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Bocchi wakes up the whole block screaming at midnight.
It isn't often that Bocchi screams. In the event that she does, Ryo finds it's usually for two reasons. One: she is 𝓼𝓬𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓶𝓲𝓷𝓰~, or two: she is legitimately getting murdered. Seeing how Nijika springs up and stomps out their bedroom like a soldier at war, Ryo quickly recognizes it was the latter.
Ikuyo, after taking a moment to garner her bearings, shakes her head sleepily and wordlessly follows her. Ryo closes eyes and wonders if she's awake enough to become a final girl, but Bocchi screams again and she becomes curious enough to leave her warm air mattress. A shame, really.
“Bocchi-chan,” Nijika coos, rubbing her shoulders in an attempt to calm her. It isn't working well, seeing how Bocchi’s staring at the walls as if they are sprawled with mind breaking hieroglyphics. “Try and calm down with me.”
“No, there– There was vermin,” She shakes, blown out pupils ping ponging across empty space. “A monster, here, crawling up the walls, it's–”
Ryo raises her eyebrows. “A bug?”
Bocchi nods rapidly. “It was a long one! Twelve inches, atleast!”
“Bocchi,” Nijika sighs. “You woke us up for a bug?”
Bocchi deflates, rocketing back into a normal headspace. She pouts. “It was big.”
“And it's still here,” Ikuyo shutters, suddenly looking around the room in renewed interest. “Hitori-chan, did you see where it went?”
“No. I don't want to– Don't make me find it.”
Nijika rolls her eyes, patting Bocchi's shoulder before ruminating across the room. “Do you know what direction it went? I can look for it.”
Bocchi deflates more, this time in relief. Ikuyo sparkles in gratitude.
“You're our hero, Nijika-senpai!”
“I just want to go back to sleep,” Nijika groans. “Bocchi-chan, direction.”
Bocchi gives three completely different directions, to which Nijika searches all of them. The other three girlfriends watch her roam about perched upon on the living room couch.
“I asked them if this apartment was infested,” Bocchi insists. She's not as frightened as she was before, but still just as peeved. “When I got this apartment I said, ‘Will this place have bugs’ and they said ‘No, of course not’ and I believed them. Why wouldn't I, we're in Tokyo. But, whoop-dee-do, this abomination comes up and scurries across the hardwood floors I pay for! Like– Sorry, did I stutter? Didn't you hear me?”
“I know, baby.” Ryo kisses the crown of her head as she rants while she rambles, typing up a furious complaint on her phone. It's getting deleted the moment Bocchi awakes the next day, but she's down to back up her sleep deprived anger. “Call them out.”
“You can go and sue with all this,” Ikuyo sleepily chimes, and Bocchi relaxes just enough to laugh.
Meanwhile, Nijika comes out of the bathroom empty handed. She gazes at the three with a mix of pity, desperation, and exhaustion. “Look, I can't find it.”
“It was there,” Bocchi hisses. Nijika throws her hands up.
“I know, love. I'm saying it's not there anymore. Maybe it just ran out the door when you screamed.”
“What if it didn't? What if it's here, and it's infecting all of our stuff, and–”
“Bocchi, I'm telling you I searched this entire house and found nothing.”
“But–”
“Relax,” Ikuyo says, rubbing a circle on Bocchi’s thigh. She breathes a sharp inhale, squeezing her eyes shut. “Listen, I'm stressed too, but we won't go anywhere if we argue.”
“Sorry,” Bocchi mumbles. Nijika's face softens a tad.
“It's okay, I get it.” Ryo isn't sure she does, but doesn't comment. “I'm sorry for snapping too. I'm just…”
“Tired?”
“Yeah.” She thinks for awhile, tapping her foot on the ground. “Hey, what about I check the kitchen again. If I don't find anything we can go to bed and figure it out tomorrow.”
Bocchi relaxes, but her frown persists. “What if it's in the bedroom?”
