Work Text:
“You know, Hiroyasu Sensei isn’t going to be fooled when you wind up failing the maths test on Thursday. Me doing your homework for you is going to mean nothing then,” Koko warned from where he was currently lying face down across Inupi’s bed, crisscrossing his feet in the air behind him mindlessly.
Despite this warning, he did a mental calculation before circling the next answer on the paper that clearly had INUI SEISHU marked on top.
“I’m gonna cram before then and pass,” Inupi retorted confidently, without once looking up from the television screen.
Koko's head snapped up and he stared at Inupi from behind for a long minute, wondering if the blonde boy ever heard himself sometimes, before shaking his head. “That worked out really well for you on the last test, didn't it?” Koko dug, reminding him of their recent science test where Inupi's extracurriculars had likewise eaten into what probably should have been study time.
“I passed,” the other boy pushed back.
Koko's gaze narrowed, and he looked incredibly unamused. “By the skin of your teeth, and because you copied Yamazaki's answers for the last few questions.” He sighed. “So we’ll be hanging out tomorrow and Wednesday too, then. Got it,” he remarked plainly; there was no indication of frustration at that fact in his voice. Upcoming maths test or not, that was probably the plan already anyway, seeing as they spent most of their time together, barring whenever the Kokonoi's intervened (and even then, he’d lie to them about his whereabouts); Koko was just verbalizing it.
He wondered if Inupi would actually study, though, or find something more interesting to get into like he was doing tonight. He was going to have to figure out a way to incentivize studying for this kid if they were ever to stay in the same class and eventually someday graduate together, wasn’t he?
His eyes trailed away from Inupi, back to the bed, and towards the Nokia NM206 in front of him, relieved that it hadn’t gone off yet. He pressed a random button to see what time it was and sighed at the realization that luck would probably run out soon enough if he pushed it much longer. “I gotta head home soon,” he announced, to which Inupi didn’t respond — something that aggravated Koko more deeply than he could understand why, though he didn’t say as much.
Silently, he gathered his books and stashed them into his shoulder bag, along with Inupi’s homework assignment. “I wasn’t able to finish, but I will tonight. I’ll give this to you tomorrow morning on the way to school, so don’t be late. We can’t pass it off once we’re in class, that’ll be too obvious,” he warned Inupi a second time.
“Uh huh,” was all Inupi said as his body swayed with the controller that he was holding, really getting into his game.
“I’m going to mark down the wrong answers on purpose,” Koko threatened, mostly just to see if Inupi was actually listening.
“You wouldn’t,” Inupi quickly bounced back. Well, he was listening enough to catch that.
Koko smacked his lips together to make a little audible pop before smirking. “Oh, but I would,” he teased back, before sticking out his tongue at Inupi from behind.
Inupi didn’t turn to look, still preoccupied with the scene on his television before him, but the half-laugh sound that came out of his throat suggested that he somehow just knew what Koko was doing. “Do it then,” he pushed back. Even from here, Koko could tell that he was smirking.
Koko ignored him now, having no real retort to that. Because Inupi had accurately pinpointed his bluff, and he actually wouldn’t.
He was at that age where he was old enough to know better, yet was still just a little too young to understand the ramifications of enabling someone’s bad behavior like that. Regardless, he wasn’t going to just throw Inupi to the wolves, or wolf, rather. The wolf in question being Hiroyasu Sensei.
Just like Inupi did everything in his power to keep bullies off of Koko’s back, Koko did everything in his power to help Inupi maintain passing grades — and thus, harmony — with their teacher. It was a losing battle sometimes, especially lately because Inupi seemed to care less now more than ever, but Koko was, if nothing else, stubborn.
“I’m stealing one of your jackets,” Koko didn’t ask, but rather, informed Inupi as he got up and made his way towards Inupi’s bedroom door, though not before making a pit stop at his closet and grabbing a hanging one of the few pieces of clothing that Inupi had taken the care to hang (a rare and shocking occurrence, considering most of his clothes, though clean, were tossed haphazardly into the bottom of his wardrobe).
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Inupi replied rather dismissively, distracted by his game but also simply because he didn’t think much of the statement. After all, Koko taking his clothes was nothing new — the fact that he had even given Inupi a warning was a rare gesture. Usually, he just helped himself. Inupi didn’t care anyway; “what’s mine is yours” was an unspoken understanding between the two of them for longer than it had not been.
Koko cast a final look back at Inupi, a small pout forming in his mild annoyance over the other boy’s lack of attention or concern about his departure. Some part of him knew that it wasn’t fair and that it made no sense — what was Inupi going to do about it anyway? Walk him home, and then he would have to walk home alone?
