Fulgurant and Intrepid

Streaks of lightning zigzag down from clouds whose bruised stomachs have been growling on the skyline since earlier that evening. At such a close proximity to their studio, these flashes of lightning would blind Muto Ashirogi if either happened to glance at the window, but neither were focusing on the storm hovering above the city.

Mashiro's gaze sweeps over his Perfect Crime Party pencil sketch, and his eyebrows curl in confusion. He blinks his eyelids shut, concentrating on the Makoto Dōmoto in his memory. When he opens them again, the cobalt blue orbs bulge at the lines of Makoto's glasses in the second panel. "The lenses are too round," he complains in a calm baritone, whispering so he won't awaken his friend. "They look like Shūjin's."

He glances at the glasses-wearing writer sitting several feet to his left, who fell asleep while reading online reviews for the Reversi anime. A few minutes ago, the artist heard a soft thump as the blond's left cheek landed on his laptop keyboard. The blue-haired man watched the C key fill up paragraphs of the displayed document. Mashiro waited until the computer had to scroll down, allowing the same letter to continue spamming the screen, then his eyes shifted back to the PCP page and Makoto's too-round glasses.

Mashiro blinks again as he raises his chin, his closed eyelids absorbing the warmth of his overhead lamp. Before he redraws the protagonist's frames, the artist decides to save his friend's poor piece of equipment from death by facial compression. He blinks, and almost a minute passes before he reopens them.

Feeling as if his eyes are fully rested, Mashiro pushes his chair back and walks over to Akito. He raises his friend's head above the key, and as soon as the letter stops running across the blond's computer screen, a lightning bolt strikes the railing of their studio patio. The lamp bulb above Makoto flickers off as part of the heated metal railing breaks, falling down to the grass, and Mashiro runs to the window in time to see a small fire spark atop the damp earth.

"What the hell, Saikō?" Akito grumbles as Mashiro dashes toward the patio. The blond's fingers massage the area where Mashiro dropped his head, allowing his skull to slap the side of his computer monitor, and he frowns at the slight dent on his laptop. "I was sleeping peacefully, dreaming of your wedding―when did you turn off the lights?"

His blue-haired friend's attention is fastened to the flame beneath his patio, devouring the grass surrounding it. "Shūjin, it's a fire!" he exclaims, his pupils dilating as they witness the grass burn up to expose a layer of naked brown dirt. "Down there, below the patio! It's starting to spread!"

The blond pirouettes to Mashiro and stops in front of the railing. "That doesn't look good," he mutters with a puzzled frown, then he jumps back. "Whoa, the metal is hot! I could burn myself, standing next to it."

"Why are you worrying about igniting your shoes when there's already a fire on the ground?" the other asks in an angry baritone, speaking no louder than he thinks would be appropriate at one in the morning. "We have to stop this before it spreads across the area! I'm calling the fire department."

"There will be no need for that," his friend informs him, his tenor sounding uncharacteristically serious. "I will bravely vanquish this fulgurant fire." He rips his jacket in half and tears off his pants to reveal the costume worn by the super hero in Tarō Kawaguchi's manga, Super Hero Legend, then he pulls out the matching accessories and adorns himself with them, removing his round-framed glasses and placing them on the heated railing. Once his spectacles stop wobbling atop the metal, he catapults off the patio, exclaiming "The intrepid hero arrives on the scene!" before his boots slam into the concrete.

Mashiro watches while Akito dons his uncle's character's costume and decides to join his friend as the protagonist's sidekick, so he strips off his shirts and pants until he is wearing nothing but the Masculine Fantasy cosplay. He clumsily falls off the railing, landing on his stomach, and he groans while getting up to stand beside his partner in crime. He has shoved his hands into the fire, and they glow with a bright yellow light, which blinds the burning beast. It cries in agony and vanishes into the darkness, as if it regretted sparking to life in the presence of such a bold hero.

Akito places his hands on his hips in a heroic pose and lets out a laugh. "I have saved the night!" he bellows, his tenor brimming with the euphoria of victory. "Thanks to my courageous efforts, the fire will not spread!" He grins at Mashiro beside him, dressed as Masculine Fantasy but having done nothing to deserve the 'super hero' title his friend just earned. "Your time will come, my friend! Until then, you must strive―"

"It's that stupid cape," Mashiro growls as he strips his friend of the pinnacle of his costume. "Everyone knows the greatest super heroes wear capes!" He holds the article of clothing in his hands, staring at it for several seconds, before he grins and sweeps it behind his back to fasten it to his shoulders. "I'll become a hero, greater than even you, if I wear this cape!"

