Shouta usually didn't enjoy family dinners. There was usually a cold atmosphere at the dinner table and it was all just very stiff and uncomfortable. Not that they had a lot of family dinners, but when they had them it was always so awkward and uncomfortable, it haunted Shouta for weeks after.
But tonight was another one of those family dinner nights. His dad was home, which was a rare occasion in and of itself. And his mother was home at the same time, so a mandatory family dinner had been announced. Shouta had usually tried to get out of them by saying that he was invited to Hizashi's or Oboro's house. But his mother had put an end to those excuses about a year ago.
So now he had to sit at the dinner table, dressed smartly, in some cold and icy silence, while eating his meager dinner (special instructions from his mother who liked to have a bunch of fancy stuff in small portions, as if they were eating at some five star restaurant). There was some quiet classical music playing in the background. The atmosphere was just depressing as fuck.
"How is school, Shouta?" she finally asked him with a more than icy smile. Sometimes Shouta wondered whether she never actually wanted to have a child with how cold she was being.
"It's uh... it's good." he replied, not even sure what to tell her. That he mostly kept to himself, unless it came to his two friends? That his grades were good, but he still kept getting in trouble with the teachers? That Emi was annoying as hell? That he couldn't get the girl that was cleaning the house out of his head for some reason? (He definitely wouldn't tell her that, she'd kill him.)
"Good? That's all you have to say?" his father asked and grinned at him. Shouta shrugged. He was rarely ever home, but if he had to choose between the two of them, he'd say he liked his father better. The only thing was... he was home so rarely, talking to him felt more like talking to some stranger that they had invited over for a fancy dinner. Even his mother treated him very businesslike.
Sometimes Shouta wondered whether she actually loved him or not, because their marriage struck him as very... he didn't even know the word for it. It looked like it was just another smart business decision. But maybe he was wrong about that and that was just what relationships between mature people looked like. Who knew. He just knew that he didn't want anything like that.
"Well, what do you want to know?" Shouta asked, hoping his mother wouldn't scold him for not being respectful enough or whatever reason she would make up this time. But she didn't say anything and Shouta almost didn't trust the peace.
"How are your grades? Your friends? You got a girlfriend yet? I'm sure you're popular with the girls, Shouta." his father replied, smiling warmly - but Shouta could see just how insecure he was behind that smile. Of course he was insecure. Who wouldn't be insecure talking to his son when he literally knew nothing about him?
"Grades are good, my friends are good, everything is peachy. No girlfriends." Shouta replied with a shrug.
"What about Fukukado? She seems like a nice girl. I get along really well with her mother." his mum chimed in. Shouta frowned. His mother always brought up Emi at every opportunity. Of course she wanted him to go out with her. She came from a rich family, she got the same good education as he did, she had money, she knew all the secret little rules of their elite little clique.
Shouta felt sick just thinking about it. Emi was like a walking nightmare to him, she was loud, she was annoying and she was so utterly obsessed with him, it was concerning. And she seemed to think she had a chance, and Shouta had a good idea why she thought so. Because his mother loved her to bits for whatever reason. And Emi's mother was his mother's best friend.
He had found the two of them sitting on the couch with expensive wine more than once, already tipsy and giggling in the early evening. Apparently they had known each other since high school or something and except for a short period of 3 months at the start of their second year in high school, they had been inseparable. And that was apparently the reason, Shouta and Emi now had to be the same. But Shouta wasn't having any of it. Not like he would get much of a choice when it came down to it, but he could at least try to resist for now.
"What about her? I don't get along with her." Shouta just muttered as an answer to his mother, eating another bite of his dinner, before sitting back in his chair. He was sick of this fancy food. Why couldn't they just eat a normal dinner? Some nice home cooked ramen? Anything that wasn't this stupidly expensive stuff that didn't even taste that great? Shouta sighed.
"Oh, come on, Shouta, she's such a nice young girl! We should have her over some time, I'm sure you two would get along really well." his mother commented and took another sip from her glass of wine. Shouta pushed his plate away from him. He really wasn't hungry anymore, but he knew he wouldn't be allowed to leave until he had spent at least some time with both of them.
"I don't think so..." Shouta muttered. Not that anyone was really listening. If his mother had gotten it into her head that he had to spend an entire evening with Emi Fukukado, then there was nothing he could do about it, except trying to survive it.
He dreaded thinking about it, but he was pretty sure that his mother was secretly arranging his marriage with Emi. She'd never admit to it, but Shouta was sure that she wouldn't be happy with anyone but her. And she'd any other girl he even dared to bring home know about it, too.
"You should really give her a chance. She's one of the few decent people I know of that would be from a good enough family." she retorted and sent him a death glare. Shouta put on a fake smile and shut up about it. It was probably better that way or she would get even more insistent. What the hell did she even mean? A good enough family? What the fuck? He didn't want to be stuck in a family like his own for the rest of his life. It just looked lonely as hell to him.
"Yeah, sure, whatever. Not like I haven't tried to get along with her a million fucking times already..." Shouta grumbled. His mother glared daggers at him over the table. Thank God, his dad was here or she would definitely have slapped him across the face for that comment. Hard.
"Shouta. Not at the dinner table." she scolded him coldly. Shouta grinned at her and stood up from his seat.
"Cool. I guess I can go up to my room then?" he replied, raising his eyebrows. He knew he was pushing it now, but with his dad around he could allow himself some more freedoms. Like being snarky with his mother. If it was only her around there would be hell to pay, but with his dad around she was a bit more reserved.
