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Midori’s always had specific reasons on why he’d seek out members of Ryuseitai for company.
Like how he’ll look for Morisawa-senpai when he’s feeling cold— even just staring at pictures of him on the internet made him feel a little warmer.
He goes to Shinkai-senpai whenever he’s in need of advice, because despite how weird he is, his strange way of wording things somehow always made sense.
When he’s in a bad mood, he hangs out with Shinobu for a while. Shinobu’s too nice for his own good, so whenever they do as little as exchange greetings Midori is immediately pulled out of his bi-weekly ‘should I die today’ trains of thought.
He isn’t exactly sure where he and Tetora fall under. Back when they didn’t know each other very well, Tetora would stumble upon him when he wasn’t feeling the greatest, and drag him off to ‘train together’, like he didn’t realize it made Midori feel even worse— but eventually, Midori doesn’t remember exactly when— being dragged around to ‘train’ becomes lazing around four times a week in each other’s dorms.
He didn’t think Tetora could ever be so, well, lazy, but watching that usually so energetic and overbearing guy slump onto a bed with him to play video games and watch movies for hours on end made Midori realize, oh, maybe Tetora-kun isn’t so bad, either.
He’s not exactly like Midori when it comes to doing useless, probably unhealthy things to pass time. He doesn’t stress-eat his feelings like Midori does, nor does he spend his bad days bed-rotting playing anything time-consuming until morning turns into night, like Midori does—
Midori’s pretty sure he only lets himself be lazy with Midori because it’s Midori, so when he asks why, and Tetora responds with, ‘Because I like hangin’ out with you’, Midori starts to wonder why his face burns and his stomach aches whenever he says something nice like that, with that carefree tone and cheeky smile, while he’d simply grimace and shoo anyone else away if it were them saying it instead.
He can’t fit his strange mixed feelings about Tetora into his plethora of self-deprecating and suicide-ideating thoughts whenever he sits down and thinks about himself, though, so he just goes along with the simplest idea that he might just have a small crush on his best friend slash class and unit mate.
Because it was hard to think of anything bad when he got to lay in Tetora’s bed next to him. Just the other’s presence made anything negatively thought about himself disappear.
Sleepovers become an almost regular occurrence, maybe twice or thrice a week, starting with a bad night where Midori’s thoughts drifted a bit too far while he and Tetora sat in the dark silence of his dorm, and the other insisted he stay for a little while longer, until he had simply fallen asleep.
Being with Tetora so often suddenly felt so normal. Like his dorm was Tetora’s, and Tetora’s dorm was his.
When they hung out, sometimes, they’d talk and chat— more-so Tetora would yap while Midori listened half-heartedly— other times, they’d play video games together, which usually had them throwing snarky insults and comments at the other as forms of distraction.
Rarely, Midori would try and match Tetora’s much too high levels of energy and play wrestle with him, but it was embarrassing to loose, although having that set of hands on him felt nice—
But he digresses— they usually sat in silence. Dead silence. It’s the other’s presence that made hanging out fun for Midori, not what they did during their time spent together.
So if the other decides he wants to work out in his dorm, Midori will watch silently from the bed. If Midori seems a bit too interested at something on his phone (usually yuruchara related posts, or maybe pictures of Morisawa-senpai) Tetora would peek over his shoulder.
Today was one of those days— well, day had turned into evening. ’Let’s work on our homework today’, is what Tetora insisted during lunch, but they’ve been together for nearly five hours after school and their bags lay untouched beside each other in Tetora’s dorm.
With someone’s laptop propped up on Tetora’s lap— Midori’s pretty sure it belongs to neither of them— some cheesy action movie played on the bright screen, one that they watched and only ended up insulting, so now neither of them paid attention to it as it neared its end. Morisawa-senpai said it was good, so it obviously ended up being the opposite.
“Tetora-kun,” Midori mutters, his eyes feeling like they were on fire as he stares at the laptop’s screen. His head was slumped onto Tetora’s shoulder with a growing headache, “Are your roommates not coming back?”
“Like you want them to,” Tetora mutters back to him, staring at the screen with a flat expression as well. They were trying to see who’d get more annoyed first. “Narukami-senpai is.”
One more obnoxious line coming from the laptop and Midori can’t take it anymore. His finger shoots out, slamming onto the power button until the screen turns black.
Tetora snickers, folding the laptop down, “Don’t break it! HiMERU-senpai has the eyes of a hawk,” He says as he stands up from the bed, legs popping uncomfortably as he returns the borrowed device to his roommates desk.
