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When Arisu knocked on the apartment door, he didn’t actually expect anyone to open it.
Sure, both Karube and Niragi were home — their shoes were by the door, lights on, Niragi’s voice unmistakably echoing through the thin walls as he bitched about his leg — but still, the general vibe of this place had always teetered somewhere between “borderline feral” and “do not enter without backup.” Optimism wasn’t exactly the safest bet.
So when the door did open, Arisu flinched like he’d been caught trespassing on the military ground.
“Oh hey,” Karube said casually, standing there in a rumpled dress shirt and loose pants, a kitchen towel still draped around his neck. “You’re late.”
“… We’re three minutes early?” The brunette asked, deadpan. “Since when is that considered late?”
“Since you started befriending me in high school, dumbass.”
“Hey—!”
Before Arisu could come up with a decent comeback, a blur of black fur rocketed out from the living room and nearly collided with his ankle. He barely managed to step aside before said little ball of energy — Kuro, of course — skidded to a halt, sniffed both his and Chishiya’s shoes in grave suspicion, then did the most offended circle back to the hallway that screamed you’re lucky I even allowed guests.
“Huh.” The blonde-haired doctor hummed, disinterested, as he watched the cat waltzing her way back into her home. “Seems like she still dislikes me.”
Karube just stepped aside with a shrug. “She dislikes everyone except her dads.”
“Gross,” Niragi’s voice rang out from the living room, where he was slouched sideways on the couch, one leg propped up on a pillow and his cane tossed somewhere nearby. He didn’t even look up, fingers flying over his keyboard as he typed out code for whatever game he was currently obsessed with. “Stop saying that like it’s normal. I didn’t sign up to be a fucking dad to a cat who doesn't understand human languages.”
“Says the guy who literally called me Kuro’s other dad last week when drunk,” the bartender said with a smile, flopping down next to his boyfriend with a beer still in hand and an arm slinging easily around his shoulders. “You’re gonna have to try harder if you want me to believe your lies, babe.”
“How about I shove this cane down your throat instead?” Niragi muttered, not even pausing in his typing — which only made the blonde-haired bartender press a fond kiss to his temple in retaliation, chuckling softly against his skin. It made Arisu huff a soft laugh himself as he stepped inside, while Chishiya, already drifting toward the bookshelf like he’d been here a thousand times, raised an eyebrow at the not-so-subtle display of affection.
“You’re aware,” the doctor said, glancing over his shoulder, “that your regular seat at Lucid is under a framed photo of Kuro, right? Or should I assume the meteor took your self-awareness too?”
Niragi didn’t even miss a beat in his retort. “Pretty sure it just took my will to live, which is why I’m still hanging out with you assholes.”
Karube snorted beer up his nose. Arisu, wisely deciding to leave them to their verbal war crimes, wandered into the kitchen and began poking through the snacks laid out on the counter. There was a plate of cut fruit, a bowl of chips, and what might’ve once aspired to be a charcuterie board — if it hadn’t been assembled by two men who once used a steak knife to open a wine bottle.
“This is… food?” The gamer asked diplomatically, eyeing the spread with suspicion. “Looks… good, apparently.”
Karube raised his beer. “You’re welcome.”
“Why are there gummy bears next to the cheese?” Chishiya asked, not even looking up from the book he was skimming through.
“They’re color-coded,” Niragi offered with a straight face.
The doctor blinked. “… By what metric?”
“Vibes. And also a wish for war crimes to fall upon you.”
Karube let out a cackle so loud that Kuro glared at him and walked away in disdain.
“If we die of food poisoning tonight,” Chishiya muttered, flipping another page, “I want it on record that I resisted eating any of this.”
“You’ll probably live longer than all of us anyway,” Arisu said, rolling his eyes affectionately as he grabbed his boyfriend’s wrist and tugged him toward the couch. “Come be social, you cryptid.”
»»----------►
“Come be social,” as it turned out, meant getting roped into several rounds of drinking games — all sponsored, encouraged, and gleefully hosted by Karube himself.
Which, in hindsight, should’ve been the first red flag.
