So here's the thing: Takao's birthday is on Wednesday. It is currently one dreary Monday morning—okay, no, it's sunny and bright out but shut up, that just serves to depress Takao more and he has decided he's going to be in denial of anything that would normally equal to happiness and joy if he didn't have it wasn't for him having to go to school for the rest of the summer, so there. Anyway, it's a dreary and grey Monday morning (shut up) and Takao has exactly 48 hours to find a way to make it so that on Wednesday afternoon, the evening of his birthday, Kai Hiwatari does not end up in his house so they can work on a school project. Really, it's a dreadful scenario all around. As in, for both Kai and himself. He's basically doing the guy a favor!

No one should ever have to taste Gramps's cake. No one.

Okay, mostly he doesn't want to work on something school related on his birthday, especially not with Kai. The guy always looks two seconds away for murdering him, and shock: Takao does not actually want to die that much. Or that often.

Or at least not on his birthday okay shut up. Shut up. Shut up!

"Hey little dude, you gonna be screaming at yourself all morning or are you gonna head out to class already?" Takao's grandpa interrupts his thoughts.

Woops. He has got to stop thinking aloud.

"In a minute, gramps! Can't you see I'm busy? I'm in the middle of a personal crisis here!" Takao yells back, because. You know. It's true! It is a matter of life and death. Or, more accurately, it's a matter of life and working on his birthday. It's a totally heinous concept. … Man Takao hopes heinous means awful. It would be so awkward if it ended up meaning like, "awesome and exciting!" or something. Regardless! Takao needs to come up with a plan ASAP, before he suddenly wakes up on Wednesday and yells OH NO I DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING and then his birthday is ruined. Forever. (Or, well. Ruined more than it already is.

Thank you, absent friends and family. Thank you. You are the light of Takao's empty and miserable life.)

Takao looks shiftily around him as he contemplates that possibility. If this was a bad story, this would be the moment where the scene would cut abruptly and he'd wake up on Wednesday having done nothing and screaming what he'd just considered the absolute worst case scenario. Luckily for Takao, his life is not a bad story, so that's not gonna happen.

Probably a mediocre one though.

Boo to that thought. Just because Takao's life isn't exciting and that he has accomplished all of nothing in his life (except, apparently, being the stupidest student in all of Bey City, which it turns out is not an accomplishment at all) doesn't mean his life would be a mediocre story. Why, Kai and Tao's presence probably make it a …

A terrible one.

Takao hates his life.

"Stop contemplating your life and get moving before you're late, yo! Otherwise it's another three hours of practice after school!"

Oh god no.

"Alright, alright, I'm going! Way to be a dictator, gramps, sheesh! It's not like the teacher even realizes I'm there or not, which is kind of magic and awful, considering there's only two of us in there!" Takao yells back, hastily putting his cap on his head and grabbing his backpack. Uuuugh. Heavy. He wrenches open his bedroom door and screams in terror when he comes face to face with his grandpa's shinai.

Why is everyone determined to kill him?

"Keep the stories for the kids, T-man, and get going!" Gramps threatens him and Takao just. Stares.

Here is the scoop: his grandpa doesn't believe any of the things Takao has told him about summer school yet. He thinks he's exaggerating, which is totally insulting. Like Takao would ever exaggerate about anything.

All examples of Takao exaggerating will be hereby removed from everyone's collective memories, past, present and future. Shut up. It's not like a little drama has ever killed anybody. Unlike blatant distrust. What if a vampire attacks and Gramps thinks Takao is crazy and ignores him like all the parents do in horror movies? And why does no one ever believe the kids in those movies anyway? You'd think someone would be genre savvy enough to go "okay everyone go in the van we're getting the heck out of here". Yes. Gramps should be that guy. Girl. Person. Then he'd believe Takao when he said the truth, even if it sounds a little far-fetched and stupid. Takao admits it himself! Being only two students in summer school, with a tiny insane and drunk teacher is kind of ridiculous. Like, a lot ridiculous. But does that mean his grandfather should be totally dubious about it? No!

What is so ridiculous about all that anyway, Takao's grandfather likes to rap in his spare time. He should have no trouble whatsoever having a little suspension of disbelief. Takao basically has to live on suspension of disbelief, since his life is ridiculous and makes no sense.

Takao is starting to think the word ridiculous holds no meaning but Seiryuu knows it is incredibly fun to say. Heh.

Takao is suddenly brought out of his reverie by a sharp whack against his head that sends him reeling to the floor.

The pain. The absolute pain.

