Warning: this fic contains m/m, m/f, and canon/OC relationships. It also includes drug usage, mental issues, and mentions of suicide.
We've Got A Big Mess On Our Hands
Chapter 1.
Cute, Marui thinks as he blows a bubble.
Marui looks at the new guy, who has one of those sharp and pointy faces that makes you think of an elf, at the void in his strange blue eyes, at the small holes in his ears where gauged earrings should be. He stands slouched with his lanky arms at his sides and hands in his back pockets.
"Class, this is Niou Masaharu. He'll be with us for the rest of the year. Niou-kun, say something about yourself."
"I don't want to."
The teacher sighs and grips the bridge of his nose. "Go and sit next to Marui-kun. He's the one about to swallow his gum because he knows he'll get detention if he doesn't."
Marui sticks his gum under his tongue, swallows spit, and flashes the teacher a dazzling smile. "Sorry, Sir. It won't happen again."
"Don't make promises you can't keep. Now, we're going to continue our lecture on techniques used to solve higher order differential equations..."
Niou walks silently and swiftly like a cat. He sits in his chair and there's so much space between his stomach and the desk that Marui wonders if this guy eats. He doesn't spare a glance for Marui and stares blankly at the chalkboard. Marui can see the chords of headphones running down his neck and under his sweater.
Marui doesn't give a damn if anyone in the class pays attention or not—if they fail, that's their own fault for slacking off. If they get caught listening to music, that's another story. If one idiot gets caught, the teacher will catch on and then where will they be? Marui needs his music some days and this new guy isn't going to take that from him, even if he's attractive.
"Hey, go up the back next time," Marui says. Niou furrows his thin white eyebrows together and pulls out a single headphone. "Don't get us all in trouble," he adds, taping his ear for clarification.
Niou puts his headphone back in and returns to staring at the front of the room.
"Bastard," Marui says.
"Asshole," Niou replies.
Marui stares wide-eyed at the new guy. He's too stunned to reply for a moment, but quickly comes back with, "Cocksucker."
"Yup."
What the fuck?
"Marui-kun!" the teacher snaps. "Stop talking. And I thought I told you to swallow that gum."
Marui can see Niou's thin lips move at the corner. Is he smirking?
Niou continues to stare forward as if Marui is beneath him. Whatever. The new guy's a rude, albeit hot, freak. Marui's dealt with plenty of those before.
Marui puts his phone on the desk between his textbook and his stomach. He skips past the texts from Ren and goes to the one's from his bandmates. Marui isn't one to brag unless it will benefit him, but he's the lead singer of a popular band in the underground music scene.
The band is called Zero to Hero and has five members, plus a guy who helps them with lights and sound for their shows. They play at parties and clubs that most people don't know exist, and they already have one album out. The album was self produced and they only sold a few hundred over the past two years, but it was something. Their songs aren't played on the radio legally, but Marui hears them at least once a week on the pirate station he listens to.
Marui frowns at his phone and the shit storm Urayama sent him.
slammed my finger in the door this morning. ill let u no if i can make practice
its purple now omg its purple （；￣д￣）
so i jammed my finger and cant play until its not purple
please dont kill me (一。一;;）
Marui rolls his eyes and types a response.
It's fine just get better! And stop with the damn emots they're annoying.
Urayama is quick to respond: thank u thank u thank u (づ￣ ³￣)づ
Is he being thanked for not killing someone? He sighs and begins running through which of their songs require a keyboard or a second guitar. There's a lot, but not enough to cancel practice.
It sucks to have any band member out of commission for any amount of time right now because they're working on their second album. They can't play through new songs without the full band.
He pulls up Oyama's number and sends him a message.
Is your acoustic at my place? Tell Urayama he can still come and listen if he wants.
He receives a response several minutes later: it is and okay.
