Work Text:
"I would appreciate it if you didn’t seek me out to help sort these with you,” is what Midorima states as Kise spreads out the numerous love letters that had occupied his shoe cubby. "What is there to sort, anyhow?"
"You don’t understand at all, Midorimacchi. You can’t just look at a love letter and clump it along with the rest. They’re all different! Some of them are nice and simple, very sweet! Some of them are more, hm, passionate.” Kise grins, seating himself across the table as he begins opening and reading through each letter before placing it accordingly in a pile on how passionate they sounded to him.
As he sorts, Kise tells Midorima how he went about deciding which letter belonged in the ‘Encouragement’ pile and which went into the ‘Passionate Love Confession’ pile. It was all the same to him, if Midorima was to be honest and he stated as such, causing the blond to lament about Midorima’s dull, grey life to which he argued his life was perfectly colourful and full of excitement. Just because Kise had countless girls hounding him did not mean his life was any more thrilling than Midorima’s.
"You always refuse them; why give them the false hope by even reading these?” Midorima returns, eyes narrowing down at a flowery envelope as if it had somehow offended him. In truth, it had. Simply by being written on and addressed to Kise Ryouta, the innocent letter had doomed Midorima to spend even more time with the blond.
Oha-Asa had somehow failed to mention this would happen and Midorima was determined to send them an angry email when this was all done and over with.
"It’s because I refuse them that I read these. Midorimacchi really doesn’t understand the tender heart of a teenage girl." The blond laments as he shakes his head. "It’s a shame. Perhaps one day, you will receive a letter and you’ll finally understand."
"If I ever received one, I will write a letter in return asking for their zodiac sign. If compatible, we will talk. If not, I will decline," Midorima replies seriously, causing Kise to laugh loudly.
"There is a great lack of romance in your life, Midorimacchi."
"There is too much in yours."
Instead of answering, Kise only smiles fondly, his eyes roaming over each letter, each written word with polite consideration despite the fact that each of the names at the end of the paper would receive the same answer: a thank you for their encouragement and support, but kindly refusing their affections at the same time. Once they were done with the sorting, Kise finds himself sorting through the piles once more, eyes searching for a letter he assumed he had overlooked.
"Hm? Isn’t not here today?" Kise mutters under his breath.
Against his better judgment, Midorima pauses as he packs his bag, expression turning strained as he dares to question, “What isn’t?”
Shoulders slumping in what could only be viewed as disappointment, Kise leans back in his chair with a frown. “Ah, it’s nothing really. Just… there’s a letter missing.”
Quirking a brow, curious despite himself, Midorima crosses his arms as he studies the other teen. “You said you had no interest in returning their feelings and yet here you are, clearly disappointed because there is one letter missing. Who is it from?”
Kise chuckles softly. “I don’t know.”
"You don’t know."
"Ah, there’s never a name written on it. It’s always the same paper, same shade of color with the same thing written on it, ‘Thank you for your hard work today. Please do not give up.’" The blond falls silent then, resting his cheek against his knuckles before laughing it off. "Ah, maybe they got tired of cheering for me."
Maybe, Midorima wants to say. Instead, he offers, with reluctant comfort, “You shouldn’t let a faceless entity affect your mood just because of a few words.”
"You’re right," is what Kise returns with a small smile, but Midorima can see clearly that the blond is still disheartened. That somehow, those two sentences were worth more than the countless girls whose names were written with hearts all around them.
Midorima could stay a little longer to bring the blond back to his earlier cheerful mood, but he was never one to be really good at such things and so, awkwardly, he reaches out to give the other boy a pat on the shoulder before he heads off. As he reached the front of the school where the cubbies were lined up, Midorima caught sight of Kuroko. What was most curious was that the smaller boy wasn’t standing at his cubby, but Kise’s as he slipped something inside of it.
A headache slowly built up at the back of Midorima’s head that made it’s way to his temple and he paused in his footsteps, pressing his thumb and forefinger against the top of his nose.
Oha-Asa will be receiving a very long angry letter from him today.
Sighing loudly, letting Kuroko know he was there, Midorima made his way over, looming over the smaller boy as Kuroko turned to face him.
"Midorima-kun," is what Kuroko greets him with, the smaller boy’s eyes steady and curious. Not a hint of embarrassment in them at being caught.
"You." Midorima begins, already irritated. "If you’re going to do such things, why not just simply hand it to him face to face?"
Kuroko blinks slowly before a tiny smile curves the corner of his mouth, as if he found Midorima’s lack of romanticism amusing. It only made the taller boy more irate.
"Midorima-kun really doesn’t understand the point of being anonymous." Kuroko kindly offers.
"I don’t care, but if you’re going to go about it this way, at least be punctual about it." With that said, Midorima quickly slips on his shoes and heads outside, already writing his angry email to Oha-Asa in his mind.