Work Text:
~
“Hey, Suguru, wanna head back to my room and play Super Smash Bros?” Satoru asked as he hopped off Suguru’s flying mantaray curse, still a good metre and a half above the ground.
The two second years had just finished up a mission, a grade one crocodile-looking curse that had manifested at a dingy motel. It had gone relatively smoothly as far as curse exercising goes, the two special grades easily beating it down enough for Suguru to absorb. (It tasted sickeningly salty, like the ocean on steroids, likely due to its crocodilian qualities. Suguru had a harder time choking this one down than usual.)
“Satoru, we still have paperwork to do.” Suguru sighed as he slid off the mantaray once it was lower to the ground before recalling the curse back into his collection. Satoru rolled his eyes in reply. “The higher-ups can suck it, I’m going to play on the Wii if you wanna join.” He said, then promptly turned on his heel and walked towards the dorms.
Suguru rolled his eyes but relented. He supposed he could stop by Yaga’s office on the way to the white-haired boy’s room to pick up the report papers to work on while Satoru played his game. Not that he’ll get much done with Satoru as his distraction, but he can pretend.
He got to Satoru’s room, just across the hall from his own, a few minutes after he himself did, having stopped by Yaga’s office and having a short conversation with Shoko.
(“You’re not going to do his report again for him, are you?” she asked sceptically, eyeing the two reports in his hand as she exhaled the smoke of her cigarette.
“Of course not, Shoko, it was a one-off thing. His eyes were acting up.”
“You mean a four-off thing? This will be at least the fifth time.”
Suguru had nothing to say to that.)
He pushed Satoru’s door open to find him sitting criss-cross on his bed in the middle of a match. Mario VS Jigglypuff by the looks of it. He still had his black-out sunglasses on, but he had discarded his uniform jacket on the floor along with his… socks.
Now this was a recent development. Everytime Satoru entered a lounge room he took off his socks. Suguru didn’t have a thing for feet, quite the opposite actually. Suguru hated feet. They gross him out. But Satoru always had his feet out.
It started about three weeks ago when Suguru was sitting in the common area with Nanami and Haibara. Suguru was reading, and Haibara was chatting Nanami’s ear off while the latter sat and listened in silence. It was peaceful.
But then Satoru waltzed in and shoved his nasty ass socks in Suguru’s face.
Okay well that’s not exactly what happened but close enough.
Satoru plopped down beside Suguru, stripped off his shoes and socks, then balled up the socks and shoved them in Suguru’s pants pocket. Haibara stopped mid sentence to watch the scene unfold, Nanami pulled a disgusted face, and Suguru uttered a calm “what the fuck, Satoru.”
Satoru just pulled out his handheld game, ignoring the growing ire that was being directed at him.
”Get your dirty fucking feet off the coffee table, and get your dirty fucking socks out of my pocket.”
One taunting “make me” from Satoru later and the common area turned into a warzone. Nanami looked more annoyed than usual, Shoko popped out of nowhere with a bucket of popcorn, and Yaga was pulling them apart by the backs of their uniforms.
Now Satoru was curling and uncurling his toes as he played, chewing on his lip as he concentrated. Satoru was always moving, he never sat still, and Suguru had no idea why. Suguru sometimes found the fidgeting greatly annoying but he always left Satoru be about it.
He sat down at Satoru’s desk and started filling out the report.
It took him about twenty minutes to finish both (yes he did both, sue him), and in that time Satoru moved from Smash Bros to some Digimon game. He was leaning back against his headboard, legs and bare feet stretched out in front of him. Suguru just had to ask.
“Hey, Satoru,” he started casually, hoping not to come off as confrontational, “what’s with the sock thing?”
“What sock thing?” he replied, distracted by some orange dragon dinosaur thing on screen.
Suguru gestured to his feet then the discarded socks on the floor. “Why do you insist on taking your socks off every time you take off your shoes?”
Satoru shrugged, “I dunno, same reason I can’t leave campus without a hair tie around my wrist. It feels wrong. Plus I hate socks.”
Furrowing his eyebrows Suguru asked “what do you mean?”
“What do you mean what do I mean? My wrist feels naked and incomplete without a hair band or something similar around my wrist when I leave, my feet feel uncomfortable the minute I take just my shoes off, you know? You’re like that with your hair or whatever.”
“Um… no. I’m afraid you’re alone on this one.” Suguru replied.
Now it was Satoru’s turn to furrow his eyebrows. “Oh.” was all he said, still focused on his game.
Huh. Could it be part of Satoru’s sensory issues, Suguru thought. But what about the hair tie thing? Is that part of it, too?
Suguru got up from the desk chair and sat beside Satoru on the bed. He laid his head on the white-haired boy’s shoulder and watched as he fought some other digital monster on screen.
“Well the barefoot thing is fine I guess, just keep your socks away from me.”
Satoru leaned his cheek against the other boy’s head, and Suguru felt him smile. “I can’t make any promises.” he said as he wiggled his toes at the end of the bed.
Suguru laughed lightly, feeling the little guilt that had developed in his chest alleviate. He supposes he could deal with nasty ass feet as long as they’re Satoru’s nasty ass feet.
~