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Toge knew they were running low, but he hadn’t accounted for just how much honey Yuuji likes to put on his morning toast.
It’s not a big deal. Toge really doesn’t mind sharing. He knows that a jar of honey would seem like fair game in a shared kitchen and if he had cared about keeping it to himself, he could have just labeled it. And normally, he wouldn’t care about finding it empty, it’s just that Gojo is away on an extended mission, and that means that it’s all-hands-on-deck for first grade sorcerers to pick up his slack. This is Toge’s third solo mission this week and he and his throat are both completely spent. All he wants is a cup of herbal tea so soaked in honey it hurts his teeth.
He'll just have to go back out. He hasn’t even shed his uniform jacket yet, so things could be worse. Maybe it would have been faster if he’d just had the manager stop on the way home, but it’s a nice enough night. A little walk won’t kill him. He’s excused from classes tomorrow morning on account of his rigorous schedule, anyway. Maybe he’ll actually take advantage of it for a change and sleep in.
Maki catches him slipping his shoes back on on her way out of her dorm room. She’s already in pajamas for the night and is clutching a bag of her favorite chips. Unlike Toge, she's smart enough to stash her favorites away in her room before anyone can steal them.
“Where are you headed?” she asks, keeping her voice down so the first years won’t hear her concern. “It’s late.”
Toge shrugs and pulls out his phone, filing through his mind for something to say that’s long enough to warrant a secondary means of communication. The truth is, he just doesn’t feel like talking out loud. It’s going to hurt, and Maki’s going to hear the strain and worry unnecessarily.
Convenience store. Need anything?
She flicks her phone up and frowns at the message. “Nah, I’m good. You want company?”
But then she looks down at her slippers, and it’s pretty clear she’s not at all prepared to come along. She’d have to get changed and Toge really doesn’t want to drag this out. Plus, Toge knows she likes to hang with the first years when they watch movies and stuff. It’s been a while since she’s had another girl to hang out with. He won’t keep her from that.
Toge shakes his head firmly, leaving no room for disagreement.
“Okay,” she agrees. “Come find us when you get back, okay? We’ll be up.”
He forces a smile that he knows she can’t see and heads off into the night. He’ll be quick. It’s less than a mile from campus. He'll get his honey and be back before anyone else even realizes he was missing.
Toge plays games with himself in his head to pass the time as he walks, avoiding sidewalk cracks and counting street lamps. He bargains with himself a little, promising himself some extra snack or a dessert to pair with his tea while he’s there. Toge’s always been good at being alone like this. The walk passes quickly, and soon enough the lights of their little gas station are twinkling in the distance.
A door chimes over his head and Toge glides between the familiar aisles. His heart drops when sees the empty row on the shelf in front of him. He begs it not to be true, but he’s been here enough times to know exactly where they stock the honey. It should be right where he’s looking, but it isn’t. He could cry.
Toge sucks in a rattled breath. This is stupid. He knows it’s stupid. It’s just honey. He’ll double up on his throat spray when he gets home and it’ll be fine. He tries so hard to talk himself out of it, but Toge feels his eyes start to sting anyway. He’s overtired and he’s been promising himself this all day and now the trip was for nothing. There’s no way around it. This whole thing sucks.
He exits the store as quickly as he entered it, tears threatening to fall the second his face hits the cold. In the single second before he lets himself break, Toge feels a rush of warmth as a white car whizzes past on the street. As he watches it go, loud and flashy, Toge finds himself thinking something unbelievably startling.
I wish that was Yuuta.
He’s so stunned by the thought that he loses his will to cry immediately. Instead, he stands dumbstruck in front of the convenience store as he imagines Yuuta pulling up in some fancy car, slinging his arm over a rolled down window and telling Toge to hop in.
It’s ridiculous, of course. Yuuta’s in Africa. Yuuta can’t drive. Toge’s not sure that’s what the daydream is really about, though. It’s not that he wants Yuuta to drive up knight-in-shining-armor style and whisk him away to a grocery store so he can buy armfuls of fancy honey. He just wants Yuuta to be here. There’d admittedly be very little he could do to fix the situation, but if anyone could cheer Toge up at a time like this, it would be him. Just his presence alone would make him feel better.
Now Toge is sad in an entirely different way, a little ache landing on his chest. He misses Yuuta. He tries to keep distracted, because no good can come of thinking about that too hard, but it’s impossible right now. Toge’s mind has latched on to Yuuta, and how if he’d been here, he would have knocked over a chair to offer to go to the convenience store with Toge.
The thought is enough to make Toge smile. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and refuses to let himself second guess his instincts as he presses his thumb into the call button. It’s not as if Yuuta will pick up, but he’ll know Toge was thinking about him, and that’s as good as–
“Toge?”
There’s a moment of fuzz and static as the phone is jostled around, and then Yuuta’s face appears on the screen. He’s smiling so wide.
“Hi,” he says enthusiastically, squinting to see Toge’s face. It’s sunny in Africa, and he’s wiping a little bit of sauce off the corner of his mouth. It must be lunchtime there. “What are you doing out? It’s late there.”
