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Momo of Re:vale was on top of the world, if you ignored his crippling anxiety about Yuki and Ban-san’s relationship. Yes, Yuki said that Momo was the only partner he’d want in any world; yes, Ban-san had tried to swear hundreds of times and in hundreds of ways that he was never going to work with Yuki ever again. It didn’t help. It didn’t help in ways that Momo couldn’t even articulate, because as much as he loved it when Yuki said he only wanted Momo, he despised it when Ban-san said that he didn’t want Yuki, and maybe it would be easier if they were fighting, because then Momo’s duty would be clear, because then there would only be the one choice, because then Yuki and Ban-san would be happy and Momo would still be torn, but he was so, so, so good at swallowing down his unhappiness, and when you didn’t have a partner unhappiness was even easier to hide.
But he was selfish and he was greedy, and he didn’t want to give up his Yuki-san, and he didn’t want to give up Ban-san, either, even though it would be so much easier if Ban-san would just disappear out of their lives again. The hurt would be simple and uncomplicated then; Momo would not be the worst, most jealous partner alive if he were upset over Ban-san leaving and not Ban-san staying. And he knew that he would be upset—he got upset when Ban-san took longer than a minute to reply to his texts, and he got upset when work cut their conversations short, and he got upset when the Idolish7 boys dared claim they cared about Ban-san anywhere even approaching the amount Momo did.
He was not having a great time with his warring emotions, even if he managed to keep them mostly under wraps and locked away. Luckily for him, though, he did not at present have to deal with them alone: it was a rare day that he and Yuki and Ban-san all had off (though, technically, Ban-san had not had today off until Momo hit him with puppy dog eyes in his office and Yuki went and pled their case to Ban-san’s boss) and they were spending it walking around the city together, mostly windowshopping for now because they didn’t want to have to carry around too many things and possibly cut down on their time together. It was a great day—warm but not too warm, with just enough clouds in the sky to look like a child’s drawing, and they hadn’t attracted too much attention to themselves, which meant that there was plenty of time to focus on each other. Things were good—Ban-san was threatening to start sending a daily ranking of which Re:vale member he liked better, and Yuki was protesting this because they all knew it would be a daily text of Momo-kun is my favorite, Momo-kun is my favorite, Momo-kun is my favorite, and Momo was egging him on, because he kind of wanted that sort of good morning text, actually. He knew Yuki and Ban-san well enough to know that the moment he voiced this desire, it would happen: Yuki would stop complaining and would encourage Ban-san to do it, and Ban-san would, immediately and happily. It would be a lot more fun, though, if he and Yuki were competing for Ban-san’s favor like knights in a tournament, or perhaps like dating show contestants, so he waited for this to resolve itself without his input.
They rounded a corner down another street lined with somewhat smaller shops; Yuki’s eye caught on one and it glittered with dark mischief. “Momo, Ban, look,” he said. “It’s a pet shop. We should go in.”
Ban looked where Yuki was pointing, and his face went pale. “Absolutely not,” he said.
“Why?” asked Yuki. “If I got you a pet, I’m sure I’d be your favorite for once.”
“Don’t buy people pets as presents,” Ban-san said, pinching Yuki’s cheek. “That is a living thing that will rely on the person for every single one of their needs, and if the person isn’t able to provide that, then the pet is the one who suffers. Also, it is a terrible idea to go to that pet store, specifically, and we should leave right now.”
“Why that one specifically?” Momo asked.
“The owner is a piece of work,” Ban-san said. “Seriously. If you step into his shop he will find a way to get money out of you—”
“So we buy you a pet—”
“Why would I need a pet?” said Ban-san. “We’re speaking again, aren’t we?”
“If I’m your pet, can I sleep in your bed?” said Yuki.
“Absolutely not.”
Momo’s eyes glittered. “Ban-san,” he said, “could I maybe sleep in your bed as a pet?”
This was a gamble, and a gamble that seemed to pay off, because Ban-san’s face turned red, and he said, “If that were to happen, I would much rather you sleep in my bed as a human, and as a wonderful young man whom I deeply respect and like very much.”
