Chapter Text
Since rooming in with Isagi, Bachira felt that everyday was exciting. Sure, they had their little disagreements inside their room and during their work in the ramen house, but being with Isagi felt like a little peace of heaven for him. He grew up being misunderstood by his classmates since grade school, and he was bullied because he was strange. But with Isagi, he felt that he could freely talk and be himself.
As for Isagi, Bachira was like the sun, always bright and happy. But his roommate's sunny disposition went so far as to walking around in their room naked. As they had their own bathroom and toilet in the second floor, Bachira was so shameless and felt right at home walking around without clothes on. (And it also shocked Nanase, Chigiri, and Kunigami). It was something that Isagi had to lived with the moment he signed up to be Bachira's roommate.
But Bachira thought it was fun, and he prodded Isagi to try it too. He laughed when he noted the intense blush on Isagi's cheeks. And Isagi had to beg him to put some clothes on, or he had to shut the blinds in their room.
Other than that, both Isagi and Bachira co-exited peacefully.
It was two days before the start of the summer vacation, and while Nanase and Chigiri were in the kitchen washing dishes, and Kunigami was throwing the garbage out one by one, Isagi and Bachira were busy serving food to the customers. Obaa-chan would call either of them to fetch her the wooden scratcher for her back which she left inside her room near the kitchen. After fetching Obaa-chan's wooden scratcher, Isagi thought he should buy Obaa-chan another one that she could use solely at the counter so that she would not have problems waiting for her itchy back to be consoled.
After work, as Nanase retired to his room, Kunigami and Chigiri went to the convenience store as per usual, eating popsicles or whatnot. Bachira approached Isagi and asked if he'd like to stroll around at the basketball half-court.
"There is a half-court nearby?" Isagi asked aloud.
"Yep," Bachira said with his eyes sparkling. It was one of the other things that captured Isagi's attention.
So, the two of them went to the half-court and sat on one of the benches. It was almost nine-thirty that night, and instead of preparing for their last day before their summer break, they spent it unwinding.
"What will you do during the break, Isagi?" Bachira asked. "Will you go home to Saitama?"
Isagi thought. Summer vacation indeed is a month or so, and if he were to choose, he would go home to play with his friends. But he now had a responsibility to do, and as someone who passed his resume first to work instead of working as a stipulation for living upstairs in the ramen house, he thought it would be irresponsible if he would go home just to chill.
Besides, this was the kind of life he wanted. He wanted to earn part-time, and he was already enjoying it.
"I cannot go home that easily," Isagi said. "I chose this life, so I must make do with what I have. I am also just excited to buy that Nike I saw at the store the other day."
Bachira remembered that well. Isagi looked like he was pining for someone when he stuck his face to the glass display and stared at the shoes for a very long time.
"The perk of having wages," Bachira agreed. "I want to buy something nice for my mama, but I don't know anything much about painting. Ahahah, maybe I might buy the wrong kind of paintbrush."
Isagi let out a small smile. He was brought up in a typically happy environment, with his okaa-san and otou-san supporting him. But Bachira seemed to be different. Isagi realized that throughout their time living together as roommates, the happy bee not once mentioned his father. He was curious before, but forgot to ask. And now, since it was just the two of them at the half-court, it would probably be a good time to ask.
"I have a question, if you don't mind," Isagi started. "It's rather personal."
Bachira let out a small smile, "Ask away. What is it?"
"I never heard you talking about your otou-san," Isagi started before pausing, as if trying to gauge whether Bachira wanted the question or not. "Shall... I go on?"
"Yep."
"Okay, sorry if I am asking," Isagi said, the very mindful character that he was. "Where is he?"
Bachira smiled wistfully before replying, "I was born out of wedlock."
This time, it was Isagi who had to process the information. "O...oh."
"Yeah," Bachira replied gently yet a bit sadly. "Mama and my otou-sama met in university, and they fell in love. And Mama got pregnant right before graduation. But after that, my otou-sama left for the US and never came back. I never saw him, not once. Good thing though, Mama's family is very supportive. As a single mom, Mama also tries to make ends meet. But she always supports me and gives me great love."
"You sure are brought up well," Isagi said. "Your okaa-san loves you so much."
