Work Text:
As the door to Shirahama’s room creaks open, Tashiro watches a grimace form on his face. The door’s course stops at something that rolls to their feet and his eyes follow the trail of scattered pieces of plastic and paper fallen all over the cramped room. Shirahama, the poor thing, dramatically falls to his knees as he cradles some fairy girl figurine in his hand, her left wing cracked by the fall.
“It’s a miracle the whole shelf didn’t fall down.” He mutters as he sits down on the floor to watch the mess that has become of his room. The twitch in his leg is telling, is the reason Tashiro offered to accompany him back home after they’d met at the shelter.
“I don’t think so.” he picks up one of the fallen cardboard boxes on the floor, carefully picking up the fallen manga volumes scattered around it. “You did a good job making it sturdy. I’m sure it can handle a little shaking.”
Shirahama scoffs at him, running a hand through his hair. Tashiro shrugs. Moody Shirahama is nothing he hasn’t seen before.If he left the guy to his own devices, he’d overhaul the whole room and not get a hint of sleep rearranging the furniture.
No can do, his friend’s sleeping schedule got screwed up during a videogame marathon that extended through summer vacation and he’s on a diligent mission to fix it. Tashiro is here to ensure it, like he’d promised to.
The boxes of manga volumes are nicely sorted, he manages to stop Shirahama from attempting to re-organize the whole collecting sorting through genre instead of alphabetical order, which is stupid, considering he mostly reads crappy battle comics and one of two shoujo manga series he’d kill Tashiro if he ever mentioned to anyone he likes that stuff.
It’s not bad, from what he remembers when he’d first snatched the girly pink volume from his hands after meeting Shirahama leaving from a bookstore trip. He knows one thing or two about manga and otaku stuff, courtesy of his friendship with his blabbering nerdy friends and Kuresawa’s adamant wish to make them all aware of his girlfriend’s tastes. Right now, though, the cover of the manga makes him frown as he looks over his shoulder to the pile of figurines to be fixed on Shirahama’s desk.
“I never noticed it but…Is that the same chick you have there? Five… eight times?”
The super glue and the broken wing from the fairy figurine clatter on the desk. Shirahama coughs. “Not the same but…they do look similar.”
Tashiro pulls the office chair from the computer desk to watch as he works his way with fixing the doll. Most of them are intact, a testament to how much goddamn money Shirahama spends on these, really. They’d better be sturdy pieces of plastic, right? He’s pretty sure all these dolls together would get him a year-long supply at the local candy shop.
“So that’s your type of girl? I always thought you’d be a boob guy.” The doll in question is a tall, long legged girl. A brunette with long hair, bangs falling down her eyes, it’s styled intricately in the fairy figurine before him, a complicated ponytail he’s not sure can be done in real life. Her expression changes on each doll, maybe they really are different girls… Always a smile though, she looks like the friendly girl next door, a bit plain even. Her chest is surprisingly small, considering the stuff he’s seen on this kind of doll.
“It’s a videogame character, her looks don’t really matter.” Shirahama glues the wing back together with ease and the doll looks new once again.
Tashiro rolls his eyes. “Why do you have the one in a bikini, then?”
“They’re cheaper.” Shirahama mutters under his breath, he’s blushing all over as he picks up the very tall brunette in the flashy swimming suit and gives her back the floatie she had lost in her fall.
“Sure.” And that earns him a cushion throw to his face. Tashiro muffles his laughter behind it, hugging the soft cushion against his chest as he continuously watches Shirahama’s careful handiwork, now gluing back another doll’s very impractical high heels.
Shirahama raises an accusatory eyebrow at him as he takes the final plastic patient in hand. “Why the hell did you think I’m a ‘boob guy’?”
“What, you don’t like it?”
“Why are we talking about this?”
“I’m trying to keep you distracted.”
“Not working.”
“Yeah.
The last figurine gets carefully placed on the shelf and Shirahama picks up the feather duster to rid it of any dirt that may have gotten in during the quake. Always thorough with this kind of stuff, it’s strangely calming to watch. Shirahama has this habit of humming to himself when they’re sitting together, he picked it up from Tashiro’s discomfort with silence since they’d started hanging out. Not that silence is a common thing between them, but words tend to escape Shirahama when he’s like this, anxiously picking anything to do.
“It’s not the boob thing, okay?” Shirahama’s voice is strained with annoyance as he throws himself on the bed. He scoots over to the left, back touching the wall, a wordless invite. Tashiro follows along and sits opposite to him and he swears he sees a hint of a smile on Shirahama’s permanent deadpan.
“So you
do
have a type.” he pokes at his leg. “I know when you’re lying.”
“So do you!” He retorts with a weak kick to Tashiro’s hip. “But…yeah. Something like that.”
“You never tell me that stuff, it’s so unfair! Since you started with the girlfriend bullshit, all you ever do is rope me and everyone else into group dates, but I don’t get to know who you like?”
“It’s a little…leave it, okay?”
“No, I want to know!”
Shirahama sighs, rolling on the bed to face the wall. It’s late afternoon and the window’s blinds are half closed, the sunset lighting makes it a little hard to see, but he can swear the cute pink flush is there again, spread to the tips of his ears as he attempts to bury himself into the pillow. “I like someone with a sense of humor, friendly and easy to talk to, the fun kind that pushes you around to do things.”
Tashiro rolls his eyes. “With two eyes and two legs, too? How specific, geez.”
“You asked for it!” Shirahama sits up, the sunlight hits the bed at this hour and reflects nicely on his hair. “Pretty eyes then” he says. “The kind that get all shiny when they’re excited” He looks away as he says and now Tashiro can definitely spot it, a rare, soft smile. Something strange crawls inside his chest at Shirahama’s silent question.
“Sappy.” Tashiro mutters.
“Now you have to say your sappy shit, too.” It comes out in a laugh, an easy one he hasn’t heard in a while. For the first time in the day, he watches the tension leave Shirahama’s stiff shoulders and kind of understands the description.
“Good with their hands, pretty smile, looks cute when they’re shy.” his face warms up as he says it. God, he feels weird.
“And I’m the sap? Geez, Tashiro.” The laughter continues and only worsens Tashiro’s face heating situation, he can only retaliate.
“What? You’re the boob guy here.”
He can hear Shirahama roll his eyes without having to look. “Where the hell did you get that from? God, you’re really…”