Chapter Text
Practice ends, and Inazuma Japan filters back out into the common space.
“Listen, all I’m saying is, if we handed a monkey a gun and let it loose-”
“Shut the fuck up, Kozoumaru.”
“You know I’m right.”
Haizaki tunes out the argument between Goujin and Kozoumaru, eyes scanning the room for a particular flighty boy. He even manages to ignore Hiroto’s jab of ‘heh, looking for your boyfriend?’ in favour of continuing to look for Asuto, and Hiroto owes him one for the nose job he didn’t just get.
There’s neither hair nor hide of Asuto or even the feral rat that Ichihoshi has now devolved into, and Haizaki tchs to himself. Hiroto snorts in response, and that good old knuckle sandwich Haizaki’s thinking of serving looks real fuckin’ tasty right now.
He’s stopped from violence by a shout from Nosaka in the kitchen, and everyone’s heads snap up as if hearing a gunshot. Seconds later, Nosaka sprints back into the room with speed to make even Asuto green with envy, breathlessly tugging Nishikage towards the door.
“Nishikage, you have to see this.” Nosaka wheezes out, and his face is bright red as he drags Nishikage along, the other following along in confusion.
5 seconds later, there’s a strangled yell from Nishikage himself, and Nosaka howls with laughter. And fuck, if Haizaki isn’t curious now too. Him and the others waddle into the dining room to see Nishikage sat in a chair, head in his hands as he stares at the table he broke earlier today. Besides him, Nosaka’s doubled over with laughter, hand slapped over his mouth.
“Yaoi hands…” he giggles out, and Haizaki sprints towards the two because what in the actual shit?
He sees the broken table, and the snapped off part is placed on top. Looking closer, Haizaki spots arrows drawin in sharpie pointing to the offending piece, and messages drawn on the table.
“Nishikage, please deal with the consequences of your actions!!!” says one, written in Asuto’s handwriting.
“Yeah, put those fuckin yaoi hands to use!!” says another, with a tiny drawing of that dog plushie, complete with Ichihoshi’s hairstyle.
The dog plushie is holding a knife
“They’re not even that big…” Nishikage bemoans, and Haizaki chokes on his laughter.
It’s another 5 minutes of people approaching to see what’s going on, seeing the messages and laughing, and then more people repeating the process before Nishikage stands up and leaves, citing ‘someone he needs to talk to’. Not even two minutes later there’s a yell of ‘you!!’ and an absolutely girlie scream of fear in response.
There’s another voice, laughing in a way that’s warm like the light of a summer sun, and Haizaki finds himself walking towards it before consciously thinking about it. He thinks about all the teasing Haizaki’s gotten from his teammates back at Seishou over his “”crush””, and thinks they might be onto something.
He walks into the living room to see a switch game pulled up onto the big screen currently paused, and Nishikage and Ichihoshi playing a game of cat and mouse around the couch. Asuto’s laughing at the show, with a smile that’s so bright it lights up the room.
It’s the first genuine smile Asuto’s made since this all began, his eyes crinkling up in the corners with mirth, and Haizaki finds himself smiling back as warmth spreads through him. Asuto spots him from his spot on the couch, and his eyes light up as he signals Haizaki to join him.
“Haizaki! Come play! We’re currently playing, uh, Nidhogg 2?” Asuto says, handing Haizaki a neon blue joycon.
“Pfft, alright, I’ll join you. Just don’t be mad when I beat you, Mr Wii U.” Haizaki replies as he sits down on the couch, closer to Asuto than strictly necessary. Asuto glares at him without heat at the jab, and Haizaki chuckles.
In truth, he’s never played Nidhogg, or even heard of it, but he should be fine. He’s quickly given a rundown of the game - kill your opponent and reach your side without getting killed yourself, lest you lose your lead. Swords and fists and other weapons are available and expected to used. It’s kill or be killed.
“Oh, so just like a match.” Haizaki chuckles darkly as he gets ready.
“I don’t know, being eaten by the giant space worm is pretty different.” Asuto shrugs.
“Being what by the what now?” Haizaki asks, but he doesn’t get an answer as Asuto unpauses and the game starts. And okay, Asuto was massively oversimplifying the mechanics, and failed to mention that Asuto was about to win. And it looks like Asuto actually knows how to use a joycon, so Haizaki’s lost a massive advantage. Haizaki mashes random buttons in panic and his character throws the sword in their hand, and it kils Asuto’s character with a headshot, and Haizaki thinks he’s just found his new favourite video game. 3,2,1 random bullshit, go!
