Chapter Text
The Crase Cafe was yet again a lively place, as it usually is when all four members are free to brainstorm for new songs together. However, it was even more lively today, as it wasn’t only MEIKO and Miku hanging around to help; the Kagamines were taking a break from laying down fresh paint on the never ending walls of their sekai.
“MEIKO, I told you, I can handle black coffee now! I’m grown and mature, so a little, or a lot, of black coffee is nothing to me now!”
“Fufufu, the last time I heard those words coming from you Len, your face got all scrunched up and turned slightly green at the first sip!” Len huffed and crossed his arms at this.
“Okay, well, that was what, 4 months ago?!”
“4 days.” Rin giggled and covered her mouth with her hand, Len side eyeing her as a result. “But if you think you can handle it now, who am I to say no? Just remember, there’s no shame in thinking it’s bad!” MEIKO said reassuringly as she slid the mug over to Len.
Akito leaned his head on his hand as he studied the white board that An was standing in front of, themes scattered aimlessly with one side reserved for lyrics. The Crase Cafe was a place he and his teammates frequented often ever since getting comfortable with the vocaloids. Given, if he thinks too hard about the logic of the place, he ends up with more and more questions.
What happens when they’re all old and in retirement homes? Will it still be here? What happens when they die ? Is it like an heirloom that gets passed down to their kids and grandchildren? How do things just appear out of nowhere? Akito thought atoms couldn’t be destroyed or created, but science class lied, apparently.
Deciding to ask the questions at a more appropriate time, he focuses back on An. As he does so, he feels something crawling up his forearm, down his rolled up sleeves. Glancing down, he sees a spider crawling up his arm, slightly tickling him as it does so.
“Hah? A spider?” He cups it with his other hand and takes it off his arm, choosing to inspect it in his hands instead of on his forearms.
“Another spider? Seriously?” Miku shouts and gets up from her seat quickly, crossing her arms. Despite her words, she isn’t scared, but rather annoyed. Len, mid excruciating sip of his black coffee, promptly spits it out. He also chooses to ignore the “Haha! She was right!” from Rin. MEIKO, processing Akito and Miku’s words, speed walks over to their table and inspects the spider.
“This is the sixth one this week! We never had an issue with bugs until recently!” MEIKO’s face is a reflection of Mikus now; annoyance, but with a twinge of confusion. “And it’s not only spiders, I saw a centipede in our flowers just yesterday! I know bugs aren’t an unnatural thing to find, but I prided myself, and this sekai, in being clean and bug free! Up until now.” The kids looked at both MEIKO and Miku with confusion. Street sekai was bug free?
“There’s another spider?! Ooh let me see!” Len excitedly shouts, confusing the teens even more, apparently Len is into bugs. Quickly making his way over to the spider in Akito’s hands, he looks it over before declaring, “It’s a wolf spider! The first one to show up here!”
Kohane grimaces. “Anything that has another animal’s name in its name shouldn’t exist…” Nonetheless, she leaned over and looked at the huge arachnid. Soon, Akito had a crowd around him.
“One of you kids has some explaining to do, because the bugs are coming from one of you obviously. Have one of you been hanging around Len too much? Is that it?” Miku has a deadpan look on her face.
The group looks around confusedly. Nobody is especially fascinated by bugs, nor scared of them, they’re all pretty neutral on them, and express themselves as such. The vocaloids tilt their heads at this; The bugs had to appear because of them, right?
MEIKO sighs in defeat. “Well, there isn’t any other explanation, but I won’t pressure you all for answers. Len, can you take the spider outside please? Do
not
play with it again.” She warns. At her signal he excitedly grabs the wolf spider and starts murmuring things to it as he exits the cafe.
Rin shakes her head and rolls her eyes affectionately, “He’s an odd one. I didn’t even know he liked bugs till last week!” She approaches the group, “So, none of you really have any ideas? Personally, I refuse to believe our amazing cafe is just having a bug problem, so it has to be one of you.” She points at the group as she says this. Again, the four teens look at each other and shrug.
