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“Ann, we need to talk.”
No. What Ann needed to do was sleep.
It was 3:17am, she had just gotten Ryuji to go back to bed after another panicked stint over whether driving Morgana would be vore or not, and now this guy had to call her up? Why couldn’t anyone just let her have a full eight hours of sleep anymore? Hell she’d even take five hours at this point! This was getting ridiculous.
“Oh, not you too! Akira it's three in the morning, and I've had it up to here with late night calls! Haven’t any of you people ever heard of a thing called beauty sleep ?”
“Ann, I’m being serious!”
“As am I! You people are severely messing with my sleep schedule! I can’t get through the night without someone trying to call and tell me something. Like I don’t care about your love life right now, Akira. It can wait.”
“No! It can’t! It's about Ryuji.”
She sighed. Damn her good natured heart for wanting to help that stupid car fucking heathen. “Ugh, fine. What about him?”
“I can’t take hearing about his crush anymore.”
“You’re telling me.”
“Ann, please,” he begged.
She sighed and shook her head. She didn’t have time for this. “Is that really all this is about, because this definitely can wait in that case.”
“No, Ann!” his voice sounded painfully desperate. “Just hear me out.”
Damn her good, kind heart. She didn't want it anymore. She had half a mind to call the Phantom Thieves on herself.
“Okay. Fine. What is it?”
It was quiet on the other end for a bit, and if Ann were a worse person, she’d probably hang up.
“... So I saw Cars 2 .”
Guess she wasn't going to get any sleep that night after all.
“So...?”
“ So? So! Ann it’s awful! And Ryuji realized he was gay because of it!” He sounded hysterical.
“Yeah. I know.”
“I know you know! But still! Did you know that ‘ka-chow’ came from this monstrosity?”
“Yes, Akira. I’m pretty sure everyone knew that.”
“Well I didn’t!”
“That sounds like a you problem.”
“Ann! Please! I don’t know what to do!”
Ann sighed. How did she get herself into this? Why her?
“Akira, do you think I know any more than you do? Like I deal with this almost every night. If I knew what to do with him, don't you think I would have done something by now?”
“I don’t know, Ann,” he almost sounded like he was on the verge of tears. Okay. Cool. Crying. Really not something she wanted to deal with this early in the morning. “But there has to be something we can do. I’m on the verge of a mental breakdown over here!”
“Clearly.”
“Ann, I just… I can’t take hearing him talk about this anymore.”
“How do you think I feel?”
She honestly felt almost offended at this point. Like how could he not handle this? To her knowledge Ryuji hadn’t even told him that much! She was the one who had to bear the burden of Ryuji’s sin. Not Akira. Why was she expected to be the strong one here? Wasn’t Akira supposed to be their leader?
She rubbed one of her throbbing temples with her free hand. It was late, and she couldn’t even tell if her headache was from her exhaustion or this conversation. She wanted to go bed.
“Look, Akira,” she sighed into the receiver, feeling suddenly fifty years older. “If I could think of a way for him to vent all of his confusing weird feelings to something or someone else, I would. However, I haven’t thought of one. Besides, I’m pretty sure he needs this. Like, I think he needs a way to try to formulate all these sudden and overwhelming emotions and put them to word. I think he wants and needs to talk about his feelings so he himself can understand them.”
“I mean, yeah, I know that much…”
“Alright, well, unless you know a therapist or something, I think we’re out of options.”
Akira remained silent on the other end. Ann almost started to wonder if the boy fucking fainted, or died, or something, but he finally responded.
“I… Well, while I don’t know a therapist, I think I might have just come up with an alternative.”
#
“So you want me to do… what, exactly?” Ryuji’s expression was the perfect blend of fear and confusion.
“ We want you to stop calling us at odd hours of the night in order to talk about your weird gay car crush! ” Ann found herself almost shouting, earning their small gathering a couple of really concerned stares from the other students eating lunch nearby. Perhaps she should have just stayed home and let Akira take care of this. Getting only two hours of sleep probably wasn’t the greatest idea.
“We also want you to start a journal,” Akira interjected, being his normal perfect image of calm and cool in spite of the fact that he probably had even less sleep than Ann. His casual slouch and bored expression were such a change from how panicked and delirious he sounded the night before. How the fuck did he do that? How was this fair?
Ryuji’s spluttering and flushed face from Ann’s all too loud comment instantly dropped into one of bewilderment. “A journal?”
“Yeah,” Ann shrugged, calming from her little outburst. “This is mostly to help you write out your feelings and whatever. Like, you seem to really only want to put everything into words so you can understand it yourself. And since neither of us have the answers to any of your questions, nor do we really want to know about all of your kinks… we thought you keeping a journal of sorts would be a better alternative.”
Ryuji frowned down at the little black notebook Akira had picked up for him before school that morning. “But like, what am I s’posed to even write in this? I ain’t keepin’ no diary.”
Ann rolled her eyes. “It’s not a supposed to be a diary, dumbass. Just write whatever you would normally feel like texting us about. Hell, you can write Morgana love letters for all I care. I just want to be able to have a full night of sleep.”
“Love letters, huh?” Ryuji murmured, flipping through the book’s blank pages before stuffing the book into his bag and grinning up at the two. “Thanks guys, you’re the best. I really appreciate you guys for try’na help me with all this shit.”
Ann found herself smiling back, and from the corner of her eye, she could see Akira doing the same.
“Of course.”
Ryuji flashed her an especially sheepish smile as the bell rung, signaling the end of lunch. “Yeah, just, thanks again. I’ll try to put this to good use. Maybe this means you can get some sleep for once,”
And for once, that night, she did.