The blond watches with puzzled fascination as Masculine Fantasy throws on a cape that does not match the rest of his outfit, and his own costume vanishes, disappearing as soon as his sidekick stole the most important part of it from him. "That was my cape," he pouts, puffing out his pale cheeks like pom-poms. "Kaya-chan worked hard to make it for me."

Masculine Fantasy lets out a laugh, similar to the one Akito bellowed a minute ago, and his cobalt blue eyes fall onto his friend's underwear, the pair of plaid briefs the sole article of clothing Akito is wearing, now that his costume has disintegrated. "Who cares about your wife's hard work?" he exclaims as he waves his arm at the stormy clouds, a dramatic gesture accompanied by the flourishing of his heroic cape. "I'm a hero worthy of more magnificent drapery! With this cape providing me wings, I can reach the heavens!"

Akito crosses his arms over his chest and gifts Masculine Fantasy with a pitying frown. "That cape isn't magical," he warns the man, who does not seem to be listening to him. "It can't save you from your foolish actions."

He scoffs at Akito and shakes his head. "I have no need for your 'words of wisdom,' fallen hero!" he exclaims as he takes flight, his stolen cape serving as seraphic wings, soaring above Muto Ashirogi's studio. He stops midflight inside a thunder cloud to laugh condescendingly at the capeless hero standing on the ground, far beneath him physically and metaphorically―that fool, who's he kidding? No one in their right mind would call someone a 'super hero' if they're not wearing a wonderful cape!―and he hears the faint shouting of a man whose dignity has been devoured by―

"Masculine Fantasy!" the blond bellows, his hands cupping both corners of his mouth so his tenor can reach the flying super hero. "Your cape has caught fire!"

"What?" the caped man exclaims in astonishment, whipping his gaze to the spark starting to soar onto his clothing. "This cannot be! The forces of nature refuse to allow me to achieve my ambitions!"

Akito is still screaming at him, his words quieting as the flame roars from the bottom of his cape toward the nape of his neck. "Get down from there!" he shouts at the hero, whose mouth is wide open, frozen from fear. "Saikō, get down from there! Get down, Saikō, get up!―"

When Mashiro gets up, Akito is screaming in his ears. "Saikō, get up!" he shouts at the artist. "Don't fall asleep on top of the table! You're coating the PCP page with drool!"

Once his eyelids fly open, his gaze shifts to Akito, whose hazel eyes sweep over Mashiro's pencil sketch then land on Makoto's glasses in the second panel. "Look what you did!" he scolds in a stern tenor, glancing at the sleepy artist to his right. "You smudged the lenses, see? They look more like my glasses than Makoto's."

Mashiro's eyes shift back to the PCP page and Makoto's too-round glasses, and without Akito telling him, he knows he needs to redraw the protagonist's frames. "You're the same as me, Shūjin," he grumbles, speaking for the first time since disturbed from his slumber. "You fell asleep on your laptop while reading Reversi reviews. I'm willing to bet your C key is broken, after it spammed that screen for who-knows-how-long."

The blond writer frowns a little at his laptop, which is playing an 18:40-long YuuTube™ video Eiji Niizuma posted to his Twitter account of the cyclone that stormed over their studio overnight. "It's not broken," he tells the blue-haired artist, "but I was jolted awake by a streak of lightning, and when I raised my head, it hit the side of my laptop." His fingers massage the area that slapped his computer screen. "My skull and computer both have dents in them."

Akito grins at his best friend, a gesture accompanied by the video on his computer screen playing the thunderous sound of lightning striking a tree outside Niizuma's studio. "At least I had a better awakening than Fukuda-san." He laughs while recalling the conversation he must have had with the white-haired manga-ka before he woke up the second half of Muto Ashirogi. "When lightning hit near his studio, he toppled a bowl of ramen onto his assistant's hair. The soup was so cold, it woke Yasuhiro-san up, and they shouted at each other over who should clean up the ramen."

Mashiro rests his chin on his ink-covered hands, watching and listening as his friend's fulgurant face brightens and darkens with his words, thinking that the Shūjin in real life is as intrepid as the Shūjin super hero in his dream.

Author's Notes: Happy belated birthday, Lillian! I love you and I'm so sorry it took me almost eleven months to write this story;; I finally felt motivated to write it as your birthday and high school graduation approached. But it looks like I'm copying Julie, who completed her story a day before I finished up mine. /gross sobbing sounds/ I WAS GOING TO BE THE HERO

anyway, you asked for a ridiculous bromance fanfiction about Moritaka and Akito, so I hope this more than meets your expectations! c: