Chapter Text
Taichi frowned, scratching his neck nervously and looking at the sky with annoyance, almost regretting having agreed to his teacher’s request without giving it a second thought. He held the folder he was carrying close to his chest, trying to shelter it from the sudden pour of rain that had graced the streets.
Why the heck did he have to bring a sheet of homework and notes to someone in a grade lower than him, anyway? Why couldn’t their own classmates take care of it? Were they all so busy that nobody had the time to drop by his house and hand it to him? Taichi guessed that it was possible, but still, geez.
Not that the kid would’ve even needed to do the worksheet to begin with.
After all, this was Izumi Koushiro that they were talking about. All the students at the school, including people from different grades, knew just how smart he was — always staring at the bright screen from his laptop and typing enthusiastically, instead of playing around like everyone else.
So what if he missed stuff one day because he was sick? It wouldn’t really affect his grades too much, would it? But the teacher had insisted a lot about the utmost importance of this exact worksheet, and how would it be vital for acquiring the necessary knowledge for the class’s upcoming test.
Or something like that.
It sounded convincing enough to Taichi’s ears, even though he didn’t understand half of the words the teacher used, and the soccer team wasn’t having practice today, so he easily offered himself to bring the papers to Koushiro’s house. The teacher thanked him a bunch of times, and gave him a folder and Koushiro’s address, which wasn’t so far away from Taichi’s own house.
He didn’t have to do this, but he could be of help, so why not do it? It wouldn’t kill him or anything.
Besides, he would be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t a little curious about Koushiro. He hadn’t ever seen him talk to anyone, always focused on his tech devices and what not, so it made Taichi wonder if he even had any friends to begin with.
Probably not.
And if there was one thing Taichi was proud of, it was his ability to make friends with possibly anyone you could think of. He’d been told that he was fun and easy to talk to — and he could say that he was, at least, acquainted with even the quietest kids in his class.
So maybe his natural charm would work with Koushiro, as well. He couldn’t possibly be as shut-in and cold as the rumours made him to be.
But, as he stared at the heavy cloudburst, Taichi could only sigh with dread. He’d been waiting there for a long ten minutes, safe and dry under a balcony, hoping that the storm would clear up soon enough, and then he’d be able to keep on walking.
However, it became obvious that it wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. In fact, the intensity of the rainfall had increased, and even if he wasn’t getting wet with the rain, Taichi could feel his whole body going numb with coldness.
Curse that he decided to walk out of his house without taking a jacket that morning. There was nothing that he could do about his freezing legs, but maybe he could have saved his arms from suffering the same horrible fate.
He let out a sneeze, and he knew that at this rate, he was going to catch a cold.
Taichi checked the paper where the teacher had written Koushiro’s address, just to be sure. Alright, so he was almost there — only two streets away. It’d be harder to get there, and running really fast wasn’t a good idea unless he wanted to slip and fall into one of the many puddles of water that were covering the ground.
Keeping a brisk pace would have to do.
He adjusted his hold onto the plastic folder, and then left his sheltered spot, trying to walk as quickly as possible. He was thankful that there was nearly nobody outside, because he was so focused on not tripping over his own two feet that he could’ve easily bumped into someone by accident.
Finally, he reached Koushiro’s building, which thankfully provided him cover from the water.
Taichi ran a tired hand through his messy hair, now a bit puffier than usual due to the rain. His shirt and shorts were completely drenched beyond salvation, but at least the binder with the papers was still mostly dry.
Letting out a sneeze, he kept checking the numbers on the doors, skipping to the next one until he found the number of Koushiro’s house. He pressed on the doorbell while attempting to make his hair look as presentable as possible.
The door made a creaking sound as it slowly opened. A small, pale, red-headed figure stood at the other side, half of his body hidden behind the door, staring at Taichi as if he’d just grown two heads. His cheeks and forehead were burning up, in contrast with the rest of his skin.
“...Yagami-san?” he trailed off with uncertainty, recognizing the other boy as the captain of the soccer team, but not understanding why would he be standing in front of his house.
