Ritsu had never liked music.
Not on it's own, not in games, not in movies, not when he was walking down the street and someone had their volume turned up too high for their headphones. Music was just…annoying. Background noise. It was like people couldn't just let a moment be, like they'd die or something if they had to sit in silence for just one second. Music made it too hard to think, too. Like instead of being able to go from one thought to another at your own pace your brain tried to match the pace of the music. That was annoying too. There was, in fact, nothing about this situation that wasn't annoying in some way.
But he had to do this. He had no other choice.
"You know something, Ritsu, I actually used to like some of these songs." Said Teru. He leaned back on Ritsu's bed until he was laying down. Ritsu rolled his eyes. Teru knew just as well as anyone how important their work was but he somehow complained more than anyone…well it was just the two of them…but still. This was very important work that they did and important work wasn't always fun.
Sometimes it was just annoying…but Teru didn't have to make it worse.
"Then you have something in common with this Suzuki guy. Now shut up and listen." Said Ritsu
"We've been listening for hours." Said Teru with a groan. Ritsu threw a pillow at him. Honestly.
"I know, I can tell time, now stop complaining. We're going to keep listening to this until we figure something out about this Suzuki guy." Said Ritsu
"He really likes Rush?" asked Teru
"Who?" asked Ritsu. Teru sat up and stared at him like he was crazy. Ritsu rolled his eyes. What? Teru knew that he didn't like music.
"…you know what? I'm not going to start with you." Said Teru with a wave of his hand.
"Good, then don't…and don't be so loud. I don't want my parents knocking on my door and asking me what's going on. As far as they knew we're listening to music, I don't want them to think that we're fighting or whatever." Said Ritsu. He loved Mom and Dad, he really did, but he didn't want them to knock on his door and ask him if everything was ok. He wasn't even supposed to have his door closed in the first place. If they thought he and Teru were fighting in here then he was going to lose his closed door privileges as soon as he got them. He could always just have these meetings at Reigen's house but Teru didn't even have a door there, he lived in the living room, and Reigen hovered more than his parents ever did.
"As far as your parents know we're making out in here." Said Teru. Ritsu wasn't going to argue with that. Now that he thought about it Teru was probably right. Mom and Dad, and Reigen too, assumed that every single time he and Teru were alone together they were making out or other stuff. Adults' brains went to the weirdest places. Even if he had been with Sho he wouldn't have just been making out with him twenty four hours a day. He would have stopped at some point to ask him how he was doing, how he'd been, where he'd been…other things. Things that he didn't know about him. Like what his favorite color was or his favorite show or even what kind of music he liked. Sho must have liked something…and for him Ritsu would put up with anything. Even what sounded like the same songs over and over again on a loop in a language he could barely understand with what was either the worst instrument playing in the world or just the worst sound quality or…or whatever!
You could learn a lot about a person from their taste in music.
So far all Ritsu had learned about Suzuki was that he spoke English and had a friend who liked making him mixtapes. His friend might have been his boyfriend. Ritsu couldn't imagine making things like that for a guy who he didn't like, like that, and he had never gotten a present like that from someone who was just a friend either. Well aside from Teru he'd never had any guys as friends but Tsubomi had made him a bunch of playlists to get him to like music and she was in love with him. Making a playlist just seemed kind of like a boyfriend thing…..but people weren't like that back then, right? That was when Mom and Dad had grown up and they were always talking about how he needed to be careful because back when they were young people had been assholes and stuff.
Maybe that was why Suzuki wanted to take over the world, so he could be with his boyfriend or whatever…yeah, Ritsu could see that.
He would have taken over the world if the world said that he couldn't be with Sho. So if this Suzuki guy succeeded then Ritsu was going to have to shift focus from taking Claw down to taking the world from Suzuki. Ruling the world….it sounded good in his head. If he ran the world then he would have done a lot of things differently. He would have let anyone who wanted to be together be together even if they were both guys. He also would have shortened the school day by three hours, banned the playing of music in public, and made sure every stay cat in the world had a home. It would have been hard though, ruling the whole world at once, and honestly it didn't seem possible….
But if it came down to it then, yeah, he'd rule the world if he had to. For Sho, not for selfish reasons.
