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Shinoa’s the first to shove at the metaphorical row of dominoes.
It’d been harmless, and it was really funny when Yuu tugged up the hood of his coat for the year’s first snowfall and covered himself in glitter.
“Shinoa, what the fuck—“
She’d laughed hard enough to knock her hot chocolate off the diner’s table and into her lap, which should’ve been retribution enough.
And it was—until it dawned on Yuu after two showers that there was still glitter in his hair, and that tossing his coat in the wash not only didn’t strip the glitter from it, but covered the rest of his clothes in it as well.
That, he’d decided, demanded revenge in the form of a better prank.
• • •
He makes the mistake of pissing Mitsuba off.
It'd only been between him and Shinoa in the beginning; she’d emptied a container of cheap art glitter in his coat’s hood and layered his hair for days with specks of gold and silver, and he’d retaliated by upscaling that idea: glitter in the air vents of her dorm room.
He rolls out of bed the next morning and lands his bare feet ankle-deep in water.
He glances across the room to Yoichi; he’s sitting with his knees drawn to his chest on his bed, curled in on himself like a cat that’s afraid to get wet.
“Yuu,” he says, “what did you do—“
This one’s pretty elaborate. They’d slipped a door set underneath the door, air-tight to keep the water from escaping, and presumably got the water in through the window—how the hell did that not wake the two of them up?
Yoichi hops down from his bed, lands with a slosh on the soaked carpet.
“What’ll we do?” He blinks up at Yuu, kicks at the water for emphasis. “We’ll flood the hall if we open the door.”
“We’ll have to like,” Yuu glances around the room, “siphon the water out through the window.”
Yoichi groans—rightfully, since this isn’t his fault
“Whatever,” Yuu lifts his shoulders, half a shrug. “I'll get Shinoa back.”
Yoichi draws open the window because they’ve got to clear out the water before their RA decides to stop by, and—there’s a note stuck to their desk.
Signed with nothing but Mitsuba’s name and a little heart.
Yuu peels it off, grins as he crumples it up.
“This is war,” he says, disregarding Yoichi’s disapproving frown.
• • •
The girls get back from class to find their furniture on the ceiling.
Mitsuba steps hesitantly into their room, drops her books in the open space where her nightstand should be, and stares.
Shinoa moves next to her and crosses her arms while they take in the sight.
“How,” Mitsuba asks.
“Not sure,” Shinoa tells her. “But I’m impressed.”
“There’s no way this was a one-man job,” Mitsuba decides. “But who—"
They snap to the same conclusion: “Mika—“
• • •
They’ve broken into all-out warfare, and it claims Yoichi as collateral again and again.
Shinoa’s alarm clock prank’s a favorite of his; ten of them, hidden neatly throughout their room. Buried underneath their mattresses, wedged in-between books on shelves—set to go off all at once at five that morning. Late enough to guarantee they’d both be sleeping, and early enough to render falling back asleep before their 7 a.m. class useless.
It’s hard, then, for him to feel much sympathy for Mika after he’s marked a target for letting himself be an accessory to Yuu’s prank.
Mitsuba’s forgone mercy, and the two of them cover Mika’s pretty silver car entirely in plastic wrap—layers and layers of it, enough that he gets overwhelmed trying to tear it off on his own, and Yoichi’s the only person awake and without a good enough excuse to get out of helping.
He sits cross-legged on the hood of Mika’s car, tugging plastic from the windshield.
“You should’ve known better,” he says.
Mika snorts, peels a sheet off the passenger window. “Better than to help Yuu? I know.”
“I thought,” Yoichi muses, “that you of all people would’ve talked him out of it.”
It draws a laugh from Mika, a pleasant sound that bounces around the parking lot.
“It sounded like fun,” he says.
He’s good-natured about it, and Yoichi’s impressed, since they’re out at dawn in flurrying snow trying to unwrap his car—he wouldn’t hold it against Mika if he were a little pissed about that.
Yuu’s persuasive in his own way, and Mika doesn’t ever seem to turn him down. Yoichi figures that’s got something to do with it.
He forgets to answer, yawning into his sleeve instead, and Mika pushes for more conversation.
“The prank war’s getting on your nerves, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he says right away, then bites his lip for sounding too mean. “I’m happy they’re having fun, but—“
“But you’ve never hated being Yuu’s roommate more, right?”
Mika’s laughing, amused, and Yoichi yawns again. Really, sharing a room with Yuu’s always been a pain; he’s up like a bat most nights—last week he shook Yoichi awake to ask him about black holes.
