chapter four

mrs. infamous ( my sweetness )

Yasushi Nishikawa only remembered bits and pieces of the night before. He remembered kicking Fujio's ass at beer pong, and he remembered Murayama Yoshiki's girlfriend screaming at everybody. He vaguely remembered getting into a fight with a group of twenty-something year olds who supposedly graduated Sato years ago, but he couldn't remember why his ribs hurt so much.

But he knew that there was absolutley no reason for him to wake up that morning nose-to-nose with Fujio motherfucking Hanoaka.

And it was just his luck that Fujio's baby blue eyes flicked open at that same moment, the two boys screaming in terror as the struggled to get up from the rollaway bed, causing the enitre thing to tumble over as they desperately tried to stand on other sides of the room.

"What the fuck did I do last night!?" Yasushi screeched

"Can both of you shut up?" Toya Shiratori- from the Todoroki faction- shouted, stretched across the couch with a throw pillow over his eyes. "Some of us are trying to sleep!"

Fujio gawked. "Why was I in bed with him!"

"Ask yourself, genius." Toya huffed, sticking his middle finger up in Fujio's direction.

Yasushi shook his head, moving towards the heavily defaced classroom door. "I can't do this until I've had a coffee."

The shorter boy couldn't get out of the room fast enough, pulling the button-down shirt he'd stolen from Sakura Kobayshi's closet tighter around his body. There were many things that outsiders wouldn't quite understand about his relationship with Sakura, his need to protect her. His mother tried to psychoanalyze it once, after she came home drunk one night after hooking up with her boss in his office. She was a mess, and not much of what Hinako Nishikawa had said made sense.

But one thing did: Yasushi's need to protect came from his father, who landed himself in prison after trying to rob a bank in Sannoh with a few of the guys he worked at the factory in Rasen with. He did it so that their family could finally get out of Hope Hills, so that they could have a better life. It was from a place of love, so that Kei Nishikawa would protect his family.

It's the only good quality that Yasushi got from his dad, as far as he was concerned.

His head throbbed, and the skin on his knuckles burst into pain when he tried to flex his fingers. As the previous night came back to him in flashes, he groaned, remembering how he had drunkenly thrown up on Todoroki, and that there would likely be hell to pay for that later.

Yasushi's cell phone buzzed in his back pocket, and his limbs felt like lead as he tried to pull it out of his baggy jeans. "What the fuck do you want?" He mumbled, combing his hair out of his face.

"'Sushi, we've got a small problem."

He stopped in his tracks. "Sakura?"

"I may or may not have gotten arrested last night, and I may or may not have had to call Seki to bail me out because you didn't answer your damn phone!" Sakura Kobayashi shouted, her rage-filled voice like daggers to Yasushi's brain

The boy cursed internally, thinking his answer through very carefully. "Sorry, I don't even remember what I was doing last night. I was hammered, and then I think I got the shit kicked out of me, but I don't really remember. Wait, did you say you got arrested again?"

"Well, it was just really the Hope Hills Security Department. Are you sure you're okay?" That was a 'yes, best-friend-on-the-whole-planet, i did spend last night in a jail cell'.

"I'm fine." Yasushi responded shortly, pushing open the door to the kitchen. Shibaman was sitting at the kitchen island, pressing an ice pack to the side of his head. Tsuji sat across from him, sunglasses pulled low over his eyes while he nursed a black coffee, wincing every time that he moved his head. Todoroki was rummaging through the fridge, and Yasushi was half tempted to run right back out of the roomm, but he really needed a coffee. "Sakura, I thought we had this under control."

"We did. Until I decided to crush some garden gnomes after walking in on my mother having sex."

"You can't just smash things when life doesn't go your way, Sakura!" He shouted, releived when Todoroki left the room. "Remember what happened with Takahide's bike when you were having a rough day and decided that the bike rack needed to pay? Or that beat up car outside the block that used to have windows until you broke them all in with a baseball bat?"

Sakura was quiet, and Yasushi knew that even though he hurt her feelings, that she would realize that he had a point, and that she seriously needed to change a few things in her life.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have yelled." Sakura's voice was quiet. "Shit, I'm not in a great headspace right now."

Yasushi sighed, reaching into the cupboard on wobbly legs to try and get a coffee mug. Since Midori Yamada had started working at the school, the quality of care for the full-timers had greatly improved: the fridge was almost always fully stocked, the dishes were new and clean, and they were guaranteed at least one full, home-cooked meal a day. All of the full-timers had been taking bets on where Midori stood with the leader of the part-timers, Murayama Yoshiki. Kiyoshi insisted they were fucking each other, but Tsukasa said they were both too stubborn to tell the other person how they felt. A big realtionship development had definitley happened the night before, but Yasushi needed to get rid of his hangover before he'd be able to figure out what it was. "No, I was being unreasonable. I haven't had my coffee yet."