He checks the rest of his texts—Jackal asked if he got a text from Urayama and Kato asked if they still have practice if Urayama loses his finger. He tells Jackal they'll do acoustic during practice today and Kato to shut up. He receives an okay from Jackal and nothing from Kato.
He scrolls back through to the texts from Ren. She sent a very explicit text about how she was going to murder her volleyball captain for the hell that was her morning practice, then another complaining about how boring class is.
Marui loves everything about girls. He loves girls who have curves and extra weight and a confidence about them, girls who know they're sexy despite their size. He loves girls who are gentle and kind, who are soft and warm under his hands. And he loves girls like Ren, who are thin with muscles and don't curve in all the places some girls does, girls who know what they like and aren't afraid to get it. He loves everything about every girl and some may call him a liar, but it's true.
He also loves everything about boys, but he can't exactly be as open about those feelings.
He opens up Ren's text and responds.
Sucks that you're bored. Play a game on your phone?
Battery's almost dead
Wanna get lunch on the roof today?
Sure
Marui tunes in and out of lecture, occasionally jotting down a note about integration factors or partial solutions. He scribbles lyrics in the margins of his history notes and tapes out the tune to a song on pencils during English. Out of curiosity, he periodically looks over at Niou, who continues to stare at the lecturer with a distant, bored expression.
When the lunch bell goes off, Marui grabs his bag with his lunch and heads out of the room. He jogs up the stairs, taking them three at a time, and exits through the NO EXIT door at the top of the stairs. Ren is in the classroom above his and is already there.
Ren presses her hands to his chest and presses a kiss to his cheek. She takes his hand and leads him to the edge of the roof where she sits, back to the fence. He lies down and rests his head on her thighs like pillows.
"You look pretty today," he says.
"You always say that," she says.
"But you always look pretty."
The only proper way to describe Marui's relationship with Ren is blunt and crass: they're fuck buddies.
Ren eats her store bought lunch and feeds Marui the leftovers he brought from home. She swipes grains of rice off his cheeks with her thumb and laughs when he gets a piece of seaweed stuck between his teeth.
"So, what's on your mind?" she asks when they're finished eating. "You don't call me for lunch unless something's up."
"There's this new kid and he's a hot jackass," Marui says. He tells her his short conversation with Niou and she listens attentively, nodding and humming in all the right places. "Who the fuck transfers schools halfway through the first semester anyways?" Marui grumbles when he finishes.
Ren runs her hands through his hair, fluffing it and petting gently. "You're so cute when you're frustrated," she says, laughing softly at him.
Marui pouts and she laughs louder, then leans down to kiss him. Her lips are full and slick with cheap cherry lipgloss that's sweet on his tongue. He sighs and runs a hand up her back, rubbing over the clasps of her pretty pink bra that he can see through her blouse. She nips at his bottom lip and pulls away, smacking his hand away.
"Not at school," Ren chastises. She returns to petting through his hair and he closes his eyes. "My parents aren't home today; they have a dinner date. We can't have sex because I'm on my period, but we can cuddle and watch movies while we make out."
"I can hang out after band practice," he says. "I'll call you."
.
The only thing that Marui pushes through the rest of the day is the thought of band practice and cuddling with Ren. The bell rings and Marui quickly gathers his things to meet up with the rest of the band. His phone begins to play the chorus to one of their songs when he's halfway down the stairs.
"Hey, Kato, what's up?" Marui answers.
"I can't make practice," Kato says. She sounds furious, more so than she usually does after school. "And before you try and rip me a new one for not texting you guys earlier, you should know our school now makes us put our phones in a container before class to 'create a better learning environment.' It's bullshit."
"That explains why you didn't text me back. Ignore all my texts calling you a bitch for not answering me."
"You called me a bitch? You dick."
Kato is the band's drummer and sole female member. She used to go to Rikkaidai High with them, but after her mom caught her smoking a cigarette last year, she's been forced into an all girls' school, which, according to Kato, is worse than the ninth circle of hell.