“See you tomorrow,” he muttered, partially to be cordial and officially announce his departure, but maybe it was also his subconscious way of reminding himself that their time together would reset after a night’s worth of sleep. It was, after all, something for him to look forward to.
Inupi neither looked up nor responded, merely huffed out frustration and an “Oh, come on!” towards the television screen, indicating that something had probably not gone as planned in his game. Koko rolled his eyes and walked out, starting down the hall when Akane popped through her doorway, almost bumping into him.
“Hajime!” she expressed brightly, before quickly assessing what the bag hanging off of his shoulder and the jacket folded over his arm meant. “Leaving so soon?”
“Dad’s coming home tonight, so mom wants us to all have ‘a nice family dinner,’” he mocked the last bit in his mother’s tone.
Akane merely laughed, having the decency to neither chide Koko for his sarcasm nor to give unwanted commentary about the importance of doing such things for your family, knowing that it couldn’t be a mere coincidence that the young boy capitalized on excuses to hardly ever be home. “Want me to walk you home?”
“Eh…” Koko started, though as her question settled in, and he recalled his thoughts a mere minute or so ago about Inupi walking home by himself, he decided that making Akane do so was even more improper and quickly shook his head side-to-side, giving her a more concrete response. “No way. It’ll be completely dark by the time you walk back.”
“Aww, you’re so thoughtful,” she half-teased. “It’s only a few streets over. I don’t mind.”
“Exactly, it’s only a few streets over, so I’ll be fine,” Koko pushed back.
“I can drag Seishu with me! Then, I won’t be alone on the way back,” she proposed.
A bit more time with Inupi would be nice, Koko thought, but then he remembered his friend’s current, uh, preoccupied state of mind. “No, he’s busy.”
If Akane had a superpower, it would have been perception. She detected both Koko’s apparent consideration of the offer once her brother was included in the deal, as well as how unamused his tone was when he still found reason to reject it. “Too busy? Really? For you?” She challenged, propping her hands on her hips.
Koko inadvertently raised a brow, not quite understanding what she was getting at. “He’s trying to beat Deus in Xenogears,” he explained, ignoring the fact that if she wasn’t familiar with Xenogears, then that probably meant nothing to her.
A forced huff left Akane’s throat, and she bent down to be slightly more eye-level with Koko. “You’re so considerate, Hajime. If it were you playing the game, he’d have either stood in front of the television or unplugged the console. I know this because he’s done that to me before,” she confessed before straightening up, a playful smirk forming on her lips as she suddenly grew louder. “His own sister. Because he’s rude!” She was shouting down the hall now, undeniably for the sake of Inupi to hear that last part. “Seishu!” she called, stomping past Koko before suddenly bursting into an energetic run down the remaining length of the hallway to get to her brother’s room.
Koko immediately took advantage of her distraction to run out of the house, though not before he could hear her instructing him to “Be a polite host, walk your friend home!” and Inupi’s familiar tone yelling back about his game before indecipherable bickering between the two siblings filled his ears.
Slipping into the jacket, Koko ran to the end of the street and around the corner before returning to a normal pace, mostly to get a large enough head start in case the Inui siblings stopped their quarreling and pursued him; they’d be much less likely to actually follow through and walk him home if he was already out of eyesight, he figured.
Koko was only a block away from home when he felt his pocket buzzing. Reaching into it to pull out his phone, he half expected (hoped?) to see that it was coming from the Inui household, but instead, all he found on the screen was the dreaded Mom. He accepted the call begrudgingly, pulling the receiver up to his ear.
“I’m almost home,” he preempted, certain that he was about to get an earful about the fact that he was not already.
“You’re on your way? Good,” his mother likewise ignored a proper greeting. “I need you to stop at the konbini on your way back.” Oh, so her ‘good’ was ‘good, you can do something for me more quickly now than if you weren’t,’ and not, ‘good, we’re eager to see you.’
He couldn’t help but wonder if this precise scenario was why he was one of the first kids in his class to even own a cellphone.
But, at least it was not ‘good, you’re not with that troublemaker,’ since his parents had been growing less and less fond of the idea of Koko spending so much time with Inupi. So much so, that he had contrived a lie that he was staying late at the library to study tonight.
“Oh…sure,” Koko held back a grumble, looking up and ahead, silently noting that he was literally within view of his house.
Well, he was pretty sure that was his roof, anyway; it was dusk and kind of hard to tell (and not that it had anything to do with his eyesight being bad, no, not at all).
Anyway, his point being that he was close to home, so it was only natural that she’d send him back out of his way now instead of catching him earlier. “What do you need?”