He still loses, but at least he gets an explanation about the space worm; when the winner wins by jumping off their end platform, a giant worm flies in and eats them. Maybe that’s what the titular Nidhogg is. Overall, very fun game, shame Haizaki has to tune out Ichihoshi being murdered by Nishikage at the same time. Ichihoshi flops onto the couch, crawling closer towards - practically onto - Asuto, and Haizaki does a remarkably good job at hiding his jealously at the way Asuto seems so comfortable with Ichihoshi’s touch.
(Why can’t he be like that with me? He thinks to himself.)
(You know why. His thoughts reply back.)
If Haizaki’s ever in the same room as Shinjou Takuma, only one of them is leaving alive. Haizaki is determined to make sure it’s not Shinjou.
Haizaki spots a handprint shaped red mark on Ichihoshi’s cheek, and whistles lowly. Even goes as far as to poke it, which makes Ichihoshi hiss. “Nice bruise there, Nishikage really doesn’t hold back, huh?” Haizaki asks as he continues trying to poke the mark specifically just to annoy Ichihoshi and Ichihoshi keeps batting his hand away. It reminds Haizaki of those stray cats in the alley behind the supermarket he always feeds when he goes there.
“Oh no, that was me,” Asuto answers, and it makes Haizaki stop and turn to Asuto questioningly, and the other boy glares at Ichihoshi, “he forced me to keep trying to perfect a level in Overcooked 2 that you physically can’t unless you have four players for 45 minutes.”
“Fourtythree minutes and twenty seconds, actua- hnghnf!” Ichihoshi answers, and gets promptly shoved onto the floor by Asuto for it, landing legs sprawled out. Haizaki’s cruel enough to laugh at him for it.
There’s a sudden ecstatic yell from Ichihoshi as he rights himself on the floor, and he audibly gasps. “There’s four of us now.” he breathes out, and Asuto vaults over the couch and makes a break for the door, paying no heed to Ichihoshi’s or Haizaki’s yelps.
“Hey Nishikage, you love food right? You gotta, Nosaka’s always giving you some!” Asuto calls out, slapping his joycon into Nishikage’s confused hands, and continuing his mad dash for the door.
“What was this about Nishikage and food?” Nosaka calls out, striding into the room with his hands in his pockets, accidentally blocking Asuto’s route to freedom. He looks at Ichihoshi furiously setting up Overcooked 2, a panicked Asuto, and a whiteboard full of diagrams and equations that Haizaki never paid much attention to, and makes his way to the couch.
“Sure, why not?” Nosaka agrees, picking up a joycon from the pile of - sixteen?? - and sitting down on the couch, but in the stupidest way possible. Feet on the cushions, ass sat on the backrest, and manspreading.
“Oh my god, Nosaka can you fucking sit like a normal person? We get it, you’re gay.” Haizaki snips as he picks the meanest-looking joycon from the pile, because apparently he’s playing Overcooked 2 now.
Nosaka just stares long and hard at Haizaki, then to Asuto, then back to Haizaki.
“Pot, kettle.” Nosaka responds with a shit eating grin.
The higher they are the harder the fall, and Haizaki thinks Nosaka’s high enough from his weird homosexual throne for an impromptu head cracking. Hopefully it’ll distract from his own furious blushing.
Behind them, Asuto yelps. Behind Asuto, Endou and Gouenji walk in just in time to see Nosaka fall face-first onto the coffee table, and Haizaki gets a smack to the back of the head from Nishikage, so strong he sees stars.
“The game’s ready!” Ichihoshi calls out, wheeling in the whiteboard. He sees the mess in front of him, and then makes eye-contact with Asuto, Gouenji, and Endou in that order.
“For once, it wasn’t me.” Ichihoshi blurts out, pointing at Nosaka and the dent in the coffee table. Wordlessly, Gouenji leaves.
“I can’t believe Overcooked 2 has done more damage to this team than my dad.” Asuto blurts out, head in his hands.
Haizaki, along with everyone else, screams.
