Chapter Text
It’s late afternoon, the early summer sun still shining annoyingly brightly and Ritsu’s half napping on the couch in the lounge. There’s a slither of light peaking through curtains that he didn’t quite manage to close properly before laying down but his energy is so sapped still from the walk home from school that he keeps putting off getting up and closing them fully so he can nap easier. He’s just about to roll off the couch and fix the problem when he vaguely registers the front door opening and footsteps heading for his bedroom. He’s ninety percent sure that it’s Mao come to wake him up early for some reason, the other ten percent of him is left wondering if a burglar has just entered through the unlocked door but Ritsu decides his nap is more important and that can be dealt with if and when the burglar comes into the lounge. A couple of minutes later he gets his answer as he’s being urged to wake up.
“Hey, hey, Ritsu, I’m sorry to disturb you but, can I talk to you about something” There’s more than a hint of distress in Mao’s voice and Ritsu can’t really bring himself to ignore him. Yawning, Ritsu slowly sits up and blinks at Mao, trying to read the expression on his friends face in the near darkness of the curtained room.
“What is it, Ma~kun, better be important to wake me up so,” Pausing, Ritsu yawns again, “Early.”
Mao flicks on the lamp closest to where Ritsu was sleeping before sitting down on a spare bit of couch. Ritsu squints as the light comes on, trying to adjust to it. As he does he can see that the distress in Mao’s voice matches the expression on his face. Ritsu figures that he must have gotten into an argument with the other Trickstar members or that Student Council work is piling up more than even Mao can handle.
“A girl from the producer course pulled me aside as I was leaving the student council room this afternoon” Mao starts, “She asked me if I was free this weekend.”
“Oh? And she cried when you turned her down? How tragic, Ma~kun, come cuddle with me and forget about her” Ritsu lays down again, motioning for Mao to lay down with him.
“No, Ritsu that’s not it, I told her it wasn’t a good idea but she seemed really desperate and I couldn’t take hurting her if I said no after that, so I said yes and now I don’t know what to do,” Ritsu can see Mao chewing on his lip as if deciding how to continue, Ritsu didn’t know if he did want Mao to continue, “I mean she was cute and she’s helped Trickstar out before so it’s not like I don’t know her and she is nice so I’m not really opposed to going on a date with her but-”
“But you don’t feel anything for her?” Ritsu hopes like hell he’s correct on that because he doesn’t know how he’d react if Mao did actually have feelings for some girl. He wishes that they’d introduced the stupid producer course a year later, then Ritsu would be able to enjoy his and Mao’s final year without the lingering worry that Mao would end up dating some girl from school. Back in their second year he’d had enough trouble getting used to the sole girl in their school being friendly with Mao, although he’d managed to warm up to her himself, and the idea of her and Mao being friends. Despite his worries and jealousy at the time, the whole situation is something he guesses he should be grateful for or he’d never have been able to handle the current situation as calmly as he is. Mao had never liked her as more than a friend. This time might be different. He feels betrayed enough that Mao even said yes to this other girl and if Mao’s response is that he does like this girl, Ritsu decides he’s going to decide this is a nightmare and then go to sleep forever, pretending it never happened.
“Yeah.” Mao looks down at Ritsu, face pleading for some kind of reasonable advice, “I know I shouldn’t have said yes in the first place but I was so afraid of hurting her.”
“You’re too kind for your own good Ma~kun,” Ritsu tries to offer good advice, knowing he’s probably the worst person for Mao to have come to regarding this kind of thing, “Take her on the first date and then tell her afterwards that it’s not working, break it off as early as possible before you can do too much damage.”
“That’s surprisingly sensible advice,” Ritsu feels like he should be offended by that statement but he doesn’t interrupt Mao, instead just rolling over to bury his face into a couch cushion, intent on finishing his nap “Thanks Ritsu.”
“You’re the one who isn’t being sensible, isn’t Trickstar planning to properly debut when you graduate, you won’t be allowed to date girls soon any way so why didn’t you just tell her that.” Ritsu mumbles into a couch cushion, hoping Mao will let him have the last word and then let him sleep until it gets dark.
“I guess maybe a bit of it was that too, if I’m not going to be able to be seen alone in public with a girl soon, it would be nice to experience what a date is like while I can,” Mao sounds embarrassed but Ritsu refuses to turn his head away from the cushion to look, “That’s really horrible and selfish of me isn’t it?”
For a good half a minute Ritsu considers not responding at all and pretending he has fallen asleep again already because now he’s getting mad. Mao’s being an idiot and as much as Ritsu is relieved by Mao not having feelings for this girl, the reminder that Mao is one day going to stop being so oblivious to romance and be interested in girls, whether he’s allowed to be or not is not something he wanted to end this horrible conversation with.
“Stupid Ma~kun, if you wanted to see what a date was like you could have asked me.” He knows he’s pouting and that he’s being unreasonable. That at his age he should really be starting to stop being so bratty and selfish but it’s just in his nature.
“Ritsu I’m being serious here, stop joking,” Ritsu wants to retort and tell Mao that he isn’t joking but he tries to reign it in, tries to be the support Mao came to him for, “What do I do on a date any way, do I have to hold her hand or kiss her?”
“Ew don’t kiss her,” Ritsu makes a disgusted face into the cushion, “I don’t know why you’re asking my advice, I’ve never been on a date either. Ask my useless brother’s unit mate if you want advice on girls”
“I feel like any advice I got from Hakaze-senpai would just result in her crying or to do things I don’t want to do,” Mao laughs awkwardly, “I never really had a good impression of him.”