"I sure am!" Bachira replied with great joy.
And then, he proceeded to tell Isagi of another secret that his mother shared with him: his monster. Isagi thought that perhaps, that "monster" was the reason why Bachira would act so crazy at times, or would say random comparisons that he or their other roommates could not understand.
But still, Isagi liked Bachira that way anyway. He felt so at ease at the other that he would not trade his roommate for anyone in the world, he thought.
"So, my monster tells me to go ahead and buy some acrylic paints for Mama," Bachira said. "I know her choice of paints, but they're expensive. So I am saving a lot for her."
"You're such a loving son," Isagi told his roommate. "I should buy a present for my parents too."
"Maybe Obaa-chan can allow us to go home for a few days," Bachira said. "There's no other way to know than to ask."
"Ah, you're right," Isagi agreed. "Shall we go buy some presents after school tomorrow?"
"Of course!" Bachira said. "But we need to hurry up so we can still work at dinner time."
****
"I have a gift for you, Obaa-chan," Isagi told the ramen house owner.
Obaa-chan looked up expectedly, and her eyes glistened excitedly to see Isagis gift: a new wooden scratcher.
"You can have your own scratcher here in the counter, Obaa-chan," Isagi said. "You don't have to wait for your other scratcher to be brought to you."
"Ahh, so good child," Obaa-chan replied. Then, she said that she would hold a meeting for the four of them after work.
After work, Isagi, Bachira, Kunigami, and Chigiri stood in front of Obaa-chan in the counter. The customers had left already, and the store was already clean. The staff, Oji-san, and Nanase continued cleaning the kitchen.
"Since it is the start of the summer break, you can go home for a week. Each of you. Just do not go home at the same time," Obaa-chan said. "We need people here in the shop."
The four students cheered, and they played jankenpon to see who gets to go home first.
First one to go home is Kunigami.
Chigiri comes second.
Isagi is third.
And Bachira gets to go home last.
"So, that means I get to pack up first, huh," Kunigami replied with a smirk.
"Say hi to your grandpa for me," Obaa-chan instructed Kunigami with a smile.
****
When it was Isagi's turn to go back to Saitama, Bachira got bored. So that Sunday morning, he begged Chigiri and Kunigami if he could third wheel with them, but Chigiri told him that they should include Nanase with them.
"We haven't all gone out with Niji-chan," Bachira realized to himself. "He might be lonely because he's younger than us and might feel left out."
So, after breakfast, he pestered Nanase into coming along with them. As Nanase had nothing to do during the summer break because he would be going home after Bachira, he beamed and said he's game to tag along with the high schoolers.
They ventured into an arcade and played games, and by the time it was lunch, they went to a posh cafe nearby.
Spaghetti, burger, fries, and different coffee flavors flooded their table, but Bachira seemed a bit... less enthusiastic.
"What's wrong?" Kunigami asked as he pointed a piece of fries at him.
"Missing Isagi?" Chigiri teased him, a smirk painted on his pretty lips.
"I didn't know missing him like this could be so bad," Bachira said.
The three with him exchanged glances. They knew that Bachira was always a jolly person, and mostly, had a very positive mindset (except for his monster thing). But seeing him downcast like this made them think that he had started to fall for his roommate.
"Ya have a crush on him?" Nanase asked with a wide grin.
Chigiri and Kunigami joined in the teasing. They said that while Isagi and Bachira always claimed that the redhead and the hunky high schooler looked like a domestic couple, for them, Isagi and Bachira, meanwhile, looked like a couple straight out of a romance drama flick.
"I'm not too keen on romance films," Bachira remarked. "What mostly is it about?"
"Ya know, man meets woman, they have some similarities, they date, then there's drama, they fall apart, then somethin' happens an' they get back together," Nanase remarked. "I saw obaa-chan watchin' those movies like that."
"Rom-coms are like that too, ha!" Chigiri chimed in. "I know coz my nee-chan likes them a lot. Same as the romance dramas, but with a funny twist."
Bachira pouted before taking a sip of his chocolate frappe. The other three were still all wide smiles as they continued pestering Bachira about his feelings.
"By the time I'll go back to Ibaraki, there's a lot of happenings here in Tokyo durin' the summer," Nanase shared to the three with him. "The summer festival's nice. I suggest you four go on a date that day. So colorful and fun!"