“Then don’t torture me like that again,” Midori mumbles, rolling onto his stomach, “Morisawa-senpai never recommends anything decent… I’m not giving him a chance next time…”
“You’re the one that wouldn’t pick something to watch.” Tetora says back, flopping back down beside Midori. He pokes him once, twice, until Midori swats at his hand.
Then, the door to his dorm opens. In comes Arashi and a group of four, talking about something related to dating, the kind of thing high school girls would chat about. Midori cringes.
He opens an eye lazily. The grown man he taught how to ride a bike, that one guy he plays basketball with, the one he got locked inside a warehouse with— oh, and Himemiya-kun. It clicks a bit too late, it was just Narukami-senpai’s circle.
“You boys are still here?” She asks once she notices the two lying on Tetora’s bed like jelly, and Midori’s too tired to answer, cheek slumping against Tetora’s pillow while the other shoots up into a sitting position, “We were going to have our circle meeting here~ didn’t I tell you, Tetora-kun?”
A few moments of silence later, and Midori’s being pulled and tugged by Tetora off the bed with insistence. He groans.
“I forgot!” Tetora rushes to say as he lugs Midori off the bed, “We’ll get out of here! Right now! Sorry~!”
Midori mutters a quiet ‘hello’ as he stands up properly— ‘properly’ as in, Tetora holding him up, limbs feeling uncomfortably stiff as he gets onto his feet. One more glance to the group, Shiratori-kun’s watching with a bright blush, Himemiya-kun looks unimpressed, Kagehira-senpai stares at them uncomfortably, and Tomoe-senpai was more interested in something on his phone.
Awkward. Midori pushes Tetora away with a sigh, running a hand through his hair, focusing on looking for his shoes while Tetora does the talking, or whatever it was that he usually did.
“Do you want anything?” Tetora asks with a big smile, “Midori-kun and I have nothing to do, so we can go buy you guys some snacks like I did last time, if you want!”
Midori scowls as he kneels down to grab his shoes, sending Tetora a bitter look. Who was we?
“That cheap stuff from the convenience store?” Hiyori asks with a tilt of the head, and Tetora nods, smile unwavering, “Yes, go!”
“It’s dark out,” Arashi huffs, sending her friend a disappointed glance, “Don’t worry about it, Tetora-kun. If neither of you have another place to go, we don’t mind you just staying here while we do circle activities~”
“Tetora’s all muscle, so it’s not like walking around in the dark could hurt him,” Tori waves a dismissive hand, settling down on one of the dorm’s couches, “We already checked the kitchen, didn’t we? All empty~ I was going to have Yuzuru get us some treats, but if Tetora would rather do it…” He trails off, leaving the rest up to interpretation.
Midori would rather die.
“We can just go back to my—“ He tries to whisper to Tetora, frowning with both disappointment and annoyance when he shakes his head.
“We’ll go!” He exclaims, and Midori can only let out a dejected sigh.
“Say, Tetora-kun,” Arashi sing-songs as he and Tetora were getting ready— or more-so, Tetora waiting for him to get his shoes tied. He glances at Tetora, and the other mouths a ‘slowpoke’, before turning to acknowledge his senpai’s question.
“What is it~?” Tetora hums, ignoring the flick Midori aims at the back of his hand in retaliation, swatting it away insistently.
Arashi blinks at the banter, before smiling and asking the type of question girls would talk about at a sleepover, but Midori supposes that’s essentially what her entire circle is, because if he remembers right, that’s what they were talking about when they came into the dorm—
“You should answer, too, I’m curious,” Her smile turns into a small, cheeky grin, “If it weren’t taboo for idols to date, who would you be interested in? Any pretty women?”
Midori huffs under his breath, looking down to focus on his shoes. He’s glad he wasn’t close with her like that, he’d probably drop dead if he had to deal with casual questions as corny as that.
For a long moment, it seemed like Tetora had no idea what to say. He blinks at Arashi, then looks between her and Midori.
Although the question made him cringe with embarrassment, he was interested if only to hear Tetora’s response. It makes him want to laugh, the way Tetora looks at him as if he could help him respond, but—
“Me? I’d probably date Midori-kun.” Tetora’s causal response makes Midori’s world come crashing down on him the moment he says it, and his fingers freeze on the laces of his shoes.
He stares at his feet for a good few moments. Even Arashi and the members of her circle don’t respond immediately. One glance at Tetora, and their eyes meet for an awkward second. He was probably just waiting for him to get up and going again, but Midori’s stuck in place, staring up at Tetora like a deer in headlights.
“Tetora—“ He tries, but his voice must be too quiet.
“I guess that makes sense~?” Arashi speaks up instead, uncrossing her arms and shrugging, “You two are together a lot, aren’t you?” She looks like she wants to say more, maybe something meaningful, but decides against it.
