A/N: Revised - 23/06/2021. Hi. Here's some warnings(?): lots of swearing, modern-ish slang talk, honourifics, powerful and morally questionable OCs, sexuality explorations, ambiguous relationship dynamics and a prominant crack vibe.

I

"So, apparently, solid black armband tattoos are meant to, like, symbolise mourning or something."

Riku elicits a long, drawn-out sigh as though he's internally questioning his eternal friendship with her and why he ever listens to anything she says. (It's because he doesn't have a choice in the matter, but she's pretty sure he already knows that.)

"For fuck sake, Kou," he deadpans, pushing up his glasses in order to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Who the fuck are we mourning, then? Each other?"

Kou glances down at her right bicep, where three thick bands of solid black have been tattooed onto her pale-ass skin. Despite getting it at the same time as Aoi and Riku, hers is fully healed since her Quirk passively speeds the process along.

"Well, I mean, we could just stick with the original intent and ignore this fascinating tidbit," Kou returns, lifting her arm and admiring the way it calls attention to the definition of her muscles. "Right, Aoi?"

"Yes," Aoi quietly agrees, turning towards her and nodding before returning to his hobby of people watching. Absently, he adjusts the earphone that's about to fall out of his elf ear and she picks out a white bit of fluff that's clinging to his hair. It's been bothering the shit out of her since it's really obvious against the denim blue shade. "There's also the option of saying that we're pre-emptively mourning one another in case any of us die in the future."

Riku makes a face as he leans forward to grab his drink from the table before accurately remarking, "That's fucked."

Which it is. She kind of wants to use it because of that, now. "Plausible, though."

"Yeah, I know that, dipshit," Riku snaps back. "It's just better to stick with the sappy-ass truth behind our fucking tattoos than to tell people we're waiting for one or all of us to die before the age of thirty-five." He elicits a put-upon sigh at this, as if this is such a great burden to his being.

Kou nearly snorts out her fourth cheeseburger at the thought, earning herself a disgusted sneer from her bitchy best buddy-pal. She reciprocates with a smile ̶ also known as 'baring one's upper teeth' because genetics said a permanent smile would be lit ̶ after checking with her tongue that there's nothing stuck between her teeth.

He flicks a french fry at her in hopes that she'll stop with her shit. The joke's on him because she catches it in her mouth and proceeds to steal the rest of his food.

"Bitch," Riku hisses, starting an impromptu staring competition in order to establish dominance.

A poor move, really. She doesn't need to blink as much as he does and he knows that.

However, he's saved from the bitter clutches of inevitable defeat when Aoi interrupts their battle with, "Katsuki also passed the entrance exam, right?"

At the mention of his cousin, Riku's natural frown becomes even more pronounced. "Unsurprisingly," is his eventual answer as he looks to the side. "He came first. No fucking Rescue Points since he's too up his own ass to think of other people." He's quiet again. Then, he sighs and adds, "I managed to tie for second with some other dude, though. What's actually surprising is that Izuku actually managed to place seventh with only Rescue Points."

"Who?" Kou questions, just as her phone vibrates and she pulls it out to check her inbox. She's greeted with the familiar, beloved image of Aoi as her phone screen lights up. Probably going to have to update it with a new photo soon, though.

"Deku," Riku clarifies with a hard sigh. "The dude with the unruly hair and freckled face that Katsuki irrationally abhors because he's an egotistical asshole."

"Ah!" She snaps her fingers in recognition. "That's right. I forgot his actual name. He has the green hair, right?" (Or, well, darker green hair. Riku's hair is lighter ̶ fern green, if she's to be specific, because she knows about the colourful shit ̶ and notably longer despite how often he hides it underneath his hipster beanie. Less curly and all that, too. The tips of his hair spike out against his will and make him look like a taller, tanner, green-haired version of his mother.) "I thought he was Quirkless? Didn't you have to, like, fight giant robots?"