"Why," Takao bemoans to no one in particular, "Why is everyone around me so violent."

"You're dreaming wide-awake! I had to get your head back from the clouds!" Grandpa tells him, all the while gesturing with his shinai, AKA his object of absolute evil. Takao glares at it warily before getting up.

"This is child abuse, you know," Takao declares dramatically.

Grandpa points at him with the shinai and Takao jumps about three feet backwards. That is just proving his point!

"Nonsense. It's called 'tough love' for a reason! Now stop dallying and get your butt to school!"

Why is he so hard on Takao to go to school? It's not like it can be that late, right? A glance at the clock tells him it totally is. Damn it, he's gonna have to run all the way to school now! What did he waste so much time on anyway?

Oh right, trying to find a plan to keep Kai from coming over Wednesday. … DAMN IT.

Whatever, Takao thinks as he runs out the door with a piece of bread in his mouth (breakfast of … very late champions), he'll think of something during class. How hard can it even be to find one lousy excuse?

~o~o~o~o~o~

The answer, it turns out, is really, really hard.

Takao gets to class the second the bell rings, and reflex has him yelling out a drawn out "saaaaaaafe" as he slides into the room. Of course, since the only one there to appreciate his awesome entrance is Kai, he is greeted by utter silence and crushing disappointment. Then he realizes he actually sorta misses regular school and vows to kill himself for that fleeting feeling the second he remembers to carry out his planned suicide. All ten million of them. He flops down on his chair with the sigh of the dying, partly out of drama and partly because he is about to die of exhaustion for real, oh god how did he run all the way here all the time in middle school? It feels like forever ago.

Forever has thereby been redubbed "like almost a whole month ago".

Has Takao said shut up yet? Shut up.

Tao usually gets to class either ten minutes before or ten minutes after the bell, for some bizarre reason Takao really doesn't want to think about, so he decides to spend the next blessed ten Tao-free minutes to come up with A Plan. Capital letters needed to emphasize how very important the Plan is to Takao's life. He turns to stare at Kai (for inspiration! … and, okay, maybe a little bit for the hell of it) and does a double-take when he notices that for once Kai is staring right back at him.

You know, instead of looking out the window obsessively. Takao maintains that that window cannot possibly be that interesting. No window is.

"Uh, hi," Takao says dumbly after an entire minute of what can only be described as a staring contest. Takao is usually pretty boss at those, but it's Kai, so. Yeah. Takao likes his soul intact, okay.

No, shut up, Kai totally steals souls with his deep piercing gaze. Probably.

Kai stares back at him for a while, leaving Takao to try to decipher the meaning behind his eyebrows. And his stare, but he's already established it's probably a soul stealing method, so whatever, eyebrows time. They are very angular eyebrows. Almost… triangular.

Takao really needs a nap if he's making puns based on geometry this early in the morning, wow.

"Where do you live?" Kai finally bites out, looking like he swallowed a lemon. Uh. Okay then. Apparently he was gathering up the will to … bring himself to stalk Takao?

"You can't come kill me at home, gramps'll be really mad about the mess," Takao replies dumbly and only then realizes it just might have to do with the project thing. And not, you know, Kai planning on murdering him to death. That makes a lot more sense, yes. Ha ha ha ha stupid stupid dumb. Kai stares at him like he shares Takao's current train of thoughts. Takao mentally tells him to go take a hike, it's like eight am he is allowed to be slow on the uptake. Then he vaguely hopes that Kai can't read minds, otherwise he'll forget about the project and go with the murder option instead. That option sucks.

"Haha kidding!" Takao laughs out forcefully, a strained smile on his face as he rubs the back of his head. "It was a joke. I totally knew you meant to ask for the project… thingy. Yep."

Takao probably needs to learn how to lie more convincingly. That's what Kai's exceedingly dubious eyebrow raise is telling him, at least. Man. Those eyebrows. It's like they tell a story of their own.

(Not really. They mostly tell the story of how incredibly bored and easily distracted Takao can be. Shut. Up.)

"I wish I'd asked because I wanted to tell the 'Sharks to come stab you in the middle of the night," Kai mumbles under his breath, running a hand over his face in what seems to be epic depression. A lot of people get that when they talk to Takao at eight am. Including Takao himself. Man he hates Mondays. More importantly, though, did Kai just… talk about sharks stabbing him in the night? What? Sharks so can't hold knives, how the heck would they even stab him? Plus. You know. Sharks can't walk. It's kind of an overall very silly notion. And worrying in its murderousness. Is that even a word? It is now. Shut up. Kai takes a breath and continues louder, meaning Takao guesses he wasn't meant to hear the part about sharks murdering him in the night (or maybe just stabbing for minor damage? Who knows how that guy works, honestly!): "Do you want to work on it this week or not? Since you volunteered your place yesterday."

