A/N: this chapter has the plot of a badly paced smut LMAOAMSAOMSA

warnings: inappropriate use of guilt-tripping (to get your friend to go to bed), akito admits ena scratches him and thats the reason his arms r fucked up

-

"So, otouto-kun, truth or truth?"

"This hardly sounds like I have a choice." Akito huffed. "You could just say we're sharing secrets instead."

"Truth. Or. Truth."

"Truth."

Now this meetup feels a lot more like a sleep over, and he's fairly certain that they will sleep over; however, he's realized that he doesn't actually mind Rui or Mizuki's presence as much as he thought he did. Putting aside their respective oddities, they're actually both pretty chill. Not that he'd admit it, of course.

"Sorry to steal your turn, Mizuki, but I'm curious about something." Rui hums, ignoring Mizuki's offended squawk at his statement. "What's up with the bandages on your arms? You don't have a pet cat, do you?"

"No." He answers. He supposed there was no point in being dishonest if they were asking directly. "I don't have any pets."

"My sister goes into episodes sometimes, and one of her habits is to scratch things. To avoid her scratching anything around the house or, even worse, herself, I let her take it out on me. It's been like this for many years, it's just that I don't often use short sleeved clothes, so the bandages aren't visible."

"Last time was a particularly terrible one, so I ended up more scratched up than usual." Akito finishes, before adding in another comment at the other two's looks of horror. "It's my choice to let Ena do it, I could very well stop her if I wanted to. In case you can't tell, she isn't exactly the strongest girl on Earth. So don't look all worried, 's my problem, not yours."

"Still, that's..." Mizuki still has that look of pity on their face, before it changes to a sad smile. "It's kind of cute that you care so much for Ena-chan, otouto-kun, even if she hurts you."

"I don't care for her. I just do what's necessary to make sure she doesn't end up destroying the goddamn house." Akito glares at them where they were sitting beside Rui.

"Sure, whatever you say." Mizuki giggles, very thoroughly enjoying laughing at his expressions, something that Akito still thinks is really fucking creepy. "Deep down you're just a sweet, caring little bro, aren't you?"

He barely manages to remember that Rui is there and there would be witnesses if he committed a murder, because that is very much what he is tempted to do to Mizuki and their smug little grin right now.

"Whatever." He chooses to say, instead of annihilating his sister's friend. "Kamishiro-senpai, truth or truth?"

-

It's not too late when Rui hears his phone ping.

They turned off the lights maybe around ten minutes ago, and Rui knows neither Akito nor Mizuki is sleeping. Akito does a much more convincing job at acting asleep beside him, but Mizuki simply lays looking up at him, head on his lap.

He's the only one with his phone turned on, because the other two had given up on trying to convince him to turn it off. After all, you can't expect mentally ill highschoolers to have more than an "okay-ish" phone-to-sleep schedule, and Rui was probably the most out of them if you were to rate someone's mentally-illness objectively.

"What's up?" Mizuki mutters, half-asleep, and he pats their head.

"Just a Nightcord text from Tsukasa-kun." He answers. "I should've turned my notification volume down. Sorry, Mizuki."

"At 11 pm? You should check what it is... Doesn't Tenma-kun go to bed strictly at 9?"

WORLD FUTURE STAR - 11:30 pm

RUI

PLEASE HELP

PICK UP

WORLD FUTURE STAR has started a call - 01:34 s

Now that doesn't sound good.

So, he answers the call.

"Hey, Tsu-kun. It's pretty late, don't you think?"

"Jesus christ, Rui, thank god-" Tsukasa lets out a sigh of relief. "Are you free right now? I'm sorry to bother you."

"I'm at Shinonome-kun's with Mizuki. Mizuki, say something."

"Smrfothing." Mizuki complies, muffled by the way they had rolled over and were now face-planting into Rui instead of looking up at him.

The quiet snort he hears through the phone makes his heart flutter a little.

"I'm pretty sure Akito-kun's asleep, though." A lie. He was fairly convinced that Akito was very well awake, but he doubted he was going to be able to help Tsukasa with whatever he needed if he had the uneasiness of Akito listening in on top. "What's up?"

"Do you remember how I said I was going to work on the script for our new show?"

"Yes. I made you promise you weren't going to overwork yourself, though."

"...oops?"

"Tsukasa..." Rui sighs. "You don't have to do everything at once, you know."