Momo blue-screened. The gamble, then, had not paid off, or had paid off in a way that incapacitated Momo far more than its failure would have done. Moreover, as he blushed and stammered and pinned Ban-san saying that he liked him very much down in his brain for eternity, the door to the pet store opened, and Momo did not react in time as Ban-san grabbed his wrist and Yuki’s and began bodily hauling them away from the shop.
By the time they reached a coffee shop, Momo had nearly lost consciousness from the combination of Ban-san’s words and Ban-san’s hand on his wrist, and Yuki had decided that Ban-san needed to explain what was going on, and so they all sat at the table and Ban-san went up to order drinks for everyone and Momo did some deep breathing exercises and packed away all the possibilities for ‘sleeping in Ban-san’s bed as as human’ to be examined in private, and possibly with a few implements for private physical pleasure.
Ban-san returned with their coffees—Momo’s was decaf, which was fair, and Ban-san had also brought him a camomile tea, which was a little embarrassing—and sat down, and then Yuki got serious.
“Ban,” he said, “what was the deal with that pet store? There’s no way you reacted like that just because you don’t want me to buy you a pet. Especially since one of the reasons you work overtime is to take care of your boss’s rabbit.”
“Well, I don’t want you to buy me a pet,” Ban-san said. “I wouldn’t have time to care for it. But, yeah. That pet shop is different, and I don’t want either of you going there, ever.”
“What?” said Momo. “That’s—”
“There is a similar rule in place for every employee of Takanashi Productions. Don’t go to that shop, don’t even go near it. The only person exempt is the boss, who can purchase supplies for Kinako there—but that’s it, and even that’s a bit of a risk, honestly.”
“Why?” asked Momo.
“That seems like a lot of rules around just one run-down, independent pet store,” Yuki added. “I didn’t think you were the type.”
“Type to what?”
“Follow some dumb, baseless rule that stringently.”
Ban-san huffed, irritated. “It’s not dumb, or baseless,” he said. “I was—hired after an unfortunate encounter with that shop. It was cold outside, I stepped inside to warm up, and upon learning I didn’t intend to buy anything the shopkeeper cursed me and transformed me into a cat. It was abjectly humiliating. Luckily, the boss found me, paid the adoption fees, and broke the curse, but in the end I was a cat for over six months. I don’t want that to happen to either of you.”
“Becoming a cat might be a nice break from work…” said Yuki.
“Cats can’t compose music.”
“I would be a person shaped like a cat,” Yuki argued, “so if I was careful I still could—”
Ban-san rolled his eyes. “You would retain your human mind for about an hour, and after that you would have the mind of a cat,” he said. “A cat’s level of understanding, and a cat’s ability to compose music. What do you think that level is, dumbass?”
“Well, Momo had a cat once, and it was smart enough to understand and respond to what we were saying,” Yuki said. “It was cute, and also insane. It especially liked to bite me whenever I tried to pet it, unless it was half-asleep or sick. Then I was its favorite. If all cats are that smart, then I’m sure I could still compose music, and live as a cat.”
“Cats are obligate carnivores, darling,” Momo reminded him. “I don’t think you’d be very happy only eating meat and fish.”
“I would be the first vegetarian cat.”
“But what if you died of malnourishment?! Ban-san, tell Yuki that—” Momo paused. “Ban-san, are you feeling alright?”
Because strangely enough, Ban-san’s face had gone entirely pale, and he looked as though he might throw up any moment now. He was staring into his drink in abject horror, even though it looked totally fine, and Momo was about to offer to fight the barista for his honor when Ban-san spoke up.
“This cat—” he said, “—about what were the dates in which you had it?”
Momo frowned. “Around five years ago…” he said, “just when Yuki and I were, um, starting out. I found him in an alleyway that April with an infected head injury, and he ran away at the beginning of October, right when we were talking about getting him fixed. Why?”
The cat died, Yuki mouthed, behind Momo’s back. Stop asking questions about this. It ran away and died so that Momo’s heart wouldn’t be broken by finding its corpse. It’s a dead cat. Stop asking questions about it.
“And whenever he was aware of Yuki’s presence he bit him.”