"So, what do you think, Bachira?" Kunigami asked with a smile. "Imagine you and Isagi along the Tokyo streets, watching the summer fireworks."
"Must be nice," Bachira replied.
Chigiri eyed his friend and asked, "There's more to this than just your simple melancholy, is it?"
Bachira smiled because Chigiri was perceptive. And he replied.
"Have you ever fallen for someone who saved you?"
The other three teens with him looked at each other before they said no.
"I haven't known how it is to fall in love fer real," Nanase replied.
"It's my first time falling for someone, and it's not even in the case of Kunigami saving me," Chigiri replied. "What's this about?"
Bachira shared how he was being bullied and disregarded by his peers for being weird, but then here comes Isagi who accepted him for who he was. It was not a physical saving like that of a girl falling off the stairs and a sempai catching her as she fell, but it was like an "overall" saving that Bachira wanted to convey, and Isagi being very friendly towards him felt like salvation.
"Ohh, okay, I understand now," Chigiri replied. "It's just like in one of the novels that I read. You know, I don't get it when people say you shouldn't fall for someone who saves you."
"Why?" Kunigami asked. "I haven't heard of it."
"Waaa, the world must be too grand, then," Nanase remarked. "There's a lot of love out there we dunno about."
"Exactly, and I only read most of it in books, though what I love the best are sci-fi and detective novels, heee," Chigiri remarked. "Anyway highway, they say you shouldn't fall in love with the person who saved you coz it's mostly unrequited. But hey! What works, works. Whatever you and Isagi have just might work. Who knows? He likes you like you like him, and in the kind of like that you like him."
"Huh?" Bachira asked in confusion. "Too many likes."
Chigiri laughed before replying, "What I mean is, you both like each other the same way and in the same level."
"Uh, too complicated," Kunigami replied, to which Nanase nodded in agreement. "It's adult stuff, I guess."
"Well, our Meguru-chan here just might understand it later on," Chigiri replied before shifting topics. "Hey, karaoke after this?"
****
Bachira was thankful that he could belt out as he sang. He knew that the walls of the room he shared with Isagi was soundproof, and despite knowing that Chigiri and Kunigami had their sexy times sometimes, he and Isagi could not hear a thing.
Still, he did not scream whenever he would sing. Walking around naked on the second floor was enough to shock his roommates.
While Chigiri and Kunigami belted out to anime rock songs, Nanase played the tambourines. Bachira danced and sang along with the two lovers, but he kept coughing when trying to reach high notes. Yet, a part of him was longing for Isagi.
What was Isagi doing right now? Did Isagi miss him like he missed him?
****
Indeed, Isagi missed Bachira too.
He was helping his okaa-san with shopping at the wet market when he saw a large tree with white flowers in the yard of one of their neighbors. The Japanese crepe myrtle. The beautiful flowers that bloomed during the summer caught Isagi's eyes. The foliage with the flowers hung beautifully even outside the mint-green gate.
He realized he did not mind the trees before, but seeing the flowers clumped together made him think of Bachira, and he did not know why.
Must be because of Bachira's playfulness, or maybe his own feelings of youthful love, he didn't know. So Isagi thought he should come back here this afternoon and take photos of it to send to Bachira.
Isagi had always thought of himself as straight. He never thought he'd give in to feelings of liking another guy, but he entertained the thought of it instead of pushing it away. If he did, the thought would keep popping up. He just couldn't throw away the idea that he had liked Bachira as a friend, but a deeper part of him was feeling that it was not plain friendship. He thought that the feeling he had for Bachira was the same as that of Kunigami and Chigiri.
"Anything wrong, Yocchan?"
Isagi's thoughts were cut short when he heard his okaa-san's voice. He turned to her and shook his head, but the look of his okaa-san told him that she thought otherwise, but decided not to press.
"Let's go, so you can help me cook lunch," Okaa-san said.
That lunch time, the whole Isagi family feasted on Okaa-san's cooking. Sundays were the best, and food was always delicious when the family was together. Otou-san was very happy, and he told Isagi to study really hard and to be a good child to Obaa-san at the ramen house.