After an intervention from Coach and Sekiya and Nishikage gets put on table-fixing duty, along with Haizaki getting put on coffee-table cleaning duty, the rest of the team filter in. Half the team find the whole situation hilarious, the rest absolutely do not.
“Can’t believe you guys almost killed eachother over a video game.” Anna laments, helping Nosaka patch up his injured nose.
“I didn’t do anything this time!” Ichihoshi squawks.
“And I’ll fucking do it again!” Haizaki and Nishikage declare at the same time.
“The Onion King demands blood.” Asuto nods sagely.
Endou makes an executive order to ban anyone from playing Overcooked 1 or 2 unless approved and supervised by himself personally. Ootani jokingly calls it Executive Order: Too Many Cooks and Kazemaru immediately christens the name. Executive Order: Too Many Cooks is currently in effect. Now comes the next challenge: picking a new game. Somehow, despite Sakkanoue’s intimidating catalogue of multiplayer games, no-one knows what to play. Mansaku makes the fatal mistake of asking what the hell a Switch is and gets him and his fellow Inakunijima players banned from the selection process, excluding Asuto because he’s been playing Switch games with Ichihoshi for the last few hours. Upon learning that Asuto’s prior experience with gaming is only Sonic Boom on the Wii U (thanks to Mansaku snitching), he gets banned too.
“Smash can have up to 8 players.” Kozoumaru says after five minutes of brainstorming.
“You just said you’re a Joker main, fuck off we’re not playing Smash.” Fudou replies.
“Oh, we have Monpoly! We could pla- why is Ichihoshi screaming?”
“Why do we have Doom Eternal?”
“Endou’s really good at it!”
“Wait holy shit we have Gang Beasts!”
“Kazemaru you fucking genius!”
A few minutes later and they’re setting up Gang Beasts, with people breaking off in groups of four to have pseudo-tournaments as decided by a spinning wheel. As some kind of funny joke, it’s Haizaki Vs Ichihoshi Vs Mansaku vs Asuto, and the first three spend all their time trying to kill each other and Asuto keeps accidentally killing himself, yet still somehow wins by doing pretty much nothing. Atsuya wheezes out ‘good job, Luigi!’ as he pats Asuto on the back. Asuto replies with a confused ‘Wahoo?’ in his best Italian accent.
Unfortunately, the rest of the games dont’t end up any less chaotic. Nosaka and Nishikage end up squaring off against eachother and refuse to try to kill the other, leading them to resort to rock-paper-scissors to decide who kills themselves to let the other win. Endou and Kazemaru end up against eachother and absolutely do not hesitate to aim for the throat, with Endou knocking out Kazemaru’s little bean guy and hanging him over the high gaps multiple times.
“Endou, please! Norika’s about to win!” Kazemaru pleads as Endou’s hauling his bean guy over into a trash compactor.
“Long live the king.” Endou declares, before fucking up and accidentally throwing himself into the trash compactor too, giving Norika the best-of-three she needed to win the game.
“Oh.” is all Endou has to say on the matter.
They continue shuffling between games for the next few hours, going from Mario Party to Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes to currently Just Dance. Ichihoshi volunteered himself to do Ra Ra Rasputin and absolutely crushes it, and then gets convinced to perform Moskau next. Three absolutely aced performances later, and he reveals that him and his friends used to play Just Dance to practice when he played in the Russian Junior League, so he knows pretty much all the songs.
Hirito and Haizaki are (badly) performing a duet of Come On Eileen and trying to throttle eachother when Sekiya comes into the room. He taps Asuto on the shoulder and motions for him to follow Sekiya out the room. Anxiety curling in his gut, Asuto follows.
Once out of earshot and heading towards a private office, Sekiya explains, “I want to see how your arms are doing, and change the bandages.”
Ah, right, yeah. That probably needs to happen sooner or later. The thought makes his arms itch. The bandages on his head seem tighter, all of a sudden. He wonders if Sekiya’s already seen what the bandages hide. He’s had to, right? Orion probably didn’t grant him the mercy of basic first aid before dumping him at the doorstep. Somehow, that makes it even worse, and Asuto has to take a steadying breath to fight against the nausea.
“Okay.” he agrees, voice quivering. Sekiya’s kind enough to not point it out.
They sit down and get ready to get to work. Sekiya readies a dizzying amount of first aid supplies and Asuto takes off his jacket and rolls the sleeves of his undershirt high enough for Sekiya to peel the bandages off. He starts with the tape over the metal fastener, and then unclips the piece of metal holding the bandage end to the bandage, and slowly starts unravelling the cursed ivory cloth.