"I could tell." Sakura chuckled grimly, and Yasushi could hear yelling in the background. Seki and Tao, Sakura's mother, he assumed. 

"Oi," Shibaman laughed, looking in Yasushi's direction as the shorter boy fumbled with the coffee maker, which made an awkward spitting sound. "the prodigal son has returned! Are you sure you're okay, buddy? You were pretty fucken' hammered last night!"

"Yeah, can someone explain that to me?" Yasushi groaned, unplugging the coffee machine and plugging it back in. "I know I puked on Todoroki, but can someone explain to me why I woke up next to Fujio?"

Tsuji giggled, wincing as pain shot through his hungover, somewhat concussed head. "The two of you had your arms wrapped around each other singing Bon Jovi songs at the top of your lungs before collapsing together onto the rollaway."

"Worst rendition of 'Living on a Prayer' I've ever heard." Furuya agreed, absentmindedly scrolling on his phone while sipping a coffee. "I could hear it from three floors above you idiots."

Back on the phone, Sakura had repeated herself four times trying to get Yasushi's attention. At the kitchen island, Shibaman and fallen asleep, Tsuji jumping at the chance to grab the ice pack. Fujio came in through the pantry doors, uncooked seafood ramen in his hands and bruises on his face. Tsukasa Takajo went straight for the kettle, fumbling for a bag of English breakfast tea.

"'Sushi, are you even listening?"

"Right, sorry, Sakura." 'Sushi mumbled, thumping the coffee machine in an attempt to get it to finally work. "What were you saying?"

"That I'm lucky Seki talked Kubota-san out of pressing charges, or it would be off to real jail."

"Jesus, Sakura! This can't happen again!" He shouted, finally fed up with the old coffee maker as Midori and Murayama walked into the kitchen. She towered over him, their hands clasped together. Midori was wearing one of his shirts, and he was wearing her grimy band sweater rom the fight the night before. "Look, let me grab something to eat, I'll bring you some cinnamon buns, and then we can talk about this properly."

Sakura's voice was shaky. "Okay. See you soon, jackass."

Midori cleared her throat, startling Fujio so much that he got more water on the counter than on his instant noodles. "Okay, anybody not eating breakfast needs to fuck off, there are way too many people in here and my head is killing me."

"Your face looks terrible." Fujio shot back, jamming some chopsticks into his undercooked pasta

"Yours too, Hanoaka. I think we all look like crap, last night was a disaster."

"Amen." Tsukasa sighed, taking a sip of his tea. Yasushi never did understand how the blond boy could handle starting his morning with flavoured water. It wasn't manly.

Midori cursed, looking down at her phone. "Does anybody have a charger?"

Tsuji got to his feet, throwing down the ice bag and reaching into his cargo pants. ""Take it. My mom called, I'm kind of in the hot seat for missing curfew again. I've got a midterm exam in a few days, I should really go and study." Tsuji wanted to be a paramedic, and god knows that he was smart enough for it. But living in a house with three sisters made studying a little harder than it needed to be.

"Loser." Yasushi coughed, sticking his phone in his pocket and grabbing a sesame seed bagel, as well as a tupperware container of cinnamon buns. "I'm out. Sakura's anxiety is off the walls, Seki tore her a new one after he picked her up. She's lucky nobody's pressing charges."

Tsukasa raised an eyebrow, suggestively taking a sip of his tea. "Who's Sakura?" He teased.

God, this was a conversation that Yasushi was hoping to avoid. "None of your damn business, Takajo. Don't look at me like that, it's weird." He snapped before turning to Midori. "I've known her since we were seven, she'd probably have a mental breakdown without me."

"She's Seki's girlfriend's kid, isn't she?" Midori hummed, leaning against the laminate counter as she finagled Tsuji's beat up phone charger to charge her own, dying device

"We're having a cookout for my birthday in a few days." Furuya pitched in, an unwelcome addition to the awkward conversation "Bring her around, I'm sure she'd like the company."

Yasushi shook his head "She's not exactly a people person." But Seki might make her after what happened last night, he added, grimly and silently. "I've gotta go before she hurts somebody. Seki, probably."

Tucking the cinnamon buns under his arms as he took a bite out of the uncooked bagel, Yasushi hurried down the hallways as fast as he could before Murayama realized that the coffee machine was broken.

