Chapter Text
Everything was going fine, until Ayase found out about the bet.
It’s loud in the dining room, same as it always is, everything ordered in a kind of comfortably familiar chaos: Kinta loudly explaining some fan theory to Vamora (held captive by politeness); Ayase and Aira bickering over the last bit of tuna sashimi; Seiko holding court in the corner, surrounded by a cloud of cigarette smoke; Turbo Granny attempting to stuff a frankly obscene amount of pork buns into her maw and chew without them bursting out of her mouth.
Ken is content, as always, to sit in the middle of it all in his place right next to Ayase, dodging the occasional flying elbow, warding off attempted food-thieves, and pretending not to notice when Ayase’s sweater sleeve brushes his jacket.
It’s nice. Having friends. Feeling comfortable. Everything is exactly how Ken likes it, how he’s always wanted.
And then, of course, Ayase overhears something, and everything goes to shit.
“What bet?” Ayase demands, hands on her hips, surveying the room with the ‘you better not be fucking with me’ glare that Ken’s gotten familiar with. The same one he’s been on the receiving end of. A lot, actually. It hasn’t quite yet lost its fear-inducing capabilities, but it’s started to get to the point where it’s at least a little endearing: the way her mouth flattens and juts forward, her irises darkening from maroon to the color of hot coffee.
“Do you know what they’re talking about?” Ayase swivels sharply to him. He shoves away the kneejerk ‘oh. Pretty’ thought that likes to burst over the front of his brain and drown out everything else, and shakes his head quickly. He allows himself a brief moment of pride before remembering.
“No–what bet?” he asks.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jiji says, an evil smile cracking across his face.
“ What . Bet .” Ayase insists, planting her hands and leaning across the table.
“Ayase-san,” Ken mutters. A feeling that there’s something dangerous about this conversation creeps up his spine.
“Ayase, really, it’s nothing,” Aira says.
“If you say it’s nothing, then something’s definitely going on,” Ayase fires back.
“Just a joke,” Vamora supplies.
“Calm down, Momo,” Seiko calls over from the corner.
“No. None of you are leaving til you tell us what’s going on,” Ayase insists. She waves her hands, and glowing cyan psychic-hands clap down over the doorways.
“But Momoooooo–” Jiji starts.
“No. One. Leaves,”
Everyone goes unnaturally still (except for Turbo Granny, who has somehow managed to fit five buns into her mouth and is working on a sixth) as Ayase sweeps the room, pinning each of them with a fierce glare. Kinta pulls his shoulders back, resolutely staring at the ground with an expression that looks more constipated than heroically stoic.
Vamora cracks first.
“On when you two are finally gonna get it together,” she squeaks. Ayase stiffens next to him.
“Get what?” Ken asks, racking his brain for what he could have possibly forgotten this time. Jiji drops his head to the table, and Turbo Granny mumbles something through a mouth full of pork bun. Ken catches something about ‘ giving powers to someone with brains next time.’
“Why do you care?” Ayase demands.
“Wanted to take Seiko’s money,” Turbo Granny answers, stuffing another bun in her mouth. Ayase rounds on her grandmother, parked in the corner and watching the chaos unfold through a haze of cigarette smoke.
“You started this?”
Seiko shrugs, taking a long drag. “Though I might as well make the wait more interesting.”
“Seiko-san, I’m sorry, I don’t understand–” Ken starts, but it’s drowned out by a bellow of rage from Ayase.
Aira sighs. “I told you, both of them. It was cute at first, but now it’s just…”
“Painful?” Vamora supplies. Aira nods vigorously.
“What’s painful, ” Ken insists, trying to ignore the frustration building inside his throat.
“Takakura, you have got to be fucking with me,” Jiji groans, forehead still glued to the table.
“Really, I don’t–”
And then it hits him: Ayase’s face, bright red flooding to her cheeks, you two –
“Why would you–” he sputters, but it’s drowned out–
“ How much money did you put on this?” Ayase shrieks. Seiko’s answer is drowned out in turn as Turbo Granny doubles over, spewing half-chewed pork buns across the room.
“That’s it. Your skin. My wall!” Seiko shouts, clambering to her feet. Turbo Granny launches herself towards the doorway, Seiko pounding after her.
“ANSWER ME,” Ayase bellows, hot on their heels, footsteps rattling the entire house, leaving the dining room in a kind of awkward silence vacuum.