“I'm sure it wont–” Nijika pauses, seeing the look of desperation on Bocchi’s face. She eventually sighs, waving a hand. “We can always barricade the gap below the door with books and stuff.”
“Right.” Bocchi closes her eyes again, whispers to herself. “Right, okay.”
Nijika allows a wry smile to grace her face. “Okay.” Her attention goes back towards the other two. “Do any of you want to help?”
Silence. Nijika presses the bridge of her nose and groans.
Nijika does end up searching the kitchen again. The other three watch her from the sidelines: Ikuyo cheering, Bocchi mumbling timid encouragement, and Ryo throwing random thumbs up. All three of them thankfully loosen up as the hunt goes on, and Ryo finds herself softening right beside them. Tension has never been her strong suit.
“Would you guys love me if I was a stink bug,” Ryo asks in between a yawn. The other two give her moderately disgusted looks.
“No.” Nijika looks through another cupboard.
“I'll certainly throw you outside,” Ikuyo promises. Ryo nods at her.
“There's lots of weeds there. I'll be in heaven.”
Ikuyo stares at her. The Tokyo streets she knows are concrete and stone. “Definitely.”
“I don't think I can love any of you if you were stink bugs,” Bocchi confesses, looking quite stricken. “I used to play with bugs when I was younger, but then I got ticks and it was awful...” She shivers. “Never again.”
“That explains a lot.”
Bocchi squints at her. “What?”
“Huh?”
“I think that's perfectly fine, Hitori-chan!” Ikuyo reassures. “I don't think I can ever date you guys as bugs. Or men.”
“You say that as if they're mutually exclusive.”
Ikuyo shrugs, looking back towards Nijika. “Would you love us as bugs, Nijika-senpai?”
Nijika makes a face at her. “What does that even mean?”
“It means what it means! Everyone says ‘Would you love me if I was a worm’ but that's so easy. Worms are easy to house and moderately cute. Bugs, however. Spicer. More intriguing.”
“I think you need to go to bed,” Nijika says, moving towards the open closet. “I dunno. I wouldn't just kill you guys, but I wouldn't like build a whole bug enclosure for you. Maybe you could hang out in the backyard and we could–”
Nijika jolts away with a scowl. A large daddy long-legs suddenly creeps from the ajar door, creeping up the wall with impressive pace. Bocchi and Ikuyo scream, holding each other for dear life. Ryo cringes.
“It's right there!” Bocchi squeaks, pointing at the offending insect.
“I know!” Nijika jumps away from the spider. It inches its way onto their wall before perching perfectly above the awning. “Shit, where's the broom?”
“Don't kill it!”
Nijika's eyes could bulge out her skull. “What?!”
“Don't!” Ikuyo looks genuinely sad now. “It's just there by chance! It doesn’t deserve to be killed just for existing.”
“What do you want me to do, then?”
“I don’t know!”
“You can catch it in a cup and put it outside,” Ryo recommends, eyes trained on the insect. Its legs twitch at her. Creepy.
Nijika glances at her up and down. “And you won't because?”
“You put yourself on bug duty.” Ryo grabs a glass that was on the kitchen counter and a wad of paper towel to thrust at her. “Congrats.”
“You all owe me,” Nijika frowns. The three all nod solemnly.
Two seconds later there Nijika was: stood upon a wobbling wooden stool, trying to catch the long legs with only a glass cup and the will of god. The light pours like gold at her face, making her look almost holy in the middle of Bocchi’s kitchen. Truly, the angel of Shimokitazawa.
“What the hell,” she whispers, beginning to look disturbed herself. “It keeps running away.”
Bocchi yelps, quickly hiding behind Ryo's back. “It isn't coming for me, right?”
“No, it's just–” Her eyes grow wide as she tracks its movements. She trembles. “It's on the ceiling.”
“Y-You can do it!” Ikuyo cheers shakily. “Just trap it with the cup and you're done!”