"I'm sorry it's like- like, I'm so tired, I'm so tired of working on this but at the same time my brain won't let me do anything else. If I try to step away from this I feel sick. I don't know why, but I've been trying to pull myself away from this desk all night and it's almost like I can't control my own body."

It absolutely breaks Rui's heart to hear Tsukasa, the person who's always being so loud, happy and bubbly sound so... distressed, desperate.

"I understand. It's not something I haven't felt before." He hums. "It kind of feels like you're tied down to what you're doing and are forced to keep doing it even if you're already exhausted from it. Am I wrong?"

"Yes, sort of like that. When I try to go to sleep, I feel terrible, but also I can't keep doing this because I'm just getting frustrated." Tsukasa agrees. His camera is off, but from the way it's slightly muffled, Rui can only imagine that he's laying head-in-hands on the aforementioned desk.

"Is your sister awake?"

"She was, like ten minutes ago. I told her everything was fine and that I'd go to sleep soon. I don't want to burden Saki-chan with my problems; she has enough on her plate already."

"Hmm, I see..." Rui sighed, deciding to use Mizuki's head as a conveniently placed stand for his phone. He didn't hear any of the usual protests.

Did they fall asleep to the sound of my voice? So quickly? He stored that into his memory to tease them about later, despite knowing damn well he's done exactly the same to them more times than he can even count.

"...can you help me or not, Rui?" Tsukasa sounded a bit annoyed, and usually he'd make a comment about how it was him that was calling at 11 in the night and practically begging for his help.

Rui, however, knows enough about how human interactions are supposed to work to understand that's a very stupid idea.

"Sure." He answered, because he really can't say no when it comes to Tsukasa sounding like this. "Is your desk close to your bed?"

There's humming, almost like Tsukasa is trying to calculate the distance. "Sort of, yeah."

"Throw your phone at it."

"Huh?"

"Don't think too hard. Pretend there's a bug on your phone screen, yes?"

"You could use a more pleasant example..."

That seems to do the trick, because he does in fact hear what can only be classified as "falling on mattress" noises, and the next time Tsukasa speaks, he definitely sounds more far away. "What now?"

"Well, do you want to keep talking to me?"

"I wouldn't have called you at 11 pm if I didn't want to fucking talk to you, Rui."

He laughed at the sudden change of tone. "I think Nene's rubbing off on you, Tsukasa-kun. Well then, if you want to keep talking to me, get up from your desk and grab your phone."

-

"..."

Tsukasa thinks it's utterly insane how this man is messing with his brain through the phone. How he can so easily flip his thinking on its head. It's sort of scary, and he can't imagine what it would be like for him if they weren't half-friends-half-dating.

"...I can hear you from here, though..." He replied. There's a part of him that still feels inclined to resist and work, but...

"Is your work more important than me, Tsu-kun? Isn't that why you called me, to indulge in your need for my attention? If you don't want to talk to me, I'll just hang up, then."

"..." He considers it, again. He knows that Rui's not telling the truth, because no one in their right mind would leave him alone like this, but that doesn't change how the way he talks makes him actually want to get up.

"Tsukasa, you're hurting my feelings. I'm betrayed. I'm the person who's there for you, and yet, you don't want to comply with what I say? Choose what's best for you, Tsukasa, and just do as I ask of you, alright?"

"You're going to be the death of me. Please don't leave." He mutters the last part, though Rui probably heard anyway.

Somehow, with this new motivation of not having Rui end their call, he can get up and sit down on his bed, picking up his phone.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" He can practically hear Rui's grin through their call. "I didn't think you'd be the type to give into things like that."

"You're scary. Logically, I knew that you weren't going to hang up on me, but some part of my brain still acted like you were going to, and it quickly overpowered the one that pushed me to keep writing... I have no clue how you're able to be manipulative so easily. Even when you jokingly guilt-trip me is bad, but when you're actually serious about it?"

Tsukasa fell back onto his bed. "Your "persuasive" voice makes my brain stop working. I'm glad you don't want to kill me, or else I'd be screwed, KamiRui-kun."

"KamiRui-kun? That's a new one."

"Fits you, you like to play god with my feelings a lot."

"You make it sound so despicable. I mess with you responsibly."

"You literally just guilt-tripped me into going to bed."

"Responsibly."

"Sure, whatever you say." Tsukasa sighed. "What now?"

-

A/N: i am planting the seeds for mizuakikasarui yes i am. my favorite sillies

kinda embarassed of this chapter but you know!!!!!!!!!! the grind never stops muah muah