"Why can't you make practice?" Marui asks.
"I got detention. Apparently correcting the teacher because they're a dumb ass is 'disrespectful.' He said we came from monkeys. This place is killing me."
"Well shit. Urayama can't play until his finger isn't purple or something because he fucked it up bad this morning. We were going to try to do acoustic, but I'd prefer to have drums in case."
"Don't blame me."
"I don't. And I see the others," Marui says. "I'll tell them you can't make it today. Go to detention before you get in more trouble."
Marui can picture her rolling her eyes and slamming her phone shut. She refuses to buy a smart phone because she likes slamming her phone dramatically.
Marui walks up to Jackal, Oyama and Urayama, who has his left middle finger in a cheap finger splint. Oyama has gummy worms hanging out of his mouth and his hand in the bag to get more the second he finishes the ones in his mouth.
Oyama Kenta may have long dark hair, a ton of crazy piercings in his ears, and could tower over the tallest guy on the basketball team, but he doesn't look it. He doesn't hold himself the way you would expected him to. He keeps his arms to himself and his back subtly hunched to make himself appear shorter. He doesn't hold himself like he's bigger or better or stronger than anyone unless he needs to.
Marui likes to think of Oyama as a freakishly large puppy.
"I am so sorry about my finger," Urayama says. "Kenta and I were leaving his apartment and his cat tried to run by and I panicked and—"
"Breathe, Urayama, breathe," Jackal says. "It's fine. We're just glad you didn't break anything."
"Yeah," Marui says. "We're not recording for awhile and I want to look over some lines again. Plus this gives us an excuse to work on some acoustic versions for the album. Kato can't come either."
"What? Why?" Jackal asks. "She didn't text me. Oh, never mind, she just did."
"Her school has some new BS policy about phones," Marui says. "And she has detention so we can't do much besides acoustic."
"We can go through those songs you wrote a few months ago and decide if we're going to play any," Jackal says.
"I want to change some things in the music for the new song," Oyama says.
"I'll do anything to help as long as I don't have to write my English paper," Urayama says with a happy smile.
.
Even though the bell rang, Yukimura patiently waits until the teacher is done talking to pack his things. He carefully puts his bag over his shoulder and digs into his pocket for his phone so he can text Yanagi.
Where are you?
Student council room with Yagyuu and Genichirou.
He walks against the flow of hall traffic; everyone is leaving but club members and students with detention. A few acquaintances wave and say their variation of good-bye. Kirihara blazes past, carrying his skateboard at his side, and gives a two-fingered, improper salute. Yukimura tells him not to run in the hall.
He cuts down the corner stairwell and into the student council room on the first floor before going to the art studio. Yagyuu is writing a schedule on the blackboard while Yanagi sits on the desk and watches, occasionally adding his input. Sanada is standing idly next to the desk.
"I thought you had practice," Yukimura says to Sanada.
"I canceled," Sanada says. "Half the team has the flu from running in the rain a few days ago."
Yukimura sits on the desk next to Yanagi and looks at the board. "Is this the list of winter fundraisers?"
"Yes; I'm writing it in advance for tomorrow morning's meeting. Is there something you need?" Yagyuu asks. "We don't have a meeting today."
Yagyuu is the student council president and Yukimura and Yanagi are class representatives. They don't do anything except organized fundraisers to collect money for the school, but the positions look good on university applications.
Half the things they do are for university, like Yanagi joining the chess club and Sanada running the kendo club. Yukimura is a member of the art club for fun, but the fact that it looks good certainly isn't hurting anyone.
"I don't need anything," Yukimura says. "But I do want to talk about our new classmate. You showed him around this morning, didn't you, Yagyuu?"
"Yes."
"Well, I heard an interesting rumor about him during lunch."
"Do tell," Yanagi says.
"You're all gossip whores," Sanada grumbles.