“If it’s of any help, my dear senior is deathly terrified of bugs. Aside from him, nobody comes to mind when it comes to significance with insects.” Toya offers, breaking the silence with stars in his eyes at the mention of his senior. On the contrary, Akito rolls his eyes at the mention of their senpai.
Kohane has a similar expression on her face at the mention of her favorite actor, “Tsukasa-Senpai! You’re right, he is afraid of bugs, but he doesn’t affect this sekai?” The vocaloids looked at her with a thoughtful expression.
“Perhaps it’s you two’s admiration for him that’s affecting our sekai! Maybe your feelings about him are bringing a manifestation of his feelings to this sekai, and his fear of bugs is what decided to carry over…” Miku has a thoughtful expression, but a satisfied one as well.
“Akito’s hatred could also be contributing to it!” And giggles into her palm with a mischievous look in her eye. The vocaloids turn their head to Akito.
“What? I don’t hate him- or well, I do, but… he’s tolerable now at the very least. It’s insulting that you think I cared enough about him for my feelings to show up here.” Akito rolls his eyes and glares at An. Toya gives him a disappointed look and sighs.
MEIKO takes their response as an answer to her problems, but if that’s the case, then those pesky bugs are going to be here forever! She really didn’t want that, but thankfully, she has an idea.
“If bugs are a fear, that means they came here from a negative feeling, don’t forget that. So, Akito, it could very well be you that brought them here, since you’re the only one that feels negatively towards Tsukasa. If it were Toya or Kohane’s feelings for Tsukasa that brought a manifestation of him to sekai, then it would be something positive!” MEIKO explains to the group, satisfied at the conclusion.
Akito, however, looks less than pleased, “But, I don’t even care for him all that much!- Argh… whatever, let's say it is me, how do we get rid of them, since it’s obviously a problem for you guys- Aside from Len of course.” An’s quiet giggles and Toya’s now very obvious displeasement in the situation does not help Akito at all.
MEIKO acts as Toya’s saving grace. “Well, negative feelings can be changed into positive ones. This means that negative things in the sekai can be changed into positive ones once your feelings change. I suggest you try to find the good in your Senpai, Akito, for the sake of your dear teammates and my poor, poor coffee machine.” She looks sadly over at her new coffee machine, which she had to get because the old one had a roach in it, and she was much too disgusted to just clean it.
Toya’s face brightens up impossibly so, and Akito is pointedly not looking at him, knowing the expression that is going to be on his face when he turns, and knowing that he won't be able to say no to his dear partner. All is in vain however, as Kohane is right in front of him, and is wearing an identical face to Toya’s.
“That’s a wonderful idea MEIKO, thank you! Perhaps now Akito will listen when I ask for him to be kinder to our Senpai.” Hearing Toya’s words, Akito finally accepts his fate and turns to look at him with fake hatred in his eyes.
“I think you’ll find that Tsukasa is a wonderful person to be around, Akito. If you just give him a chance, you’ll see that the volume of his voice is-”
“Yeah yeah, I know the whole ‘Tsukasa-Senpai is amazing!’ speech, you’ve told it to me a thousand times,” Akito waves Toya off with no real malice in his words, “I’ll try to be kinder to him… and try to change my opinion… only because I’d rather not have bugs crawling on me while we’re trying to work.” Akito adds quickly, but both Toya and Kohane can see right through him, and knows he’s doing it because of them. An smirks, and promises to herself that she’s going to scout them out in the halls more often to ensure Akito is fulfilling his promise.
Having math class before lunch is one of the worst times to have math class, at least in Akito’s opinion. Or would the first thing in the morning be worse? Akito doesn’t care to ponder this, he’s tired enough.
