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dartlekey · 6 years

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A Tale of Things Lost

Chapter 4: Sleep

Summary: Mistakes are made. So is breakfast. Inukawa's bed is surprisingly wide, but his siblings are a pain.

Notes: I wish I had a best friend like Takenaka. By the end of this chapter, so will you, I hope.

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Takenaka hated Football games with a passion.

You'd think the destruction of half of Spices City would at least deter the organizers from scheduling another game, but no. According to the dude on TV, it was actually “in defiance of this tragedy” that the game was held. Takenaka wished they could save their defiance for another time - perhaps when he wasn't trying to sleep.

Sighing, he rolled over on his bed and grabbed his phone. Once he'd stopped squinting from the harsh glare of the screen, he opened his tumblr blog, hoping that looking through his aesthetic tag would make him drowsy enough to block the voices - only that he was almost immediately interrupted by the message icon popping up.

What's Inukawa doing up at 12:30 am, he thought tiredly, and checked the message.

You still awake? ʕ•ﻌ•ʔ, Inukawa had written. The cutesy emoji were normal for him; Takenaka often had fun imagining Inukawa's actual expression as he typed those - he suspected it was the same he wore when they were alone, which was somewhere between ‘ugh’ and ‘dead inside’.

Yeah, why? Takenaka texted back. The “...” symbol came up almost immediately, but stayed there for quite a while, occasionally disappearing only to come back up seconds later. Takenaka frowned at his screen. This did not bode well.

He was staring at the screen so hard it took him a few seconds to realize that Inukawa had finally sent his response.

…because I think I kinda had a panic attack just now (￣□￣;;) Thought you should know, since you’re my mental health rep or whatevs ﾍ(￣▽￣*)ﾉ

Takenaka dropped his phone on his face in shock. For a few seconds he just lay there, dazed - then he sat up and grabbed his jacket from his desk chair. Be there in ten. Stay put. He didn't wait for the response, instead hurrying out of his room and down the stairs, trusting in the fact that his mother was a heavy sleeper.

He arrived at Inukawa’s house seven minutes later huffing from exhaustion. One week of body improvement club hadn't exactly increased his endurance much; or actually at all, it felt like - at least he hadn't had that far to go.

Inukawa's head was already sticking out of his window, glaring at Takenaka in disbelief. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Providing emotional support,” Takenaka said, “Now let me in, it's freezing out here.”

“Wha- you can't just come in! My parents are watching TV in the living room, they'll see you walk down the hallway - and they won't be happy, seeing as it's one in the morning, and I'm still grounded for disappearing for two weeks.”

Takenaka frowned. “Why would they watch TV at quarter to one in the first place?”

“How should I kn- what are you doing.”

“Climbing through your window. Good thing you're on the ground floor, I don't think I'd be able to scale your house's drain.”

“Takenaka, I swear-”

“Shush. I'm concentrating.”

So he said, then slipped and fell through the window, faceplanting onto Inukawa's bedroom floor. “Ouch.”

“You sure you were concentrating?” Inukawa quipped, looking down at him with no move to help him up. Takenaka shot him a glare, carefully touching his nose to check for bleeding. “A little gratitude would be nice, you know.”

“Gratitude for what? I didn't ask you to come here.”

“Yes you did,” Takenaka snapped, harsher than he'd meant to. “I know you, Inukawa; you wouldn't have texted me unless you were desperate for help - so a few concerned words on the screen would hardly have sufficed as comfort. Your hands are still shaking, for fucks sake.”

Inukawa looked down in surprise, and quickly shoved his trembling hands into his pockets. “Oh. Ah.“

Takenaka sighed, and sat down on the bed, brushing off an empty bag of chips. “So. Wanna talk about it? “

Inukawa hesitated. “I don’t really - uh… Could we just look at the stars for now?” God, this is embarrassing. But it does help me calm down...

Takenaka nodded, a bit taken aback by Inukawa's odd request - but he had no reason not to comply. “The stars? Uh, sure.”

Inukawa sat down next to him on the bed, which was, conveniently, directly opposite the window. Takenaka looked out, and was surprised by the amount of stars they could see despite being in a city. I guess Inukawa lives in a place with little light pollution. Lucky him.

Takenaka glanced back at Inukawa and was suddenly struck by how young he looked, with his fearful eyes set on the stars outside, shaking hands crumpling the blanket beneath him. Inukawa was fourteen, he had to remind himself, just like himself; a second year in middle school. Going on age alone, his eyes shouldn't yet hold as much bitterness as they did, and the happy smiles that danced over his face so often shouldn't be fake. Neither should his own, for that matter; neither of them deserved the curses they'd been afflicted with, and Takenaka felt an irrational surge of anger at the world for being so uncaring.