"Some girls who have friends at his old school said he was expelled for being gay. No one knows the details since the administration kept it very quiet, but that is the final consensus."
"And why are you telling me this?" Yagyuu asks with a heavy sigh.
Yukimura smiles slyly. "No reason in particular."
The door to the room slams open and the four turn to see what's the matter. The vice-president Nishimura is holding Kirihara, who has a giant red mark on the side of his head and a nervous smile, by the collar of his shirt. Nishimura drags Kirihara into the room, kicks the door shut behind him, and makes a noise similar to a growl.
"Akaya, what did you do?" Yukimura asks.
"He decided slide down the railing on his skateboard—"
"I was grinding," Kirihara grumbles like a child.
"Fine," Nishimura says irritably. He looks ready to kill. "He was grinding down the railing of the main staircase, got his skateboard caught on someone's bag, and went flying halfway across the lobby. How many times have we told you that you can have your stupid skateboard in school as long as you don't ride it inside!"
"Seventy six," Yanagi says.
"It was rhetorical," Nishimura says.
He lets go of Kirihara's collar and Kirihara goes forward to Yukimura in search of some form of protection.
When Kirihara's older sister babysat Yukimura, she brought Akaya along and the two boys became quite close over the years. In times of trouble, Kirihara uses Yukimura as his shield. It usually works since Yukimura is one of the most popular, most influential students in the school.
But against Nishimura and Yagyuu, Kirihara has a fifty-fifty chance of it blowing up in his face.
"I was in a hurry and wasn't thinking," Kirihara says. "Hiyoshi and Zaizen can't hang out for that long today and I wanted to get there as quick as possible. I'm sorry."
"Don't say you're sorry if you're not sorry," Sanada says.
"Sorry," Kirihara says and Yukimura smiles.
"Kirihara-kun, I can't keep covering for you because you're Yukimura's friend," Yagyuu says. "You have detention tomorrow. You're lucky it's not more."
"Very lucky," Nishimura hisses.
Kirihara groans then rubs where his head hit the floor. At least he didn't eat asphalt this time.
.
For Niou, days pass in a blur of smoke and strange flavored pocky, which he steals from the red head's bag when he isn't looking. He threads his headphones up the back of his uniform at the red head's passive aggressive request and finds that it does make them less noticeable. He steals an extra pack of pocky the day he realizes this, but the red head never notices.
He tilts to the back two legs of his chair when he finishes his math exam and waits for someone else to finish. If he turned in his exam now, his teacher would make him do more work and he really isn't up for that. Instead, he stares at his test and tries to make it look like he's working.
Finally, he thinks when a girl stands up to hand in her test. The teacher says something and the girl returns to her desk and pulls out her textbook.
Niou gets out of his seat and puts his test on the front desk. "Can I go to the bathroom?" he asks.
The teacher looks confused for a moment and flips through Niou's work to check if he did it all. Niou is tempted to say he's not a complete idiot at math like half the kids in the class, but he holds his tongue.
"Sure, Niou-kun. Take the pass."
Niou takes the wooden pass from the door, notices the red head staring at him as he goes, and makes his way to the boys' room at the end of the hall. He curls his tongue and misses the press of his metal piercing.
During his first day, the student council president told him he had to take out all of his piercings until the school day was over. Niou keeps his hip piercings in since no one can see them and they're a bitch to take out, but he feels naked without all of his metal.
He enters the bathroom, checks the stalls and, once he realizes he is alone, locks the door behind him. He sits on the windowsill, and pulls his cheap disposable lighter and a hand rolled joint out of his pocket. He already scoped the school for security cameras and there's a blind spot at this window, so he doesn't have to worry about being caught.
The first burn of familiar smoke in his lungs calms him immediately.
He cracks the window and takes his time. He's still new enough to the school to use the "I got lost" excuse. His teacher already thinks he's a dumb ass delinquent so it won't be a big shock if he comes back a few minutes later than he should. Besides, he needs to make this last the rest of the day or he'll be hyperventilating into a bag.
