#also yes that is a worm on a string hanging from the lamp

[parallelunivrses]

the best way to marathon a show is to build a blanket fort in the living room with your partner

[ID: first image shows the outside of a blanket fort. There are several different large blankets covering a significant portion of the room with a tall support in the middle and chairs propping up the side. the second image shows the inside of the fort, where the support can be seen as a lamp that is turned on. there are lots of pillows and blankets. a person is sitting in the fort and there is a heart emoji over his face. End ID]

[toziers]

Bill, Bev, and Richie are the biggest stoners during college. They dorm together (Bev threw a tantrum about it being sexist and got permission) and their whole dorm is in a constant fog of weed smoke. Bev is either comatose or a party animal, no in between. Bill starts engaging in "stoner culture" and becomes more insufferable than ever. Richie claims he needs it to focus and only takes test high. They all make conspiracy theories together constantly. They have a giant weed banner on their wall.

the literal first thing richie did after throwing his bags down is cover all the smoke alarms with plastic cups and containers so they could smoke freely inside (especially because it gets fucking cold in the winter, and while rich and bev can handle it, bill gets whiney about his nose getting numb). 

the decorations are classic stoner but, like, classy classic. lava lamps and tie dye banners (and a bead curtain made of those worm-on-a-string things, because bev gets crafty after a solo joint). all the light bulbs have been replaced with the fancy colored ones, and sometimes the three of them get high and just lay in the middle of the floor looking up at the ceiling bev covered in glow stars and pretend theyre floating through space

bill cannot cook. he simply can’t. EXCEPT when he’s high. like sober bill burns water and sets microwave dinners on fire, but high bill will craft an extravagant three course meal from a pack of sliced cheese, two expired ramen noodle packets, and whatever else he can scrounge up from the fridge in the common area kitchen. at some point, richie starts challenging him, giving him ten minutes and 5 ingredients to come up with a new dish. bill always finishes five seconds before the timer, and the meal ALWAYS becomes a member of the clean-plate-club

richie smokes two bowls to “focus” on his assignment, finishes it in twenty minutes, then “focuses” on explaining to bev and bill exactly why stan was right and the government DID kill all the birds and replace them with robots

the r.a, mike hanlon, Knows about the “stone zone” (there’s a sign on their door made by bev that reads as such) but never says anything, mostly because they invite him over whenever he’s off-duty to join in on their “weed and feed” nights where they all get incredibly high and eat whatever chef bill has come up with

their neighbor eddie actually complains about the smell to mike, and goes with mike when he has to confront the members of the stone-zone about it, but immediately drops his complaint when richie answers the door both shirtless and grinning. eddie actually decides that the smell isn’t so bad, and begins hanging out in their room more than he’s in his own

eddie’s roommate, stan, gets an invite to the “weed and feed” nights too, as he’s also eddie’s best friend on campus, and while he starts off not participating in the weed portion (he’s never tried it, or any drug, and it doesn’t really interest him), about halfway through the year his crushes on both mike and bill culminate in him trying it for the first time through a very sexy, very homosexual experience with them shotgunning smoke into his mouth. eddie would congratulate him but he’s too busy dragging richie back to his dorm to notice 

ben, the r.a from the floor below them, ends up having to come and shut down one of said “weed and feed” nights. however, by the time he gets down there (it takes about an hour; he’s feeling slow) the weed smell and any paraphernalia has been hidden, including the stone zone sign. it’s almost like they knew he was coming! crazy - it probably had nothing to do with the text he sent the cute redhead from his sociology class (bev) that he was about to do rounds and shut down the party in dorm 420. yeah, definitely had nothing to do with that. bev ends up inviting him in to eat the delicious meal bill had just cooked for them, and ben says yes, and ignores that all six of the kids in the room have bloodshot red eyes. 

(ben ends up coming to the rest of the weed-n-feed nights, and the seven of them become Best Buds - wink)

[libraryscarf]

Payback

“Which one?” she asked helplessly. She couldn’t parse the blur of songs on the screen with Yato sitting so close to her. Kofuku collapsed on her other side, leaning on her shoulder to browse the titles. “Ooh! This one! Sing this one!” She snatched the screen and poked a button. The song began to play. Hiyori choked. “No. No.” “Come ooon,” Kofuku whined piteously. The corners of her rosebud mouth turned down when Hiyori balked. “You have to sing this one, for me. Please?” Blushing up to her ears, Hiyori slowly stood up and took the microphone. “Okay,” she said, heavy with reluctance. “But…it won’t be good.”

