Chapter Text
“You know, that’s been there for as long as I can remember,” Noya said. He waved a hand at the dingy door with a handpainted sign that read, with a refreshing amount of honesty, ‘Porn Dungeon’ in faded pink.
“You’re right,” Tanaka said. They both stopped walking and stared at it. They looked at each other, then back at the door. It was chipped in places, painted a black that had faded and weathered just as badly as the pink. It was warped and tired-looking, an old door from another decade that just refused to leave.
“I want to know what’s in there,” Noya said.
“Me too,” Tanaka said.
They crossed the street together and stood in front of the Porn Dungeon, nudging each other to open it until Noya pointed out, “You look older than me. You open it.”
“Shit,” Tanaka said, and turned the handle.
A bright-eyed man with hair that was not yet completely grey smiled at them automatically before he noted how old they were, still in their school uniforms. Then his smile dropped off and he raised an eyebrow. “Can I help you boys?”
The two of them looked at each other. Tanaka narrowed his eyes. There was an unspoken reminder that he’d opened the door, he’d done his part for this little venture.
“We were curious,” Noya said, turning back to the man. “What is this place? Like a sex store, what?”
“No,” the man said. “It’s a porn theater. You two look underage. I have to ask you to leave.”
“A what?” Tanaka said.
“Kids these days,” the man muttered to himself. Then, a little louder, “It’s a pornographic movie house. Like a movie theater, but all adult films all the time. Not for you boys, though, got it? Come back when you’re eighteen.”
“I could be eighteen,” Tanaka said. “You don’t know.”
The man snorted. “You look about as green as they come, kid. Come back when you can show some valid ID. You too, shortstuff.”
Noya bristled. “Hey, fucko—”
Tanaka scooped Noya up under the armpits and bolted before Noya could go off on the guy.
“We gotta get in there,” Noya said.
“We gotta get in there,” Tanaka agreed. They repeated it to each other like a mantra as they passed the volleyball back and forth, punctuating the phrase with the smack of the ball on the flesh of their arms.
“Get in where?” Hinata asked, bouncing over and holding his arms out. Noya and Tanaka seamlessly added him into their passing drill.
“Porno theater,” Noya told him.
Hinata’s eyes got wide. “Those exist?” he said, sounding both horrified and fascinated.
Noya nodded. “It’s called Porn Dungeon and it’s on the way to the park. You gotta be eighteen, though, and the guy’s an asshole.”
“He called Noya short,” Tanaka added.
“I am short,” Noya said. “I just didn’t like the way he said it.”
“Fuck that guy,” Tanaka grumbled.
“Excuse me,” Daichi said, only inches away from the back of Tanaka’s head, “but what was that?”
“Ahhhh!” Tanaka yelled, and the volleyball went flying.
“No language like that in the gym,” Daichi said, and went to hit back Asahi’s spikes. Hinata ran after the ball. Noya and Tanaka watched Daichi for a moment to make sure he was occupied, and then they all went back to their drill.
“So you want to get into a theater when you’re too young, huh?” Hinata said. “That sounds cool!”
“Yeah,” Noya said, “but we don’t know how to do it.”
“Sneaking in the back’s how they do it on TV,” Hinata offered.
“We could case the joint,” Tanaka said. “See if there’s, like, alleyways and stuff.”
“I wonder if Asahi’s gone,” Noya said thoughtfully. “He looks like he’s forty, I bet he could get in.”
“I don’t think he’d want to, dude,” Tanaka said. “He’d blush so hard.”
Noya giggled. “Yeah, you’re right. I wonder if we could get him to take a look around, though, see if there’s any weak spots in their security.”
“It was one old dude in the front,” Tanaka said.
“But there could be more in the back! And maybe we need to sneak into a theater, how’re we gonna do that? How many theaters do they have? There’s a lot of questions we need answered and Asahi might be the guy to do it.”
“You gonna ask him?” Hinata said.
“I can,” Noya said. “We should all do it, though. He’s kind of a pushover for peer pressure. He doesn’t have to stay long or anything, just look around. And if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, we’ll find another way.”
“Cool,” Tanaka said. The three boys grinned at each other. The volleyball kept soaring around the triangle.
After school, Tanaka, Noya and Hinata booked it from their respective classrooms, converging on Asahi’s class. They were just sliding up to the door, all of them wheezing, when Suga stepped out and almost hit all of them.
“Oh!” he said. “Hey there! Are you looking for someone?”
