Chapter Text
The third time was when Takao was sleepily organizing CD's in the Top Charts section on an early Saturday morning with a mug of hot chocolate in his hand and Midorima walked through the door, greeting him politely, then walking over to him and starting to browse through the same shelf. Takao side-eyed him curiously, asking himself what Shin-chan could possibly want in this for him uncharacteristic section of the shop and observed his hands at work all the while. He was used to seeing the fingers of one of them securely wrapped in bandages now. It didn't seem much of a strange thing at first, he could've had just injured his fingers, so he didn't question it, but he doubted that was actually the case after such a long period of time of always seeing them taped neatly. It also didn't seem like he had a long term injury, as he could move those ridiculously long fingers perfectly, maybe a little too perfectly as Takao thought, swiftly scanning through the CD's back and forth in their racks, occasionally pulling one out to look at it.
"What are you looking for, Shin-chan?", he finally asked, eyes fixed on his own work, but smirking mischievously as he could perfectly sense the jolt that went through Shin-chan, resulting in him fumbling and finally dropping the CD cover he was holding, then adjusting his glasses, flustered.
"Shin-ch-", the other repeated but stumbled over the second half, decided against saying it out loud with a "hmpf".
"Could you, in fact, please not call me that absurd name", he said, not a question, but a demand and Takao chuckled lightly, picking up the CD and turning around, slightly leaning against the shelf with his shoulder and head and handing him the CD back while blinking up at the giant's face.
"Aww, come on. You come here quite often for quite some time now, so I thought I'd give my special costumer a special name. It's cute, don't you think?"
"No."
”So, what can I do for you today, Shin-chan?” A yawn escaped him and he rubbed his eyes while excusing himself - he just felt like it was necessary in front of a person like Midorima - then took a sip of his chocolate, which, he thought, should probably rather have been a coffee in his current state. Even though he knew the night before he had to wake up at 8 am to open the shop at 9, he just couldn’t bring himself to go to bed early on a Friday evening. He didn't do anything in particular, just lazed around in his room and listened to some music while playing some games and eating snacks all day to enjoy his free time to relax at least a bit, since the past week had left him exhausted to the bones. Summer holidays were right around the corner and that meant he had to study for the upcoming final exams in addition to his work in the shop, which he enjoyed too much (plus he needed the money) to pass up on. So he had no choice but to stay up late or wake up at an ungodly hour to squeeze hardcore study sessions in between everything. And because the mental stress of upcoming finals was something his mind couldn't handle while sleeping, even though he knew he remembered everything, his remaining hours of rest were spent making himself crazy over failing his classes and imagining all the things that could go wrong in his future.
Midorima didn't respond, just looked at him frowning, as if Takao just said something highly disapproving and scanned the boy in front of him thoroughly from head to toe. Takao felt a tinge of embarrassment at those calculating eyes scanning him this close up and reflexively straightened up his posture and tugged at his shirt hanging out of his pants on one side.
”I recommend a full 8 hours of sleep. Organizing your day and keeping a schedule should in fact be a priority of yours”, he said, eyes averting and focusing on the backside of the CD in his hand. Takao just stared at his profile for a while, in the back of his mind admiring how calm he looked with his usually so sharp eyes cast downward, casually looking at the object in his hands and how his bangs falling forward and making his head tip a tad to the side to avoid getting them in his eyes made him look boyish and endearing, yet so normal for once, the superior air around him missing from his presence. Takao only noticed now that he was wearing casual clothes instead of his uniform.
Midorima’s eyes perked up and Takao felt himself break out in a light sweat at being caught staring while thinking those embarrassing thoughts, like Midorima had somehow read his mind.
”What?”, Takao asked flustered, fidgeting with his mug under Midorima’s intense gaze, already having forgotten what Midorima had even said before. He was way too close, he thought. He looked too horrible today for him or anyone to be this close.
Midorima looked back at his hands, idly scratching at some spot on the cover.
”You look tired.”
”Oh.” Takao said, thinking ‘Yes. I must look like shit’ and took a sip of his mug in an attempt to cover his face, but involuntarily smiled at the taste of the content reminding him of not having poured himself any coffee today.