When you two are gonna get it together–
Ken tries to squash the little half-pleased, half-embarrassed thing that flickers up inside his chest. Because it’s not like he hasn’t thought about it, but ‘it’ is always a dangerous path to go down. If there’s the occasional moment where he thinks about what it’d be like to close the distance, where he wonders if she feels the same burst of warmth whenever she sees him, those are easy enough to push away. His friendship with Ayase–the first person to really talk to him, the first person who seemed to like spending time with him–that comes first. Always.
“So,” he says awkwardly. “When did you all think…”
“New Year’s,” Aira says. Vamora nods. “During fireworks,” she chirps.
Kinta folds his arms. “Next apocalyptic event. Nearly dying, emotions running high, all of that.”
Jiji raises his hand sheepishly. “End of November.”
“That’s next week!” Ken yelps. Jiji shrugs, shit-eating grin crossing his face as he slurps up the last bit of broth from his ramen.
“Well, maybe all of you are wrong,” Ayase yells, appearing suddenly in the doorway, Seiko skidding to a stop behind her.
“And how’s that?” Seiko fires back, striding back to her corner. Ken braces himself for the inevitable ‘because we’re just friends, and it’ll never–’
“Because we’re already dating!”
It takes Ken a few seconds to process Ayase’s sudden reappearance, and more to realize what she’s just said. There’s a brief moment of ethereal lightness, like the floor’s just dropped out from underneath him, “We already are, we already are” echoing giddily around him.
And then it sinks in, and it feels like everything he’s eaten in the past hour might come back up.
“Since when? ” Aira demands.
“None of your business,” Ayase fires back. “Skank,” she adds, almost as an afterthought.
Aira sniffs, tossing her hair behind her shoulder. “Uninterested. I’ve already told you. That was an infatuation. Brief and childish. Not,” she sniffs again. “That I owe any of you an explanation.” Ken catches her gaze flicking quickly towards Jiji, fast enough that it could be passed off easily.
Ayase stomps across the room and flops back down next to Ken, angrily pulling every dish in reach towards her and dumping it into her bowl. Blood surges to Ken’s ears, and the only thing that he can think is that she’s too close and the room is too warm and too much has happened. He stands, and everyone falls silent.
“It’s late,” Ken says, adjusting his glasses and looking determinedly at the floor. “I think I’m gonna turn in. Night everyone.”
They split off easily enough, considering the chaos–girls to Ayase’s, boys to the guest room, same as always. As the girls leave, he overhears a hissed ‘why didn’t you tell us?’ from Aira and a muffled retort from Ayase.
Ken ignores the bullet-fast questions pouring from Jiji and Kinta as they get ready for bed, deflecting with shrugs and muttered ‘I dunno’s and ‘I’ll explain later’ s. Jiji and Kinta’s interrogation eventually gives way to faint snores, and Ken is left staring up at the ceiling in silence. The old-fashioned scent of the lavender Seiko stuffs in every corner of the storage closets rises faintly from the futon.
We already are, we already are, we already are, Ayase’s voice chants over and over in his head. Maybe she was joking, even though Ayase’s humor usually has the subtlety of a forklift, because it’s not like she was asking him out, but if she was–
Finally, the darkness and the quiet is too much. He pushes back his covers, feels around for his sneakers, and carefully slides open the door to the outside.
Ayase whirls around, halfway down the main steps, and he freezes.
“Hi,” he says. “Are you…” also thinking about the Thing You Said and what you meant by it and if–
“Just gonna go for a walk,” she says, interrupting Ken’s train of thought before it can go totally off the rails. She doesn’t ask if he wants to join, but he falls in next to her, the half-frozen mud crunching under their shoes as they pass under the torii gate.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Ken says. Ayase shrugs. It’s too late in the season for crickets, and they’re left walking in silence along the dirt road next to the rice paddies.
Ken stuffs his hands in his jacket pockets ‘‘we’re already dating, we’re already dating,” still bouncing around his head. He misses the crickets.
“Think they see our sun?” Ayase asks, nodding up at the stars.
Ken shakes his head. “Too far,” he says. “Even if we had a powerful enough telescope, light takes so long to travel that we’d probably only be able to see it way way in the future.”
Ayase hums. “Probably a good thing, anyways. Not like we need any more of them to deal with right now.”
“Probably,” Ken agrees.
They keep going in silence for a few moments, the damp countryside air sinking straight through Ken's too-light jacket.
“Sorry about earlier,” Ayase says, finally.
“‘S fine,” he mutters, even though he still wants to ask what exactly made her say that in the first place.
“It’s just, we’ve been close my whole life, my grandma and I,” Ayase says. She tilts her head back, looking up at the stars. “But it feels like lately, the past couple years, it’s impossible to get her to listen to anything I say. I just wanted to shock her, I guess, you know? Prove that she doesn’t know everything about me.”