Today, 2:21 pm

Pop Rocks: Bought Kobushi 3. Be here in an hour, bitch. I'm going to fuck you up this time.

Of course, it's Pop Rocks issuing another challenge because he's a salty bitch who can't accept the fact that she's superior at video games. (And just in general, honestly.)

He's really got to do something about his habit of destroying his controllers via sweaty hands of nitro-glycerine or whatever if he ever wants a chance. Not that it'd change much since he also has the tendency of rage-quitting and demanding they take the fight outside. (Because Mitsuki-oba would kick the shit out of him for instigating brawls inside the house. She's done it before.)

Which she obviously doesn't do because his ever-present petulance in regards to her existence gives her life. It's actually, like, part of the reason why she used to only occasionally go on outings with him. He'd almost always cause property damages because she'd dodge his sneak attacks and holding back wasn't in his vocabulary.

He doesn't do that anymore, though, mostly because Mitsuki-oba got up his ass about it and informed him that Naoru-oji was always paying for the damage costs. Now, they can actually hang out in the wild with minimal issues.

"He is, and we did," Riku says, prompting Kou to lift her head and witness him frowning down at his empty burger box like it's done him some kind of personal offence. He does that with most things, actually. (She should buy more food soon or she'll be doing the same thing to her own burger boxes.) "Katsuki was bitching for hours." Leaning back in his seat, he absently scratches his eyebrow with his thumb. Usually a sign of bitch boy bafflement. "I just don't know how the fuck he did it. What kind of fucking heroic deed did he do to get sixty Rescue Points?"

Kou hums, leaning back and bringing up one of her legs onto the seat. Aoi shifts her knee a little to accommodate the change before letting it rest on his thigh. "Maybe he rescued someone from getting crushed by one of the robots? It's bound to happen every so often," she offers after devouring a handful of Aoi's french fries. "Either way, I just had fun listening to Pop Rocks bitch at me about it. He was all like, 'the fuck would UA want with a Quirkless shit stain like him?'"

Her phone vibrates again.

Pop Rocks: Don't fucking ignore me, Head Change.

"You talking to the dickhead, now?"

Kou looks up and blinks at Riku, wondering if he's suddenly developed telepathy or some shit. Then she realises that he's used to her micro expressions and Pop Rocks elicits a rather obvious response. He thinks it's creepy while Aoi thinks it's pretty and she's inclined to agree with both.

"I need to step up my game," she remarks as she types a response before Pop Rocks calls her to bust her eardrums for neglecting him. "At this rate, people are going to figure out all the degenerates I talk to."

Head Change: At the mall with my other best buddy-pals. ( ˙▿˙ )

Guess you just have to wait, bruh.

╮(︶▽︶)╭

Riku snorts. "You should be more worried about what you talk about. You're some kind of fucked."

Aoi tilts his head, then, which is a sure sign of his interest in the conversation. "Naoru says she's doing better," is his input as he slides his gaze from the crowd to Riku. "I have a list of improvements she's made since we were eight, if you're interested."

He actually does. It's adorable, especially since he made it himself instead of copying it off of Naoru-oji. Her blue boy has always enjoyed spending an inordinate amount of time observing the world around them and taking notes. His room is full of shit about random topics, but he keeps the ones about her in the drawers of her side table. It has star stickers all over it.

She loves him. If she spontaneously gets amnesia or something, he'll be around to tell her how many hairs she sheds on average.

Pop Rocks: Hour and a half or I kill you.

Head Change: ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ Practice in the meantime, bestie.

You need it. (¬‿¬ )

Pop Rocks: Fuck off. I'll beat the shit out of you.

And tell that bitch-ass Riku to get more milk. Old hag forgot to get more.

She turns off the screen and pockets her phone as Riku nudges his glasses up to rub his eyes. It's amazing how such a simple gesture can portray how done he is with their shit. "You two are cracked," he mutters, ignoring Aoi's curious head tilt and her chuckling.