“Hey, um— Koushiro.” he gave a very poor greeting. “I came to give you this. Today’s homework.” he then said, extending the folder that he’d been carrying towards Koushiro, who still looked a bit lost at the situation.
“...Ah, thank you. But you’re not from my grade, how come you…?”
“Well, everyone in your class was too busy, so—”
His explanation was cut short by a terribly loud sneeze. Koushiro’s eyes widened, as if he was only now realizing that Taichi didn’t have an umbrella with him, which implied that he’d come all the way here under the heavy rain.
“Oh, um— Feel free to come inside,” Koushiro muttered, opening the door and motioning for Taichi to walk into the house.
Taichi smiled gratefully, nodding and taking up the offer. He let out a pleasant sigh when the warmth from the interior of the room slowly washed over him. He sat down and took his shoes off. Koushiro quietly closed the door behind him.
Taichi followed him to the living room. Koushiro’s house was simplistic enough, with a few family photographs hanging here and there. Everything was remarkably ordered and tidy, in contrast to Taichi’s house, though.
“Please sit wherever you’d like,” Koushiro’s deep voice snapped Taichi out of his thoughts. “...Would you like something to drink?” he asked, almost hesitating, like he wasn’t too sure of what was he supposed to be saying at this moment.
“Sure. I could use some hot chocolate right now.” Taichi chuckled, barely holding back another sneeze. He plopped himself on the couch, rubbing his hands together.
Koushiro observed him with slightly pursed lips. He took the folder from Taichi’s hands and disappeared from the room. He came back a few moments later, holding what appeared to be a blanket.
“Please use this to maintain yourself warm.” he simply stated, handing it over to Taichi.
“Ah, thank you!” Taichi gave a goofy grin, already wrapping himself in the blanket. Koushiro stared at him for a few seconds before politely smiling back, and then proceeded towards the kitchen.
Taichi decided that the rumours were very much exaggerated. Maybe his speech pattern was a bit (okay, a lot) more formal than what the kids of his age would normally use, but he didn’t really come off across as cold? Just slightly distant, if anything.
The boy took another look around the room. There were two different couches, a small coffee table in front of him, and a big TV. His parents weren’t home, right? Did they both work or were they off somewhere? He wouldn’t be surprised either way.
He threw a glance at the window on the wall, contemplating the storm. The clouds had gotten even darker, and there even were rays of lighting falling down.
So he’d be stuck at Koushiro’s house for a while.
Just as Taichi was beginning to grow bored, Koushiro returned to the room with two steaming cups of hot chocolate.
He kneeled down to place the tray on the coffee table, but then he got up rather hastily, which made him lose balance and stumble forward. Thanks to his quick reflexes, Taichi managed to untangle himself from the blanket and catch Koushiro before he collided with the carpet.
“Are you okay?” Taichi quickly asked, voice tainted with worry, because he had forgotten that Koushiro was still sick.
“Yes, I— I’m fine, thank you. I’m still feeling rather unwell, but I hadn’t expected to slip like that… I apologize for startling you.” Koushiro rushedly replied, averting his eyes.
Was it just Taichi’s imagination or had his cheeks gotten redder than before? He hoped he wasn’t feeling too bad...
“Don’t worry about it.” Taichi reassured him, helping him to sit on the couch next to him.
They drank their chocolate in silence until Taichi started a conversation again.
“Well. As I was saying before, everyone in your class was… busy. So your teacher came to our class to ask if someone could bring these papers to you. And I said yes, but then the rain caught me by surprise.” Taichi explained, making a very accentuated pout at the end.
“...Ah. I see. Thank you for taking the time to. You really didn’t need to…” he trailed off, unsure.
“No problem! I just figured that if I could help you, why not do it?” Taichi beamed. “Besides, I kinda wanted to meet you, you know?”
“How so?” Koushiro asked, raising his eyes from his mug and looking at Taichi with genuine curiosity.