"Shouta..." she growled in a threatening tone.
"Relax, dear. Are you sure you don't want to eat anymore? Or stay to talk to us for a bit?" his father said. Shouta felt kind of sorry for him, because he really wasn't home a lot, but he was the one that had to suffer from his bickering with his mother. But unfortunately it couldn't be helped.
"No, sorry, dad. I'm pretty full. And I have a lot of homework to do for tomorrow, so I really can't stay that long. You can come up for a chat if you want." Shouta replied and shrugged. He wasn't even sure whether he liked his dad or not, since he was barely ever home. And it kind of made him a little sad, not being able to relate to him much, but... well... there was nothing he could do, was there?
"Oh, I see. Your homework's important, go ahead then. I might pop in after dinner." he said with a smile. Shouta shot his mother a triumphant look, as he got up and picked up his plate to bring it back to the kitchen.
"Shouta, what are you doing?" his mother wanted to know, eyeing the plate in his hands. Shouta wasn't quite sure what was upsetting her now.
"I'm... bringing the plate to the kitchen, because I'm finished...?" he replied, not sure what she was getting at. She just chuckled dryly.
"Come on, Shouta, just leave the plate on the table. We have a cleaner for that. They can tidy that up in the morning." she said, an almost mocking smile on her face. Shouta really didn't want to leave the plate there. He would always bring his plate into the kitchen, but he knew his mother would leave it on the table every single night. Shouta thought about protesting, but it wouldn't be worth it.
"Fine." he said and put the plate back on the table. He felt a little pang of guilt, thinking about Y/N and her tired eyes and how she'd have to clean that up the next day. Maybe he could sneak down and clean it up for her later on. If he'd remember it. Somehow he doubted that he would manage to make it downstairs and clean up the plate for her. And he would probably do a shoddy job of it and she'd get the blame.
"Well, see you later, dad." Shouta muttered, before he turned around and made his way upstairs towards his room. Not that he thought his dad would actually come up for a chat with him. He always promised to do it, but he never did and then he was gone again for a long time.
As he was trudging up the stairs he could already hear the faint bickering from the dining table. It usually was like that. They kept blaming each other for how he turned out. It would start out with snide remarks and then they'd get louder and louder. Sometimes he could even hear them over the music playing on his headphones. It was really annoying how they couldn't get a damn divorce already. Not like he'd see any more of either of them if they did get one.
Shouta opened the door to his room and let himself fall down onto the sofa face first. He really had two rooms with an en-suite, one was like a living room and the other one was his bedroom. When he first got that many rooms, he was happy about it, thinking he could have loads of friends over all the time. That was until he realized he didn't have many friends and would probably never have that many. And from then on it had just seemed like a lot of empty space.
He got his phone out of his pocket, seeing that he had a few messages in a group chat with Hizashi and Oboro. Probably just the two of them going on with some of their inside jokes or something. If there was anything concerning him he'd have a lot more messages, because they would literally blow up his phone. There were some Instagram notifications, one of them again being Emi asking to follow him.
Shouta sighed and opened Instagram to see what was going on. He wondered if he could somehow find Y/N. He didn't know her last name and chances were she might not even be on Instagram. She did have a phone, though, he had seen her with one... even though it was a really old one. Her younger brother definitely had Instagram, Hizashi had mentioned him once or twice.
Shouta lazily scrolled through the pictures until he found one of Hizashi's posts. He clicked into his profile and checked his followers, finding the name he was looking for: paii_kawaii_x - somehow it made sense that this guy knew Hizashi. He seemed to have a similar kind of vibe to Shouta's loud blond friend. From his profile he looked through his followers, carefully scanning the names until he found one that seemed to have a picture of Y/N next to it... your-local-unionist.
Unionist? Was that a joke or was she actually in a trade union? Shit, if Shouta's mother found out, she'd fire her on the spot for something she'd have made up. He clicked on the profile and saw nothing but the bio that said: comrade y/n, at your service. The profile was private. Shouta's thumb hovered over the 'Request to follow' button, but he wasn't quite sure. Was he being creepy?
They had been talking this morning - after he had been waiting for her. And she had made it more than clear that she didn't want to be his friend. Also, other people would see that he was following her and... well, he didn't know if that was a very good idea. They would definitely judge him. Her brother got a pass, because he was an incredibly good gymnast, but as far as he knew, she wasn't involved in any sports. No one would really know her, but they'd see the school uniform of the public school in her profile picture. It was a strange situation.
Shouta sighed and closed the app, checking his messages instead. As he had suspected it was just Hizashi and Oboro messing around and being as goofy as usual. Hizashi had been going on about starting a podcast or something for the last few weeks and they were planning concepts and content for it. As if he would actually ever go through with it. Hizashi always had quick ideas like that, but never went through with them. Shouta would be surprised if he did it this time.
He sighed again and turned off his phone, stretching out on his small couch. He could already hear muffled voices from downstairs. It seemed like they were already shouting at each other. Shouta didn't want to deal with that, not at all. So he slowly got up, walking through the room and into his bedroom. He grabbed a pair of shorts and a warm hoodie from his closet and got changed into them, before crawling under the covers and getting his headphones out of the drawer in his bedside table.
It was late enough anyway, so he really should be trying to get some sleep. He found that some background noise often helped him sleep - as long as it wasn't his parents yelling at each other. He put on some thunder noises and put the headphones over his ears, before closing his eyes and trying to focus on the noise of the raindrops, hoping to fall asleep anytime soon.