Chapter Text
“You’re fucking hopeless, Kagiura,” Niibashi complains. He picks up a third pair of pants out of the clothes pile currently hiding a moping Kagiura, lying face down on his bed.
He’s usually not that messy with his clothes, but this is a very special occasion. Kagiura silently thanks the fact that Hirano wanted to hang out with some of his classmates to give him time to prepare. At least his dear roommate won’t have to witness the disaster zone that is his bed right now.
“Niibashi, none of them are good…” Kagiura laments, only turning his head enough so that a suspiciously glassy eye is making contact with his friend’s. Niibashi prays he doesn’t have to see a single tear today, frustrated or not. “I want to look good to go out with Hirano-san… I don’t want him to regret saying yes.”
That gets the shorter boy to roll his eyes as he picks a shirt from the pile.
“Please, Kagiura. You could wear a trash bag and he’ll still be delighted to see you,” Niibashi grumbles, completely used to his friend’s lovesick rantings by now. “What’s wrong with just picking a nice, casual outfit?”
While waiting for an answer, Niibashi starts sorting the mess of clothes into little piles on the bed. He’s not about to fold Kagiura’s clothes, of all things, but clearly the poor dumbass is already dealing with enough. He can be a little kind.
From the corner of his eye, he sees Kagiura’s tall silhouette sit up, fidgeting with his hands.
“It’s just… Hirano-san is so stylish, even if sometimes his accessories are a bit much,” Kagiura explains. He looks oddly shy, even if he does smile a bit when mentioning the accessories. “I’m usually wearing our uniform or sports clothes, or even loungewear here… I don’t feel that confident in picking an outfit for a date with Hirano-san.”
“So? Why would you want to match Hirano-san in that aspect?” Niibashi replies, putting mocking emphasis on Hirano’s name. His friend frowns at that a little, but it’s hard to take him seriously when a pout appears after. “You’re Kagiura, not Hirano. Don’t be an idiot, he’ll be the happiest if you go with something that looks nice and is also very… well, you.”
Kagiura lowers his head in thought, and he frowns more as he mumbles. “Something very me…”
The way Kagiura seems to wilt the longer he thinks about it with no obvious answer is a bit painful, if Niibashi is honest. As much as his friend frustrates him sometimes, he doesn’t want to see him that sad or anxious. Certainly not over some fucking date.
With a sigh, Niibashi resigns himself to actually being involved in this whole process. Truly, he cares about this big idiot too much.
“Like I said, you’re hopeless,” Niibashi grumbles, though not particularly unkindly. He starts rummaging through the piles he already separated, and some of the clothes still messily strewn on the bed. Some options catch his eye already as he does this. Seriously, how did Kagiura pigeon-hole himself into believing none of these are good? “Where are you guys going for the date?”
“Ah, we wanted something simple to start with. Just getting some coffee and then a walk around the nice park a few blocks over,” Kagiura explains with a silly, lovestruck smile plastered on his face.
Barely suppressing the urge to roll his eyes at how mushy Kagiura could be, the shorter boy looks out the window with a pensive expression.
“Hmm, it seems it will be a bit chilly later,” Niibashi muses, a bit lost in thought. He holds up two sweaters and three shirts near Kagiura, squinting at each in turn and then back at his friend’s face. Finally, he nods and hands one of the sweaters to him.“Try this on. The color looks nice on you, and you should definitely take advantage of the whole ‘big puppy’ vibes you got going on.”
Big hands grab the fluffy sweater, and Kagiura hums as he inspects the pastel blue fabric before nodding. Niibashi looks away to give him some privacy as he changes, though he supposes that a guy in the basketball club likely doesn’t care. Still, he takes advantage of the few seconds the other takes and goes through the pairs of pants scattered on the bed. He settles on a pair of black jeans.
“Do you have any accessories?” Niibashi asks. He throws the pair of jeans over his shoulder in his friend’s general direction and earns himself a squeak. He probably hit Kagiura in the face, but he won’t turn around to check.
