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In retrospect, Akito’s first mistake was thinking he could win a game of rock paper scissors against Kohane.
Or, maybe it’s more letting it get down to a game of chance in the first place, because those almost never go his way. He thinks it’s a curse, that when he was born, those sadistic forces that be thought it would be hilarious to simply give him straight squat in the luck departement, and maybe they’re right! But he sure as hell isn’t laughing.
Beside that, Akito’s second mistake was daring to find it funny that Kohane won said game of rock paper scissors, truly, it was the most horrendous crime to smirk at how her midget open hand— a thing that wasn’t even big enough to cover half his fist— managed to win her the role of planner for the rest of their half day together. That humor had been the only reason he told her to do her worst in picking something for them to watch.
He should have somehow found warning signs in how she had only sheepishly smiled, and focused on scrolling through the shows on the streaming platform, skimming over options as if she was looking for something in particular. He really should’ve.
Akito’s third mistake— because he had to be on a roll to end up in his current situation— was not immediately high tailing it out the house the moment the words “Sirena del Mar” in this gross squiggly font, appeared on the TV screen.
Seriously? Akito had thought. Spanish? He saw some latina looking woman in a blue sparkly dress decorated to look like scales in the title card, and besides the fact that she kind of reminded him of An— which should have been yet another red flag in of itself, but he was oh so BLIND— she seemed unremarkable enough, so he only immediately commented on how tacky the glorified rags looked.
Kohane didn’t seem to share the sentiment, because she just stared at the screen in contemplation, then looked at him with something he couldn’t for the life of him read, before clicking the button to start the show with her brows set.
And by starting the show, Akito really means getting a good start on watching their reflections on the black screen, because the TV did jack otherwise.
“What the— is it broken?” He incredulously asks, maybe a bit too aggressively considering just how mundane the situation actually is, but he can’t help it, his body insists on acting like it’s on edge, as if he’s currently on the verge of a cliff and not the Azusawa living room couch, just waiting to be pushed into oblivion.
Kohane, predictably enough, flinches and flattens her lips, before shaking her head.
“No, the connection’s just a bit slow today,” she practically mumbles as she studies the remote, as if it was truly that interesting. “Is it bothering you, Shinonome-kun?”
Fucking obviously, his mind lately’s been working far too much for his taste and he needs the distraction more than anything else at the moment. But even more obviously, he’s not telling her that. Besides, what’s Kohane even gonna do about it if he blabs? Sadly sniff at the TV until it feels bad?
Akito opts to just bat his hand at the air, nonchalantly. “I don’t care,” he tacks on, for good measure.
“Oh..” Kohane purses and unpurses her lips. “Okay then.”
They sit in silence. A silence that Akito hates that he’s starting to get used to. He can’t even tell if he prefers the fact that her parents went out somewhere— or actually, that’s a lie, he does like it better that way— but that still doesn’t change the fact that he’s been here for about thirty minutes, and he and Kohane spent the majority it conversing only slightly better than a pair of dead ducks.
He tsks to himself, then very casually leans back, half against the armrest, idly looking around the living room for what feels like the nth time since he’s got here. The majority of the furniture is still some variation of beige, big whoop. Multiple photos in frames still litter the walls, which, besides the plants everywhere, are still what really gives the place color.
He remembers there being more pictures earlier too, most with a small blonde girl that had the gummiest smile Akito’s ever seen and a tooth gap the size of his thumb. However, it only took the beginnings of his lips tugging up before they were divebombed and shoved into a drawer with enough nervous giggling to kickstart an avalanche.
He continues his look around, purposely keeping his eyes as far away from the giant terrarium chilling at the far wall as possible, because he knows that that’s where all good things go to die. Actually, if Akito were to search for it enough, he thinks he would be able to feel the pinpricks where the two beady red eyes of the dominator of sub-hell’s watching him.
He scowls, looking back to his side.
Kohane… barely tries to exist beside him, apparently trying to telepathically plead the television to work. Her newbie street get up’s replaced by a more casual hoodie that still has the tag on it. He’d say something about that if he wasn’t so horribly conscious of how her posture’s stiffer than a board, or the way she’s sitting at the furthest edge of the couch from him. Like, practically squished against the opposite armrest, as if she genuinely thinks the only way he’ll be comfortable is if he has enough room to do the splitz with space to spare.
Seriously, there’s accommodation, and there’s over accommodation. Kohane, like she usually does, for nothing but worse, breaks the scale entirely into plain inconvenience for herself.
It’s for that that Akito considers that maybe his true mistake was suddenly asking to go to her place at all to watch something together. She’s never gone out of her way to invite him over before, and Kohane probably only agreed out of some measure of group obligation, despite the way she’d definitely be more comfortable with An or Toya, or because the word ‘no’ just doesn’t exist in her vocabulary.
So…
Akito, successfully annoying himself with his own thoughts for the billionth time, flicks some fluff off his sleeve.
God dammit, if An’s allowed to steal Toya away to watch some lame detective movie that they’ve both been ranting for days about with references that make them sound like dumbasses, then there’s no damn reason he can’t have a blast with Kohane and have their own inside jokes.
Akito peeks over at her again.
Yeah, no reason… Unless, of course, if she insists on continuing to act as if he was seconds away from biting her head off. Seriously, in Akito’s opinion, if anything like that were to actually happen, it would be sooner be the sentient noodle at the back of the room going for his eyeballs—
There’s suddenly a change in the TV screen. The both of them perk up only to see the new addition of a big, fat, buffering icon.
Great.
Utterly bored… he cracks and decides to chance a look above the backrest of the couch…
It’s half pressed against the glass, and sure enough, looking right at him, craving guts and blood while promising murder in how its stupid little nose taps the glass—
“Ah,” Kohane suddenly, quietly lets out, and Akito whips himself back to his original, completely chill, position. “I should have mentioned that I’ve actually been meaning to watch this for a while,” she eeps by way of conversation, and because she clearly didn’t memorize the remote enough earlier, she traces its buttons in between glances at him. “So…” she peters out not three seconds later. “Um…”
Yeah, he should probably try to help her out a little.
“What are we watching?” He politely asks.
“A Telenovela,” and yeah, that is definitely a spanish word. Upon noticing his flat stare, she decides to grace him with an actual explanation. “It’s effectively a Spanish soap opera.” Akito continues to blankly look at her. “A series filled with drama,” she recorrects.
“Why would anyone want to watch that?” That sounds like a recipe to unnecessarily raise one’s blood pressure to the highest it could go. “Seems dumb,” he says.
Kohane just.. shrugs.
“They’re… very attention-grabbing, and I also like the over the top acting,” she frankly answers. “I think they’re a bit more interesting than more mainstream shows.”
