Chapter Text
Chop, chop, chop, goes the knife as Kou brings it up and down, up and down on the wooden board. Chop, chop, chop.
Daikon falls apart underneath his knife, and he pushes it to the side while he continues cutting. His stomach rolls as the smell hits him - it's not bad, but his head hurts and everything is too much. Well, he can't feel his head hurting, but he knows it is. His vision flickers at the corners as he discards the remains into the trash. Chop, chop, chop.
He peeled the carrots already, so he slices them carefully into strips and moves them too. The pot on the stove bubbles, reminding him of his next steps, so he scoops the carrots up and moves them, flinching back so the hot water doesn't burn him. The kitchen floods with steam, so he reaches over the sink and opens the window. Chilly air rushes in from outside, and Kou swallows and moves his hand away. The combination of wildly contrasting temperatures is unpleasant.
A bundle of spring onions awaits him on the countertop, so he grabs it and undoes the wrapping while his head spins. The room is too silent, and he briefly wonders why he hasn't plugged in his headphones to play music. He must have been really out of it. He's nearly finished the main part of the meal and he doesn't even remember any of the process at all.
Reflexively, he rinses the knife under the water and returns to the chopping board. He slices the ends off, pushing them out of his way and positioning the knife right next to the onions. This shouldn't take much longer. When is Teru coming home?
He sighs deeply and starts cutting. Chop, chop -
"Ko-ouuuuu!"
Tiara's shriek, so terrified and loud, splits his ears and before he can even comprehend what he's hearing, pain shoots through his fingertip as he accidentally cuts right into it.
It's agonizingly painful, but he doesn't have time to think. "Tiara?" he yells, and he drops the knife and scrambles out of the kitchen so fast he nearly slams into the wall. He hurtles up the stairs, feeling his finger throb but forcing himself to ignore it. He's sure he gets blood on the handrail as he tears around the corner and slams through the door of Tiara's bedroom, panting and breathing so heavily he feels like he might pass out.
Tiara is standing at the edge of the room, back pressed against the wall, tears streaming down her face. Small sobs wrack her form, her hair mussed and wild as she clutches her own hands close to her chest, shaking, and Kou's heart jumps.
"What?" he shouts, terrified upon not seeing something immediately wrong. He scans his sister for injury and finds nothing, so he rushes over to kneel in front of her, letting her embrace him in a snotty hug and holding her gently. "Princess, what's wrong? Are you hurt? Did something scare you?"
"Waa-ah," Tiara wails, tears soaking into Kou's t-shirt. "Kou! Ko-ou!"
Kou's about to ask again what the problem is when he feels her lift her arm and point at something on the other side of the room, and cranes his neck so he can see. The second he spots it, his heart drops.
"It's so big, and ugly, and its legs are g-gross, and it was moving and it sc-scared me so ba-ad," Tiara sobs, hiccuping against Kou's chest. "I hate it, Kou, make it go away, pl-please, I can't go to sleep with it, Kou!"
"Alright," Kou says in a soft voice, trying his best to keep it from shaking as he eyes up the monster on the wall beside Tiara's bed. "I'll deal with it for you, ok, Princess? Here, go get me a cup from the bathroom and then go downstairs and get yourself some water. I'll be down in just a few minutes to make sure you're ok, is that alright?"
Tiara sniffs and slowly detaches herself from her brother. "'Kay..."
She rushes off, and Kou faces off against the enormous black spider.
If Teru were here - if Teru were here, he would have heard Tiara's scream first, and then this would be his problem, not Kou's. Teru's not arachnophobic by any means, and Kou never used to be either. There's just... something about knowing that the pain in his sides was caused by one, recalling the feeling of rotating in between its sharp, hairy legs before they dug into him and split the skin, that makes him physically recoil.
Tiara returns with a Princess Ariel patterned cup and hands it to him with quivering fingers. "Here," she says, and sniffles, wiping her face with her chubby hands. "'M going downstairs now."
Kou manages to smile at her as she goes. "Don't forget to drink some water, too."
Then he is alone with the spider. Not that Tiara being here would have made it any less scary.
How embarrassing, to be an exorcist who faces dangerous supernaturals on the regular and to be shivering at the sight of a spider on the wall. Teru would laugh.
...Teru probably wouldn't laugh. Teru would smile sympathetically and take care of it for him, and then ruffle his hair and tell him it's ok to not be able to do everything. He wouldn't intend for it to come across condescendingly, and Kou would be the asshole for interpreting it that way. He'd feel guilty for it afterwards. He'd remember Teru telling him how weak he was and feel sick.
