Title: You, who are so intriguing.
Group: V6, Kishidan. (yep I went there)
Pairing: Inocchi/Show.
Rating: PG solely because of curse words.
Warning: AU, crossover, ridiculous as fuck plot and characterization.
Summary: High school student Ayanokoji Sho is away from his hometown, his friends, his family and his sense of security. One day, he meets his neighbor (despite having been his neighbor for quite a while already).
N/A: If you people knew how much I still care about this fic you'd leave me to die in the mountains of Noboribetsu.
Show can’t really tell if he really starts meeting his neighbor more often after he introduces himself formally to him or if they really used to meet all those times a day and he had just failed to notice it.
“Sho-kun! Good morning!” As Show climbs down the stairs, he hears his neighbor greet him from the upper floor. “Going to school, are you not! Have a safe trip!”
“Um, yeah. I’m off,” Show would say stiffly, bowing before walking to the station. No, he’s pretty sure he had never been sent off to school by anyone but, seldom, Tagawa-san the landlady. That was stalking. He’d do it every day after they met at their front doors, always smiling so happily that it bothered Show a little. Why was he always that happy? That Inocchi guy. Also, what was the point of sending him off every day? It had been a week already!
Then Show would be at school, still by himself, working hard to get over Haruna-chan, then be off to work. At work, meeting Inocchi had become common already. They didn’t meet everyday, but it was a pretty close count.
At work, however, they’d rarely talk to each other. Not like Show would be too busy to talk, but Inocchi didn’t approach him for a chat like he had done that day a week ago; usually, he’d just acknowledge Show’s presence with a smile and a nod, and the teenager was thankful for the lack of communication. Revenge would always come after cram school, though. Lately, Inocchi had been able to catch Show in earlier stages of coming home.
“Sho-kun!” Show couldn’t believe his ears when he heard the call. He had just left the station! But there he was, running in Show’s direction, dressed as pathetically as ever and with his duffel bag thrown over his shoulders. “What a coincidence! I’m going home as well. How was your cram school?”
“Same old,” Show then furrowed his brows. “How did you know I have cram school?”
“I guessed. Coming home at this hour with textbooks and all,” he pointed at the books Show was holding loosely. “It could only be cram school. You have a really tight schedule, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Show said sincerely.
“And you’re in high school, right? It’s a really hard stage of our lives,” Inocchi made a pained face. “It’s good to finally be a college student~ well, technically college is harder than high school, but at least it’s more fun as well. Ah,” he suddenly pulled a paper box from his duffel bag, which had apparently been open all that time. “I bought some mini-taiyaki in my way back today! Do you want some? They’re mostly chocolate and anko flavored but I bet there’s a lost custard one around. A friend of mine always eats all the custard ones, it’s annoying.” Inocchi grabbed one and bit tentatively. “Chocolate,” and he offered the box for Show to take some. There were about five or six little fish inside. Show felt it’d be impolite to accept when there were so few left, but he was really, really hungry.
“Thanks,” he muttered, taking a dark-colored one, afraid he’d end up grabbing one of the rare custard-filled fishes. He bit it. Chocolate. It was really tasty and soft.
“I can never catch the taiyaki stand open nowadays. Even today, I had to rush since they were already closing, but at least they gave me a discount! Their taiyaki is really good, the dough is so light. Ah!” Inocchi exclaimed as he bit another fish. “This one is custard! Do you want the other half?”
“… no, I’m good,” Show politely waved it off, not being able to hide how weirded out he was. Inocchi didn’t seem to mind it, and happily ate the rest of the taiyaki.
“What is your favorite flavor? Do you have one?” Show tilted his head to the side. “It’s hard to choose, right? I don’t like the strawberry milk flavored ones, but I guess I like all the other flavors. Even cheesecake, it’s surprisingly good! Ah, but savory taiyaki is really weird. Even though sweet-and-sour ones are really good. Kind of like pie! But savory pie is actually good…”
And he talked and talked and talked and he wouldn’t stop. Show thought his ears would fall off anytime, or that Inocchi would end up choking or losing his breath completely. He seemed to have a simply non-ending line of subjects to talk about, and had somehow evolved the conversation into a one-sided debate over the importance of having more than 7 hours of sleep per night when they finally reached their respective front doors. Relief washed over the high school student.
“Well, I’ll be off now! If you need anything, you just need to knock,” Inocchi reassured him with that omnipresent smile of his. “See you tomorrow, Sho-kun! Also, remember to sleep a lot!”
It was over for the night, but that same sequence of events - greetings in the morning, meeting at work, walking home together at night - would repeat itself the next day, no matter what.
Except it didn’t, that time.
When Show is already halfway down the street and his obnoxious neighbor still hasn’t showed up to send him off, he unconsciously supposes he’s late. Since he has no watch to verify the information, he trusts his instincts and runs. It’s only when he’s at school, much earlier and sweatier than on normal days, that he realizes he had probably been on time. Then what the hell…? Well, a tiny voice in the back of his head says, it’s not like you have a deal with him or anything. Maybe he just didn’t feel like sending you off today. It doesn’t match at all with the image Show had of Inocchi, but, when he realizes over what exactly he’s fretting, he decides to put the subject away and think of something else.
