Work Text:
Arakita Yasutomo was really bad with animals.
Like, really really bad with animals.
He wasn’t sure if it was how he approached them (loudly), or his voice (loud and grating), but not one single animal beside his old deaf cat at home ever voluntarily approached him. And it was only when he had food that the fat cat that lived in the bushes outside of the club room would get within five feet of him. Even when he did manage to get the fat stray close enough for him to pet it, it would still scratch at his arms and when it was done eating. Ungrateful little shit.
Honestly, it had started to offend him a little bit when the one animal that relied on him for meals constantly tried to tear up his face with its claws.
So, when Arakita heard that Shinkai had brought home a baby bunny after a race, he was both irritated and intrigued by the situation. Irritated because it was just another animal to cower away from him, and intrigued because he had actually never tried to interact with a rabbit before. When he first asked Shinkai about the bunny, his face lit up and Arakita couldn’t help but smile back when Shinkai offered to introduce him.
“I named him Usakichi,” Shinkai said as he fumbled with his keys, looking for the one that unlocked this Usakichi’s cage. “He’s still pretty little, so be careful. But you can help me feed him if you want!”
Arakita grumbled in agreement as he followed a few steps behind. He wasn’t sure what to expect from this rabbit that his friend picked up off the side of the road. The only rabbits he had ever seen up close were pretty dirty and pretty dead. His cat at home used to be a pretty big hunter, but after he left a bloody bunny on the floor of the kitchen, his dad had removed the cat flap from their back door.
Arakita nearly ran into Shinkai’s back as he came to a stop behind a shed towards the back of campus. He leaned over and unlocked the top of a small cage on the ground and removed the mesh top. Shinkai sat down next to the cage, urging Arakita to sit with him, and softly calls out to the bunny.
“He seems to like to sleep in that corner, there” Shinkai points out as Usakichi reveals himself from under a pile of dried hay. “Rabbits get pretty timid around new people, but if you just follow what I do, you should be okay.”
Shinkai offered his hand to the bunny, letting it sniff him before it rubbed the bottom of its chin all over his fingers. Arakita saw him smile as he pulled his hand away, reaching into his bag to get a small bag of greens. “Here, here. Put you hand near him like this so that he can get acquainted with you, but don’t stick it right in his face or he might see you as a threat.”
Arakita scoffed and did as he was told. Shinkai laughed as Usakichi squeaked and stumbled over himself as he tried to escape from Arakita’s looming hand. “That was probably too fast for him. Maybe he’ll like you better if you give him some food.” Shinkai pushed the bag of lettuce into his hands. “Here. You can put a few leaves over on this side so I can refill his water and hay. I’m sure he’ll let you pet him after that!”
Again, Arakita did as he was told, offering the small bunny some of the lettuce before removing his hands so it could eat. He watched the small thing timidly hop over and begin to chew at the greens. It was pretty cute for an animal, though he’d never admit that to anyone, especially Shinkai. When Usakichi was about halfway done with the first leaf, Arakita felt his friend nudge him in the knee. Shinkai was smiling at him as if he knew what he was thinking. Arakita scoffed and turned away, back to the bunny eating his dinner. He leaned in again, trying to pet Usakichi on the side of his body, when the rabbit quickly turned and bit Arakita right on his middle finger before grabbing the lettuce in his mouth and retreating back into his nest of hay.
Arakita jumped up and let out a loud howl, smacking Shinkai on the back of the head when he started laughing. “Your piece of shit rabbit just bit me!” Arakita screamed, shoving his bleeding middle finger into the red-head’s face.
Shinkai ignored him as he rubbed the top of Usakichi’s head in an attempt to calm him down. When the bunny was relaxed, he replaced the top of the cage and locked it. “You just scared him, Yasutomo. Rabbits are very territorial of their living areas, so he was a little startled.”
“He. Bit. Me.” Arakita ground out, pointing to his bloody finger.
“Oh it’s already stopped bleeding,” Shinkai said as he slapped Arakita’s hand out of his face. “Come on, let’s go get a bandaid for your hurt butt and get dinner.”
Arakita groaned and tried to wipe his hands off on the back of the other boy’s shirt.
Shinkai dodged, offering to pay for dinner in exchange for no more whining about bunny bites.
---
Arakita continued to complain for a week and a half about the bite mark on his finger.
It rubbed against his pencil weird in class. It hurt to wear his riding gloves in practice, and for the first couple of days it would sting when his hands got too sweaty.
And he made sure Shinkai heard him every single time he decided to complain, so he wasn’t sure why he was now asking him to feed his demon rabbit over the long weekend.
“Are you stupid?” Arakita cocked an eyebrow up, seriously contemplating that his friend may have become a little bit touched in the head.
“It’ll just be four days. He only needs food twice a day and you don’t even really have to do anything except put it in there. I’ll clean out his mess when I get back.” Shinkai was sitting backwards at the desk in front of him as the waited for homeroom to start. “Please, Yasutomo~. Both Juichi and Jinpachi are going to be gone too, and I’m worried that Izumida would try to feed him something he shouldn’t because it would make him more muscular. Rabbits don’t need food for muscles; they are basically 100 percent muscle.”
Arakita just scoffed and flipped Shinkai his middle finger, still wrapped in a bandaid.
“Quit being such a cry baby. Help me out here, I swear I’ll pay you back. My mom doesn’t know I have a rabbit yet so I don’t know-“
“Fine! Just quit fucking begging.” Arakita growled and kicked the leg of Shinkai’s chair, causing him to nearly tip out of it. He smirked and gestured that Shinkai should turn around as their teacher had just walked in the classroom.
---
Arakita spent the rest of the week studying up on ways to make sure that rabbits wouldn’t bite a person. He found out that bunnies typically got scared when they felt threatened, forever being prey animals. He understood now why Shinkai had told him yesterday that his wolfish face had probably been what made Usakichi wet his hay.
