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“You missed one to your left,” Teru says nonchalantly, like he’s commenting on what wonderful weather they’re having, and Akane swears he feels a vein in his forehead pop, “Just thought I’d let you know.”
Akane mumbles something that sounds all too close to “bastard”, but bends forward through the tall grass to pick up the discarded plastic bottle that Teru had pointed out to him all the same and tosses it into the garbage bag at his side. Without another snide comment whispered under his breath—which, really, takes a saintly amount of restraint on his part, he goes back to scanning the park for any more stray pieces of litter. There’s very little point in picking fights he knows he won’t win, but he’s never been very good at sticking to that principle.
Akane’s been called a lot of things—a hothead, a spitfire, a delinquent in honor student’s clothing—and most of them are true. His anger burns hot and patience isn’t exactly something he has in spades. (He can already hear his mother’s words reverberating in his mind. “There’s a time and a place for anger.” Count to ten in your head. Just breathe. It’s not worth getting upset over. But he’s never taken well to unfairness, even small examples of it.)
It was supposed to be a simple job that would have only taken the student council a couple hours at the most to complete. Go to the local park, pick up litter, and get some volunteer hours in. Easy, except for the fact that only Akane and Teru showed up and it wasn’t like Teru was any help at all. But what did he expect?
“You know, I expected Suzato to not show. I can’t even remember the last time he showed up to one of our meetings… but I can’t believe no one else showed either… Unbelievable!” Akane says, spotting a crumpled up soda can sitting at the base of a trash can. People these days, he thinks and shakes his head disgustedly at the nebulous concept of people these days—people who would be so lazy to not bother picking up their can when it’s mere inches from the trash. And so his anger has already found a new target.
“Our treasurer caught the stomach flu so I’ve heard,” Teru says with mock sadness, “Poor thing. You wouldn’t want her out here working when she’s feeling so under the weather, would you?”
“She could have at least called to let us know she wasn’t coming,” Akane mutters, more to himself than to Teru, “It’s not like this was a spur of the moment outing.”
And even though he says that, he knows he’ll text her when he gets home to ask if she’s feeling any better because it’s just the kind of person he is. He paints over his anger, all too willing to be everywhere at once doing things for others so he doesn’t have time to ever stew in his frustration. Who knows what might happen if he ever let himself acknowledge just how pissed off he is with… Well, he doesn’t exactly know what he’s so angry about all the time, but… he’s sure it’s worth it.
At the moment, he decides that it’s Teru Minamoto that’s grinding his gears. Him and his stupid, perfect demeanor and his pretty face that he’s pretty sure he wants to punch into next week.
“You know, you could at least help a little bit. If you don’t want to be here all afternoon.”
Teru spares a glance to his watch before folding one leg over his knee absentmindedly. “I don’t have anywhere better to be, do you?”
He wants to say yes so badly, really he does, but… His mind comes up blank when he tries to think of something more important he could be doing. He’s never been the type to wait until the last moment to get things done, so all of his responsibilities for the upcoming school week have been taken care of. Aoi is hanging out with Yashiro for the day and Lemon is probably on his phone somewhere, content to just mindlessly scroll by himself for hours… so that crosses off most of his remaining list right there.
Akane doesn’t answer and instead just scowls at Teru before he goes back to his work. The sun beats down over head furiously, like it's almost as mad as he is. What does a celestial body have to be pissed about anyway? Stupid sun. He has to shield his eyes with his hand as he continues his search for litter.
“I’m just here to supervise,” Teru adds when he fails to get a rise out of Akane the first time, “Besides, you look like you’re having so much fun, I wouldn’t want to get in your way.”
That just makes him seethe even more because somehow, for some stupid reason, he is having fun! It’s mind-numbingly hot outside and Teru is a bastard as always, but he’s actually enjoying himself and he hates it. There’s something relaxing about the menial work when he really gets his hands into it. Even though he feels out of breath from running around the park all morning in the heat, he can’t deny there’s something inexplicably nice about the entire ordeal.
It makes him so annoyed that he nearly launches a soda can at Teru, but he stops himself knowing he’ll just have to pick it back up again when it’s over. Instead, he sits himself down in a patch of grass discolored by the sun that’s right next to the bench. There’s plenty of space on the bench next to Teru, but he doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction.
A few seconds later, Teru scoots over, already bridging the space that Akane purposefully put between them. This guy-!
Just as he’s about to say something with some very colorful language already coming to mind, Teru holds out a water bottle and presses it into Akane’s cheek. “Here, you look like you need it.”
Akane blinks in surprise. Still somewhat stunned, he takes the water bottle and stares at it. It looks fine. In fact, in this heat, it looks like the most wonderful thing in the world. He doesn’t trust it. Not one bit.
“What? You spit in it or something?”
“Damn, I knew I was forgetting to do something.” Teru smirks and shrugs, but he doesn’t scoot back over to his original spot.