“He scratched him once, when I first brought him home,” said Momo, “but I gave him a stern talking-to and he never did it again!”
Ban-san’s face went through a strange rotation of emotions before finally settling on defeat, and he said, “Momo-kun, that might not have been a real cat.”
“Well, the vet did say that it might have been a cursed hu—”
Momo looked very closely at Ban-san’s face, which was incredibly red; Ban-san did not meet his eyes, and looked rather like he wished he could be anywhere but here.
“Ban-san, you weren’t. ”
“I don’t know,” Ban-san said tightly. “The time period does line up. As do—some of the memories I have of being a cat. Such as being convinced I was trapped in a small area with Yuki in it and doing my best to get him to leave, as I was unable to, due to being somebody’s pet cat.”
“Why were you trying to get rid of me?” Yuki asked. “If this was—during that time, then—”
Then they both had very much wanted the five years deal. They had, in fact, both hoped that it would last far, far shorter than five years. If Ban-san had shown up then, and they’d known him, then…
“—then we could have sorted everything out so much earlier,” Yuki said. “Momo wouldn’t have suffered for so long. He wouldn’t have had any doubts about being my partner! Ban, what were you thinking?!”
As per usual, Momo thought, endeared despite himself, we are not on the same page about this thing at all.
“Well, Yuki,” Ban-san said dryly, “I was a cat. With a cat’s understanding of events. As far as I can remember, my perception shifted from ‘oh, this is great, I’m getting to spend time with the guy I have a crush on’ and ‘fuck fuck fuck fuck Yuki’s here, he’s going to end up seriously hurt because he’s near me’. And when the curse was broken, I wasn’t around either of you and just assumed—and we don’t know for certain that this wasn’t true!—that I’d ended up taken in by a pair of complete strangers who I just mistook for the two of you. At the time I didn’t know you were partners, and when I did learn that you were together, I didn’t connect it with the cat thing, because the number of coincidences required to make that happen are, quite frankly, insane.”
“That is true…” said Yuki. “We’ll need to prove it, then.”
“I don’t think there’s any way to do that—”
“We go back the the pet store.”
“No,” said Ban-san. “Absolutely not, are you insane? I have a life! And a job!”
“It would just be for one day—”
“No way, I will not go along with this farce, Momo-kun, you agree with me that this is ridiculous, right?”
Ban-san probably really didn’t want to turn into a cat again. Judging both by his relation of the story and Momo’s encounter with his little cat, it had probably been a very humiliating and painful time in his life that he didn’t enjoy thinking about and had even less desire to relive. There was an almost zero chance that he would acquiesce to Yuki’s requests here—that is, assuming it was just Yuki making the request.
Momo put on his best puppy dog eyes and turned to Ban-san, and he said, “Ban-san, I’ve worried about what happened to my cat for the past five years. I’ve constantly wondered if or when he would turn up again, and whether or not he was safe. If we could prove whether or not you were my cat, it would be really reassuring for me. Please?”
Ban-san lasted impressively long against this new assault; Momo was fairly certain that he’d actually set a new record for himself in holding out against Momo’s greatest weapon, his puppy dog eyes. It was seven whole seconds before Ban-san sighed, and his shoulders slumped, and he relented.
“Alright,” he said. “We can see if I can temporarily be turned back into a cat—so long as none of the pictures you two inevitably take will be seen by anyone else who knows me at all, and so long as I don’t miss any work. Does that sound fair to you?”
Yuki and Momo met eyes. Momo for once knew exactly what Yuki was thinking, because for once Momo was thinking it too: Ban-san’s boss had requested that they find a way to convince Ban-san to start using his vacation time, even if it was for no other reason than to get away from them. This was a much better reason: Ban-san could use his vacation time to be their pet cat. This was an excellent plan with zero downsides whatsoever, and if Ban-san was mad about it when he turned human again Momo would just blame Yuki, and then maybe they’d really get those daily ranking texts.
“Yep!” Momo chirped. “Perfectly fair!”
“You’re going to be such a cute cat, Ban,” Yuki said, and Ban-san raised both of his middle fingers to him.
Yeah. This was going to be great.