But he kept his silence, and watched the stars, and soon enough his anger had dissipated. No wonder that people have been stargazing for millennia, he thought curiously; it makes you feel oddly peaceful.

Well, unless you really disliked space for some reason. “Is this okay for you? I mean, doesn't looking at the stars remind you of… uh…”

“Of Moetyl?”, Inukawa finished, his attempt at nonchalance lost to the tremble of his voice. “No. Actually, rather the opposite - since I never saw the stars from there…”

At seeing Takenaka's confused expression, he explained, ”You see, Moetyl has no day or night because of their planet's rotation. It's like earth and the moon - you know, like people all around the world only ever see one side of the moon because its rotation around itself correlates in a certain way to its rotation around earth? So, the N’Eivackh have the same thing going on, if you equate their sun to earth and their planet to the moon - so basically, half the planet is always dark, and the other half always light. And I was slap-bang in the middle of the central sunny continent. The only way I could keep track of time was my wristwatch... “

Takenaka nodded, wondering how Inukawa knew so much about the other planet's strange rotation patterns but knowing better than to ask. After all, he probably doesn’t know either, how he got that information. “Permanent sun, huh? Good thing they don't have vampires. Or do they?”

Inukawa laughed, his voice cracking in a way that sounded suspiciously like a sob. “No, at least not that. But it was shit as a human as well, you know - it was so draining. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get proper rest without nighttime; I was permanently exhausted... anyway, looking at the night sky here reminds me that I'm definitely back on earth.”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, for once a tangled mess instead of the neat bob Takenaka had grown used to. “That's actually what set me off, more or less. I turned the main lights off to go to sleep but I’d forgotten that my desk lamp was on - and, well, the desk being right next to the window, I only processed myself turning off the lights but bright light coming from outside after midnight and I…”

He took a deep breath and exhaled shakily, revealing how high-strung he still was. “I just lost it completely. I thought I was back on Moetyl, and that I’d… that I’d die there alone, and never see another human soul again. That I’d either go mad or kill myself, and didn’t know which sounded worse. Or that I’d never die and be stuck there for eternity…”

He managed another sob-chuckle. “Now that I say it out loud, it sounds ridiculous, but it seemed so incredibly real at the time. I - God, I was so afraid…”

Takenaka didn’t know what to say to that - but he knew what to do. So he shifted closer to his best friend and shared something he usually hated to talk about simply from the shame of it… Strangely enough, in front of Inukawa, he didn’t feel ashamed at all.

“When I was younger, I used to cry every time there was a big game in Spices City. Didn’t matter what sport, I didn’t know the difference back then anyway, nor did I care. I hadn’t discovered earplugs yet, and the whole city converging in a mass of sound and emotion was an absolutely terrifying experience. My parents couldn’t even begin to understand what I was suffering through - to them, I was sobbing and screaming for no reason, and my dad gave up trying to help when I flinched away from his touch. But my mom was stubborn, and eventually found something that worked to calm me down... She’d have me lie on my stomach like so,” he pushed the other boy sideways, and Inukawa obediently flopped onto his stomach, eyes glinting curiously in the moonlight. “And then she’d draw circles on my back, like so…” He began the pattern, three little circles, then three big ones, then the little ones again - and repeat.

“The SOS pattern?” Inukawa realized, after a few rounds. “Yeah,” Takenaka said quietly. “I loved morse code as a kid, since it’s the one language with no ugly subtext - plus it has a kind of puzzle feeling to it. A mind game, you know? And Mom knew I loved it, so she built it into her pats for me to figure out... Oh, and she sang to me, those cheesy songs that always came on the American radio. Her English was terrible, but I still loved it…”

He paused, and made a face. “I’m not singing for you though, just so you know.”

Inukawa laughed, and it sounded a bit more real this time. “I should hope not. I heard you at last years’ school festival, you can’t hold a tune for shit.”

“Hey!”, Takenaka protested, but he did it with a smile; Inukawa having his nasty sense of humor back seemed like a good sign. And since he never told Takenaka to stop, he continued drawing circles on Inukawa's back, switching symbols after a while - stars, smiley faces, fishes; whatever came to mind.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed when he realized that Inukawa had fallen asleep. Sighing, Takenaka stretched, swinging his feet over the edge of the bed. He should head home, really; there was no point in staying…

But the bed was super comfortable. And it really was cold outside…

Okay, five minutes, Takenaka told himself as he stretched out next to Inukawa. Close your eyes for five minutes, then head home.