Sekiya does it so gently, making sure to keep a steady control to his hands and an even steadier look towards Asuto. Indeed, it’s only once the bandages give way to the skin underneath that the illusion of calm and safety shatters. Sekiya gives a tense inhale of air, and Asuto jolts.
It’s a patchwork of raised and devastated skin, snaking all the way from the wrist to the elbow, a clear line of where those gauntlets where drawn in the horrific mosaic that is Asuto’s body. The skin’s an angry red with scar tissue that, and some places where blisters formed and popped under the gauntlets are open and sore, weeping. Some of the blisters tried to heal and got ripped right back open, with crusts of scabs sticking to the popped blisters and the soiled bandages. There’s a particular spot where the first layer of skin got obliterated and Asuto can see the layer underneath, and he goes to poke at the white flesh underneath only for Sekiya to stop him, hand caught in a crushing grip. Asuto acquiesces, pulling his hand back.
“...how ya holding up?” Sekiya asks gently, and Asuto shrugs. He expected himself to freak out, to cry and sob like a kid, but there’s just an empty hole where his heart should be, and he can only stare blankly at the testament to his own stupidity before him.
“I’m going to clean it now, alright?” Sekiya carefully starts, waiting for Asuto to nod his assent before reaching for the bottle of antiseptic and a cloth. He gives Asuto enough of a warning to brace himself before the chemical hits his abused arms, but even still Asuto winces and curls in on himself. The antiseptic burns, and the days of numbness gladly make way for the excruciating pain, and the sudden change from feeling nothing to feeling too much makes Asuto gasp and tears fall from his eyes. Sekiya’s there to gently reassure him, and once he’s finished disinfecting the wounds he gives Asuto a ruffle of his hair, and Asuto leans into the touch.
It’s the burn cream next, and Sekiya pulls out as tube of what looks like something straight from the hospital, and it smells just as sterile as the cell back at Orion. Thankfully, the burn cream goes much better than the disinfectant, and there’s nothing but a strange sensation of gel against his arms as Sekiya applies the cream. Sekiya spots how red his hand is from the soapy mixture before, and applies burn cream to the hand as a precautionary measure,
Sekiya doesn’t say anything about it, but the way his face is kept perfectly neutral says it for him. Asuto looks away in shame, his cheeks burning red.
With loving care, Sekiya starts applying new bandages, wrapping them around Asuto’s forearms and beyond with expertise. Disgustingly, Asuto feels so much better having the bandages on than having his skin shown, prefers hiding from the truth than being forced to face it, and the void in his chest grows. Once done Asuto pulls away, the warmth of the contact already fading away.
“Ah, uh, your head too.” Sekiya says, gesturing to the gauze wrapped around his head. Asuto acquiesces.
A part of him wonders that, if his father - or worse, the Chairman - were to ask him to leave forever, if Asuto would acquiesce to that too.
The bandages along his scalp peel off, tugging on a few loose strands, and the bandage itself is tinted red along the injuiry. The hair’s greasy from lack of care, and strands along the head wound are matted with what’s probably blood. Sekiya grabs a towel from a bowl of water and gently presses it against Asuto’s scalp, gently dabbing it to wash away the blood.
Sekiya puts the towel back in the water. The water turns a deep pink. Asuto stares at the bowl as Sekiya grabs the towel and gets back to work.
After five minutes Sekiya manages to clean his scalp as good as it’s going to get without a shower, and goes to inspect the wound proper. Whatever he sees must please him because he nods and gets to reapplying a clean bandage, giving a pat on Asuto’s shoulder once finished.
“Feeling any better?” Sekiya asks, shoulders slumped minutely with exhaustion. Asuto hums non-commitally.
It seems to make something flit across Sekiya’s face before Asuto can parse it, and Asuto goes to scrounge up an answer before he’s stopped by a scream from downstairs.
A flock of reporters are crowding around the sports centre, surrounding every exit.
They’re looking for a boy named Inamori Asuto. Inajapan is determined that they won’t get him.