Akito snorts. “Should have expected that answer from Wonderlands x Showtime’s number one fan,” he snarks.
And it was the right thing to say, because it makes Kohane finally set down the remote to smile at him.
“Ehehe, I do have a certain taste, don’t I?” She rhetorically asks. The right word is probably childish, but he keeps that one to himself for now. “But I can’t help that I find myself engaged when I can tell there’s a lot of passion in their performances. For example, Otori-san, who’s in my year. She always has such a wide smile when singing, and it’s like she’s transmitting her joy to everyone else. And, Tenma-senpai is similar too, he has such an incredible stage presence—”
Before Akito could find himself trapped in the pandora’s box he accidentally opened for what would have probably been a good hour, the TV stops buffering, and the color that appears completely distracts Kohane.
He goes on to watch in real time as her face animatedly goes from surprised at the light, to excited about said light, to slightly mortified for a reason Akito only realizes when his cheeks starts smarting from his smirk.
“I— um I,” she nods at the TV. “The show’s loaded.”
Akito makes a slight scene of raising his eyebrow, falling back against the armrest.
“Looks like it,” he responds, both his cheeks still hurt.
Kohane just nods again, looking like she’s internally sweating bullets, before tapping the remote once again and gluing herself back to her armrest.
The screen shows the first frames of what looks like a beach, with various angled close shots, before slowly scrolling across an expanse.
Kohane’s retreat does not last for long, because she’s immediately shimmying closer to center of the couch in a useless attempt to get closer to the screen like a kid would with a tablet.
“The color correction is as appealing as in the trailer…” she marvels. “Just look at the sand..” Akito humors her, and, yeah, that sure looks like sand. “Could it maybe be taken with a drone?” She goes on to ask herself.
He stifles an amused half laugh.
Sure, he might have his doubts about whatever the heck this show is supposed to be… but he thinks it’ll be fine enough if she’s having fun, considering she’s a whole show on her own. And, in truth, no matter how much Akito likes to jibe on them, the wonder clowns can be impressive in their performances. So, realistically, Kohane’s taste isn’t awful, which means he’s in for a decent enough watch, right?
Right?
Kohane abruptly pauses the episode. “I almost forgot the captions,” she brings up to herself before remembering he’s there. “Oh, ah, and Shinonome-kun, you don’t mind if we keep the dub in spanish, right?”
Akito, who had been trying to make himself more comfortable almost lets his heel touch the low table in front of them before remembering that he is not at his house. He readjusts himself to sit respectfully enough, and dismissively waves his hand. He thinks he’s mastered the technique at this point.
“Go for it.”
A minute fiddling through the settings— with all the quiet stress of defusing a bomb— later, and the episode is properly started.
The first couple chords of stereotypcal guitar music play as the camera pans in to a young woman asleep in a rickety bed. There’s a backtrack of ocean noises and seagull squawks as she lays in peaceful rest—
Akito rapidly blinks to make sure he’s seeing right. “Is that a full face of makeup?” He immediately asks, and there’s no point, because that definitely is a full face of heavy makeup, straight up something that he knows would ruin those white pillows she’s on. He’s seen enough smeared sheets to call it fact.
“She’s a pretty sleeper,” Kohane answers, or doesn’t answer, because it answers nothing at all. Besides, pretty sleepers don’t even exist, the only one he’s ever seen is Toya, and that’s only because he looks dead.
Outside of that, the female lead’s makeup is just loud.
“Her lips are literally firetruck red—”
“There are many benefits to living close to the sea,” a narrator with a baritone voice proceeds to say, according to the translation in yellow text below. He launches into a brief history of the beach shown, in a style similar to that of a documentary, before establishing a connection between the protagonist and its large body of water with many, many flashbacks, forming a collage of her life thus far.
A snapshot of her walking in shallow waves as a baby, a child, a teenager, then a young adult. A young woman living at her parents' beach resort. The young woman heading out to an open beach bar and embarrassing herself in front of multiple men. That young woman ending up in a freak jetski accident and finding herself in an overcrowded hospital. A tired doctor cares for her, they call the woman by the wrong name and perform a surgery—
Aaaaand Akito’s already lost the plot.
“What the hell is all this? Has it even been five minutes?” Why does any drama show need to start this way? Isn’t drama supposed to be like those reality TV shows where people go at each other for no reason?
“I’m sure it’s very necessary exposition, Shinonome-kun,” Kohane sagely tells him.
“How the hell could it be necessary—?”
The woman is vomiting in a toilet in a bathroom the size of Akito’s closet. She is once again at the hospital, where more lucid doctors perform multiple tests. There’s a scream…
“…and it was on that fateful day, that Gabriella De La Cruz Venezuela Sanchez discovered…” The narrator gravely says. “That she was pregnant… despite never having been with a man.”
“How,” Akito breathes.
Kohane lets out a mild gasp, the way Meiko would whenever Len says something absolutely unhinged. It’s kind of a mix between having expected the words and being shocked they actually dared to make themselves known to the world.
But, Akito must be hallucinating. Or he definitely misread something, right? Probably some kind of mistranslation, or maybe something to do with the fact he accidentally blanked out the first bit.
There’s some coherence to be found, right?
…Right?
“Wha— what the hell? Why is he—!?” Akito half sits up, but he honestly feels like he’s actually about to launch himself off the couch. Is this seriously still the first episode?! Didn’t she just leave the hospital?! Why are they back at the beach?! Why is he watching a grown man walk out the ocean fully clothed? Why is his shirt open?! What the fuck is up with the random wide shot?
Kohane’s eyes crinkle as she lets out this tiny bubbly laugh, and Akito thinks it’s partly at him, because she’s been mostly unfazed at every other strange thing that’s happened in this intro.
“I think that’s Ricardio,” she cheerily informs him, and just who the hell is—
As if synced with her damn breath, the show goes into slow motion, and Akito is presented with every conceivable angle of this guy’s insanely stacked body. Then an atrocious close up of Gabriella’s over acted shock.
“Walking set of muscles,” he mutters. Talk about objectification.
Kohane giggles some more.
‘Ricardio’ stalks towards the female lead with an intense look in his eyes. A tiger growl sound effect plays in tune with a closer shot of his masculine face.
A chunk of Akito’s will to live, gone.
“You look unchanged from when we first met, Sirenita,” he lowly says.
Gabriella femininely sighs, swishing her head to the side.
“And I am seeing you far sooner than I should be, Ricardio,” she replies, with bite. Her blue dress flows in the breeze. “Perhaps return in a few thousand years?”
Good one— wait. Did Akito miss something? Because he just watched this woman’s whole life in a blink and you’ll miss it flashback dump and he sure as shit does not remember a mortal enemy?
