Work Text:
The apartment was bigger than Rui remembered.
Not objectively—he’d seen the floor plan, memorized the dimensions, accounted for the square footage—but standing inside it now, with the echo of his footsteps and the way sound carried down the hallway, it felt… expansive. Like it had been holding its breath, waiting to be filled.
Boxes were stacked along the walls in neat columns, labeled in Rui’s handwriting. Furniture pieces leaned carefully against each other, each separated by cardboard and foam. Nothing had gone terribly wrong yet, which Rui considered a minor miracle.
He checked the kitchen first.
The refrigerator hummed when he plugged it in. Good. He opened and closed it once, just to be sure. The stove knobs turned smoothly. He flicked a switch and watched the overhead light come on, then off again, satisfied.
Next: living room.
Rui nudged the couch a few centimeters to the left, then stopped, tilted his head, and nudged it back. Better. He made a mental note to adjust the rug later—after everything else had stopped existing in the hallway.
The washing machine clicked softly as it finished its test cycle.
Rui crouched beside it for a moment longer, watching for any sign of leaking or imbalance. When nothing happened—no ominous rattling, no sudden shudder—he stood and made a small checkmark in his head.
Kitchen and laundry: functional.
He wiped his hands on a cloth, glanced once more at the neatly labeled boxes stacked along the wall, and stepped back into the hallway. The apartment still felt strangely open, like it was only halfway through becoming real. Rui suspected it would take time—time, furniture, and probably a few mistakes—for it to feel lived in.
His own room had been the easiest.
Bed assembled. Desk stable. Shelves secured to the wall at exact measurements. Everything was placed with intention, adjusted until it felt correct. Rui had allowed himself precisely five minutes to sit on the edge of the bed afterward, just to register the fact that it was his. Then he’d gotten back to work.
Next on his mental list: check on the others.
Emu’s door was open, music playing softly from somewhere inside. Rui paused at the threshold and took in the scene. Clothes were spread across the bed in colorful piles. Emu stood in front of the open closet, arms full of hangers, humming cheerfully to herself as she debated where to put something. She stepped back, tilted her head, then moved an entire row over by a few inches.
“Emu,” Rui said.
She spun around instantly. “Rui! Look!”
She gestured grandly at the closet. It was already more organized than Rui had expected—color-coded, no less, with accessories carefully grouped together.
“I decided my stage outfits should go on the left so they’re easier to grab,” Emu said. “And my comfy clothes on the right, because those are for after rehearsals! Oh, and I found this shelf perfect for hats.”
Rui nodded. “Efficient. Are you having any trouble?”
“Nope!” Emu chirped. “Everything fits! I might rearrange it later, but that’s future-Emu’s problem.”
A reasonable approach, Rui thought.
“Let me know if you need help securing anything,” he said.
“Okay!” Emu replied, already turning back to her closet. “Good luck supervising!”
Rui continued down the hall.
Nene’s room was quieter—save for the familiar electronic startup sound of a console booting up. She sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV stand, cables spread out like a carefully planned puzzle.
Rui leaned against the doorframe. “How is it going?”
Nene didn’t look up. “If this doesn’t work, I’m blaming the apartment.”
A moment later, the screen lit up properly. Menu music played.
“…Okay, never mind. We’re good.”
Rui allowed himself a small smile. He glanced at the power strip, the neatly bundled cords, the controllers placed in a precise row.
“Let me know if the outlet placement becomes inconvenient,” he said.
“Mm. Will do,” Nene replied, already navigating menus.
Two rooms accounted for. Which left—
Rui stepped into the doorway just as Tsukasa turned, one hand resting proudly on the chair.
“Rui! I finished—”
The chair collapsed.
It didn’t crash so much as… give up. One leg slid out, then another, the joints loosening as if they’d collectively decided they were done. The seat tipped, hesitated, and then separated into pieces with a soft, almost polite clatter. A single screw bounced once against the floor and rolled to a stop near Rui’s shoe.
Tsukasa froze. He stood there, still holding the backrest, staring down at the scattered parts like they’d personally betrayed him.
Rui inhaled.
Then paused.
Then very deliberately pressed his lips together.
He crouched, the movement unhurried, and picked up the runaway screw. He turned it between his fingers, taking a second longer than necessary to examine the threading, the metal cool against his skin. His shoulders were just barely tense, like he was holding something back.
“…I see,” he said, voice even.
Tsukasa spun around immediately. “It wasn’t like that a second ago! I swear it was stable. I even shook it a little!”
Rui nodded once, eyes sweeping the room—the chair legs splayed at odd angles, the seat lying sideways, the instruction manual abandoned on the bed with its pages half-curled. One corner of his mouth twitched before he caught it.
“May I see the instructions?” he asked.
Tsukasa blinked. “…Oh. Yeah. Yeah, okay.”
He scrambled toward the bed, nearly catching his foot on one of the chair legs, and grabbed the manual. When he handed it over, his grip lingered for a moment, sheepish.
“I thought I had it,” Tsukasa admitted. “But maybe I skipped a step. Or five.”
Rui accepted the booklet and flipped it open, scanning the diagrams with quiet focus. “You assembled it upside down,” he said calmly.
Tsukasa winced. “In my defense, the pictures were very optimistic.”
Rui hummed in acknowledgment, turning the page. He lowered himself to the floor, knees brushing against the wood as he began to reorganize the pieces—grouping the legs, aligning screws by size, sliding components into place with practiced ease. The chaos on the floor slowly resolved into order.
“I will help you construct it this time,” he said, tone gentle but decisive. “If you would be so kind as to hold the seat steady.”
