Work Text:
She could hear the sound of rain tapping on the roof, pouring into the drains, and slapping into the pavement outside of the apartment. It was late, and the room was dark now except for a desk lamp that provided enough light for Ran to hunch over her unfinished reaction paper. She had to wrap this up before Monday’s classes.
If only she didn’t find it hard to focus. The weather outside surely didn’t help to stop the snaking fatigue that was catching up on her. She paused trying at all, and did a quick time check first: Saturday, 11:34 PM.
Ran’s eyes bulged open. She’s nearing close to less than 24 hours to finish this assignment. She unconsciously starts to adjust her reading glasses as a way to stave off her growing panic. Trying to act unbothered by it, she went into a frenzy of trying to scribble in as many new words into her paper. She was mentally determined to push herself into finishing this assignment tonight because her grades (and ego) are incapable of taking any hits at all.
Ran was very much in her own head, and it took someone speaking from her bed across the room to make her realize that she wasn’t the only one still awake at this ungodly hour.
“You know it’s not good for your health to be staying up late for too long.”
“Huh?” surprised, Ran turned to the source of the voice and found her partner-slash-rival, Yukina, who was dressed in her blue nightgown, looking at her with a rather amused expression.
“You looked like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Ran clucked her tongue, “Tsk, you’re very welcome to sleep before me you know, you don’t need to stay up and risk your own health.” She gave a wave of dismissal, trying to hide her embarrassment of getting startled by Yukina. The other girl didn’t need to know how much focus she had to exert on this one task.
“We’ve talked about this; I’ll keep you company until you’re done with that.”
“Okay, okay, just give me a few more minutes.” Ran counters as she stretched her arms out before getting back to writing.
Yukina didn’t bother saying anything else and proceeded to go back to whatever she was doing on her phone. Which probably involved watching a lot of cat videos, Ran assumed before bringing her focus back on the paper at hand.
For Yukina’s part, she was no stranger to the antics of her partner. She hadn’t bothered to say more because she already knew what Ran meant exactly. A “few minutes” in her partner's vocabulary actually means a few more hours at the least. And the less she takes up the other girl’s time, the quicker she can get this paper done.
After jotting down a couple more paragraphs on her paper, Ran started to hear music coming from Yukina’s phone. Ran didn’t mind it; she figured a little bit of music would help soothe her mind and let her think more of what to write.
Another hour passed by, and Ran was almost done. She only needed to finish writing her thoughts down for the last part, but as much as Ran tried to think of what she should put down, nothing was coming to her mind.
Ah, is this what they call writer’s block? Ran mentally asked herself, but that doesn’t apply to assignments, doesn’t it?
Ran shook herself from her stupor and looked at her paper, deep in thought. This gave Yukina an opportunity to have a peek at her progress too. The content was already lengthy but she could see the discontent on Ran’s face as she stared at it. She was far from done, but she was also stuck somewhere. “You know, staring at that paper won’t make the words appear any faster.” Yukina supplied, staring down at her as she towered over the other girl in the chair.
“I know, but I’m determined to get this done before we call it a night.” She sighs but decides that it might be time to take a short break. She put her pen down and removed her glasses, making sure to place it somewhere safe.
“Oh, are you done for the night?” Yukina asked.
“No, just taking a short break.”
Yukina nodded and sat back on the bed and Ran now had nothing better to do except observe her. She heard the music resume from her girlfriend’s phone, and probably because her brain wasn’t digging deep for words to write on a paper, she’s now more aware and able to notice that there was…tapping? that seemed to accompany the music. Ran’s brows furrowed in confusion, she moved away from her desk and walked towards Yukina. Standing over the other girl, she can now see that Yukina was actually playing a game.
Ran adjusted her angle of view to get a better glimpse of what game Yukina was playing and recognition hits her that it's Bang Dream! Girls Band Party.
“Ah, I never knew you played Rhythm games” Ran commented.
“Never said I didn't,” Yukina replied, side-eyeing Ran. “Rinko taught me how to.”
Ran was surprised, she at least expected it to be Ako who would teach Yukina.
“So Shirokane-san did.” Ran mused as she continued to watch Yukina play.
Ran noticed that Yukina’s team was composed of members from different bands, with Ran being on the vocals, of course. Ran felt pride swell inside her and she’s sure it must’ve been showing on her face. She looked at Yukina with warmth. Sure, it wasn’t like anyone else could come close to her as a vocalist in that game, but it was still nice to know that Yukina chose her.
Ran continued to stare at Yukina until she noticed the shift in her expression go from very focused to very disappointed. She took a glance back at her partner's phone, just in time to see her fail at completing a full combo.
“Oh, that was close.” She looked Yukina straight in the eyes and teasingly added “I’m sure you’ll get it next time though.”
Yukina heaved a sigh. Ran knows she was just upset that she missed her chance of seriously impressing Ran. Which just made her own competitive streak flare up. “Why don’t we do a multi-live?” she suggested excitedly.
“Don’t you have better things that need to be done?” Yukina eyed Ran’s abandoned paper on the table before looking back at her.
Ran shrugged “It’ll be fine, besides I kind of needed the break.” She hopped off to retrieve her phone from the same desk before returning and sitting at the bed next to Yukina. They quickly set the goal of winning based on who can get the higher perfect percentage or combo count.