Knowing Toya is busy today in the library, he makes his way over to the secluded area he stumbled upon one day, a bench conveniently placed in there. He assumes it used to be part of the outer courtyard, but got so overgrown that they just treated it as though it was only bushed. Admittedly, he walks there very slowly, and he immediately flops down on the bench when pushes through the bushes. Only a couple minutes of shut eye is what he gets though, before he’s woken up by a very loud, and very near sounding, explosion. He groans in annoyance, putting his hood on his head and attempting to fall asleep again.
God, can those two weirdos leave it be for at least a day?
The distant, very distinct and recognizable, scream reminds him of that promise he made to Toya and MEIKO, and worsens his mood as a result. But he doesn’t have much time to think about it before he hears a strange rustle in the bushes beside him. Turning his head to the side, he doesn’t get to think about what’s in there before a person comes tumbling out, spluttering and panting heavily. The person, who Akito now realizes was the guy he was just complaining about in his head, kneels there for a bit, catching his breath. Tsukasa looks up and has surprise written all over his face when he locks eyes with Akito’s very tired and annoyed ones.
“Oh!.. Akit.. Akito-kun! My dear kouhai! Hahaha, what a pleasant surprise!” Tsukasa smiles wide at the now horrified Akito, before lowering his voice, “… I apologize for intruding on whatever you were up to just now it’s just… Ahem! Rui, as much as I love him, is back at his antics…!” He looks around, seemingly embarrassed, a light pink starting to show on his cheeks. “You don’t mind if I hide here for the lunch period, do you?”
Akito really debates it, but he remembers the promise he made to Toya and MEIKO, and he sits up on his elbows, making room for Tsukasa on the bench, which now seems very tiny.
“Yeah yeah, sure, make yourself comfortable or whatever. Just don’t be loud, I’m tired.” Tsukasa beams at him and sets his backpack on the floor next to them before sitting down.
“Ah, thank you so much Akito-kun! I’ll be sure to not disturb you while you get your beauty sleep! I know just how important it is!” Tsukasa replies with a quieter voice, but still loud for Akito’s standards. Trying to ignore the human next to his head, he adjusts and attempts to get comfortable. His legs already had to be a little scrunched to fit on the bench, but now with another person sitting there, they’re full on bent. Tsukasa notices Akito’s uncomfortable position, and decides that it’s simply not acceptable for his standards.
“You don’t seem very comfortable Akito-kun, and I cannot allow that!” Akito opens his eyes slightly at this, and raises a brow. “Here, let me help you!” At this, he starts taking his sweater off, making the action look graceful if that was possible.
Akito’s eyes are now fully open at this action, “Hah? Tsukasa-senpai?” The star doesn’t answer though, instead lifting Akito’s head and placing his now folded sweater under him.
“There! All better! Is this more comfortable Akito-kun? Or would you rather lay your head on my lap?”
What? This lunatic!?
Akito goes slightly pink at that, “No! This is fine! Er… thank you, Tsukasa-senpai..” Tsukasa hums in response and pulls out papers; what's on them is a mystery to Akito. Regardless, he turns his head to avoid looking at Tsukasa, which proves to be a bad idea, because now he can very clearly smell the… very pleasant detergent, cologne, perfume, whatever Tsukasa uses to make himself smell good. It reminds him slightly of citrus, maybe lemons? It’s mixed in with whatever scent the Tenma’s naturally have, and it’s rather… calming. Ironic. As much as he doesn’t want to admit it, his sweater is rather comfortable; it definitely beats only his hair and hoodie as a cushion. Maybe Akito could get used to this.
Akito realizes what he just thought, scolding himself in his thoughts as he snuggles closer to the sweater subconsciously. If he had enough hours of sleep in him, he’d realize how much his actions contradict his thoughts. However he doesn’t, and he finally succumbs to his tired body yelling at him to fall asleep.
…
Tsukasa finishes up the last annotations he’s going to make for the lunch period, as much as he wishes to continue working on his script. School is equally as important, especially attendance. With that thought, he glances down at Akito, who moved to his side at one point in his sleep, the sweater stretching to be both under his head and in his arms. His hood also fell down at some point, the fluffy orange hair now exposed. Tsukasa coos at how adorable he thinks his junior is like this, but nonetheless, he doesn’t want Akito to be late for class either.
