Chapter Text
Yoichi Isagi could never in his wildest dreams have imagined how fast shit would hit the fan today.
Even by the standards of his consistently drama filled life lately, this was a new all-time low.
The day had started out normal enough, him having just got off his shift at Starbucks an hour ago, and thoroughly already tired of everything and everyone.
But hey, Starbucks was only a temporary job until he had enough money to open his own café and then he could kiss their sucky artificial sweeteners goodbye for good…
That’s what he’s been telling himself for the last three years at least.
As soon as he walked in the door of the apartment, his roommate and close friend, Meguru Bachira; had been chaotic as usual and utterly oblivious of Isagi’s waning sanity from dealing with a dozen Coffee Karens that day and being on toilet duty yet again.
“Hey Isagi! Guess what?! I got to go to court and pay a fine for making art on the side of the Walmart!”, Bachira said in a sing song voice as he twirled around the room happily, his sunny yellow highlights shining in the light as he did so.
Isagi suppressed a sigh, forcing patience.
“Bachira we’ve been over this man… You can’t just spray paint art on the sides of stores without permission, that’s vandalism.”, he tried to explain for the millionth time, yet at the same time already knowing it was a losing battle.
Bachira waved a hand at him dismissively and smiled brightly.
“Ah, but I was just doing what my monster wanted me to do!”, he explained as if using his long-time imaginary friend as a defense was completely logical.
Isagi pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation.
For the love of God, not this again.
“Bachira, you know I love you like a brother but come on dude! We’ve all told you time and time again that saying that “the monster told you to do it” will not hold up in court!”, he exclaimed, spreading his arms widely just to emphasis his point.
Bachira snorted in amusement, as if Isagi were the crazy one here.
“Buddy, I have to tell ya, you worry too much. Heck, maybe you need a monster of your own.”
Before Isagi can form a response, his other friend and fellow roommate; Hyoma Chigiri entered the apartment, having gotten back from his shift at the local hair salon, looking annoyed.
Isagi momentarily forgot his debate with Bachira and looked at Chigiri in concern.
“Uh hey man, everything good at work?”, he asked carefully.
Chigiri huffed, flipping his long red hair irritably, his pink eyes narrowing in aggravation.
“Work itself wasn’t the issue. Guess who had the sheer nerve to walk into the salon, and totally ignore me!”, he seethed.
It was at this moment Isagi knew that by asking Chigiri what was wrong, he had unintentionally stepped on a very familiar and raw landmine.
Before he can say anything to deescalate the situation though, Bachira raised his hand excitedly.
“Ooh, ooh! I know! John Cena walked in!”, he guessed, clearly proud with his answer.
You could practically hear the record scratch as Isagi and Chigiri stared at him with deadpan disbelief.
“What- no Bachira, it was Kunigami. Why on earth would you think a professional wrestler like John Cena would walk into a salon literally called Shut Up and Dye?”, Chigiri asked, while sweat dropping.
While Bachira and Chigiri proceeded to go back and forth debating the chances of John Cena randomly spawning in the salon one day, Isagi took the moment to reflect on what Chigiri had said.
Before Chigiri had moved into the apartment with Isagi, Bachira, Barou, and Nagi; he had been living with Rensuke Kunigami, his boyfriend since high school.
Back in their high school glory days, Isagi and Bachira had frequently hung out with the couple, and along the way made some of the best memories of Isagi’s life.
However, everything changed for the worst around six months ago when-
Well, to make a long story short, Kunigami abruptly ended things with Chigiri with no explanation, and Isagi had immediately offered the latter a place to stay during the hard time.
Isagi had attempted to reach out to Kunigami numerous times to figure out what was going on with him, but he never answered his calls or texts.
If he were being completely honest , Isagi had lowkey thought the two would have reconciled by now due to how lovey dovey they had been back in their relationship’s prime, but no dice.
To this day, he still hasn’t found out why Kunigami, who used to be one of the kindest and decent guys he knew suddenly became for a lack of a better description…an emo asshat.
That never seemed to stop Chigiri from lamenting about his ex every freaking day though.
Isagi is snapped out of his thoughts as Chigiri started ranting.
“I mean come on! This is the twelfth time in the last three months that he's walked into the salon- and does he ever ask me how I’m doing or apologize for kicking me to the curb? Nooo, he just looks at me blankly with those stupid, pretty eyes of his and then walks out without even getting a damn haircut!”, he fumed.