"Everybody wants to rule the world." Said Teru
"Huh?" asked Ritsu. Teru rolled his eyes and pointed to the CD and cassette played Ritsu had managed to dig out of the junk closet. It was old but it worked. There had even been a CD in there, not one that he recognized. It was some kind of baby lullaby thing probably from when he had been little. Either him or Shigeko…maybe it had been hers. He wondered what kind of music she'd liked, if she'd even liked music. Probably baby stuff. If she had been alive then she probably would have liked idols or KPOP stuff since she was a girl. She probably would have played her music all the time, and really loud too, because girls like that for some reason. She probably would have been pissed at him, too, for being so loud. That was a thing that sisters did, right? They thought their little brothers were annoying and got pissed at them all the time? Ritsu didn't know…and there was no point in thinking about this. He was never going to get the answers to these questions, his sister was gone, so he had to focus on the questions that he knew how to answer.
Like why this song, this song in particular, was the mixtape's secret bonus track.
'Secret bonus track time! But just because it's your birthday, Suzuki, so be grateful for once. Here you go, a one time only performance for your ears only. Everyone Wants to Rule the World by Tear For Fears with clarinet accompaniment by yours truly, for one night only, Fukuda 'should have been first chair' Tadashi! And the crowd goes wild!'
"EveryBODY wants to rule the world…if he had just gotten it right then it wouldn't bother me so much. Seriously? He goes through the trouble of putting together this whole thing but he can't get the song right? Some people." Said Teru
"I don't think people could look things up back then." Said Ritsu as the song started playing. The quality was even worse here and the clarinet in the background sounded like someone was stepping on a cat…on purpose. That was probably just because the tape had been sitting in a box in the woods since back when his parents had been kids. This was the weirdest part of the tape, the part that Ritsu had to figure out. Why this song? If this guy was going to rule the world then why did he need to hear a song about it? To get him all pumped up or whatever? When Ritsu decided to do something then he just did it. End of story. This guy…was he insecure or something? Everyone, from Mom and Dad to Reigen to even Tsubomi, said that Ritsu had a weirdly high amount of confidence. Did that mean that this Suzuki guy was insecure? So, what, did that mean that instead of facing this guy on the battle field or taking him down from the shadows Ritsu could just insult him until he gave up or something?
Maybe. He must have been very insecure, then, if he needed his boyfriend to remind him that he was going to rule the world. Ritsu would have never asked that of Sho. He knew exactly what he was capable of, he didn't need someone else to be his cheerleader or whatever.
"Well he should have tried….anyway, can we at least put a different tape in or something? There's like a million of these and I don't know what you're going to learn, anyway, from listening to the same tape over and over again." said Teru
"I learned that the leader of Claw is really insecure." Said Ritsu
"You got that from an hour of Rush and Falco?" asked Teru
"No, I got it from the last song. This guy's boyfriend put it here at the end to remind him that he could rule the world. Like he needed someone to build him up because he can't build himself up. So he's probably really insecure and doesn't have any confidence so instead of fighting him outright we can use psychological warfare or something….so I guess the next thing that we have to do is learn about psychological warfare." Said Ritsu. Teru stared at him. He gave him another one of his 'are you out of your mind' looks. Ritsu stared back with his best 'yes, I'm perfectly sane' looks. He wondered if this was how deaf people who didn't know sign language fought. They just gave each other look after look after look until someone couldn't take it anymore.
It was always a tie with Teru.
Ritsu could have won, though, if he'd fought dirty. If he'd used his powers to shove Teru off of his bed or if he'd poked him right in that massive spot he had in the middle of his forehead, the one he'd tried to hide with makeup. Hell, he could have just leaned in really close like he was going to kiss him. Not that he ever would, of course, he would never have cheated on Sho. He would never have broken Sho's trust like that. Sure they had to d what they had to do, they were fighting a shadow war against Claw after all, but he was never going to get to the point where he had to do something like that. Even if Teru was…well he was kind of good looking….but Ritsu knew him personally. He always thought he knew better, that he knew everything, just because he was older or whatever. He was allergic to admitting that Ritsu knew exactly what he was doing. That he knew better than Teru. Ritsu didn't know if he ever could have been with someone who didn't treat him like an equal, Mom and Dad's relationship books had been very clear about how important that was, and anyway…well he didn't know how Sho would have treated him…but he knew that it would have been a lot better than Teru treated him.
Teru was better as a friend than a boyfriend…even when he was looking at Ritsu like he was insane.
"You know something, I think that you might have finally lost it. There's no way you got that just from one tape." Said Teru
"When you sit and think about it then it's obvious. I mean why else would he have had his boyfriend-" said Ritsu
"How do you even know that this Fukuda guy is his boyfriend? They might just be friends and your whole theory is based on-" said Teru
"Would you make a mixtape for another guy if you didn't like him? Or a girl, I guess." Said Ritsu
"Well…no….but I wouldn't make a mixtape anyway. I'd make a playlist like a normal person." Said Teru. Ritsu rolled his eyes.
"No, if you were living back then. Would you have gone through the trouble of waiting for songs to come on the radio and then recording them in a specific order for someone unless you were trying to kiss them or something?" asked Ritsu
"Back then? No, of course not." Said Teru
"See? There. I'm right." Said Ritsu
"So, what? He's taking over the world because he couldn't be together with this guy?" asked Teru
"Yeah. I'd do the same thing." Said Ritsu
"You're….kidding, right? I mean you wouldn't actually try and take over the world…right?" asked Teru. Ritsu had no idea what looked so worried about. Obviously they weren't going to be switching focus towards world domination at this point. Claw was too powerful to challenge them openly like that. They had nine divisions, at least one on every continent but Antarctica. They had thousands of followers and billions of yen…there was no way in hell Ritsu would have been able to take them on. It would have taken him, if he stated right now, at least thirty years to even come close to being able to openly challenge Claw.
Teru really needed to think these things through better.
"Obviously not. That would take at least thirty years, and that's to even begin to challenge Claw openly like that. We don't have a lot of time. You're on the same forums and stuff I am. Claw's been recruiting like crazy. They're getting ready to make their move and we have to make ours…we just have to figure out what our move is even going to be." Said Ritsu. There was so much to plan and he was the only one…he was calm. Of course he was the only one planning, he was the only one who took this seriously. Teru was off in Teru-land most of the time and in Teru land he didn't ever think…not that he was still going to start with Teru about the whole 'sleeping with the enemy' thing. It had happened, it was over, and now they had no choice but to get on with their lives. Ritsu didn't have time to waste on being mad at Teru, he hardly had time to waste at all.
This Suzuki guy…he'd had thirty years to plan all of this…Ritsu didn't think that he had thirty years to take him down….but whatever time he had left he was going to use it well.
"Alright…but if you were going to go all 'dark side' on me, would you tell me?" asked Teru
"This isn't Star Wars." Said Ritsu, rolling his eyes. If he had wanted to be the bad guy then he would have done something bad by now. Teru was so ridiculous sometimes.
"Just answer the question." Said Teru. He was serious…he seriously thought that Ritsu was, what, going to turn on him at some point? Well that was kind of insulting. Ritsu may not have always liked him, but he hadn't always liked a lot of people, and it would have been easier to be with Sho if he just gave himself up…but obviously he wasn't going to just give up on his entire life. Mom and Dad would never have been able to recover, they'd lost one kid already, and Tsubomi needed him….and he wasn't going to betray his best friend!
"You know that I wouldn't. Sure it would be easier to join Claw, I mean I could be with Sho then, but I'd also never see my parents or Reigen or Tsubomi or you again….and also if I did join Claw then I'd have to lead them to you and I would never betray you like that. I mean you're annoying, and you do a lot of dumb stuff, and you think a lot of dumb stuff too but I'd never betray you, Teru." Said Ritsu. He didn't know how Teru even came up with these things. Go dark side, betray him, join Claw…what, had all the hair stuff finally seeped into his brain?
"Ok….sorry. You can just be kind of…intense, sometimes. Kind of scary, actually." Said Teru
"Well that's good then." Said Ritsu
"You freak me out sometimes. You're just very…the ends justify the means…if that makes sense." Said Teru
"The ends do justify the means. I just wish we have more means…but we don't now come on, you wanted to put another tape in so do it. We need to figure out who Suzuki is as a person. If we figure out who he was back then and then we figure out who he is now then…then we can figure him out. Once we know our enemy then we know what we're going to do." Said Ritsu. More means, more people, more….more everything. It all would have been so much easier if they'd just had more of everything…but they didn't. So far the resistance was just the two of them in Ritsu's room trying to figure out how to do psychological warfare on a guy they didn't even know. They needed more time to learn and plan and….and all of that…but they had what they had and Ritsu was going to have to make the best of what he had.
Even if it was muic….annoying, annoying, music.