Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sunlight filtered in through the shade covering Fuuta’s window as he lay in bed, scrolling through his Twitter feed.

A new Splatfest had been announced the other week, which posed the question “What’s most important in life? Is it Money, Fame, or Love?”

The old Fuuta would have picked Team Money. Money was more useful, more reliable to him after everything that had happened. But that was the old Fuuta. The current Fuuta had friends he cared about even if he didn’t always show it. Now he had Mikoto.

3:38pm |

mappsmapps: New Splatfest starting tonight!!

Yuno~: brooo there’s an obvious winner here :skull: (1¬1)

mappsmapps: Ikr Team Love FTW!

my convenience store guy: I’m still sad you guys missed the ice cream splatfest

my convenience store guy: It was so fun!

fuufuu: yeah and you got sweeped lmao

mappsmapps: To be fair I would’ve picked strawberry

Yuno~: me too (>^<)

my convenience store guy: What?!?!?

my convenience store guy: Y’all are a bunch of mint chip haters :cry:

fuufuu: wait

fuufuu: team love?!?

fuufuu: not money?!

mappsmapps: Love is the most important thing! <333

Was it?! Well, he supposed she had a point. Fame was the stupid choice, but now that he thought about it, he didn’t need money to enjoy his friends’ company. Sure, money was nice, but for the first time in his life he really paused and realized how much love meant to him. Meeting Mikoto had helped him be able to open up and trust more people with seeing his true self. He really had changed.

He wondered if the old him would think it was stupid, but quickly brushed away that thought. Picking up his phone, he clicked on a contact.

It didn’t ring for very long before Mikoto picked up. “Hey Fuuta!” His ever-cheery voice made Fuuta smile.

“Hey.”

“You ok? You sound sad…”

“I’m fine. Really. Just realized I… have great friends.”

Mikoto started laughing, although trying to hold it in. “I love you too Fuu.”

“…I told you to stop calling me that.” His cheeks grew hot with embarrassment.

“Sorry, sorry! But I really do mean it. Right now, you’re one of the most important things to me. And that’s why I‘m joining Team Love with Mappi and Yun-chan!”

“Y-y-you can’t just say something like that and then brush it off! What happened to being serious?!”

“Haha anyways you should join us! Then we can all play together again! The power of love defeats all!”

“You’re way too excited for this. But fine.”

“Yay~!”

“But if we get a bunch of mirror matches you’d better not squid party every time.”

“Hey~ It’s fun. Plus we win either way at that point, so it’s like a free pass.”

“I’ll never really understand you… Anyways, do you want to come over?”

“I can’t. I have work to get done…” Mikoto whined.

“Do you mind if I come over then?”

“No. No not at all! …It’s probably a bit of a mess though.”

“I don’t mind messes. Heck, I’m sure you won’t find a single college dorm room that’s completely neat. Besides, I can’t pass up this opportunity to laugh at you for it.” Fuuta smirked, already sitting up from his bed.

“You ass!”

He couldn’t believe it, Mikoto had finally actually framed their picture from that day at the park, it was a lot less grand than he had envisioned, but it was still labeled “The Unflattering Adventures of Mikoto and Fuuta”. Fuuta couldn’t help but laugh, wishing they had some slightly better picture to display of the two of them.

“What?” Mikoto turned from where he was sorting notes on his desk, and stood beside Fuuta, gazing fondly at the photo.

“I can’t believe you actually displayed it.”

“Oh, our picture? Of course! It’s still a good memory even if we look super derpy.” He put his arm around Fuuta.

“Yeah… good times.” Fuuta smiled.

“Oh I almost forgot!” Mikoto dug through his nightstand, pulling out another picture. It was the selfie he’d taken of them when he’d gotten Fuuta to model for his work. He also grabbed a piece of colorful tape, sticking it under the picture. It took a moment for Fuuta to notice there were words on it. “‘Til Depth Do Us Part”.

“Now you’re gonna say it’s ‘our little thing’ again right?” It made Fuuta happy despite the fake annoyed tone accompanied by an eye roll.

“Ahaha, I wanted to put ‘snoremimimimi ♡ pazuBang’ on there too, but it wouldn’t fit.”

“Because your username is too damn long.” He elbowed Mikoto in the arm.

