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It's the ripe, fresh hour of 1AM when Itaru finds himself prowling to the kitchen for a snack and a drink to help out his late night gaming session. There's an event right now that he can't afford to miss, with a skin for his main that he can only unlock though the event missions. It's been a tedious grind, and one he wishes he could've taken a few days off to work towards, but he really should save his PTO for the Spring tour coming up in just a few months.
He's on track for completing the event in just a few days, but he needs to wring another 25k out of the event before he goes to bed and inevitably can't play again until tomorrow night. Thus, a necessary refuel at one in the morning.
He wasn't really expecting anyone else to be up. Banri sent his last, slightly incomprehensible, message to him around 20 minutes ago. Most of the other people on the first floor are more responsible than he is. Or, at least, they aren't moving around at this hour.
Except for...the somehow expected mop of mousey brown hair barely visible over the back of the couch, only illuminated by the dim glow of a word processor in warm eye-shield mode.
Itaru never knows what Tsuzuru is working on until it's finished. He could just as easily be polishing off a term paper as he could be drafting a short script for an opening act. A peak over his shoulder reveals the latter, a script, messily typed and barely formatted, in a very first-draft form.
He watches silently as Tsuzuru types, backspaces, and retypes a sentence three times before he decides he should do something.
Itaru places his entire hand on the top of Tsuzuru's head. And, despite the exhaustion, he manages to jump impressively at the contact.
"What the hell, " he hisses in a whisper, glaring over his shoulder. He doesn't even seem surprised to see Itaru, just exasperated that he's been interrupted, and annoyed by the jumpscare Itaru managed to pull off.
"He lives! It's a miracle." This does not help his case. If looks could kill, Itaru would already be seeing the game over screen on his UI. "I thought you'd died retyping that sentence for the fifth time."
Tsuzuru huffs, tugging the screen of his laptop down slightly so Itaru can't screenwatch. "I'm busy, Itaru-san."
Itaru quickly considers his pathing options here. He could leave him be. It wouldn't be that big of a deal, anyway. Tsuzuru is often found passed out on the couch in clothes from the day before, coffee cups and water bottles scattered on the coffee table or on the floor, laptop dead from being left open. It really wouldn't be a big deal to just leave him here to his fate while Itaru carries on with his life.
Or, he could make sure Tsuzuru gets some decent sleep and isn't complaining for the next three days about pulling a muscle in his neck from falling asleep on the couch with ragdoll physics turned on.
He debates for a moment and, unfortunately, his altruism wins out.
(Maybe he's taken his aloof princely image too far. He really shouldn't be rescuing people like this.)
"I'm gonna make some coffee," Itaru starts. He wasn't actually intending on making coffee, but he's already on a sidequest. "Why don't you take a break, refill your stamina bar, and then continue?"
Tsuzuru considers. Or maybe he's just swaying from exhaustion.
"Don't put any cream in it." Tsuzuru shuts his laptop.
Itaru salutes. "I'll meet you back in my room. Senpai is out." This earns him an incredulous, judgmental look, but neither of them say anything further. Chikage remains a cryptid, even after two years of living with him.
Tsuzuru drags himself upright, and wanders back towards the dorms and away from the common spaces. Itaru sets the electric kettle on and measures out more instant coffee than any one man should consume in a single day, let alone a single cup. He's got no clue how Tsuzuru hasn't been KO'd by a caffeine-induced heart attack yet. Not that Itaru really has any room to judge.
He grabs a pack of potato straws he'd spied out earlier, and a cola he'd bought on his way home from work. God bless conbini runs, really.
Coffee, snacks, and cola in tow, he heads back to room 103, finding Tsuzuru hovering in the middle of the room, slightly paralyzed. Itaru kind of gets it. Even though they're all comfortable around each other (Itaru has lost count of how many times he's fallen asleep with or shared a bed with each and every member of Spring Troupe), there's something that feels invasive about being in someone else's room.