Kou needs to grow up and deal with this on his own if he doesn't want any of that to happen.
He steels himself and takes a breath. Removing a piece of printer paper from Tiara's stack under the desk, he heads over to the wall by her bed. The closer he gets, the bigger the spider seems. Its legs move slowly, overlapping over each other, and cold shivers run down Kou's back at the sight, nausea stirring in his stomach.
"Just gonna get this over with," he mutters, and in one swift motion, he scoops the spider up onto the paper and underneath the cup.
He grins with relief as the spider disappears from view, until he sees the corner of the paper staining red. He'd forgotten he cut his finger, and hopes he didn't get any blood on Tiara's clothes. Unsteadily, he gets back up and heads to the bathroom, turning the light on with his forehead and opening the window above the bath one handed so he can release the thing.
"Goodbye," he says resolutely, and removes the cup with a flourish and jerks the paper towards the outside.
There is nothing on the paper.
Ice runs down Kou's back. He checks the paper again as if he could have possibly missed a large black shape against a rectangular sheet of white, then flips it over, then checks the windowsill, then peers into the bath in case it fell. Nothing. No spider to be seen.
He's about to freak out and exit the bathroom when he feels it - something tickling the underside of his arm.
For a moment, he doesn't want to look, but he knows he has to. For Tiara's sake, if not his own. Slowly, he tears his eyes away from the bath and towards his arm, tense and horrified, breaths coming short and fast.
Just as he'd imagined, the spider is clinging to his arm.
Rightfully, Kou shrieks. Immediately afterwards he claps a hand over his mouth, praying Tiara didn't hear as he smacks his own arm, trying to get the eight legged little freak away from him even at the cost of losing it on the floor. However, it doesn't even shift. The spider crawls further up his arm towards his hand, and Kou bites down on the hand over his mouth in an effort not to scream at the top of his lungs at the sensation of hairy little legs picking across sensitive skin.
He shakes his hand wildly, tries to flick the thing away, but all it does is march towards the cut on Kou's finger. As it does, he feels something else tickling his neck. His stomach. His feet. He doesn't even slightly want to look, tears beginning to prick at the corners of his eyes at the idea of what's happening to him, terror wracking his body as tens of horrible little arachnids start swarming from absolutely nowhere, taking him over.
"Stop!" he shrieks. He sinks to the ground in horror, clapping his hands over his ears to prevent them from going inside. "Sto- stop -"
Something pricks at the corner of his mouth. Kou feels vomit rise in his throat.
He pinches his lips closed and shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut tightly. His skin feels like it's on fire, and he doesn't dare to look at himself and what's happened to him. He can't even move. He's pinned down, and the wound on his finger throbs as one by one, the spiders around it sink their fangs into his bloody flesh and consume.
He whines desperately, wishing Teru were here, wishing his dad were here, wanting to go anywhere else -
"Does it sting?"
Kou's eyes fly open, and he faces - something. Something large and disgusting, something indescribable, something eight legged and supernatural and peering right at him.
"It stung for me," the spider-thing says. It can't keep a form - doesn't look the same every time Kou blinks tears out of his eyes. That makes sense. Kou had never seen the spider that attacked him before Mitsuba killed it. "When your friend ate me, I mean. Who would have thought? A human and a supernatural, friends with each other. I never thought I would see something so disgusting in my life."
The tears escape and roll down Kou's cheeks, but he can't speak. His face is being taken over. What's happening to him is no longer within his minds comprehension. It's too horrible, too impossible to imagine. The spider clicks with laughter, and Kou wonders if he deserves this somehow, wonders if this is punishment for disobeying Teru, for betraying his family name so thoroughly.
"Oh, don't worry, little thing," the spider tells him. Eight crimson eyes glint with something like amusement. "It will only hurt a second longer, just a pinch, and then -"
Kou feels something sharp and painful in his stomach. Automatically, his eyes drop down to see it. Takes in the cluster of spiders entering him through a hole that wasn't there before, red and wet and gorey.
"A well fought battle," says the spider, in a light tone. It crawls close to him, pincers flashing in the overhead light. "Goodnight, human."
Kou doesn't have anything left to use to scream with as the formless thing lunges right at his face -
- And Kou opens his eyes to see a dim blackness surrounding him.
He scrambles into a sitting position and fumbles for the light, expecting to see arachnids swarming the walls, expecting to see a hole carved out of his stomach. There's nothing. Of course there's nothing. How could there possibly be? The supernatural that attacked Kou a couple months ago was killed by Mitsuba. It couldn't possibly leave the forest clearing it lived in, much less find Kou's house and pass the supernatural barrier and try yet again to consume him.