“Well whatever, I still like it!”

Flopping onto the bed with his bag, Fuuta looked around, spotting a set of Deep Cut Amiibo’s on a shelf near Mikoto’s desk. “I swear your room is gonna end up full of Splatoon stuff.”

“What can I say? I love the little squidies and octos, and I love them even more because that silly little squid game brought us together!” Mikoto wrapped his arms tightly around Fuuta with a goofy grin.

Fuuta blushed, unable to come up with a proper response for a minute before he mumbled back. “You’re lucky I put up with your dumbass shenanigans.”

“Uggghhh~ I wish I didn’t have work to do now, I just want to cuddle you until you push me away like you do every time~” Mikoto whined, tugging on Fuuta’s sleeve.

Fuuta admittedly also would like that, but he didn’t want Mikoto to be fired because of him. Freeing himself from Mikoto’s grasp, he looked across at Mikoto’s laptop and tablet. “What do you have to do?”

“I have to design a very specific advertisement which will take like 4 hours.” Mikoto wiped away fake tears.

“And it’s due…?”

“Tomorrow evening.”

“Ok so work on it for around 2 hours today if you can, and then you can finish it tomorrow morning which shouldn’t be a problem since you’re such a daytime person.”

“But Fuu~ta, I just want to stay right here with youu~”

“Work, and I’ll… let you kiss me when you‘re done. Ok?” Fuuta still felt a little embarrassed just saying it, even though this wasn’t their first kiss anymore. “I don’t want you getting so stressed again.”

“I promise Fuuta, that was like months ago!” Mikoto awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.

“And? Shit doesn’t just disappear magically.”

“You seriously don’t need to worry so much!”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Fuuta sighed. “I’d worry less if you got started already.” He started to push Mikoto off of the bed.

“Ok, ok I’m going!” Mikoto whined.

That prick had better let him off the hook once classes start again.

Of course Fuuta was still thinking about it, Mikoto’s workload hadn’t exactly gotten lighter since he started this job. He’s been busy even over the summer, so Fuuta had started spending more time with Yuno and Mahiru sometimes in order to fill the void of loneliness that kept creeping in on him without Mikoto there. It felt stupid for someone like him to crave socializing so much when he often acted like he couldn’t care less, but thinking too hard about it always seemed to make him feel worse.

Shaking his head, Fuuta pulled his Switch from the bag he’d brought over, launching Splatoon. It was still somewhat hard to believe that after playing for months he still hadn’t gotten sick of it yet.

Fuuta had been keeping his voice down so that Mikoto could work in the other room, but the emptiness that came with the lack of noise aside from that of the game overwhelmed him after a while. It wasn’t fun to play without friends, not in the same way. Fuuta knew he would be playing with all of them tomorrow, but he couldn’t help wishing that they could be here right now to keep him company.

After enough losses and repetitive matches, he scrolled through his phone for a while before Mikoto’s bedroom door opened and his head snapped to look in the direction of the noise.

“You done early?”

“I need a break. I’ll do more in the morning if I have to, font choices were frying my brain.” He stretched and fell down onto the couch next to Fuuta.

“You sure you can handle putting it off? Won’t that stress him out more?” Fuuta glanced at John, who was picking at the light blue nail polish on his fingers, which was already flaking.

“I’ll probably be the one dealing with it anyways. Besides, I’ll make it up to him.” John shrugged.

“Can I stay over? I won’t be a distraction, I just… want to stick around.”

“If you’re worried about me, I can handle this just fine.”

“It’s not that.” Fuuta blurted out. “I mean, it is a little. I just feel really fucking lonely, and I know that’s dumb as shit because you’re busy. You and Mikoto, Mahiru, and Yuno, are like the only people who stick around for me. I’ve always been shit at friendships, but now I can hardly enjoy lots of stuff alone and it’s pathetic.”

Noticing the tears stinging at his eyes, John put his arms around Fuuta, pulling him in for a brief and slightly stiff hug. When they separated, he stood up. “I think I’ll go work on it a bit longer actually. You can sit on my bed if you want to.”

“Are you sure? Weren’t you just complaining about it—”

“I’d rather leave him more time to have fun tomorrow. Come on.” John smirked as if he couldn’t just leave Fuuta moping on the couch.