___

Shizuka Morita was the light of the Hanging District. Top of her class in almost everything she was taking at Katsunari Industrial, a star sprinter with a full ride scholarship to the Osaka University of Medical Science. The second of four children, she mostly slipped under the radar. All of the attention either went to her youngest sibling, Yuno, or her older brother, Tsuji. She was the life of the party, never missing one of Takahide Sena's famous ragers.

She was walking back to Hope Hills after a grueling early morning practice and a breakfast at the Hawasada Marketplace, an afternoon of calculus homework and chemistry textbook readings to look forward to when she returned to her apartment. For all of her flaws, Shizuka Morita was an a-plus student, and upstanding citizen.

Except for her biggest flaw, who was stumbling over to his doorstep.

"Shiba?" Shizuka shouted, running over to the limping boy

Shizuka never intended to start dating her brother's best friend. Like many things in life, it was far beyond her control. It had been eight months, and they hadn't said their 'I love yous' yet, like somehow keeping their relationship a secret impacted the way they felt about each other. Shizuka wanted nothing more than to stand at the top of the Hanging Tower and proclaim her love for the right-hand-man of the Todoroki faction, but the ramifications that would occur if Tsuji ever found out were too much for her heart to handle.

Shibaman was a wreck. After Beer Pong Night had been rudely interrupted, he got his ass kicked by two boys from Sannoh. Sannoh the fucking shopping district, of all places. "Shiz? What are you doing here? I thought you were out all morning?"

Shizuka rolled her eyes, hiking her Mizuno duffle bag higher on her shoulder. "It's almost noon, dipshit. Practice is over."

"Oh. I'm surprised you could run anyways, given how sore your thighs must have been after the other night, you know."

Shizuka's face went pink as she remembered Takahide's party. The quickie in the bathroom, her face pressed up against the tiled wall, Shibaman's breath on her skin. The long night they had spent in his empty apartment, his mother once again pulling a late night shift at the cinema. "What happened to you?"

Shibaman shrugged, leaning half of his body weight on the girl. "You should see the other guys."

"Sure, baby." Shizuka rolled her eyes, getting ready to help her boyfriend up the outdoor staircase. The Hanging Tower was the oldest of the Hope Hills buildings, first constructed in the late nineties. Everything about the building reflected the time period, right down to the graffitti out back by the trash cans. "Let me help you inside, I know a muscle sprain when I see one."

"You're an angel, Shizuka Morita."

Shizuka chuckled, beginning the treacherous hike up the outdoor stairs to Shibaman's second-floor apartment. "You won't be saying that when I'm cleaning out those cuts on your face."

The two teenagers awkwardly tumbled inside the small apartment. It was just Shiba and his mother, and the small apartment reflected that. It was a very sparse, bare home, but there were little touches that made it Shibaman's.

Shizuka dropped her duffle bag by the door, ushering Shibaman onto the couch and running for the first aid kit that his mom kept under the kitchen sink.

She had barely touched the alcohol-soaked gauze to his forehead when Shibaman yelped. "Don't be such a baby." She laughed. "You know, if you stopped getting into fights, we wouldn't have to go through all of this."

The older boy hummed, running his fingers over the fleshy, muscled skin on Shizuka's thighs before tucking his hands up the back of her cutoff shorts. "But then you wouldn't need to take care of me."

"Now who's the needy one?" Shizuka giggled, tapping Shibaman on the nose with her pointer finger, to which he retaliated by gently squeezing her ass.

"You know, your brother stayed back there, to study, I'm assuming. Mr. I-graduated-from-Katsunari-three-months-early-with-honors." Shibaman said sarcastically before grinning devilishly at his girlfriend while she placed a butterfly bandage on his temple. "So we have some time to ourselves before my mom's shift ends."

Grinning madly, Shizuka sunk onto the couch, one leg on either side of Shiba's body, the boy's hands sliding back down her thighs to grip her tightly. "Oh yeah? We really have to stop meeting like this. Do you know how long it's been since we went on a real date?"

"I thought we were going to that movie over in the Rascals' neck of the woods, you know, where we won't be recognized." Shibaman said coyly, gently lifting his lover's white t-shirt off her body. "What was it that you said? Secrecy is sexy?"

"Only for you." Shizuka grinned, kissing the older boy passionately, wasting no time at all in getting him undressed.

NOTES!

a bit of a filler chapter, but it sets up shibaman and shizukas storyline quite well. next chapter is the cookout, and sakura will finally meet our favourite oya boys!