“Milk, unsalted butter, baking soda, eggs, matcha powder, and sugar. Wait — never mind on the eggs, we have enough. Make sure that the sugar is the crystal kind.”
“Mom! That’s…will the konbini even have all of that?”
“If not, you’ll have to run up to the market.”
“‘kay,” was all he said, feeling his frustration growing and knowing that if he didn’t leave it at that and hang up now, he’d probably just say something to piss her off. Such words and phrases didn’t seem to be in short supply these days; he didn’t know if he was genuinely being a disobedient brat of a son, or if she was just extra testy, but it felt like day in and day out, their conversations grew shorter, both in context as well as patience.
Maybe that’s why Dad was coming home less and less, too. He kind of didn’t blame his old man.
Koko sighed, stashing his phone back in his pocket before turning on his heel to retrace at least some of his steps and head towards the konbini instead of home.
He pulled either side of the chest of Inupi’s jacket closer into himself, aggravated at how cold his nose was growing — so much so, that it was burning — but incredibly thankful that he at least had this.
It wasn’t even the warmest jacket, or the most comfortable, and it was way too long on him, which made him think that it probably also looked funny on Inupi, because he wasn’t all that much taller than him. But it felt…cozy, was the best way that Koko could describe it. Plus, it smelled good, he noted somewhere in the back of his mind.
The konbini wasn’t too far off; he reached it within several minutes of his phone call with his mother. As he approached, he noticed a group of three delinquent-looking guys who appeared to be maybe a year or two older than him crowding by the entrance.
Out of force of habit, he tensed several muscles in his face; his eyebrows were suddenly drawn more sharply on his forehead and he had a scowl on as he looked downward, stomping as confidently as he could past them.
Much to his amazement (and relief), they didn’t give him any problems.
Noting a concerned expression on the shopkeeper’s face as he entered, Koko eased up once he was inside, grabbed a basket, and started perusing the aisles for his mother’s wishes, silently praying to the universe that they had everything that she wanted.
He wouldn’t have admitted to being scared, but he was slightly anxious that those guys outside could spell trouble for him. Despite all of the wisdom that Inupi had bestowed (or attempted to, anyway) upon him, he still wasn’t great at fighting or holding his own.
The absolute last thing that he needed was to show up to dinner freshly beaten and bruised up; his parents would almost certainly find a way to blame Inupi and their perception of his ‘influence’ on their son for that.
Koko sighed as he reached the last aisle in the store, realizing that he still needed one thing from the list. Crap, the sugar…it was a different kind than his mother asked for. But sugar was…sugar, right? It was all sweet, wasn’t it? He knew the answer to that was no, but at present, he couldn’t find a reason as to why whatever she was making would turn out that much differently.
So, after some deliberation, he made an executive decision to grab the sugar that they did have in lieu of needing to make a secondary trip and headed to the checkout counter.
After paying and stuffing the groceries into his shoulder bag — amazed that there was even enough room, what, with all of the books that he had — he cast a glance at the door and noted that those guys were still out there.
Great.
“Have a good night,” he offered to the cashier in an attempt to show that he wasn’t a delinquent and was capable of being respectful, though he wasn’t sure that she looked convinced, for whatever reason. He shrugged it off, took a deep inhale, and then made for the door.
Once more, Koko adopted his ferocious look, puffing out much like a threatened feline as he exited. This time, he dared to make eye contact, though that was mostly an accident as he was trying to scope out where in the heck he was walking, considering it had grown even darker now.
“Whoa! We don’t want to start anything,” one of them quickly reassured aloud, and at first, Koko glanced behind him to make sure that someone bigger, scarier, and more threatening had not just crept up.
He was the only person within view, besides them.
Oh.
Oops.
Uh…
Was that intended for him?
Realizing his mistake, and hoping that they hadn’t also picked up on his apparent confusion, Koko quickly bristled, wiping the dumbfoundedness off of his face and resuming a sneer.
“Good,” he spat back.
“We don't want any trouble. We have no beef with Black Dragon,” one of the other boys piped up. The third boy nodded agreeably and then waved his empty hands to further impress upon Koko that they were harmless.
Black…Dragon?
Koko felt his expression slipping into confusion again, though this time, quickly caught it. “That’s smart of you,” he added almost condescendingly as if to imply that he was shocked that there was anything smart about them at all.
Which — although he should have known better than anyone to judge a book by its cover, he couldn’t help but do so — so the implication technically wasn’t untrue.
Mentally, he facepalmed, hoping that he wasn’t overextending his confidence. Before his luck ran out — and knowing him and his mouth, it probably inevitably would — Koko did the wise thing and quickly excused himself into the night after that, occasionally checking over his shoulder to make sure that he wasn’t being followed.