Chapter Text

Buzz buzz buzz

Mikoto awoke to the sound of his phone vibrating frantically on his nightstand. His fingers barely brushed it as he extended his arm to reach, eventually catching hold of it and pulling the screen towards his face.

“12 unread messages, 2 missed calls from mappsmapps”

9:25am |

mappsmapps: So, what time are you guys available to play today?

Yuno~: I’m free any time this afternoon ^u^b

Yuno~: hb u guys?

9:40am |

Yuno~: hellooo? (0_0)/ (>_<”)

Yuno~: right, probably too early for Fuuta, he insists on sleeping until 10 (u_u)

10:17am |

mappsmapps: Mikoto? Fuuta?

mappsmapps: If you’re alive please respond! (╥﹏╥;)

10:21am |

Yuno~: @adopted lil bro

Yuno~: @miko

10:35am |

Yuno~: yeah sorry mappi, looks like they’re dead :\

11:45am |

Yuno~: ok seriously I’m about to come make sure you guys didn't die in some tragic dorm fire

mappsmapps: Maybe they’re just busy??

Still barely awake, Mikoto quickly texted back.

my convenience store guy: sorry yuno, sorry mappi!! I slept in late! >_<

He glanced at the time, 11:52am. “Shit!” Mikoto sat up in bed, which resulted in the blankets being harshly pulled off of Fuuta, giving him a rude awakening.

“Huah?! What’s goin’ on?”

Mikoto turned towards Fuuta, not having even known he was there until now, too stressed to pay attention. “It’s almost noon. The deadline… I’m going to be in big trouble. What am I going to do?”

“Hm? Mikoto…”

“Why didn’t I set an alarm? Why didn’t you wake me up? I need to get started immediately!”

Fuuta reached out and tugged on one of Mikoto’s arms, getting him to untangle the fingers from his hair. “Mikoto. It’s done already. John stayed up late and finished it for you.”

“What? H-he did that for me?” His eyes widened. Staying up late when he should have taken a break seemed more than a little reckless, but John was always doing things like this for him. Mikoto felt a little guilty for not knowing how to return the favor.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure he just wanted you to be able to enjoy stuff today.” Fuuta started to get up, making his way to the door before turning back to look at Mikoto who was staring at the ceiling. “You coming?”

His expression melted into a smile as he bounced off the bed and followed Fuuta towards the kitchen. “Yeah! Let’s give it our all today!!”

It was a few matches in, and Fuuta was just starting to get warmed up. In the lobby, snoremimimimi was running in circles with his brush, Mappinoot✰ was practicing her long-distance roller flings on the squid dummies, and ♡vampire was spamming “Booyah” from the top of the Shell-Out Machine, bragging over call about how she made it around in front of the conch shell sign. Meanwhile, pazuBang was… well he was standing still as Fuuta had gotten distracted by analyzing his splat count from his phone.

The match finally started, and Mikoto nudged him, making Fuuta look up, and hurriedly picked up his controller. The map was Eeltail Alley, their opponents were Team Fame. A rare occurrence with how few people seemed to have joined that team. Fuuta raised his eyebrow at one of their usernames. Most likely a newbie or little kid. “Hoof arted... Seriously?”

Mikoto cracked up laughing, apparently finding it very amusing. Was he a little kid too?

The rest of the team didn’t seem to be very high-level, at least going off of their badges.

They all locked into position, and the match started. ♡vampire lobbed blobs of ink towards the square rooftop in their home base with a good vantage point for chargers, assisting pazuBang, who swam towards it with great speed.

“Wait! Fuu this is our song!” Mikoto turned to him, smiling.

“Oh it is? Huh. I guess so.” Fuuta sounded confused as to why he had brought this up, trying to ink what he could reach below.

“‘Til Depth Do Us Part and Eeltail Alley! Fuuta come on, let’s squid party~!”

“Hah?! No. I already told you no squid partying.”

“B-but Fuufuu~ it’s a sign from the game that we should. Just this once~?”

“It’s not even a mirror match!!”

“We’ll cover you!” Mahiru called out, swimming out to defend the middle.

“Oi. I didn’t agree—”

“Have some fun Fuu~” Yuno teased, cackling through the phone speaker, following Mappinoot✰ from the path above.