He's been having this exact same dream for the past week. Each time the same - Tiara screaming for help, Kou cutting his finger, Teru gone, spiders eating him alive.
Kou's cheeks are damp. He scrubs at them furiously, angry at himself for his own childish cowardice, shivering despite how sweat soaked he is.
He glances around the room with blurry vision. The lamp lights up everything nearby, but there are still crevices unlit, dark corners that things could be lurking. It's a pathetic fear - no exorcist worth the salt they use in their rituals would be afraid of a little spider lurking somewhere, ready to attack. Kou has never been a very good exorcist.
He lies back down in the soft light and stares at the ceiling, knowing damn well there is nothing left to do but wait the several hours before morning comes.
"Psst. Psst, Kou, come on!"
Kou stirs groggily, blinking slowly and pushing himself up. "What'sat?"
When he's conscious enough again to form thoughts, he realizes what has happened. He's in his homeroom class, head on the desk buried in his arms, and Satou and Yokoo stand in front of him, identical nervous looks on their faces, trying to get him to wake.
"Morning, sleepyhead," Yokoo grins, but even though he's cracking jokes, it's clear he's uneasy too. He reaches out and ruffles Kou's hair, then gently smacks his face with his fingertips. "Come on, we should definitely go before Mr Tsuchigomori spots -"
"Minamoto?"
Both boys whip around to see the very man they just mentioned approaching. Mr Tsuchigomori looks rather unimpressed, eyes dropping to look at Kou's crumpled position, very clearly not sitting at attention, head barely off the desk, eyes probably red and framed with purple from lack of sleep. Both Satou and Yokoo gulp identically, mouths open as they mentally search for an explanation, one that Kou is far too exhausted to even try and find as he stares stupidly up at his teacher with a blank expression.
Mr Tsuchigomori sighs deeply. He looks so odd in his human form, missing four of his arms and those terrifyingly sharp rows of teeth. "Satou, Yokoo, get to your next class," he says, in a tired tone. "Minamoto, a word."
His friends both burst into protests before Mr Tsuchigomori holds up a hand in front of both of their faces. "To class," he says firmly, no room for discussion, and all Satou and Yokoo can even do is look at Kou helplessly before shoving their things in their bags and leaving, mumbling goodbyes and promises to see him later as they skedaddle out the door.
Kou gets to his feet, scrubbing at his eyes to try and wake himself up. He knows damn well he's in trouble. He tries his best not to make a habit of getting in trouble in school, but sometimes, rarely, he messes up. A few times, he's been separated from Satou and Yokoo for passing notes or whispering to each other. Once, he'd been sent down to the front office to drop off his phone for texting Nene during class. However, this is different. He hadn't intended to fall asleep. Really, he's kicking himself for being so stupid, for not trying hard enough to go back to sleep last night and leaving himself exhausted today.
He follows Mr Tsuchigomori to the front of the class, tail between his legs while the supernatural sits himself down at his desk and lets out a long, dramatic, drawn out sigh.
"What's the deal?" his teacher says. His tone has immediately changed from how it sounded when Satou and Yokoo were in the room - no reason to keep up a kind, caring adult persona in front of one of the few people in this school who knows what he actually is. "Falling asleep during class isn't like you, Minamoto, and as your teacher, I'm supposed to care about that kind of thing."
Kou frowns, suddenly annoyed. "What, you don't really care?" he asks, gripping his bag strap tightly. Exhaustion tickles the back of his eyes, urging them to droop closed, an urge he's forced to fight against. "Just let me go to my next class then if it doesn't matter to you either way. I can tell Satou and Yokoo you told me off for not getting enough sleep."
Mr Tsuchigomori sighs again. It seems he does that a lot. "Why don't we at least try and have this conversation?" he says, raising his eyebrows slightly. "I am supposed to at least pretend to care. Has there been any trouble at home, Minamoto?"
"Nothing like that," Kou rushes to say, and then he pauses. Glances down at Mr Tsuchigomori's sides where his extra arms sprout from when he's in his supernatural form. An idea comes to mind, one that's probably silly, but he doesn't give himself enough time to think about before he acts on it anyway.
"Um, Spider face -"
"Sensei," Mr Tsuchigomori snappily corrects him.