"Anyway," Kou starts after a few minutes of companionable silence, beginning to pile together the rubbish on the table onto her tray. "Pop Rocks wants to get fucked in Kobushi Three. You'd think he'd learn by now."

"Fine, might as well," Riku replies. "I still have to call my parents and update them on everything." Which, weird. She's pretty sure Mitsumi-oba and Rin-oji would've called him sometime during or after graduation.

As they collectively stand and make their way to one of the bins, she debates on whether or not she should buy more food before they leave. Kou soon decides that, yes, she should, and her boys obediently line up with her at one of the food vendors.

"They haven't, like, called you recently?" she asks while they wait. Riku glances at her as he casually adjusts the headphones around his neck because he's all cool and shit with his modern hip-hop vibe. She should buy him new ones for his birthday.

He shrugs, placing his other hand in his pants pocket. "They called to congratulate me during our graduation, but they had to go shortly after," he explains, briefly glaring at a stranger that nearly smacks into his shoulder. "Something about the village they were in having bad reception."

She hums. "Makes sense." Shifting on her feet, she shoves her hands into the pockets of her jeans before remembering, "Also, you need to get milk."

Kou laughs when she sees the sheer amount of annoyance that abruptly appears on Riku's face. "Did that dipshit fucking drink it all again?"

. . .

. . .

"I'm back," Riku calls out as he opens the entrance door to the Bakugou home. "Kou and Aoi are here, too, taking up space."

Kou lets Aoi enter first before she steps inside and closes the door behind them. "Are you calling us fat, bruh?" she accuses with a grin, tempted by the idea of flinging her shoes at the back of Riku's knees. She'll have to untie the shoelaces first, though. "Because that would be rude."

She can practically hear the sneer in his voice when he retorts with, "You should be, you pig." Which, true, but fortunately for the lot of them, they're all beautiful, lean muscle. High metabolisms and intense training schedules do that to people. "Fuck, imagine if you were poor. You'd have been dead within the year you were born or some shit." Also true, so hooray for Pro Hero wealth.

It was the main reason why her clan ̶ from, like, six generations back ̶ decided to become Heroes in the first place. Death by starvation isn't fun, after all.

"Naoru would be dead, too," Aoi helpfully contributes as he simply toes his shoes off with little effort. "Then tou-san and I would be irreversibly devastated, so I'm glad we're not struggling via financial issues." She can feel the weight of his ̶ soft but always piercing ̶ gaze on her head as she kneels down to untie her shoelaces. Probably thinking about dark, alternate timelines in which she and Naoru-oji are dead and gone. He's so cute, honestly.

Her response to his statement is interrupted when someone abruptly appears in the foyer. "Yo, Rikuto, welcome back!" greets Mitsuki-oba, adding in an affectionate and loud slap on her nephew's unmarked shoulder. Riku responds with a vaguely irritated grunt, but it's ignored as she instead focuses on her two guests. "And yo, Koukan, Aoi! It's been a while since I've seen the two of you ratbags. How goes the daily life?"

Kou raises a hand and waggles her fingers at the address, while Aoi does the same, though with less enthusiasm in his finger waggling. "Yo, Mitsuki-oba. We've been good. Training and shit, like always," she answers after placing her shoes off to the side and standing back up to her full height. "But Naoru-oji and Yugami-oji have recently been busy with, like, UA preparations. They haven't been able to spend much alone time together, so Aoi and I were like, 'let's all chill before school starts.'"

"Setting them up for a long-awaited date, are you?" Mitsuki-oba grins and gives her a knowing look as Riku silently wanders down the hall to put away the milk and probably chat with Masaru-oji.

"You know it," Kou returns with bared upper teeth and snapping finger guns. "They say it's going to be a busy year, what with All Might becoming a teacher and all. The faculty will have their hands full with getting the media to fuck off."

