#chiashu

“It’s your merch!” Chiaki laughs and holds the bag up proudly. “The first thing I did today was to pick them up from the store.”

“So that’s what you did,” Shu sighs and rubs his temple, deep creases lining his forehead. “What do you need these for? You already have the real thing so don’t be ridiculous.”

“Aren’t you going to Paris tomorrow?” Chiaki’s mouth blabs before he can stop himself. He winces when Shu’s eyes widen marginally and looks away, unable to keep looking at him.

“Are you…” Shu starts but trails off.

Chiaki’s hands tighten around the handle of the paperbag Shu’s merch is stored in. The curiosity inside him grows and grows until it holds him by his throat. He wants to see Shu’s face so badly, but he keeps his gaze averted. Chiaki fears he would come face to face with Shu’s look of disappointment if he does turn his face.

“Morisawa, look at me.”

He doesn’t move.

“Morisawa.”

Chiaki stubbornly shakes his head.

“Chiaki.”

He bites his lip but… Shu rarely addresses him with his given name, so… Hesitantly, he raises his head and returns his gaze on Shu.

There is… a look of concern spread all over his face. Shu closes the distance between them and wraps his hands around Chiaki’s. The action is slow, tender, and Shu’s touch soft on Chiaki’s skin.

→ chiaki likes to be friends with everyone, especially his classmates, and even the fourth oddball who stitches unit outfits in math class. with his vibrant personality, he’s definitely attempted to make conversation with shu, only to be shut down. but! ryusei red will never back down!

→ honestly, all this ryusei red nonsense grinds away at shu’s gears. ‘making friends’, as casually as chiaki puts it, is not his interest, but it is nice to have someone considered ordinary to be in his company. chiaki is also surprisingly gentle with mademoiselle, so perhaps - just perhaps - he does not mind as much engaging in small talk with chiaki.

→ but small talk soon turns into huge, deep conversations, as they stay back in class, shu sewing away as they talk about justice and evil and hopes and dreams and galaxies. there’s something intimate about being together, to the point where when they look into each other’s eyes, they’re identical pairs of hazy, first love; desperate to be shut against each other.

→ initially, it’s terribly sticky to be in chiaki’s grasp, and be smothered all over by his warm body. shu would push him away, only to feel a pinch of guilt from chiaki’s face of dismay. over time chiaki learns to control his need to hold onto shu, and shu will learn to be more accepting and initiative with affection.

→ chiaki’s temperament also has him getting banged up pretty often, and both his body and clothes suffer. while shu is furious whenever chiaki sprains his ankle or twists his arm, he finds the mess of chiaki’s clothes abhorrent. he’ll burn the midnight oil religiously patching them up, and give them back to a sheepish chiaki after a serious lecture.

except chiaki is. not that. he starts off as selfless, doing his best for the things he wants but is quick to back down if people require it from him

e.g. madara to chiaki regarding kanata (meteor impact)

and that's the chiaki shu gets to meet First: just a little selfless guy who's willing to sacrifice his health for the sake of other people(*). subaru is the one who finds shu First, but shu doesn't cling to him, he clings to chiaki, yelling feverishly to warn his fellow Odballs.

shu might have recognised chiaki as someone who's in the same year with him, or even recognised him as the guy who hangs out with his childhood friend kuro; but the fact still remains he trusted chiaki enough to yell in his face about his loss and warning, whereas he didn't say anything (apart from hysterical screeching, probably) to subaru.