"Spider face sensei," Kou says rapidly, and watches as Mr Tsuchigomori only groans and pinches the bridge of his nose. Kou swallows and drops his gaze to his hands, white knuckled as they clutch his bagstrap. "Um, I was just wondering... do all of the spider supernaturals know each other or something?"
The look Mr Tsuchigomori shoots him is withering, and he probably deserves it. It really was a stupid question.
"Do all exorcists know each other?" Mr Tsuchigomori asks in a tone dripping with sarcasm. "Do all blonde humans know each other? Do all idiotic little boys who think they're far more clever than they are -"
"Alright, alright, I get the picture," Kou blurts, waving him off. He clenches his jaw, another wave of exhaustion hitting him. "Sorry I asked. I should go to my next class, I'll be late."
"I'll write you a note," Mr Tsuchigomori tells him airily, and fumbles around on the desk for a pen and piece of paper. "What a pain it is to do things with only two arms, how do humans do this? So, Minamoto, why the spider related question all of a sudden? I take it you met another one similar to me recently?"
Kou blinks, not having expected further questioning. Mr Tsuchigomori proclaimed himself that he didn't care, after all. "I... kind of," he says, scratching the back of his neck. "I mean, I didn't see what it looked like, but it wasn't... anything like a human, like you."
If possible, Mr Tsuchigomori's eyebrows creep even higher. "Is that so?" he drawls. His pen scratches across the paper. "How could you possibly know it was a spider without having seen it?"
Kou swallows. "Uh -"
"Exorcize it too fast, is that it?" Mr Tsuchigomori asks, pursing his lips. Plum coloured eyes meet his own. "Are you feeling guilty about it? If it makes you feel any better, I don't have any relatives or family. Most supernaturals don't. I had no connection with whatever creature you may have met."
"It's not like that," Kou explains quickly. "I, um... didn't exorcize it. I was just wondering... about... different kinds of supernaturals, and what they're capable of, and - the kind of - injuries they can inflict, and such..."
Mr Tsuchigomori stares at him for a long moment while Kou turns beet red, struggling to finish his sentence but finding no further words to say.
"You were hurt, I take it," Mr Tsuchigomori drawls. Kou bites his lip, then nods wordlessly. The supernatural sighs again and leans his forehead on his fist.
"For God's sake," he mutters. "Did your brother at least take care of it?"
Kou pauses for a very long time, and then nods slowly, less certainly. If Mr Tsuchigomori thinks there's anything strange about how long it took him to confirm this, he doesn't point it out.
"That's good," he says instead. "Any kind of supernatural injury on a human, I imagine, you wouldn't want to leave untreated for long. Not if your intention was to keep living, after all."
This time, it takes even longer for Kou to reply. "...Right."
Mr Tsuchigomori shoots him a glance. "So this supernatural you encountered... what, thinking about it is keeping you up at night, is that it?"
"In a way," Kou mumbles, gnawing on the inside of his lip. "I've been having bad dreams about it. But - but I'm fine, really, I've just been tired. Really tired. I don't mean to fall asleep while you're talking, I promise. A-and if you have anything important to say, Satou and Yokoo will give me the notes, anyway."
At this, Mr Tsuchigomori's gaze turns scathing. "If I have anything important to say?"
Kou swallows, eyes bulging. "I mean, obviously everything you have to say is important! Sorry! Just misspoke, I - I am tired, after all..."
The supernatural glares at him a moment longer. Then he lets out one final sigh and, with a flourish, presents the handwritten excuse note to Kou, who plucks it from his hand with a quiet thanks. His mind is moving so slowly that he doesn't even remember what his next class is. He'll have to check. Surely, he should remember by now, but lack of sleep has turned the inside of his skull into soup.
If Mitsuba were here, he'd finally be a hundred percent correct in calling Kou a brainless earring boy. Just this morning, Kou nearly tripped down the stairs because he briefly overestimated how many steps there were. He also forgot how to tie his tie and had to rummage through his drawers to find the old clip-on one he wore in first year. Even doing that was less embarrassing than asking Teru to do it for him.
If a supernatural were to attack Kou today, he might accidentally electrocute himself instead of them. He really needs to sort himself out and get some rest.
"I won't write this up," Mr Tsuchigomori says, reminding Kou of where he is. The teacher looks rather unimpressed, but doesn't seem to be as annoyed as usual. "And I'll look the other way if I happen to catch you resting your eyes in my class for the next little while. I will say, though, Minamoto, that your other teachers will not be so lenient, and neither will the rest of the world. I would advise you find a solution to your sleep problem sometime soon to prevent this happening again, understand?"