Technically, All Might's employment to UA is meant to be a secret until school officially starts, but she trusts Mitsuki-oba not to make a fuss. (Her uncles should also stop giving them information that's meant to be a secret, but that'd be lame.)

Mitsuki-oba nods in agreement, folding her arms as she leans against the wall. "I'm not surprised. The media's always been comprised of annoying fucks," she asserts. "It took them three fucking months to get off Katsuki's back after that shitty sludge incident. Praising how powerful his Quirk is; how he should consider these Pro Heroes' offers of hiring him as a Sidekick in the future." Mitsuki-oba scowls, then, baring her teeth and really emphasising how much Pop Rocks takes after her. "Asking shit like, 'what was it like to be held captive and nearly asphyxiated by sentient sewer slime?' The fuck kind of question is that to ask a teenager who's recently gone through a traumatic event?"

Kou and Aoi both tilt their heads in response to the rhetorical question. Controversial and uncomfortable questions to fit a certain narrative are standard for the journalism media, but their guardians are of the opinion they should really fuck off with that shit and go die or something. They're very vocal about it.

So, obviously, Naoru-oji and Yugami-oji have done their best to keep her and Aoi out of the media's eyes. (Especially her. Naoru-oji becomes almost neurotic at the very idea of the world catching wind of her story. The amount of attention the clan received after tou-san's death alone was apparently already intense enough to last a lifetime.)

"Yeah," is Kou's eventual reply. "They're not really the most sensitive of people," she adds, putting her hands in her pockets and shifting her weight onto her other foot. "Interesting narratives override respecting boundaries and all. Not that I can really say shit since being an insensitive dickhead is, like, my way of life."

Life's more fulfilling when one gives very little shits about what society wants from them. It's also more interesting when there's a bitch boy called Pop Rocks around to be constantly shat on.

Mitsuki-oba lets out an uproarious laugh at that, even pushing off the wall to smack Kou's shoulder. "You crack me up, you little turd," she huffs, reaching up to ruffle both of their hair while also deftly avoiding Aoi's horns with a practised sort of ease. Cutting herself on the tips the first time she tried probably left an impression. They're pretty sharp.

He could honestly impale someone with them if he really wants to. Not that he'd ever try unless she asks him to. (A tempting thought, but it'd upset him and that'd be terrible.)

Just as Mitsuki-oba opens her mouth to say something else, the sound of a door abruptly busting open and thudding into the wall from upstairs interrupts her. The look of offended aggravation that immediately takes over her face is something Kou will never tire of, mostly because of the uncanny resemblance to her bitch boys.

"Oi, you fuckin' hag!" calls Pop Rocks, his footfalls impressively loud as he makes his way to the top of the staircase. "Stop wastin' Head Change's time, she's got other shit like losin' to me to do!"

Mitsuki-oba whirls around so quickly that a wave of air whips both Kou and Aoi in the face. "The fuck did you just say, you little shit?! Learn some fucking patience, or I'll come up there and beat your ass!"

"Fuckin' try it! I'll punch you in the goddamn tit, bitch!"

"Hah?! You scum fuck!"

Aoi covers his mouth and yawns, unruffled as always. "Are we staying for dinner?" he asks Kou as the bickering continues in the background. "It might give Naoru and tou-san the chance to have a dinner date."

She hums in consideration, scratching at an itch behind her ear as she appreciates the rambunctious atmosphere of the Bakugou household. "Yeah, that'd be good. Hey, Mitsuki-oba, you mind if we stay for dinner?" She has to raise her voice a little to be heard since these two can go off for days.

Mitsuki-oba's ill-tempered behaviour completely shifts into something less, 'I'll kill you with my high-heel, damn cockroach,' and more, 'shit's lit, fam, I'm down,' in less than a second. "Of course!" she exclaims, as if the whole concept of asking her for permission is silly. At this point, it probably is. "It's good timing, actually. Bought a lot of groceries today, so we should have enough to satisfy you. For a little while, at least."