He wasn’t, which was a welcome relief.
Once out of eyesight, he burst into a little run, repeating what he had done down the Inui’s street — the quicker he could get away, the less likely he’d be pursued.
Koko slowed to a standard walk as he approached his house for the second time tonight, hesitating on the doorstep to collect himself and mentally prepare for whatever awaited him inside.
After several minutes, he kicked his shoes off and walked in, finding his parents already seated at the chabudai. He was almost instantly met with scrutinizing looks from both of them.
“What is that, that you’re wearing?” His mother pried.
Koko raised a brow, confused at first; he had all but forgotten that he was being swallowed whole by Inupi’s jacket. Despite its bulkiness and not belonging to him, it was oddly familiar, and he lived in it like it was a second skin, barely noticeable to him, like it was an extension of himself.
As if to make sense of his mother’s question, he looked down and then realized it. “Oh. In-” No, don’t give away that you were at the Inui’s tonight, he quickly reminded himself. You were supposed to be at the library, remember? “It’s just a friend’s. He…his parents insisted that I borrow it since it was cold out,” he dug deeper into his lie.
“At the library?” His mother challenged.
“Yeah, they came to pick him up. They came by car, so thought that I’d have better use for it since I was walking home.” Koko didn’t miss a beat, lying so efficiently through his teeth that it was unsettling even to himself how he just…did that, without much thought or planning.
He almost felt bad. Almost, until he remembered that it was for the sake of preserving his friendship with Inupi, whom his parents, for whatever reason had decided they disliked.
“I see,” was all that she said in response.
Koko’s academic acumen and wit didn’t just occur spontaneously; his parents, trash as they were at being parents were of decent stock. He got the distinct feeling that she could see alright…see right through him, which caused his body to tense up.
Desperately, he pivoted topics, taking the jacket off and draping it over the bannister of the stairs with care before kneeling to his bag. “I brought the things that you asked for,” he said with a slightly forced cheerfulness in his voice, hoping that she’d drop her line of questioning and move on already.
“Oh. Thank you, Hajime,” She likewise followed his train of thought, though he still wasn’t convinced that she was convinced. Maybe she was tired of the back and forth, too, because she instructed him to leave the items on the kitchen counter, go clean up, and then rejoin them for dinner.
Gladly, he complied, grabbed his bag and the jacket, and headed upstairs to his room before traveling to the bath to wash up.
Several minutes later, he returned, finding his mother’s seat empty. His father cast him a glance before shaking his head side-to-side as if in disappointment; only after that did he hear his mother grumbling from around the corner about the sugar that he had bought.
The mood and conversation at dinner were strained, to say the least. Koko was given an impromptu lesson on the different types of sugar from his mother and how each one varied in baking; when the subject switched to school, his father chided him for merely receiving an A on one of his papers (as opposed to an A+, or a perfect score). Then, his parents switched gears to talk about boring adult stuff, and he felt invisible. Which with them, wasn’t always the worst thing.
At least by the end of it, it sounded like the dinner had partially been for the sake of announcement that his father was going to be away on business for the next five days in the city, so there was that going for Koko, he supposed.
After dinner, Koko helped his mother clean up, while his father retired outside into the cold for a smoke and to read the paper. They exchanged some small talk, but mostly, Koko, desperate to fix his shopping blunder (and, maybe it was his subconscious way of attempting to regain even an ounce of his mother's acceptance), begged her to let him bake the cookies that she had originally planned (before he purchased the wrong sugar), insistent that he could still make them turn out somehow.
Despite her many no’s — again, Koko was a persistent little shit — he eventually convinced her to give in and authorize his full use of the kitchen so long as he cleaned up his mess. She left him with the recipe, encouraged him to “figure it out” rather despondently, and then joined her husband on the patio.
Almost an hour later, they came back inside to the somewhat earthy, warm aroma of baked matcha, and Koko proudly displaying some rather lumpy-looking cookies on a plate. “Try one!” He begged of them, offering them each a cookie.
They did, with mixed reactions. “Oh…thanks,” his father offered, before leaving his cookie with just one bite out of it on a napkin. “Good try, sweetie,” his mother attempted to praise before she did her usual thing of ripping the very praise that she had just bestowed upon him right out from under him. “I told you though that they weren’t going to turn out, because of the sugar.”
Koko dejectedly tossed the green mounds into a baggie and then went about cleaning up the kitchen, as he had promised to his mother, before retiring to the bath and then, eventually, his bedroom where he finished Inupi’s homework and then passed out.
