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The dining hall is always so loud during lunch time. It’s loud whenever there are more than five or six people wandering around, so this shouldn’t come off as much of a surprise, but still; it’s obnoxious. At Shuichi’s high school, they all ate in their classrooms, so there wasn’t as much noise potential. Cramming four classes of Ultimate Students into one moderately-sized room is a recipe for cacophony. Lunch is the worst, too, because at least at breakfast, people are tired, so they don’t have as much energy to hang off the light fixtures and launch spoonfuls of apple sauce across the room, and at dinner a decent amount of people go off campus anyway, so there’s less potential for catastrophe. Despite the fact that Hope’s Peak is in the middle of everything and surrounded by restaurants, there just isn’t enough time during lunch to go eat at a ramen shop.
(Plus, Kirumi and Teruteru’s cooking is good enough that most people don’t care to leave either way. It’s just that a lot of people like hanging out around the city after classes are over. Shuichi’s not big on it, but like, if Kaito wants to drag him out somewhere it’s not like he’s going to give a hard no.)
Shuichi rests the side of his head down on the table as if that’ll somehow block out all the noise. Now he can only hear all the din out of one of his ears, but in the other he hears every movement on the table, cups and bowls being put down, Ibuki, a third year, teaching Hajime, another third year, how to do the cup song at the other end-- and it’s not unpleasant per se but it’s not much of a change. He brings up his arms to rest his head on them instead and closes his eyes. He pretty much dozed through morning classes and that exhaustion hasn’t worn off yet. The noise isn’t overwhelming, per se, but it’s definitely not his favourite thing when he’s feeling tired.
He could really use a cup of coffee, or something, in fact would’ve taken one this morning, but he kind of slept in past his alarm and had to skip out on breakfast. Kaito’s been getting on him about that recently and he should be more proactive, it’s just, waking up is hard. Coffee is great when he can remember to drink it. Otherwise Shuichi’s ideal lifestyle would be waking up at one in the afternoon every day. It’s too bad that he has too much integrity to skip class. If he was just a little bit more irresponsible, he wouldn’t feel so exhausted all the time.
Despite the ruckus, Shuichi finds his eyes slipping shut. He doesn’t fall asleep, since it’s pretty impossible to fall asleep in here amidst the sound of Hifumi (a second year) and Tsumugi getting into a heated debate about shipping for some anime they both watch, but he does drift off a little bit. It’s like he’s bluescreening. If someone was to talk to him right now, he wouldn’t even notice.
A hand rests itself on the crown of his head, gently messing up his hair, and Shuichi cracks open an eye, preparing to huff out some half-baked, irritated remark at the culprit-- only to stop short. There are only so many people who ruffle his hair (Kaede and Kaito, for example) so he isn’t necessarily surprised, but maybe because he’s feeling particularly sleep deprived, when he meets Rantaro’s green eyes and mischievous smile, his retort falls still on the roof of his mouth and he ends up swallowing it back down. Annoying how Rantaro’s smiles are so lovely even when he’s exhausted.
“You should eat something,” Rantaro says, and Shuichi blinks. Right, it’s lunch. He doesn’t have much of an appetite, honestly, but he doesn’t refuse the plate of onigiri that Rantaro slides over to him. “I got you some water, too-- it always perks me up when I’m feeling tired. Toujo offered to brew you some coffee, but I think you need natural energy more than you need caffeine right now.” Stupid grin. Shuichi sits himself up but shields his face with a hand, trying to ignore the butterflies in his stomach.
He clears his throat. “Uhm, thank you,” his voice comes out a bit thick, probably because he hasn’t used it yet today, so he clears his throat a second time, but Rantaro just nods and takes the seat across from him, offering a pair of pale green chopsticks. Shuichi accepts them, eyes sweeping over the pretty brown flowers drawn on the wider ends. They’re smooth in his fingers, and Shuichi’s about to ask why he’s being given chopsticks for onigiri, but then he notices the vegetables on the plate. “You’re feeding me healthy food,” Shuichi complains.
“Hey, if you don’t serve yourself, then you have to put up with it,” Rantaro grins, pulling out another pair of the fancy chopsticks to eat his own vegetables. “I’ve never known you to be a picky eater, Saihara,” he adds, raising his eyebrows.
“I’m not,” Shuichi pouts, picking up a piece of cauliflower and frowning at it. “I just don’t like vegetables.”
“I think that makes you a picky eater, you brat,” Rantaro reaches out to ruffle his hair again, and Shuichi would ordinarily duck away from it, protesting loudly, but for some reason he doesn’t move, and Rantaro’s hand lands. This gets an eyebrow raise from the other boy, but Shuichi just lowers his chopsticks a bit, swallowing hard. These simple interactions would carry so much less weight if he didn’t have a crush on Rantaro. This is how Rantaro interacts with everybody, so it’s not like Shuichi should fuss over it.