Asuto’s been shunted into a room with hardly an explanation, fresh static and old scars littered all over his body. It doesn’t take long for him to understand; the constant yelling of the media vultures outside draws him to a nearby window, and he freezes at the crowd. He’s almost instantly spotted and many heads turn to look directly at him. The eyes are too piercing, too good at stripping his soul bare for the world to see, too similar to a man in a brown suit with a blank expression.
“So he is here!”
“Mr Inamori Asuto! What do you have to say about your fathe-”
Asuto pulls the curtains closed with more force than necessary, the fabric almost giving way. The static dancing along his skin has made its way to his brain, and there’s cotton in his skull.
Being alone probably isn’t best right now, he thinks, so he walks along until he finds the others, careful to keep his footsteps silent and his presence unheard. He’s not sure why he’s doing it - the reporters can’t hear through walls. Maybe he’s worried if he makes too much noise they’ll find him.
He finds the others all in a crowd in the front room, talking amongst themselves. Someone aggressively tries the doorhandle, and Ichihoshi readies his bat with killing intent.
“Come at me, fuckers.” he grits out, fire in his eyes.
“Ichihoshi, it’s just the media. Please don’t bludgeon someone.” Asuto says, approaching Ichihoshi and gently pushing the bat down. Ichihoshi just raises it back up.
“What are the media doing here? Did they find out Asuto’s here?” Someone calls out.
“Must’ve done.” someone answers, and Asuto winces. He wonders if that lady from earlier today did snitch.
“Still though, to break in is just a dick move.” Goujin hisses, and Asuto’s gently dragged further into the crowd by Mansaku when there’s the sound of a window smashing and someone they don’t know coming clearer than before.
“Hey! Sorry about the window but I just wanna ask some questions!” A man calls out.
“We just fixed that window, asshole!” Hiroto calls back as he punts a football at the man, his glasses shattering upon impact.
“Oi! That’s an assault charge!”
“Not when you fuckers are trespassing!”
The man goes down but there’s just a flock of more reporters to take his place, asking even more questions. Coach appears and stands between the horde and the team.
“You’re the coach, right? Why didn’t you tell us Inamori Asuto was back at the sports centre? Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting outside the hospital?!” a man in a cheap suit and a microphone demands.
“Yes, I’m their coach. No, I don’t know how long you spent squatting at the hospital, and I don’t care. I didn’t go announcing Inamori’s location to the public for obvious reasons. ”
Someone’s tugging more incessantly on Asuto’s arm now, and he hazily spots Kirina saying ‘cmon, let’s go’ as he leads them away from the flock of media vultures.
“Do you know who Inamori’s father is?” another reporter asks.
“No, I don’t.”
“Seriously?!”
“Yes. That should be everything, right? I’d like to remind you that the authorities are on their way.”
Asuto flinches, the mere mention of his dad making his mouth turn dry. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Ichihoshi freeze.
“How are we meant to bring that man to justice if we don’t know who he is?” a new reporter asks.
“I don’t know, I’m just a coach, not an investigator. I’ll leave it up to the authorities.”
“So you don’t care about Mr Inamori enough to help put his father behind bars?”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
Somewhere, someone from the team winces. There’s a call from Haizaki to Nishikage to help use the couch as a barricade.
“What about Ichihoshi Hikaru?” a member of the horde asks
What?
Ichihoshi goes completely still, face pale. Beside him, Nosaka puts a hand on Ichihoshi’s shoulder. Mansaku and Kirina are trying to herd Asuto away with even more fervour.
“...I don’t see how he’s involved in this.” Coach responds coolly.
“Bullshit!” a reporter yells, the sheer volume making both Ichihoshi and Asuto jump. Asuto uses the opportunity to break free from his friend’s grasp and make his way towards Ichihoshi. They meet eyes, and Ichihoshi looks at him with dawning horror.
“What are you doing here? You need to get away from all this shit!” Ichihoshi hisses, looking between Asuto and the media outside with mounting panic. Mansaku and Kirina join approach, firm hands on Asuto again.
Asuto thinks back to the woman before, cryptically saying Ichihoshi didn’t deserve what happened to him. To everyone around him and even Ichihoshi himself refusing to give him a straight answer, and something hardens in his gut.
Asuto thinks back to the past week, to a cold dark cell and scarred limbs caused by a lack of knowledge, to a team who insist on keeping him in the dark.