Tetora nods, saying something in response, but Midori doesn’t let himself pay attention past that once Arashi starts going on about young love, how there’s nothing wrong with wanting to—
Ugh, just shut up. He feels a few pairs of eyes staring at him, and he bites back a nervous insult.
Tying your shoes becomes a challenge when your fingers won’t stop shaking.
He suddenly felt ashamed. Not because what Tetora said made him feel repulsed or anything, but the exact opposite—
It was really endearing. He can feel his face burn as he struggles to tie his own shoes, or maybe he’s just stalling— he really didn’t want to go out anymore. Tetora could handle himself, maybe he’d let Midori go home.
But that was rude. He doesn’t feel bad when he ditches Morisawa when the other wants to do something his senpai thinks will motivate him, or when he actively avoids talking to people when he ‘isn’t in the mood to’ (which is all the time, apparently), but leaving Tetora alone to go buy some people he doesn’t even know very well some food is where he suddenly feels guilty? That’s what crosses the line?
He mutters a curse as he finally ties that knot, standing up with a quiet, shaky exhale. He interrupts Tetora mid-sentence, and that’s something he doesn’t feel guilty about, because he really didn’t want to hear the other talking right now.
“Can we go…? I’m tired.” He says as casually as his voice will allow him to, and as expected, Tetora shuts his mouth in an instant, responding with a quick ‘Got’cha’ before Midori’s being ushered out of the dorm.
How annoying.
Of course, Tetora would always do things like this for his roommates. Or maybe just Narukami-senpai, Midori thinks. When it comes to her, he’s completely altruistic.
He doesn’t know why he has to be dragged along, though. He’d rather be hiding under his covers playing games, maybe finally getting a full night’s rest, or even better, get to hang out with Tetora without having to walk about twenty minutes to a convenience store to spend money on people he doesn’t even know all that well.
Either way, his mind is pretty out of focus in the moment. He’d probably have fallen asleep the moment he got back to his dorm, anyways, so walking around like this isn’t horrible, even if he does wish he was alone right now.
He glances at Tetora out of the corner of his eye. He looks so casual, walking beside Midori without a care in the world.
It’s dark out, what if I get kidnapped? Is what Midori would usually be thinking, but right now, he feels pretty safe, just annoyed and confused.
It was a simple question, so it was to be expected you’d get an equally as simple answer— it’s probably only Midori who was overthinking it, and that makes him a bit embarrassed. He overthinks a lot, but really, what kind of answer was that?
Even Midori has thought about it before, what’d it’d be like going out with Tetora instead of keeping up whatever they had going on. Maybe sharing a bed would feel more normalized, sharing meals and drinks, maybe the fact he felt so down whenever Tetora wasn’t around would be justified.
But— Me? I’d probably date Midori-kun. That’s it? Saying something like that so casually pisses him off— maybe it’s just a general thing by this point. Tetora pisses him off a lot. He wants to tell Tetora to shut up even though he hasn’t said anything yet.
He still feels ashamed, but that’s because of the fact he got so giddy over a white lie. Although his feelings were hurt, he was sure what mattered to Tetora was that he gave her a satisfying answer in the moment, because maybe his actual one was too embarrassing, or something among those lines, but—
It wasn’t fair. Midori swallows, shaking his head, as if trying to toss out that sentence repeating over and over. It really wasn’t fair, because Midori really liked Tetora, but he just ends up being used an excuse to avoid getting embarrassed over telling the truth.
Unfortunately for him, as if he could hear Midori’s internal struggles, he speaks up, although not the topic Midori so desperately wanted to talk about, “Midori-kun, I didn’t bring anything to pay with.”
He bites the inside of his mouth, holding back a scowl, “I know. I did, so don’t worry… just pay me back later.”
He sounded a bit mean, his tone was too flat and he only added on that last part because he was mad, but Tetora doesn’t look into it too much this time. Midori doesn’t know if he should be grateful or even more annoyed.
Tetora’s so careless. He doesn’t pay attention when it actually matters. He thanks Midori, but he doesn’t make an effort to respond.
Tetora can tell when he doesn’t want to talk. He always can, and he’s nice enough not to force Midori into a conversation. Maybe he feels bad for dragging Midori out so late, but they both know Midori only came because he wanted to.
“Narukami-senpai’s probably gonna have her friends over late.” Tetora continues with a hum, “Want me to sleep over at your dorm?”
Midori glances at Tetora again, and this time, he’s looking back. It makes him swallow, then sigh. They’ve gone over this a ton of times, it’s just embarrassing, really.