“Mmm, yeah you’re probably right on that” Ritsu’s glad at least, to hear Mao doesn’t want to do ‘things’ with his mystery unwanted date.
“Speaking of him,” Mao starts, sounding like he’s about to start down a barely related tangent, likely one Ritsu won’t want to talk about either. He does, “How come despite him and Sakuma-senpai having debuted, he’s still allowed to date girls openly?”
Oh good, more discussion about his stupid brother and his stupider friend, just what Ritsu wants.
“They’re more of a rock duo kind of thing than a proper idol unit, so one of his selling points is that girls think he’ll screw them if they go to enough concerts.” Again, Ritsu makes a face into the cushion, “I wouldn’t be surprised if he does screw most of them.”
“Don’t be so crude Ritsu.” Though despite his words, Mao sounds amused by Ritsu’s answer. If he’s waiting for another response however, he’s out of luck, Ritsu decides he’s had enough of the conversation and has committed himself to pretending he’s fallen asleep again, until he hears Mao get up and leave.
During the week leading up to Mao’s date Ritsu is rather cold towards Mao, he doesn’t try to be, forces himself to try act normal and not let his pettiness get the better of him but he knows he’s not succeeding all the time. He gets away with it unnoticed, almost, at least by Mao who thinks the change in Ritsu’s behaviour is due to the weather that week being unusually hot rather than Ritsu’s possessive nature. Arashi is another story.
It’s Thursday when Ritsu’s unit and classmate pulls him aside during a break at Knights practice. A day when the sun is so bright and so, everywhere that Ritsu is pretty sure that even if he wasn’t upset about Mao, he’d still be in a bad state. However as soon as Arashi opens his mouth, Ritsu knows he’s been caught.
“What’s wrong Ritsu-chan, you’ve been lazier than usual,” Arashi whispers to Ritsu, despite the two of them being at the other end of the studio to the other Knights members, “I know it’s not just the sun, something, someone is getting to you aren’t they.”
Ritsu tries not to look directly at Arashi’s eyes, feeling like the moment he does the other boy will see right through the lie he’s about to tell. There are far worse people to be confronted by but Ritsu doesn’t even want to bring this up with Arashi.
“Nothing’s getting to me, Nacchan,” He hopes it sounds casual enough, “Vampires aren’t made to withstand such weather so I’m dying faster each time the sun gets brighter.”
“Don’t you try that act on me Ritsu-chan, I know you better than to believe that,” Arashi, of course, Ritsu thinks to himself, isn’t going to let it drop, “There are two people I know of who can get you down like this, one who’s moved to the city after debuting so it can’t be him. So, that leaves Mao-chan. Let me in honey and I can try help you out.”
Ritsu’s almost tempted, he knows Arashi is far from the worst person to discuss this with. Except he’s tired and doesn’t want to bother complaining when he’d much rather just sleep for the remainder of their break. He’s also completely sure Arashi will just ask him what he expected from falling for a straight guy before rambling on about unrequited loves. And half sure he’ll at some point compare his crush on Mao to Izumi’s obsession with Makoto. Ritsu really doesn’t want to be compared to that.
“It’s nothing Nacchan, now sit still so I can nap on your legs.” Ritsu’s tone is firm and when Arashi shuts up, Ritsu knows he gets the point. This isn’t something he’s going to go into. Not now any way.
When the day of Mao’s date comes around Ritsu finds himself crawling back under the covers fully clothed after Mao’s left following their morning routine. If he can sleep until tomorrow he will, he doesn’t really want to acknowledge today as a thing that is happening. As the day continues he wakes up off and on, due to a combination of his refusal to ditch the comfortable winter blankets on his bed so soon in the season and the midday weather being far too warm for them to be there. It’s ridiculous he thinks, that he’s able to fall asleep standing up at any other given time but he’s having such issues right now, Ritsu purposely doesn’t acknowledge the other likely contributor to his disturbed sleep. Finally managing to get himself out of bed for long enough to drag the unused fan from Rei’s old room and set it beside his own, he gets enough airflow in his room to makes things comfortable and goes back to his hibernation. His plan is dashed however, by Mao barging into his room not even two hours later, before he leaves for his date.
“Ritsu , oi! You can’t just go back to sleep like that, have you been sleeping since I left you this morning?” Mao pulls the blankets from Ritsu’s bed and Ritsu’s quick to cover his face with a pillow, trying to ignore that Mao smells like some fancy cologne and that it’s not him that Mao’s put it on for. “Ritsu come on, I want to double check my outfit with you before I go pick her up.”
“I thought you didn’t like her” Ritsu flatly states.
“I don’t, but if anyone sees me on a date, I don’t want them to think I’m embarrassing,” Mao defends himself, “And she’ll tell her friends if I look bad, I don’t want both that and the fact I dump girls after one date spreading around the school.”
“Ma~kun always looks hot.” Ritsu peaks out from his pillow for a second, just long enough to see what Mao’s wearing and damn, he does look really good, “And today’s no different, now go pick her up and then dump her.”
Ritsu reaches for his blankets, trying to grab them before resigning to the fact he actually needs to see to find them, wherever Mao dumped them after unceremoniously pulling them from his bed. Ditching the pillow over his face properly this time, he manages to find them, his eyes settling on Mao’s nervous face before he pulls them over himself.
“Thanks Ritsu” Mao’s voice is genuinely thankful and that annoys Ritsu even more.
“Mhmm, I’ll try not to die here alone while you’re gone.” Ritsu’s unsure if Mao hears him at all when there’s no response for a few seconds, only footsteps headed for his door.
“Don’t be like that, Ritchan.” Mao’s voice says from somewhere in the direction of his door, before he hears it close and is left alone again.