Chapter 27

Fubuki didn’t leave Misawa and Jun’s apartment til the evening. He left Jun with a few different wigs and outfits, telling Jun to call him any time he needed to talk, no matter the time.

Taking a long bath together after dinner, Jun and Juudai were both wrinklier than a couple of prunes by the time they exited the bathroom. Misawa was seated in his reading nook with a book on his lap, tea in a mug next to him. Looking up, he gave them a mischievous smile. “Had a good time in there?”

Jun’s face burned, while Juudai didn’t seem to catch the innuendo whatsoever. “Yup! Whatcha reading?”

While Jun wandered into the kitchen to make himself and Juudai hot chocolate, he listened to Misawa explain the book about the evolution and intelligence of the octopus. It was comforting to hear them talk about something so mundane, something that seemed to make Misawa so enthusiastic and Juudai curious to learn something new that wasn’t going to be graded.

Once he came back into the living room, Juudai pulled him into his lap on the second armchair in the reading nook, nuzzling his face into Jun’s neck that was still warm from the bath. Arms wrapped around him and Jun felt his face grow hot again, catching Misawa’s eye as the other man picked up his tea mug. An embarrassed pout snuck on Jun’s face at the warm smile on his roommate’s face, so he distracted himself by blowing at his own mug, listening to the rustling of pages turning and the quiet humming as Juudai rested his cheek against his back.

He felt warm and loved, making him all fuzzy on the inside. Maybe, just maybe he could handle going up against his brothers after all.

After having spent the first few hours looking into all of the youngest Manjoume brother’s high school friends, he had moved on to see which ones were easiest to get access to. The one Jun had seemed to be the closest to, Tenjouin Fubuki, seemed to have stayed at home while his husband went to the office.

He set up a camera at the best and most inconspicuous place he could find, that recorded and sent a live feed to his phone. Then he moved on to find one Yuuki Juudai. He had no permanent address, but seemed to be temporarily living with a friend in Minato while he waited for two of his other friends to get married. And now, considering what was going on with the Manjoume family, he could safely assume the man would stay in the country until that whole thing was settled.

While he couldn’t get inside the building just like that as there was always security and a receptionist, alongside the front door being protected by a code lock, he set up cameras aimed at the windows from all four directions. He didn’t know the exact apartment, but the public address supplied on the internet gave him a floor number, so he just had to wait to spot any familiar face to pinpoint the exact flat.

He continued like that, until he checked back on the feeds he had established. Forwarding through them, he noticed something strange.

For someone who was supposedly at home, there sure seemed to be no activity at the Tenpouin household. 

One light had turned on, but he noticed that it was at ten am on the dot, and he saw no trace of a silhouette. A timer, he surmised.

Was he not actually home? Tapping his finger against his leg, he kept looking at the feed. Once in a while a car would stop what he presumed to be reporters rang on the door, but no one answered. There was no movement inside the house.

It was time to drop by again.

When Ryo smuggled Fubuki back inside their home for the night, there was something that felt off. Everything was exactly the same as when they’d left the house. There was no real reason for them to feel on edge, but as soon as they closed the door to the garage that lead right into the house they exchanged glances. After both having dealt with a lot of dark energy and whatnot, they sometimes joked about their paranoia, but this… the atmosphere was straight up wrong. Putting a finger to his lips, Fubuki led the charge through the hallway. Together they cleared every room, every space where someone could hide, only to come up empty.

There was nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Yet they were both so entirely sure that something had happened there.

Still tense, they could do nothing but start preparing dinner, the silence heavy between them.

It wasn’t until they were heading to bed that they discovered it.

In the bedside table where Fubuki kept various things to occupy his hands while Ryo read aloud to him, something was missing. Freezing, Fubuki’s voice rose from his side of the bed. “Ryo, call Jun, Juudai or Misawa right now.”

Feeling his pulse rise, Ryo grabbed his phone, unlocking it immediately. “What is it?”

“My tablet’s missing.”

Previous Next

Back to top