“Oh, Sirenita, a thousand years is nothing if I am waiting for you. Do not avert those eyes.” He grabs her chin with two fingers. “I still remember when they were all too happy to look at me not too long ago.” He leans in closer. “Just us, dancing together on that deck, whatever happened to then?”
Gabriella scoffs as if he had said something she loathed the very idea of, flinching away.
“Oh, are you sure you’re not confusing me with another one of your women?”
“I could never. You are far too feisty to forget.”
“What a sleaze,” Akito finds himself muttering before blinking, realizing that almost sounded like he got invested. He remedies that by looking at Kohane. He blinks again when he sees how she’s gaping at the screen as if she were watching peak cinema.
“Excuse me,” a different deep voice exclaims from off frame. "Are you Gabe-ee-rella La Gruz Vene-suela San-cheese?
What?
The camera shows loafers on the sand, and pans up gray slacks, reaching a crisp white shirt and gray suit coat along with a hand holding a martini, then, a sharply defined, handsome face with sunglasses. There is then four consecutive zoom ins and outs on each of the man’s most striking features.
“Ah, Antonio,” Kohane comments, her hands clasped. “His actor has a really authentic American accent!”
Akito shoots her the deadest stare.
The show pauses to buffer.
Kohane lets out an almost silent huff.
Akito tries to reconcile with the overload of… whatever the hell that was. He takes in the frame the screen is stuck on for a few moments.
“Why is he in a suit?” Akito first decides to ask, craning his head a bit before widening his eyes. “And he’s wearing polished dress shoes on sand.” He squints. “He has a vest on under too, and that fabric looks heavy,” he also notices in disdain. Seriously overdressed. “Are they trying to boil the actor alive?”
He sees Kohane look at him for a long moment in his periphery, before flicking her gaze back to the screen.
“Maybe he doesn’t mind it? He might just naturally feel colder, the same way you are, Shinonome-kun.” She pointedly looks at his jacket at that.
“I don’t—” Akito cuts himself off and quickly shucks off his jacket, throwing it on the backrest behind him along with his other two. “Don’t you dare,” he instinctively threatens, he already gets enough remarks from An about them and layering is fashionable damn it!
“Ah! No!” Kohane hastily waves her hands in appeasement. “It’s not a bad thing!” She immediately grips the pillow behind her as if preparing to use it as a shield, all the while speaking quickly. “There’s nothing wrong with heat searching! Count Pearl does it too, and it’s cute!”
Akito scoffs, trying to simmer himself down. It’s sabotaged by the fact that he doesn’t know whether he should be more miffed about the weird comparison, or the fact that she just indirectly called him cute. “Don’t compare me to your snake,” he flatly decides.
Kohane nervously titters—
And they’re both immediately audibly assaulted by a loud whip crack sound effect as the show continues with Antonio tearing off his sunglasses.
“You,” he says with an icy tone, looking towards Ricardio. “Must you continue to haunt my existence no matter where I go?”
Gabriella softly gasps.
“Antonio,” Ricardio echoes with an air of overconfidence, however, his voice rumbles with anger. “I could ask you the same. What are you doing here?”
“I..” Antonio’s glare is steely as he speaks. “Am here for my baby.”
There are multiple whoosh sound effects as the camera continuously switches from the two other character’s flabbergasted reactions.
“Wha—” Might as well throw Akito right into the show too as every single one of his grievances before suddenly turns insignificant in face of the realization that just slapped him like a fish to the face. “Is this a love triangle?” And he thought the manga trope was corny! “And there’s just a pregnancy involved?!”
“Well, yes.” Kohane leans forwards to pause the show before uncomfortably shifting back into place, not quite meeting his eyes. “That’s… more or less what happens in most telenovelas.”
Why in the fuck would anyone watch such melodramatic shit? This is probably worse than those Korean rom-coms his sister’s obsessed with!
He incredulously looks at her. “Did you seriously pick this to test me?” He asks. Did he underestimate her that badly? He didn’t actually think she’d do her worst! “Have you been holding out on—?”
“Of course not!” Kohane hastily waves her hands. “If you really don’t like it, Shinonome-kun, we don’t have to watch it! I just thought—” Kohane cuts herself off, looking mournfully at the screen. “I’ll change it.” She reaches for the remote left on the table—
Akito snatches it before she can.
“No,” he plainly says, pointing the remote at her. “A bet’s a bet. I can make it through the first episode of this at least.”
Kohane studies him, and for some odd reason, Akito feels compelled to hide the device behind him.
Kohane’s brows are pinched as she slowly settles back down onto the cushions. “You really don’t have to force yourself, Shinonome-kun.”
He narrows his eyes at her.
“So you're saying I can’t handle it? You take me for some kinda wimp?”
She predictably recoils at that.
“Of course not!”
“So it’s settled.”
He unpauses the show, keeping the remote to the side away from Kohane.
It’s only extremely stupid. He tolerates An on the daily, he can handle it.
…
..
.
Never in Akito’s life has he been so utterly baffled.
He seriously doesn’t even think his troublesome senpai— who are the textbook definition of nuts— can begin to compare to the sheer insanity he’s witnessed over the span of twenty minutes. The jetski competition, the water polo with a pineapple, the gossiping doctors at the bar drinking cocktails out of bowls. He can barely believe he is watching something written by humans and acted out by other humans. This is the kind of stuff that would faze Toya, he’s sure.
Europeans are next level insane.
And to top it all off, they somehow end the episode with a cliffhanger on what Gabriella is planning to do with the whole other human beginning to grow inside her?
What the hell is this blatant manipulation?
“Uhm, okay…” Kohane ekes, very visibly, mentally, and spiritually hesitant in her words as she glances between the remote set on the armrest next to Akito, and his face. “We… can… watch something else now if you’d like… Shinonome-kun.”
Akito just looks at her, wide eyed and irritated. He then grabs the remote set next to him, and mashes the button to start the next episode. He just needs to know what she’ll do with the baby, then he’ll move on with his—
If anyone were to later ask. Akito will swear he got sucked into a time warp.
The unwanted child of frustrated purgatory and fever dream, that’s what he’s decided to call the abomination of a situation he’s in. Too many things happen on the screen, leaving him with too many unanswered questions. Which forces him to keep going through episodes until he finally feels satisfied.
He thinks that’s the trap. But being aware of it doesn’t make it any easier to escape.
The one and only thing he will appreciate about the cluster of bizarre writing is that Gabriella is at least slightly more competent than the average ditzy high school girl in shoujos, but that’s probably because she’s an adult. Though the same can’t be said about the walking apes that are meant to be medical staff in the show.