After a few clicks and taps, Ran managed to invite Yukina to a lobby. “So which song should we play?”
“I don’t know, anything is fine.” Yukina shrugged.
“Really, I bet you don’t even play 28’s”
Yukina scoffed, “Oh, is that a challenge, Mitake-san?”
“Heh, you know it.” Ran smirked, “How about this, we both play on the highest difficulty.”
“Fine.”
After matching up with three other players, the two proceeded to choose their songs. Ran is definitely fired up and determined to one-up her rival by beating her in the game, especially with all her drowsiness from earlier fading away.
While thinking of which songs she wanted to play, Ran looked at Yukina’s phone, wanting to get an idea on which tracks she’s hovering on.
“Pick anything you like, Mitake-san”. Yukina told her nonchalantly as she picked a song.
Level 29 (Expert) - Ringing Bloom
Ringing Bloom, huh. Ran thought to herself.
Ran got back to scrolling down the track choices, this time a bit hasty to prevent the timer from choosing a random song for her. A few seconds later, she had an idea on which song she would pick, one that she’s pretty familiar with. With a few seconds left to spare, Ran smiled to herself as she picked her song. A classic favorite:
Level 29 (Special) - 天ノ弱 (Amanojaku).
Yukina raised an eyebrow at her, “Are you sure you can play that?”
“Yeah, why not?”
“With thumbs?”
“…right” Ran left her partner in the bed to sit back at her table. She places her phone horizontally with its back laying flat on her desk and has her hands hovering on either side of the device, ready for the game to start anytime.
The song randomizer screen soon appeared and Ran stares at the screen anxiously, however, her hopes are dropped when another player’s song gets selected.
Level 29 (Expert) – CATASTROPHE BANQUET
She heard scuffling from her side before she saw Yukina take a seat on the table beside her.
“Wha..?” Ran was flabbergasted, but quickly recovered. She had the full intention of beating Yukina, but with the other girl joining her in the table—no doubt so she could better hit her notes too—she knew that her girlfriend was not going to let her get that so easily.
The song starts out easy and both are able to follow the beat and slide the notes almost effortlessly. The song soon picks up its pacing however and Ran starts to miss notes which ultimately breaks her combo. She felt frustrated for not being able to keep that streak up but pressed hard for her focus to continue on the game. A couple of lines into the chorus later and she is bombarded with notes that she tries and fails to catch.
Ran’s hands and fingers were shaking by the time that the song came to an end. She heard Yukina letting out a breath. Ran had been so engrossed in her own fight for survival in the game that she didn’t get to observe how Yukina was doing at all. She can only imagine that Yukina struggled in that song as much as she did. But upon seeing the results on screen, it was obvious that it wasn’t the case at all. Yukina had better numbers in the Perfect and Great hits, and a Max combo of 601 compared to Ran’s meager 349.
“Wha? How!?” Ran stammers in complete disbelief.
Yukina only gave her a smug look, seemingly proud and happy of herself. She took a mental note to thank Sayo and Rinko the next time they met. Sayo had come to her for help in performing with the Last Boss Theme, and Rinko plays the song a lot with her partner who was also in the same band. All of these have given Yukina ample opportunity to get to know the song’s beat by now.
The unabashed smugness in her girlfriend’s face made Ran go into even more competitive overdrive, and she was not ready to accept her loss yet, “Okay, one more…”
“Na-uh, that’s a one-time deal, Mitake-san.” Yukina shushes Ran by placing a finger on her lips, which causes the latter to blush.
“Why?”
“As much as I’d love another round, don’t you have to finish that.” Yukina eyed Ran’s unfinished work. Ran groaned, knowing that Yukina is right.
“Fine, but after this, you’ll see.”
Yukina only hummed back as she stood up and returned to bed, this time she elects to just watch some music videos and cats. It’s not until another hour later that Yukina asks the other girl about her progress.
“Are you done yet?”
“Almost, just a couple more sentences.”
Yukina glanced at the clock, an exasperated sigh escaping her lips.
“As I said, you’re going to put your health at risk if you keep staying up this late.”
Whether or not Yukina used Ran’s health as an excuse for the other vocalist to hurry up and snuggle with her, that’s something that is only between Yukina and God.
Although her words were delivered with that familiar playfulness that Ran knows, she could sense that Yukina was on the brink of her own sleepiness as she watched her lean against the edge of the desk. She stayed near and quiet as she waited for Ran to finish up the last bits of her assignment.
As soon as Ran put her pen down, Yukina perked up and grinned, “finished at last?”
Ran smiled back at her. "Yes, finally. Thank you for your patience, oh miss-can’t-wait-to-snuggle Minato-san."
"Anytime, Mitake-san.” Yukina’s lips curled up slightly as she extended her hand, pulling Ran gently off the chair. Ran chuckled at the gesture.
"You worry too much."
"Maybe I just want a snuggle partner tonight." Yukina's words held a playful ambiguity, though her eyes sparkled with a mischievous glint.
“Sure, sure. Always using my health as an excuse, aren't you?" Ran nodded and teased. They shared a knowing look, a silent understanding passing between them. With a soft laugh, they headed towards the cozy comfort of their shared bed, the night's activities finally drawing to a close.