That's wrong. She's never satisfied and she's about to say as much when Pop Rocks finally makes an appearance by stomping down the stairs to bestow upon them his magnificent glare of doom and, "The fuck? You know she eats like a fuckin' gobbler, hoe."

Kou laughs as his mother wastes no time to smack the back of his head. "Manners, fuckmunch! I'll shove soap in your fucking mouth, you know I will!"

"Go die in a hole, shitty thot!"

"Kou doesn't make noise when she eats, though," Aoi murmurs, more to himself than to Pop Rocks because the latter, for the most part, ignores the former's existence. Then, with a speculative head tilt that's endearing as fuck, he asks, "Or was it a figure of speech?"

With an amused smile, she pats his back as an implication that they start migrating upstairs. "It'll remain a mystery of the world," Kou teases before flicking Pop Rocks in the temple when she's close enough. He scowls at her, baring his teeth like a wild animal and attempting to painfully smack away her hand. He fails, of course. "C'mon, plebeian. You have to lose, like, fifteen times before we do any of that good dining shit."

"I don't have to do shit, you fuck," he retorts, disengaging from his mother ̶ who encourages the losing shebang with a toothy grin ̶ to engage with Kou instead. It's a little hard when he has to follow her up the stairs, though. "And the fuck is that shit on your bicep?"

She glances over her shoulder to find him glaring at her new tattoo as if it's both offensive and perplexing. "A tattoo, Pop Rocks," she drawls, her tone fond but patronising. (As it usually is whenever he's involved.) In response, he clicks his tongue and shoves her further up the stairs, prompting Aoi to teleport the rest of the way up lest she accidentally trips into him.

"I fuckin' know what it is, fuckface," Pop Rocks snarks as she chuckles, shoving his way past her when they reach the top of the stairs and making his way to his room. "I'm askin' why you and Blue Balls are both matchin' with Riku's shitty ink."

Following him into his space, she's once again reminded of how neat it is in comparison to her own room. So, to mess up the status quo, Kou dumps her bag by the foot of his bed and practically dives onto the mattress. "Celebratory tattoos for us all getting into UA because badassery and the Power of Friendship," she summarises, rolling around to mess up the covers and hearing him growl like some kind of territorial mutt. "You want to, like, get a matching tattoo, too, bruh?"

Aoi soon joins her, moving her legs out of the way to sit with his back against the wall. After gently putting her legs over his lap, he pulls out his phone to presumably text Yugami-oji about their plans.

Pop Rocks practically slams into his desk chair before setting up the TV and game console. "Nah, fuck off," he scoffs, carelessly tossing the second controller over his shoulder. She instinctively catches it before it can smack her in the face. "And you two got fuckin' recommended, how's that badass?"

"Since there's a large number of recommendations every year, there are evaluation tests to weed through the candidates that are just trying to get in through pure nepotism," Aoi explains, though his gaze is glued to his phone. "We've been evaluated and approved, although I'm not sure if that qualifies as badass."

She's pretty sure Naoru-oji has said before that there are six recommended students this year, which is two more than the standard. There have been some exceptions over the years, though, so it's not too unusual.

The main thing is that Shouto was recommended. They didn't take the exam on the same day, but he told her in one of his texts that he passed.

"Tch, whatever." Pop Rocks skips through the opening sequence of the game and immediately goes into the offline PVP mode when the menu shows up. "Not like it fuckin' matters. I'm goin' to crush you and everyone else there! Just fuckin' wait!"

Kou hums, rolling around until her head's near the edge of the bed. Even from an upside-down angle, the resolute expression contorting his face is still mad intense. The whole, like, weirdly severe ambition to become the 'best fuckin' Hero there ever was' is probably one of his best traits, honestly. Hidden depth and nuance beneath his bitch baby personality makes him very entertaining.