“Not yet! God, what if it falls and crawls on me?”
The four of them shutter in horror. Ryo effortlessly reels herself in, of course, chuckling cooly.
“I can't believe Nijika's scared of the–”
“Shut up.” Ryo does as told. Nijika sighs, shaking her head. “Just– count me off, and then I'll do it. Promise.”
“If it helps,” Bocchi mumbles, peeks up from Ryo's shoulder. “I would love you even if it fell on you.”
“Me too!”
“‘Ay.”
“That's wonderful to hear,” Nijika deadpans, staring holes into the ceiling. “Please start counting.”
“Three…” Nijika readies her entrapment, sweat budding across her forehead.
“Two–” Bocchi holds her breath, squeezing Ryo's back. Ikuyo readies her phone, huddling close to the two. “–One!”
Nijika slams the glass on the ceiling. The room erupts with three sets of screaming– along with a very, very surprised sound from Ryo– as the bug begins to rapidly flail around in its glass prison. Nijika loses her grip in all the chaos, and the bug falls from the jar and scurries across on the floor. The apartment dissolves into chaos.
Bocchi, who was already screaming at the top of her lungs, ran to the couch for safety. Ikuyo does the opposite and pushes against Ryo, who was– very calmly, she should add –stepping away from the mess. Nijika jumps down from the stool with a deranged look in her eyes.
“Where is it?”
Ikuyo shakily points her camera towards the living room, where the spider was currently scurrying after a hysterical Bocchi. Nijika slides over and closes the jar over it, shouting wildly.
“Open the door!” Ryo does as told, Ikuyo trailing her steps. Nijika quickly scoops up the critter in the jar, running over towards the door and tossing it out like it was fire. Bocchi eventually slinks over to watch the spider adjust itself and scurry away into the darkness. The four sigh in relief.
“I never knew someone could look so hot while taking out a spider.”
“Shut up,” she says, but the tension in her voice had evaporated with everyone else's. “Bocchi, was that the one you saw?”
“Yeah, I think so.” She turns, giving Nijika her first earnest smile of the night. “Thank you. I don’t know what I'd do without you.”
“You're our hero!” Ikuyo adds, her Kit-aura just giving the room a gentle glow. Nijika's eyes move between them before she sighs, breaking out into a small grin.
“It's nothing really. I don't mind taking a few bugs out.” She pauses, looking at the three mischievously. “Though, I do have a few ideas if you really want to make it up to me.”
Ikuyo stops her with a hand. “You need to shower before anything else.”
Nijika barks out a laugh. “I thought you'd love me even if it touches me.”
“I said love, not kiss,” Bocchi clarifies, Ikuyo nodding right beside her. “Please shower.”
“Ryo?”
“If I hug you then I'd have to shower too, and I'm too tired for that.” She throws her hands up. “No offense.”
“Alright,” she relents with a smile. “But you do have to wait for me.”
They do. Bocchi rants more about her lease as Nijika showers, the two periodically shaking Ryo awake whenever she dozes off. When Nijika returns, bug residue free and exhausted, she is immediately met with thankful kisses and dragged into the cuddle pile on Bocchi’s bed. It's too small for all of them, they know, but they make it work with bent legs and awkward hands. A bug-less home is worth the bad back tomorrow, she rationalizes. It's probably one of the last times she'll ever experience this.
Their newest album is coming out soon. After, they would be flooded with press releases, road tripping to interviews and in-venue lives. Then tour, obviously. They will do this again, until Ryo gathers enough courage to move in and out Bocchi’s apartment entirely, to send them to a house of their belonging, complete with a big enough bed and room for music and lounging around and absolutely no bugs. There, maybe Ryo could finally say what she means.
“Nijika.”
“Hm?”
“I really do love you.” A pause. “For taking out the bug.”
She laughs, the sound quiet and ever so fond. “I do too. Go to sleep, idiot.”
And so she does.