"When will you go back to Tokyo?" Otou-san asked his son.
"This Saturday," Isagi replied. "It would be Bachira who would take the break after me."
Okaa-san asked about his roommate, and she noted that Isagi blushed and stammered before talking about Bachira. Okaa-san noted that Isagi never talked about his junior high best friend Tada-chan in the same manner that Isagi talked about Bachira. But Okaa-san smiled tenderly. She was happy that her son was happy to have such a reliable roommate.
That afternoon, Isagi went back outside the gate of their neighbor and took photos of the crepe myrtle, with the orange sky as the background. Then, he sent a photo of it to Bachira, who, at that time, was currently bowling with the squad.
It did not take long for Bachira to respond. Isagi smiled like an idiot to find Bachira giving heart emojis to his photo.
****
When it was Bachira's turn to go back home to Chiba, he found himself missing the squad--and Isagi. His mama noticed the wistful look of her son, and she asked him if someone bothered her dear Meguru again. Bachira was open with his mama, and came out to her.
"I always knew you were not straight, Meguru," Mama Bachira replied as she hugged her son. "Does Yoichi make you happy?"
"Hai, Mama," Bachira shared. "He's really nice, and I feel being myself whenever I am with him.
Meanwhile...
Isagi felt his room bare that night after Bachira left, so he asked Nanase if he could room in with the junior high kid. Nanase only beamed really happily, not minding having a temporary roommate while Bachira was in vacation.
Out of the blue, Isagi shared to Nanase his late-night walks with Bachira at the half-court after their arubaito. So, he invited Nanase to the half-court that early Sunday morning.
"Do you play basketball?" Nanase asked.
"No, I don't," Isagi said. "I used to play soccer, but I quit last year."
"I used to play soccer too," Nanase shared. "But my responsibilities here at the ramen shop come first. So, no club activities fer me."
But Isagi only stared as the junior high kid smiled a wide smile.
"It's okay, though," Nanase shared. "I get ta learn how to earn my own money."
"Me too," Isagi said as he sat down on one of the benches. "I can't have it both ways. I wanted to earn money, so my time goes to earning money."
No one played ball early in the morning, and the two were honestly thankful that they could hang out here and talk. Nanase only listened as Isagi talked and talked about Bachira.
"Do you like him, Isagi-san?" Nanase asked.
Isagi found it hard to admit. He did know what he felt for Bachira, but he had a hard time telling his parents about it. He knew his parents would understand, but he wanted to make sure that what he really felt for Bachira was exactly the one Nanase thought of the relationship between the two roommates.
"I... I guess so," Isagi said, as he was not 100% sure.
"That's okay," Nanase said. "As Hyoma-niichan would say, you can figure it out."
"You call Chigiri as nii-chan but you are so formal with me," Isagi pointed out. "You can call me nii-chan too."
"Ohh... okay," Obaa-chan's grandson replied.
As it was a nice Sunday morning, and nobody among the kids were tasked to help the ramen house, the four of them roamed at Shibuya. But whatever pretty flowers Isagi could find, he would take photos of them and send them to Bachira.
"You are so lame," Chigiri told him. "Why don't you buy him flowers instead?"
"Yeah," Kunigami told Isagi. "You and Bachira are too obvious. Go date already."
Isagi took this as a go signal, so he said that during the summer festival next week, he would take Bachira on a date.
"Imagine if Bachira would wear a cute yukata with flower clips on his hair," Chigiri remarked. "Because I would try to pull off that kind of shit!"
Isagi and Kunigami blushed at Chigiri's suggestion, before Isagi said he'd want to see Bachira in a floral yukata instead.
****
The next week, it was Nanase's turn to go back home to Ibaraki.
The high schoolers gathered inside Chigiri and Kunigami's room, sweating profusely and wearing only their short pants. Even the electric fan was not helpful, so Chigiri told Kunigami to turn the air conditioner on instead.
It was a warm summer afternoon, and their shift at the ramen house was still this evening. Therefore, they spent most of the weekday mornings cleaning the second floor and helping at the shop for a short number of hours (so that they would be working at a certain amount of time per day as allocated by the law), and in the afternoon, they did their summer assignments.