“Remind me to go to whatever city they’re in if I ever want to accidentally get amputated for having a cold,” Akito dryly says out loud.
The screams of many are abundant in the background as Antonio and Gabriella consult with a doctor far past his prime. The doctor’s hands violently shake as he holds the end of a stethoscope towards her stomach, the result bears resemblance to the relationship between a woodpecker and a tree.
“…I’ll be sure not to,” Kohane affirms with a wince.
As more time passes, Akito’s not only forced to absorb more absurdity, but he also has to take in the steaming pile of hot garbage that is Ricardio.
Ricardio.
God. Even thinking his name makes Akito mad, though that’s only the second most thing Akito hates about him. First place has to go to the fact that he is everywhere. He swears, if Gabriella’s bathroom was big enough to accommodate two people, he’d ambush her on the toilet too. Because he. is. just. always. there. everytime Gabriella’s alone, weaseling into the damn scene with the most punchable smirk in history. Not to mention that goddamn—
There’s the riff of an electric guitar as Ricardio stalks out from behind a pillar.
Akito would normally rather die than willingly write an essay. But he thinks that in this case, he’d be more than willing to write over a hundred words about how detestable the guy is, and he’d even throw fifteen more on how his signature guitar riff should be considered noise pollution and just how much it makes him want to rip his ears off. He really is the damn definition of creep.
It’s all too easy for him to let out a noise of distaste before beginning to mutter. “I’ve seriously never seen a guy who’s such a snak—” he quickly cuts himself off.
Kohane turns her head to look at him with her ginormous hamster eyes— were they always that big?
“Did you say something, Shinonome-kun?”
It takes Akito all of five seconds to safely respond with:
“No.”
He swears not even An would be able to put up with this.
It’s many scenes later though that he and Kohane get to witness Gabriella and Ricardio get into an all out spat, one that just keeps escalating, and Akito is on the edge of his seat, the most excited he’s ever been since entering the show, thinking that he might actually witness her slapping him for his general sliminess—
Until Gariella, unfathomably, unbelievably, so horrendously out of left field, swishes her hair, opens her mouth and begins to sing accapella.
And Akito’s jaw might as well have slammed into the ground at mach fifty.
What in the—
“Her breath control…” Kohane admires. “She truly sounds like a siren…”
The camera flies about in a manner similar to a music video, floating across the ocean as they stand at the dock. The beginning instrumentals then slowly fade in.
Akito’s still trying to figure out when the hell they spontaneously switched genres. He checks on Kohane, who’s looks like she’s itching to take notes, either that, or she’s trying to take screenshots with her eyes.
An unexplainable gust of wind suddenly ruffles Gabriella’s dress in flowy pattern, then Ricardio’s still open shirt, because no scene with him is complete without his abs dominating at least half of it for no damn reason but to make it clear that Akito is not the target audience— but seriously, how the fuck does a guy get so stacked? Those things look like they’re carved out of damn rock—
He snaps himself out of it as the instrumentals and Gabriella’s voice wind down.
And for some reason, even though he should have known better by now, Akito actually thinks it’s done… Until the camera zooms into Ricardio from the front, and he. starts. belting.
And what the fuck why is his singing angelic—?
Akito has never so heavily hated the process of being immersed into a song. It’s like an out of body experience, with his mind screaming obscenities at the screen while he finds himself unable to redirect his attention anywhere else. Especially when the ambiance lighting kicks in and what the hell the scene’s just objectively good looking—
—Wait a damn minute, Ricardio can hit high notes too? How does a grown man have such range?—
His voice serves as a gentle caress, he sings with a softness akin to a fresh flower petal in spring. The lyrics, written in yellow captions on the bottom of the screen, regale tales of romantic love like no other.
It’s cheesy enough to kill a cow. Akito’s cringing hard enough to sour a lemon— Is this even the same guy?! He still has the same douchey pecs and face and stubble, but he’s—
He tenderly begins to dance with Gabriella, the sun setting and the lights littering the posts blooming to life as he slowly spins her. Orange hues bathe over them as his eyes remain unwavering on her. Ricardio moves with the fluidity of water, effortlessly catching and releasing her.
Steam might as well be coming out of Akito’s ears. He’s outraged. He’s livid. He can’t look away.
The music begins to fade out as the two voices of the leads meld together into the final verse. There’s a wide shot of the two holding each other close as it eventually becomes a comfortable silence. The episode ends.
They sit in deafening quiet.
Akito’s eyes and mouth feel dry. He scrubs his face and swallows to ensure he didn’t suddenly pass on somewhere in the last five minutes.
“I think…” Kohane whispers from her end of the couch, hiding behind her hands. “I think I want that.”
Akito blankly looks at her, he’s pretty sure he’s still in shock. Does this count as a traumatic experience? Because it should.
“Why would you actually say that out loud?” He asks, though there’s no bite to his words, mostly because he’s still in the process of semi gaping.
Kohane hugs a cushion to her chest. She looks at him with doughy eyes, and it almost feels like she isn’t fully there either.
“You don’t think it would be nice, Shinonome-kun?” Her feet knock against the hard bottom part of the couch. “To have someone put on a performance like that only for you?” She rests her chin on the pillow. “…It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but I might be a bit of a romantic.”
Akito sets his hand back on the armrest, it serves as something well enough to slightly ground him. He turns to properly face Kohane with a half dubious quirk of his brow.
“You really think admitting something as obvious as that is gonna get me to share anything?”
Kohane blinks a few times.
“…Maybe?” She tests.
He crosses his arms, stuffing his head backwards into the back cushions. His thoughts drift to two toned blue hair, piercing gray eyes, the steady voice of his partner…
“It’s not terrible as a thought,” he eventually says. “Though not by that diaper stain of a man. Hell, I’d rather take An playing me careless whisper on the kazoo again.” Another traumatic experience that taught Akito that it is actually possible to fail at an instrument that requires no skill to use. Sometimes, in the deep in the night, the off key quacks still echo through his head.
“An-chan…” Kohane echoes, and she suddenly goes from mentally being ten miles away to three solar systems into her imagination.
Akito sharply claps his hands.
“Ah!”
He doesn’t bother with words, just shifting forwards to play the next episode.
The next time Akito finds himself aware, it’s because he’s groaning at the multiple loud pings of his phone interrupting an oddly sensual conversation between Gabriella and Antonio about chinchillas.
Kohane pauses the show at the same time he grabs his phone. He’s instantly tempted to lob it away when he sees the sender to be Ena.
brother of mine.
akito
a
k
i
t
o
if you don’t respond i’m dumping out all your shoes
Ill stomp on all ur clay bowls
chinese food or pizza?
Chinese
when u coming back then?