“Because…” Taichi made a vague gesture in the air. “Well, everyone’s always saying that you come off a bit rude, and you’ve always looked a bit lonely?” Almost as if realizing what he just said, Taichi scrambled to try to fix his previous words. “But I didn’t think that it was true! I wanted to come check by myself, and…”
He tilted his face to meet Koushiro’s gaze, and Koushiro was almost taken aback by the sincerity that his brown eyes held.
“I think that you’re a kind person.” Taichi finished his speech, taking a sip of the chocolate. “I mean, you even made me chocolate even though you’re sick…”
Koushiro felt his heart go warm.
...It was the first time that someone told him that.
Not cold, not distant, not shut-in, not rude, not indifferent.
Kind.
“That’s… Well, I’m— Thank you. I’m happy to hear that…” he whispered, trying to prevent himself from blushing any further, while attempting to keep his voice steady and to not show just how much Taichi’s comment had affected him.
His reaction seemed to satisfy Taichi, because he simply laughed heartily while giving Koushiro a pat on the shoulder.
“No problem, really.”
Taichi was surprised because Koushiro kept thanking him all the time. He’d never met someone who said ‘thank you’ over hearing what Taichi had to say about them.
It was one of the things that made Koushiro be himself, though, Taichi decided.
They’d known each other for a couple of minutes and yet, as both of them finished their drinks, they decided that they liked each other, too.
Taichi felt a bit weird asking it, but he guessed that a direct approach would work better for the kind of person that Koushiro was. “Want to be friends?”
“...That sounds nice, Yagami-san.” Koushiro answered awkwardly, but smiling softly while doing so.
“Taichi. Taichi’s fine.”
“...Taichi-san, then.”
“That’ll work.” Taichi accepted. Because, really, Koushiro was too polite for his own good.
Taichi set his now empty cup of chocolate down and, as if he just got a great idea, gave his new friend a huge grin.
“Have you ever played soccer?”
***
Over the course of the weekend, Koushiro found himself dealing with an unexpected dilemma. A very huge and complicated one, at that.
He knew next to nothing about feelings . He’d always had troubles understanding other people’s emotions — at least, from a, well, emotional point of view, to put it in a way. He could analyze the logic behind someone’s actions, but the problems arose because Koushiro had come to understand that feelings did not always follow the logical path.
So there he was, sitting awake in his bed in the early Saturday morning. Endeavouring to figure out whether the warm, fuzzy feeling that invaded his chest upon recalling his conversation with Taichi the previous day was merely happiness over making a new unexpected friend, or if it carried, ah…
Romantic connotations.
Koushiro groaned, letting his face rest against the pillow. He seriously needed to settle down and work on his people skills if he couldn’t even distinguish and properly assess his own feelings.
A faint blush made its way to his cheeks as he remembered his conversation. After the initial awkwardness, they both had ended up talking about their respective hobbies.
Taichi was really passionate about soccer. He related one of his matches as if it was some sort of epic historical battle, with lots of dramatic pauses and sudden yelling to punctuate the most tense moments. He really made it sound ridiculously fascinating to Koushiro, despite the fact that the game basically consisted on twenty-two people running after a ball.
Koushiro intended to briefly mention his interest in all kinds of technology and leave it at that, as even he had noticed that he tended to bore people when he went on a rant about computers. To his shock, Taichi said that all of that ‘stuff’ sounded really ‘cool and smart’, and Koushiro ended up accidentally ranting like he had exactly wanted to avoid.
But Taichi didn’t look bored. It was clear that he was struggling to keep up, and he probably didn’t even understand half of the things that came out of Koushiro’s mouth. And still, that goofy grin of his didn’t leave his face one second.
Koushiro had never met someone who had paid attention to him for so long, who actually, actively attempted to comprehend him.
...It felt nice. Knowing that, if he had something to say, Taichi would listen.
It made him feel wanted.
Koushiro groaned again, fully burying his face in his pillow, unable to hide the crimson tint rushing to his face. This wasn’t contributing in the slightest to his already lost cause.
Then again, he’d already known that feelings were hard to sort out...