“...I want to know what’s going on.” Asuto seethes, fists balled in his hands and small frame shaking. There’s venom in his words, and the sting makes Ichihoshi and the others flinch back, and Mansaku gives no resistance as Asuto yanks his hand away from his grasp.
Outside, the reporters yell louder.
“We have information saying Inamori’s and Ichihoshi’s fathers knew eachother!” one reporter exclaims.
“Inamori Asuto’s father caused Ichihoshi’s car crash, right?” one reporter demands, and the floor falls out from below Asuto.
“They were friends, right?” another adds.
Ichihoshi looks like he’s just been shot. He looks at Asuto, and there’s an apology written all over his face. Coach must answer that question but it’s lost to Asuto’s ears as everything falls away and the world comes crashing down. His hands are clammy and his breaths are coming too fast and too small for him to get any air and the room is spinning and- oh, right, a panic attack. Mansaku and Kirina guide him away somewhere, away from all the pitying eyes and the loud reporters wanting to carve him open and let him bleed out all over the floor just for a good story.
Before he knows it, he’s back in his room with a blanket draped over him, Kirina in his face gently coaxing him back to earth as the authorities appear and chase away the reporters. What feels like hours pass before his mind remembers which way is up from down and who he is and the forest for the trees and it’s funny. He was trying to tell the forest from the trees that he didn’t notice the bear trap and it’s fucking hilarious. He stepped right into that bear trap while still looking up at the treeline and he’s got no-one to blame but himself and it’s such a funny joke but he’s the only one not laughing.
“They were friends, weren’t they?”
His dad, ruining Ichihoshi’s life with a car crash. His dad, ruining Asuto’s life with the truth.
Him and Ichihoshi back in the forest by the camp back home. Ichihoshi, confused and upset and all alone again. The forest getting thicker as they got more and more lost in it, until night fell and it was just them and the rain and their worries.
“We’re all friends, so you don’t have to be so accommodating all the time, Ichihoshi!”
Asuto, ruining Ichihoshi’s life with himself.
Asuto laughs, a wet and painful thing, because if life’s so intent on making him the butt of the joke then he might as well laugh along, right?
First his mom, the his dad, and now Ichihoshi. People he cares about, people he’s hurt and been hurt by all the same.
Mansaku and Kirina are in his face, trying to talk to him, worry paling their face and scrunching their brows.
“They were friends, weren’t they?”
He wonders when he’ll hurt them too. Looking at their distraught faces, Asuto thinks he already has.
The apple truly doesn't fall that far from the tree
He laughs harder.
Hikaru extracts himself from the chaos downstairs and rushes upstairs to where he saw Asuto go with his friends. Curse those stupid reporters for butting in where they aren’t welcome and curse Shinjou Takuma for being such a despicable man.
Most of all, curse Ichihoshi Hikaru himself, for being such a spectacularly bad friend.
He hears the sound of broken laughter and worried pleading, and opens the door to Asuto having a breakdown and his friends desperately trying to calm him down. Without hesitating, Hikaru enters the room, careful to make his presence known, and Mansaku looks stuck between a rock and a hard place as he looks between Asuto and Hikaru.
“Uh, I’m not sure if- uh- seeing you right now is, um, good?” he flounders, hands waving around wildly.
It’s too late, because Asuto looks up and makes direct eye-contact with Hikaru, and Hikaru thinks that yeah, he really is a bad friend, because he doesn’t have a way to approach this or a script or even the smarts to think that seeing him right now would not be a good idea.
But Asuto’s looking at him with an expression in his eyes that just says please , and Ichihoshi steps further into the room despite it all.
Mansaku and Kirina eventually get the hint, and they begrudgingly leave, closing the door behind with a promise to stop anyone else entering. Now that they’re alone Hikaru can get a good look at Asuto. There’s no red rimmming his eyes or tear tracks down his face, but there’s a frailty in the hunch to his shoulders and a darkness in his eyes that take all the light from them.
“Hey.” Ichihoshi ventures, and Asuto waves in lieu of a verbal response. Okay, Hikaru can work with this.
In the back of his mind, something screams at Hikaru that something’s terribly wrong. Everything’s wrong, this whole situation is fucked, but there’s something else here that’s somehow even worse.