Akito looks at the time on the top corner of his phone—
“Hah?!” He shouts, his body spiking into awareness.
How did three hours pass by so damn fast?
“Huh?!” Kohane returns in alarm.
“What episode are we on?” He quickly asks her.
“Oh! Um…” Kohane clicks a button to see the playtime. “Number seven. I think a little over halfway done with the first season.” She looks at him in concern. “Why?”
Akito looks at the time again, 6:46 PM. He tries to crunch the numbers. It’s probably gonna be another three hours before they finish the rest of the first season of this garbage, add on to that the decent commute on the train back from Kohane’s. Which would mean he’d end up at home around…
Eh. Whatever.
Nunya
“Just checking,” he assures her with a half smile, nodding towards the screen. “Continue.”
i’ll leave the food out to rot for u
He leaves Ena on read, and beside him, Kohane bobs her head, but right before she unpauses, her phone starts screeching.
Akito groans, again.
“Sorry,” she whispers apologetically, even as she instantly answers and brings the phone to her ear with an already forming smile. He’s entirely unsurprised to hear An’s obnoxious voice bleeding through the phone’s speaker as soon as the call connects.
Akito just settles for glaring at the close up of Antonio’s face on the screen until she’s done, except—
“Oh? You want to talk to Shinonome-kun, An-chan?”
Oh god.
“Akito, my good sir,” An gleefully tells him with the worst posh accent he’s ever heard when the phone’s passed to him on speakerphone. “How are you faring on this fine evening?”
Once again, Akito is instinctively tempted to throw the device in his hands to another dimension, but considering it’s not his phone, he quickly erases the thought.
“Much worse now, why the hell are you talking like tha—”
“Elementary, my dear Watson,” aaand she’s switched to english, superb. “Would you like to have a word?” An asks, sounding further away from the mic.
“I have more than a few words to say, Sherlock,” Toya’s voice clearly replies, also in english, and Akito doesn’t even have it in him to be disappointed. “Have you had an enjoyable time thus far?”
Maybe if Akito cringes enough at the phone, Toya will somehow get the message.
Kohane giggles, holding up a hand to whisper despite there being no damn reason to. “He’s asking if you’re having fun,” she translates.
Akito looks at her, and her clearly expectant face, then the phone. Her fiddling with her fingers and slightly nervous eyes, then back at the phone.
“Yes,” he enunciates. He pretends not to see how Kohane’s face lights up in delight at that. Instead taking it a step further. “We having better time than you.”
He can hear An gasp in offense as Toya disapprovingly hums.
“We are, or we’re,” he corrects. “Did we not go over conjunctions a few days ago?” He rhetorically asks, thankfully back to a language he understands.
“Spare it, dude,” Akito dryly responds.
“And I’m pleased you’re getting along well with Azusawa, I told you there wasn’t any reason to worry—”
“The phone’s on speaker, bro,” Akito tries to nonchalantly say, now refusing to look in Kohane’s direction.
“I figured,” Toya plainly says in that specific way that tells Akito he’s just being an ass on purpose. “Is there an issue? Or did you simply not want her to know that you had been nervous the previous day about—”
Akito hangs up the call.
…
Kohane owlishly blinks at him.
…
The phone rings again.
…
“Uhm…” Kohane opens and shuts her mouth, then awkwardly points at the phone.
Akito just tsks and swipes the screen.
“Akito. Akito. Akito,” An’s voice answers, somehow sounding both unbearably smug and even more smug than that at the same time. “Don’t you know it’s rude to hang up on others?”
“Oh buzz off—”
“Sweet as ever, give me Kohane back.”
“I’m right here An-chan.”
“Good, good, I hope he hasn’t been that grumpy with you this whole—” Kohane flips the phone off of loud speaker, smiling at him in a silent ‘sorry,’ as she scurries off to another room.
Akito, in the meantime, waits for the inevitable text.
Azusawa is relieved knowing that she wasn’t the only one fretting over today.
He’s quick to tap out a response.
Ans rubbing off on u too much
Did you seriously have to do that
Perhaps, and no, I didn’t. I simply wanted to.
Akito scoffs and ends up exchanging more texts with Toya, meaning he gets treated to generous review and plot synopsis of the movie he had watched with An, complete with a general rating: 5/5, as the mystery was “excellent with quite the eye opening twist”, as well as a rating on her commentary, which is of course, a probably bloated, 4.5/5.
A couple of her theories were… off the mark, to say the least.
Never would have guessed
Review was real helpful btw
I’m glad you found it so.
Akito snorts, it’s always a toss up whether Toya’s playing along with his sarcasm or if it actually flew over his head.
In any case, I understand that you are currently watching a series with Azusawa?
Yeah
Worst show the human race has ever seen
Cant describe it even if I wanted to
That does sound quite promising.
Toya’s sarcasm is also a fifty fifty shot on whether or not it’s intentional.
“Oh, the show isn’t too long for you, is it?” Kohane softly asks from somewhere off.
Akito rolls his neck and slumps more into the couch, and right as he’s about to respond, Kohane continues.
“That’s good, though I suppose it might be a little confusing for you ehehe.”
He furrows his brow and pauses his texting to look over the couch behind him.
Kohane’s crouched next to the terrarium, holding two cups and a pitcher, looking through the glass at the white shoelace occupying it.
“I know you prefer your nature documentaries, but I don’t think Shinonome-kun would enjoy them as much.” Kohane giggles. “So you’ll have to be a bit patient, okay?”
…What a nutcase.
When Kohane finally notices she’s being watched, she only smiles, placing the water at the tabletop before immediately dashing off.
It’s after a bit more milling around that a much more spirited Kohane returns, holding a bowl.
Akito shoots off a final message before looking at the steaming popcorn that wafts a strong scent of caramel, and color him intrigued.
“Busted out the snacks?” He asks.
“Ehehe, I know you like sweet things, so I figured you were like me, and…”
She tentatively sets it on the middle of the couch, then sits on the other side of it to him.
Akito looks at her, then grabs a kernel and pops it into his mouth.
“It’s good,” he says.
Kohane gleams in pride before picking up the remote and unpausing.
The on screen conversation is resumed, and Akito feels himself being sucked in again, with the addition of homemade caramel popcorn, a nice novelty. And before he knows it, the current episode is ending on a tango between Antonio and Gabriella.
“Say, my love,” Antonio begins as he dips the female lead. “My investors called yesterday evening,” he performs a half spin with the woman in his arms before returning her balance. “They have brought me a gift upon my request.”
Gabriella lets herself be twirled away, her dress flowing with ease. “What kind of gift?” She asks in a husky tone.