Kou nods rapidly. That's far better than he was expecting, considering he'd thought that Mr Tsuchigomori didn't actually like him at all. "O-of course," he says. "Yeah. I mean, I'll try my best to figure it out. Thank you so much for not writing me up, Spider Face."
"Keep calling me that and I'll change my mind," Mr Tsuchigomori replies flatly.
"...Right," Kou says. He takes a step back towards the door, cracking a grin. "Thank you, Spider Face sensei!"
He hears Mr Tsuchigomori cursing as the door closes behind him. Kou can't help but giggle. For as much as he parades like he cares so little about his students, maybe he has a soft heart after all, deep down. Very deep down.
Well, this hasn't solved Kou's problem at all, but now he has an excuse to be late to his next class, so he doesn't need to rush. He starts walking through the empty halls and pulls out his phone to look for the photo he took of his timetable, scrolling through and zooming in to read, squinting at the text -
- And slams into someone coming around the same corner he was just rounding.
Clearly, they're in more of a hurry than he is, because they're going fast enough that Kou almost flies back and hits the ground. Thankfully, even as exhausted as he is, his reflexes aren't entirely nothing, so he manages to grab the wall and catch himself. The note and his phone fly out of his hands, and both join the pile of books and papers that the other student was carrying which tumbled out of their grip when they fell, scattered onto the floor.
"Oh gosh, I'm so sorry," Kou blurts, even though it's only very slightly his fault. It is a rule within the school not to be on your phone while walking in the halls, and he knew he was breaking it, although it wasn't like he was texting or something at the very least. "Are you ok - senpai?"
The girl who collided into him is clearly a senior. She has bright green hair cut in a bob and eyes of the same colour, droopy and unfocused with shock. Kou holds out his hand to help her sit up, then starts piling up her books and handing them to her. She doesn't seem to have a bag of any kind. The books she's carrying are odd, too - clearly not school books, old and battered judging by the fade on their covers. They look like fancy notebooks. A couple of them appear to be student issue notebooks, with scribbled writing on the front that doesn't seem to read the students name.
"I'm fine," the girl replies slowly. She accepts Kou's assistance with grace, the corners of her lips lifting very slightly in a ghost of a smile. "Thank you. I'm terribly sorry. I wasn't paying attention."
"That's ok," Kou says, and grins as he hands her the last notebook. "I guess you were late to class, right? So am I, so you're not alone."
Then he notices the stockings she's wearing. Green, the same as her hair and eyes. Maybe she's not in class because she was sent down to the principal's office for breaking the uniform regulations. It could even have been Teru who did it. He's always dress coding Yamabuki for wearing baseball tees over his dress shirts, but it's never seemed to have worked out in his favour before, because he just keeps wearing them anyway.
"Here," the girl says. She passes Kou his phone, and Kou gasps, examining the screen for cracks and finding none. The girl nods, and Kou realizes dimly that the ditzy look on her face seems to be a permanent thing and not a result of the shock of her fall, which is a good thing, he thinks. "I'm sorry again. I hope it's not broken."
"It's fine, thankfully," Kou says, and smiles again as he gets to his feet. "You're really not hurt? You fell pretty hard."
The girl hesitates. Her eyes fall to Kou's bag for the briefest of moments, and then she shakes her head. "I'm really ok, thank you. I should get to class now. Goodbye."
"Oh - goodbye," Kou says, as the girl rushes past. She's out of his line of sight in seconds, not leaving him even a moment to gather his bearings.
It's only once she's gone that he really thinks about it. Green is a fairly odd hair colour. How the hell hasn't he seen her before?
He'll have to ask Satou and Yokoo if they've seen her around. He glances down at his phone again, this time actually locating his next class with a groan. English. Maybe he'll drag his feet a little on the way to class. Mr Tsuchigomori didn't timestamp the excuse note he wrote him, did he?
Kou goes to check, and realizes something. The excuse note is not in his hands, and one single glance confirms it's not on the floor either. Stupidly, like a dumbass, Kou had handed it to the green haired girl along with the rest of the papers and books she'd dropped without even checking.
Looks like he'll be having to rush to class, after all.
"So? Is it someone we know?"
"Come on, Kou, you've always vetted our various crushes and love interests over the years. If you've got one now, we get to have a turn. It's only fair."
Kou lets out a long, heavy sigh. "Guys..."
They're at lunch, and Satou and Yokoo are sat in front of him, grilling him about the sight they'd seen in front of the lockers yesterday. Kou had expected this ever since he'd seen them lurking nearby when he was talking to Chihori, but he'd managed to hold them off until now. However, it seems as though he may have been holding off the inevitable.