Chapter 7: The Karaoke ( ao3 / ff.net )

Hiyori stared at page 449 of her textbook for half an hour, scanning the same two sentences over and over with glassy, unseeing eyes.

A knock on her door startled her out of her stupor. When she called a welcome, Ami cracked the door open a few inches. Her glasses reflected the sterile blue of Hiyori’s desk lamp, making her look a bit like a sinister scientist.

“How goes the cramming?”

Hiyori looked down at the page of her notebook, which was covered in eyeballs. Not literal, squishy eyeballs, but sketchy doodles of eyes that her hand had been creating absently while her mind wandered.

“The cramming goes shittily.”

Ami hummed in sympathy. Then she was silent, but she didn’t close the door, obviously lingering to say something else. Hiyori spun around in her old, squeaky swivel chair.

“Something on your mind?” she asked pointedly.

Ami opened the door a fraction wider, but still didn’t step into the room.

“Just thinking…maybe you should get out for a bit. Do something besides study.”

Hiyori pinched her eyebrows together with a thumb and forefinger. “God, it must be bad if you’re telling me to go out and be social.”

Ami didn’t seem to take offense to the comment. Instead, she continued standing silently in the doorway. A surge of irritation rushed up Hiyori’s throat.

“Can you spit it out?!”

She hadn’t finished speaking before she regretted the harsh tone, and her head drooped with penitence. Ami cleared her throat softly.

“Oh, nothing,” she said. “Just that he’s here.”

Hiyori’s head snapped up again. Ami could only mean—

“The delivery guy,” she clarified, holding up two plastic bags of takeout as evidence.

Hiyori melted back into her chair, weak with both disappointment and relief. After that damn party, she wasn’t sure she could look Yato in the eye without fainting from humiliation.

“Thanks,” she said without enthusiasm, and reached for one of the bags. Ami pulled her arm back, dangling the food—which smelled mouth-wateringly of broccoli and beef—out of reach.

“My credit card was declined,” she said. Hiyori stared at her in disbelief.

“So...you want me to…?” She trailed off, hoping Ami would show a modicum of shame.

Ami’s shoulders hinted at a shrug, but didn’t quite make it all the way. “Sorry.”

Hiyori dragged herself out of her desk chair, stomping past Ami and down the stairs to the front door, where the delivery-person was, apparently, still waiting for payment. The door wasn’t completely closed, so she flung it all the way open. And then she nearly swallowed her tongue.

“Yato—!” she gasped.

He was dressed in a stained, dubiously gray uniform, and stood with one arm awkwardly extended, holding the electronic card reader in front of him. They stood like that for several seconds.

“You deliver Chinese food?” she blurted stupidly.

Yato didn’t answer for a half-second, his jaw still hanging slightly ajar. Then he inhaled quickly, as though just realizing she had asked him a question.

“Yeah. I got—uh—kind of fired from my other job.”

Hiyori covered her mouth with one hand. “Oh no!”

He shrugged awkwardly with one shoulder. “It happens. Apparently ‘repeatedly missing shifts’ and ‘stealing product’ is not smiled upon in the pizza industry. Plus I smelled like pepperoni twenty-four-seven.”

“Well, now you’re just gonna smell like MSG!”

At that, Yato grinned. Then he realized he was still holding the card reader out, and quickly lowered his arm. The movement jogged Hiyori’s memory, and she pulled out her wallet and rummaged through it for a card.

“Right. How much?”

She brandished a credit card, only to be met with a blank look.

“Huh?”

“The credit card,” Hiyori prodded. “Ami’s didn’t work?”

Yato stared at her in vacant confusion. “No, it worked. It’s all paid. She said she had to go grab some cash for a tip.”

Sudden understanding punched through the top of her skull. Hiyori half-turned her back to Yato, of a mind to find Ami and box her ears.