On Wednesday afternoon, Shinkai came to Arakita’s room to drop off Usakichi’s food and the key to his cage. When Shinkai started telling him all the specifics of how to handle a rabbit, Arakita simply waved him off without letting on that he had actually put effort into learning about his rabbit. “Yeah yeah I got all that. Don’t lean over him, don’t put anything down directly in front of him. Food, water, got it got it. Just shut up, you sound like my mom.”
Shinkai looked a little worried at his nonchalant attitude, but shrugged it off, attributing it to Arakita’s normal bad mood. He left with final instructions of when and how much to feed the little bunny, reminding him to call if there were any issues and that he’d be back on Sunday night.
Arakita slammed the door behind him, dropping everything Shinkai had given him on top of the mini-fridge by his bed. He plopped back down into his desk chair before reopening his laptop and continuing his work. The first page that popped up was filled with different markers of bunny’s behavior. Since Shinkai had indicated that he had already fed Usakichi twice that day, Arakita spent the rest of the evening reading about how to take care of his best friend’s rabbit.
---
Thursday morning, Arakita awoke earlier than he would normally on a day he didn’t have class. He grumbled under his breath as he looked at the clock sitting on the shelf over his roommate’s bed. He rolled onto his stomach, face in his pillow, and groaned, knowing he should get up and get that stupid rabbit’s morning feeding over. Eventually, he gets up, grabbing the bag he prepared last night, and heads to Usakichi’s cage.
---
“C’mon, Rabbit. Come out,” Arakita calls to the bunny after he sits down next to his cage. He has already lifted the top off and set out food and water for the bunny. Now he was simply waiting to make sure that the damn thing actually ate. As Usakichi timidly hops out from his corner filled with hay, Arakita pulls a banana out of his bag and peels it. After eating about half of it, he looks back down at Usakichi who has stopped eating his lettuce to stare at him.
“What?!” Usakichi starts as Arakita shouts at him, looking as if he wants to turn tail and hide back in his corner. “Oh yeah…rabbits can have bananas as treats, right?” Usakichi continues to stare at Arakita with his head cocked to the side. “I bet Shinkai gives you pieces of banana all the time, huh?”
Arakita breaks a chunk off of his banana and offers it to the bunny. “You like this right? That’s why you’re still showing your little ass out here, yeah?” Arakita continues to talk to Usakichi as he cautiously approached the banana pinched between Arakita’s fingers. “You better not bite me again, ya little shit.” When Usakichi got close enough to grab the banana between his teeth, Arakita let him pull it away. He watched the baby rabbit chew on the banana piece until it was almost gone before locking the cage and dusting the dirt off his pants. Pulling the phone out of his pocket, he realized it was almost noon. Arakita let out another loud groan and collected his bag before leaving to go back to his room.
---
He spent the next few days like this. Waking up earlier than he intended to feed Usakichi and spending more time than he intended watching the little bundle of fluff eat his offerings of banana. Leaving from whatever activity he had found himself engaged in at night to make sure the bunny still had plenty water before giving him more food, and another piece of banana. He hadn’t attempted to pet him again though, still fearing for the longevity of his fingers. Though, when he brought his breakfast on Sunday morning, Arakita noticed that Usakichi actually appeared to be waiting for him.
“You’re just a little fattass, aren’t you?” Arakita began his routine of talking to his bunny-ward as he slid to the ground and popped open his cage.
“I bet you don’t even care anymore that it’s me feeding you. You just want treats.” He scattered some new hay around the cage, watching as Usakichi grabbed a few pieces of it and placed it in his nest.
“If you get fat, don’t blame me. I’ll tell Shinkai you tricked me.” Arakita refilled the bun’s water, and placed some food near him.
“No, Rabbit. You’ve got to eat that salad first before you get what you want.” Usakichi blinked up at him.
“I know, it’s the same for me. Mom always tells me to eat salad before steak so you got to do that too.” He twirled his key ring around his finger and sighed out loud as Usakichi began munching on his breakfast.
“It’s kind of like Shinkai’s your mom, huh? You gotta listen to him, he said you have to eat your salad, not me.” Usakichi twitched his ear and continued to naw. “I guess that makes me your dad.”
“Papa-Ara doesn’t have a very nice ring to it, Yasutomo.” Arakita jolted out of his bunny conversation and turned to see where the new voice was coming from.
“Shinkai! Idiot, I thought you weren’t coming back until tonight!”
“Well, I was worried about you with Usakichi. I was concerned that he was getting too much for you.” Shinkai smiled as he slid to the ground next to him.
“It’s just a goddamn rabbit,” Arakita scoffed and looked away. He could feel his cheeks burning, embarrassed that he had been caught carrying on a conversation with the cute creature.
“He didn’t bite you again, did he?”
“No.”
“Good! Well, at least it looks like you two had fun~!” Shinkai was positively beaming as he smiled at Arakita. “I’m glad you two settled your differences. Thank you for taking care of him.”
Arakita grumbled, not really making words as he brushed off Shinkai’s praise. He pulled the banana he had brought for the day out of his backpack, breaking a piece of it off and setting it in the cage next to Usakichi. He could still feel Shinkai’s eyes on him, so he took the remainder of the banana and shoved it into the sprinter’s mouth.
Taking a large bite out of the fruit before removing the end from his mouth, Shinkai flung one of his arms around Arakita’s shoulders, pulling him into a half hug. “You are now Usakichi’s designated caretaker when I am away, Papa-Ara!”
Arakita groaned as he unsuccessfully tried to push the sprinter off. Failing, he resigned to letting Shinkai hang off of him for a bit longer as they settled in the shade to watch their adopted rabbit-son finish his snack.