Ken nods, wishing desperately for some kind of magically brilliant response to come to mind, something tactful and insightful that would–
“I guess we should tell her,” Ayase says, kicking a pebble out in front of them. “She’s gonna be so full of herself though, all that ‘I told you so ’ bullshit–”
“We don’t have to,” Ken says, the words slipping out before he can stop them.
Ayase stops, quick enough that it could have been her tripping over a rut in the road.
Ken silently curses the ridiculously short lifespan of crickets– surely some of them could have tried to hold on through November– then turns to sneak a quick glance back at Ayase.
She looks almost surprised, standing stock-still in the middle of the road.
“You want to…” she starts.
“No–I mean–not for real,” he stammers.
“What do you mean, not for real?” she demands. “I’m not good enough for you?”
“Yes–no–” he feels his hand lift unconsciously to readjust his glasses.
“Make up your mind, then!” Ayase snaps. “What’re you trying to say–”
“Will you shut up and listen to me for five seconds?” Ken snaps. It’s gotten harder to yell at Ayase in recent months, but sometimes, it’s the only way to get through to her.
He sucks in a deep breath, trying to collect himself.
“We don’t have to actually date,” Ken says, mouth uncomfortably dry. “We just. Tell them we are.”
Ayase is silent for a moment, giving Ken just enough time to start panicking again, when–
“Fake dating?” Ayase says. Ken can hear the amused, twisted grin creeping across her face. “Didn’t think you had it in you.”
“I’m just saying,” he says. “They were all trying to win a bet, right? This way, no one does.”
Ayase nods slowly. “Alright then. We pretend to already be together. None of them can cash in on their bet.”
“Good with me,” he says.
By the time they’ve looped back around to Ayase’s house, they’ve hammered out the basic framework of their little scheme-hoax, with a provision to figure out details as they arise.
When they reach the porch, Ayase stops abruptly and turns towards him, and for a split second, Ken’s terrified that he’s done something wrong, that she’s going to yell at him for even suggesting this stupid, stupid plan–
“It’s your turn to say it,” Ayase says. The dim lamplight catches at the brown-black flecks in her irises, flies caught in amber.
“That’s for when I’m leaving, right?” he asks. “I’m just going to the guest room.”
Ayase frowns, a tiny line appearing under her mouth. “We both say it then.”
“Okay,” he says.
“Okay.”
“Who goes first?”
“You’re impossible,” Ayase groans, staggering up the steps. “Night, Okarun.”
“Good night, Ayase-san,” he answers.
He stands there for a moment, watching as the lights in the main house go off, before heading back to the guest room.
Ken slides the door open as quietly as he can, wincing at the scrape of wood-on-wood. He takes off his shoes and carefully picks his way over Kinta and Jiji’s still forms, thanking every power at work that they’d apparently slept through his absence.
“Soooooo, where were you?” Jiji’s voice rises up from his futon, evil and fully awake.
“Dumbass,” Kinta grumbles. “Obviously, he was–”
“Nothing,” Ken cuts them off. “Just couldn’t sleep. Went for a walk.” He sits down and pulls off his sweatshirt, folding it neatly next to his pillow, then places his glasses carefully on top.
“That was Ayase’s voice outside,” Kinta observes.
“We were just walking,” Ken insists, clambering under the covers. “We both couldn’t sleep, we both went for a walk, end of story.”
“But you liiiiike her, right?” Jiji says, propping himself up on his elbows.
“Ayase-san’s my--” girlfriend, now, apparently. "We were just walking," he finishes lamely.
“You’re blushing,” Kinta says.
“How can you see that, it’s pitch dark in here,” Ken snaps, praying that it doesn’t sound defensive.
“I just know,” Kinta says. Ken huffs out a breath. Kinta’s self-declared expertise is endearing, most of the time, but this is verging into dangerous territory.
“Soooooo, just a walk, then?” Jiji says. Ken can hear his mouth curling up in another trademark Jiji smirk.
“Like in Genji no Monogatari,” Kinta says. “You know how they say Genji was just visiting all those ladies, but really, he was–” This quickly devolves into an argument over whether Kinta’s actually read the original Tale of Genji, and then into whether Jiji knows how to read, and then (somehow) into whether Turbo Granny could be convinced to use a litterbox, before finally, mercifully, both of them somehow fall asleep.
It’s only after both Jiji and Kinta’s snores start up that Ken realizes that he and Ayase never set an end date.