The next morning, he was up bright and early. There were signs that his father had already left the house; his mother appeared to still be sleeping (or pretending to be, anyway). Koko made some miso soup for breakfast before scrounging around the kitchen to put together a sort of sad excuse for a bento to take for lunch. On account of not knowing what else to put in it, he tossed the remaining cookies in, then poured his soup into a vacuum-insulated mug, deciding to take it for the road because, for one, he could never get out of this house quickly enough — but for two, so that he could be sure to meet up with Inupi on the path to school, as planned.
He slipped out of the door, tossing Inupi’s jacket back on as it was still cold out, and made his way towards where he usually met up with Inupi. Stalling to wait, Koko was crouched over a plant, observing it curiously when he heard Akane call out his name.
Koko turned to find her waving, and right behind her, Inupi, wide-eyed, staring at him. He moved to reach into his bag for Inupi’s assignment, all while fixating his gaze on his friend and trying to decipher his expression before handing the paper over.
Akane made an ‘oooooh’ sound, the kind that someone obnoxiously made when you were busted. “Nobody likes a cheat or a mooch, Seishu,” she poked at him, before she trilled “Byeeeeee!” and ran off up ahead. That seemed to be a pattern of hers — chiding her younger brother and then taking off before any further discussion on the matter could be had. Sometimes, Koko wondered why she seemed to absolve him of his and Inupi’s clearly joint crimes.
Koko watched her for half a second, before turning back to Inupi. “I messed up on question nine on purpose,” Koko started to explain. “I figured it’s the one that you’re most likely to actually screw up on during the test, and missing one won’t tank your grade but will also make it seem more believable.”
“Where’d you get that?” Inupi ignored Koko's remarks about their homework, instead focusing on and pointing at the jacket before taking a step closer. “Wait, that’s m-”
“Yeah, yours?” Koko finished Inupi’s sentence for him before scoffing. He propped both hands on his hips and leaned towards Inupi. “I told you that I was taking a jacket.” He could feel that the same aggravation from last night, the one that had built up when Inupi had so blatantly ignored him, was returning.
“I didn’t think you’d take that one,” Inupi remarked.
“Why? What’s so special about it?” Koko asked, raising a brow. As if on cue, he recalled the incident last night in front of the konbini, and before Inupi could respond, put two and two together enough to ask a secondary question. “And what is Black Dragon?”
Inupi’s lips puckered out and he made a face just then that Koko immediately knew that he didn’t trust.
“Nothing, really. Don’t worry about it,” he shrugged, before reaching out his arm and making a gesture with his hand that implied that he wanted the jacket back.
A sound of frustration escaped Koko, and he complied, sliding his arms out of it and thrusting it towards Inupi. “Don’t lie to me,” Koko hissed. “I’ll never touch your homework again, so long as I live,” he added on for threat.
Inupi laughed and shrugged, stowing his jacket in his bag. Koko wasn’t sure if it was because the sun had come out and it wasn’t as cold as before, or if he was trying to hide it. “I don’t care about school, anyway. I’m not going to need it,” he theorized before crookedly putting his bag over his shoulder and taking a step forward.
Koko looked astounded at those words, frozen in place. “Wh-what do you mean? Of course you’ll need it! How else are you going to get a job?” Koko knew that he was the more scholarly of the two, and Inupi had been slipping lately, but he had never exactly understood until maybe now just how little Inupi cared about school altogether.
Inupi turned and stopped, blinking at Koko. “I’ll make and have connections. I dunno. I just know that school is useless for what I want to do.” He shrugged again before looking down at the ground.
Some part of him was almost disappointed that he and Koko just didn’t have the same enthusiasm about school, dedication, or general life trajectory. Koko was brilliant and was probably going to grow up and be an astronaut, or a physicist, or a professor, or something. None of those things interested him.
And then, an even sadder thought struck him. He wondered if they would even be friends when they grew up. Would they be too different? Would Koko look down on him because of how much smarter than him he was, or how much more money he would undoubtedly have with a sort of job like that? He couldn’t imagine that the Koko he knew now would do that, but he also knew — not firsthand, but because his parents had told him, and his teacher had impressed upon him (See? He listened! Sometimes…) — that being an adult changed the value and importance of those sorts of things.
“You mean I’ll make the connections? Do you think I’ll just get a good job and then be able to convince them to bring you on board, too?” Inupi missed completely that Koko's almost confident use of future tense would have quelled any uncertainty of his inner thoughts moments ago as to whether or not they would remain friends; he only noticed now that Koko had stepped in closer, and how frustrated it made him that he couldn’t tell if Koko's expression was more angry or sad.
The light-haired boy laughed awkwardly just then and shook his head side-to-side. “No. I could do that on my own,” he suggested, to which Koko scoffed immediately.
“You are not good with people,” he pointed out.