Finally, once the room had cooled, Isagi, Kunigami, and Chigiri heaved sighs of relief. But Bachira took off his short pants and only sported his underwear inside the room.
"Oi, what's with the show, Bachira?" Kunigami chided the playful bee.
"It's still hot!" Bachira complained.
"But the AC is already on," Isagi said.
"But it's still hot!" Bachira complained again.
Once their summer homework was done, they got ready for their evening shift at the ramen shop downstairs. As per their daily habit, they played jankenpon to see who would be assigned where. And this time, it was Chigiri and Bachira's turn inside the kitchen to wash dishes, while Kunigami and Isagi would serve food to the diners.
After their work, they went to the half-court to plan their escapade at the summer festival.
****
Unfortunately for Nanase, he was not able to get back to Tokyo as scheduled because he was too sick to travel. So he had to spend his days home to recuperate, while the four high schoolers enjoyed their entire Sunday.
Obaa-chan gave the four high schoolers some kakigori (shaved ice with syrup and fruits on top) as treat for the summer, and she smiled tenderly at the four youngsters who were as old as her other grandchildren. She also told them to hurry up so that they could go to the summer festival and enjoy the night fireworks show.
Chigiri was not joking when he said he'd wear a yukata with flower accessories on his hair. He said he borrowed his nee-chan's yukata, for they were about the same size. He wore his hair up on a bun, and put some flower clips to the side of his hair. Kunigami understood why Chigiri had him get ready first so that he could have the room to himself afterwards. And he found himself speechless to see his boyfriend looking pretty like a girlfriend.
"Your boyfriend who is a girlfriend is so pretty," Bachira told Kunigami, who was still speechless when he saw Chigiri close the door of their room.
"You better fight off suitors, Chigiri," Isagi said. "Maybe we might encounter Kaiser at the festival, and even if you had fended him off, he might pursue you again."
"Nah~ no big deal," Bachira replied. "I heard he accepted Alexis Ness' feelings a few days before the summer vacation."
And Chigiri remembered when Kaiser told him that after high school graduation, he'd fly back to Germany to play for the U-20 team of Bastard Munchen. He forgot if he had shared it with his friends, but as Kaiser was not that important to him (despite exchanging SNS), he let the information be buried in his head.
"Will they be selling flowers too?" Isagi asked.
Kunigami and Chigiri knew what Isagi meant. They had suggested it to him, but Bachira did not know.
"I want to play that... you know, scooping the goldfish," Bachira said cheerfully. "Let's play it later!"
When they went down the stairs and passed by the counter of the ramen shop, Obaa-chan asked Kunigami if he had brought his girlfriend with him upstairs, before she realized that it was Chigiri crossdressing.
"My, my, you are pretty, Hyoma-chan!" Obaa-chan remarked.
"Arigatou gozaimasu," Chigiri replied with a bow.
"Take care of your friend, Rensuke," Obaa-chan told Kunigami. "He might receive marriage proposals tonight for how beautiful he looks."
"Don't worry, Obaa-chan," Kunigami said, not showing some signs of them being lovers. "Hyoma is too young for marriage."
And so, the four friends left.
****
There were lots of shops displaying food and different kinds of merchandise on each side of the street of the festival venue. A huge crowd had gathered too. Parents and their children, a whole group of families, friends, and lovers all came together to enjoy the Sunday night.
As per Bachira's wish, he and the gang scooped goldfishes, but none of them succeeded. The next shop they went to was one selling mochi ice cream. In that shop, they met Kaiser and Ness on a date. They saw Kaiser feeding some mochi ice cream to his lover before pinching Ness on the cheeks. And they did not understand what Ness said, but they thought that Ness probably exclaimed "ouch" in German.
And like Chigiri, Ness was wearing a cute light blue yukata and a crown of light pink roses. Both Ness and Kaiser were soccer players, but Ness was tiny that a woman's yukata could fit him.
Seeing the two being sweet made Kunigami and Chigiri look at each other. They could not forget that Sunday noon when Ness' mother gave a hefty amount of money to Kaiser, and even splashed his face with water for everyone at the coffee shop to see, like it was some kind of a TV drama. Then, Chigiri shrugged and looked at the lovers in front.
"Sempai!" Chigiri called out to them happily.