Why the hell are classes at this school so damn big anyways? he wonders as he puts the joint back to his lips. He inhales deeply and holds it for several seconds before exhaling out the window.
The door knob rattles as someone tries to come in.
"Yeah, yeah, just a sec," Niou calls. He stamps out the joint on the bottom of his shoe and shoves it into his pocket.
When he gets up to let the poor kid in to piss, the door opens. The student council president holds up a key—Niou makes a note to make a copy of it when he gets the chance—and eyes Niou.
"Niou-kun," he says. He wrinkles his nose and adjusts his glasses. "Why did you look the door? Were you smoking?"
"Me? Never." Niou puts on an innocent mask and the president sighs. He pushes against Niou's chest with a single hand, causing Niou to take a few steps back into the bathroom, and locks the door behind him.
"Cigarettes or marijuana?"
Niou raises an eyebrow at the serious tone. If this guy is expecting him to answer that honestly, he's an idiot. But regardless of his innate ability to lie through his teeth, Niou figures he could use some collateral in a situation like this.
"Does it make a difference?" Niou asks. He reaches out, slipping two fingers into the guy's pocket while keeping his thumb tucked and out of the way. He takes his wallet first and quickly reaches back for his phone, putting both items into his back pocket. He does this as he speaks, keeping eye contact, "Or are you looking to get high, Mr. Goody-two-shoes?"
"Answer the question."
"Cigarettes."
"I heard a rumor about you, Niou-kun."
"And what would that rumor be?"
"That you were kicked out of your old school for being gay."
"And?"
"Is that true?"
"I suppose that in a way, I was kicked out for being gay." Niou grins mischievously. He's too high to think this through and it's just too much fun messing with guys like him. He says, "I was sucking a guy's dick in the bathroom during forth period. Apparently it was good because he was so loud that we got caught."
The president shifts his weight between his feet. Niou cocks his head and tries to gauge the reaction he just got. Most people would freak if he told them that, especially if they're male and egotistical enough to think he wants in their pants. Others would laugh off his serious, blunt admission as a joke. But this guy hasn't done either.
Interesting.
"I have a proposition for you," the guy says suddenly. "I'm in the closet and have been looking for a partner to experiment with. I won't force you into anything and this is by no means blackmail. Just think it over."
"Okay," Niou says.
"Excuse me?"
"I said, okay. We can dick around. I have rules, though. I don't do anal in any form. So no fingering, no rimming, and no penetration for either of us. You always wear a condom for blowjobs and use lube for handjobs."
"If that's all, then—"
"No dates and no intervening with the other's personal life," Niou goes on. The president looks at him like he's trying to remember all of it, but is all accepting all of it too. "You can ask me anything about my previous sexual encounters, but I won't tell you names. And you'll need to get tested before we do anything."
The president waits a moment before saying, "Is that all?"
Niou resists the urge to smile because this guy is only the second person to say that to him. The rest call him fucking crazy or a whore, neither of which is entirely inaccurate.
"One more: if either of us develops feelings, it's over," Niou says. "That's all."
"Okay. I guess we should exchange numbers and—" Niou takes the president's phone out of his own back pocket, opening it to add his number to his contacts. The guy points and asks, "When did you take my phone?"
"When you asked me whether I was smoking pot or cigarettes. I thought you would bust me so I picked your pocket."
"And what would you have done with it?" the president asks curiously. "Also, the next time you answer that question, make sure you don't smell like marijuana."
"Not sure. You knew?"
"You knew exactly what you would do, didn't you? And of course I knew. I'm not an idiot, Niou-kun."
"Maybe I did, maybe I didn't." Niou smirks and hands the president his phone and wallet. He slides his hands into his pocket, fiddles with the lighter there, and passes him as he heads for the door. Niou pauses and turns back around to ask, "What's your name again?"