“Oh, that little—” she fumed, before clamping her teeth onto her tongue and forcing herself to smile prettily at him.

“Of course. Sorry. Um. I guess I should…tip you, then?”

Yato’s mouth shaped several silent syllables before he managed to get any sound out.

“Oh. N-no, I mean, it’s fine! I just—it felt rude to just leave, so—”

Hiyori stuttered for a second, before an immediate, searing realization folded her gut in half.

“I haven’t paid you!” she cried.

Yato stopped with his mouth open, halfway through his string of excuses. Hiyori thought she was sweating much more than was necessary, and had to stifle the urge to fan her damp forehead with both hands.

“For the—the other thing,” she said, dropping her voice just in case Ami—Judas that she was—might be lurking somewhere in earshot.

He shrugged again, though the pause before it was just long enough to be suspicious.

“It’s…y’know, whatever,” he said, obviously wanting to just get out of this conversation as quickly as possible.

The sweat on Hiyori’s forehead was starting to drip down her temples. Feverish with discomfort, she dug through her wallet again for her checkbook.

“I know we didn’t discuss payment or anything, but, um—”

She scribbled three figures on the check, signed it messily, and thrust it toward his chest, hoping she hadn’t already smeared the ink with her clammy hands. Yato stared at the check for a moment, then gingerly took it from her. His eyes were frozen to the total scrawled on the front.

If he didn’t say something soon, Hiyori was going to cry.

“Je-sus,” he breathed.

Oh god, she’d insulted him.

“It’s negotiable,” Hiyori gasped. She eyed the pen in her hand, wondering if it was sharp enough for her to use to commit seppuku.

Yato’s eyes traveled, slowly, from the check up to hers.

“Negotiation isn’t necessary,” he said. “But…this is a lot. Are you sure?”

Hiyori nodded vigorously. “Please. You’ve helped me so much. I really can’t thank you enough.”

It seemed to take Yato some effort to pocket the check, and even when he did, his posture was very subtly altered, as though there were something sharp poking him in the spine. He was quiet for a few more seconds. Something started to push at the bottom of Hiyori’s stomach, worming its way up her throat like an eel.

“Thanks,” Yato said. After another half-second he remembered to smile, but the strain of his facial muscles looked unnatural.

The pressure in Hiyori’s throat quickly became unbearable. If she opened her lips she was going to either puke or scream. She turned back to the open doorway, hoping to put some distance between herself and Yato before she did either of those things.

“Hiyori!” he cried.

She stopped, halfway inside the house. She couldn’t look at him, but the writhing in her throat subsided.

“Yes?”

He cleared his throat loudly.

“I just—I wanted to make sure you were okay, after that night, but I wasn’t sure that—I didn’t know if…”

It sounded like he was forcing the words out with something heavy sitting on his chest. His voice finally trailed away, and after a moment of collecting herself, Hiyori turned back to him. Her cheeks and eyes felt warmer than usual.

“Yes. I’m fine.”

Yato’s eyes narrowed.

“I’m fine,” she repeated with more conviction. “Really. Thank you.”

His lower lip twisted, but he managed to turn it into a slight smile.

“Good.”

It could have been a moment for her to go back inside, for him to walk away.

Could have, but wasn’t.

Yato scratched the back of his neck. “Oh,” he said. “I was also going to ask: has anyone…caused trouble for you since then?”

Hiyori’s eyelid twitched. Fujisaki hadn’t surfaced since the episode at the party, but the mere thought of him becoming litigious towards Yato made her head pound. She felt sick with worry that he was, even then, brewing something awful in revenge.

But she hadn’t warned Yato. She hadn’t offered any help at all. Her own cowardice made her feel ill.

Yato misread the tortured expression on her face, and his expression darkened in anger.

“No!” Hiyori said quickly. “No. No one’s caused any trouble for me. But Yato, you shouldn’t have attacked him. That was so stupid!”

Yato looked like she’d shoved electrodes into his chest. He took a step back, and Hiyori’s hands twitched after him. She sputtered miserably.

“I-I mean. I appreciated it, of course. A lot! So much. Um.”

He looked like he wanted to speak, but she blathered on.

“And I mean, if we’re talking in terms of stupid things we did, I did…um. Stuff that was stupid. Definitely. So it’s not like I can really scold you for punching somebody.”

She shook her head even harder, and fought the urge to clutch her ears.

“Except I am—because he could hurt you, Yato! Do you know how powerful that family is?! And you broke his nose! He deserved it, yes, but…you can’t! You can’t go around punching horrible people’s noses. Because sometimes those horrible people’s noses are attached to just…just a whole lot of money. And lawyers.”

She was extemporizing to the ground at Yato’s feet. For some time now she had been at the mercy of her mouth, waiting for the stream of fragmentary nonsense to run dry. At last, it did.

“Money and lawyers,” she trailed off in a whisper.

Yato made a funny sound in his throat, like he was gargling wasps. Hiyori’s eyes flicked to his face for a second, and saw in it a sort of tortured resolve that bewildered her.

“It’s fine,” he said, quickly composing himself. Hiyori was about to say that it wasn’t fine, and that he ought to consider what kind of damage both money and lawyers could do to him, but then he said:

“Do you like karaoke?”

She frowned. Maybe he’d misheard her.

“Do I what?”

“Do you like karaoke,” he repeated slowly.

Hiyori tried to remember the last time she’d done karaoke. Certainly not in the last several years.

“Um,” she said. Yato must have seen the question mark hovering above her head.

“I was just going to say that there are a few people I know who are going tonight. And I just wanted to know if you liked karaoke, and if you wanted to come.”

He said it all in one breath, so quickly that Hiyori almost couldn’t process it. Taking a few beats to untangle his meaning, she felt her ears catch fire.

“Oh.”

Yato blinked, his face pale and sweating. He looked like she had him on some medieval torture device, ratcheting up the agony with each silent second.

“People?” she repeated, hesitantly.

“Friends,” he hurried to supply. “My friends. You met Daikoku before. He and his girlfriend Kofuku were at the party, but you probably didn’t see her. I’ve known them forever.”

“Oh,” she said, in revelation. “A couple.”

Yato was so white that he could have passed for a corpse, and judging by the expression on his face, he would have found that state of existence preferable.

“Yep,” he choked.

Hiyori couldn’t find her tongue.

What was he asking, exactly? Was this another building block in the pyramid of falsehoods that made up their “relationship.”

“Oh, and Yukine will be there too. Actually—he’s the one who told me to invite you.” Yato laughed uncomfortably. “I think he might have a tiny crush, to be honest.”

Hiyori’s stomach did a nasty somersault. Her eyes stung fiercely. “Ah.”

The door opened behind her, and Ami poked her head out. Both of them jumped at the intrusion. Yato dropped the card reader he was still holding, and it clattered against the sidewalk.

“Did you get kidnapped?” Ami asked. “Food’s getting cold.”

“No! Sorry. I’m just…” Hiyori trailed off, watching as Yato picked up the card reader, straightened, didn’t look at her. She turned to Ami.

Two minutes, she mouthed. She smiled, praying her face didn’t look unnatural. Ami squinted.

Hiyori widened her eyes. Please.

“Okayyy,” Ami said suspiciously. “But I’m picking out all the best pieces if you take too much longer.”

She shut the door with a severe bang. Hiyori gathered her wits.

“Yeah, I’d love to come along!” she said exuberantly. She winced as her fake-bubbly voice shot up an octave. “It sounds fun!”

Yato raised his head. “It…does?” A shade of color was coming back to his cheeks.

“Yeah! Totally!”

Her mood swing was giving both of them whiplash. Hiyori couldn’t handle the insane false cheerfulness that had her in its grip. She grinned like an effervescent demon. She giggled like a cheerleader on speed.

“Great,” he said cautiously. “I’ll…let you know when we’re leaving?”

Hiyori bounced on her heels, smiling a deranged smile. “Yep! Awesome!”

Yato started backing away from the house. Hiyori couldn’t blame him. He smiled back, his eyes a little terrified. “Okay, um. See you later.”

“Uh huh! Great!”

Hiyori spun around and fumbled for the doorknob, hoping to exorcise whatever had possessed her by cutting herself off from any more human interaction. Slamming the door behind her, she found Ami on the other side of it, regarding her clinically over a plastic bowl of Chinese takeout.

“Please,” Hiyori moaned. “Please. Don’t say whatever you’re about to say.”

Ami innocently pondered the broccoli beef between her chopsticks. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

There was silence, punctuated only by the raucous gallop of Hiyori’s pulse.

“So.” Ami popped the beef into her mouth and spoke around it. “How’re your karaoke skills these days?”

Hiyori straightened her spine, cast her friend a withering glare, and stomped up the stairs. She would spend the next three hours staring at her phone, failing to convince herself that the hollowness in her chest was normal, that it was nothing, that she was fine, just fine.

: : :

Following the instructions from Yato’s text, Hiyori arrived at a tiny building hiding between a bustling beauty supply store and an equally bustling porn emporium.

She walked inside to see three people waiting for her. One of them was Yato. The other man she recognized from the umbrella store. The third was a tiny woman with a bubblegum pink bob, who squealed as soon as Hiyori walked in, and flung herself into her arms.

“It’s so good to meet you!” she said rapturously. “I thought Yato was lying about having other friends, but you’re so real and pretty!”

Hiyori laughed nervously. “It’s—um—nice to meet you too?” She cast a helpless glance at Yato over the top of the girl’s pink head.

“This is Kofuku,” was all the explanation he provided, as though this happened all the time. The “pretty” comment did turn his cheeks a bit pinker than usual.

Kofuku released Hiyori from her stranglehold, though she did attach herself firmly to her elbow as they got their drinks and were escorted to a small, bench-lined room by an employee wearing a T-shirt that proclaimed “UNDERWORLD” in bold, dripping red font across the chest.

“This is an…interesting place?” Hiyori observed. The memory of the porn emporium next door was still technicolor in her memory.

“They couldn’t get an alcohol license here,” Kofuku said brightly. “So it’s almost always empty. And cheap!”

Hiyori looked mournfully at what she now realized must be a virgin mojito, and sighed. Behind her, Yato chuckled.

“Trust me, you won’t need alcohol to enjoy hearing her butcher Madonna,” he said. Kofuku let go of Hiyori’s arm long enough to smack his shoulder.

Daikoku growled: “My woman’s got the voice of an angel.”

“Yeah!” Yato said gleefully. “The angel of death!”

Hiyori laughed at that: a loud, undignified snort that, after it escaped, seemed to echo in the room. She slapped a hand over her mouth, mortified.

The other three looked at her for a second. Then Kofuku squealed, clasping Hiyori so tightly in her arms that she swore two of her ribs cracked.

“You’re so, so, so so adorable! I just wanna squeeze you into my pocket and take you everywhere—!”

Yato began scrolling through song options, and Daikoku sipped broodingly on his drink. Neither of them offered to help her. As she turned steadily bluer in Kofuku’s embrace, Hiyori had a revelation.

“Hey,” she wheezed. “Where’s Yukine?”

Yato glanced up from the song list. “He said he was busy again.”

Daikoku frowned sadly. “Aw, damn. I like that kid.”

“He’s been acting so shady recently,” Yato complained. “Why are teenagers like this? I thought he wanted to hang out with Hiyori, but then all of a sudden he has ‘botany assignments’ and ‘study partners,’ and then he’s ditching me to go to the ‘library,’ and—”

“Sounds like he’s just being a responsible kid,” Daikoku pointed out. Yato sulked.

“I didn’t tell him he could do that.”

“You’re not his dad.”

Yato bristled. “Well…I feed him!”

“Day-old pizza and ramen is not a balanced diet for a growing boy.”

Hiyori, overcome with curiosity, interrupted their disagreement.

“Wait,” she said. “Where are Yukine’s parents?”

Yato’s mouth was open to make some retort, but he shut it again. He shrugged, almost nonchalant.

Almost.

“No idea,” he said.

There was a second of silence. Hiyori’s eyes darted from Yato, to Daikoku, to Kofuku. There was a secret here she was being shut out of, and she wasn’t sure how hard she could press before her prying struck too deep a nerve.

“So…you’re basically his caretaker,” she stated to Yato. He shrugged again.

“More or less.”

Hiyori’s chest squeezed tight and hot with sudden, inexplicable grief. “Oh.”