By the time they’d gotten through a full game of “Never Have I Ever” — during which Chishiya drank way too often for someone who looked like he’d never done anything interesting in his life — Niragi had switched to nursing straight whiskey, Arisu was tipsy enough to giggle at his own bad jokes, and Karube had somehow convinced everyone that drinking from a wine glass made him “classy” instead of just ridiculous.
“Never have I ever,” the bartender announced, smirking like a man ready to instigate the gayest heist of his life, “had sex in a library.”
Arisu nearly choked on his drink.
Chishiya, eyes half-lidded, took a long, slow sip of his beer.
“WHAT,” the brunette exclaimed, turning so fast he nearly knocked over the plate of chips. “You—you have not—!”
“I have,” his boyfriend answered serenely, like he was discussing weather patterns and not his apparent penchant for public indecency. “University library. The med section. Not very comfortable.”
“Who were you?” Arisu groaned, scandalized beyond belief. “You’re supposed to be the normal one!”
“Myself,” Chishiya said, tilting his head. “Just hornier.”
Karube let out a bark of laughter so loud it startled Kuro and made her flee under the couch with an indignant hiss. Niragi made a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a snort, face half-buried in the couch cushion like he was trying to smother himself before things got worse.
“God, shut up,” he muttered. “You’re gonna give him a nosebleed, and then we have to clean it up after.”
“I do not get nosebleeds,” the brunette hissed at his friends, cheeks flushed in embarrassment. “I just—”
“—bleed internally from emotional repression. We know.” Niragi smirked, lifting his head just enough to flick a gummy bear in Arisu’s direction. It bounced off his forehead with a soft pat. “Or maybe horniness, depends on the context.”
“Violence is not the answer, Niragi,” Karube said in his best mock-parent voice, reaching over to pluck the nearly empty whiskey glass from his partner’s hand. “Even if Arisu absolutely deserves it for the trauma we’ve just witnessed.”
“I can’t believe we’re friends,” The gamer muttered begrudgingly, rubbing his forehead like the gummy bear had given him psychic damage. “Actually, I can believe it. I just regret every choice that led me here.”
“Regret is the foundation of all good friendships,” Chishiya hummed, still nursing his drink and looking utterly unbothered by the chaos unraveling around him. “That, and watching your partner implode emotionally in real time as well.”
“You guys are so fucking weird,” Arisu complained, giving up entirely and collapsing sideways onto Chishiya like the weight of their shared idiocy had finally defeated him. “Is it too late to go back to the Borderland?”
“Yes to both,” his boyfriend said, eerily calm for someone who just upturned his perception about life upside down. “Also, your decision-making should never be alcohol-fueled, dear.”
“Why would you even want that?” Niragi scoffed, hand gently pressing down on his bad leg with a wince. “Are you high?”
“No,” Arisu said mournfully. “I just think I’d rather fight another King of Spades than hear one more detail about my boyfriend’s past sex life.”
Chishiya’s eyes glittered.
“Oh no,” the gamer groaned, immediately realizing his mistake. “Don’t you dare—”
But it was already too late.
His doctor boyfriend just leaned in with that cat-like smile that meant nothing but trouble and said, as calmly as possible, “I also had sex in the hospital breakroom as well, during my second year of residency.”
Karube absolutely lost it, howling with laughter as Niragi let his head thunk back onto the couch with a muffled curse. Arisu, on the other hand, could only let out a cry of horror at that fact.
“Shun!” His voice went several octaves higher than before. “We were talking about libraries! How did it escalate to—”
“Trauma,” Niragi offered helpfully (which, knowing him, was not that helpful at all.)
“Thirst,” Chishiya added.
“Poor impulse control,” the blonde-haired bartender chimed in, still laughing as his boyfriend swatted at him with a pillow.
“You guys are hell,” the gamer whined. “Literal hell.”
“We’re gay,” Niragi said. “It’s a package deal.”
“Gays of hell,” Karube repeated, raising his wine glass in a solemn toast. “Cheers, boys.”
Chishiya clinked his beer against it with an apathetic, “Cheers.”
Arisu could only groan again and sank deeper into the couch, one arm draped over his eyes in despair.