Work Text:
You were staring out the window of the bus, on our way back from the last practice match of the season. Everyone was asleep except you, and me, and the teacher -- no one more asleep than Tanaka, snoring on your shoulder, which is why when you dropped your pencil, I picked it up for you. You couldn't push him awake. I don't think a herd of elephants could have done it. And even though you hadn't written anything in your notes for five minutes (don't laugh, but I heard it every time you wrote a word, I know it's stupid and it's not getting any less silly) I wasn't going to leave your pencil rolling around on the bus floor.
So I picked it up. And I handed it back to you over Tanaka, with his legs sprawled out so he blocked the seat and half the aisle, his mouth hanging open (and if you hadn't been so nice, you would've stuck something in it, or drawn on his cheek with marker, but I guess that's why he sits next to you instead of Noya anymore). I meant to say, "Here, you dropped this," and go back to making notes on the game. You'd have said, "Thanks," and neither of us would've paid those five seconds any mind. Like ten thousand pencils picked up from ten thousand floors and returned any day of the week, it shouldn't have meant a thing. I hadn't meant it to mean anything. I really didn't. Before that, I guess I'd never thought about thinking of you.
But when I got up with the pencil, and you looked up from trying to see where it went, we met halfway. I couldn't say anything. All the words stuck in my throat, and I didn't think words could really do that. Then you didn't say anything either. It looked like you were about to say, "Thank you," but nothing came out, for probably a little more than five seconds. After that, thinking of you was something I thought about suddenly, and I don't know how I ever didn't.
So I think about it when you stand next to me at practice, and I can feel that you're just centimeters away. I wonder how you're feeling when I look at you to see if you're looking at me, right before you run off to toss the ball for one of the guys I'd half forgotten were there. When you bring your lunch to my desk during break instead of going out to the courtyard, I think a lot about thinking of you. Some days, I feel like it's the only thing I think about now.
I guess what I want to say is, do you--
~//~
Daichi crumpled the paper and dropped his head to the locker room table. "How the hell do girls write these things?!" he mumbled to the blessed nobody who was around to hear. The answer, of course, was that they wrote them at home, but he couldn't even imagine writing something like this where his family might find it, or carrying it through a whole school day, burning a hole in his pocket. What if he dropped the letter? What if one of the guys asked what it was? He was never going to call a girl silly for going through all that trouble again. At least Suga was nice when he turned down confessions. There was that much. Because this was probably all in his head.
Although now he couldn't even imagine putting Suga (or himself) through the agony of reading what he'd just written. No wonder the girls always handed over the letters saying, "Please read this later!" Of course, even saying that, Suga would know what it was, and maybe the best he could hope for was his friend somehow realizing this wasn't a joke. He knocked his head on the table a few more times for good measure. What was he even trying to accomplish here?
"Ahem," someone coughed from over by the door. Someone who was definitely, definitely Suga.
He'd recognize that polite, 'So you know, I'm standing right here and definitely didn't hear anything you said in the last five minutes,' interruption anywhere, which was part of the problem at the moment. Even so, when he looked up and saw his teammate half-smiling and half-wincing from the other side of the room, Daichi nearly startled out of his seat. Just what he needed. The guy he maybe sort of had a crush on, overhearing him bitching about writing a confession.
To him.
Then there was the way Suga looked at his shoes and said, "You wanted to talk to me before practice?" Daichi couldn't tell in this light if his cheeks were flushed from running, or from the cold outside, or if they were just... flushed.
"Yeah." He squeezed his crumpled confession letter so hard, it could've turned into a pebble. "But I still don't know what to say."
This had seemed like such a good idea during third period. Now he could hear the stampede of volleyball players outside, and the two of them were just... well... Thank goodness Suga clicked the lock closed just before Tanaka ran into it (judging by the loud yell about how "That fucking hurt!"). Because the way he bit his lip gave Daichi a lot to think about. Again.
"Maybe... we could walk to the station after practice. And if you think of something, you can tell me then."
"Yes! That... Let's do that." Suddenly, seeing Suga sigh with relief, Daichi thought he could breathe again, too. Thank goodness. He smiled back, and promptly put the crumpled letter in his duffel where he would possibly, maybe, burn it later. "Let's do what you said."