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The doorbell jingles overhead when Eijun and Furuya push inside the 7-11, somehow managing to fit themselves through the entryway at the same time with minimal shoving. Eijun shakes his hair free of snow and flashes a smile at the bored-looking cashier as Furuya scuffs his shoes on the doormat. The store is pretty empty at this hour of the afternoon, so they're the only customers.
With little preamble, they glance at the arcade-style mini car tucked next to the wall on their left before locking gazes.
"Furuya," Eijun says gravely.
Furuya nods, equally serious.
They don't get to come here terribly often (what with so little time off practice as it is, and with the first years running errands in shifts anyway; last week's turn was Haruichi's and Toujou's) but when they do, it's unspoken tradition that they squash themselves inside the Waku Waku Sonic Patrol Car for a good round of Eggman-chasing and knee-knocking.
Technically, it's a game for kids—but it's the only one left in the area and they're a couple of teenage boys, which is pretty much the same thing.
"I call shotgun!" Eijun whoops, sliding into the car seat before Furuya has the chance to. Furuya follows in after him, forced to duck in a way that Eijun would find hilarious if he were paying attention to him and not the various buttons that line the control panel. The car itself isn't not spacious; it can fit two normal-sized adults, but Furuya being far from normal-sized and approximately seventy-five percent leg has to perch with his knees tucked up almost halfway to his chest.
"You got to sit shotgun and push the siren last time," Furuya points out, casually stepping on Eijun's toes.
Unwilling to risk publicly losing to Furuya at jan ken pon again, Eijun slowly relents. "Okay, fine. I'll control the steering wheel this time and you can push the buttons." A pleased look settles on Furuya's face.
Eijun said it before he'd fully realized it, but in order for that to work they'll need to switch spots. Instead of getting out of the car to switch like any normal person, though, Furuya decides it's a good idea to just—scoot himself over Eijun's lap, banging knees and all, and by the time they're both situated properly and Eijun's done squawking he's terribly, embarrassingly half-hard. If Furuya notices he doesn't comment; he looks quite unruffled, actually, flexing his right hand in preparation for the game to start.
(If pressed, Eijun would admit that Furuya is frustratingly good when it comes to this game, though that mostly amounts to him enjoying smacking his hand down on the buttons as hard as he can—which is hard.)
Eijun grumbles at Furuya's eagerness and inserts the coins, willing his own excitement down. Furuya pushes the start button and the screen in front of them immediately lights up. The car begins to rock back and forth, gentle but still enough to knock their legs together with every sway. Ever the excellent driver, Eijun's twisting the steering wheel violently even before Sonic's intro speech about justice ends and the car on-screen pulls out of the police station.
They're cruising along when Doctor Eggman pulls up ahead of them and switches lanes without using his blinker. Furuya slams the siren; Eijun screeches and does his best impression of Kuramochi-senpai as he chases down the traffic offender.
The music's tempo picks up as Eijun pulls up alongside Doctor Eggman. "Go, go! Now, Furuya!"
Furuya lets Sonic out of the police car, then slaps the button to make Sonic hop on top of Doctor Eggman's vehicle, but Doctor Eggman cackles and skids out of reach. Eijun leans over, taking his right hand off the wheel to press it over Furuya's. "Here, let me—"
The contact nearly makes Furuya jump out of his skin, which in turn makes Eijun jump, and in the ensuing elbow fight they accidentally allow Doctor Eggman to escape. The game music promptly turns sour, then cuts to Sonic's ending speech. Eijun cusses. The cashier behind the counter fails miserably to hide their laughter, and of course it's all Furuya's fault.
"Oh, come on," Eijun grouses at Furuya's pointed look. He gives the steering wheel one last rueful turn, then hops out of the car before Furuya gets impatient and decides to slide his bony ass over Eijun's lap a second time. Furuya quietly slips out after him, stretching his legs like a cat.
Conveniently enough, the magazines and newspapers are lined up by the window next to the Waku Waku Car. Furuya grabs a basket and they finally get to checking off their shopping list, both purposely avoiding the always-awkward erotic section. Kuramochi-senpai's wrestling magazine is easy enough to find, so Eijun picks up a copy and tosses it in the basket before going to browse the manga while Furuya heads for the kids' newspapers.
He's flipping through a volume of Ao Haru Ride, scrutinizing the panels that Kou is in, when Furuya mumbles something he can't quite hear.
"What?"
"Brontosaurus," Furuya repeats. He leans into Eijun's shoulder to show him the page he's reading, where a long-necked dinosaur is reaching up to munch on the leaves of a tree. "Did you know. That the brontosaurus is actually called the apatosaurus. The first apatosaurus found was a juvenile, and when they found an adult apatosaurus they thought it was another species, which they named the brontosaurus. But they were wrong."
Eijun blinks, still a little thrown by Furuya speaking more than a few words at a time. He's found that Furuya, for all his quiet stoicism, will sometimes blurt obscure factoids like that, like he can't help it. His interests outside of baseball are very specific, and although Eijun doesn't really get his acute fondness for animals (which extends to dinosaurs, apparently) he can still appreciate it because it's, well, Furuya. Privately, Eijun thinks it's actually kind of cute.
Aloud, he says, "It looks like you." He laughs, bumping Furuya's elbow when Furuya wrinkles his nose.
