this idea hit me from nowhere and i am so sorry i just miss s1 so much okay

When Theo first met him, it had been after Rei'd ditched him to prepare for some concert that didn't even start for another seven hours. Times like those always reminded him that she had friends that weren't called "Theo", and so he'd been on his way to hang out at the bar. Café Nowhere's bar. Not like his homework was going to miss him or anything.

Theo stepped into the café in what was totally an ultra-cool way.

"Hey—"

And he stopped.

Because nobody could be as ultra-cool as the guy at the counter currently smiling at something Nice had said, since Nice was the epitome of ultra-cool.

But that's not what made him ultra-cool. What made him ultra-cool was the fact that he was super stunningly absol-ute-ly hot, and Theo'd been floored instantly.

(That might have had more to do with the fact that he hadn't heard Koneko shouting several times to duck, because Birthday had roped Ratio into doing something pretty stupid in Theo's professional opinion, but his face met the floor regardless of the situation.)

When Theo came to, it was to the guy who'd been at the counter – Art, he'd find out later – leaning worriedly over him and extending a hand.

Theo was pretty sure his heart burst through his shirt (and chest and everything in between) when he took it.

Sure, he pretty much already knew he was gay. But still! He'd never felt anything so intense before! It was like... every single amazing thing that had ever happened in his life was nothingcompared to the incredible high rushing over his senses and blanking out all coherent thought every time Art even looked at him.

Whoa. Like. Whoa. Forget ultra-cool. Art was the ultimate.

...It must be love.

Theo decided that falling in love wasn't anywhere near as cool as people made it out to be.

For one thing, other than the fact that he could not stop thinking about Art, it meant suddenly having to deal with a best friend. Not just any best friend, but one that could read him like an open book.

An open book that must have been flashing neon lights in the dark and screaming "HEY LOOK THEO HAS A CRUSH", because he and Rei had just barely seen one another on their way to school when she instantly zeroed in.

"Who is it?" said Rei.

Theo hadn't even opened his mouth to say hi. "What?"

"The guy you like."

"His name—"

...Wait.

Theo stared. "I didn't even tell you I was gay. How did you know he was a guy?"

"I didn't," said Rei. "I do now."

Theo wanted to cry.

Of course Rei got the man's name. She got more than that, too. Somehow, Rei'd managed to get every single last thought Theo had, ever had, or will have, in his brain about Art within the span of eleven minutes.

Theo knew it was eleven minutes because that's how long it took to get to school once they met up. Eleven minutes! It was so ridiculous, it wasn't even funny.

That day, however, instead of sitting with him, Rei had vanished during their breaks to do... something. Theo didn't find out what it was until lunchtime when Rei, wearing cool sunglasses Theo recognised as belonging to Mikisugi in the class next door, pulled a chair up to his desk and planted a folder on top of his bento with a loud thwack.

The plastic cracked. Audibly. Theo worried for the food inside.

Rei tipped the sunglasses down her nose so she could peer at him over the top edge.

"I brought the goods," she said, ultra-cooly.

Theo blinked. "Huh?"

"Info, of course!"

Rei flipped the folder open, and then suddenly a waterfall of newspaper clippings, handwritten notes and printed articles rained down upon Theo's table.

All of them were to do with Art.

"Not Art," said Rei, because Theo'd apparently said his brilliant observation out loud. "Superintendent Art."

(Ten years later, Rei would still have evidence of Theo's resulting squawk and use it as blackmail quite regularly.)

If class ever resumed before the final bell of the day rang, Theo didn't know it. He was too busy being stupefied the entire afternoon.

Which meant he was very busy.

"...It's no good," said Theo, later. Much later, in fact; he and Rei were walking home. Theo took Rei's silence as an indication to continue. "It's no good! I can't do it. How can I do it?"

"...Theo."

Theo stopped. Rei was no longer walking next to him, and he turned around. "Rei?"

"Tell me, Theo," said Rei.

The wind picked up then, causing their uniforms to billow to and fro. Theo was trying to pay attention to Rei, honest, but he was kind of admiring how cool the reddish-orange sunset glow caused the river beside them to sparkle, and the time of day meant their shadows were super long and dramatically awesome.

They should take the long way more often.

"What, Rei?" asked Theo.

Rei stared at him with such serious eyes that Theo sobered immediately. It was no time to be admiring the pretty scenery.

"You love him, right?"