Something in her voice made Yato look back at her. When he saw her stricken expression, his attitude flipped 180 degrees.

“Hey,” he said loudly. “This sure is a bummer conversation! Can we sing yet?”

Kofuku cheered and grabbed a mic. Yato reached for the other, but Daikoku snatched it away with a smooth, lightning-quick motion.

“You gonna take the first duet with my woman?” he said menacingly. Hiyori had no idea whether the threat in his voice were real or playful.

She wasn’t sure Yato knew either. He threw his hands up in surrender.

At that, a wide grin spread across Daikoku’s face. He guffawed, slapping Yato’s back with such thunderous force that he was nearly driven face-first into the table. Hiyori winced.

“Agh,” Yato groaned, giving a weak thumbs-up. “Funny.”

The music started. Kofuku had chosen a syrupy, woeful Lady Antebellum song that she and Daikoku lumbered through with more enthusiasm than skill. Yato’s earlier statement proved true: by the end of the song, Hiyori was dissolving in giggles at Kofuku’s death-defying commitment to the drawn-out, yearning notes.

As the doomed duet drew to a very flat close, she found her shoulder being tapped. At some point during Kofuku and Daikoku’s performance, Yato had scooted along the couch to sit nearer to her.

“You wanna go?” he asked.

She nodded, and took the song selection device from his hands. Their thighs brushed, and heat crept from her collarbones up her neck. She scrolled quickly through the song options, trying to distract herself from the warmth of his leg.

“Which one?” she asked helplessly. She couldn’t parse the blur of songs on the screen with Yato sitting so close to her.

Kofuku collapsed on her other side, leaning on her shoulder to browse the titles.

“Ooh! This one! Sing this one!” She snatched the screen and poked a button.

The song began to play. Hiyori choked.

“No. No.”

“Come ooon,” Kofuku whined piteously. The corners of her rosebud mouth turned down when Hiyori balked. “You have to sing this one, for me. Please?”

Blushing up to her ears, Hiyori slowly stood up and took the microphone.

“Okay,” she said, heavy with reluctance. “But…it won’t be good.”

The song’s intro was building to a crescendo. Soon, she would have to sing.

She met Yato’s eyes by accident. He was grinning broadly—no doubt anticipating her failure—and something hot and hungry in her awoke.

She wanted nothing more than to wipe that smug look off his face.

She lifted the mic.

“I think I did it again.”

Hiyori didn’t recognize the voice that came out of her. Sultry, seductive.

Britney.

She only struggled with a few of the lower notes, and finished to an insane round of applause, mostly provided by Kofuku. Daikoku smiled his approval, which made him seem much more like the gentle young man he was, rather than a hired gun. Yato looked like he was going to pass out. He was sitting motionless, mouth agape, too shaken to even clap. Kofuku elbowed him in the ribs, and he finally joined the applause, though it still seemed like a stiff wind might knock him over.

“Are you okay?” Hiyori asked, sitting back down. She was a bit breathless, but her head was light with elation.

“Uh,” he said. His voice was airy, like the breath after a punch. “Who—Where did you—? You can sing?”

She giggled. It was nice to have surprised him. Too nice.

“I think that was just a good song for my range,” she admitted. “But…thank you. I assume that was a compliment?”

Yato was still staring at her, slackjawed. Then he nodded silently, at a loss for words. A blush climbed into her cheeks.

“Well.” She cleared her throat. “It’s your turn now. What are you going to do to show me up?”

As soon as she said that, his persona shifted. He plucked the microphone from her loose grip, and reached over to snatch the song selection device from Kofuku, who was threatening Daikoku with another sappy duet. As he reached behind her, his arm grazed the back of her neck, raising a host of goosebumps across her neck and arms. Hiyori swallowed.

“You’ll see,” Yato said quietly.

As soon as he pressed the button, Freddie Mercury’s rich, soaring voice broke on their ears.

“Caaaan…anybody….”

“Oh god, no,” Daikoku groaned.

“Fiiind meeee…”

Yato stood up.

“Somebody to…”

He looked straight at Hiyori, and his mouth twitched.

“Loooooove?”

The piano began. And then Yato started to sing.