Isagi looked over to Bachira for some backup here, but he is already skipping outside to who knows where.
Great, looks like it’s up to him to perform romantic damage control all by himself again…
Typical.
He walked over and put a hand on Chigiri’s shoulder consolingly.
“Hey, I’m really sorry. You already know I’ve never had an… er, all-consuming relationship like you and Kunigami had, but I can still emphasize. How he ended things was… really shitty but if he can’t see how awesome you are then that’s his loss.”, he said somewhat awkwardly, having never been the best at comforting people, especially about dating drama.
Fortunately, Chigiri offered him a shaky smile, seeming to appreciate the effort.
“Thanks, Isagi, it’s just… I wish I could just hate him and move on already. But I can’t. Pretty pathetic of me, huh?”, he laughs but his eyes start to develop a liquid sheen, betraying his true feelings.
As Isagi internally panicked and tried to come up with a solid pep talk, Shoei Barou stormed into the living room, obviously pissed off.
“ALRIGHT, THAT’S IT! WHICH ONE OF YOU PEASANTS LEFT WET TOWELS ON THE FLOOR AGAIN?!”, Barou boomed, practically shaking the walls with the sheer volume of his voice.
Isagi jumped nervously, sweat dropping slightly.
“Oh uh, that was probably Nagi.”, he said quickly, not about to admit that this time he was the culprit this time.
Barou growled angrily, his red eyes glowing with fiery rage.
“Typical Pain-Man… when I get my hands on him, I’ll- “, Barou cut his threat short when he took in the sight of Chigiri.
“Why the hell is Princess over here looking on the verge of tears?”, he asked gruffly, although Isagi knew him well enough by now to tell that he was genuinely concerned.
Isagi mouthed “Kunigami “to him and Barou immediately frowned deeply.
“For crying out loud Princess, when are you going to realize that there are more fish in the sea than that wannabe hero? Your moping is getting ridiculous at this point.”, he said bluntly, crossing his arms as he did so.
Isagi winced slightly, knowing Barou meant well, but at times came off too blunt and abrasive.
Chigiri rolled his eyes at Barou, seeming to recover from his earlier sadness.
“Oh, shut up King, come back and talk to me when you have a relationship that doesn’t end with your date running off in tears because you bossed them around about cleanliness like a freaking drill sergeant.”, he retorted sassily, yet there was no real heat to his words.
Isagi couldn’t help himself and laughed, what Chigiri having said being completely accurate.
Barou clenched his teeth, a vein practically popping out of his forehead.
“What the hell did you just say?! And you, Isagi, don’t you dare encourage this!”
Isagi was now fully caught in the moment and winked slyly and Chigiri before innocently turning to look at Barou.
“Aw, but Your Majesty… where was the lie?”, he asked with a condescending tone, apparently deciding now was his instigator phase for the week.
“Oh snap!”, Chigiri cackled, high fiving Isagi.
But then Barou’s eyes bulged out of his sockets and Isagi could practically see the steam hissing out of his ears as he took a threatening step forward.
“Uh oh… run.”, Isagi whispered, and he and Chigiri booked it as Barou chased after them.
“I’LL KILL YOU TWO PLEBS!”, Barou screamed as he bolted after the two.
Meanwhile, Bachira walked back into the apartment and watched the chase with sparkling eyes.
“Ooh, playing tag without me, I see! Well count me in!”, Bachira trotted after them all obliviously.
Thirty seconds into the hot pursuit, Isagi quickly realized that he was about to be royally screwed.
While Chigiri was easily zooming away, Isagi had never been the fastest runner and a very ticked off Barou was gaining on him.
“Crap, crap, crap!”, he hissed as he parkoured over the sofa, just barely clearing it.
He decided that his only hope of surviving was to escape through the front door and to drive off in his trusty Honda Civic.
However, as he swung open the door, he wasn’t paying attention and crashed into Seishiro Nagi, who was the fifth and final roommate of this chaotic and at times dysfunctional crew.
“Oof!”, Isagi gasped as he landed on top of Nagi, who wheezed weakly.
Everyone else came to a screeching halt, staring at the two-man collision.
Isagi struggled to pull himself up and then gaped at Nagi in horror.
“Oh shit! I’m so sorry man, are you hurt?!”, he huffed and puffed as he attempted to pull the taller man up.
Nagi finally stood up, blinking lazily.