Inocchi doesn’t show up at the supermarket either. Show wonders if he’s sick. Then, he wonders why he was wondering about that. Maybe it’s he himself who’s sick, he thinks somewhat bitterly as he organizes the shelves. … But in all seriousness, that was weird. They had constantly met during a week in that same sequence, and apparently Inocchi had been shopping at that supermarket for even longer than that. It could have happened something. Maybe he had had an accident… maybe he had been robbed! Show shivered at the possibility. If the burglar had decided to rob him instead, he’d have been in a pinch. But wait, it was just a possibility! Maybe Inocchi hadn’t been robbed at all and had just overslept…? Honestly, Show was really curious about that, and annoyed at himself for being curious, and annoyed for being annoyed, ad infinitum.
He forgot about it during the cram school, though, only to be reminded of it as he climbed down from the train at his station, wondering if his nosy neighbor would be there with some taiyaki because God he was hungry. Then he remembered that Inocchi hadn’t invaded his privacy the whole day and huffed to himself. The day he actually needs the man for something…
“Sho-kun!” Ah!
The sound is a bit more muffled than usually; when Show turns around, he finds the reason to be a sanitary mask covering Inocchi’s nose and mouth. A-ha! So he hadn’t been robbed after all, he was just sick. Show was relieved to see that his neighbor had a big plastic bag with him. Perhaps some snacks…?
“I didn’t see you the whole day!” Inocchi comments as they walk home, having completely handed the content of the bag - a box with four big taiyakis in it - to Show, who was happy to eat his share. “I overslept in the morning. How was your day at school?”
“Fine,” Show answered with his mouth full. “Dull as always. We had about an age worth of classic Japanese classes.”
“Aah,” Inocchi made a pained face. “Classic Japanese makes an hour feel like a week, right? What is your favorite subject at school?”
“None,” that made Inocchi giggle a little, calling Show’s name a bit pleadingly. “English, I guess. We don’t do much in English classes.”
“I see, I see,” Inocchi said, nodding. “Though, English is kind of hard, right? Ah, you can eat mine too, by the way.”
He was talking about the taiyaki. Show had just finished his. “Is it really okay?” the teenager asked.
“Yeah, of course! I’m not that hungry. You must be starving. Studying burns lots of calories,” when he said ‘calories’, his voice cracked a little, and Show couldn’t resist the urge to chuckle as his neighbor coughed. “Hey, don’t laugh!”
“Sorry,” Show said half-heartedly as he started eating another taiyaki. “Then, you?”
“Hm?” then there was an awkward moment in which they just faced each other in silence because Show himself hadn’t been entirely aware of the meaning of his question.
“Um… what was your favorite subject in school?” he asks to cover up, turning his attention back to the chocolate taiyaki.
“I liked math. Everyone thought I was smart because I was good at it,” Inocchi chuckled and coughed a bit. “And I… I’m sorry, I forgot what I was talking about. Ah! I liked Geography too, but I didn’t like History.”
“History couldn’t be any more boring if it wanted to,” Show said spitefully, recalling the face of his insufferable teacher.
“Right? Terrible, terrible. Ah,” they had arrived at the apartment complex. For some reason, Inocchi hesitated before starting to climb the stairs. He probably was a bit out of breath. “Here we are. Well, sleep well and eat proper dinner tonight.”
“Okay. Ah, this,” Show tried to give the box with taiyakis back to him, but Inocchi refused it.
“It’s okay, keep it. For some reason I really don’t feel like eating taiyaki today,” a smile brightened his eyes. “See you tomorrow!”
As usual, Show went in first, waving to Inocchi as he closed the door. He had unexpectedly made small talk with the college student… well, it was only fair, he thought while looking at the taiyaki. Inocchi was nosy, yes, and he talked way too much, but he was a nice person.
“WHAT were you doing outside?!” an unknown male voice boomed from the next door apartment, startling Show greatly. That was Inocchi’s apartment, right…? He could hear Inocchi’s voice mumble something in a pained voice, then a rapid succession of mumbling started to happen.
… He knew he shouldn’t do this, but he was really really curious. Show put an ear against the wall and listened attentively.
“-because you look like hell, you’re not in condition to go to classes tomorrow,” the unknown man was saying. “What kind of logic do you go by? ‘I have a fever, so I’ll go to classes and linger around the station for hours waiting for the high school kid who lives next door’?”
“Being holed up here wasn’t doing me any good,” Inocchi answered.
“Well, going out only did you bad! I told you to at least come home early!”
“Maa-kun,” Inocchi called, and the other man stopped talking immediately. “I’m feeling dizzy.”
‘Maa-kun’ muttered something that suspiciously sounded like ‘you’re unbelievable’ and then said something about lying on bed and going out to buy medicine. Show decided to stop eavesdropping, because it was wrong, and also because it made him feel kind of bad.
Though, he’d be lying if he said that knowing that Inocchi had waited to meet him even when sick didn’t make him a little - just a little, itsy-bitsy bit - happy.