Chapter Text
Junta believed himself to be a pretty simple guy.
In his honest opinion, who he was could be stripped down to a few neat bits and pieces. He loved his family, for one. He was probably guilty of spoiling his little sisters more than once in a while and was as dutiful a son to his mother as he could be.
(Which was exactly what got him into this mess in the first pla– )
If pressed, he would admit he loved his friends too, as much as they loved to embarrass him with their teasing. And baseball had become such a big part of his life, he couldn't even start to imagine his days without it somehow in them.
Despite it being a never-ending source of torment, his crush on Anzu was easy enough to understand as well. He’d lived with it for as long as he could remember, and he was mostly able to deal with it like a functional human being. It was part of him by now, one of the bits and pieces that composed the entirety of him.
If broken down, looked at from a distance, it was also pretty simple.
This, however.
This, what had been his life for the past couple of months, his new reality of haphazardly coming to live in the same house as the girl he was in love with and his own romantic rival; throwing in to the mix several traumatic experiences involving the manipulation of Junta’s memories, meddling love wizards and creepy homicidal stalkers–
Well. Junta wouldn’t go and call it simple – how would he even begin breaking it down neatly? – but it was… manageable so far. He was taking it all in stride, if he was being perfectly honest.
So yeah, he was doing fine with all these new not-so-simple things in his life. As fine as he could, all things considered.
There was this other thing, though.
Junta dropped his bag as soon as he crossed the door’s threshold, mouth opening and snapping shut with a click in an aborted greeting as soon as his widening eyes took in the scene before him. Anzu’s laugh reverberated in the room.
It was ridiculous. It shouldn’t even be a factor in the equation, after everything else that had happened. He wouldn’t even dare think it. Not in any definitive words. He had managed so far, whenever the creeping idea had come crawling out into the light in moments of temporary insanity.
Is it temporary, though? Junta hoped so. Anzu laughed again. He died a little inside.
Anzu was home, of course, and so was Tsukasa. It made sense, as he’d been held back at practice today and it was already pretty late.
What most certainly did not make sense was that both Anzu and Tsukasa were both standing in the middle of the living room – karaoke lyrics forgotten on the television, not even paused – both dressed in cat pajama jumpsuits. Anzu was in some sort of war position, holding Momohiki threateningly towards a sulking Tsukasa.
“Um,” Junta managed, a useless lump of an organ racing away in his chest. His face burned. He cursed his stupidly good circulation.
“Don’t ask,” Tsukasa said, alternating between glaring at Anzu and Junta, and looking extremely uncomfortable.
“Finally!” Anzu said, lowering Momohiki slightly as she turned to look at him. “Tsukasa was just forgetting his place in this household.”
“She used emotional blackmail,” Tsukasa deadpanned as an explanation anyway, sighing a little and seemingly lost in a sea of regrets. He looked so –
“Don’t forget I also manhandled you!”
Who was he kidding. It was Anzu and Tsukasa. It made perfect sense.
“Look, Junta, I have another one for you!” Anzu yelled, stars in her eyes as she held up, as a matter of fact, another cat jumpsuit. “This one has a different stripe pattern!”
Junta made a noise of distress. Momohiki meowed judgmentally.
This thing? It was as far from simple as it could possibly get.