"You never have crushes on people," Satou points out. He jabs his chopsticks in Kou's direction, still chewing the food he just put in his mouth as he speaks. "Of course we're gonna be curious now that we know that you like someone."
Kou frowns, picking at his own lunch with his chopsticks. "I've had crushes," he says, tipping his head to the side. "I just never told anyone about them."
"Because they were -?" Yokoo jumps in, and gestures to the three of them. Kou snorts at the vagueness, but understands what he means. Boys.
"Yeah," he drawls, staring into his rice. "I mean, you guys can know now, but I don't have anything interesting to say about any of it, because obviously nothing happened."
Satou raises his eyebrows, looking somewhat surprised by something. "So you prefer -" He mimics the same gesture Yokoo had just done. "- Over girls?"
Kou rolls his eyes. "I guess. Why does this matter, anyway? My love life is like a... barren desert without even a tumbleweed to roll through it."
"Until now," Yokoo says with an enthusiastic grin. "So, spill! Details! We want to know everything!"
"You know," Kou says, glaring in Yokoo's direction. "I didn't tell you guys about this at all. You were just rudely eavesdropping like assholes. I don't think either of you deserve to know anything."
Both Satou and Yokoo protest, defending themselves against their own past actions weakly.
As much as is may have been rude for them to listen in on Kou's private conversation, that's absolutely not the main thing preventing him from sharing the details of his situation. Really, he'd absolutely love to tell Satou and Yokoo about Mitsuba, explain their outings together in detail and ask their opinions on whether he's into him or not, but he can't. His friends can't see supernaturals. His friends have never even seen proof that they exist. The two of them have been unfortunate victims of supernatural events in the past, but they don't know it - don't remember, or had valid explanations fed to them. Besides, even if Kou could manage to get them to believe that supernaturals existed and Kou is in a weirdly romantically tense relationship with one, he doesn't think he'd want to. Teru's own words from many years prior come back to him; it's better for those who can't see supernaturals to stay like that.
God, does Kou understand. There have been times in Kou's life where he would have done anything, paid any price, to be as blind to the universe of supernatural creatures that thrive parallel to this one as his friends are and live as a completely normal person.
Besides all of this, there is no easy way to explain hey, so our classmate who died a little over a year ago came back as a ghost and was tortured horribly before having his mind removed and moulded into a supernatural clone of himself who became extremely powerful within the school extremely quickly, and that's the guy I have a crush on.
Kou sighs. Yeah, it's definitely not possible to explain Mitsuba to them, as much as he'd like to. It's kind of lonely, having no one to talk to about it. Even Nene, one of the people he trusts the most, doesn't know he's bisexual and he's not sure he wants to tell her either. Well - he does. It's just that fear, that intrinsic fear that comes with being different from everybody else in a way that certain people find disgusting and might make the people he cares about look at him differently.
The last thing he wants is to be looked at differently.
"Seriously, you guys don't need to make a big deal out of it," he says, leaning on his fist and glancing over at the both of them. They stop protesting instantly and listen, curious. "I mean, it's just a crush. It's not like I'm marrying him."
He realizes his mistake a millisecond afterwards when both Satou and Yokoo gasp and make identical open mouthed faces.
"It's a he!" Satou whisper-yells, eyes bulging. "It's a him!"
"Now you have to tell us," Yokoo grins. He clicks the lid of his bento box closed and slides his hand over to Satou's bag of mochi, stealing several pieces and unwrapping them silently. "Like, is it someone in our class? He does go to this school, right? Do we both know him? Is he a friend of ours?"
Satou suddenly wrinkles his nose. "Oh my God, Kou, it's not that guy you made that Reddit post about, is it?"
Yokoo gasps again. "No-o! Kou, tell us it isn't so!"
Kou just drops his head into his hands. Now that he's slipped up and revealed it's a guy, they're both going to be ten times more insufferable. Unfortunately for them also, Mitsuba is the one he'd made that stupid post about. Neither of them are going to be happy to find that out.
He also has the slight concern that Mitsuba could possibly be listening in on his conversation. He's not a complete idiot, he knows Mitsuba has stalkerish tendencies that he'd rather die than admit he has, but he hopes the fact that the three of them have been whispering this whole conversation would alert Mitsuba to the idea that this isn't for him to eavesdrop on. He doesn't want to have to answer questions about this from him, too.
The school is a dangerous place for him to be talking about this for several reasons. Kou's starting to get nervous.