Okay, honestly, Takao had been starting to hope yesterday was a fever-induced dream. Mostly because Kai seems to not be suffering at all from the gushing head wound he'd received yesterday. … But also because, you know, Takao has been hoping his entire summer has been naught but a fever-induced dream-slash-nightmare-slash-very stupid joke since he'd first met Tao, so. Whatever. He is used to having his hopes dashed over and over again. His life just sucks like that.

Also he gets his hopes up about the stupidest thing, but you know what? Shut up. Shut up is what.

"Of course I meant what I said!" Takao exclaims with a lot more outrage than he has any right to feel considering he's still in the middle of trying to find a way for Kai to not come over on Wednesday. "We had a deal, right? So we'll work on it this week and be so badass at psychological research that we'll finish it this week, too! Even if we have to work every single day of the week together."

What the hell is he saying this is the opposite of what he wants? No! Bad mouth! Stop stringing words together in order to impress Kai! The worst is he doesn't even look impressed, just judgmental. As always. It is awful and how will he come up with an excuse for Wednesday now that he's said that? Takao refuses to be that obvious and blatant a liar. Or hypocrite. Why did no one ever teach him to think before he speaks?

The number of times people have told him to think before he speaks will thereby be ignored and filed away under "shut up", as usual.

Today's shut up folder is pretty huge.

"How about we start it first," Kai deadpans in answer. "We can figure out a schedule after that. Besides, unlike you, I actually have a life. I don't have infinite free time."

Takao stares. "There's no way I'm going to believe you have a social life," he answers without thinking, then deeply regrets it. Again. What is wrong with him today?

(All days, yeah, yeah, he said shut up.)

Kai glares at him and Takao holds his hands up in surrender. "Kidding, kidding! Sheesh, don't burn my face off," he backpedals quickly, trying to think of a way to smooth things over. Unfortunately Takao has never really been any good at tact and he grasps at vague and awful ideas for far too long before going with: "Okay, big shot, when are you free?"

This is the opposite of what he wanted to sound like. It's not Takao's fault, okay, being brash is kind of his default setting. Personally he blames his brother, who is basically a giant douche and clearly rubbed off on him before leaving forever on a quest to like… dig up dirt or whatever it was.

(Archeology is boring okay boring. Shut up. Forever.)

Luckily for Takao though, Kai only rolls his eyes at his defensive tone. He then throws a look towards the door before turning back to stare at Takao seriously. It's kind of freaky. Also, he looks totally judgmental, but at this point in their relationship (… yeah okay it's more of an acquaintanceship at best but that sounds seriously dumb, so guess what? Yeah! You guessed it! Shut up!) Takao is coming to expect that. All the time, even, which is unfair, because even though Takao is a bit special (shut uuuuup) and crazy and mildly suicidal at times (he just has a tendency to make awful choices and judgment calls, okay, shuuuuuut up), Kai is actually even more screwed up. He's violent and temperamental and … kind of a total rebellious slob. (Heh, that sounds good. Takao's got to remember to pull that one out to Kai's face sometime. When he's fairly certain he's not going to get kicked in the knee for it. He remembers that, okay! It seriously hurt!) On top of all that, yesterday proved that Kai is actually probably even more suicidal than Takao, because when Takao's bleeding he likes to get it checked, unless someone else who is probably hiding a hideous scar underneath his stupid bangs. Yes. That is definitely a thing Takao's going to check out sometime.

"Tomorrow," Kai speaks up, breaking Takao out of his reverie. "Unless you've got something better to do?"

Kai has really awful dialogue sometimes. Maybe that's why he doesn't speak much. Because when he does he ends up sounding like a cliché from bad shonen anime. Takao would know; he watches like, all of them. They are so great.

There's no oxymoron in the previous two sentences, shut up.

…What does oxymoron even mean. Takao doesn't know. Man he hopes what he just thought made sense. He hates when what he says doesn't make sense. People just look at him weird. Everyone's a critic.

"Nope! I'm free to be your tortured slave, o grand lord Kai," Takao answers what he thinks is obviously the best comeback ever. Grand lord Kai. Ha. Let's see him recover from that sick burn!

Kai stares at him in complete disbelief for a while before slowly turning back to the window. "Do everyone a favor and never talk again," he deadpans to the window. Ugh. See? What did Takao say? Critic!

