Work Text:
Angel had to say, Aki's siblings were definitely....weird. Aki himself also was weird, but in a way you wanted to learn more about. The same could not be said for Aki's siblings at all.
"So, if you had to hypothetically solve this equation using inverse trig," Angel drawls at present, biting the back of the eraser on his pencil. "You'd have to use arc tan. No way you can solve it with arc sin." Aki says, rubbing his forehead.
"Aki!" That's definitely Aki's kid brother Denji- loud kid, the type Angel would not want to be within hearing distance of at all, but unfortunately, Aki was the one who had to fight a court battle to get them into his custody, and therefore, hear Denji and receive headaches, Angel had to.
"Fuck off, I'm doing homework!"
At least Angel isn't the only one tempted to yell at Denji, that's a comfort.
Once Denji stomps his foot, Angel hid a smile behind his pencil. "Thought you weren't supposed to teach your kid siblings to swear?"
"They were already swearing like sailors before I even got them into my custody." Aki deadpans.
"Aki- we're bored, Power fucked up the TV!" The kid whines, his puppy squirming. Pochita, if Angel wasn't mistaken.
"Why the hell did- okay, you know what, I don't even want to ask, god. Sorry about that, Angel. Be back in a bit, I have to see what these brats did to the TV." Aki says apologetically, while Angel waves a hand.
"No problem. Bet I'd finish this problem by the time you come back." Angel says, cocking his head to the side. Aki raises an eyebrow, but one corner of his lips quirks up into a smirk.
Angel tries very hard to pretend that smirk does not faze him. He mostly succeeds.
"I'll take you up on that." Aki says, still smirking before then turning to yell at Denji- it's not the kind of yelling that puts Angel off like hell, because it's actually kind of funny to see Aki lose his shit. Aki doesn't usually lose his shit, for that matter.
Aki finishes yelling at Denji, before ordering him to stay put and then walks out to the living room to fix the TV, while Denji himself flops on the leather chair opposite Aki's study table, spinning around while his dog barks. Angel can already feel the migraine hitting him.
"Can you maybe keep it down?" Angel deadpans, and Denji stops whooping for all of five seconds, before blowing a raspberry at Angel, who resists the urge to groan, simply because it's not worth it to groan at a middle schooler.
"Kid." Angel says, with the patience of a, well, saint. "I'm kinda working here."
"Don't really care. If I don't give two shits about Topknot's weird-ass fucking maths shit, then I sure as hell don't care about yours too, ain't that right, Pochita?" Pochita only barks loudly in response, even as Denji cackles like the devil himself.
Angel can maybe understand where Aki's coming from- exactly when did these kids stop being annoying, and started becoming little shits? So it is with a groan, Angel plugs in his earphones, and starts working on the question slowly, the hardness of the question even more grating. In the next few minutes however, Denji slowly ends up on Angel's shit list, because he doesn't stop throwing shit at Angel, and if Maths isn't already a motivator for homicide, then Aki's kid brother certainly is.
It kind of reaches its peak when Denji chucks one of Aki's old reading glasses at Angel's face, who then slowly pulls out his earphones, fully driven to commit homicide as he glares at Denji.
"What on earth is your problem, kid?" Angel asks, slowly.
Denji has the world's worst shit-eating grin on his face, and it drives Angel nuts, because what the actual fuck, that grin was actually a little terrifying. "You're perfect for Aki." Denji says, grinning.
Angel's brain screeches to a fiery, tumultuous halt.
"What?" Angel asks slowly, looking at his earphones to check if they really are out of his ears, before staring at Denji again. "That," Denji proclaims grandly, as he stands on the top of Aki's study table, in a bizarre twist of events. "Was a test!"
What?
"A what now?"
Denji then, curse the little brat, does a little tap dance on the table even as he holds on to Pochita, who barks solemnly. "Power fucked the TV up on purpose so I could ass-ess you!" Denji says pompously, grinning like he won the lottery.
Angel stares. There is so much wrong with the sight in front of him that it's not even funny- where the hell does he even begin?
"Power and I kind of thought we should do a little ass-essment test, so we'd see if you were perfect for Aki or not! We've been doing it this whole week!"
Angel gawks. "What the heck?" He finally asks.
Denji bobs up and down excitedly on the tip of his toes, stroking Pochita. "Yuppers! I mean, it was kinda gross as all hell, because you wouldn't fucking stop smiling at Aki, but like, you really like him!"
Angel, for his part, cannot believe he's just been perceived by a twelve year old.
"Okay...exactly when the hell-" Angel slowly manages out, gaping at Denji.
"Every time you came for tronkometry!" Denji says, and Angel is only tempted to laugh hysterically at the way Denji cannot even pronounce trigonometry.
"Aki really likes you- he smiles a lot more when you're around, and you're not really that much of a bitch when he's around!" Denji says cheerfully, pointing at Angel, who is sorely tempted to point out how rude this is but also not very much willing to get into a very tiring argument with a twelve year old.
There's also a glint in Denji's eyes that reminds Angel this has to be the absolutely most crazy child he's ever met, who's never going to actually take a refusal for an answer, and so it is he wisely shuts his mouth.
There is absolutely no point in arguing with Hayakawa Denji. Absolutely none.
"And today!" Denji says grandly, spinning around and pointing at Angel with a flourish, while Pochita barks loudly in timing. "You just proved that you're patient enough to deal with Aki! And that's like, really, really important for marriage, you know, 'cuz like- you're gonna have to be together for a really long time and-"
Angel stares, and he's tempted to laugh again, because what the hell.
"I hope you know I'm not marrying Aki." Angel says, finally.
Denji stares at him. "Wait, you're not?"
Angel really does let out a small laugh, whether it's from hysteria or actual amusement is left up for interpretation. "No- we're only sixteen."
Denji then sits on the table, looking sadder than the actual puppy in his arms. "Oh."
"But you like like him, right?"
Angel does not answer that for a very long moment, even if his heart is beating traitorously at the thought of Aki's fond little smiles, his absolutely devastating smirks, the way he always puts Angel first, the way his gruff manner softens visibly, the way he just is so...Aki.
"Yeah." Angel finds himself saying softly, cheeks heating up.
Denji whoops and cheers, and Angel stares at him in horror, only just realizing he said it out loud. Oh, well- the mess that would come after was Aki's problem, not his. His siblings, his problem.
They still happen to be Aki's problem even when Angel starts dating him a few weeks later, after a heated kiss against the lockers before Aki's baseball game. Aki, of course, agrees that neither of those two hellions should be anybody's problem other than his own.
Angel's glad they can agree on that much.