"I can't believe you guys are still going on about that," he groans. "Can we stop talking about this here? There's too many people for it to be - you know."
They must both get it immediately, because they both sober up and nod solemnly. "Yeah, I get it," Satou says, who understands Kou best of all in regards to the sexuality thing. "Wanna hang after school? I mean, you're not picking up Tiara today, right? Or are you? I actually don't remember."
Kou scrunches up his face. "You've known me for so long and you still don't know which days I pick my baby sister up from school?"
"Monday, Wednesday and Friday," Yokoo recites, and then sticks his tongue out at Satou while holding his hand out for a high five from Kou, which he receives. "Looks like I might be winning the better friend competition that you showed up late to."
"Uh, I was literally Kou's friend first, so I think you showed up late, actually," Satou replies, sticking his tongue out back at him. "Forgive me for forgetting some days when I have so much bullshit of my own I need to remember. So, Kou? Agawa's after school, what do you say?"
That does sound good, actually. He hangs out with his friends so little outside of school, for obvious reasons. However, he'd already texted Nene this morning confirming that he'd hang behind today to clean the bathroom with her and Hanako. He'd been too busy for a little while there, and today she'd practically begged him, so he couldn't exactly say no.
"I have other stuff going on today, sorry," he says, grimacing. "Maybe Thursday? I'll let you know at the time, I guess."
"Kou's a busy, busy boy," Satou sighs, grabbing his bag of mochi away when he notices Yokoo's hand snaking around to steal another one. "He's too busy for us now. Kou, remember us when you've moved onto bigger and better things, ok?"
"I guess I'll try," Kou says teasingly. He closes his own bento box, no longer hungry. Well, not really. "Pass me one of those, Yokoo."
Satou yelps as Yokoo tosses Kou one of the several mochi packets he'd stolen from Satou's bag.
"Alright, that's it," he says in mock-anger, shoving Yokoo away as he giggles. "I'm cutting you off. And we're getting a divorce, now, too."
Kou huffs, unimpressed. "Again?"
Yokoo lets out a sob, even as he's consuming chunks of mochi. "I'm devastated," he announces dramatically, placing the back of his hand against his forehead. "I'll never marry again."
Snickering, Kou unwraps his own mochi and nibbles around the edges of it. Now that the conversation topic has changed, he can relax slightly more. "It's ok, Yokoo," he says, reaching out to pat Yokoo on the arm sympathetically with his free hand. "I'd share my sweets with you if I had any today."
Yokoo turns back to look at him. Kou can see the exact moment his eyes light up with mischief, an idea clearly coming to mind. "Oh my God, Satou," he gushes, not taking his gaze off of Kou. "I just figured it all out. Why Kou isn't telling us who his mystery man is, why he's oh-so reluctant to hang out with us after school - Satou, it's so clear to me now that Kou is utterly and hopelessly in love with me."
Satou chokes on his food. Kou can't help but laugh as Yokoo stares at him with hearts for eyes and Satou nearly dies beside him. This is the kind of bit he'd never been able to participate in as a kid for fear of things coming across as too real - it's kind of nice, having Satou and Yokoo know the truth about him so they're even able to make jokes like this without Kou being accused of things that he was afraid to answer to.
"Alright," he says with a dramatic sigh, shaking his head slowly. "I admit it, Yokoo, since you've completely figured me out. I am in love with you, and now that you're divorced, we can be together instead."
"Oh, how wonderful!" Yokoo cheers, as Satou splutters. "Kiss me, you fool!"
He starts making kissy faces at Kou, and Kou laughs before doing it back, delighting in how horrified Satou looks at the prospect of this.
"Hey, Kou!"
Kou then realizes in that moment that Satou's look of horror was, in fact, not due to Yokoo's joke about dating Kou. No, it was much worse.
He moves away from Yokoo like he's on fire and whips around to see who's behind him.
Teru stands there with a smile on his face, hands folded behind his back and eyes glittering. A few feet behind him lurks Aoi, peering at his phone through his glasses as he types something rapidly. There's no indication on Teru's face that he even noticed what Kou and Yokoo were just doing, much less his opinion on it. Still, Kou's heart is racing so fast he feels like he could be sick.
"Hi, Teru," he croaks, clearing his throat to try and sound normal again. "Uh, what's wrong?"
Teru waits a beat before he replies, his smile only getting wider. "Can I borrow your house keys?"
Kou stares at him. Teru stares back defiantly, expression unchanging.
