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“Hey, hey, hey!! You aren’t gonna retreat that easily!” Taniyama growls. Rui tries to shake him off like a bug, but he’s not making much progress. Taniyama pulls his arm like tug-of-war rope, then looks up at Hayashi and Miyake, who are just watching him struggle in vain on the showman.
“Are you done trying to pull his arm out of socket?” Hayashi asks, fixing his glasses. Taniyama growls again and gives one final yank, before he huffs and lets go. Rui looks at the three and keeps a hand on his door suspiciously.
He slinks back behind it like a shield, then scans the nearby bushes around his house. “Where is he…?”
His classmates all laugh amongst themselves, and Rui raises an eyebrow. Miyake snorts.
“You don’t keep a tracker on him?” He jokes, tilting his head. Hayashi gasps dramatically and covers his mouth.
“The one-two combo isn’t joined at the hip?!” Taniyama shouts, slapping his hands to the sides of his face. “Have I been living a lie?”
Rui narrows his eyes and scrunches his nose in distaste, blows a raspberry, and steps out of his house. He feels his pocket and pulls his phone out, rapidly taps his screen, and turns it off moments later.
“Okay, okay, I texted him.” He waves his hand dismissively. “I asked if he was free to come hangout at the arcade.”
“Did you mention that we’re here too?” Miyake confirms, raising his eyebrow.
“And did you have to make it sound like an invitation to a date?” Taniyama pretends to gag. “No need to make it any more obvious than it is, Kamishiro!”
“It is not obvious–”
Hayashi snaps and points at Rui, who freezes. “So there is something!”
The director grabs his door and seems tempted to step back inside with a grimace. His phone lights up before he can try, causing another wave of snickers that he ignores.
“He’s free,” Rui announces. “And he can meet at the arcade.”
Hayashi and Miyake high five, and Taniyama grabs Rui by the arm while his guard is down. He’s dragged onto the sidewalk in moments and trips over his own feet on the way there.
“Tenma!” Taniyama shouts, waving. The blond looks up from his phone where he stands outside of the arcade. He beams, then catches sight of everyone else.
He waves at the group walking down the street at him. “Ha! When Rui texted me, I didn’t expect him to bring his own entourage! I should’ve prepared accordingly!”
“Sorry,” Rui laughs, only a bit sheepish, before he steps over to the blond’s side. “Forgot to mention it.”
“It’s fine! All the more fun!” Tsukasa brushes it off. He looks at Rui’s friends (and by extension, his own) before he nods to the door with neon lights and signs.
Taniyama rushes in, leaving Hayashi and Miyake to follow behind, then Rui and Tsukasa slip in after. In front of them, all sorts of games await. Puyo Puyo was the obvious choice, and Taniyama pounced on it.
He got Miyake to play against him, and as Tsukasa and Hayashi watched, Rui scouted out the prize corner. He spotted a white horse on the top, curling golden horn stitched into its forehead.
It wasn’t a pegasus, but it'd work just fine.
He turns on his heel and hooks his arm over Tsukasa’s shoulder innocently, then leans over to look him in the eyes. He grins.
“Does our star feel up for a little game of Dance Dance Revolution?” He purrs, pointing at the machine. It was currently unoccupied, and it was the one machine that he knew Tsukasa would excel at naturally. And as expected, the blond smiles confidently and laughs.
“Of course! A star is nothing without footwork! This will be a fine display of my skills!” He practically shouts, then pushes Rui off to stride towards the machine. He steps on one of the consoles, and Rui slips up onto the other.
“Then you’ll have no problem with the song I’d like to play first– as a warmup, really.” Rui says, sliding some coins into the machine and tapping a song. It was all, of course, his master plan. He was going to bombard Tsukasa with love songs on the machine to subconsciously allow any romantic or mushy feelings fester between them.
Tsukasa scrunches his nose as song title, KISS KISS KISS, flashes onto the screen. Rui presses the Basic level and Tsukasa chooses Difficult. He grabs the rail behind him, lets it run through the animations and all, before the song starts. He grips it until his knuckles turn white.
“I’m surprised Rui didn’t try and show off on Difficult.” Hayashi stage-whispers, elbowing Miyake after a harrowing loss on Puyo Puyo. He and Taniyama look back at Rui and Tsukasa, who have already gone into action.