She had to admit that he was a natural performer, though his falsetto was rocky at best. He had a surprisingly pleasant, deep voice, which resonated with something in the pit of her stomach that she didn’t entirely trust.

He committed utterly to the spirit of the piece, and by the end was lying supine on the floor, kicking one leg feebly in the air as he warbled the last few notes in a dying voice that was only a distant cousin to the song’s key signature.

As soon as he finished, Hiyori burst into applause, quickly joined by Kofuku’s enthusiastic cheers. Daikoku’s face was dark red with suppressed laughter, and Hiyori suspected he was enjoying the spectacle of Yato making a fool of himself more than anything else the night could bring him.

Yato flung himself back onto the couch next to her, his face shiny with exertion.

“Very nice,” Hiyori said sincerely. “Though I don’t think you were supposed to try and sing backup vocals along with yourself.”

He grinned, unperturbed by her critique. “I like a challenge.”

Daikoku’s ears perked up.

“Oh yeah? You up for some Underoath, dude?”

Yato paled. “Do…do they have anything by Underoath?”

Hiyori, who had taken charge of the song selection, shook her head.

“No, but they do have a whole lot of Simon & Garfunkel. Like…too much. And one Katy Perry song. Have they updated this since 2009?”

“Which Katy Perry song?” Kofuku asked brightly.

“I Kissed a Girl.”

“Ooh!” Kofuku squealed. “I wanna do that one. Gimme.”

: : :

Hiyori couldn’t believe it when Daikoku glanced at his watch and yawned.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“9:30.”

Yato scoffed. “What are you, 80?”

Daikoku glowered at him, but before he could retort, Kofuku turned white and clasped both hands over her mouth.

“Oh no,” she whispered. “I just remembered. I think…I think I left the oven on.”

Yato groaned. Daikoku lowered his head into his hands.

“I’m sorry!” she wailed. “I’m so sorry! I don’t even know why I was using it!”

Daikoku stood up, shaking his head in mild disappointment. “Well…I guess we’re heading home now. If it’s still standing, that is.”

Yato slumped back on the couch, and as he did so, his elbow overlapped Hiyori’s. She tried not to react, but the effort to keep herself from shivering at the contact was monumental.

“Don’t worry,” he muttered to her out of the corner of his mouth. “She does this a lot. It’s usually a false alarm.”

Hiyori’s eye twitched. “Usually?”

Kofuku allowed herself to be pacified, receiving repeated assurances from the other three that the oven was probably not on, that the house was probably not ripe with combustive gas. However, she and Daikoku still made movements to leave.

“We were supposed to have the room for another hour,” Kofuku said. “So you two stay and get your money’s worth.”

Then she looked at Hiyori. Somehow, without either of the men noticing, Kofuku shot her a bold, saucy wink.

Hiyori’s stomach dropped. She suddenly harbored doubts as to whether the oven had actually been left on.

“Um,” she said.

“Okay!” Yato broke in, more than enthusiastic to take up the offer. “We’ll sing enough for both of you.” He turned to her, and the joy on his face was so infectious that Hiyori thought it would be outright cruel to puncture it.

“Sure,” she said. Then, after a moment of hesitation: “It was really great to meet both of you.”

She meant it. There was something almost familial about how the two of them had immediately welcomed her as Yato’s friend. She gave Kofuku a warm hug, and had her shoulder affectionately patted by Daikoku.

“Nice singing,” he said sincerely, and Hiyori beamed.

As the couple left the room, Kofuku shot one more mischievous, meaningful smile over her shoulder. Yato caught a glimpse of Hiyori’s expression, and he raised an eyebrow.

“Something wrong?”

“No,” she said, too quickly. Searching for a distraction, she punched a random song on the screen. As soon as the opening notes played, she and Yato exchanged a look of wide-eyed terror.

“Oh man,” he said. Hiyori scanned the screen for a “skip” button, but the programmers had cleverly hidden it in an obscure corner. Before she could conduct a more thorough search, Yato grabbed her wrist.

“We can’t skip it,” he said earnestly. “That’s cheating!”

“You can’t cheat at karaoke—” Hiyori protested, but he wasn’t listening.

“I got chiiills.” His voice cracked badly, but he soldiered on. Hiyori winced. John Travolta, Yato was not.