(Admittedly, now that he thinks about it, "grand lord Kai" and "I will be free to be your slave" are a) terrible and b) make no sense damn it he did it again. Shut up okay he never thought that was the greatest comeback ever. Obviously.)

"Oh yeah? Well, you should shut up!"

Kai predictably doesn't even dignify that with an answer. Takao pretends for a few seconds that that means he's listening to him instead of what he is actually doing, which is blatantly ignoring Takao's stupidity and mentally communicating with seagulls. (… Maybe not that last part. But there's got to be a reason he looks out the window so much, and so far all the options that seem plausible are "Kai is wishing for freedom", which, yeah right, and "Kai is trying to learn to telepathically communicate with seagulls so he can control them and make them eat Takao's eyeballs like the crows in that creepy campy horror movie he watched recently.

What is he even thinking about shut up.)

Takao gets the faintest impression he's abused the words shut up a lot today, and it's not even nine am. Hrm. It's probably just his imagination.

"Look, let's just go to my place after school tomorrow and deal with it as fast as we can without anyone being sarcastic or abrasive, how about that?" Takao huffs out after a while of uncomfortable and tense silence. Man, it's almost making him miss Tao.

Keyword being: almost. He's not that far-off gone yet.

"But if I can't sass you, how will I live," Kai mumbles against his palm without intonation.

"I heard that," Takao interjects, and pretends it wasn't even a little bit funny. Because it wasn't. Shut up, he isn't even fighting down a chuckle or anything. "Ugh! Fine! You can sass and sarcasm at me all you like, but that means I get to say whatever I want to too, and we are going to pretend we can work together peacefully! Which means no matter what happens tomorrow, you can't kill me! Deal?"

This speech seemed a better idea five seconds ago before it left his mouth. Blech.

Kai looks at him with a half sneer and a half put upon look (how does that even work what how does his face do that it's like magic if magic was awful and terrifying, and it might be, how would Takao even know, ugh, shut up, brain, now is not the time) before grunting out a 'deal' and going back to … seagull watching, or whatever.

"Great," Takao says passive-aggressively in the silence.

If Kai wasn't so busy being dramatic and grumpy, he would probably answer with a passive-aggressive "great" himself. It would be just like the movies. You know. The bad ones. Luckily (or… unluckily, actually, shut up Takao likes those movies they are awesome) he doesn't, and Takao is left staring awkwardly at him before he turns away himself with a huff.

"Fine, tomorrow then," he mumbles. Whatever.

His sulking is then ruined when he is (once again) shocked into jumping out of his seat by Tao, who says it's great to see his too little bumblebuddies (what) getting along so swimmingly, like actual bumblebuddies. Takao can't even be bothered to point out that bumblebuddies are not things that exist (at least, he is ninety percent sure of it anyway) or to whine that one day, one day he will find the logic in Tao's magical appearances into the classroom. Instead he just sort of gives up and lies on the floor. Maybe he might be better off listening to his suicidal impulses. Life is not worth this much trouble. And pain, because when he jumped and fell out of his chair he kind of fell unto Kai's desk. This is definitely the last time he sits next to the guy. Just ow. Kai just glares at him for daring to approach his space or … whatever reason Kai would have to glare at him for his own pain.

(There are so many reasons, probably, but whatever it's Kai. Takao doesn't care. At all.)

"Hmm, bumblebuddies are far better possums than you, however," Tao points out serenely.

You know what? Takao … doesn't … even care … anymore. He doesn't. He just stays right where he is and completely ignores everything. Ugh, whatever, it's not like today can get any worse. At least the birthday thing is taken care of.

Shut up, it's totally progress. Yep.

~o~o~o~o~o~

Takao gets home after blatantly ignoring Kai around the riverbank (yeah that guy sure leads a busy life alright) with a spring in his step regardless of how full of bruises he is, because guess what? Yes, that's right, Takao gets to not have anyone over for his birthday, oh yeah.

This would usually be a bad thing, but Kai is not the kind of people Takao invites to his birthday parties. For one thing, they usually don't seem to be heavily considering choking him to death in all their interactions. For another, they are … you know, actually his friends. So. Since Takao's friends are currently unavailable, just like Takao's family members (thanks, Dad, and no he's not over that yet shut up leave him be a typical teenager until his resolve dies when he sees his dad come back and he flying tackle hugs him as usual), he is going to celebrate by being completely lazy and useless and not eat grandpa's cake Wednesday. It will be a grand day. Believe it.