And, even if he didn’t understand it entirely, the warmth that his heart was enveloped in was still comforting.
...Maybe he only needed to give himself some time.
Koushiro had always been a very curious boy, eager to discover the answers to every question that he could think of.
The full range of his feelings towards Taichi Yagami was the one mystery that he wouldn’t mind not solving right away.
***
Taichi yawned lazily, hand stumbling to find the damned alarm clock that had snapped him out of his peaceful slumber. He managed to hit it, and the beeping sound stopped.
He was almost tempted to stay in the bed for what was left of morning, but Hikari, who was already awake, burst through the door of their bedroom and climbed up the ladder. She shook Taichi’s legs playfully, making Taichi grunt and try to kick her off, until the boy understood that all his chances of going back to sleep had been annihilated the moment Hikari set her foot in the room.
Still yawning and rubbing his eyes tiredly, Taichi stepped down from the bed. While he glanced at the clock, Hikari was rummaging through their closet. She eventually found a fluffy white coat, which Taichi happily put on, because despite his best efforts, he still managed to catch a small cold yesterday.
He was happy, though. He wouldn’t change it for anything in the world.
The fact that he was thinking about his meeting with Koushiro probably showed on his face, because Hikari gave him an odd look before she started giggling.
“What?” Taichi asked, confused and mildly annoyed at Hikari’s outburst. Sure, his hair was kind of funny to look at when he still hadn’t fixed it up, but Hikari had already seen it like that thousands of times. Why would she be laughing now?
“Nothing, nothing.” Hikari quickly dismissed him with a knowing smile. “Let’s go have breakfast!” she cheerfully said, already heading towards the kitchen.
Taichi blinked twice before shrugging it off. He picked up two eggs from the fridge and started boiling them.
“How did your meeting with Koushiro-san go?” Hikari suddenly piped up.
“I already told you as soon as I came back. I gave him the homework, we talked for a while and got to know each other. Nothing much.” he answered nonchalantly, placing one egg and a piece of bread in each of the two plates.
“I’m glad you became his friend.”
“And why’s that?” Taichi asked, setting the plates and cutlery on the table. He sat down at the other side of the table, facing Hikari.
“Because you look happy. I’m sure he’s happy, too.” Hikari merely said, whispering a ‘Thanks for the meal’ before plunging her fork down.
“I mean, yeah. People are happy when they make friends.” Taichi agreed easily enough, stuffing his mouth with food.
“I bet that you’re the first friend he makes in a long time. Take good care of him, okay?”
“Well, sure.” Taichi opted to go along with what Hikari was saying, giving her a lopsided smile. “I hope he joins the soccer club. He’s so smart, if we had his brain and my speed we’d make the perfect team.”
“Maybe you can convince him.” Hikari offered, and really, Taichi would say that she seemed almost amused at the situation. Was there something going on that Taichi wasn’t aware of?
Taichi nodded with determination, and they finished their food in a pleasant silence.
***
The weekend slipped by fast enough, and Taichi found himself waking up late, rushedly dressing up, fixing his uncooperative hair and having a really quick, barely cooked toast for breakfast. He proceeded to make a run for the school gates, nearly getting run over by a car on his way there, and he still didn’t make it to class in time, because his maths teacher was so ridiculously strict that arriving a single minute late wasn’t acceptable.
Not a great way to start a Monday, definitely. At least he had gotten over his cold. And the teacher hadn't thrown him out of the class as punishment, so that was good, too.
Sora, his deskmate, gave Taichi a sympathetic look as the teacher screamed at him about the importance of punctuality.
“Don’t mind, Taichi. Everyone is late at times.”
“I know, but why did he have to be so pissy about it? He didn’t need to go off like that...” Taichi whined to his friend.
Sora seemed to be about to say something back, but the teacher ordered them to flip their books to a certain page, and their conversation died down.
Taichi’s mind drifted off for the rest of the class. He wasn’t remarkably good at any subject in school, but he specially despised maths. It was just a long, indecipherable string of numbers, tied all together with signs, in a jumbled equation that made no sense to him. He was better at languages, at expressing himself with words.
