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Shigeo loves milk. Everybody knows that, there isn’t a time or day you wouldn’t see him drinking a glass of milk at home or a carton of milk at school. But what they don’t know is that Shigeo has a systematic way of drinking his milk, specifically the flavor of it. Nobody notices it, since the way he does it is so subtle, it never crosses their mind.
It’s pretty simple. Regular for normal days, strawberry for particularly happy ones, and chocolate for days that aren’t so glam. His facial expressions barely change whenever he drinks a specific flavor, so it isn’t easy to tell that his feelings are correlated to the milk he drinks. Not even Ritsu knows about it.
Recently, Shigeo had started to drink more chocolate milk than usual. It wasn’t a surprise on his part, since the past few months had been pretty rough. Mogami Land, nearly losing Reigen, World Domination, and The Incident had left Shigeo feeling rather gloomy lately. Despite this, nobody has connected the dots yet, nobody but Teru.
Or so Shigeo thinks.
“I have chocolate milk in the fridge if you want some,” Teru says after stepping inside his apartment with Shigeo, who lights up at the mention of chocolate milk. Teru inwardly praises himself and outwardly smiles, he so badly wants to tell Shigeo that, ‘Oh, I’ve noticed that chocolate seems to be your favorite flavor, ha ha.’ but it just sounded so creepy in a way that Teru decides against it. The last thing he wants Shigeo to think of him as is a stalkerish boy that takes note of the smallest, most insignificant things.
Of course, nothing about Shigeo is small or insignificant, but Teru wants to play it safe. Just in case.
Receiving the cup of chocolate milk, Shigeo feels his cheeks grow warm, because although Ritsu has done the same to him before, this was something different. Teru gave him chocolate milk right when Shigeo started feeling terrible since last week, it’s so perfectly time, there’s no way Teru doesn’t know about his milk flavor system. It’s so sweet of the blonde to notice things like these that seem so stupid to Shigeo.
“Thank you, Hanazawa, you’re wonderful,” Shigeo smiles after taking a surprisingly large gulp that shocks Teru, just a bit.
Teru blushes, flicking his hair back to hide his embarrassment with charm, “Of course I am!”
This became a constant routine for them, where Teru would get Shigeo chocolate milk whenever he could, and then Shigeo would feel his heart soar more and more whenever he does. It feels dumb, falling in deeper love with someone just because they managed to guess a deep secret of his. Perhaps the comfort of drinking chocolate milk managed to seep into his feelings for Teru, making it grow stronger. Like water to a little sapling.
Whatever the case is, Shigeo’s glad to have Teru as a friend, and maybe they could be something more if this went on long enough.
This is going, possibly, too long.
It’s not like Shigeo stopped liking Teru just because the blonde was starting to give him too much chocolate milk, but it was starting to get pretty tiring and unnecessary. Shigeo stopped feeling bad ages ago, thanks to Teru being there for him, but it took a while for Shigeo to notice that Teru was still giving him chocolate milk regardless of how Shigeo felt on those days.
He’s beginning to question if Teru knew about his habit at all, and if this had been a funny misunderstanding from the start.
“Shigeo?” Teru tilts his head into the raven’s view and the other blinks, noticing the carton of -you guessed it- chocolate milk in his hand.
Shigeo smiles, though very awkwardly, and politely takes the carton from Teru. His friend takes a seat beside him on the park bench, it’s a pretty sunny day and Shigeo would’ve much preferred to have a carton of strawberry milk instead. But he’s afraid to upset Teru, so he says nothing.
“Is something bothering you?” Teru asks, noticing the uneasiness from Shigeo’s hunched over shoulders and soft grip on his carton of milk, as if the shorter boy wouldn’t mind dropping it to the ground right now.
Honestly, yes, something is bothering Shigeo, but he doesn’t want to tell Teru because that would make Teru feel upset, and the last thing Shigeo needs is one more upset person. You see, due to the fact that chocolate milk is associated with feelings such as contempt and frustration, drinking it when he isn’t feeling those feelings would just make him feel those feelings. If that makes sense.
And if this really is a misunderstanding, if Teru really didn’t know about his habit from the start, then Shigeo would have to go through the embarrassment of explaining it. That’s just too awkward! Too much for him!
So with that, Shigeo only smiles, because lately he’s been learning how to do that properly, “I’m fine, thank you for the milk.”
Teru smiles back, a small blush dusting his cheeks. Shigeo was never great at lying, but Teru’s patient enough to wait. For now he could only help in the smallest ways, like providing chocolate milk.
Chocolate milk.
Don’t tell me… Teru’s smile threatens to drop at the sudden realization. Don’t tell me he’s sick of chocolate milk because of me.
He panics just like that, almost running both his hands into his blonde locks and only barely manages to suppress a yell. There’s no way Teru could’ve ruined the milk experience for Shigeo, but the evidence was there and it’s only started to click into place.
Way to go dumbass! Teru’s hand curls against his lap. But just to be sure, I’ll watch him carefully right now.
One thing about Teru is the fact that he sucks at being subtle, everything about him is over the top, so whenever he’s struggling to keep down his inner bursting feelings, it looks like he’s about to explode on the outside. Shigeo takes note of this, biting the straw of his milk.
Oh no, Teru’s upset. Did he find out? Shigeo sips quietly, breaking into cold sweat. His plan had completely backfired, what should he do? “Ah, Teru, I’ve been meaning to say this…” Shigeo suddenly speaks out of nowhere, no plan in mind, and completely winging this from sheer panic.