Wow, okay, that was incredibly lame. Takao resolves never to think that phrase ever again.

"Graaaaaamps, I'm hoooooome," Takao announces when he steps inside the dojo, taking off his shoes and throwing his bag in the general direction of … somewhere, who cares, he's not going to bother to do any schoolwork tonight anyway. As usual. (Reason number 413 why Takao failed middle school, check!)

He is answered by complete and total silence, which probably means his grandpa's busy in the dojo or something. Excellent. Now no one can force him to do chores. Takao prepares himself to sneak into his room and construct Fort Naptime And Fans gleefully. (Fort naptime is what he and Max usually call Takao's bed on sleepovers, and the fans… well, it's summer.) Unfortunately, his hopes and dreams are dashed by the sudden appearance of his grandpa in his face.

Predictably, Takao yells out in shock. "What is with you guys and never making noises when you show up!"

He is going to die of a heart attack before even reaching sixteen, something is definitely wrong with the people around him. Especially the old people.

"How many times have I told you, little dude? You gotta have constant vigilance and keep your guard up at all times!" Gramps answers him, hands on his hip. Takao thinks for a second and narrows his eyes accusingly when he realizes his grandfather is quoting Harry Potter at him. Those are books for kids, he has no right to go into Takao's personal collection like that! Especially since it's in his room, geez, can't a guy ask for a little privacy? He opens his mouth to point all this out but is stopped by his gramps continued shpiel. Talk about rude! "Now, how many of your pals are coming over tomorrow?"

Takao stares blankly at his grandpa. How does he know about Kai that is some freaky mind voodoo right there. "Uh… just… the one," he responds slowly. Then he thinks, as loudly as he can in his own head (how do you even think loudly, how does that work, whatever shut up Takao is totally doing it): Grandpa can you read my mind do you have my grandson is going to get killed senses because if that's the case they are totally defective, you suck!

Predictably, his grandpa doesn't even bat an eye and ruins his conspiracy theory of mind voodoo powers.

"That's all? It's not gonna be much of a party with only two kids," his gramps says instead. "The other little dudes are still off, huh? Too bad. You coulda had one awesome themed party this year."

Takao is officially even more lost than usual. (Which totally isn't a hard thing to achieve, shut up.)

"Gramps, what are you talking about? I'm working on a project tomorrow with the only other guy in summer school," Takao stresses the last part in the vain hope his grandpa will one day believe it. Unlikely. "And then Wednesday, which is my birthday, I am going to sleep, sleep and sleep some more because there's not going to be any party."

Takao's grandfather stares at him for a while and then shakes his head. "You got the dates mixed up, yo! Your birthday's tomorrow."

W…h…a…t.

"No it's not, stop being senile!" Takao objects. Loudly. And not at all panicking oh shit could it really be tomorrow? Seiryuu help him if it's true. "Today we are the day before my birthday, which is the—"

Takao fumbles for the date for a few seconds before giving up and marching towards the nearest calendar, hung uselessly close to the door. There is one in every room of the dojo. Hitoshi gives the worst souvenirs. Who needs this many calendars? Nobody, that's who. Still, for once Takao is glad for the over-abundance of calendars here, because he can look at the date and point out how wrong his grandpa is and then go pass out in his room like he wanted.

Let's see, it's right …

Here…

…

Oh.

You know what? Just. Just shut up.

Shut up.

Shut up.

Takao wants to die.

"Grandpa why didn't you tell me my birthday was tomorrow," Takao wails in despair.

"Little dude, if I'd have known you needed more calendars around, I'd have talked to Hitoshi about your next birthday present."

"…Shut up, Gramps."

Everything is awful. Everything.

Speaking of awful things: this chapter woops?

So I know I said this chapter was going to be celebrating Takao's birthday, but then I realized that I'd counted wrong and my proper parallel means that it should happen later, and I was like oh god I have no chapter plan. What was I to do? It was a dark time. I didn't know what to do. I had failed my own timing.

And so I decided to talk about the story of the time Takao said shut up a lot, I guess. Also why Kai would even go to Takao's place on his birthday, considering at this point in time both boys would be so against that plan. So, so against it. Of course, they have now made a commitment, so... Insert evil laughter here, or some such.

I DON'T KNOW IT HASN'T YET BEEN A MONTH SINCE THE LAST YOPH CHAPTER ISN'T THAT GREAT? IT'S GREAT...

I am the worst, wow. Welp, at least the next few chapters have an actual planned outline. And a running gag that isn't just "oh my god, shut up".

Hope you enjoyed it,

-Zia