An old giftfic for a friend. In other news, hi, it's been a while.

Why can't my life be a lie

On the 21st of January, Shinya decided that he was going to come out to his parents.

He didn't just wake up and make the decision that today was the day. He'd put thought into this. He'd made plans. He'd rehearsed answers to the questions he hoped they wouldn't ask. He'd checked the calendar to make sure that there were no bad anniversaries around the day that might make his parents less inclined to go easy on him. He'd even gotten his economics major friends to help him make a decision flowchart. In retrospect, his over-preparation was more suggestive of procrastination than initiative, but he was pretty damn proud of the flowchart, at least.

And according to said flowchart, the stars were aligned:

1) He was finishing up his last year at college, and already preparing to move out of the family house at the end of the year.

2) He had a part-time job that paid well enough to handle his living expenses for the rest of the year if things really went down the drain.

3) His brother wasn't going to be home to make fun of him.

In all honesty, all three conditions had been the case for some time, he just hadn't been mentally ready to come out.

He still wasn't, actually, but lately his mother had been making noises (well, more than usual, anyway) about finding a girlfriend and settling down. And while settling down didn't sound so bad, he wouldn't be able to handle the girlfriend part. He had tried two times and both girls had stopped him in the middle of the first date and asked if he was gay. He had no idea how they had known, but he did wish that his family were half as observant.

Unfortunately, it seemed that fate was punishing him for waiting so long, because once the promised day arrived, he came home to find familiar shoes cluttering the entryway, and he sighed. Of course his brother - his stupidly charming, straight brother - would choose today to come back home. Of course he would.

Shinya tilted his head and listened. Three seconds of silence, then he heard it - the unmistakable sound of Takuya's warm, rich laughter. Shinya pressed his forehead against the wall it was coming through, sighing. "Stupid Aniki," he muttered, with just a tiny amount of bite.

He made sure to smile, though, when he popped his head into the kitchen. It wasn't Takuya's fault that Shinya couldn't measure up to him, after all. And he'd missed his older brother, though sometimes it felt like Takuya was a more significant presence when he was gone than when he was there, considering how much their parents talked about him.

Blissfully unaware of the grim theme of Shinya's thoughts, Takuya greeted him with a headlock and a cheerful, "Shin! Hey, baby brother, how've you been?"

Shinya had been expecting it, though, so he just twisted enough in the headlock to rasp out, "I'd be better if you weren't choking me, Aniki."

Takuya snickered, ruffled his hair, and let him go. "How's school?"

"Sucks."

"But...you're a senior." Takuya crossed his arms, a concerned crease forming above his eyes.

"Bah, senior year for engineering is the worst." Mid-sentence, he suddenly registered that his brother hadn't come home alone. There were two strangers in the kitchen with them - one of them was a gorgeous blonde woman with a slim, athletic figure, and the other was the single hottest guy Shinya had ever seen, holy fuck.

"Hi," he managed, weakly.

They both smiled at him, the woman warmly, the man politely. Takuya somehow herded Shinya over to them without pushing him. "This is my brother, Shinya," he said cheerfully, "Shinya, this pretty lady is Izumi, and Mr. Resting-Bitch-Face over there is Kouji."

"Hi," Shinya repeated, very eloquently, distracted by the thought that only his aggressively heterosexual brother could've summed up such a gorgeous specimen of the male gender as Mr. Resting-Bitch-Face.

"Takuya," the familiar matronly voice of their mother suddenly appeared behind them, making them both jump instinctively, "didn't I tell you to set the table?"

"Yes, ma'am," Takuya said, as he went to do just that.

Shinya bent down to let his mother give him a light kiss on the cheek. "How was your day, Shinya?" she asked.

"Good, just kind of busy." He'd learned long ago that his parents didn't quite understand what he did, so there wasn't much to be gained from actually talking to them about any specifics. His days were either busy or not, as far as anybody under this roof was concerned.

"Of course, of course," his mother said, with a warm smile. She patted him on the cheek again.

Shinya smiled helplessly at her back as she bustled out of the kitchen again, calling for her husband to come in for dinner.

"It is so obvious that cheerfulness runs in the family, Kouji," the woman (what was her name again?) murmured, a glitter of amusement in her green eyes.

"No, it doesn't," Shinya said, grinning a bit, "it was beaten into us as kids."

"I'd believe it," said Hot Guy (god, Shinya was having such a hard time remembering names today, or maybe just a hard time in general).

"Shinya," his mother reappeared at his elbow, carrying a bowl of something that smelled like beef heaven, "could you...?" She eyed the young blonde woman with a speculative look, and Shinya immediately felt bad about the interrogation that was about to happen. After all, he wasn't the only Kanbara child who had been getting the girlfriend talk these past few years.

"Yes," he said obediently, apologetically, and took the bowl to the table.