*this is my own theory so do feel free to squint at it, but chiaki's went through So much during the day the Battle against the Sea God live took place (subaru's verbal abuse, his depressive episode, running to the beach to find kanata, running back to school while carrying kanata and having a brief chat with subaru, performing on stage), taking his low blood pressure in considerarion, i wouldn't be surprised if he collapsed after all that, right in front of kanata.

now it makes sense why kanata literally quaranteened him during orihime and hikoboshi: he Knows chiaki is prone to getting sick when the weather switches from spring to summer. he Knows chiaki is prone to keeping his worries and weaknesses to himself because he wants to keep looking look in front of his juniors. he knows something would definitely have happened if he didn't imprison chiaki for a few more days

now chiaki… he grew up a little, he has a bunch of juniors to take care of, he wants to guide them to the best of his abilities and give them the best time. as someone who lived through that war in his second year, he does most, if not all, of his planning by himself. he is unused to working as a team with other people, mainly because of his lack of friends.

he has kanata yeah, but kanata is a little… odd so even between choosing to leave the first years to kanata and leaving them to trickstar, a group who has No experience taking care of juniors, he rather prefers leaving them to trickstar.

what i'm getting at is that chiaki keeps on being selfless, at least from his Own point of view. shinobu, tetora and midori don't like what he's doing? well chiaki thinks it's good for them, he's only having their best interests in mind (mother knows best LOL) so they are gonna do it!

notably, hero show and supernova

with that in mind, the next time we get to see shu and chiaki interact is during shooting star festival. shu refuses to participate in that festival, even after kanata asked him. chiaki sees kanata's dejection, sees mika's interest in the event, and basically blackmails shu into letting valkyrie participate

shu is very particular about valkyrie's performances and prefers to have everything planned out to the tiniest detail, yet when rst has an Issue on stage, shu takes it upon himself to go up with mika to buy them more time. what does it mean, i wonder. maybe he just wants to help out his good friend kanata. or maybe he just wants to repay a debt he owes to chiaki for helping after his execution

another time they interact is for their chocofes event, and shu's kneejerk reaction upon seeing chiaki is to stop in his tracks (and duck away, probably)

Mika: I nearly walked into you… Oshi-san, why did you stop? Aren't we gonna go to the kitchen and ask them to share it with us?

Shu: I almost made eye contact with Morisawa!

—Hot&Elegant

shu's just annoyed with chiaki, but i think the main reason is because rst is just horrible in the kitchen, tetora with his burning oven, kanata with his…fish chocolate… and them just being plain chaos when shu saw them when he stepped into the kitchen.

also chiaki's fun lighthearted teasing. he's only calling shu itsuki-sensei and pretending to be one of his students for a class, but he quickly cuts it out once he sees shu's temper is running low

excluding astraea's atelier, those are about the only instances they have interacted with each other. yes i did read the new event, but i only have Sparse information about !!stars stories so i won't go into detail with that

shu and chiaki are far from being opposites, i dare say they are more alike than anyone thinks. they both are super weird about about their likes (ART and HEROES). we all know how chiaki is about his heroes and their figures, now look at shu:

—via steampunk museum ch13 (bluefilaments)

they both put like. 120% percent into the things they are passionate about (chiaki possibly less than shu since rst counts rest days as a part of work, but chiaki is still someone who has a loaded work life (comet show), and shu used to not eat when he was focused on something. he probably got better in !!stars

it's time for What-ifs and random headcanons bc shuchia doesn't have anything more♪

• they are similar, almost too similar. if they were closer, chiaki would encourage shu with his perfectionistic endeavors. he Would occasionally reprimand shu if he pushes himself too hard, but whenever he does that, he would feel like a hypocrite with his own self destructive behavior.

• shu would Frown upon chiaki's obsession to be more hero than an idol and often tells him his ideals about what idols Are and what they are supposed to be like, essentially pushing his own views onto chiaki. he can sense the potential chiaki has, the effort he puts into things, and what a waste it would be if all that was to be put into something as mediocre as Heroes and the fake image of idols.

• whenever chiaki goes on about heroes, shu sighs but he Does listen, not because it's interesting but because it would be rude otherwise (lol)

• shu is quick to fuzz over chiaki when he coughs just a little bit because it Could escalate from being a simple cough to becoming a fever

• chiaki buys shu's lunch for him if mika is unavailable and takes it upon himself to make shu eat (drag him away from whatever he's working on, forcefeeding him, idk take your pick)