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When a figure in a vaguely-familiar basketball jersey tugged Midorima into a side hallway, he just sighed and took off his glasses, tucking them away in the case he kept in his bookbag for such occasions.
Dimly, he wondered what it was this time. His green hair? His lucky items? The simple fact that he existed without friends to protect him?
“I don’t carry money with me,” he heard himself say. “So if you’re going to hit me to take my lunch money, you may as well skip the prologue.”
“What? No, dude, I need your help.”
Midorima blinked. That was a first. More alarming still, he knew that voice. It couldn’t be… He fumbled out his glasses and put them on, pushing them onto his nose by the tape holding the bridge together.
There, grinning at him like he hadn’t a care in the world, was Takao Kazunari. Definitely him, from the black hair that always fell just so into his gray eyes, to the brace he always kept on his wrist so he wouldn’t damage it, down to his shoes, one of which was always, always, tied with a bright green “lucky” lace. It was cool when an athlete did it, Midorima supposed.
Takao Kazunari, ace of the basketball team, darling of the school, the guy everyone wanted to either be or date or both. He’d led the team to the quarter-finals at the Winter Cup last year. He even managed to make that awful orange jersey look good.
Not that Midorima noticed what he was wearing, or how his shoulders looked in the jersey on game days, or how nice he looked in his suit, or that he fell asleep in geometry, or--
“--so will you help me?” Takao was looking at him expectantly.
“I--ah… yes. S-sure,” Midorima stuttered. Help him with what?
“Great!” Takao-- Takao! --beamed. “Meet me at the west door after school? We can go to my house.” Without waiting for an answer, he strolled away, hands laced together at the back of his neck, whistling.
Suddenly grateful he was in a side corridor, Midorima slid down the wall to sit on the floor and reran the last few moments in his head. He pulled his lucky item for the day--a teddy bear he’d borrowed from his baby sister--out of his bag and stared at it.
“I think I just agreed to tutor Takao Kazunari at geometry,” he informed the bear. “At his house. Me!”
Well, I always wanted to make him recognize me, Midorima thought.
Now what?