Toge tilts his head, taking in Yuuta’s enthusiasm. Most people Toge knows would be horrified to receive a video call in the middle of the day without advance warning, but not Yuuta. He picked up on the first ring and he didn’t even ask Toge for a reason for it. He was completely okay with being called just because.
Refocusing, Toge figures the easiest way to explain what’s going on today is just to show him. He walks the phone back into the store and points the camera at the empty space where the honey should be. Turning the phone back to his face, Toge reaches a finger to the bottom of his eyelid, dragging it downwards to mime a tear.
“Oh no,” Yuuta says, visibly unsettled. “You’re out of honey?”
Toge nods sadly. Normally he’d downplay the drama, but it really is kind of a bummer, and Yuuta already seems to know that. No sense in hiding it.
“Who’s at the register?” Yuuta asks. Toge shakes his head. Some college kid. He started about a month ago, so Yuuta wouldn’t know him. That doesn’t bother Yuuta, apparently. “Hand them the phone.”
Startled, Toge takes another look at Yuuta’s face to make sure he hasn’t misunderstood. Yuuta used to hide behind Maki like a child anytime they had to talk to a barista or a server at a restaurant or even a teacher that wasn’t Gojo. Surely he doesn’t want to actually talk to the check-out guy.
But Yuuta is resolute. The sun bounces off his dark hair and his newly tan skin, casting a glow on him. He looks older, more confident.
So Toge trusts him. He takes the phone up to the counter and holds it out to the guy behind the register, who looks up from a textbook to greet him. Yuuta explains the situation to him politely, sounding so self-assured that Toge almost laughs at the absurdity of it. Surely he hasn’t changed that much since he got to Africa. Miguel must have seriously thrown him to the wolves when he got there.
“I normally wouldn’t ask, but my friend’s throat is terribly sore,” Yuuta tells the man, despite the fact Toge had told him nothing of the sort. Yuuta just knew. “Would you mind checking the back to see if you have any more honey?”
“We don’t really have a back,” the guy informs him, eyes flashing to Toge. He cringes a little bit as he looks back and forth between the two of them. Toge might be sixteen, but he’s short enough to look younger, and having someone talk on the phone for him makes his situation look even more dire. Clearly, this guy feels somehow responsible for him now- a sick kid showing up at his store and asking for his help. “Wait here, okay? I might have something.”
Toge tries to swallow his growing embarrassment as the guy grabs a set of keys and beelines for the tea and coffee station at the back of the store. He disappears for a moment, ducking down to fiddle with the locked cabinet beneath the counter, and comes back with a cardboard box.
When he takes a box cutter to the tape, dozens of single-serve packets of honey come spilling out. Toge feels his eyes light up. Finally. He’s wondering how many he can take- two or three will get him through the night- but the checker grabs a plastic back and dumps half the box in. Toge feels his jaw drop. This man just became his own personal Willy Wonka. Toge worships the ground he walks on.
“It’s on the house,” he tells Toge as he over the bag. “You high-school kids are our best customers, anyway.”
Yuuta thanks him profusely for the both of them, bowing his head as if he was really there instead of trapped in Toge’s phone screen. The guy softens himself with a smile and tells Toge to feel better soon, waving them off.
Once Toge’s back on the street, he can see that his picture in the bottom corner has gone grainy and unclear in the darkness. He lingers near the convenience store anyway. The reception likes to blink out between here and campus, and Toge doesn’t want to end the call yet.
“I miss that place!” Yuuta exclaims. “I need to start making a list of all the things I need to eat once I get back to Japan. I want to go back to that place we went with Maki after our midterms. Remember, with the super nice waitress?”
Toge nods eagerly. Maybe that’s how he can repay Yuuta for the assist today- by taking him out to a nice lunch when he gets back. Honestly, Toge figures he’d probably have done that anyway, but this just gives him another excuse.
“I was thinking the other day,” Yuuta admits, eyes scrunching shyly. “Even if Gojo makes me stay till the end of the semester, I’m already more than halfway through my time here. I’ll be back before we know it.”
Toge doubts he can even see it clearly, but he unzips the face of his uniform so Yuuta can see just how much that simple fact makes him smile. Yuuta smiles, too. They both look absolutely giddy.
It comes crashing down as Toge hears a second voice in the distance, speaking sharply in a language that Toge doesn’t quite recognize.
“I…. should probably go,” Yuuta says, looking up and out of frame at what must be Miguel, lecturing Yuuta for goofing off in the middle of the day. His cheeks go slightly pink, embarrassed to be caught in the act. “But, hey, thanks for calling, okay? I’ve been feeling a little homesick lately. You made my day.”
Toge gets a little choked up at that. It had been such a spur of the moment decision, and one that he made in a stroke of complete selfishness. How wonderful to think this interaction had made Yuuta as happy as it did Toge- that it cured both of their ailments at once.
They say their goodbyes and Toge walks back to campus, swinging his bounty as he goes. Yuuta is officially closer to the end of his time in Africa than the beginning. That is a nice thought.