She'll never really get it, though. What is it about heroism that makes people all obsessive?

"And yet you still can't beat me at video games," Kou goads. "I thought a Hero was supposed to win at, like, everything, man. Off to a bad start, aren't we?"

"Do you wanna fuckin' go, Head Change?! I'll beat you into the fuckin' ground!"

"You're the one who hasn't picked a character yet, fam."

. . .

. . .

"We're home. I hope you're both dressed because we don't need to see such filth," Kou announces as she practically slams the door open just to be a little extra. Having dinner with the Bakugou family always energises her.

The dysfunctionality is great. So is the food.

Aoi calmly walks past her, blank-faced and serene because someone could be dying in front of him and he would barely bat an eye. No, wait, that's more her thing. He'd probably panic a little, maybe blink a few times before taking action.

"Kou, baby, you know we're gorgeous," Naoru-oji immediately responds from further down the hall. Which, like, he's right, but they're still her uncles and she'd rather not. A loud, dramatic sigh sounds out and is then followed by, "I suppose I'll just eat the portion of food that I graciously saved for you, then. Why do we house such a fiend, Yu?"

Kou smiles as she makes way down the hall to get to the courtyard with Aoi in tow. She hears the soft clink of a mug before, "Would you prefer that we send her to your father or her mother's place? Both are in different prefectures, however."

Aoi and Naoru-oji simultaneously declare, "No," while she instead opts to go with, "Wow, rude. Here I thought you loved me."

Her uncles turn to greet her and her blue boy as they make the trek from the courtyard to the patio and then to the kitchen. (Is their house too fucking big for four people? Definitely. It's great.)

Yugami-oji smiles ̶ or smirks, either or ̶ as he takes another sip of his tea, looking all classy and shit as he leans against the island counter. (One day, she's going to get Aoi to shed his leather jacket rock star vibe for a day and make him look snazzy as fuck like his father.) "Did you have fun annoying Rikuto's cousin?" he inquires, his smile widening slightly when Naoru-oji chuckles from his place at the other side of the counter.

Where the food is in a real danger of being stolen by him.

With a confirming hum, Kou beelines for one of the stools while Aoi goes for the fridge to put away the Coke they've bought on the way home.

"Always, man," she returns, grabbing the nearest plate of steak and dragging it closer to her.

"He bought a new game," Aoi elaborates, rummaging through the fridge until he finds strawberries. "I think it was another attempt to one-up Kou by learning the controls and movesets before she could." Closing the fridge door, he teleports to the stool next to her and sets down the container of strawberries on the counter. "He has to buy another controller again, so his efforts seem to be in vain."

She always offers to buy another one for him, both out of sincerity and because he always declares that he 'doesn't need her fuckin' pity.' In her opinion, he does. Who knows how much more inflated his ego would be if they never met?

"You two have fun?" she questions after salting her steak with pink Himalayan salt since she's feeling fancy.

The two in question glance at each other, sharing soft smiles and mushy shimmers in their eyes. (One might think it weird how emotive eyes with black sclera, white irises and invisible pupils can be. But it works, somehow, on both Yugami-oji and Aoi. Shit's adorable, man.) It's kind of fucking weird to witness. Cute, but weird. Might be because Kou wouldn't be able replicate the mushy eye shimmer thing even if her life depended on it.

"We did," Naoru-oji confirms with a smile, his face brightening to threatening levels and subsequently ruining the moment by making a grab for one of her plates. It's by instinct that she manages to smack his hand away and bare all her teeth at him in warning. Intimidating smiles and all that, since attempting to frown actually kind of hurts. (According to Riku, having all her teeth on display is ungodly and worthy of an exorcism or two.) Naoru-oji laughs, unbothered. "Ooh, I was close. Maybe we should rethink the whole 'week off' idea."