Waking up to a flooded dorm’s relatively par for the course, he’s only surprised that it was Mitsuba’s fault instead of Yuu’s.
“You should get them back,” Mika tells him.
Yoichi shakes his head, frowns just a little as he busies his hands again. “I’m not interested,” he says. “I don’t want to get involved.”
But Mika’s already got an idea, he thinks, intent on dragging Yoichi into it—he can tell when he glances over at him and he’s grinning like a fox.
“Just one,” he says slowly. “One that’ll hit everyone at the same time.”
“What do you—“
Mika rests his elbows on the car’s hood, props his face up in his hands, playful like a child; he winks in a way that begs Yoichi to trust him and warns him not to at once—a dare, if anything.
The sun’s coming up, haloing Mika in pink and gold to veil him as an angel rather than the merry little demon that he is, and Yoichi quirks a smile.
• • •
Mika’s got his arm tucked around Yoichi’s waist, just inches above his ass; a calculated move, of course.
“When did this—“ Yuu pauses, reconsiders for only a moment before veering in favor of the original question. “…How did this happen?”
His tone’s somewhere along the edge of perplexed and amused, but he blinks up at them from the edge of his seat with curiosity above all; this, apparently, is far more fascinating than studying.
Mitsuba snorts—not so easily fooled, but too uninterested to press for more.
“This,” she says, and never glances up from her textbook, “is a match made in hell.”
Mika tugs him in to show that he agrees, and Yoichi smiles bright as he’s able.
Shinoa narrows her eyes at them—Yoichi shifts in the face of red-brown scrutiny, but Mika’s fingers curl tight around the bone of his hip to say let me handle it.
And so he does—Shinoa plays twenty questions with when and how and why while Mika charms her with lies that come easily and Yuu sort of looks like he’s warmed up to it, but he nods real slow like he’s not quite understanding.
They’re pulling it off, he thinks. Yuu’s got wide-eyed wonder and lots to say about being blindsided by his best friends hooking up, but he stumbles over his words.
It’s a mean trick to play—but Mika smiles, all sunshine in the dim-lit library, to make up for it.
• • •
Yuu’s interest gets the better of him just past midnight.
After a night of Mika’s lips against his cheeks, Yoichi’s prodded awake and Yuu makes room for himself to sit cross-legged on the edge of a bed that’s not big enough for two. Yoichi doesn’t mind; Yuu’s strange, and this is one of his things—he’s been one for late nights as long as Yoichi’s known him.
He asks about Mika, and Yoichi acknowledges it with a hum.
“That’s so weird,” he says. “But—it makes sense, I think.”
Yoichi’s half asleep, and it takes a bit before he gets it, but he smiles when he does.
“You think so?”
“You’re a good match,” he tells him with a hint of finality, like he’s decided on it.
The blanket muffles Yoichi’s laugh, and he bumps Yuu’s thigh with his knee.
“Go to sleep, Yuu.”
• • •
Mika carries the weight of their prank.
He’s good at this lie; he doesn’t even need to tell decent stories—it’s the way he tells them that fascinates everybody.
It’s the generous affection that convinces their friends, he thinks. Mika’s kept his arm around him for three days, and Yoichi laughs when he tells them all that they’re in love.
It’s obnoxious; they’re holding hands, sharing food—in a particularly dull moment, Mika’s ace card is to pull Yoichi into his lap, and Yoichi blames the flush on his cheeks on being a better actor than he’d thought.
“This is mean,” Yoichi says sweetly when they’re alone—Mitsu and Shinoa have gone to class, with Mitsuba faux-gagging in their direction as she stood up to leave, and Yuu’s fighting the vending machine across the lounge.
Mika laughs at that, breezy and dismissive. “It’s distracting everyone,” he says, and he’s right—the last prank was two days ago; Shinoa emptied a sack of snow-white powdered sugar on the black leather seats of Yuu’s car.
Yoichi doesn’t want to know how she’d forced open his sunroof without setting the alarm off, but it was enough to back Yuu into admitting defeat and bring about a ceasefire.
“Then,” Yoichi says, “we’ve effectively ended the prank war.”
Mika smiles at him, and Yoichi’s still in his damn lap.
“Time for phase two,” he tells him.
“Phase two’s my favorite part,” Yoichi grins, and holds out his hand for a high-five.
• • •
“Are you,” Mitsuba sets down her mug of hot chocolate with enough force that Yoichi half-expects it to shatter, “fucking kidding me?”
Yoichi tilts his head, and it takes everything in him not to laugh. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve always hated you,” she says to Mika, who laughs wonderfully, and then directs her glare to Yoichi. “But you—you’re above this!”
“I told you,” he says calmly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That’s your story—it just didn’t happen?”
Mika and Yoichi are on opposite sides of the diner booth, strategically apart to affirm the punchline of the joke, and Mitsuba’s pissed to find she’s fallen for it.
“I don’t get it,” Yuu says finally. “You… aren’t together?”
“Yuu,” Mika’s beside him, and he smiles with sympathy. “Maybe you dreamt it?”
Yuu frowns at Yoichi from across the table, a pout that says traitor, and he pops the straw from his Coke into his mouth and turns his face away from both of them in his childish way.
Yoichi catches Mika’s glance moments later, a bright blue that has the corners of Yoichi’s mouth tugging up easily, and Mika busies himself with trying to pluck a strawberry from Yuu’s pancakes.
It earns him a kick from under the table, apparently, which even gets a laugh out of Mitsuba.
• • •
Yuu’s swearing under his breath at his game—Tales Of something, Yoichi thinks. He’s made himself a nest of blankets and pillows in front of the TV, and Yoichi’s laying in bed watching him play.
He’s got the game set on hard, ever the masochist, and it’s not going well for him.
He doesn’t flinch when there’s a knock on the door, and it’s odd that there even is one—Shinoa typically lets herself in, and if Mitsuba’s not trailing behind her, then she’s the one banging her fists against the door; a normal, polite tap is bizarre.
People usually stop by before 11 P.M., too, but.
“Not it,” Yoichi says, but Yuu huffs in response, stuck in the middle of a boss battle he’s lost four times and counting, and Yoichi drags himself, with some difficulty, out of bed.
When he pulls open the door, he’s looking up at Mika, who’s got his shoulder against the doorframe. Mika’s weird like Yuu—one for late nights.
“Yuu,” Yoichi says, then pauses to yawn before he turns back to their room. “Mika’s here,” an open invitation, and Mika shuts the door behind him when he follows.
Yuu doesn’t offer more than a noise of recognition; he doesn’t even turn his attention from his game—he’s losing again, Yoichi thinks, because he’s coming down on the controller’s buttons a little too hard.
Mika’s smiling fondly at Yuu’s back when Yoichi sits down on the edge of his bed, crossing his legs neatly.
“You’re still not talking to me,” Mika points out, amused.
“Shut up,” Yuu says. “I’m in the middle of—goddammit.”
They’re treated to Mika laughing, and Yoichi’s caught up in watching Yuu struggle when Mika takes a seat next to him; their thighs touch, and Yoichi redirects his attention.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi,” and Mika hesitates for a beat. “I got you a present.”
“It’s not Christmas yet,” Yoichi responds before he thinks too much about it, but the sneaking suspicion makes its way to him, and his cheeks go warm.
Mika is breaking the golden—really, the only rule of the fake dating game.
(Don’t actually fall for your pretend-boyfriend.)
“Close your eyes,” is what comes next, and Yoichi can’t bite back the laugh, because—
“Really? This is how you’re doing it?”
Mika’s unfazed, and Yoichi’s still got this quiet giggle going when Mika presses his forehead to his; Mika’s so comfortable with the closeness that Yoichi’s taken aback just a bit, wondering meekly if his face is warm to the touch.
“You’re impatient,” he tells him, conscious that his heartbeat’s picking up—not of nervousness, but something else.
“I am,” Mika says, rather exhales, with his mouth inches from Yoichi’s.
But it’s Yoichi that’s impatient, and it’s got him leaning in without further cue; Mika doesn’t mind it, and kissing him is easy—he’s met with enthusiasm from Mika’s end, and he brings his hand up to Yoichi’s blush-warm cheek when they pull apart.
Yoichi counts one, two heartbeats before Mika tilts his head to the left and kisses him again; a little different this time, a hint of something that’s almost heated, like he’s retaliating for being caught off guard, but he keeps it within the unspoken boundaries of a First Kiss.
They’re apart for air when Yoichi catches sight of the flush Mika’s acquired to match his, and he can’t help it when he smiles.
“Get a room,” Yuu says after a bit.
“This is my room.”
“Oh, Yuu,” Mika laughs a little, and wraps an arm around Yoichi’s shoulders. “I’ve got one for you, too.”
Yuu laughs as his game reloads from his sixth or seventh loss. “I don’t want it,” he says, and Mika laughs too.