“Nah, I’m fine… well physically that is.”, he scratched the back of his neck, looking uncharacteristically … sheepish.
Before Isagi could question that rather cryptic answer, Barou beat him to the punch.
“What nonsense are you spewing now, Pain-Man?”, he asked impatiently while Bachira and Chigiri looked on curiously.
Nagi swayed side to side, seeming to stall a little.
“Uhhh so if I tell you… promise not to get mad or whatever…”, he trailed off.
Isagi felt his heart drop to his stomach, already sensing that whatever this was, it wasn’t going to be good.
“What… happened Nagi?”, he asked as the others had varying reactions of concern and wariness.
Heck, even Bachira looked slightly serious for once.
Nagi pulled out his phone and avoided eye contact, a nervous tick of his.
“Well… I kind of… sort of… maybe bought a bunch of Robux with Reo’s credit card without him knowing a while ago and uh… it may have caused his card to decline so… he wasn’t too happy about that and he basically said he wasn’t going to help cover our rent anymore… plus I got dumped by him too and he went on this long rant about how I never listen or something- I can’t remember exactly what he said, I wasn’t really paying attention. But anyway, he seemed to really mean it this time so there’s that.”, he mumbled gloomily.
Everyone gaped at him in shock and horror.
The only way Isagi and the others had been able to afford the damn apartment is because Nagi’s on again off again uber rich boyfriend; Reo Mikage, had paid for the majority of their rent out of pure adoration for Nagi.
Reo had visited them all a lot when he was on break from his college overseas, and Isagi had liked him well enough, but could tell Nagi’s nonchalant and at times unintentionally insensitive attitude caused one-sided friction between the two.
He just never would have imagined things would escalate to this new extreme.
“Nagi bro, please tell me this is a joke.”, he pleaded, trying very hard not to flip out.
Nagi blew an awkward raspberry, suddenly finding the ceiling to be very interesting as he looked upwards.
“Nope, sorry.”, he muttered lamely.
Barou chose that moment to snap out of his shock, turning red in the face from anger.
“What the hell Pain-Man?! How could you fumble things with Mr. Moneybags so badly?! And over a stupid game?!”, he looked like he was contemplating throttling Nagi.
Meanwhile, Chigir had paled to a deathly shade of white and slowly sank onto the couch.
“You’ve got to be kidding me… there’s no way we can afford living in this place now… we’re doomed because of freaking Robux of all things.”, he murmured numbly.
Bachira tilted his head in confusion.
“Wait so are we like…homeless now?”, no one answered his question and the tension was so thick in the room you could cut it with a knife.
Isagi tried to pull himself together and look at the situation in a calm and rational manner.
“Ok uh, Nagi can you call up Reo and just say you’re sorry? Maybe this can all be straightened out.”, he reasoned hopefully.
“Nope, Reo already blocked me and told me he did the same for all of you too.”, he started swiping on his phone again.
Barou reached out and threw the phone across the room.
“Get off the damn phone! This is all your fault and the rest of us are getting punished purely because of association! If anything, it should just be your ass that gets kicked out!”, he grabbed ahold of Nagi’s gray hoodie with enough force to lift the latter lifted up in the air.
Chigiri jumped off the couch.
“Hey King put him down. I’m just as mad at him as you are, but this won’t accomplish anything- “, he is interrupted by Barou, who swung around to face him.
“Not a word out of you Princess, you’re no better when you’re constantly dragging everyone into your soap opera of a relationship too!”, he lashed out harshly.
Chigiri recoiled in hurt but quickly covered it up with annoyance.
“Wow, rude much King? We all know we’re the only ones that tolerate your high maintenance self.”, he fired back.
Before Barou could respond, Bachira cleared his throat and pulled a guitar out of nowhere.
“Whoa calm down everyone! Just relax and listen to this song my monster and I composed!”, he cleared his throat dramatically and thrummed the guitar strings off key.
“F is for Friends that do stuff together- “
“SHUT UP BACHIRA!’, Chigiri and Barou yelled with blazing eyes.
“Yeah man, and everyone knows that song is from SpongeBob SquarePants.”, Nagi chimed in, only to go quiet as Barou growled at him.
Bachira shrugged and yeeted the guitar.
“Wowzers, tough crowd.”, he laughed.
During all this, Isagi was still silently observing the emotional trainwreck, unable to find it in himself to be fully angry like the others yet.
However, Nagi then chose that moment to open his mouth.