"The apatosaurus is my favorite," Furuya confesses simply. He leans back into his own space, gingerly folding up the newspaper to return it to the stand. Eijun feels the loss immediately, so he sets down the volume of Ao Haru Ride and shoves his hands into his pockets to prevent them from doing something stupid.
"We still need to find Isashiki-senpai's Bessatsu Margaret..." he changes the topic, squinting.
"Ah." Furuya plucks out a magazine tucked in the back of the rack. "Is this it?"
"Aha!" Eijun snatches it out of his hand and flips it over. "This must be the last one."
Furuya shakes his head at Eijun's excitement before moving away from the magazines to the shelf behind them. "Didn't you say Chris-senpai needed hair gel, too?"
Eijun looks up from a snippet about this month's Kimi ni Todoke special. "O-oh, yeah! Thanks. Masuko-senpai also needs shaving cream."
Chris-senpai didn't tell Eijun he was out of hair gel, exactly, let alone ask him to get him some more—but he's a good student to his shishou and thinks of him anyway.
Eijun scoots over to Furuya and places Isashiki-senpai's magazine in the basket, already frowning at the stacks of assorted hair products and toiletries. Maybe he hadn't thought this through too well; he can't get Chris-senpai something that'll make him look weird, or worse, smell weird.
Lost in thought, Eijun almost misses when Furuya points wordlessly to the shelf at his left. He follows with his eyes and chokes a little when they land on a row of boxed condoms. Eijun boots Furuya's ankle out of reflex, face bright red, but even though Furuya turns away from him he can tell he's smiling. Probably laughing at him inside. Dick.
(Eijun realizes, belatedly, that Furuya's move in the Waku Waku Car was totally on purpose.)
Deliberately ignoring the row of condoms, Eijun snatches Masuko-senpai's shaving cream and what he guesses is Chris-senpai's preferred brand of hair gel and books it after Furuya to the snack aisles at the other end of the store. Furuya's placing Masuko-senpai's pudding in the basket by the time he gets there, tucking the cups carefully next to the magazines so as not to wrinkle them. Eijun scopes out a bag of Kominato-nii-san's favorite curry coconut chips and throws it in there, too, before moving on to the onigiri. Tanba-senpai likes sekihan, he knows, which the managers are unfortunately reluctant to make.
Eijun's debating between getting tuna mayo or umeboshi for himself when he feels Furuya's hand brush his once, twice; brief and hesitant but too obvious to be accidental. He catches it the third time and threads their fingers together firmly, an awkward press of calloused palms and knuckles still knobby with youth. Holding pitching hands feels oddly intimate; too intimate, maybe, clumsy and sincere in the same way their first kiss had been. Eijun is still getting used to it.
Beside him, Furuya stiffens, but his hand is surprisingly warm. Eijun squeezes, fingertips pressing a challenge into the backs of his knuckles. Furuya responds immediately, squeezing back twice as hard, and this—this is familiar. Eijun can't help the wide grin that splits across his face, even as Furuya ducks his head to the side, embarrassed.
Eijun decides on umeboshi and they walk white-knuckled to the counter to pay for their things, ignoring knowing looks from the cashier. There's a brief squabble over who gets to carry the bags (they begrudgingly settle on one for each) and another about who gets to open the door to leave (Furuya reaches out too quickly with his longer arm, practically yanking an indignant Eijun behind him) and then they're out in the cold again, shivering in the clammy-wet air with clammy-wet palms. Eijun tugs Furuya over to the rack where their bikes are leaning, intent on racing and beating him back to the dorms. But Furuya stops him short, anchoring his feet just far enough away to present a bit of a problem.
"Um," Eijun says elegantly.
Furuya makes a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat, hand still stubbornly clasped around Eijun's.
"Furuya." Eijun's voice is a little too loud, a little too high-pitched, even to his own ears.
"We can..." Furuya tests out the words, voice hesitant. "We can ride together. Like this." He fumbles and squeezes Eijun's hand again, gentler this time. His eyes are bright and clear.
Eijun, a little more than charmed, feels his face flush in a way that has nothing to do with the weather. "O-okay! Jeez, just let me..." He jerks his head toward their bikes. Furuya grunts but lets go, allowing them to tuck the bags securely in their baskets and undo the locks.
Eijun is the one who kicks off first. Furuya follows close behind and catches up without any trouble, presses his fingertips feather-light into the hollow of Eijun's wrist. Eijun reaches out eagerly, knocks his knuckles against Furuya's and threads their index and middle fingers together. It throws them off-kilter initially, makes them wobble like they're riding without training wheels for the first time, but they somehow manage it, finding balance in the tug and pull of their arms bridged between them.
They make it a few blocks before Eijun chances a glance away from the road to look at Furuya, who's being characteristically silent. His heart jumps a little in his chest when he sees that Furuya's smiling, small and pretty-pink from the cold, his chin tucked into his neck warmer. There's a light dusting of snow crowning his head already, stark white against his dark hair.
The way Furuya catches Eijun's eyes is almost instinctive. Eijun whips his head away to focus intently on the click-whir of his front tire instead, tries to play it cool even though he knows he's anything but, even though his skin is burning and he knows Furuya can feel it.
Furuya breathes a laugh into the winter air, and Eijun grins at his shoes, lets the soft, quiet sound fill him up.
He knows he's okay getting used to this, too.