Glancing at his phone’s clock, he sees it's a minute before the bell rings. Tsukasa looks over to Akito once more, admiring his fluffy hair as his hand moves on its own accord. The light blush that was already on his face when he first saw sleepy Akito grew more intense as he realized that his hand was tangling itself in his hair. His eyes widened as he also realized just how soft it was! Continuing to play with Akito’s hair, he hardly realizes when Akito’s eyes blink open slowly, too entranced with, one, how soft Akito’s hair was, and two, he was playing with Akito Shinonome’s hair!!
Tsukasa always found the boy attractive; He had beautiful hair, a symmetrical and handsome facial structure, and was clearly very well built from how athletic he was. Tsukasa wonders to himself the kinds of workouts Akito does to warm up for live shows and football as the said man becomes more conscious. Unaware of the mental turmoil Akito is currently going through, he realizes that Akito is awake and suddenly stops his movements. He berates himself harshly in his thoughts, he never should have touched Akito in the first place.
“Haha!... Akito-kun, my dear junior! You’re finally awake! I didn’t want the bell to startle you, and I thought it would be rude to just shake you awake so I.. so I um- well. You know. You…” Tsukasa’s eyes widen with the more he rambles, and his face gets impossibly redder. Akito, sitting up finally, looks him in the eyes with an unreadable expression, but an obvious blush adorning his face as well. Tsukasa doesn’t have time to think about how cute he looks when he’s flustered, as he’s more worried about getting out of this situation immediately .
“... I need to get to class, have a good day!” Tsukasa grabs his still open backpack and bolts, leaving Akito frazzled.
Tsukasa mentally yells at himself, the blush on his face still not leaving as he replays the scene over and over in his head. On one hand, he’s blushing from embarrassment, and on the other hand, he’s blushing because of how… sweet the lunch period was. Usually, Akito would have been brash or played a prank on him, but he was rather… tame? Nice even, with the few words he spoke?
Tsukasa concludes that Akito must have been really tired. He sighs and shakes his head as he attempts to forget the feeling of Akito’s hair in his hand and the view of him practically cuddling his sweater. He finally slows down as he reaches the third year classrooms, spotting Rui amongst the students.
“Oya! Tsukasa! Ha?... Where has your sweater gone?” Rui tilts his head, choosing to ignore the pinkness of his face.
Tsukasa’s eyes widen and he practically screams as his hands fly to his chest, feeling the dress shirt and tie and not his favorite sweater! He makes a noise of defeat, the same defeat showing clearly on his face as he sags his shoulders.
“I… It’s a long story, Rui. I spent lunch with Akito-kun after your little stunt.” He gives Rui a look with no real anger, Rui smiling in response. “My junior was tired, so I offered him my sweater to use as a pillow, as a star should always be there to help others, regardless of the situation! I must have left it as I was leaving for class, haha..” He puts his hand on his chin as he recites the situation he was previously in. Rui’s smile turns to his typical smirk as he hears who Tsukasa spent lunch with. While Tsukasa doesn’t make it exactly obvious, he let Rui in on his small attraction towards the second year student one time after an especially late, and tiring, show. Tsukasa gives him a different look when he sees the smile Rui is giving him, silently telling him to not bring it up.
“Ah! What an interesting play of events! Do not worry, you’ll get your precious sweater back soon. I trust Shinonome is polite enough to keep it safe.” Tsukasa got a bad feeling about the next words out of his best friend's mouth. “Maybe polite enough to wash it! Perhaps when you get it back, it’ll smell like-”
“Okay, that’s enough!” Tsukasa yells, getting looks from those around him. The blush that was going down was now back. Deciding to turn away from Rui and walk to his class than to stay for his teasing, he shouts a ‘goodbye’ as he retreats. The smile on Rui’s face grew seeing how flustered he was. He puts a hand on his chin as he thinks about the two together, his mind conjuring up ideas by the minute.