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Hajime can only stare, really, stare and blink as he’s faced with that excited, expectant look Tooru’s casting his direction. The one that says, ‘look, look, doesn’t this just piss you off?’ And as his silence drags on, so does Tooru’s impatience for a response. While it’s not obvious, he’s antsy, fidgeting, just barely bouncing on the balls of his feet.
‘C’mon, notice, get irritated, something.’
He slides his eyes to the stranger, leaning more of his weight on his propped elbow. Chin sinking further into his upturned palm he blinks.
The guy is their age, no doubt about it, and must play some sport with the physique his clothes do nothing to hide. But, he’s got this cheery, flowery aura that makes him feel… makes him seem younger, or more naïve. He’s not sure which it is, yet. But off-the-bat he can tell it’s why Tooru’s introducing him to this strawberry blond, and just as immediately he knows it’s futile.
Maybe he’s completely wrong, but he gets the sense this guy is completely harmless.
“Hello theeerrreee…”
“Iwaizumi,” Hajime answers, dropping his arm to fold it over the other on the desk in front of him.
“… Iwaizumi-san!” the strawberry blond chirps, and yeah, he’s as threatening as an excited puppy. Casting a flat look towards Tooru, raising a brow pointedly as if to ask, ‘really?’, he watches with some degree of satisfaction as the almost triumphant look crumbles off the other’s face. Rolling his eyes, ‘you’re predictable’, he turns back to who is apparently his friend’s newest friend.
“Kisumi Shigino! Pleased to finally meet you, Iwaizumi-san,” the strawberry blond, Kisumi, enthused so genuinely he’s taken aback for a moment. Why couldn’t my best friend be more like this, Hajime wonders. Actually pleasant with no strings attached. “Oikawa-san’s talked about you a lot.”
Now he’s surprised, but for other reasons. Glancing at Tooru he finds he’s being avoided and, wait, are the tips of his ears pink?
“Is that so,” he asks, but it’s not a question, not really. He wants answers, he wants them right now, but he catches his professor walking in from the corner of his eye and knows it’ll have to wait. Much as he’d love to stand, grab Tooru by the lapels, and threaten everything he loves for the answer to ‘what the hell have you told this much less shitty version of you’, he does like to try and behave in class. After all he’s not paying what he is to get kicked out and failed.
“Nice meeting you, Shigino-san,” he says with the tip of his head, pulling out the appropriate text and notebooks. He’s lucky, feels relief, that they catch on and get the point quickly.
“Same to you!” Kisumi sing-songs, quietly, as not to catch anyone’s attention and he appreciates that more then he lets on, more than he ever would let on.
They turn, head for the doors, and with one last glimpse at the pair Hajime catches the way Kisumi’s arm is slung casually over Tooru’s shoulders, animatedly whispering about something, and as if sensing the gaze pinned to his back Tooru spares a glance at him, tugs down the lower lid of his eye, and sticks out the tip of his tongue.
Hajime has no qualms in how quickly or violently he throws up his middle finger.
---
“So!” Kisumi declares cheerfully, pulling up from a sip of his milkshake with his signature disarming smile. “I’ve gone and met Iwaizumi-san and all your other friends, now it’s time you meet mine! Oh, or… At least, the cooperative ones still in Japan. Sousuke’s so grumpy, and Rin’s all the way in Australia.”
“What terrible pronunciation,” Tooru mocks with half a smirk and empty contempt, stirring his own drink with the provided straw. “Do the world a favor, never teach English.”
Kisumi shrugs, light-hearted and carefree. “’Least I tried.”
He’s then turning, sitting wrongways in the café’s modern, brilliantly-colored plastic chairs to scan through the crowds of foot traffic along the sidewalks. With an audible hum he pops up to his feet only a moment later, rocking up to his toes and slanting a hand over his eyes. It’s about the instant he finally turns his attention away to take a drink that Kisumi gasps, begins waving energetically as he calls out two names that are familiar, really, but he hadn’t absorbed.
He wishes he had, now, standing himself to greet his friend’s friends because holy shit who is that absolute angel what is his name, his number, and is he free tonight.
Oh well, he supposes he’ll just have to learn it all on his own.
Tuning out the idle chit-chat their greetings grew into, Tooru adorns his most charming smile, known to make the girls swoon with only a glance of it, and makes no hesitation in approaching the other brunet. His attention’s finally caught, green eyes favoring him politely, questioningly, as he’s crowded against the partial wall cordoning the café’s outdoor seating from everything else.
“Oh,” the angel squeaks, cheeks flushing as he glances the smallest fraction up because Tooru is taller by only a little but oh, is it enough. He’s smiling, shyly, and lets loose a nervous little giggle. “Hi.”
And he’s going to reply, he was going to, he was so going to and use one of the smoothest lines in his book to date, but suddenly wet and COLD is sliding down his back, between his skin and the fabric of his shirt, there’s a clattering, and he’s yelping, arms flying up and twisting back to free whatever it is. The ice, as he learns that’s what the whatever it is is, already more than half melted in the fraction of the second it’s taken him to get it out, falls to the ground, bounces as it’s too small and warm to crack upon impact.
“Wh – what’s exactly your problem, huh?!” Tooru snaps, tears beaded in the corners of his eyes, as he glowers down at the man now between him and the angel. And he falters, just a little, because the sheer intensity of the blue eyes he meets is a little scary.
He hears, behind them, Kisumi practically on the verge of death if the gasping breaths he takes between laughs is anything to go by.
“Come near him again and your whole body will be ice-cold,” the devil, he fittingly nicknames the short, blue-eyed man, seethes, voice barely above a mumble but more threatening than if he’d shouted.
“Haruka,” the angel scolds softly, firmly, more like he’s disappointed than angry in the least. Both hands on the shorter’s shoulders, he leans down just the littlest bit. “It’s not like he knows. How could he? We’ve just met, and remember. We tell people not to mention it.” The brunet tips his head more, moves his lips without a sound, brushing them again the devil’s ear, but it’s obvious the words are understood because the devil, he refuses to acknowledge he’s got an actual name, is blushing, looking away with a brief nod, and with a feather-light kiss to his pulse point Tooru understands.
And blanches.
(He feels a little bad, too, but won’t ever admit to that.)