“A very good one.” Antonio smiles, pulling Gabriella to his chest. “What do you think of owning a helicopter?” He lowly whispers into her ear.
Gabriella raises an eyebrow as she’s taken from one arm to the other. “It would depend on the kind.”
Antonio’s lip only quirks up in pride. “A Boeing AH-64 Apache, freshly painted in a green akin to the sea, in your honor.”
Akito’s on his phone in a heartbeat, because what in the fuck is a—
Holy shit.
“An attack helicopter.” Akito numbly scrolls through the images on his phone, showing the biggest beast of a machine he’s ever seen. “He wants to give her an attack helicopter.”
Kohane ignores the ongoing conversation to dubiously shuffle close to him, peeking over his arm to look at his phone.
“Oh… that’s… oh…” A hand slowly raises to her mouth. “Wouldn’t that need a permit?”
“No, Antonio,” Gabriella softly says as she caresses his cheek, her gaze is elsewhere though, conflicted, presumably due to the feelings she harbors for another man. “That is… very sweet of you to offer… I don’t think I’ll be in need of such a thing, though.”
What.
Kohane shuts her eyes to nod in agreement.
“That’s understandable—”
“Is she serious!?”
Kohane whips her head back to him, her eyes blown wide open.
“Shi—Shinonome-kun?!” She lets out in surprise.
Akito’s eyes dart between the photos on his phone and screen. Does she even understand what she’s missing out on?!
“Why the hell is she rejecting an attack helicopter?! That has to be the coolest damn thing she could ever get! What’s up with her?!”
“Shinonome-kun—!?!” She repeats, higher pitched.
“Ricardio could never get you something like that, damn it!” He clenches his fists. “That’s why she doesn’t want it! She feels guilty!”
“Ah— I don’t think Ricardio would need to get her something like that in the first place—”
“It can shoot missiles…” Akito can only imagine being inside a machine that awesome, flying over the sea at top speeds. He’s sure something like that could move fast, and with all that weaponry, they could probably blow up Ricardio’s lawn or something easily.
Antonio smiles in good humor. “I shall keep it on standby should you ever change your mind.” His feet smoothly moves to the rhythm in parallel to Gabriella’s. “Anything for you, the mother of my child.”
What a man.
Akito feels a pang in his chest.
What a man.
Akito has to give Antonio his heavy props where he deserves it, he has a goldy taste for gifts despite not having someone who appreciates it. He can also sure as hell move his body. He doesn’t have the same finesse as Ricardio, but that’s probably because the guy’s the writers' favourite, which is why the world allows him to live as such an otherwise unbearable guy. That doesn’t change the fact that Antonio’s objectively better in every other way—
Instead of automatically moving to the next episode, the TV bugs.
Akito stifles his instinctive ‘oh come on!’ in favor of looking Kohane’s way.
Kohane, in turn, holds his eye contact for a whopping three seconds.
The TV continues to stall.
“Uhm,” she eventually emits, and suddenly, her lips twitch up into a smile that she quickly to hide. Akito grunts, seeing the incoming question a mile away. “Do you have a favorite so far, Shinonome-kun?”
“Antonio,” he swiftly responds before realising he should dial it back a bit. “He’s a half decent guy,” he amends before shoving popcorn into his mouth.
“Mmn,” Kohane sounds, looking at him as if he’s the weird one. “Ricardio can be a little rude.”
“A little?”
Kohane nods in agreement. “He almost reminds me of you, Shinonome-kun.”
“Oi.”
“Ah! I didn’t mean it like that—” She pauses. “Okay, maybe a little bit.”
“Oi!”
“I-I mean, he started out bad! And now I’m only apprehensive about him. It’s similar to how I was apprehensive with you in the beginning too.”
Well, Akito definitely didn’t make it easy on her.
“You’re getting too comfortable throwing digs at me here,” he gripes, before grabbing more popcorn.
“I just mean that I think he’ll probably get better!”
Akito raises a brow. “So, bottom line, your favorite’s Antonio too.”
There’s a notable pause, one that Kohane tries to fill with slowly chewing on two kernels of popcorn, before responding.
“I… definitely prefer Antonio over Ricardio…” she eventually says, hesitating her way through every word.
“I thought so.” Akito’s tempted to leave it there, but he caves to his own curiosity. “Outside of process of elimination, you find anything else good about Antonio?”
Kohane seems to consider the question.
“Ah, well,” She smiles. “The first thing that comes to mind is how he knows six different languages. I think that’s really cool.”
Akito nods somewhat. “It’s impressive enough.”
“And I appreciate how polite and respectful he is to Gabriella too.”
“That’s the bare minimum,” Akito deadpans. Ricardio’s the special one for occasionally doing pullups of that low bar and otherwise being a pitiful example. But he won’t deny to himself that he doesn’t hate Antonio’s more reserved manners, it reminds him of Toya actually.
“Then, uhm, I think his style is very classy.”
“He wears suits and nothing but suits, no matter what he’s doing.” They might as well be molded to his skin.
“…I admire how committed he is to his fashion.”
“You’re grasping at straws here.”
“I think he’s a pretty good dancer.”
“I’m not happy to say it, but we both know Ricardio outclasses him in that.” He narrows his eyes at the paltry defenses. “Seriously, Isn’t Antonio meant to be your favorite?”
It’s kind of funny how for a split second, he’s able to see indignation in her eyes.
“I never said that he—” she pauses, letting out the tiniest harumph he’s ever heard from a person. “What do you want me to say, Shinonome-kun?”
Akito throws his hands towards the screen.
“Oh, I dunno, maybe the thing this series loves showing off. He’s got a good face. You can make me cringe to death by gushing about his dreamy eyes or pointed jaw or something else like that.” His sharp features are kinda similar to Toya too, actually, it makes for good reference.
Kohane’s mouth flies open and shut like a fish gasping for breath.
“I—well, I guess I do find him good-looking, but…” Her fingers fidget with each other, and she seems to visibly search for words. She slowly just peters out with a grumble and shrug.
Akito snickers.
“What? You getting shy on me now?” He prods her shin with his socked foot.
Kohane squishes the pillow tighter to her chest. “I-I’m not!” She yelps, darting her legs away and sitting criss cross instead. She actually pouts at him. “I just don’t have anything more to say…”
“How?” Akito incredulously asks. “The guy is practically the embodiment of unhateable.” He waves his hands towards the screen. “A willing and present dad to-be, knows how to pick gifts, actually cares about Gabriella. Seriously, even I can say the stunt he pulled during the second jetski competition was admirable. Also he’s good looking on top of all that. What the hell more could you ask for in a—?” Akito narrows his eyes. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Kohane, who had started grinning at him like a doofus halfway through his talking, just shakes her head.
“It’s nothing Shinonome-kun. I’m just happy.”
Akito tsks, ignoring how the back of his neck suddenly feels hot.
“Wh… whatever,” he swats at the air.
The next episode starts in Antonio’s absurdly luxurious large beachfront house, specifically, the open patio. Antonio, who’s playing the role of a waiter, shows finesse in serving Gabriella multiple plates hidden under silver covers while donning out heartfelt compliments. It is abundantly clear that the two have grown close.
Akito is no longer questioning the logistics nor the why, because he has long accepted that the show will never give him an explanation. Instead, he only wonders how Gabriella is expected to eat what looks like a five course meal all on her own.
His question is answered when the covers are lifted to reveal that the plates have nothing but various types of grapes on them. The narrator then chimes in something about pregnancy cravings, and there’s nothing further that needs to be asked.
“I’ve never seen grapes shaped like that,” Kohane says aloud. “And there’s so many…”
“So?” Akito chows down on a palmful of popcorn. “It’s clear the guy’s gonna help her clear them out of somethin'.”
It turns out Akito was half right, because a sudden montage of grape tasting later, and there’s the sudden and dreaded guitar riff that’s usually attached to Ricardio, who’s on the beachfront.
He lets out a long suffering breath.
Kohane gleefully claps her hands.
The camera pans to him at the same moment Antonio and Gabriella turn their head.
Ricardio, the fucking douche he is, swishes his stupidly long hair back and readjusts his ridiculous opened hawaiian shirt. Obviously trying to bring attention to his dumb and insanely defined chest for the thousandth time.
Antonio in turn tucks his hands into his black slacks' pockets, striking a pretentious pose that is so clearly meant for the camera in response, like it’s a flex off and—
And…
Holy shit it actually is a flex off.
The concept is so unspeakably ridiculous, so nuts, that it suddenly touches on the highest peak of comedy.
He doesn’t know which one of them cracked first, but it doesn’t take long before he’s trying to guffaw a lung out while Kohane tries to singlehandedly shake them off the couch with her giggles.
Akito knocks the popcorn bowl over trying to hold himself up. His laughter becomes higher pitched. Kohane doubles over her pillow.
They blank through the rest of the sequence, only petering out when Ricardio stomps out the restaurant with a stormy expression like a toddler throwing a tantrum. Akito slaps his knee in vindication, his lungs burn.
“Kohane,” Akito pants out, his voice shaky from his amusement. “Why the hell are we still watching this?”
“I think it’s because we like it, Shinono— Shino—” He watches her visibly lag for a beat in between small bursts of laughter. “Shinonome-kun.”
“This show’s making us stupider,” Akito concludes.
“Maybe it is.” Kohane simply replies, patting his shoulder twice in some measure of reassurance. “And I don’t think that’s a word.”
Akito just thoughtlessly sends his hand back into the bowl in response. However, he realises the sound of multiple small crunches as he shifts, and bites back a curse.
Kohane is thankfully nonchalant enough about the mess, but they’re forced to stop the episode to clean up. Akito spends more time trying to ward Kohane away from trying to pick up the sticky popcorn kernels herself than actually clearing stuff up though.
They both throw themselves back onto the couch once having finished and washed their hands, and Akito effortlessly snaps up the remote, prepared to continue, when—
“I’m pretty sure my favorite character is Gabriella,” Kohane suddenly tells him.
Akito snaps his head to her.
“Are you serious.”
Kohane looks at him, goggle-eyed.
“I can’t like her?”
“Why?” He whispers, incredulous. “What is there to like? The way she can’t make a decision to save her own life?”
Kohane gasps, her mouth wide open.
“You’re just as invested in her conflict!”
“But I don’t like it. She’s a moron. Who would actually like morons?”
“I-I— what if I said it was her looks?”
That would confirm a little something he’s been suspecting but—
“So you’re just shallow?”
Kohane gapes again.
“No! I also like that Gabriella’s really compassionate and funny, her face during the competition was really—”
Akito smirks, this is fun. “So you like laughing at her?”
Kohane straightens up in her sitting, looking at him head on.
“Why do you keep trying to make me sound bad?!”
Akito leans forwards towards her, before grabbing the tag of her hoodie, snapping it off, and lounging back, crumpling it into a ball. “Cause you still can’t argue,” he simply responds as he flicks it onto the table.
Her expression at that is pure gold.
“Well, um—” she pauses for a full two seconds to stare at the wad, then looks at her own twiddling thumbs, and finally at Akito with a plain spark of annoyance before continuing. “Gabriella is humble, too. She she knows what she actually needs,” she says with conviction, and Akito will be damned, that almost sounds like a flat out jab.
“The attack helicopter is a need.” It’s the coolest damn thing there is.
Kohane says nothing for a long moment, though she lets out something that Akito could mistake for a huff.
“To each their own, Shinonome-kun,” she finally says, right as the next episode begins.
It’s late evening, and water pours from the sky with ferocious intensity, pattering onto Gabriella’s umbrella as she walks down the streets all alone, a near lost expression on her face. It’s as she weaves through corners that she stumbles upon a pair of familiar broad shoulders sitting on a short brick wall seperating land from beach.
She approaches, coming to stand diagonally to him, ensuring that the both of them are covered by the umbrella.
Ricardio combs his wet hair back, looking drenched, betraying the long length of time he’d been sat unprotected against the weather. Gabriella continues to hold the umbrella above him, not minding the fact.
As if it’s actually doing anything for him at that point.
There’s only the never ending sound of rain pattering.
“This is where my Mama died, Sirenita,” Ricardio eventually says in a low tone.
“Well, that’s one hell of a conversation starter.”
Kohane whacks him on the leg with a pillow.
“Shinonome-kun!” She chides, scandalized.
He snorts.
I’m sorry," Gabriella says.
The front facing Ricardio, sitting on the curb, fades to a younger boy in the same pose.
All of a sudden, Ricardio’s gravely voice starts narrating the most tragic backstory that has no fucking place in some drama romance show.
And damn, is it rough to sit through, but it somehow explains so much about his shit personality.
Gun fights, screaming, knives, kidnapping?!
Akito’s eyes widen. Wait a minute. Did the writers just hate this man all along?!
He hears sniffles beside him, and quickly looks to see Kohane just sobbing. Even Gabriella sheds a tear on screen.
Is this even the same show anymore!? Weren’t they just laughing their asses off not ten minutes ago?!
“And that is why I am unashamed to bear myself to the world,” Ricardio whispers, almost vulnerable. “Because no matter what it throws at me, I still persist.” He places a hand over his pec. "It can take its best shot at my heart, and I will dig the bullet out with my bare hands and throw it back at them.
