Archive of Our Own ^beta

Ever since they moved to Mt. Komorebi, there was a special something in the air. The people were friendly. A little too friendly sometimes, but the lock kept them out even when the community council was forcing everyone to get drunk and steal from the garden. Hiratsuka liked it. He could finally poop in a separate room from his bathtub like God intended.

"Hey," he said to Yamachan, who had just slammed the door wide open and was standing in the doorway looking cheerful.

Yamachan walked inside without a word and opened the fridge. It was a big fan of orange juice. It took a glass and sat down thoughtfully at the kitchen table. Hiratsuka watched all this with a benevolent smile on his face. He liked humble celebrities. The type who hid their faces, stayed anonymous, and didn't try to upstage him.

"Yamachan," he explained to Imaoka, who had just taken his phone out for the fifteenth time that minute.

"Yeah," Imaoka said. He had a weird look on his face. He put his phone away and looked at the TV again.

"Always with the orange juice," Hiratsuka said. "Loves that shit."

Imaoka looked at his phone.

"What I like is how you don't know who's inside." Hiratsuka took a few moments to think about Yamachan as the delightful creature got up from the table. This time it took out the ingredients for a white cake, as it was wont to do. If there was one thing Yamachan liked more than orange juice, that was making white cakes.

"I want to move," Imaoka said abruptly.

"What? Back to the city?!"

In their second place in San Myshuno they'd lived through a home invasion nightmare. A strange woman had come into the apartment and started baking cakes. Not only did she refuse to leave, it was physically impossible to even ask her. As she progressed to dropping bag after bag of trash on the floor, both of them had panicked and left on vacation for Mt. Komorebi. When they came back the apartment was empty, but the scars had lingered. They moved soon after, lured by the snow and sights of Mt. Komorebi.

"Not the city, I guess. I'm just sick of all the skiing. Tanigawa says they have a magic tree next to their house."

"Yeah, well, they're both pretty dumb." Imai and Tanigawa lived in Willow Creek and Hiratsuka wasn't actually sure why they were couple-friends or whatever they were. There was like nothing they had in common. He was way cooler than Imai. And Tanigawa was just some short guy who was pathologically obsessed with a total loser. Imaoka was short, but he had good taste in pathological obsessions.

"Imai's really into Juice Fizzing now," Imaoka said. "Tanigawa says they can go right into the tree and get stuff to put in the Fizzing Station."

"See, that's stupid. Just order shit on your phone like the rest of us." Hiratsuka took his phone out to admire it for a few seconds and then put it away. Imaoka also took his own phone out and looked at it.

"The kids are really straining their finances. They don't have the money to order spinach over the phone."

"Skill issue," said Hiratsuka.

Behind them, Yamachan had abandoned the first white cake on the stove and was beginning a new one with the same ever-present smile on its green face.

"I feel like I'm ready to start keeping farm animals," Imaoka said at last. "Like, we're out of stuff to do here, so why not."

"My career," Hiratsuka pointed out. He was still working on those first few million followers. "And there's always Yamachan."

"I'm sick of Yamachan," Imaoka said.

Hiratsuka reeled. "Sick of Yamachan?! My best friend, Yamachan?"

"I'm your best friend."

"Maybe you have the Best Friend status," Hiratsuka said. "But that's only because we're married. Yamachan is the most important presence in my life right now."

Imaoka remained stubborn. "He doesn't leave the room when we have sex. I don't like it."

"You don't leave the room either when we have sex," Hiratsuka said. "Why should Yamachan be held to a different standard? It's hypocritical."

"I don't remember ever seeing him before we moved here. And Tanigawa says they don't have one at their house."

Tanigawa's malign influence seemed to be spreading ever farther. "Yeah, they just have those two demons in their house all the time."

"Those are their kids," Imaoka said.

Again with the double standards. "Is Yamachan not someone's child? Does it not deserve shelter from the storms of life?"

"No," Imaoka said. "It isn't and it doesn't. I wanna move somewhere with more space outside."

"I'm not moving to the damn countryside," Hiratsuka warned him. "I can't stand those people."

"There's this really big house in Del Sol Valley. It has a big yard. We could fit a llama."

That was a different story. All the famous people lived in Del Sol Valley. Hiratsuka pretty much belonged there by rights. He was also famous, just not on the popular radar yet like some people who could afford to buy their way up.

"Well," Hiratsuka said. "I mean, as long as the place is nice."

"I just bought it," Imaoka informed him, putting his phone away and then taking it back out again. Real estate always took way less time than one would expect.

Hiratsuka took a last look around their current house. They only had seconds left here, after all. Yamachan, who had started a third cake while they were talking, seemed unbothered by the conversation. Maybe it wasn't as closely entwined with their lives as it had always seemed.

"Sul sul, Yamachan." Even if everything they owned could come with them, there was a certain sadness to leaving the aesthetic behind.

Yamachan didn't look up from its cake.