“I am not going to flop repetitively for 2 freaking minutes.”

snoremimimimi drew a heart with his inkbrush at their home base, calling pazuBang over by repeatedly spamming “This way!” “You don’t have to. Trust me, It’ll be fun!”

Fuuta sighed. “…Fine. Fine. But only since none of you will leave me alone about it.” He jumped back to base, running towards snoremimimimi.

Tilting his aim at the ground, he filled in the heart Mikoto had drawn.

snoremimimimi responded with a “Booyah!” and started jumping in place. “Hop with me!” Mikoto rested his hand on Fuuta’s for a moment.

“…Alright.” pazuBang began jumping too, at first in place, but then around in circles.

He added more hearts, and Fuuta made one too. “Maybe I should draw an amongus.” Mikoto grinned.

“Oh my god Mikoto…” They could hear the pain in Mahiru’s voice.

“Please don’t, I’m already cringing.” Yuno replied.

“If you do that I will kick you out.”

“But it’s my dorm!”

“Then I’d better not see any amongus, and start seeing more squid partying since you dragged me into this.”

“Aww Fuuta~!” snoremimimimi hopped back over to the big heart, flopping and jumping in the center.

pazuBang reluctantly followed, hopping around in octopus form as the music changed to it’s signature “Now or Never”, signifying the last minute of the match.

As the last seconds of the match counted down, Fuuta watched a familiar sight of Mikoto’s squid sitting on the edge of the map over the ditch.

“Join me Fuuta!”

“You idiot.”

“Hey, it’s fun!”

pazuBang slowly swam over, and at the last second they both jumped off the edge, into the death plane.

As the map showed up, Fuuta was surprised to find out that they’d won. Mahiru and Yuno really were reliable back-up.

Mikoto took a screenshot of the map, where the hearts they’d drawn were visible, and again when Mappinoot✰ and ♡vampire fist bumped. “Thank you Fuuta, that was fun!”

“Yeah.” He had to admit. “But don’t go expecting me to do that again.”

Mahiru and Yuno had gone to sleep, getting ready to grind some tricolor battles together in the morning. Mikoto and Fuuta decided to stay up late and wait for halftime so they could start playing Tricolor Turf War right when it started.

“Yay, Team Love is in the lead!!” Mikoto cheered when he saw the report, Big Man cheering them on to keep going.

“Oi, we haven’t won yet. There’s still a chance we could lose.”

“But it’s still fun anyways! Plus with the amount of people on our team, I don’t think Love’s 2-win streak will break.” Mikoto stated with confidence, creating a lobby and inviting Fuuta.

“We’ll see. You’d better not fuck up all of these tricolor matches. If we get mirror matches with partying, our goal is still to grab the ultra signal. We can’t be slacking off when we need to figure out the optimal strategy. Got it?” Fuuta stared at him with a very serious expression.

“Ok Fuu.”

7 mirror matches later, they finally got a Love vs Fame vs Money round.

“Don’t forget to watch your ink level this time.”

Fuuta pinched the bridge of his nose as they locked into place. He’d taken a backup position, using his charger to splat attackers and defenders rushing into their turf or for the ultra signal.

Yet every time he would create an opening for Mikoto, it would end with snoremimimimi getting splatted or falling off of the platform.

It was their third real tricolor battle without disconnects. They’d only successfully gotten the ultra signal once, with snoremimimimi rushing in with his ultra stamp, and splatting the defenders who were waiting to attack.

But the amount of times he would rush in and get splatted before he even got there was steadily climbing. He kept saying it wasn’t his fault, which was somewhat true as Fuuta assessed what they could improve upon. There was no way for anyone on any team to sneak in without being seen. You either needed to jump from a platform, or cross a grate that you’d fall through in squid form.

Despite their many losses, the two of them made a good team, with pazuBang sniping opponents protecting or rushing the ultra signal, while using his special to ink turf, and snoremimimimi who was good at repeatedly rushing in and once the ultra signals are gone, trying to cover as much turf as possible with his inkbrush.

Their win to lose ratio was starting to hurt Fuuta’s pride and he looked about ready to throw his controller at the TV again, so they decided to stop for the night.

After about 10 mirror matches the next day, most of which Mikoto attempted to squid party with their opponents during, they were finally matched against team money. As the round loaded in, the game lagged for a moment on the shot of Barnacle & Dime, lightning revealing it was a 100x battle.