Definitely more than five minutes later, Takenaka woke to a shrill ringing, his limbs entangled with someone else's.

“Ugh, Tetsu,” Inukawa grumbled even before his eyes were open, “I told you not to just climb into my bed uninvi-” He immediately fell silent as soon as his eyes opened. “You're… not my little brother.”

“Uh, no,” Takenaka said awkwardly, extricating himself from the tangle of legs and blankets. “Sorry, I really didn't mean to fall asleep here, it just kinda happened - Ohgodmymomisgonnakillme.”

In his haste, he fell out of the bed, slamming into Inukawa's floor for the second time that day. “What is it with me and floors,” he muttered as he searched for the alarm clock, which was still ringing loudly. “Ah there it - is…”

He looked up at Inukawa with surprise. “Why's your alarm set for so early?”

Inukawa chuckled. “Breakfast and bentos for everyone don't make themselves, you know.”

Takenaka opened his mouth only to close it again, feeling like a spoiled only child not for the last time. “Right. Then I'll leave you to that. Uh, see you at school?” Well, that would have been a good plan - but it seemed his stomach had awoken at the mention of breakfast, as it was now growling loudly. Takenaka flushed scarlet, wishing the floor would swallow him. This was not his morning.

Surprisingly, instead of a sharp-tongued witticism he received a sleepy smile from Inukawa. “Wanna have breakfast here?”

Takenaka frowned. “Uh, what about your parents?”

Inukawa waved a hand dismissively as he lazily swung his feet out of bed. “Don't worry. My dad's already left for work, and Mom doesn't roll out of bed until Tetsu needs to be taken to preschool.”

Takenaka hesitated, but breakfast did sound a lot more enticing than walking home in the early morning chill with an empty stomach. “...Alright then. Lead the way.”

The first thing Inukawa did after entering the kitchen was put on the water boiler.

“Coffee?”, he asked. Takenaka nodded enthusiastically. “God, yes. I don’t think I’ll survive today otherwise.” Inukawa chuckled, and nodded towards the big round table dominating the centre of the room. “Sit down, if you want. I’m starting on the food.”

Takenaka sat down, curiously watching Inukawa juggle ingredients, pots and pans with practised ease. Apart from the occasional night when his mom was out on a date trying to find another step-dad for him, Takenaka had never cooked for himself before; he was sure that if he’d attempted to prepare so many things simultaneously, he would’ve lost track and burned something…

“Milk? Sugar?”

Takenaka blinked, then shook his head at Inukawa, who’d just placed a steaming mug in front of him. “Ah, no thanks. I drink it black.”

Inukawa stared at him, disbelief mingling with disgust. “You barbarian.”

Takenaka grinned and took a long slurp. Inukawa squeezed his eyes shut and turned back around to the kitchen isle. “Are you serious? Right in front of my salad?”

Takenaka choked on the coffee, cough-laughing as Inukawa returned to his cooking. “Serves you right,” Inukawa said smugly, then yawned. “Ugh. I need some caffeine too.” He stepped over to the water boiler, then back to Takenaka, then quickly shuffled to the stove again, where something had started to bubble. Takenaka looked down at the item Inukawa had placed off to the side - a small mug with the hiragana for “Mameta” clumsily scrawled across its surface, probably by a young Inukawa. Steaming away inside cup was a teabag; the label told Takenaka it was white tea.

Takenaka grinned. His dad called white tea “sissy tea”, because it was delicate and sweet instead of strong and bitter like green or black tea - of course Inukawa, with his sweet tooth and intense dislike for bitter things, would drink that for breakfast. He was extra that way.

Takenaka took another deep gulp of coffee, then paused curiously as he began to hear music drifting from a small speaker system above the stove. “Is that… the Breath Of The Wild OST?”

Inukawa glanced over, continuing to whisk eggs in a small bowl. “You’ve played the game? Didn’t think you were the type.”

Takenaka shook his head, embarrassed. “Ah, no. I just like listening to gaming soundtracks when I’m out and around people. No vocals, so I still get a break from the voices, but not dry like classical stuff. It’s just… relaxing, I guess.”

“Hmm,” hummed Inukawa thoughtfully, tossing the eggs into a pan. “I see.”

They spent the next few minutes in silence, just listening to the soundtrack drifting across the kitchen, but as the coffee woke him up properly, Takenaka grew restless. “Hey, is there anything I can help you with?”

“Eh,” Inukawa deadpanned, not even turning this time, “I'd rather you don't, you'll get in my way.”