Inupi grinned. “Yeah? Neither are you.”
The two stared at one another with mild amusement now, locked in a stalemate, before Koko finally cracked, as marked by him sassily sticking his tongue out at Inupi before starting up again.
“Is this because you still want to be a professional ball player? The best way to get scouted for the big leagues is on a high school or university team, isn’t it? So you gotta at least get to high school-”
Inupi held a hand up to Koko, cutting him off. If he didn’t know any better, he could have sworn that his friend sounded like he was begging him, which was weird, considering this was his decision. A small part of him wondered if he should invest a little more into Koko’s words — he was the smarter of the two of them — but a larger, more defiant part of him reminded himself that didn’t mean that Koko knew everything.
“I changed my mind. I want to work on motorcycles,” Inupi announced.
Koko looked like his head was going to spin in several rapid circles before detaching itself from his neck.
“What? Since when? Where did that come from? And why didn’t you tell me?” Koko asked all at once, looking almost hurt that Inupi hadn’t confided this information to him.
“Well…it’s kinda new, I guess,” he admitted, taking a mental note of — and very much so correctly interpreting — Koko’s expression. “I just didn’t think it mattered,” he added in explanation, a little more quietly now, as though to soften the blow. “Why are we talking about this now, anyway? It’s not like we have to decide right now. We’ve got time,” he reassured his companion.
“That’s rich, coming from you,” Koko pointed out to Inui Seishu, the least patient person he knew, his eyes narrowing slightly. Inupi couldn’t help but laugh again; he was self-aware enough to know that Koko’s callout wasn’t inaccurate.
“It just doesn’t hurt to have a plan,” Koko quickly added. And they didn’t really have time. Elementary school would be over before they knew it, and then they would already have to start discussing their long-term goals. They might not even be in the same section or classroom by the time they reached middle school if Inupi couldn’t keep up. Koko dreaded the thought of that.
“Yeah, well maybe it’s more fun to not,” Inupi retorted before he poked at Koko’s ribs. “By the way, Mr. Planner, we’re going to be late for school if you don’t shut up and start walking.”
Koko pulled back, quickly checking the time on his phone before making a little screeching sound. He jolted forward and grabbed Inupi’s hand, tugging. ”I know you don’t care, but c’mon-”
”I’m literally the one who just pointed out what time it was!” Inupi quipped back. Though Koko had stepped forward initially, Inupi pulled ahead and was leading them both now.
”Yeah, why bother if you don’t care?” Koko prodded as they hustled along the path, continuing his consistent emphasis on the word ’care’.
”Because I know that you do,” Inupi responded in a tone that practically asked why the answer to Koko’s question wasn’t obvious.
They reached school just in time, swapping their shoes for their school slippers, hanging their bags, and reaching their seats just in the nick of time before instruction began.
Their teacher had long since separated the two of them in the classroom, so Koko diligently focused on the coursework for their first four periods while Inupi tried (though, mostly just stared out the window and got caught up in various daydreams) until it was lunchtime.
When the bell rang for lunch, as he usually did, Koko brought his bento back to Inupi’s desk and despite their teacher’s wishes, sat atop the desk next to his, since the usual occupant had joined her friends near the front of the class.
”Koko, what animal do you think would look funniest if it had eyebrows?” Koko blinked as he unwrapped his bento, wondering if that was what Inupi had seriously been staring out the window, thinking of all day (because as he usually did, he had cast a glance across the classroom at him at least a few throughout their morning classes, and damn near every time, Inupi was looking outside). But then, he sincerely thought about the question for a long minute.
”A crab, because their eyes are already so spaced out,” he finally responded, entertaining Inupi and earning a laugh from him before he moved on to more pressing matters. ”So are you ever gonna answer my question from this morning, or not?”
”Which?” Inupi’s face contorted into a look of judgment at Koko’s bento before it simmered down into understanding. ”Your mom didn’t make you lunch again?” he asked, already assuming the answer and starting to scoop some of the daikon his mother had made for him into Koko’s bento before the dark-haired boy could even answer his first question.
”About Black Dragon,” Koko whispered, pointedly dodging the question about his mother before reaching an arm and a hand armed with chopsticks right through the space in between Inupi’s arms, grabbing a sliver of grilled fish from Inupi’s bento while it was conveniently tilted in his direction. He followed that up with a piece of the daikon that Inupi had shared with him; Inupi startled at an appreciative reverberating sound just then that had him checking the ground around his desk to rule out that there wasn’t a cat loose in the classroom. It had, in fact, originated from somewhere in Koko's mouth or throat.
Looking back up from the ground, Inupi sighed. ”It’s just…this group of guys. They’re really cool. But when I say it’s nothing, I mean it. He — Shinichiro — won’t let me join, anyway. He says I’m too young, and that I need to stay in school,” he said with a pout.
Koko hesitated from his next bite, and although he normally would have agreed with the notion of Inupi staying grounded and performing well in school, and respected the very person to say such a thing, for whatever reason he overlooked that bit entirely, and instead, looked mildly affronted at Inupi’s explanation. ”Who?” he asked mostly at this name that he had never heard before, Shinichiro. And then — ”You have other friends?” He asked the (apparently) more pressing question on his mind before he even realized what he had said.
Smug was the best way to describe Inupi’s face. ”Yeah? You jealous?” Koko blinked, having not even really processed what he had asked, let alone Inupi’s question. ”Huh? No. Whatever,” he stammered.
”Maybe you should get some friends of your own,” Inupi responded bluntly. Koko rolled his eyes. ”I’m busy. And it’ll be even worse once it gets warmer and the swim team starts back up. And, I don’t even like anyone, anyway,” he kept adding excuses. “You’re lucky I even pay attention to you.”
Inupi grinned, and silence fell between the two of them for several minutes after that. It wasn’t the uncomfortable kind; though both were prone to boredom, and Inupi in particular lacked patience, they had the sort of friendship where they enjoyed one another’s company whether anything was happening or not.
”Last night,” Koko eventually began again after having eaten most of his rice, and thus was beginning to slow down. ”I went to the konbini and as I was leaving, these guys looked scared of me. They said they didn’t want any trouble. I think it was the jacket,” Koko theorized. ”Inupi. Just what kind of friends are you making?”
Of the duo, Inupi had always been more brusque than him. That was undeniable.
People said things like ”We don’t want any trouble” to people who were dangerous and violent, though…and…well, yeah, Inupi had a penchant for laying out bullies at the playground after school and had semi-recently vandalized a senpai’s sports uniform, for which he had earned several week’s worth of extra cleaning duties — but Koko just couldn’t, wouldn’t see him so…negatively.
Hajime and Seishu had their fair share of silly elementary school boy fights — like quarreling over which one was going to be “it” first during a game of tag, or who got the red controller and who got the blue controller — but those little brief moments of contention could not erase the fact that Koko believed that his best friend could do no wrong (even when it made no sense, and even when he was objectively wrong, Koko had an exceptional knack for ignoring that). He’d make every excuse in the book for him, and when that didn’t work, he would default to insisting that nobody knew him as he did.
It was ironic, really — considering how far out of his way he would go to try and sweet talk or even manipulate his way into making Inupi look better, or to help to keep him out of trouble; there must have been some part of him that subconsciously discerned the blonde’s rights from wrongs. To date, though, nothing had been worse than ”beaten up a bully,” and that was one such instance that Koko found justifiable.
”They’re good guys, Koko. They’re not the type to let people mess with the people they care about, but they’re not bad. And Shin really knows his stuff when it comes to bikes! It’s amazing-”
”Shin?” Koko almost screeched, balking at the fact that Shinichiro was suddenly Shin. God, when or where did Inupi find the time to get on a nickname basis with someone else?
Was he jealous? Maybe. Was he being irrational? No, he told himself. Not at all. Because he was…he was just looking out for Inupi and had his best interest in mind.
”Oh. So that’s where this motorcycle thing is coming from,” Koko pieced together. ”A jacket that scares people off, and motorcycles.” He lowered his voice. ”It’s a gang, isn’t it?” Koko furthered his line of questioning now.
Inupi swallowed. ”Jesus, Koko. It’s not like the yaku- the you-know-what,” he muttered, reasonable enough to know that not everyone just so loosely threw around nor wanted to hear that name. ”Besides, I told you, Shin won’t let me join. I mostly just go to his shop and watch him work on bikes whenever you’re too busy to — or can’t hang out,” he mumbled.
Koko specifically noted his “can’t,” and looked down at what remained of his food, frowning, realizing that Inupi must have not just noticed that he had been becoming more scarce lately, but something about his word choice also told Koko that even without them discussing as much, he understood that it was probably his parents doing.
”It’s nothing serious,” Inupi added as an afterthought.
Koko didn’t look entirely convinced. ”Alright, so let me in on it, then.”
Inupi dropped his chopsticks. ”No,” he retorted immediately, and with some force.
Koko raised a brow. ”Why not, Inupi?” he asked. ”You said it wasn’t like that.” His voice almost sing-song with mockery. ”Besides, it might do me good to get a jacket like that. Maybe then, people will stop messing with me.”
Inupi clenched his jaw and his fist simultaneously. ”I said no, Koko. It’s not a gang like how you think, it’s more like…a family, almost. Are you not listening to me? I told you, I can’t even join,” he repeated. At his core, though, that wasn’t even really the issue — even if Shin did ever let him in on Black Dragon, that lifestyle wasn’t for Koko. He wasn’t like him, after all. He was meant for books and libraries and cultural trips to other countries and historical sites and museums and universities.
So, maybe Koko wasn’t entirely wrong about the jacket thing, but even that was a double-edged sword. Inupi didn’t know firsthand per se, but through the stories of the older delinquents that he overheard at S.S. Motor, being a part of a gang sounded like it came with respect and people who didn’t want any trouble from you. But, it likewise came with the dangers of people who did want to mess with you, because you were in a gang.
And although he would have died on the hill that Black Dragon were the good guys, Inupi saw the aftermath of scrapes and bruises and bandages on those who passed through Shin’s shop, evidence that brawling was happening to some degree, whether they were the ones who had invited it or not.
Koko didn’t need that added risk. He needed to stay in stupid school, focus on his stupid grades, read his stupid books, win his stupid swim trophies, and get a stupid grown-up job. And stay out of fights.
On top of all of that, although Seishu currently was not even cognizant enough of it, the thought of Koko having one less reason to be his friend scared him. He didn’t need a gang or a jacket. Inupi would protect him. Just like he had been doing since they first became friends, a little over two years ago.
Koko rolled his eyes. Though he didn’t keep pressing about joining, he wasn't exactly ready to cease his line of questioning altogether. ”If you can’t join, then why do you have one of their jackets?”
Inupi propped his elbow on the desk and tilted his head into his open palm, resting it there. ”Well…I asked if I could try it on,” he admitted. ”Shin said that I could, and then Benkei told me to take it off, and then I think that Wakasa found Benkei’s reaction funny because he encouraged me to keep it on. And then Shin told me that was enough, so I did take it off. But…I found it in my bag later, when I got home. I’m pretty sure Waka snuck it in there. So I’ve just been holding onto it for the last few weeks.”
Koko paled at the mention of even more people that Inupi was apparently on a first-name basis with, the gravity of just how out of the loop with his own best friend he felt really sinking in.
”You should give it back,” Koko proposed, having eaten his bento and now idly tapping the bag of cookies that he had brought with him, like he was unsure whether or not to eat them. Somehow, his parents' rejection of them had rubbed off on him, and although he didn’t actually think that they were terrible, he had been disappointed enough by their reactions that he now associated them with that sentiment.
He felt Inupi’s fingertips brush against the top of his hand as he nudged Koko’s hand out of the way to grab the bag and help himself. Koko would have stopped him from eating such an atrocity, but for some reason, he was currently experiencing lag, and Inupi removed one and bit into it quicker than he could realize what was happening.
”Yeah, maybe I will,” Inupi responded, stuffing his mouth full with the cookie. ”Or maybe I won’t,” he added with a grin. Koko just sat there, still suspended, subconsciously processing a lot at that current moment.
”These are really good,” Inupi said enthusiastically, helping himself to a second one.
Koko perked back up slightly, searching Inupi’s face for any hint that he was lying. ”Seriously?”
”Yeah. They might be the best cookies I’ve ever had,” he reaffirmed, happily munching on his second serving.
”I-I made them,” Koko uttered uncertainly.
”Since when do you bake?” Inupi asked, his eyes widening at this newfound piece of information about Koko.
”I don’t,” Koko half-laughed.
Inupi finished the second cookie, and started reaching for a third, hesitating near Koko’s hand as if to make sure that it was alright; despite that whole “what’s mine is yours” thing between the two of them, Inupi had spent enough time with Koko to have learned that food was maybe the one exception.
Koko wouldn’t share food with anyone but Inupi — he wouldn't even share with Akane, who seemed to be the only other person whom Seishu had witnessed him getting on with well enough. But even when it came to Inupi, Koko sharing with him was highly dependent upon his mood.
Right now, Koko wasn’t moving. He wasn’t doing anything, except for looking down, and kinda-sorta smiling.
Since nothing about it from this angle could be interpreted as protest, Inupi moved in, and snatched a third one, looking rather pleased with himself for so bravely traversing the dangerous space between Koko, his food, and his hands — with great success, no less.
”Oh. Well…you should more often. I certainly wouldn’t mind it,” he encouraged Koko with a big grin.
On his next trip to the library, Koko found himself mulling over various cookbooks and making photocopies of a few recipes. Without even realizing it, he coincidentally kept honing in specifically on recipes that contained apples, a favored ingredient and flavor of the person whose words had inspired him to even be in this section in the first place.