(Still, the weight of Rantaro’s hand in his hair is… pleasant. He has big hands, and they’re always really warm. He took one of Shuichi’s between them once and exclaimed, your hands are so cold, jeez, maybe you should think about getting some more exercise, and yeah it was technically chastisement but Shuichi’s face lit up red for an entirely different reason. Damn, he’s touch starved.)
Rather than pulling his hand away, which would be the logical thing in this situation, a thoughtful look crosses over Rantaro’s features, and he shifts his hand to brush Shuichi’s hair out of his eyes. The touch burns across the bridge of his nose and his right temple, and maybe it’s just Shuichi’s imagination but he’s surprised that the whole dining hall can’t hear his heart thumping, even over all the noise. Rantaro’s eyes are piercing, but warm regardless, and the inquisitive (?) light in them almost makes them more compelling. Shuichi’s always been fond of Rantaro’s eyes; he likes green, it’s a nice, pleasant colour, and on Rantaro it’s… striking. That’s probably the best word.
“Wow, Shuichi!” Kaito plops down into the seat on Shuichi’s right, throwing an arm around his shoulders. Shuichi jolts, having forgotten entirely where they are, and Rantaro retracts his hand, bringing it up to cover his mouth. (Is he blushing? Shuichi thinks he might be imagining it, but…) “You’re eating vegetables today! That’s great! Self improvement is a step-by-step process, sidekick!”
“Thanks,” Shuichi says dryly. He picks up a piece of cauliflower and throws it at Rantaro. “You’re confusing the masses and tricking them into believing that I eat vegetables,” he tries to sound extra scornful to distract from how red his face must be. It’s difficult to achieve, because he’s not good at sounding scornful in the first place, but he thinks it’s fine. Rantaro seems to bounce back from whatever it is that’s running through his head fairly quickly, a relaxed, knowing smile settling in on his features. The cauliflower leaves a greasy spot on his jacket, but he doesn’t seem to care, calmly picking it up off the table with his chopsticks and popping it in his mouth.
Shuichi’s jaw nearly drops. “Just because you have atrocious eating habits doesn’t mean we all do,” Rantaro teases when he’s finished chewing, but Shuichi’s out of composure by now, far past the point of recovery. Why did he stop wearing his hat again? He’s starting to think that he might be running a fever.
Oblivious to Shuichi’s embarrassment, Kaito nabs a green bean off of his (Shuichi’s) plate and chews it, a thoughtful look on his face. “Hey!” Shuichi protests, “Get your own food, Momota!”
“You’re not even eating it!” Kaito retorts through a mouthful of green bean. “You just wasted a cauliflower by throwing it at Amami!”
“It’s not the first time someone’s thrown cauliflower at me,” Rantaro shrugs.
In retaliation, Shuichi picks up one of the vegetables Rantaro got for him and crams it into his mouth at random. He really doesn’t like asparagus most of the time, but Kirumi’s cooking is phenomenal. The grin Kaito gives him tells him that he’s been played, but admittedly the seasoning is really good, and Shuichi hadn’t really realised how hungry he actually is, so he just elbows his friend before starting to eat for real. He starts on the onigiri, though, because he’s got to maintain some of his dignity.
The onigiri that Rantaro chose for him have salmon on the inside, and Shuichi raises his eyebrows as he chews, because he’s not sure that Rantaro would even know about his preference for fish over other foods. Of course, fish is a common filling for onigiri, so perhaps it’s a coincidence, but when he looks up and meets Rantaro’s gaze, he sees that the expression on his face is a bit… expectant. Maybe he asked Kaede? They had a conversation about it back at the beginning of the school year. (It’s how he found out that Kaede is pescetarian, so, that was nice.) But why would he go to the trouble…?
Shuichi swallows and blurts, “You, uhm,” he bites his lip, then reaches out, impulsively, to wipe a grain of rice off the side of Rantaro’s mouth. Normally he’d be too shy to try such a thing, but his head is swimming and he’s blaming it on the sleep deprivation. Not anything else.
(Rantaro’s face is soft, and when it reddens, the spattering of freckles across his cheeks and nose are almost highlighted. As Shuichi’s never seen him truly embarrassed before, the look is… endearing. Also, if someone connected him to a heart monitor right now, there’d be serious panic in the emergency room.)
“Had, something,” he manages weakly, lowering his hand back to the table. Rantaro blinks, nodding very slowly, and offers a smile-- but Shuichi is decently certain that he’s not imagining how shaky it looks.
It’s Rantaro, too, who averts his gaze, clearing his throat and mumbling a quick, thanks, though Shuichi is quick to follow, grabbing the glass of water Rantaro grabbed for him and downing half of it in one go.
(Since Shuichi distracts himself, he doesn’t notice Rantaro touching the spot on his face where Shuichi touched him and smiling softly. Kaito does, for once, but he decides not to say something, because like-- that’s really none of his business. He’s proud of his sidekick for having game, though! That’s what’s up, dude!)