“Finally.” Fuuta sat forward, concentrating extra hard as he locked into position. “Mikoto ink our base, Mahiru head for mid, I’ll pick them off if they head around the side, Yuno go on the upper path on the right to meet them at mid.” He instructed, weighing their individual strengths.

“Ok!” Mikoto hummed happily.

“Got it!” Yuno chimed in.

“Wohoo!” Mahiru cheered as they shot off and she began inking a path to the middle, dropping an ink mine at the ramp down to their base to warn them of intruders on her way to the middle. Two opponents were there to meet her, but luckily she was able to fend them off with a few well-timed long-range flings. She’d decided to use the Flingza roller as the better range and tenta missles gave her more of an inking advantage during Splatfests.

♡vampire was utilizing the long range of her Bloblobber to quickly ink the side of their base, throwing her inkstorm cloud towards mid before swimming off to pick off enemies where she had more of a range advantage over mobility. snoremimimimi had inked their base quickly with his inkbrush, before swimming off to combo close range attacks with Mappinoot✰. Placing an ink mine at the wrong moment, he ran out of ink to escape and got splatted.

pazuBang ran out of targets on the sides and noticed how they’d pushed the other team back far enough that it was safe for them to move past mid.

Mikoto agreed to be the distraction, pazuBang’s triple inkstrike creating an opening for snoremimimimi to hop into the enemy base and run around with his ultra stamp.

♡vampire hid in the ink mine he’d laid down before he got splatted again. “They’re charging up a booyah bomb.”

“Fuuta they’re probably after you, I’ll go back towards mid so I can be a safe jump spot.” Mahiru called out.

Sure enough, they threw it at the ledge pazuBang was standing on, unable to successfully dodge in time, he got splatted (and so did snoremimimimi, who’d just jumped to him like an idiot).

♡vampire got taken out by a splatana, and in the last minute of the match they were struggling against the enemy’s push back to mid. pazuBang was able to snipe several attackers who kept jumping back within range of his Z+F Splat charger.

As the seconds counted down, snoremimimimi made a risky cheeky move despite Fuuta’s (loud) warnings. Running into the enemy base, he drew a heart just as the match ended.

“Heheheh the power of love!”

“Good job guys.” Fuuta was proud of their teamwork, happy to have achieved his all time third 100x battle win.

“Eek now we can take cute victory pictures on the stage!” Yuno cheered.

“Mikoto, what was that cheeky move at the end?” Mahiru teased.

“Isn’t it cute? I thought it was fitting for us.” Mikoto giggled.

“It was also extremely reckless.” Fuuta grumbled.

“Good job Fuufuu!” Mikoto kissed him on the cheek, making Fuuta’s face turn red with embarrassment.

“Yeah, yeah. Good job.”

“What fucking bullshit is this?!?” Fuuta yelled the next morning, mouth agape as he shoved his phone in Mikoto’s face, displaying a Twitter post with the results. They’d tied with Fame at 12 points each. Team Money had won with 33 points. “12 points my ass! We spent hours grinding tricolor battles for this crap?! I knew there were too many people on our team.”

“It’s a little disappointing, but we’ll survive.” Mikoto sighed, taking another sip of his iced coffee.

“Will we? Feels like we wasted a lot of time to me.” Shaking his head, Fuuta turned off his phone and shoved it into the pocket of his hoodie.

“We still have lots of good memories though! I’m really glad I got to play a bunch this weekend. Spending time with you makes everything more fun.”

Fuuta felt Mikoto put an arm around his shoulder as he scooted closer. “Hard to believe you actually enjoy spending time with me after I yell at you all the damn time.”

“It’s true though! I really like you!!”

Fuuta tried to remain looking irritated, but it was very hard with the smile creeping its way onto his face. “Me too. Hey, be sure to ask John what he might like as a gift if you get the chance.”

“Ok I’ll try, is there a specific reason?”

“Just a thanks for something.”

“Ooh, now I’m intrigued~” Mikoto leaned in closer, poking Fuuta’s cheek.

Fuuta swatted his hand away. “I’m not telling.”

“You’re so mean!!”

“Well you’re a pain in the ass so that makes us even.”