“Sorry.” Hikaru blurts out, surprising even himself. Asuto looks at him like he’s just grown a second head, and some unknown urge grabs Hikaru by the throat and makes him keep talking.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about, uh, that. I didn’t know - nobody knew - until Miss Yone told us about your dad while you were- while you were, uh, yeah. And we didn’t wanna tell you because we thought it’d be a dick move like, ‘hey Asuto I know you just got back from some unspeakable horror after trying to meet up with your dad but hooo boy buddy it gets worse! Turns out your dad is a serial Orion kidnapper, an expert at his craft you could say! So yeah, sleep tight!’ -y'know? I dunno man, that’s probably on me but we all thought we’d let you rest a little.”
“But yeah, turns out our dads were on the same team together, probably close too, so we all just kinda think that, uh, he’s the cause of the car accident that, uh, made me…this? Like he cut the brakes on my dad’s car or the car in front or the car in front of that car or something? I remember we were heading somewhere to visit a family friend or something and- fuck man that was probably your dad. Sorry.”
A second passes, then five, then ten. Asuto says nothing. There’s nothing in his eyes that tells Hikaru that Asuto’s home right now.
“Um?” Hikaru starts, that feeling of wrongness doused in something approaching horror.
Asuto giggles. Fear claws at Hikaru’s gut until he’s left hollowed out. He’s left cold and shaking by the way a small laughing fit takes hold of Asuto.
“Sorry, I just, hate this whole situation. I’m so sorry about my dad.” Asuto says once the sudden giggles leave his system and he’s left looking at his hands. Something about how the last part’s worded rubs Hikaru the wrong way, but he’s too frazzled himself to really understand why. Maybe it was the lack of emotion? The dead glance in his eyes? The odd lilt to his words.
“...no problem. It’s such an awful situation, I’m glad you’re taking it better than I did; I sobbed into Nosaka’s chest for like, twenty minutes after I learnt.” Hikaru replies. This is all wrong. Something’s gone terribly wrong here but Asuto’s not broken down yet so maybe it’s not as bad as Hikaru thought it was going to be?
“Hmm, yeah. I’m just… tired, y’know? Of all this.”
That instinct in the back of Hikaru’s head is louder, almost deafening. There’s something here and he’s mistaking the forest for the trees.
“Yeah, I am too.” Hikaru admits, because he’s exhausted. He’s tired of everything to do with Orion and he’s tired from all the sleep he’s missed out on and he’s tired of being helpless. A nap would be nice. A nap from life itself would be even better.
“...do you mind if I have some time to myself? I think I might take a nap.” Asuto asks, and something deep in Hikaru’s gut tells him he shouldn’t agree to this, that he should refuse and do literally anything else.
“Of course, call for me if you need anything.” Hikaru says instead, forcing his legs to move him out the room and close the door behind him.
The second the door closes Hikaru knows he’s made the wrong decision, but can’t think of what it could possibly be.
The feeling follows him until ten minutes later, when he spots a pair of shoes neatly taken off underneath an open window.
The sky is pretty, a nice clear blue. The sun shines on him, warming his soul.
He doesn’t quite remember how he got here, on the roof. He just remembers a distant memory of eight-year-old him climbing the trees as high as his little legs and arms could take him and feeling the world around him, and wanted to go back there. Back to simpler, happier times. He can’t go back to the island - he’s in another country, and returning home means death for his career. And he absolutely can’t return to happier times. That is not the future he has won for himself.
The roof of the Kazan sports centre will have to do.
Asuto’s never been picky about where he goes or what he does, as long as he has fun. And right now, Asuto thinks he’s having fun, or at least, something approaching enjoyment.
(Asuto’s not sure what he’s thinking.)
(Asuto’s not even sure he’s thinking at all. It’s too tiring to try.)
(Most things are.)
He excused himself from the group, saying he’d wanted to nap. No-one had stopped him, still frazzled after that reporter and that revelation (it was only a revelation to Asuto - everyone else already knew. He’s always the last to know) to push this unspoken rule further. So he left, and wandered upstairs until he found what he was looking for - a window big enough to climb through and a part of the roof he could use as a starting point. Thankfully, nobody had followed him. Thankfully, nobody was here to stop him.