He opened his notebook and fiddled with a pen in his hand, if only to act like he actually cared about this class whatsoever.
Koushiro liked this stuff, probably. Computers had a lot of… number things, right? But there were also letter things. How did Koushiro call it the other day? Cody language? Yeah, something like that, right?
When the class was over, he copied Sora’s notes, reading them carefully. To his pleasant surprise, he actually could sort of understand them.
The rest of the morning went by excruciatingly slow. After another three hours of classes, where Taichi slowly started to get more focused, morning lessons were finally over and the students had their lunch break.
“Get to our usual spot, I’ll be right there.” Taichi said.
“Where are you going?” Sora inquired, casting him a puzzled look.
“There’s someone I want you to meet. I’ll be right back,” Taichi grinned before dashing out of the classroom.
He made his way towards the hallway with the 4th grade classrooms. Which one did Koushiro say he was in? 4-B, maybe...?
He didn’t trust his memory too much, but he decided to enter anyway. Some students eyed him weirdly, but Taichi paid no mind to them as he scanned the classroom. Soon enough, he spotted the bright red patch of hair that he’d been looking for.
“Hey, Koushiro!” he yelled across the classroom, running to his desk.
Koushiro raised his head, lightly startled. His lips curved upwards in an amicable smile. “Taichi-san,” he acknowledged the other boy.
“For a moment I thought I barged into the wrong class.” Taichi laughed. “Anyway, wanna have lunch with me?”
“...Would that be okay?” Koushiro asked unsurely, pretending not to notice how everyone was gawking at Taichi.
“Yeah! I bet Sora will love to meet you, don’t worry.”
“Alright, then. If you say so.” He stood up from his chair, grabbing his lunch box and trailing after Taichi.
Koushiro tended to have lunch inside the classroom, eating quietly by himself. He did go to have lunch outside sometimes, but he usually didn’t get too far away and he was looking at his laptop all the time, either way, so he was a bit unused to the school’s playground. Taichi guided him to a nice spot, where a girl with ginger hair was leaning against a tree. Her face lighted up when she noticed the approaching pair.
“There we are.” Taichi announced.
Koushiro stepped in front of the girl, feeling somewhat nervous, but her kind smile helped to calm him down. “Nice to meet you. I’m Koushiro Izumi, from 4th grade.”
“I’m Sora Takenouchi, from Taichi’s class. Nice to meet you too, Koushiro-kun. I didn’t know you two were friends.”
“We met each other Friday. I went to give him the homework that he missed, remember?” Taichi intervened.
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot about that.” Sora commented sheepishly. “Now that I think about it, I think it’s the first time I see you without your Pibook.”
Koushiro’s face went red and both Sora and Taichi chuckled good heartedly. The boys sat down, with Koushiro between Taichi and Sora. Both friends were constantly bickering with each other, and even though Koushiro mostly sat in silence, enjoying his meal and laughing at the pair, he didn’t feel uncomfortable at all.
“...So Kenta totally screwed up our match. Seriously! I don’t even know why did I listen to him, his strategy sucked.” Taichi complained, chugging down the last bits of his sandwich.
“Maybe we need a better strategist.” Sora muttered, crossing her arms, as if she was deep in thought.
“You’re right. We need someone like Koushiro!”
“M-Me?” Koushiro perked up, confusion clear in his eyes.
“Yeah, I bet you could figure out how to get out of a pinch better than Kenta.” Taichi stated. “Right, Sora?”
“Perhaps.” Sora turned to look at the younger boy. “Koushiro-kun, have you ever tried any sports?”
“Not really. I haven’t found myself particularly interested in them… But Taichi-san’s explanation of a match did sound quite entertaining…”
“You should give it a try, maybe you’d like it.” Sora suggested.
“I’m not sure of that, Sora-san.” Koushiro objected. “My physical aptitude is less than the average, and I would probably drag the team’s pace down with my, ah, lackluster moves.”