"Here." Itaru shuffles a few things around, so he can both work on the event and they can both sit on the couch. Tsuzuru sets his laptop onto the table, and takes the cup of coffee, cradling it in his hands, almost curling around it like a cat might.
Somehow, he looks more exhausted like this than he did with the laptop still in his lap. Itaru figures it's something like a completionist mindset—he feels that way sometimes too. As soon as the task to finish is taken away, it's much harder to stay awake.
Itaru settles as well, controller sitting comfortably in his hands as he reenters the event waiting room. It's an easy enough dungeon raid that even complete noobs could clear, but it still is time consuming to get to the higher reward tiers.
Tsuzuru squints at his monitors. "Are you..." he watches the ult animation go through, "what's even going on."
"I'm just waiting 'til it's targetable again." Itaru avoids a few flaming arrow attacks. "It'll do a few attacks. Two to four, normally. And then you can attack it. It's best to wait and only launch heavy-damage attacks once the attack phase is over."
Tsuzuru hums. "Like the piranha plant boss in Mario Galaxy."
Itaru doesn't disagree with him. The principle is similar enough, but the comparison is nearly offensive. "Sure. Something like that."
Tsuzuru ends up pressed into Itaru's side as he watches over his shoulder, watching him press inputs and try to comprehend things happening on the screen. There's something almost fun about watching him try and figure things out, about watching him process things and try to put words to it. Sometimes Itaru wonders what it might be like if Tsuzuru were to write about moments like this, about how he might describe the people around him. Not that he would ever reveal that sort of information, but the thought is entertaining, and the process of watching him observe is entertaining too. Itaru likes his questions when he's calm and focused enough to ask them.
"What do the triggers on the back do," Tsuzuru requests, not asks.
"Those put up shields." He flicks RT a few times to show the animation. "There's a cooldown on them so I can't use them too often."
Another hum as he settles back into watching, understanding the game play just a little better. There's temptation to hand him the controller, to teach him to play and watch him struggle, but the goal isn't to prevent him from sleeping.
Itaru is partway into the third round of this dungeon when he feels Tsuzuru slump against him, head tipping onto his shoulder. He doesn't acknowledge him, doesn't say anything either. Itaru focuses on the quiet voice lines from the game, eyes stuck to the screen until he feels Tsuzuru's breath even out as he finally dozes off. The victory music chimes from his PC speakers.
Carefully, he takes the now-lukewarm coffee from Tsuzuru's hands and detaches from him, letting him tip over until he's all the way horizontal on the couch. He probably doesn't have to be careful, he's seen Tsuzuru sleep through a Citron and Tangerine kitchen disaster and a few Autumn Troupe shouting matches, so there's really no reason to be concerned he'll wake him up, but it'd feel wrong to just move him around carelessly.
Itaru pulls the comforter from his own bed and tosses it over him, taking his soda and his chips back over to his desk, curling up in his own chair to polish off the last few thousand points he needs before sleeping himself.
"Really, Chigasaki?" is the first thing he hears alerting him to Chikage's presence in the room. He has no idea how he opens the door that quietly. He flips around in bed, setting his mobile game to auto. The sun has been up for a while now, but Saturday's blessing means that he can stay in bed for a little extra time before having to face the world.
"What—ah." Chikage gestures to their guest who is still, somehow, completely passed out.
Chikage rolls his eyes. "How long?"
He glances at his phone, and then remembers he can't see the time without exiting the autoplay loop. "What time is it?”
"Just past eleven." He doesn't even check his watch.
"At least 9 hours."
"Unfortunate."
"I have to keep my reputation stats high somehow," Itaru shrugs. "That was my good deed for the month."
"Mhm." Chikage doesn't believe him. That's fine. He knows Chikage would claim something similar if he did something kind for any of their fellow troupe members. "He'll be pissed at you when he wakes up."
"Yeah, I know."