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There’s something about the giant rabbit.
Langa can’t quite put his finger on it, but the rabbit has… a charisma about it. It almost seems to dance as it moves, toying with the crowd and getting them riled up while also sending flirtatious winks and finger waggles to the lucky few on whom it chooses to lavish its affections.
Langa doesn’t even like team sports. They’re fine, but they’re not as interesting as individual sports, where you can really see someone shine. He had been dragged here by Reki because somehow, inexplicably, Reki loves baseball. He watches, enraptured, the entire time, recites the stats of his favorite players, tells Langa the history of the team, of the school, goes on and on about what qualifies as a hit versus an error, how the pitcher is off his game today, and so on and so forth. Langa nods politely, hums in interest every now and then, indulges Reki in his interests because he is a good friend, and because Reki has introduced him to plenty of things he didn’t know about before and ended up enjoying. Maybe baseball will be the same, although Langa doubts it. It’s not quite… risky enough, for his tastes.
The rabbit, though—the rabbit is interesting. The rabbit is the school’s mascot, present at every sporting event. Langa has seen the rabbit plenty of times before, every time he’s been dragged to some game or another under the obligation of school spirit and enjoying his time in university while he’s here. His mother eats it up. She loves that he’s having a good time and being a normal, regular college kid. So he goes, and it’s not the worst way to spend his time when he has friends with him who like to goof off and chant along with the crowd. Plus, there’s no shortage of food at these games, and he won’t say no to a bucket of loaded nachos.
So he spends most of his time listening to Reki, and after Miya joins them about halfway through, Reki starts in on him, and then Langa barely has to listen at all and can spend the rest of the time watching the rabbit.
This rabbit is different, he’s noticed. The rabbit who flits around in the stands of the baseball stadium is not the same rabbit who does pushups at basketball games or who leads crowd cheers at the side of the soccer pitch. This rabbit has a magnetism about them that makes Langa curious. Maybe a little fixated. It makes him want to get a peek beneath the mask, to see who the person inside is, see if maybe they’re just as captivating when they’re not wearing a giant bunny suit.
At the top of the seventh inning, the rabbit makes its way toward Langa’s section of the stands. They’re in the cheap seats, because Langa doesn’t care about baseball and Reki can’t afford better seats, so most of the time, they’re not even on the mascot’s radar. The cameras don’t linger on the people in the cheap seats—the crowds are too sparse there on nights like tonight—so there’s no reason to go over and cause a scene.
But of course, this rabbit is different.
It glides up the stairs with the grace of a real rabbit, waving at the students who call its name and bending at the knees to greet children who are there with their parents, just trying to find something to entertain the kids for the day and tire them out for later. Then, it turns to Langa, looks directly at him, and blows him a kiss.
Ridiculously, Langa feels his face heat. He’s blushing over a damn rabbit, and he doesn’t know what else to do except to reach into the air in front of him and catch the blown kiss. The rabbit makes a surprised gesture, obviously trying to communicate glee, and when Langa puts the kiss in the breast pocket of his t-shirt, the rabbit puts his big, gloved hands over its mouth and hops from foot to foot like an overly excited cartoon character.
It makes Langa smile.
The rabbit works its way through the crowd, carrying that joyful energy with it as it goes, trying to stir up some excitement from the crowd just before they all rise for the seventh-inning stretch. Langa’s seat neighbors leave during that time, apparently bored with the game and using the break and movement of the crowd as an excuse to slip away, and then suddenly he feels the polyester fur of the rabbit rubbing against the bare skin of his arm.
“Oh, hey,” he says, more out of surprise and politeness than anything else. He’s not sure how to talk to a rabbit, especially since he knows it can’t talk back.
The rabbit waggles its fingers at him playfully. Langa gets the impression that it would be fluttering its eyelashes if it could.
He looks back to find Reki and Miya snickering at him. The break in gameplay is enough to turn their attention back to him, only to find him being flirted with by an enormous bunny rabbit, and again he feels himself blush with embarrassment. Still, though, he can’t look away for long, attention back on the rabbit as soon as it makes to rise from its seat for the bottom half of the inning.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
The rabbit cants its head to the side, then gestures widely with both arms.
Out there, it seems to say, with the people, where I belong.
Langa doesn’t want that, though. He likes having the rabbit’s attention. He’s been watching from afar all season, and now that he’s seen the rabbit up close and gotten a chance to interact with it, he wants more.
“Can you speak?”
The rabbit holds up a finger to its widely smiling mouth and shakes its head. It tilts its head to the side quickly, as if it’s trying to wink. It doesn’t work, but Langa feels the intent anyway, the tease of it.
