Chapter Text
“Onoda, what’s wrong? You seem so airheaded recently—more than usual, that is! Ka ka ka, do you need to take a shit or something? You keep staring back at the club room!” Naruko glanced at his friend, making sure to keep an even pace so that he was biking right next to Onoda.
“Hn? O-oh, no! I just—uh. Hm, it’s a bit complicated, I guess?” Onoda floundered, waving his hands in front of him, not really caring for the fact that it likely wasn’t wise to take them off his handlebars.
“Ehhh? Are you keeping secrets, Onoda-kun~?” Naruko smirked, eyes glinting evilly.
“N-no!!” Onoda felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle—he wasn’t keeping secrets, was he? Maybe he was. A wave of guilt washed over him. Was it wrong of him to not tell his other teammates about Midousuji’s injury? It didn’t exactly pertain to them…Onoda flushed pink, staring at the asphalt that rushed by beneath his tires. Maybe he was keeping secrets—maybe he was being a bad friend.
“Onoda.” Naruko’s suddenly serious tone startled Onoda, sending him back into a near-panic.
“E-eh?? Me? Yes?”
“Listen…whatever it is, it’s fine. You’ll tell me when you want to.” Naruko clapped a hand on Onoda’s shoulder with a bit more force than he was expecting, his bike wobbling. Naruko cackled as Onoda flailed and worked to correct it, even though it wouldn’t have caused any major problems. What Naruko had said had flustered the boy even more—Naruko trusted him as a friend, even knowing he was keeping a secret. It made his chest swell up a bit with emotion. He would feel a bit silly if he cried about it, and Naruko might laugh, but he still felt the threat of happy tears.
“Hey,” Naruko interrupted, starting to talk just as Onoda was closest to the point of an emotional cry. “Wanna race?” The smirk was back, and this time the glint in Naruko’s bright eyes was different—there was still mischief dancing in them, but something else, too. Onoda realized Naruko was trying to make him feel better.
“Y-yeah!”
“Hell yeah—Hotshot’s still up ahead, isn’t he? You fell behind because you keep getting distracted, you airhead! Come on, let’s go catch up to him!” Naruko pushed down on his pedals, bursting forward suddenly—his speed still left Onoda in awe sometimes. Onoda pursed his lips, and then smiled as he went to follow suit.
“Wait for me!”
“That defeats the purpose of a race!” Naruko shouted back. Onoda laughed as he continued to chase the redhead, forgetting, for at least a while, why he was even troubled.
“Yuki-chan!!!” The shriek echoed through the hallway. Yuki couldn’t help but giggle as she walked into Midousuji’s room.
“Yesssss?”
“What did you do?!”
“Hm? What do you mean, Aki-nii?” She smiled as innocently as possible as she peeked through Midousuji’s doorway. The ace was sitting on their bed, a new cast—bright purple with waterproof casing—was on their right leg. Assorted bandages and wraps were still all over Midousuji’s lanky frame, which Yuki knew, but that wasn’t the problem right now. The problem was that Midousuji was sneering and holding their phone up in the air, the screen facing towards Yuki. She walked over in a bit of a skip-hop and stared at the phone with interest.
“Oh, he really did text you!”
“Why is this little gross otaku texting me?! Why does he have my number, Yuki?!”
“Well, it looks like you already know that, Aki-nii.” On Midousuji’s phone there were two texts:
0-474-867-5309:
Hi Midousuji-kun!!! (*^▽^*) its Sakamichi!
0-474-867-5309:
Yuki-chan gave me ur number, so I hope its OK to text! (*´∀`*)
“Well, are you gonna reply?”
“What?! No!” Midousuji hissed, clutching their phone back close to their chest. “Why would I do that? Why did you give him my number, Yuki?”
“Akira,” She whined, making Midousuji cringe at the noise, “he wants to be your friend! He came all the way to Kyoto to see you, didn’t he?”
“Gross.”
“Don’t you want to be his friend, too?”
“Gross!! Yuki, get out of my room!” Midousuji shrieked, tossing one of the pillows that had been supporting their back as they sat on their bed. Yuki dodged it, giggling before skipping out of the room.
“Have a nice time texting glasses-kun, Akira!” She shouted back. Midousuji huffed. Now one of their pillows was sitting across the room, and they had two texts to reply to from a certain glasses-wearing otaku. They stopped themselves—reply to? They meant ignore. Definitely. They groaned, grabbing yet another support pillow and pressing it over their face to smother the last few notes of their annoyed moaning.
Their phone buzzed again. They stilled, muscles tensing, every nerve in their body screaming at them—their injuries throbbing, reminding them: don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look. They pulled the pillow from their face and swore they could feel their joints creaking from the strain of movement. They felt as if they were made of gears and chords strapped too taught. Their hand—thin fingers, tense muscles under pale, pale skin—reached forward, almost on its own.
Midousuji held back a retching noise, disgust flooding their chest, filling their lungs like mucus. They picked up the phone.
0-474-867-5309:
Hey, its OK if u don’t want to talk right now. But if u evr want to, now u hve my #
They didn’t know what was more disturbing—the serious (well, mostly serious) tone of Sakamichi’s text…or the fact that they were actually considering the prospect of texting back.
They sighed, letting their tongue hang out of their mouth for a bit before remembering themselves—their teeth, the fact that they were missing a fraction of themselves, the fact that they were living in some sort of sick joke courtesy of the universe. The wave of nausea hit, but then abated as they stared at the three texts.
They quickly saved Onoda’s number in their phone.
Onoda sighed as he toweled off his hair and grabbed his glasses from the sink counter, squinting at them to gauge how fogged up they had gotten from the shower he had just taken. The reflection of his body in the mirror was fuzzy with the haze that clung to the glass, and his glasses were definitely fogged up beyond belief. He hadn’t meant to spend too terribly long in the shower—he had just gotten distracted. He had been stuck thinking about Midousuji again.
He paused, face turning red when he realized how inappropriate that sounded—thinking of Midousuji while in the shower. Not that it had been anything like that! Onoda reassured himself that he would never do such a thing—he had just been thinking of the other teen’s well-being. He knew that Midousuji was out of the hospital now, but the ace was still healing, and probably missing school because of it. It made Onoda worry. He wanted to visit Midousuji again—but now that Midousuji was no longer in the hospital, visiting seemed even weirder. After all, he and Midousuji were still hardly friends.
Onoda pulled on his pajamas before wandering out of the bathroom down the hall to his room. The walk wasn’t impeded by the fact that his glasses were in his hand (instead of on his face) because he knew the way so well. He opened the door to his room, making sure to close it behind him before he went to go sit at his desk for a bit, grabbing his phone. His shower had been long enough his LP should have been at least back enough to play one song on his favorite game. However, when he picked up his phone, he was immediately distracted by the notification on the screen.
Midousuji-kun:
Don’t be gross about it Sakamichi.
Onoda didn’t reply, gauging the situation better than that, but still smiled. Midousuji had decided to text him back. That meant at least a little something. The soft smile that had crept its way onto his features stayed there through the rest of the night—through two school idol songs and a new episode of one of Onoda’s current animes. Accompanied with a warm feeling in his chest that Onoda couldn’t exactly pin down, but knew that he liked.