“Look at the song he picked, he’s probably too busy imagining them making out or somethin’.” Taniyama huffs, pulling his tickets out the machine and bundling them up in his hands.
“You think he’s gonna trade for a prize to give his knight in shining armour?” Miyake asks.
“He probably already figured out what he’s getting.”
“You guys wanna try to guess?”
“Uhh, what’s Tenma’s favourite animal?” Hayashi says, and they all stop and look between each other. Crickets chirp. Someone makes a quiet ‘ uhh…’ and they all turn to look at the prize counter.
Their eyes scan over the wall of prizes, all the random things that had just been selected randomly for whoever wanted to waste time in the arcade, before all three of them spot the same prize at once.
“Oh,” Miyake says. “Well that was obvious.”
“How many tickets for it?” Taniyama asks.
“Let’s see…” Miyake adjusts his glasses, squints, and then crosses his arms. “500.”
“How many did you get from winning Puyo Puyo?”
“Twelve,” Taniyama grumbles. Before anyone else can say anything, a certain laughter rumbles behind them.
Miyake laughs and turns around. Rui is leaning against the back rail, looking a little bit winded, while Tsukasa grins and stands tall in the center. He looks at his score and says something to Rui, who huffs and stands up straight.
“You wanna pool our tickets for him so he can get that big unicorn for Tenma?” Hayashi asks. Taniyama and Miyake nod.
“Of course. Rui is a pathetic man, we’ll do our best to help him out.” Miyake says.
“Plus, I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen him get Tenma all worked up.” Taniyama shrugs. “I’ll go distract him when they’re done so you can tell Rui the plan.”
“Good. We should divide and conquer, monopolize the machines that we’re good at.” Miyake agrees. “Hayashi, can you keep a total of what we have altogether?”
“Yeah, got it.” He nods.
“So, uh, team on 3?” Miyake tries, putting his hand out. Taniyama and Hayashi look at him, then shake their heads.
“Nah, that just feels stupid. Let’s go.” Taniyama pats his shoulder, then vanishes into the labyrinth of games. Hayashi gives him an apologetic shrug.
“Maybe next time.” He says, then finds his own game to win. Miyake sighs.
“You’re going to…help me?” Rui asks, eyebrow raised suspiciously. Miyake nods, and Hayashi gives him a thumbs up.
“Of course! We see how happy you two are, so we gotta help you make your boyfriend smile!” Hayashi says, and the director seems to go limp. His face slacks and turns bright red, before he brings his hand over his mouth and looks away.
“We’re…we’re not…” He struggles, then clears his throat. “Tsukasa’s not my…boyfriend…”
“He’s not?” Miyake says, jaw dropping. He looks at Hayashi, who has a similar expression. Rui shakes his head, and Miyake just smiles understandingly.
“No, I can’t deny I’d like to–”
“Leave it to us.” Miyake says. “How many tickets are you at right now?”
Rui helplessly gapes like a fish, then fumbles in his pocket for the tickets. He looks inside, twists his face, and shrugs. “Somewhere like 50.”
“We’ve got 137, not counting Taniyama’s!” Hayashi beams. “Don’t worry!”
“Thanks, but I really don’t know–” Rui tries, and Tsukasa and Taniyama glide over to join them. Tsukasa slings his arm around Rui, just like the director had done earlier, and laughs.
“Wanna play a fighting game?” He asks, pretending to punch Rui in the gut.
“Sure!” He says hurriedly, then spares a glance at Miyake. He mouths a small thank you as Tsukasa drags him away and says something about combos and chain skills.
“I managed to cough up 46 tickets,” Taniyama says. “What’s that put us at?”
Hayashi got his phone’s calculator up. “Our 137, plus Rui’s 50 is 187, then we add your 46….233. Out of 500.”
Taniyama groans. “We’ll be here a while.”
“Just play the games, it can’t be too hard.” Miyake says. “We each only need about 90 more, that’s not impossible.”
Hayashi sighs and puts his phone in his pocket. “Time to get to work, I guess…”
“Yeah…good luck.” Miyake says. Again, they part ways. He passes Rui and Tsukasa, in the midst of a match. Rui seemed to be losing, but they way they were going back and forth, he sounded almost happy about it.
“I got it! I got it! I got it!” Taniyama shouts, running over to Miyake. He has a long strand of tickets in his fist, trailing behind him. “Get Hayashi! I just hit the jackpot! 60 from one machine!! I got 93.”
“93? That’s good…Rui should have enough to get the unicorn now.” Miyake says. “Give me those, go distract Tenma. Convince him that we’re hungry and ready to leave, invite him to get some food while Rui gets the unicorn for him.”
Taniyama shoves the tickets into Miyake’a hands and bounds away. He relays off to Hayashi, who confidently shows that they now have enough to get the unicorn. He runs off to Rui and beckons him over with the excuse that there’a a game he wants to play.
“Here. Go get the prize for Tenma.” He says, putting the massive bundle of tickets in Rui’s arms. He looks at them all and furrows his brow, then back up at Miyake.
“I…Thank you. I owe you.” He says.
“You’ll owe us later, we’re going for food after this.” Miyake laughs. “Go on. We’ll be outside.”
Rui nods and scurries off to the prize corner. Taniyama and Hayashi steer Tsukasa over to Miyake, and the blond looks around. The prize corner wasn’t visible or in sight of the door, so they were safe to make it outside without Tsukasa seeing the unicorn, at least.
“Where’d Rui go?” He asks. “We’re going to get food now, I thought you were playing a game.”
“Ah, Rui had to, uh, piss,” Miyake says hurriedly. “He’ll be out in a minute. He said wait outside for him.”
“Oh, alright! Sounds good!” Tsukasa says. He leads the three outside, and it’s not long before Rui comes out with a massive unicorn in his arms.
He leans around from the side of it, then smiles at Tsukasa. His eyes crinkle at the edges. He pushes it towards the blond. “Surprise!”
"Surprise?!” He gapes, looking it up and down. “This is for me?!”
“Well, yeah…It is…” Rui says, handing it off carefully. It was about a third of Tsukasa’s size. He holds it tight. “Do you like it?”
“You won this? Just for me?” Tsukasa mumbles. Rui nods.
“It made me think of you!” He says. Behind Tsukasa, Taniyama makes a gagging motion. Rui holds a scowl from his face, instead hunting Tsukasa’s features for a reaction.
The blond lights up. “It’s wonderful!”
“Should we…step away for a bit?” Taniyama whispers. Hayashi shrugs.
“Do you wanna watch this?”
“I don’t wanna see them try to kiss with that big horse in their way.”
“Do you wanna see them kiss without it?”
“...Touché.” Taniyama grumbles, then gets his phone out. He tries to ignore the gross theater kid confession– not that he’s homophobic or anything, he just gets awful secondhand embarrassment whenever the weirdo combo gets dramatic.
The next time he looks up, Rui’s holding Tsukasa’s hand. He grins. “Can we go get some food now? You had your little moment, now I’m hungry!”
“I agree! Playing Dance Dance Revolution is no simple task!” Tsukasa says. He holds the unicorn in one arm like a toddler, and his other hand is laced with Rui’s. “Let’s go, I don’t mind where!"
“Dude, are we…third wheeling?” Taniyama asks.
Rui lifts his spoon up to Tsukasa’s mouth. He feeds him a spoonful of ice cream. A smear of it is traced across his lip.
“Nah, there’s five of us.” Miyake replies, holding his fingers up.
“Then are we…” Taniyama pauses in thought. “Tricycling?”
“What does that even mean?” Hayashi asks. He takes a sip of his milkshake.
Rui wipes the smudge of ice cream away with his thumb, then licks it. Tsukasa sighs and grabs a napkin, wiping his face off before Rui can wipe any more away.
He lifts his spoon to Tsukasa’s lips again, this time intentionally getting a dollop on the blond’s cheek.
“Maybe they’re in two-wheel drive, and we’re like…rear and spare tires.” Taniyama tries again.
Tsukasa reaches for the napkin again, but Rui grabs his chin.
“Can you cut it out with the wheel metaphors?” Hayashi groans. Taniyama shrugs, then licks a stripe up his ice cream cone.
Rui kisses the ice cream off of Tsukasa’s cheek.
“I think I’m going to drive off of a cliff.” Miyake says, grimacing. Hayashi and Taniyama grumble in agreement. The director draws away from the star and licks his lips. Tsukasa grimaces and wipes his flushed face again.
Taniyama fashions a spitball at lightning speed and shoots it at Rui, who suddenly remembers they were watching from across the table. His eyes land on the three of his friends.
Taniyama lowers his straw from his lips. “Get a room!”