"Well, I mean, like, we're still going to do at least one training session a day, though?" Kou responds with an uncertain squint, looking down at her food and soon opting to go with utensils rather than just slamming her face into it. "I'd say it's not much of a week off, but that might just be me."

Aoi hums as he inspects a strawberry for imperfections. "It's not," he agrees, deeming said fruit worthy of consumption. "Tou-san and Naoru still have to go to work and we will still train at some point each day. Should we invite Riku and Katsuki since it won't be so strict?"

"Riku, yeah. Pop Rocks would fuck up our courtyard again." It's been years since that day, but it's made everyone realise that Kou just brings out some feral energy within Pop Rocks during training and that maybe they just shouldn't train together all that often.

God, he's such a destructive little fuck. She loves him.

Yugami-oji chuckles as Naoru-oji sighs in fond exasperation. "In other news," the latter starts, walking around the island counter until he's standing beside his husband and across from her. "Have you heard from your brother, Kou?"

Kou blinks and she feels Aoi go still from her side. "Uh, no?" He's been rebuffing her existence for years and she doesn't really give a shit about converting him to her side. (Not that she can't, like, deal with his personality. Pop Rocks and Riku aren't the most welcoming of people, after all.) Even their mother's given up since the mandatory birthday meetup's been going awry for the past six years. Good times.

"He's not very fond of us, Naoru," Aoi supplies, his body purposefully relaxing. Poor baby. "Is there much of a point when it's clear he doesn't want to associate with us?"

"He made it into UA," Naoru-oji reveals, leaning forward and shifting into his whole therapist mode. She stares at him, finding great satisfaction in the meat but little in the abrupt turn of conversation. Mainly because it makes Aoi uncomfortable. "Maybe this can be a personal assignment for the two of you, you know? To reconnect with him now that you'll all be going to school together."

A drawn-out sigh escapes her. She gets the whole, 're-acclimating to general life and shit,' but she still finds it difficult to actually care about every aspect. She tries, of course ̶ minimal effort still counts ̶ but it's, like, mad inconvenient. Especially when she lives with her own psychotherapist and he can check in on her at any time.

Aoi seems to be even more vexed than she is, probably because he's not usually meant to participate. Although, it would make sense since those two have some kind of mutual dislike. Which is significant because it's Aoi and he rarely dislikes anyone. Most of the time, he's entirely indifferent if he's not objectively curious. (Except for tou-san. He'll abhor tou-san for even in death and she can't really blame him.)

"If that's what you want," Kou acquiesces as she gnaws at her food.

Her best buddy-pal elicits a soft sigh before he, too, accepts his fate. "I'll try, too. But why is it necessary for the both of us?" Because there's always a reason for these little assignments. Always something that's meant to 'open her ̶ and Aoi's, this time around ̶ eyes' in some way. It doesn't always work ̶ Kou's high-key some kind of twisted ̶ so they keep coming back to certain bits that just refuse to stick. Aoi's clearly aware of this.

Yugami-oji sighs in relief while Naoru-oji's smile widens. "Kou's is obvious, but you, Aoi," Naoru-oji gestures at Aoi's torso, "need to sort out the hostility that you boys feel towards each other." He then waves a dismissive hand. "Just, get to know him as a person. Figure out why he wants to be a Hero; why he dislikes you two ̶ and us, by extension ̶ so much. I'm sure that the three of you will come to an understanding if you make an effort. All right?"

Aoi's sulking, she can tell. His demeanour and face barely change, but they've been together so long she's fairly sure they can sense each other's aura or some shit. She rubs his back to comfort him, which always works in getting him to relax.

"Fuck it, whatever. We'll assault him with the Power of Friendship and Family when we can."

Or whenever she can be bothered. Either or.

I

A/N: Sporadic updates because what even are schedules? Also, thanks to my beta, Senior Coq-on-Face the Third, for always indulging my trash fire ideas.

Reviews are love. Reviews are life. It's never ogre. Thank you for reading.