ALTWhen Minato is finally able to shed his plasticky Wild Duck uniform, Ryoji is waiting at the exit, his to-go box full of cold fries and nuggets of indeterminate origin in hand and a spring in his step. Minato feels more like it’s been days since he’d seen Ryoji last than just a couple of hours. The knot in his chest pinches strangely.
He goes ahead and ignores it.
As soon as he and Ryoji have put enough distance between themselves and the noise of the after-school crowd, he dials Mitsuru’s number. She answers on the second ring.
“Arisato? It’s quite unusual for you to call like this–” Which is understating it wildly– he’s pretty sure this is the first time he’s actually done it. “Is everything alright?”
“Everything’s good. We just had an idea we’d need your permission for.”
“We?”
“Ryoji’s here, too.”
“Hello, Senpai!”
[[MORE]]Minato puts Mitsuru on speaker phone. Better than having Ryoji yell over his shoulder.
Another voice says something indiscernible from Mitsuru’s side of the call, then the audio quality shifts– she must have put her phone on speaker, too.
“Akihiko is here as well. I hope you don’t mind including him in the conversation.”
“Hello to you too, Sanada-senpai!” Ryoji beams. Then suddenly his face falls into a look of concern. “Oh no, we aren’t interrupting anything, are we?”
“We’re just walking back to the dorm, Mochizuki. It’s fine,” Sanada says, sounding half-way between exasperated and amused.
“What was it you wanted permission for, Arisato?”
“We had an idea about something to do for Junpei. Maybe it would cheer him up a little.”
Minato explains what he and Ryoji had come up with so far.
“Well, I don’t see why that wouldn’t be feasible,” Mitsuru says once he’s finished his pitch. “I would suggest running the idea by Iori himself beforehand, as well as the rest of the dorm, but otherwise you may consider permission granted.”
An odd noise filters in from Mitsuru’s end of the line, which rapidly clears up into a flurry of excited little ‘woofs’ and ‘yarfs’ that Minato would know anywhere.
“Yes, it’s wonderful to see you too, Koromaru.” The warmth in Mitsuru’s tone is crystal clear even after being squeezed through the tinny phone speaker.
A third voice joins Mitsuru and Sanada’s. Minato recognizes it as Aragaki’s more or less right away, but he doesn’t quite catch anything he’s actually saying until: “Who’s on the phone?”
“Arisato and Mochizuki,” Sanada answers, while Ryoji chirps another greeting at the exact same time. Aragaki says nothing in response to this, but Minato can only imagine that he looks just absolutely thrilled.
Mitsuru fills Aragaki in on what they’d been discussing.
“If you two don’t have any particular ideas otherwise,” she continues, directed at Minato and Ryoji. “Then I would suggest letting Shinjiro curate the rest of the itinerary. I’m sure he knows quite a few films that everyone would be able to enjoy.”
“Oh, are you a movie buff, Aragaki-senpai?” Ryoji asks, sounding delighted by the thought.
“Guess you could say that, sure.” Aragaki shrugs with his hands shoved deep into his pockets. It doesn’t matter that Minato can’t see him at the moment– he knows from the sound of Aragaki’s voice alone that’s exactly what he’s doing.
Minato weighs the pros and cons of offering up ‘From Paws to Whiskers’ as a suggestion, but ultimately decides not to. He’s pretty sure that Aragaki hadn’t just been bluffing about the squid thing.
“Just don’t pick anything you and Mitsuru have both seen already.” The smile is as evident in Sanada’s voice as Aragaki’s posture was in his. “They can get pretty chatty when it comes to movies,” he explains for Minato and Ryoji’s benefit.
Yeah, they definitely seem like the types to do that. He can very easily imagine Mitsuru and Aragaki with their heads leaned together, picking apart a film shot by shot as though they were planning to write a book on it while Sanada tries to tune them out.
They agree on Sunday as the best time to hold the get-together. It’s a little short notice, but there won’t be another day off before the next full moon, and they still have no idea what that will bring. Minato bids farewell to their senpais and Ryoji echoes him cheerfully. As Minato slips his phone back into his pocket, Ryoji’s expression droops a little.
“Will you talk to Junpei-kun about it?” Ryoji asks, glancing over at Minato. “I’d text him, but um… I think it would be better to ask him directly, you know?”
Minato nods. Ryoji’s right, that would probably be best… He’ll have to get Junpei out of his room first, which will most likely be the hardest part. Hopefully the whole idea will work as intended and help Junpei back into brighter spirits. Minato hadn’t properly appreciated the energy Junpei would bring into a space until that energy was nowhere to be found, and now the dorm seems far too quiet.