“Nah. Half of the guys on the team don’t even know how to dribble without tripping over their own feet. Anyone can do better than them.” Taichi muttered, clearly not happy about the team’s skills.
“I’m still not confident…”
“That’s alright. Why don’t you come to see us today? We have practice. If you see us actually play, you may have an easier time deciding what to do.” Sora encouraged him.
“Ah, well, that’s…”
“Pretty please?” He threw his arm around Koushiro’s shoulder. “I’ll even make an amazing shoot, just for you to see!” Taichi told him, wearing a tenacious grin.
How could Koushiro refuse to that?
“Okay… I’ll come watch you play.”
Taichi squeezed his shoulder, loudly celebrating, and Sora clasped her hands together in delight.
Koushiro gulped.
What had he gotten himself into, exactly ?
***
Koushiro spent the two hours of lessons after lunch time wondering what would Taichi and Sora’s plays be like.
By the sound of it, Taichi was a forward. And a very good one, at that. He seemed very confident about his skills.
He couldn’t think of Sora’s position. At first glance, he would say that she might be a midfielder, because she sighed in annoyance and agreement at Taichi’s comment about how a lot of people in the team had trouble with dribbling properly. But some defenders also carried the ball forward, right? He could picture her as a defender, as well.
Or maybe she was a forward. Like Taichi.
Koushiro was eager to find out.
As soon as the bell that indicated the end of classes rang, Koushiro found himself quickly stuffing all his books inside his backpack, wanting to get outside as soon as possible. He smiled fondly when he realized that he hadn’t touched his laptop in all day.
Finished with packing everything, Koushiro started to run towards the classroom’s door, but he got cut short when he bumped into someone.
Koushiro rubbed his head. “Ah, I’m very sorry, I didn’t—”
“Hey, if it isn’t Koushiro-kun…” the other person muttered, and Koushiro felt himself tense up, because he recognized the voice, and it wasn’t associated with pleasant memories.
“Eriko-san, I apologize for bumping into you. It wasn’t my intention. Now, please, if you excuse me—”
The girl interrupted him for a second time. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Koushiro didn’t need to look ahead of him to know that someone was probably keeping watch on the door. He had nowhere to go. He gulped, feeling the disgustingly familiar cold sweat dripping down his neck. However, he put on his best emotionless mask and feigned apathy towards the situation.
“Is there anything you need from me, Eriko-san?”
“How come you’re friends with Yagami?” she asked coldly, mockingly .
Koushiro’s eyes darkened, but he stood still, refusing to react to her taunting.
“Did he feel pity for the worthless nerd and decide to act like he cares about you? How cute,” she commented, voice sickeningly sweet. “Almost as if you two are friends or something.” she turned to face the two girls that were still waiting at the door. “Look, Koushiro-kun believes that someone likes him!”
The two girls giggled.
The boy clenched his fists, feeling anger bubbling up inside him. He wanted to talk back, but it would probably result in a slap, or worse. Maybe if he just let her go on, she’d be done soon…
I don’t have time for this , Koushiro reminded himself, he couldn’t just stall until she grew bored. He needed to get to soccer practice. He’d told Taichi and Sora that he would come, he couldn’t fail them now.
His attempt to walk forward was met with Eriko’s fist. She punched him in the face, with enough strength to make him lose his balance, effectively throwing him to the ground.
She kneeled down, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt. “Are you listening to me or not? Say something!”
“Yes.” Koushiro curtly replied. He could feel himself slowly panicking, not knowing what to do. If he tried to free himself from Eriko’s grasp, she may start doing something worse… And there was no one to ask for help, either...
***
Taichi and Sora gave each other a worried glance. Their practice had started a few minutes ago, and Koushiro still wasn’t here.
“Maybe he had to go home early…” Sora wondered. She’d been looking forward to Koushiro coming to see them play, so her shoulders were slumped down in disappointment.
“We would’ve seen him walk out. He’s still inside the school.” Taichi pointed out, throwing a pass at Sora. The ball got kicked with more strength that he intended.