Akane wants to refuse it, to reject Teru’s small act of kindness and say that he doesn’t want it, but… it’s just too damn hot outside to be obstinate about this. He nearly downs the entire bottle in a few swallows even despite Teru’s warning to slow down or he’ll make himself sick.
“Cool off yet, you hothead?” Teru asks, sounding all too amused.
“You know, you’re really shitty at showing that you care,” Akane says, crossing his arms with smug satisfaction at the way that Teru’s smile falters for just a moment at his words.
“Who says I care? It might be troublesome if you overworked yourself to the point of exhaustion. Again.”
“That was one time-! And like you’re one to talk! How many times have you fallen asleep in class?”
Teru just laughs in a way that makes it really hard to hold onto his fury. “Does it really count if you don’t get caught?”
“Oh, whatever…” Akane grumbles.
“But, uh… you know, I’m in an inquisitive sort of mood today. What makes you think I care so much, hmm?” Teru asks, trying all too hard to sound like he’s totally uninvested in the answer and making himself painfully transparent in the process.
Such a good liar to everyone else and such a terrible one to me. I can see right through you, Minamoto.
“Well, there’s the water…”
“I brought one for everybody, but you’re the only other one here so I’m hardly in short supply of the stuff.”
“And since you decided to bring it up first, that one school event—god, what was it again? A potluck or something… where I overworked myself with running around all morning trying to make sure everything was absolutely perfect. I never knew there were so many people in the school with dietary restrictions and allergies…” Akane shudders just thinking about how stressed and overworked he was on that day. Talk about biting off more than you could chew, but even with that, he still never once asked for help. “And when I finally collapsed, you carried me to the nurse’s office and watched over me until I woke up.”
Teru gives a noncommittal shrug. “I am your senior, I’m supposed to look after my underclassmen. I was just doing what anyone else would have done if they were in my shoes.”
“They might have helped me to the infirmary,” Akane conceded, “But would they have stayed? And made sure I was okay afterwards? Especially given how little they say they care.”
“I’ll neither confirm nor deny.”
“And then there’s these,” Akane tapped the frames of his glasses, “You didn’t have to enchant them for me. But you did without me even asking you to or knowing that it was possible.”
Teru averts his gaze, the amused smile gone from his lips now. Evidently, he was a lot more honest than he had ever intended on being. “It would only cause problems if I didn’t. Not getting involved in that world is the best protection.”
“And why would you even give a damn about protecting me?”
“It’s an interesting theory, I’ll give you that much, Aoi,” Teru’s cadence shifts back to normal suddenly, sounding a lot more lighthearted again. He always did recover quickly. “You’ve certainly put a lot of time and thought into this. Just what I’d expect from you, Mr. Honor Student.”
“Even your compliments sound backhanded… and yet you don’t deny it.”
“I wouldn’t want to crush your hopes,” Teru says, an infuriatingly evasive edge in his tone.
“You know, there’s no one else around.” Akane gestures towards the completely empty park. “If you’re not going to admit it to anyone else, you could at least admit it to me.”
“Admit to what exactly?”
“That you care. You might be aggravating. You might be hypocritical and fake and stuck-up, but if I’m ever in trouble you’re always willing to drop everything to help. And I think you care a lot more than you’re willing to admit.”
“You sure do sound confident.”
“Even if you won’t fess up, I think I know the truth.” And now it’s Akane’s turn to smirk smugly. His previous anger has completely dissipated. In the same way that only Teru can rile him up that much, only he can make his anger disappear just like that.
“Well, I think we’re done here for the day, don’t you?” Teru stands up abruptly, dusting off his pants as if he’s done anything other than sit around while Akane worked all morning into the afternoon.
“Yeah… I think I got everything for now.”
“Say, do you want to go for a bite to eat? My treat, of course, I suppose I should reward you for your adequate work today. The park looks… well, it looks alright.”
“Hey! It looks spotless, thank you very much!” Akane stands up so fast it nearly makes his head spin, not waiting for Teru to walk off without him.
“Whatever you say! Maybe we should make this a regular thing. It’s kind of nice, isn’t it?”
“Are you actually going to help next time?” Akane raises an eyebrow at him. Fat chance of that happening.
“Ha, we’ll just have to see.”
“If I didn’t know any better, it sounds like you’re asking to spend more time with me. Willingly.”
“Maybe I just care about the betterment of my community, Aoi, don’t flatter yourself.”
Akane scoffs, but keeps walking beside Teru until he stops in the middle of the trail for… seemingly no reason. “What’s up?”
“Fine, I admit it,” Teru says, almost too quiet to hear.
Akane frowns, waiting for him to elaborate. “Huh?”
“I admit it!” He says louder, but somehow even more unsure sounding, “But don’t ever mention it!”
And he takes off down the trail, leaving Akane to run after him. “Hey, don’t just drop that on me and bolt! You’re still paying for lunch!”