Oh here it comes, rest in peace, I wish to have Shigeo’s favorite flowers at my funeral. Teru nearly weeps, a little overdramatic, but that’s how Teru is sometimes and that’s how he’ll always be. “Mhm?”
“Thank you, for...being my friend. Not a lot of people...notices that...I like...milk,” that’s a lie, everyone knows he likes milk. “Especially...um...chocolate.” Nailed it. Hopefully it’s convincing enough, with the way he looks now and the way he phrased it, there’s no way Teru would know if he’s lying.
Teru blinks and Shigeo holds his breath, mouth not leaving the straw of his milk. Was it too much? Too out of place?
“You’re welcome!” Teru brightens up, smiling so wide it almost blinds Shigeo, or maybe it’s the fact that a huge wave of relief had washed over him that made him feel this breathless. “Honestly, I was a little worried that I might’ve made you hate chocolate milk. Silly right?”
Shigeo hums, just for the sake of acknowledging Teru. Fantastic, now to find a way out of this without hurting Teru’s feelings.
Funnily enough, that opportunity came up two days after that ordeal. It was one of those rare days where both Shigeo and Teru were present in Spirits and Such, just to hang around in Reigen’s office and catch up.
Reigen prides himself in being an excellent people reader, mostly because he’s the only one that knows about Shigeo’s milk habit, which seemed so blatantly obvious it makes Reigen laugh out loud sometimes. He didn’t tell Shigeo he knew of course, he never got around to saying it, so it never came up until today.
Seeing Shigeo drinking chocolate milk had shocked Reigen a little, because even though he isn’t as close with Shigeo as he was before, he still keeps up with Shigeo’s mood status, and as far as Reigen knows, Shigeo’s perfectly fine. So there’s no reason why Shigeo should be drinking his comfort beverage.
No harm in checking with Shigeo though, so the man gets up from his desk and walks over to the couches where the two boys are chatting. He squats down, getting down to Shigeo’s eye level, and very seriously asks, “Are you okay?”
“...Yes.” Shigeo answers, extremely bemused with the sudden question.
“Mob, you’re drinking chocolate,” Reigen says, growing more worried. He hopes that Shigeo isn’t lying.
“I--” Shigeo starts, but Teru cuts in, confusion written all over his face.
“What’s that gotta do with his feelings?” Teru says, his past worry about accidentally making Shigeo sick of chocolate suddenly comes back to him as quickly as it had gone away that day.
Shigeo sighs, placing the carton down at last, and he uncomfortably rubs his arms, “So you really were mistaken from the start…”
“Mistaken?” Teru didn’t think he could be more confused than before, but here he is, completely lost and in the dark, and feeling rather stupid.
“Uhm,” Shigeo squirms, his face going from a light cheerful pink to a bright embarrassed red. He mumbles something, which neither of the other two could catch.
“Sorry?”
“I...I have this thing,” Shigeo finally starts, a note too high and a tad bit too loud. “I drink milk...depending on how...I feel…on...the...day…” He trails off, realizing how dumb it sounds out loud. “I’m sorry...for lying to you...I promise I wasn’t trying to be mean…”
Reigen watches as Teru stands up, waving his hands around before gripping Shigeo’s hands, holding them tight, “I’m the one that’s supposed to be sorry! Oh goodness, I can’t believe...I’m sorry I got it all wrong from the start, tell me what I’ve been doing wrong, please.”
Shigeo blinks, wide eyed and very surprised at the sudden outburst, and he’s pretty sure his hands are pretty gross and sweaty from all that embarrassment. “I drink chocolate only when I’m sad. But I’m not sad anymore, and it makes me sad when...I drink it when I’m not sad. Does...that make sense?”
“Of course it does, definitely, I understand. I’m sorry again. What milk do you want to drink? Or maybe you don’t want milk anymore? I can finish your milk...AH! NO THAT’S STUPID, HA HA, IGNORE THAT!” Teru flushes, the thought of an indirect kiss practically has him melting on the spot.
“No, it’s okay, you can have it,” Shigeo says, fingers wiggling in Teru’s grasp. “I’d...really like strawberry, actually. Because, um, it’s my...happy drink, and you make me happy...so…” Words. How does Reigen do it? How does he say so much without missing a beat? Speaking of Reigen, he’s been awfully quiet.
Reigen isn’t bored per se, but he thinks he should probably leave the conversation before he becomes the third wheel. Guess all they needed was a good push into the right path. Way to go, Reigen, you’re doing great as a parental figure.
Teru’s actually melting, not literally of course, but with the way he’s sweating, he might as well be. “I make you happy?”
“Yes?” Shigeo softly replies, not sure what to do with the fact that his friend is probably going to faint on the spot.
“Go out with me.”
“Huh?”
“I MEAN GO OUT WITH ME TO GET YOU STRAWBERRY MILK!” Teru is screaming at this point. Oh god what a mess.
“Like a date?” Shigeo slowly says, taking Teru’s first sentence into account since Shigeo could perfectly hear Teru.
“Y-Yes!”
Shigeo’s not sure whose heart is beating louder, his or Teru’s. He has the feeling it’s Teru, with the way he is right now. “Okay then, let’s go. Here, my chocolate milk.”
“Thank you! Yes let’s...Bye, Reigen!” Teru takes the milk and basically drags Shigeo towards the door. “Thanks for your help!”
The door slams shut and Reigen’s yet again left in an empty office, and he wishes Serizawa was here to keep him company. “Help with what though? All I did was ask a question about milk.” He says to the open air.