way those sunset eyes in front of him widen slightly at the mention of his name, Rui knows he's not alone in these swirling thoughts and feelings.

Tsukasa manages to recover much faster than Rui.

“Yeah, I- uhm, yeah… It's me.” He lets out a small nervous giggle, scratching his neck absentmindedly. Rui figures he should probably say something again, before his eyes fall down to the stain on Tsukasa's shirt, remembering what happened just a few seconds ago.

“Oh! The- I'm so sorry for spilling my drink on you, Tsukasa-kun.” Nervousness is rapidly forgotten in favor of embarrassment and guilt. This isn't how Rui imagined their first meeting would go. Definitely didn't involve any drink spilling.

Tsukasa seems to just remember what happened as well, as he looks down on his wet shirt. “It's alright, really. I'll just- I'll go borrow something from-”

“Actually! I've- I've got some spare clothes if you wouldn't mind..?” The words leave his mouth before Rui can even think about the implications. He did pack a spare hoodie, yes, but with the intention of changing out of his current clothes later on in favor of something more comfortable.

He sees Tsukasa's face, mouth still slightly open, reddened with blush which is partially obscured thanks to the harsh lighting of the live house. Rui's certain he's not any better off himself.

“I- uhm, if.. if you wouldn't mind…” Tsukasa trails off, seemingly happy to study the floor now. Rui's brain is still reeling from the words that left his mouth a moment ago to fully process that Tsukasa agreed to take Rui's spare hoodie. Rui reasons it's the least he can do after spilling the drink on him.

Taking the hoodie out of his bag after he puts the now empty glass away, Rui's about to give it to Tsukasa before the blonde stops him. “I'm not- I'm not going to change right here!” He gives Rui an incredulous look, before grabbing the streamer’s hand and dragging him over to the direction of the dressing rooms. No one should be there, maybe only some of the stage crew and thankfully Tsukasa knows the pin to Toya's room.

The actor shuts the door behind them, panting as if he just ran a marathon despite just walking a few meters. Rui can now finally see the aggressive blush (or is it flush?) clearly on Tsukasa's face.

Without another word, Rui holds out the hoodie to Tsukasa, who grabs him with a muttered thanks.

Rui's mind wanders to Nene. Did she see him spill a drink on his celebrity crush like an idiot? She must have, right? Nene's always unnaturally perceptive, which works in her favor but feeds into Rui's pain. He's definitely getting questioned after this, maybe he should have gone for a stronger drink then.

The sight of Tenma Tsukasa wearing Rui's teal and black hoodie certainly does something to the streamer’s heart. Scratch his previous thoughts, if one glass does this to his heart, maybe he should never drink any alcohol ever again.

The clothing itself isn't anything special, just a classic hoodie with a black and teal triangle pattern, but it seems that Tenma Tsukasa can wear anything and make it look like the most expensive designer piece. It's definitely a few sizes too big for Tsukasa, given their obvious height difference, but that only adds to the charm. Rui never thought himself particularly religious, but people can change.

Tsukasa clears his throat, noticing Rui's staring. “Does it look bad?” He asks, eyes nervously watching the taller’s expression.

“No! Not at all, I mean.” Rui stutters as he shakes his head. “It looks good, of course.”

The words seem to ease the blond’s nerves a tiny bit, his shoulders lowering.

“Let's go back then!” The actor discards the wet shirt in the dressing room, making a mental note to tell Toya afterward, before once again manhandling Rui back to the VIP rows.

The music has changed, but the Vivids are still undoubtedly in full spirits. Rui would applaud their constitution if one of his hands wasn't currently occupied.

And oh, isn't that a thought.

He's holding Tenma Tsukasa's hand. No. Tenma Tsukasa is holding his hand.

It's not like Rui never imagined this moment, but honestly, in his head, it was a little bit more romantic. Not in a live house while surrounded by sweaty and drunk guests.

Rui thinks he sees Nene's judgemental purple gaze from somewhere, but he probably just imagined that.

They've stopped now, he notes absentmindedly, but Tsukasa is still holding his hand. Looking over at the actor, he finds those orange eyes intent on hypnotizing the stage. Rui lets a small smile spread on his face.

“Oh! Your drink!” Tsukasa suddenly exclaims.

Rui completely forgot about that to be honest. He's about to say as much, but the blond stops him with a raised hand.

“I'll go get it for you. I have some free drink passes here!” He says excitedly, not giving Rui a moment to mourn the sudden loss of warmth against his hand before he disappears into the crowd again.

This time Rui's certain he catches Nene's incredulous expression.

Tsukasa returns not long after, two glasses in hand. He hands one of them to Rui. It looks a bit different than whatever drink Rui had before, but that's not something worth his attention.