“They’re multiplyin’. And I’m looosing control.”

He grabbed her hand, dragging her up from the sofa. She yelped as he swung her in a circle, then pushed the other mic into her hand. Hiyori shook her head, though a grin tugged at her lips.

“You better shape up,” she sang—cautiously at first, then louder as her confidence grew. “‘Cuz I need a man, and my heart is set on you.”

Yato was doing some sort of upper body wiggle that made it seem like he was dislocating his shoulders. Hiyori burst into laughter, losing the tune. He picked it up again, and somehow they blundered through the chorus. At one point, they abandoned the melody entirely, instead resorting to shouts of ��ooh, ooh, ooh, HONEY” at random intervals.

Hiyori was weak with laughter by the time the song ended. Yato was sweating, and his hair was wild from all the disco he’d just put it through.

“How have I never done this before?” she marveled, trying to catch her breath.

“Because you needed a cool, hip friend to take you!” he said.

Hiyori turned her gaze on him, and saw that he was one hundred percent serious. Her cheeks warmed.

“I think you might be right.”

She put him in charge of the song selection after that, because she didn’t trust herself to not pick something that would embarrass both of them. Yato was no better at choosing appropriately, as Hiyori discovered upon finding herself trying to carry the tune of “Eternal Flame” a few seconds later. He was belting out the operatic backup vocals, with only a passing nod to intonation.

After butchering The Bangles, Hiyori sank onto the bench again, her throat sore with laughter.

“Aren’t we almost out of time?” she asked, half-regretfully.

“Just one more?” Yato sank into a crouch in front of her, his eyes wide and pleading. “Please?”

She tested her throat and winced. “I’m not sure I can. My karaoke stamina is not nearly as impressive as yours.”

At that moment, one of the employees poked her head in.

“Um. You guys have to leave soon. We’re closing.”

She stared with open curiosity around the humid little room and the two disheveled, sweaty people who had obviously been occupied in some sort of strenuous activity for the last half hour.

“Are you…” The employee cleared her throat self-consciously. “What have you been doing in here?”

Hiyori took in her expression, the state of the room, the state of herself—

“Oh!” she cried out. “Oh. Oh no. We’re…we’re done. Sorry. We’ll leave.”

Yato however, was still caught up in the spirit of karaoke. He grabbed her wrist before she could set down the mic.

“One more?” he begged. “I promise it’ll be great.”

Hiyori cast a helpless glance at the UNDERWORLD employee, who shrugged and withdrew—probably to report to her manager about acquiring a hazmat suit to clean the room after they were through.

“I’m not kidding, Yato,” she said. “My voice is shot to hell.”

“That’s okay,” he reassured her. “This’ll be my solo.”

Apprehensively, Hiyori watched him pick the final song. As soon as it began to play, she couldn’t restrain a bark of laughter.

“Are you serious?” she asked incredulously.

“It’s a grand finale!”

“Yeah, but—“

It was too late; the chorus to “I Will Always Love You” had arrived, and Yato was giving it his all.

His all, in this case, happened to be an unholy screech. His raw, overtaxed voice couldn’t handle the strain of keeping up with Whitney’s extraordinary vocals. The auditory effect came closest to the cacophony of sixteen cats being disemboweled, and was enough to summon the manager of UNDERWORLD to kick them out of the room.

“Well, that was rude,” Yato said in a hurt voice, once they had been unceremoniously hustled outside. Hiyori was still holding her stomach and trying to breathe through stitches of laughter.

“I think you did break their sound system, though,” she wheezed. Yato frowned, clearly displeased with how the management of the place had treated his artistic endeavors.

Once she’d recovered her wind, Hiyori looked around the dark, nearly abandoned street. Her car was the only one in sight.

“Did you walk here?” she asked in disbelief.

“Oh, no.” He winced and scratched the back of his neck. “Daikoku and Kofuku drove. I…forgot about that. Whoops.”

“Well, I’m headed in the right direction.” She shot a sideways grin at him and jingled her keys.

“Need a lift?”

shit got real and i barely got this chapter up today. i'll try SUPER HARD to not make you guys wait more than two weeks for the next one! pleas forgiv