“Don’t worry everyone, I got a plan. See, I got a job at McDonald’s, and I’ll be able to support us all- well after I finish paying Reo back in about ten years- “
Isagi cuts him off, seeing red now.
“MCDONALD’S?! MCDONALD’S?! THAT’S YOUR BRILLIANT PLAN, BRO?! WE’RE OVER HERE WITH ALL OF OUR ASSES IN THE HOT SEAT BECAUSE OF YOUR STUPIDITY AND ADDICTION TO ROBLOX?! I DON’T EVEN BLAME REO FOR DUMPING YOU! BECAUSE OF YOU I’M GOING TO HAVE TO WORK AT STARBUCKS EVEN MORE NOW, AND YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I HATE IT THERE! MAN, I’M SO SICK OF THINGS ALWAYS GOING WRONG LATELY! OH, BUT I GUESS I DON’T HAVE TO WORRY BECAUSE MCNAGI OVER HERE HAS IT ALL UNDER CONTROL…NOT!!!!!!!!!”, Isagi screamed so loud his vocal cords hurt.
Everyone froze and gaped at him, it having been a while since his last huge crash out.
They had apparently lowkey forgotten how scary he could be when he got like this.
Bachira laughed nervously, Chigiri backed away slowly, and Nagi's eyes widened.
Even Barou looked intimidated and cleared his throat.
“Peasant- er Isagi, let’s just take a breath… there’s no need for…that.”
Isagi took in all of their expressions and was already feeling bad about losing his temper.
His pride wouldn't allow him to apologize right now though.
He turned towards the door, swiping his keys from the counter as he did so.
“Screw this, I’m going out for a while.”, he muttered and stormed outside, slamming the door behind him with a thud.
He hopped into his Honda Civic and pulled out of the apartment driveway like a bat out of hell, aggressively playing Bad Day by Daniel Powter on loop as he did so.
After a while, he cooled down a little and realized he may have gone a tad overboard, knowing he’d say sorry to the guys sooner or later.
And if he was being completely honest with himself here…
His sanity was barely hanging on by a thread even before the Robux incident.
Work has been stressing him out lately, and he was starting to get the sinking feeling he would be stuck being employed at Starbucks forever and would never be able to follow his true dreams in life.
And despite caring deeply for his friends despite their ups and downs at times, Isagi has recently been feeling a nagging sense of…
Loneliness.
He never mentioned this to the others, because the bitter truth was he didn’t understand why he felt the way he did himself.
The only thing he knew for sure was that he felt like something was missing in his life.
He shook his head at his thoughts, gripping the steering wheel tighter.
“I need to get it together, I’m being stupid here.”, he scolded himself.
Suddenly, a notification from his tyrannically efficient Starbucks manager; Jinpachi Ego came in.
“Oh geez, I swear if this is about me not “cleaning the urinals with purpose" again, I swear to God- “, Isagi sighed in exasperation as he pulled into a nearby parking lot to read the message.
Demon Boss:
Yoichi Isagi, your services are needed for an extra shift today.
I expect you to be here in twenty minutes tops.
We have a… difficult costumer present and we need your expertise immediately.
Isagi blinked at the vague messages in surprise, trying to puzzle out what Ego was getting at here.
“Difficult costumer?... Ego doesn’t even get bothered when a herd of Karens arrive. This must be serious.”, he said, internally cursing his rotten luck today.
On the one hand, he was still reeling from what went down earlier and would rather cartwheel through hot coals than deal with another Coffeezilla.
But on the other hand, Isagi knew better than to get on his boss’s bad side, remembering all too well the infamous Ryosuke Kira Incident of 2023.
Isagi winced from the memory, even after three years it still being engrained in his mind.
Yeah, it was obvious what he needed to do.
Me:
Yes sir, I’ll head that way now.
After he finished typing his response, he pulled out of the parking lot and headed to Starbucks.
“Ok, ok… this is fine, everything will be fine… I’ll deal with the costumer, get through my shift and try to find housing options for all of us later… It’s no big deal!”, he tried to force himself to sound cheerful, but he couldn’t even fool himself.
He finally arrived at work and opened the car door.
“Damn, I really need a win right about now- “, he is interrupted as a pigeon flying above pooped on him.
He stood in disbelief for a good five seconds before screaming at the sky.
“OH, COME ON!”
It was official: he had hit rock bottom, with no glimmer of hope in sight.