"Don't tell me you lost them again," Kou groans. The terror of Teru coming over here right now is replaced by dread. "Teru, it was such a pain when you lost them last time! I'm gonna be really upset at you if that's what's happened!"
"Don't worry about it," Teru stresses, holding up both his hands as Kou frets. "If they're really lost, I'll take the responsibility of getting new ones cut myself as soon as possible. I'm sure I can figure out where they've gone, anyway. I already have a slight suspicion about who might have taken them."
The mokke, Kou's certain, but he can't say that in front of Satou and Yokoo. He relaxes, then sighs and reaches down to rummage through his bag and produce his house keys, keychains jingling off the metal hoop. Teru accepts them with grace, beaming wide as he shoves them into his pocket.
"Thank you, Kou," he says lightly, and reaches out to ruffle his hair before Kou can stop him. "Try not to be home too late in case I can't get to the door."
"Alright," Kou grumbles, pushing Teru's hand away gently. "See you later."
Teru snickers, then glances over in the direction of Kou's paralyzed friends and nods. "Satou, Yokoo."
"Hi, President," Yokoo squeaks, while Satou doesn't manage to say anything at all and simply waves.
Then Teru turns and leaves them in silence for an awkward moment.
"God," Yokoo groans, dropping his head onto the table with a thunk. "That nearly gave me a heart attack."
"I'm sure he didn't see anything," Kou rushes to say, trying to sound confident in his words. "I mean, even if he did, we were just being idiots, we weren't doing anything that actually made us look - I mean, we - we were messing around. It's not anything to freak out about."
"What if he figures us out, though?" Satou whispers. His face is white at the very prospect. "Oh, God, do you think he knows now?"
"Knows what?" Yokoo asks in a scathing tone. "You weren't even involved, it was me and Kou!"
"I was here," Satou argues, twisting his fingers around each other. "I'm inherently complicit in whatever you two do!"
"What, complicit in acting a little gay?" Yokoo replies. He lowers his voice on the last word. "You're fine, Satou, Kou's right. We were just being silly."
"Yeah," Kou says. His heart is still beating rapidly against his chest. "Teru's not some kind of detective, anyway, I doubt he even cares."
"Still," Satou mutters. He palms his face, heaving out a breath. "I don't like the idea of someone knowing without us saying they could, especially - I mean, y-you know."
Yeah, Kou knows. His dad flashes into his mind, his grip tight on Teru's shoulder. His mother's words from years ago, telling him to never tell either of them the truth about himself. Kou knows better than anyone.
"There's no way he could have deciphered anything about you two from me and Yokoo acting weird," he says anyway, because Satou is still freaked out. "You think he'd see me and Yokoo pretending to make out and go "oh my God, Satou and Yokoo are secretly dating and Kou is -"
"Hi again, Kou!"
Kou freezes, then whirls around, to find Teru once again standing there. His smile is identical to before, giving nothing away. Kou's sure his face is red as a beet. He can't imagine Satou and Yokoo look much better.
"Hi, Teru?" Kou says, with a question mark at the end. "Y-you haven't lost my keys already, have you?"
Teru shakes his head. "No-pe. Do you have approximately two hundred yen cash that I can borrow?"
Kou blinks, mind running slow. "Uh... for what? And wait, why? Teru, you didn't also lose -"
"No, no, no, I know exactly where my bank card is," Teru jumps in. He continues to smile during his pause in speech. "On the dining room table at home. I was buying something this morning and forgot to put it back in my wallet."
At this, Kou groans and lifts his bag again to give Teru what he needs so he'll go away. He loves Teru, but this is not at all the time. "Ok, fine," he grumbles. His hands shake slightly as he rummages through his own wallet for the cash. "What's it for, then?"
"Tiara," Teru answers plainly. "She'll want candy from the store after school and I don't have any money."
"You're hopeless," Kou tells him with a sigh. He hands Teru the cash and manages to bring a smile to his face. "You better hope to marry a good wife one day or you'll never get absolutely anything done."
Teru blinks, and then laughs. "I'll do my best, just for you. Bye, Kou."
He turns and saunters away to join Aoi amongst the mass of students again, whistling.
There's a brief silence, and then Kou turns to face Satou and Yokoo. Both of them stare back at him, expressions difficult to read and faces flushed, neither boy saying anything.
Then Kou simply drops his head down onto the table.
"I'm just gonna lay here," he announces, "for the rest of the day, and I don't want anyone to disturb me."
"Good call," Satou replies lightly.
Kou closes his eyes and waits for the bell to ring.