“Uhm… well, I don’t really wear any, usually.”
There’s something particularly awkward about Kagiura’s response, and Niibashi narrows his eyes in suspicion. He turns around to stare at his, thankfully, fully-clothed friend. “‘Usually’? So you do have some, then.”
“It’s a bit- well,” Kagiura stumbles over his words, but just settles for sighing. He leans over and opens the top drawer of his desk. After a bit of searching, he pulls out a small, flat box. When he takes the lid off, there’s a necklace with a simple, ocean blue pendant.
It’s pretty, but not something Niibashi would think Kagiura would get all skittish about. It only takes a bit of pondering on why it seems so familiar for him to understand why.
“... The earrings you gave Hirano-san are actually part of a set,” Niibashi concludes. He finds himself a bit surprised by the revelation; after all, Kagiura struck him as one that wouldn’t pass up on giving the entire thing. “Why didn’t you give him the necklace too?”
“I- it’s just- well,” Kagiura starts to babble. He’s getting more flustered by the second. “It seemed… oddly intimate? He needed the earrings or the holes would close up, but the necklace… I mean, I could have, he does love accessories, but I guess-”
He shuts up when Niibashi levels him with a deadpan expression.
“So you panicked. You can just say that you panicked,” he tells his tall friend. A tired sigh escapes him, and he can feel a slight headache approaching. If Niibashi didn’t genuinely appreciate Kagiura, he would have left already. “Seriously, you thought giving the guy earrings matching his eyes wasn’t too intimate, but draw the line at the set’s necklace? You’re a weird one, Kagiura.”
Kagiura’s pout is completely ignored as Niibashi carefully grabs the necklace. He motions for him to bend down slightly, which Kagiura does without question. He fumbles a bit with the clasp, but eventually manages to secure the accessory around his friend’s neck.
Once the outfit is in place and they figure out what to do about Kagiura’s hair (because of course he decided to worry about that too), Niibashi takes a step back and admires his work.
Kagiura looks both handsome as ever and very cute. The sweater his friend picked is oversized, and the soft, pastel blue fabric falls so it covers part of his black jeans. The necklace’s vibrant blue pendant offers a nice complement to the sweater, and his dark hair is arranged so his eyes and forehead are more visible. The only thing missing is a nice pair of shoes, but those are Kagiura’s to choose when he heads out.
Speaking of, the taller boy yelps the second his eyes lay on the clock on his desk.
“I need to go, Hirano-san said we’d meet in a minute outside the dorm!” Kagiura rushes, quickly picking up his phone and wallet. Just as he’s almost at the door, he turns to look at the complete disaster still on his bed. Those panicked green eyes make contact with exasperated fuchsia ones. “I… I should… but Hirano-san… but we’ll come back and he’ll see the mess…”
Niibashi looks up at the ceiling in frustration. He’s such a patient friend, a saint really. Kagiura will owe him after this.
“Just go. I’ve got this,” Niibashi grumbles. He can’t believe he will end up folding this guy’s clothes. Kagiura looks a bit uncertain, so the shorter boy walks up to him and moodily pushes him toward the door. “Go, shoo! Just tell Hanzawa-senpai I’ll be here for a few more minutes so they won’t think I’m trespassing.”
“... Thank you, Niibashi,” Kagiura softly replies. He directs a big smile Niibashi’s way before rushing out of the room.
Once alone, Niibashi lets out the most exhausted, long-suffering sigh he’s capable of. He walks further into the room and picks up a discarded pair of pants to start folding. While folding the clothes, he turns to look out the window with a bit of curiosity. It’s difficult to miss Hirano’s highlighter yellow hair even from up there, so he spots the exact moment when the blond lays his eyes on Kagiura. To anyone less familiar with both of them, they’d probably miss the way Hirano can’t seem to look away from his roommate even when pointing at something else.
They are both hopeless, Niibashi thinks with his own subtle smile. He’s possibly a little less bothered by his current chore now. Only a little.