“I’m gonna look for him.” Taichi yelled out, already on his way, sprinting to the building before Sora could complain.
“I hope it’s nothing serious.” she whispered to herself.
Taichi dashed to Koushiro’s classroom, thankful that no teacher had the chance to reprimand him for running in the hallway. He was about to burst in, but he stopped himself when he heard a loud voice coming from the inside.
“Good. If you’re listening, then you understand, right? You know that Yagami wouldn’t ever want to be friends with someone like you. You should go back to your laptop and stop making people feel sorry for you, Koushiro-kun—”
Taichi slammed the door open without thinking.
The girl who’d been talking fell silent. The other two that were guarding the door got startled by Taichi’s sudden appearance, and they moved to the side.
Taichi lips were pressed on a thin line. He was giving the girl who had Koushiro pinned to the ground the deadliest glare he could manage, and his muscles were tense, holding back pent-up anger. It was hard, really hard, to not launch himself at the girl right now and force her to let Koushiro go.
“Leave him alone.” Taichi demanded, voice dark and strained.
Koushiro himself looked quite terrified of the situation, frozen in place, because he’d always seen Taichi smiling, and laughing so much.
All the traces of that friendly smile were gone.
Taichi looked so serious.
Scary, almost.
Eriko sighed, finally releasing her grip on Koushiro’s shirt.
“Don’t get so worked up about it. We were just having a talk.” she shrugged, meeting Taichi’s vicious stare with bored eyes.
“Get. Out.”
“Sure, sure, senpai.” Eriko muttered. She waved at a stupefied Koushiro, walking past Taichi, with the other two girls following after her.
As soon as they were out of sight, Taichi offered his hand to Koushiro. The younger boy took it, and Taichi helped him to get back up on his feet.
Both of them stared at each other. Koushiro was about to start apologizing, because he made Taichi feel worried and he even had to leave his soccer practice to come check over him.
But then, Taichi raised his arm, gently letting his hand rest on Koushiro’s bruised cheek, thumb brushing over it very softly. His eyes were kind and filled with concern, nothing like the despicable look that he’d been giving the bully a couple of moments ago.
Koushiro went red at the tender touch, but that was the least of his concerns right now. “Taichi-san…?” he tentatively called out at him.
Taichi seemed to snap out of whatever stupor he had gotten into. He frowned, poking Koushiro’s cheek lightly. It was only red for now, but it would surely turn into a big purple bruise. She really had hit him hard.
“Come with me.” Taichi requested. “I think our coach will have an ice pack to help with that. And you still want to see us practice, right?” he gave his trademark huge grin.
Koushiro couldn’t help but smile back, even though his cheek was starting to hurt a lot, now that the muscle was relaxed.
Taichi slowly dropped his hand from Koushiro’s face. Koushiro almost found himself wishing that he hadn’t pulled away.
But he had no time to dwell on it because, mere seconds after, Taichi had pulled him into a hug.
Koushiro was positive that his whole face matched the shade of his hair. He stood stiff, unsure of whether he should move away or hug back. Or if he was just fine, standing like that.
...He’d been avoiding his parents’ hugs ever since he found out about that .
“You… Koushiro, I think you know this already. But nothing of whatever she said is true. I’m your friend because I like you. Okay?” Taichi suddenly spoke, very quietly.
“...Okay.” Koushiro hesitantly said, nodding against Taichi’s chest. He closed his eyes, allowing himself to relax into Taichi’s warm, soothing hold. Taichi’s fingers were ruffling his hair gently, and Koushiro cherished the touch.
So maybe he was touch-starved, too. ...Just a bit.
He’d have to work on that as well.
Koushiro slowly untangled himself from Taichi’s hug.
“Thank you, Taichi-san.” he whispered, voice barely audible.
“No problem, Koushiro.”
They calmly made their way to the training field, no more words spoken between them. They weren’t necessary.
And as Koushiro stared at Taichi’s back, he could only think of how grateful he was for having met him.