#sbau november 9

[still-breathing-au-p3r]

The rumor mill is grinding at mach speed today, and class hasn’t even started yet.

Even during class the inexorable turning of the millstone doesn’t slow down:

The lounge is oddly quiet when Minato gets back, but the reason why makes itself apparent pretty quickly.

Aragaki is slumped on the couch, arms crossed, head lolling forward, dead-to-the-world asleep. Koromaru’s front half is draped over Aragaki’s lap and Sanada sits beside them, eating a takeout beef bowl and occasionally nudging Koromaru’s butt out of its orbit with his elbow.

That’s… a hard question to answer, honestly, but he does his best.

Minato actually has no idea what made him say that, but now that he has, it definitely seems right. He shrugs. Sanada laughs but then sobers.

Whatever Minato’s face is doing, it’s unintentional. He shows Sanada his palms noncommittally.

Minato shakes his head, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

“It’s not that,” he says, because he’s hit a dead end with things he can communicate non-verbally. “But I don’t know if Aigis would be too happy about the idea of bringing him onto the team. She really doesn’t like him.” 

Sanada’s eyebrows shoot up.

“What on earth did he do to get on Aigis’ bad side?”

“Uh. Appeared, I guess. She’d already made up her mind about him before he even tried to hit on her, so.”

Sanada spends the next two minutes trying to quietly stop choking on the bite of his food he’d just taken, while also fending off a concerned Koromaru, who seems to be attempting an arcane dog version of CPR.

Aragaki wakes up despite his best efforts, and it’s his elbow in Sanada’s side that finally seems to do the trick.

A spirited verbal sparring match ensues that Minato wouldn’t be able to wedge his way into even if he wanted– which he decidedly does not. He waits for them to wrap it up before he floats the idea of making an excursion to Tartarus tonight.

Sanada approves, though he’s much more subdued about it than Minato is accustomed to. Koromaru worms his way back into Aragaki’s lap, which is probably his way of declaring that he volunteers to stay at the dorm and keep Aragaki company. 

To Minato’s immense surprise, however, Aragaki wheedles Koromaru into going along. 

They’re already down two fighters, is Aragaki’s line of reasoning; he doesn’t want to steal another one from them.

He even sweetens the deal with another promised home-cooked meal. Those must be really stacking up– Minato’s lost count of how many Aragaki owes at this point. It seems like a bit much to be honest. 

Privately Minato suspects that the real reason Aragaki is being so insistent is that he simply wants some time entirely by himself.

He gets that– as much as he also adores that dog, ‘alone with Koromaru’ doesn’t cut it when what he really needs is to be alone alone. It’s hard to explain the distinction to other people, and even harder to convey that it absolutely isn’t anything against them.

So Minato spins a yarn about a strategy he wants to try tonight that requires Koromaru, and returns the tiny nod that Aragaki aims in his direction.