"Y-yeah. I..." Theo's voice shook. He was going to implode. Theo paused to quickly take a breath so he wouldn't do so. "I do."

"Really?"

"...Really."

And then, as if those words were a trigger, Rei closed the gap between them and suddenly gripped Theo's hands between her own. Kind of aggressively, but still pretty dramatically.

"Alright!" said Rei. "Don't give up hope! You can do it, Theo!"

"Do what...?"

"Score Art's love, of course!"

Theo's heart skipped a beat. "You mean...?"

"Yes!" said Rei. She started running without really thinking about it, which meant that one hand still held Theo's own and he was being pulled along. "You'll be married in no time!"

"...w-wait, aren't you going just a bit too faaaaaaaaast—"

Rei handed him the chemical ice pack with an expression that tried to look sorry but kind of gave up before it even reached halfway.

"Trees hurt," she observed.

"...Yes," said Theo. "Yes, they do."

They ended up at her house because,

a) Theo didn't trust his ability to navigate past the ice pack in order to make it to his house in one piece;

and:

b) Rei promised him she had something that would definitely help with his love problems,definitely.

It turned out that she just wanted to wave some magazines in front of his face.

Apparently, one had "amazing dating advice", which was all fine and dandy until Theo pointed out that Superintendent Art probably didn't even remember he existed in the first place, and another was "all you needed to know about—"

"Rei!"

Rei waved a hand dismissively. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Still..."

"Yeah?"

"You should definitely sign up for the VIP mailing club on this."

Theo took it skeptically. Event Horizon, it was called. A quick thumb-through revealed very minimal text, only a lot of ads for flowers and low resolution sample-style photos arranged in grids. A neat header (decorated with flowers) on his current page said "Idols✩".

It was closed with a fluttering of pages.

"I don't understand," said Theo.

"It's a 'fantasy service'. They have huge access to a whole bunch of impersonators and can copy the appearance of anyone you want, however you want."

Impersonation?

"...That's kind of lame."

Rei just grinned and tapped on her phone. "You know Natsuki, from 1-A? Her huge crush on 'Tanaka-sensei'? I hope you appreciate the work it took me to get this to you, because Natsuki paid through her nose—"

She showed him.

The sole reason – sole! reason – why Theo knew the picture was fake was because his memory of Murasaki was still mostly fresh, and thus he knew very well that the man would never let anyone take a photo of him sprawled. Atop some sheets. Shirtless... at least, most likely moreso. Doing... things with chocolate. Even though the picture was extremely low-quality and was mostly hidden by various papers, the photo was so high-definition and of such high accuracy that it went beyond impersonation. It was real.

Theo fell off his chair.

So, Theo totally didn't sign up or anything. Nor did he swear Rei to secrecy afterwards. Honest.

He wasn't going to deny the fact that Rei had jumped up and down a few times, telling him a referral would give her 50% off her next order. Not free, just. Almost free.

Theo supposed that maybe he should have been a bit worried that Rei (with the help of her contacts) knew Art's age, his birthday, favourite colour, and other assorted pieces of personal information slowly and carefully gathered over months of interviews. Maybe he should have been a little more concerned that his best friend was so encouraging in regards to the pursuit of a relationship despite the gap in age and social status between them.

And then he remembered the collection of posters and platinum membership subscriptions to exclusive fanclubs that Rei had, for stars who were more than twice her age, and decided the issue wasn't worth pondering.

He did leave with some advice, at least, alongside a much emptier bank account. Not that it wasn't advice he couldn't have worked out on his own.

If he didn't have the threat of Rei swooping in and signing him up for terrible things he could only imagine, Theo wouldn't have bothered making another detour to Café Nowhere.

"What Art likes?" echoed Nice. He scratched his cheek thoughtfully. "Got anything, Murasaki?"

Theo couldn't handle looking at Murasaki, so he just pretended to be super absorbed in... the table. Earlier, he'd rejected the menu on account of his finances. Smooth.

"Maybe he would like you to leave him alone for once, Nice," was Murasaki's reply.

"That's got nothing to do with Theo though."

A disinterested huff. Nice shrugged.

"Why'd'ja want to know?" he asked. "Want to thank him for picking you off the floor last week?"

When put that way, it sounded really stupid, and like the most uncool thing Theo'd ever heard.

Theo just nodded and kept staring at the table.

For a moment, the café was entirely still. And then Theo was forced to one side when Nice clapped him on the shoulder and ruffled his hair.

"H-hey!"