As it turned out, his mother needn't have bothered, because the moment they all settled into their places at the table, Takuya cleared his throat and said, "So, um, I have some news for everyone. And it involves some reintroductions."

Their mother paused, smiling widely in anticipation. Their father blinked slowly and leaned back. And as for Shinya...he resisted the urge to sigh aloud.

"Izumi and I...well, I know I said earlier that she isn't exactly my girlfriend. The truth is, we've been dating for a few months, but...how on earth do I put this?" He coughed, fiddling with his napkin. "She's not my girlfriend because she isn't just my girlfriend. Kouji and I are both dating her. And...and we're also dating each other, a little bit?"

He might as well have shot them all to death, that's how quiet it got. Shinya's jaw was too slack to even consider talking, because that had not gone the direction he'd been expecting.

"Just a little bit," Izumi said dryly.

"You're bi?" Shinya said disbelievingly, feeling like the world had flipped on its axis.

Takuya blushed and gulped down some water. When it became obvious that he wasn't going to answer anytime soon, Kouji stepped in. "Yes, he's just got some kind of pesky attachment to being called straight."

"I am straight." Takuya protested.

"The bisexual issue is a work in progress," Kouji added, looking at Takuya with a resigned look. "Currently around 50% progress."

"I'm straight!" Takuya repeated, despairingly.

"We're working on it," Izumi said placatingly.

"What does that even mean?" Shinya asked, trying to suppress his earsplitting grin if only because the parents were techinically still in the room, even if they weren't making their continued presence very obvious.

Kouji snorted. "It means that he buys anniversary gifts for both of us, and he wants me to move in - though not necessarily into his bedroom - and if some other guy so much as grabs my shoulder... there will be blood."

"That sounds a lot like bisexual to me," Shinya said. "Biromantic, at the very least."

"We know," Izumi said.

"Is no one on my side here?" Takuya complained.

Kouji looked at him and smiled - actually smiled, and holy shit, he looked three times hotter when he did that and it wasn't like he had been unattractive before.

Takuya made a soft noise. His eyes were wide and glassy. "Not to change the subject, but you should definitely smile more," he said, significantly less agitated than two seconds ago. His voice was on the verge of sounding dreamy.

Izumi looked at Shinya. "I don't think even Takuya's on his side," she whispered, giggling.

Shinya made to reply, but then china clinked beside him as his mother returned her teacup to the table. An immediate hush fell over the younger half of the dining party as they looked at Kanbara Shiori with no small amount of trepidation. In a very quiet voice, she said, "I do hope you're joking, Takuya."

Takuya visibly winced. Hell, so did Shinya.

Their father didn't say anything, but he was looking in Takuya's direction with sharp disapproval.

Takuya, to his credit, didn't back down. "I'm not. Joking, that is."

"Takuya," their mother said, looking quietly disappointed in the way only a mother could.

"Look," Takuya said, biting his lip, "you're my parents and I've always respected your opinion on - on everything, but it's not like I'll break up with them just because people - including you - don't think it's normal. I'm not dumb, alright, I know it's not normal. Nobody publishes books on how to deal with our kind of relationship problems because there aren't enough people like us to buy them. And don't even get me started on counseling or mediation or relationship advice or whatever. The last thing I want to do if we're having problems is have somebody tell us that the source of all our issues is the fact that there are three of us. First of all, it's not true, and second of all, it's not helpful." He took a deep breath. "It's okay if you're not okay with our relationship. But I'd like you to be okay with it. Partially because I'd like to have someone I can ask for advice and that's...been really hard to find, but mostly because you're my parents."

Shinya stared. Izumi stared. Heck, even Kouji stared. Apparently Takuya's little speech had not been planned, which...only made it more impressive, honestly. Shinya thought so, anyways.

So, apparently, did their mother, which was probably more important. She was tilting her head, looking thoughtful.

"Takuya," their father said, putting the napkin down. The wrinkle of displeasure on his forehead had deepened.

"No," Takuya said curtly, in sharp contrast to the long speech he had just given their mother.

Seiji stared at his elder son for a long moment. Takuya stared back, just as intently.

"Well, then," their mother interjected, clearly trying to stop a looming argument, "I suppose that settles that. Ah, but speaking of girlfriends..." she slanted a look at Shinya.

"Oh yeah." Shinya cleared his throat. Now or never, eh? "About that...I'm gay."

There was silence. Then Takuya said, very awkwardly, "I thought that was obvious?"

Shinya looked at him, stunned. So did their parents, though their expressions were far beyond merely stunned. Both of Takuya's significant others were silent, probably marveling at the spectacular damage he and his brother had inflicted on their parents' peace of mind.

"I guess not," Takuya said.

"You're killing the mood here, Aniki."

"Sorry."

"It's okay," Shinya said, and the funny thing was, he meant it, even though today had gone off the rails in every possible way it could have gone off the rails.

Plans were overrated, anyways.