“Asahi,” Noya gasped.
Suga’s face folded into the expression of gentle regret that he often wore. “Oh, he left already. He had an errand to run. You can talk to him at practice tomorrow though, right?”
“Does he usually leave fast after class?” Hinata asked.
“Sort of,” Suga said, raising his eyebrows. “If he doesn’t have any plans, he’s out pretty quickly. I’m just a bit slow at packing up.”
“Shit,” Noya groaned. “Can you keep him after class tomorrow?”
“Why?” Suga asked.
“We wanna ask him about porn,” Hinata said.
Suga’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline. “Oh! Uh. What about porn? Actually—” Suga glanced behind him quickly and ushered the three boys ahead of him, down the stairs and towards the room that held their outdoor shoes. “Let’s talk outside.”
Standing in front of the school, Suga listened to their story carefully. “I see. Well, I don’t think I can stop you, but I’m not sure it’s what you’d like.”
All of them gaped a little at the third-year.
“Do you know about porn?” Noya whispered after a moment.
“Do you have porn connections?” Tanaka asked.
“What would we like?” Hinata asked.
Suga frowned down at Hinata. “I don’t like to speculate. But still. I think there are things out there that you may not want to see, and a pornographic movie house isn’t the place for discerning tastes. It’s catering to specific clientele, usually, and just because it’s porn doesn’t mean you’ll automatically like it.”
“Well yeah,” Hinata said. “I don’t like all movies or all books.”
“Yes,” Suga said, “but pornography is… more intense than regular movies or books. In terms of what it’s trying to show you, I mean. It can be much, much more disturbing as a result.”
He glanced from one set of blank eyes to the other and sighed. “Like I said, I can’t stop you. It’s natural to be curious about these kinds of things at your age and it’s fine to explore, but just know that it’s not all going to be pleasant to see. Got it?”
“Yes,” Tanaka and Noya said cheerfully.
“Uh,” Hinata said.
“You stick around,” Suga told him. “I want to talk about this a bit more with you. I have a few things you should look at.” He turned to Noya and Tanaka. “I don’t know what you were thinking. He looks like he’s twelve, he’s too young for pornographic theaters. But you two…” Suga sighed. “Asahi will be back home in about an hour. You could meet him there if you want to talk about this plan with him outside of volleyball or school.”
“Right!” Tanaka said.
“I know where he lives,” Noya added, and the two of them took off.
Asahi pulled at the hem of the shirt he was wearing and bit his lip. “I don’t know about this.”
“Just do it,” Noya said, leaning against him and trying to force him forward with his body weight. “It’s no big deal.”
“I’ll look creepy,” Asahi said. “What if someone recognizes me?”
“No one will,” Tanaka said. “Trust me.”
After convincing him to at least come check it out yesterday, they had planned his infiltration outfit well (without his consent, of course). They’d crammed him into one of Noya’s shirts, slicked his hair around until it was parted on the side, and insisted he not shave that morning so he’d have a 5-o-clock shadow. Noya had taken the time to draw a lip stud and they’d clipped a few of Tanaka’s sister’s old costume earrings to Asahi’s ears. There was nothing they could do about his body language, though. He looked like a very shy punk.
“Just stand up straight,” Noya said. “It’ll work better that way. They’ll totally believe it if you do.”
“Why do you want to do this again?” Asahi asked, but he was taking steps forward and that was progress.
“Because we’re not allowed to,” Tanaka said.
“Because he told us not to,” Noya said at the same time.
Asahi stared from one to the other. “You’re terrible.”
“Yes,” Noya said. “Now go scout please!”
Asahi sighed and walked up the street, hesitating only for a moment before entering the theater. Tanaka and Noya crouched behind the corner, taking turns at peeking out. They jerked back and giggled together whenever they saw someone leaving the theater, but Asahi took ten whole minutes before he came back out. His body language was completely transformed. He was slouching, but not in a self-conscious way. His shoulders were back behind his hips, his spine an S-curve, and all that hair was in his face.
Tanaka heard Noya’s throat click as he swallowed. When he glanced down, Noya was staring, his mouth half-open.
“Dude’s an actor,” Tanaka whispered.
“You can say that again,” Noya said, blinking and shaking his head.
Asahi’s strange, laid-back posture changed as he moved away from the Porn Dungeon, shifting forward and in until he was all but running towards them, head ducked between his shoulders. “That was so embarrassing,” he hissed. “Do you have my clothes, Noya?”