It’s precarious climbing onto a roof at the best of times - with deadened nerves and shaking hands, it’s an even more dangerous game. Asuto’s familiar with games though - it’s his whole career, winning games. Usually, he wins the game and his team proceed to the next soccer match, and losing means they don’t. Here, at the mercy of his abused body and gravity’s iron grip, winning means climbing a roof and losing means having his bones go crunch on the concrete below. He thinks about losing very briefly, he entertains the thought of how it’d feel to go falling down, of the way his skin and muscles and bones would crunch and give way to the ground below, his blood staining the nearby grass, and decides to never entertain the thought ever again.
He manages to win, to climb onto the roof. He has his legs and body do most of the work since he doesn’t trust his arms very well, and he hoists himself up and over onto the tiling with a grunt, but he manages. He climbs higher and away from the edge, until he’s firmly in a safe spot sitting on one of the dormer windows, and he lets himself relax. It’s so peaceful way up here and he can see for miles. The clouds are sparse and the afternoon sun radiates down on him, its warmth enveloping him like a blanket. The constant sounds of cars driving by mixes together with the trees rustling and birds chirping, and Asuto lets his eyes close as the proof of living’s sounds wash over him. It’s peaceful, and so is his mind.
He doesn’t know how long he stays like that, everything flowing into a lovely blur of life’s noises, but he’d have to guess at around an hour, maybe. He can hear sounds below him, from inside the building. There’s the sound of footsteps and a door opening near him, and-
“Asuto. What are you doing?” Mansaku’s voice cuts through the peace. It’s cold and clipped and flat and tight and Asuto doesn’t know what to make of it, so he opens his eyes to see Mansaku on the balcony below him. He’s staring right through him, eyes blown wide and skin as pale as snow. His body’s tensed to the breaking point and he has a white-knuckled grip on the balcony railing.
“I’m sitting on the roof.” Asuto answers, and it sounds wrong and distant to his own ears, like he’s underwater. He’s not entirely sure he’s the one who said it but he feels the way his mouth shapes the words so he knows it has to be him, but he can’t tell the truth from a lie with this fog all over his brain.
Whatever he may have said, it was clearly the wrong answer because Mansaku tenses further and he gives a quick intake of breathe. Now that Asuto’s thought about it, Mansaku’s not been breathing like he should be.
“Okay, okay. That’s uh- cool, that’s cool,” Mansaku says, and somehow his voice has gotten even shakier, “do you mind coming down, Budsto? You’re kinda scaring me right now.” he continues, and the old childhood name breaks Asuto out of his thinking.
“But I like it here. It’s peaceful.”
Mansaku flinches as if he’s been struck.
“Alright, that’s- that’s fine, I guess. It’s just- you’re a bit high up there, and I really don’t want you to fall.” The way Mansaku says it throws up some alarm bells in Asuto’s head. The way he takes a furtive glance to the ground below makes them ring even louder.
He’s saying everything with a careful measure to it, weighing his words with precision before speaking. Like he’s trying to stop a precarious situation from getting even worse. Like he’s trying to talk someone down from jumping off a… roof. Asuto looks back to Mansaku and sees the fear etched across his body for what it is; not fear of Asuto, fear for Asuto.
(Distantly, Asuto remembers hearing about the death of a distant cousin of Mansaku’s. She pitched herself off the roof of her school head-first after a particularly bad test result, shoes neatly taken off before jumping and everything.)
(It occurs to Asuto that he left his shoes by the open window he used to climb up.)
Oh.
Asuto thinks back to the image of him splattered on the concrete, and suddenly he’s afraid for himself too.
“...Yeah, I’ll come down now.” Asuto shakily breathes out, the realisation making him wake up from whatever trance he’s been in since that reporter broke in. His breathing and heartbeat are so much louder in his ears, and colours pop in ways he couldn’t have imagined before. Mansaku audibly gasps with relief and the tension leaves his body like he’s Atlas and he’s just been given a break from holding the world on his shoulders.
Somehow, Asuto’s hands are shakier climbing down than they were when climbing up.
Mansaku’s there and waiting for him, and the second Asuto’s feet touch the balcony he’s enveloped in a crushing hug, Mansaku’s own hands shaking. Something wet trickles onto his shoulder and Asuto numbly realises that Mansaku’s crying, whispering something like ‘please don’t do that again please please please-’ and Asuto’s entire body feels heavy with something doused in shame.
Asuto spots Ichihoshi staring at him from further inside, face just as pale as his, with an expression Asuto can read as clear as day:
‘Not you too’
Suddenly, Asuto’s afraid for Ichihoshi now too.