"Oh, it is soft," said Nice. "Anyway, let me know if you find something. Getting something delivered to Art is tough and he only ever visits once in a blue moon, so I'll make sure it gets to him directly."

Theo, in the middle of readjusting his head to make sure it was still on straight – because Nice forgot to keep track of relative strength, apparently, when he just wanted to sate a random bout of curiosity – paused. Then Theo smiled.

"Okay," he said. "Thank you!"

It was the week after when Nice found himself hanging around the lobby of the police station. Usually everyone ignored him, probably knowing him as "that guy who hangs around the Superintendent a lot", or something equally as trivial. "Usually" didn't mean the current day, however, probably because of the small parcel under one arm – a parcel wrapped extremely neatly in cute, purple paper.

Not that Nice really cared about the looks he was receiving.

"Yo, Art!" he called, when the star of the show finally decided to walk on stage. (Nice took in Gasquet's position and the small crumbs on Art's tie that had escaped his notice, and concluded privately that Art was extremely busy and working overtime. Or at least, enough to delay lunch by several hours.) "Delivery for you."

"...Delivery?" asked Art. "Branching out into odd jobs, Nice?"

"Hardly. This is from Theo."

"Theo...?"

"The kid who fell on the floor when you visited the café."

"Oh, yes. I remember him." Art took the parcel, glanced at it briefly, and looked back to Nice. "You wouldn't do a delivery if there's not another thing you'd like to tell me."

"I am ninety-seven percent sure he has a crush on you."

Art's eyebrows went up. "...Only ninety-seven?"

"Come on," said Nice. "It's called margin of error. It's really hard to tell since Theo actually seems kind of lame enough to thank a guy with chocolates."

Gasquet coughed pointedly at the change in subject, and looked at his watch.

The case must be in a bad state for the old man to hint that much, thought Nice.

Two gazes met. A single instant was more than enough for Art to read Nice's deductions in his eyes, more than enough for Nice to recognise Art's in his own—and more than enough for both of them to know that each other's conclusion was the same.

Art nodded. "Thank you, then. I must be going."

"Art," said Nice. Art paused, looked back. "Let him off easy, all right?"

"I will."

"Let him off easy", it seemed, didn't mean the same thing to Art as it did to Nice. Apparently, "Nice did something for him" was enough to elevate Theo's status from "random kid" to "Nice's friend", and so Art had personally taken time out of his already, undoubtedly, extremely full schedule to visit Theo's house. Instead of sending him an email, or doing something completely impersonal and thus much less embarrassing in the long-run.

Aaaand they left the park. Turning down a side street into a shortcut, probably heading for Café Nowhere.

Figured Art would think of bringing things full-circle.

Nice wasn't stalking them. It was a job. Really. Anyone who wanted to bring allegations of stalking to him would have to get to Theo's best friend first, because Nice had spotted Rei two hours ago. She didn't seem to notice he was there, though.

...

At one point, Nice just gave up.

Anybody who'd been watching would have seen Toranker-kun throw its arms in the air, like the sky could give it answers or it was dancing for the rain, before turning tail and skulking away.

Theo wept.

Rei offered him another handful of tissues. He grabbed them and blew his nose with both at the same time. It sounded like the dying wail of a dented trombone.

Dying, dented trombones were the most uncool thing in the history of the universe.

Rei didn't ask how it went. Theo didn't want to think about it ever again.

"I bet Nice knew about it all along," Theo flubbed.

He received the entire tissue box in exchange for dribbling feels.

"Well," said Rei, rising to her feet, trying to ignore the grossness in favour of her friend. "You've broken your curse of liking sociopaths, at least."

Theo sniffed.

"Yeah," he agreed. "It's not like Art will ever plan on killing him."

/FIN/

Bonus:

"Next pose—"

Moral sighed, very loudly. It didn't suit the appearance he currently wore in the slightest.

"May we please take a break?" he asked.

Between the two studio lights and behind the camera, Momoka consulted her clipboard. "After this set."

"Momoka—"

"You and I both know that, without these photos, we would have been forced to take loans a long time ago. Especially considering the compensation for those guns."

Moral slowly lowered himself back onto the rose petals and rearranged his appearance's hair. He mentally sent a message to his lovers: Sorry for not being there tonight, my sweets. The devil is keeping me.

"Next pose," said his taskmaster. "Legs half-curled. Left arm sweeping back hair, right hand..."

((please consider leaving feels or comments below, thank you))