What is worth his attention, however, is the uncertain smile on his actor’s face.

“I'm not really sure what you had before, so I got you something that looked similar… I hope you don't mind,” he mutters as Rui takes the drink from him. His eyes linger on whatever the yellowish liquid in Tsukasa's glass is.

“Oh, it's just orange juice. I can't drink tonight, heh.” The actor answers Rui's unspoken question.

They stand next to each other in silence, watching the show.

That's why they're both there, Rui reminds himself, to watch the Vivids’ first show after a big hiatus. No other reason. Tsukasa's here for his friends, and so is Rui.

But as the night progresses, Rui finds himself leaning more and more against the smaller figure next to him. He has half a mind to blame it on the two small drinks he's had that night, but that sounded stupid even in his head.

It's nice, he thinks. Despite that awkward start, he can't help the warmth that spreads in his chest the longer he stands there, shoulder-to-shoulder with his actor. They should do this more often. Being together in person is miles better than talking online.

At some point during the show, Rui's hand finds Tsukasa's. Neither of them pulls away.

People start leaving sometime past midnight, but Tsukasa really isn't thinking about the time.

He's not even thinking about Toya, despite watching his performance on the stage. No, Tsukasa is thinking about all the ways he could make sure Rui's hand stays in his for longer. He doesn't even care about being potentially spotted by someone who might recognize either of them, no.

Tsukasa was almost sure that had their height difference been inverted, Rui would have already rested his head on Tsukasa's shoulder. He curses the universe silently.

He doesn’t even notice that Vivid BAD SQUAD isn’t up on the stage anymore, too caught up in trying not to lean his head on Rui.

He fails horribly.

That’s how a green-haired girl, Nene- his mind helpfully supplies, finds them.

Rui doesn’t seem to notice her at first, but he springs up once Nene clears her throat, whipping around to look at her.

“Not to burst your bubble, but we need to get going, Rui.” Her gaze flickers over to Tsukasa once more, no doubt noticing he’s wearing Rui’s sweater.

Rui looks ready to argue, but Tsukasa speaks instead. “Yeah, I should get going too. I’ve got to drive us home.” He sends an apologetic smile to Rui.

The ex-director isn’t paying much attention to Tsukasa though, instead, he seems engrossed in a silent conversation with Nene. They seem to reach a conclusion as Nene hesitantly nods and turns to walk away. “I’ll go find Mizuki. Meet us by the entrance once you’re done.”

As Nene disappears, Rui quickly turns to Tsukasa. “Thank you for tonight.” He hurries out of himself and Tsukasa almost feels Rui’s hand slipping out of his before he strengthens his grip.

Rui’s eyes widen just a fraction before Tsuaksa exclaims. “Wait! We- uh, what about your hoodie?” He resists the urge to slap his hand over his mouth.

Rui blushes a little as he remembers that Tsukasa is still wearing his hoodie, before taking a deep breath and holding out his arm wordlessly. For a moment Tsukasa thinks that Rui wants him to strip right then and there, in front of tens of people, but then Rui speaks.

“Phone. Your phone, I mean. I’ll give you my number.”

Oh. That’s definitely a better option than stripping. Tsukasa pats his pockets before he fishes out his phone, handing it over to the streamer.

Rui enters his contact quickly and Tsukasa thinks that’ll be the end of it before Rui speaks again.

“How about tomorrow?”

“Huh?” Tsukasa lets out a slightly confused sound.

“Are you free tomorrow?” Rui asks again as if Tsukasa hadn’t heard him the first time.

“Tom- I mean yeah, sure, but why?”

Rui gives Tsukasa a confident smile, but his red cheeks betray his nerves. “So you can give me the hoodie back. How does 6 pm sound? My place.”

“I- I mean, yeah. Yes! That sounds great.”

“Great! I’ll be waiting!” And with that, Rui turns around, leaving Tsukasa standing bewildered in the almost empty VIP rows.

He’s found by Toya a few minutes later and questioned if he’s truly sober due to the furious blush adorning his cheeks as they walk backstage.

Only as he sits down in the car does Rui realize what just happened.

He groans and puts his head in his hands. The same hands that were holding Tsukasa’s just fifteen minutes ago.

He’s just invited Tenma Tsukasa to his apartment. The apartment that he shares with two other people. The apartment, which basically screams ‘a university student lives here!’.

His phone chimes.

> From: unknown- ’You didn’t tell me if you’ll send me your address or if you'll pick me up’

Saving the contact, Rui smiles to himself as he answers.

> ’I’ll pick you up. Send me your address?’

> From: Kasa ♡ - ’Will do!’

Rui makes it a point to ignore the suspicious glances Nene sends him the entire way back.

He’s got himself a date with Tenma Tsukasa.