The German sempais turned to see the four friends.
"My, my, Chigiri and... what's your name again?" Kaiser asked Kunigami. "And I don't know you two, but hello, hello."
Isagi did not quite like Kaiser because he was arrogant. Even the way he greeted them sounded so fake, but being the polite young man that he was, he greeted the sempais and introduced himself. Bachira introduced himself as well.
"I'm Kunigami Rensuke," Kunigami said with his deep voice, not quite liking it that Kaiser forgot his name despite knowing from months earlier that the sempai would catch the two being together.
Ness used to be jealous of Chigiri, but now that Kaiser belonged to him, he let go of the jealousy. He introduced himself to the first year high schoolers.
"Where did you buy those flowers?" Isagi asked Ness, pertaining to the roses on his hair. He was dying to know where to buy some so he could give flowers to Bachira tonight.
Ness informed Isagi where to buy those flowers, and Bachira asked him why he would need those flowers. But Isagi said he would give some to Obaa-chan, and Bachira beamed.
"Let's give her some!" Bachira remarked happily.
"Uhm, let's just do that later, okay?" Chigiri suggested.
"Do that later," Kaiser told the four. "In five minutes, there will be a fireworks display, according to the poster we saw around earlier."
"Let's watch together!" Ness remarked. "It would be fun!"
The animosity between Kaiser and Kunigami, and Ness on Chigiri, vanished. They just all had a good time.
And just like what Kaiser had shared, the fireworks suddenly burst prettily like a bunch of flowers on the clear Tokyo night sky. Everyone stopped to look at the sky, breathless and happy.
Bachira was so engrossed that he grabbed his phone and took a video of the fireworks display so he could share it to his mama in Chiba. But he did not realize that Isagi had ran off towards the flower shop that Ness had told them about.
The fireworks lasted for ten minutes, enough for Isagi to come back all sweaty and out of breath.
"What's wrong, Yocchan?" Bachira asked, using the pet name that Isagi's parents would call their son. "Why are you... where did you run to?"
And Isagi lied. "To the restroom. I could not hold my pee."
But inside his backpack was something he bought for Bachira.
****
"Bachira, can you come with me for a moment?" Isagi asked in a strangely gentle voice when he leaned closer to the left side of his friend.
The ticklish feeling of Isagi's breath on his ear was making Bachira giddy, and he shivered deliciously. He just wondered what Isagi wanted, so he nodded.
After informing Chigiri and Kunigami that they could wander wherever they want, Isagi brought Bachira towards an alley where there was less light. He opened his bag and handed his friend a single pink rose, the same color as those on Ness' crown.
"Isagi?" Bachira asked, his eyes glowing yet confused.
"I... I am sorry that this is the most unromantic place to confess," Isagi said. "But... I really like you."
Bachira felt his cheeks warming up.
"Like, not as a friend, but as a lover," Isagi remarked. "I mean, we are too young to know what love is, but I think that if this is this feeling, I think it is the one people say that it is. I am in love with you."
He was finally sure. He was finally sure that he was in love, and that it was with Bachira. He felt his face flushing the moment Bachira's arms flew around his neck, and when he felt Bachira's breath on his skin.
"The feeling's the same, Isagi," Bachira whispered. "I did not know when it all started, but I guess... it was when I told you I was bullied, and then you got angry for me."
Many people got it wrong, Bachira thought. Some saviors reciprocate the love of the people they saved. And Isagi was one of those few.
"I'm in love with you too, Isagi," Bachira whispered.
Bachira let go of his hold around Isagi's neck, and looked at his friend.
"Will you go out with me?" Isagi asked.
"Hai," Bachira whispered.
Isagi felt himself blushing when he looked at Bachira. Despite the less amount of light from where they were, he could still see his roommate's face. Bachira did not manifest his usual bright eyes and mischievous smile. Tonight, he displayed a look of love, a look of seriousness. And Isagi's vision landed on Bachira's parted lips. He unconsciously licked his lips before he leaned forward and offered his first kiss to his roommate.
Bachira, too, reciprocated the kiss as he wrapped his arms again around Isagi, one hand still holding the light pink rose given to him.
Their love story was cemented one summer night during the summer festival.
--tbc--