“Yeah,” Noya said. He cleared his throat and added, “Nice job, dude.”
“Thanks,” Asahi said with a quick, shy smile.
“What’d you learn?” Tanaka asked eagerly.
“There’s a back door,” Asahi said, taking a band from Noya and readjusting his hair into its normal bun. Noya set to work taking all the earrings off of him.
“Bitchin’,” Tanaka said.
“It’s locked,” Asahi added. Then he smiled, even more shyly than before. “Well, it was.”
Noya let out a bark of laughter that made all of them jump. “Oh my god, you’re awesome,” he said. “Officially, we owe you big time. Oh my god.” He laughed again, and Asahi and Tanaka joined in and Noya wrapped an arm around Asahi’s neck and Tanaka slapped Asahi’s shoulder and they all just snickered away.
Noya and Tanaka met behind the theater that night. It was a Friday so they met late, at 11, sneaking out however they could. It seemed appropriate to break as many rules as possible for this venture. This was an exploratory mission into a strange new world, after all. It was worth whatever trouble they got into.
“Ready?” Tanaka whispered.
“Hell yeah,” Noya said. He ducked down and slipped his fingers under the crack at the bottom of the door, then pulled it towards him. It opened slowly but smoothly.
“Sweet,” Tanaka said, and they were in.
The nearest door led to a tiny theater with hard wooden seats. It was about half-full, with the silhouettes of people sitting in pairs or alone. A movie was already playing.
“Oh whoops,” Tanaka said, wincing and covering his eyes. “It’s gay porn.”
When he glanced to his right, he saw that Noya was watching the screen with a faintly puzzled expression, as if he was trying to solve a math problem. “This is kinda interesting, dude.”
Someone in the audience groaned suddenly, and Tanaka and Noya both jumped, looked at each other, and backed out again.
“Okay, not that one,” Tanaka said.
Noya glanced back at the door thoughtfully. “Wonder if Asahi went into any of these when he was here.”
Tanaka snickered. “Yeah, right! Good one, dude.”
Noya shrugged and walked to the next door. He pressed his ear against it. “I think this one has a girl in it.”
“Cool,” Tanaka said. “Let’s check it.”
They walked back out of that theater very quickly as well. Tanaka looked nauseous. Noya was staring into the middle distance with glassy eyes.
“Not that,” Noya said softly.
Tanaka’s entire face twitched. “I think I’ve seen enough.”
Noya checked his watch. It was 11:11pm. “Make a wish, dude.”
“I wish I could forget everything I’ve just seen.”
Noya raised an eyebrow at him. “You do know that because you told me, it’s not gonna come true, right?”
Tanaka sighed. “Ah, shit.”
“Maybe we should have just taken Suga up on his offer of ‘safe’ porn.”
“We could still do that,” Tanaka said.
Noya nodded. “Yeah, we can catch him after class again and hopefully forget any of this ever happened ever. Well, tonight was a bust. Wanna go for a popsicle?”
Tanaka gagged.
Noya blinked at him, glanced at the door to the first theater they’d gone into, than doubled over in suppressed, silent laughter.
Suga smiled at the pair of them. They stood before him, heads bowed, with deep bags under their eyes. They hadn’t slept since they’d gone to the Porn Dungeon and now they were on his stoop on a Sunday, thoroughly cowed.
“I thought you wouldn’t appreciate it,” Suga said. “Well, I’ll lend you whatever I haven’t passed off to Asahi and Daichi, and we’ll see what I get back from them. I’m meeting Kageyama and Hinata for a study session, so I have to go now. See you at practice tomorrow!” He jogged off, his grey hair bouncing cheerfully.
“Dude,” Tanaka said. “The third years have a porn library and Suga’s the librarian.”
“Yeah,” Noya said. “Rude that they haven’t told us.”
“When we’re third years, we’ll totally get the underclassmen porn,” Tanaka said.
“Yeah!” Noya said, striking a strong pose. “We’re gonna be the best senpais ever!”
“Hell yeah!” Tanaka roared.
“Shit, why wait?” Noya yelled back. “We could just start seeing what they’re into right now!”
“Great thinking!” Tanaka shouted.
"Let's get planning!" Noya screamed.
"Boys!" Suga's mother cracked open the door and glared at them. "You're being too loud!"
"Sorry, Mrs. Sugawara!" they said in unison. They bowed to her, jerky and rushed, then leapt off her porch and hit the ground running, heading for Tanaka's house.