“Yes! Absolutely,” Tsukasa replied at once, straightening as if he’d been assigned an important role. He grabbed the seat with both hands, holding it in place with solemn concentration. “I will not let it betray us again.”
They worked in tandem for a few minutes—Rui giving quiet, precise instructions, Tsukasa following them with intense focus, tongue peeking out slightly as he concentrated. Screws turned. Pieces aligned. The chair slowly began to resemble something functional, less like a pile of parts and more like an object that might actually belong in the room.
Eventually, Tsukasa exhaled and laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “…Sorry,” he said. “I really thought I could do it on my own.”
Rui paused. The chair lay between them—still unfinished, its pieces no longer scattered so much as waiting, aligned in careful rows the way Rui had arranged them. It looked sturdier now, like it might actually survive being sat on, though neither of them seemed eager to test that theory yet.
Sunlight slanted in through the window, catching dust in the air and warming the bare floorboards beneath them. The room smelled faintly of cardboard and new wood, of something unfamiliar that would eventually fade into something lived-in.
Rui’s gaze drifted from the chair to Tsukasa, who sat cross-legged among the parts, sleeves pushed up, hair slightly mussed from work. For once, he wasn’t vibrating with restless energy. He was still.
“We’re moving into a new place,” Rui said gently. “With furniture that insists on being complicated.”
Tsukasa let out a breath that was half a laugh. It echoed softly in the unfinished room before falling quiet again.
“…Hey, Rui?”
Rui hummed in response.
Tsukasa rolled a loose screw between his fingers, metal clicking faintly as it tapped against his nail. “Are you… nervous at all?”
The question hung there, fragile.
“Nervous,” Tsukasa added quickly, glancing around. “About everything. Living here. On our own. No staff, no parents, no one checking if we plugged something in wrong.”
He gestured vaguely toward the half-built furniture, the unopened boxes stacked along the wall, the unfamiliar corners of the room. “When we were kids, it always felt like this part would be easy. Like we’d just show up and—boom—home.”
Rui was quiet for a moment.
He closed the instruction manual and set it beside him, smoothing the cover absentmindedly. The floor was cool beneath his palms as he leaned back, eyes following the line of the ceiling.
“I think,” he said slowly, “the idea was simpler than the reality.”
Tsukasa huffed softly. “Figures.”
“It is… unsettling,” Rui continued, choosing his words with care, “to realize there is no one supervising us now. That if something goes wrong, it is entirely our responsibility to notice—and to fix.”
Tsukasa looked up at him, listening.
“But,” Rui said, glancing back at the chair, at the small pile of screws, at Tsukasa sitting in the middle of it all, “that also means we are permitted to be imperfect. Things are not required to function correctly the first time.”
He shifted closer, their shoulders brushing. The contact was light, unspoken, grounding.
“We are learning,” Rui said softly. “That will involve missteps.”
His smile, when it came, was small but sincere.
“And because we are doing this together,” he added, “we’ll figure it out.”
Something eased in Tsukasa’s chest. He nodded, returning the smile, warmth spreading where the nerves had been sitting. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Together.”
The chair remained unfinished. The apartment still echoed. But for the first time that day, it felt less like a space they were borrowing—and more like one they were becoming.
~
(BONUS! :D)
The apartment was quiet in a way it hadn’t been all day.
No dragging boxes. No clatter of tools. No half-built furniture demanding attention. Just the low hum of electricity and the soft settling sounds of a place being used for the first time.
The four of them stood in the living room, taking it in.
The couch was where it belonged. The table no longer wobbled. Chairs—fully intact—were tucked neatly into place. Light filtered in through the windows and caught on surfaces that, hours ago, had still been wrapped in plastic.
Emu spun slowly in a small circle, hands clasped behind her back. “Wow,” she said. “We actually did it!”
Nene sank onto the couch with a sigh, leaning back. “I’m never assembling furniture again.”
“You say that every time,” Tsukasa replied, arms crossed proudly as he surveyed the room. “But look at this place! It’s perfect.”
Rui’s gaze drifted instead to the walls. Bare. Clean.
Empty.
Emu noticed too. She tilted her head, eyes scanning the space, then frowned just slightly. “…It feels like something’s missing,” she said.
The others looked at her.
“The walls,” Emu explained, gesturing vaguely. “They’re kind of empty, right? But I don’t think it’s because we forgot anything.”
She thought about it for a moment, then smiled. “It’s probably just because we haven’t lived here long enough!”
Tsukasa hummed, considering that. He glanced around again, this time imagining it—photos, posters, little reminders of days that hadn’t happened yet. “Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe it’s because we haven’t made enough memories here yet.”
Rui nodded slowly. “That would explain it.”
Nene looked between them. “…So you’re saying the apartment needs a lore update.”
Tsukasa laughed. “Exactly!”
Rui stepped a little closer to the center of the room, folding his hands behind his back. “This space will change,” he said calmly. “Not all at once. Gradually.”
“Photos on the fridge,” he continued. “Scratches on the table. Items moved from their original places and never returned.”
Emu’s eyes lit up. “And little notes! And souvenirs! And things we’ll forget how we got!”
“And memories,” Tsukasa added, smiling. “The kind you don’t notice until you realize you can’t imagine the place without them.”
Rui glanced at them—at all three of them standing there, tired and content and very much real. “We should fill it with those,” he said. “As we live here.”
Emu grinned. “Then let’s get started!”
Nene yawned. “Tomorrow.”
They all laughed.
The walls were still empty. But the apartment didn’t feel unfinished anymore—just patient, waiting for the memories that would soon make it home.