He changes tactic, hoping to pull something new out of the rabbit. He says, “You only work the baseball games, right?” Again, the rabbit gestures widely, drawing a circle with both hands as if to say, I am everywhere. Langa doesn’t buy it. “No,” he says, “I mean you. You only work the baseball games. Someone else works the other sports.”
That seems the draw the rabbit up short. For once, it doesn’t have a prepared gesture, or seemingly any way to deny the claim. So, after a short pause, it slowly nods its head up and down. Langa beams.
“I knew it. You’re different.” Again, the rabbit has nothing to say, so Langa continues. “I can tell you are, because you move differently. Sometimes it looks like you’re dancing, even when you’re just walking around.”
At that, the rabbit perks up. It hops up from its seat and bends to offer a hand to Langa, the other hand behind its back in a gesture that reads, May I have this dance?
Langa’s immediate reaction is to refuse, but he pushes that aside, intrigue overpowering the embarrassment of having the crowd’s attention on him. He places his hand inside the rabbit’s and lets himself be pulled to his feet. The rabbit is stronger than he expected, and his stomach swoops at the ease with which is pulled from his chair and against the fuzzy chest of the mascot suit.
He’s swept up into an odd kind of waltz, twirling in small circles to account for the lack of space in the aisle between the sections of seats. It’s fun, and goofy, and a little bit thrilling, and when he hears Reki gasp and say, “Look! Langa’s on the big screen!” he can’t bring himself to look away from the dead eyes of the rabbit mask, as if he’s trying to see through them to the person behind them.
He lets himself be pushed away and then pulled back by their joined hands. He lets himself be twirled, heartbeat thumping quickly in his chest with the adrenaline of a spontaneous, public dance with a person whose face he’s never seen, whose voice he’s never heard. He lets out a gleeful bubble of laugher when he’s spun beneath the rabbit’s hand and then whisked into a deep dip for just a couple of seconds before he’s brought back up and placed on his feet. He’s nearly panting when the rabbit releases him, but he’s grinning.
“That was fun,” he says a little breathlessly. “We should do it again sometime.”
The rabbit bows to him and gives him another flirty little wave, then turns to leave. He turns back to look at Langa, peering over its shoulder at him, and then wiggles its cute little cotton tail before bounding up the steps and away to bring joy and laughter to the rest of the crowd.
When he sits back down, Langa feels… different.
Beside him, Reki laughs. “What’s with that face? You got a crush on the rabbit or something?”
Langa balks at the ridiculous suggestion, but he can’t exactly deny it. There’s just something about that rabbit, and he wants to know what it is.
“Gross,” Miya says, but when Langa looks over at him, he catches the slightly amused smile at the corner of his lips that indicates that Miya is joking.
“I don’t have a crush on the rabbit,” he grumbles weakly. It’s not true.
“Suuuuure,” Reki says, “whatever you say.”
“Maybe you should ask him what time he gets off,” Miya deadpans.
Langa laughs along with them, but the thought sticks.
Apparently, the rabbit has a similar idea, because it comes to find Langa just before the top of the ninth. It’s probably not supposed to be over here anymore, now that the game is coming to an end, but it slips into the seat beside Langa without a word or any extra flourish and drops and arm behind Langa’s head. It leans back in its seat and crosses one leg over the other, just relaxing and watching the end of the game with Langa. It makes Langa have to fight down a smile.
The home team wins handily, already leading by the time the top of the ninth is over and ending the game there. In the commotion of the cheering crowd, the rabbit leans in close to Langa’s ear, and Langa can hear a deep, muffled voice from inside says, “I change in the staff room by Gate 5.” Then he’s up and gone before Langa can even ask what that’s supposed to mean.
He excuses himself once the rabbit has disappeared from sight, saying something flimsy about finding a bathroom, and then swiftly makes his way over to Gate 5, which happens to be on the other side of the stadium. There’s one beige door labeled “Staff” in plain black letters, which must be it. He steels himself for just a second, then knocks, not sure what he’s expecting.
The door opens, and he’s quickly pulled inside with the same strength that was used to pluck him out of his chair just an hour ago.
The room is plain, nothing but a long table, a few chairs, and a coffee machine. It’s obviously not a changing room, but obviously not being used for anything during games, either.
He barely takes the time to glance around before his attention is drawn back to the rabbit, only now it’s only half a rabbit. The person inside is still wearing the suit, but the head has been removed.
It’s a man. Or, rather, a fellow student, probably just a couple of years older than Langa.
And he’s hot.
“Hey,” the rabbit says, a deep purr to his voice that stirs Langa’s guts. “I’m Adam.”
“Langa.”
“Hello, Langa,” Adam says, and Langa lets his piercing eyes and rumbling voice press him up against the wall. “Got any plans tonight?”
Langa swallows hard but does not break eye contact. He shakes his head slowly.
Adam grins a sharp, devastating grin, and Langa knows he is done for.
“How about we change that?”