“Oh.”

Takenaka awkwardly took another sip of coffee. Well, that sucked, even though he knew Inukawa was right. Still didn't help him feel less dumb -

He looked up in surprise as Inukawa placed down an array of bowls in front of him, as well as five lunchboxes of varying sizes. “You can arrange the bentos - wash your hands first, though.”

Takenaka nodded, jogging over to the sink already as he tried to hide his smile. Now that was a part of cooking he could manage. I guess Inukawa can be thoughtful, if he wants to be.

“If I may ask,” he said as he started scooping the food into the boxes, “what was the food on Moetyl like?”

Even with his earplugs still in and Inukawa's back turned, Takenaka could feel the dislike radiating from the other boy.

“Let's just say some of it was still moving.”

“Ew!”, Takenaka responded incredulously. “Really?”

Inukawa laughed. “Really. Oh, they had this pink jelly stuff though, it tasted like marshmallows with cinnamon. Nina would have loved it.”

“Did you say my name, Mame-chan?”, a sleepy voice from the doorway said - then gasped, now clearly awake, “Holy shit. Haru-chan, come quick, you gotta see this."

A taller girl (maybe twelve?) appeared in the doorway next to the twin-tailed monster, looking curiously inside the kitchen - then her eyes caught on Takenaka, sitting as he was at the kitchen table in yesterday's crumpled clothes and his messy morning hair. “Wow. I… was not expecting that.”

“I told you he was Mametas boyfriend! You owe me 500 yen.”

Inukawa choked, then spluttered, “Wha- he's not my boyfriend! We're just-”

“Just friends?”, Nina quipped dubiously as her older sister gave Takenaka a disbelieving stare. “Really, Mame-chan? You’re telling me that as he sits at our table with his sex hair?”

Takenaka's jaw dropped. “My what?” How does she even know what that is at her age? She barely looks nine! ...No wonder Inukawa has trouble with his family.

“Now, don't jump to conclusions, Nina,” Haru said calmly as she walked to the table and sat down across from Takenaka. “Maybe they're just friends with benefits.” Nina frowned as Takenaka made a strangled wheezing noise. “What's that?”

Inukawa interrupted before Haru could respond. “Not something you should know until you're older. Actually, not something Haru should know either; I think I need to tell Mom to stop letting you buy those BL manga…” He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Let's just agree that this conversation never happened and have breakfast.”

Nina frowned. “What? No! I want compensation for my bet - give me my 500 yen, then we'll have breakfast.”

Inukawa raised an eyebrow. “You really think I'm going to spend money on your dumbass bets about my love life?”

She smirked. “Actually, yes. Because mom doesn't know about your boyfriend… ah, I mean, special friend staying over - and I bet you don't want her to know.” She paused, her eyes widening. “Wait, is that what benefits means?”

Takenaka stared at the unfolding fight, quite stunned at his first encounter of ‘love amongst siblings’. Inukawa on the other hand seemed quite used to it, as he just scowled, eyes narrowing at the little devil. “Fine. But stop calling him my boyfriend, that feels gross and I don't want to lose my appetite.”

While Takenaka probably should have felt insulted, he didn't; rather he felt the same way. He was well aware that usually people who were just friends didn't randomly visit each other at 1am, even if the other was in trouble... and they certainly didn't sleep in the same bed, cuddling. (Not that that bit had been on purpose.) But even so, with Inukawa it had felt so natural, so easy - no attraction, no butterflies or whatever was supposed to float around your stomach and turn your brain into mush; just a connection of two weary minds, enjoying each others company. Calling it dating somehow felt insulting to the understanding they had.

Not that Nina seemed to get it. “Maybe~”, she just intoned in a sing-song voice, sauntering over.

Takenaka frowned. Now this was unnecessary, although perhaps… Ah, bingo. “Actually,” he said, immediately gaining everyone's attention, ”Inukawa doesn't owe you anything. Well, not unless you want him to tell your mother that you only scored 23 points on that last maths test.”

Takenaka's gaze was met by three wide open pairs of eyes. He smiled innocently. “I finished the bentos, by the way. Can we eat now? I'm starving.”

Haruka was the first to respond, grinning widely for the first time that morning. “You know what? I don't care what he is to you, nii-san - but you definitely gotta keep him.”

Inukawa didn't even respond verbally this time, he just grabbed his tea and took a big gulp.

Ugh, I'm not old enough for this.

#atotl #chapter 4 #mob psycho 100 #inukawa mameta #takenaka momozou #inunaka #my fic

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