The moment is so potent that for a full ten seconds, Akito doesn’t even realize that that makes absolutely no sense.
By the time the episode ends, and it’s while he’s passing a tissue box to Kohane that Akito comes to the horrifying realization that he doesn’t want bad things for Ricardio.
He should have seen that for the warning sign it is. Because not an episode later…
“For you, Gabriella,” Antonio later says in a bow as he presents a handbag to the female lead.
“Antonio,” Akito begs. “Antonio,” he repeats, more desperate. “That is not how you woo a person,” Akito grits. “Much less a woman. Or even anything.” He stabs his hands towards the horrid atrocity on screen.
“It’s not… that bad,” Kohane tries to lie, because she is lying.
Akito slowly turns his head to face her.
“Look me in the eyes and tell me you’d accept the ugly squirrel fur handbag.”
Kohane does not.
“It’s… creative… at least?” She half asks, her gaze very pointedly at the screen. “He clearly put in the effort of making it, and I think Gabriella would appreciate that—”
“What happened to the attack helicopter he said he stashed for her?! It would have been fifty times better that that thing.” To think Akito actually had faith in him. “Hell, they don’t even compare.”
Kohane silently sighs.
“I still think an attack helicopter as a gift would’ve come with it’s own share of problems…”
“That thing has far more problems. It’s the kind of thing you’d use to woo the devil himself. Even the nicest of people wouldn’t accept that. Don’t kid with me.”
“Mm, I guess she wouldn’t like it that much…”
“Flowers, chocolates, hell, even a teddy bear! They’re disgustingly cliché, but that’s for a reason! Every girl likes them, right?!”
Kohane nods in agreement, her forehead pinched.
“An-chan loves all of those,” she agrees— wait, that’s not even—?!
“I’m asking you!”
“Oh, no! I’d be happy with anything An-chan gives me.”
“Hah?! That’s not what I was—”
“Antonio,” Gabriella breathes, the look in her eyes is touched, however, the scrunch of her nose tells a different tale.
He should have seen the writing on the wall, then. But truth be told, even if he had been forewarned, nothing would have prepared him fully for the absolute character assassination Antonio goes through.
It starts with him developing strange habits, like a love for midnight walks and an interest in staring at sharp objects. Then he gets this fascination for taxidermied animals and starts to collect them in his luxury apartment, as if he hasn’t already made enough of a case for seeming like a serial killer. Akito would be more outraged at the sheer audacity of the show to ruin one of its best characters if he wasn’t so baffled at how oblivious Gabriella seems to any of Antonio’s behavior being a red flag.
“There is no way she thinks this is normal,” he lets out, as he watches Gabriella cook in what Akito can only call a nightmare house.
“Maybe she’s… trying to be supportive?” Kohane ekes out, clearly also put off but trying her damn best to hide it, and just who exactly is she planning to impress with that?
“That better be a joke.”
He only gets nervous laughs in response.
Akito wonders if that’s just how Kohane is, if her survival instincts are actually so comparable to a pomegranate that she’d stay by someone that off putting just cause she likes them. He quickly decides not to think on it any more.
At a certain point, Akito becomes convinced he’s watching a true crime documentary, and that both him and Kohane are soon going to be forced to watch Gabriella get dissected on the dining room table in front of a choir of dead rodents. He starts planning just how he’s going to blind Kohane while reaching for the remote to shut the TV off at the same time. He thinks he’ll start by pulling the device closer to him…
God, he never thought he’d want to see Ricardio again so badly.
With an exaggerated swish of her dress, the leading lady lets herself rest in the arms of the arms of her unsettling man.
“I have decided, Gabriella,” Antonio says, his voice steely as he rubs her belly. “That I no longer wish to have this baby. I am the father, so you will get rid of it.”
“What the fuck!” Akito shouts, fuming. “Antonio would never do that! He loves his baby!” He slams his fist against the couch rest. “This is complete bullsh—!” He cuts himself off upon remembering just who’s next to him.
Kohane might as well be dead to the world, her eyes firmly fixed on the TV screen, her blanket lifted up to cover her mouth. She looks rightfully upset too.
Gabriella gasps, shell-shocked, stepping away from Antonio as the camera zooms in.
Antonio gravely stares back at her.
“Oi,” he lets out over the dramatic music that follows. “Don’t you dare breath a word of any of this elsewhere.”
Kohane looks at him from the sides of her eyes for only a second, clearly more intent on watching the screen.
“Which part?” She makes herself more comfortable in the blanket, tucking it over her shoulders. “What you said? What we’re watching? Or the fact that you’re enjoying it?”
“I’m no—” Screw it. “All of it, any of it. But I’m pissed above all else right now.”
Kohane nods, her brows knitted.
“I’m shocked too—”
The door of the apartment is suddenly broken open, and a figure steps through the inordinate amount of smoke that results.
“Get you filthy hands off her,” a familiar voice growls.
Then comes a guitar riff that Akito never thought he’d be relieved to hear.
“Oh?” Antonio says. “And why should I listen to a man who breaks into my home?”
There’s a click of a gun.
“Because it is not your home,” a deep voice replies.
Akito gapes while Kohane gasps.
That voice…
Another figure emerges from the smoke, holding a silver revolver, and the smoke parts to reveal…
“Antonio?” Gabriella exclaims. “Why are there two of you?”
The Antonio beside Gabriella only smiles, in a manner entirely unlike Antonio.
“There aren’t, Gabriella,” the Antonio with the gun replies, "Because the fiend you are looking at… is my brother."
The screen cuts to black, before the end credits roll with accompanying music.
WHAT.
THE.
FU—
“Mm!” Kohane pumps her fists, nodding furiously. “I really enjoyed myself too, Shinonome-kun! I would’ve never guessed that Antonio had a twin brother!”
Akito dumbly bobs his head up and down.
“Nn,” he replies, as he’s been doing for the past five or so minutes in a daze.
Kohane doesn’t seem bothered in the slightest by it, probably too excited about her show. Until at least, her smile wanes a bit and she scuffs a slipper against the floor or her doorway.
“So, uhm… you probably noticed but, the second season is also available to watch.” Her fingers tangle together in front of her chest. “And I’m not saying we should watch it right away, but maybe… eventually?”
Akito inhales, long and deep. The sheer amount of turmoil this nightmare of a series made him feel is unmatched. He felt enough stress to probably make him start growing gray hairs early. He can also barely imagine the teasing he’d catch from literally anyone besides Toya if word got out that he’s watching this kind of stuff, but—
He exhales with an upwards curl to his lip.
—dammit if it wasn’t fun.
“Same time next week?” He suggests.
They way Kohane’s beams is more than enough of an answer.