“You don’t have to ask…” Midori mutters, pulling out his phone to occupy himself, “You know my roommates don’t mind.”
He looks away, trying awfully hard to look uninterested. He even considers unblocking Morisawa-senpai for a while so someone will spam his phone.
“Do you?” Tetora asks, and Midori sighs. Again. He’s always asking the questions that embarrass Midori, because the truth makes him seem desperate, and the lie is too obvious.
“No.”
It was too late for this, Midori thinks with a groan as he trails behind Tetora, who was carrying two baskets with each arm down the snack aisle, both on the verge of being filled to the brim.
Midori watches uselessly as Tetora multitasks, phone in one hand to read over whatever it was he was being texted while grabbing specific treats off the shelf.
“Do they need this much…?” Midori asks with a frown, wondering if his account even had this much money, “You know they’re not going to eat it all…”
“But it’s what they asked for,” Tetora says, slowing his pace to glance back at Midori, “We can just share whatever’s left over, yeah?”
His frown deepens. This was so useless— he doesn’t know why he’s so frustrated, but the way he was being so carefree despite being so mean earlier makes him even more irritated.
“I don’t care.” He finally says, curtly and snarkily. This time, Tetora’s smile wavers.
“…Okay,” Tetora says, mildly disconcerted. He grabs a few more snacks, before adding, “You’re tired, right? Sorry for draggin’ you out like this.”
Midori’s grimace shifts into a scowl, glaring holes into the back of Tetora’s head. He came because he wanted to, but he doesn’t want to say it.
“It doesn’t matter,” Midori mutters. He knew he was being childish, but he doesn’t particularly care in the moment, “Just hurry up, Tetora-kun.”
Tetora sighs, but doesn’t force any further conversation. Usually he’d say something back in retaliation, ask him why he was being so bitter, but he shuts his mouth. Maybe he did feel bad for bringing Midori out so late, or something else, but he bets Tetora was just masking his own annoyance to focus on buying whatever it was he was asked to.
Midori walks off elsewhere. The convenience store they went to wasn’t very big, but he manages to find a shelf full of sticker packets, and some look cute, so he plants himself in place until Tetora has to find and drag him off again a few minutes later.
Under an awning on the way back to the dorms, Midori sat on one of the rails in front of a parking spot. Feeling a particularly bad pang of pain due to his growing headache on the way out of the store, Tetora insisted they sat down for a minute. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches the other.
Having conversations with Tetora felt a lot like going fishing with your bare hands. Nearly impossible, because of how differently they viewed everything.
He admires Morisawa-senpai for being so social, like he knew exactly how to deal with everything and everyone, and the same went for Shinkai-senpai’s bubbly ignorance to most things he knew anyone else couldn’t handle.
But it’s been bothering him since he heard it, so he can’t let it sit. Otherwise he’ll just end up saying something he doesn’t mean later on down the line. Maybe that’s why they argue so much. It’s not like he didn’t already feel irritated. He also felt embarrassed, disappointed, and guilty, all at once.
Tetora taps aggressively at his phone, the light of it illuminating his somewhat blank expression. Was he texting Narukami-senpai again? Midori inhales, he is not a coward.
“Tetora-kun, you should tell her you’re sorry.” He says in an embarrassing mumble, unable to get himself to speak any louder.
It was clear that he wasn’t listening when all Midori gets in response is a click of the tongue, the other much to engrossed in whatever was displayed on his phone screen.
He wonders momentarily if he should keep pushing. If he annoyed Tetora enough, he’d probably get up and leave Midori alone to find his way back to the dorms. On the other hand, the urge to strangle him out of irritation would keep growing. Tetora really messes with his sanity.
“I said you should apologize.” He repeats louder, tone as firm as he could get it to be, which was not at all, because it comes out shaky and unsure.
Tetora goes silent. He stops typing on his phone, and after a few moments, it shuts off with a quiet click, and is put back into his pocket. The already dim lights seem to grow darker.
Midori’s anxiousness grows by the moment, and he really wishes he wasn’t such a self-centered asshole who had to comment on anything that seemed off-putting to him.
“Why?” Tetora asks, straightening his posture and looking towards Midori. He looked a little confused, but that stony expression doesn’t change. He must be a bit annoyed with Midori, too.
“…For lying to Narukami-senpai and her friends like that.” He says, keeping his avoidant gaze on their shoes.
Tetora’s shoes move, taking a few slow steps towards, until he’s so close Midori has to look back up.
Then, Tetora wraps a hand around the railing, right next to where Midori sat, “What lie?”
Midori’s neutral expression falters, the corners of his lips curling into a frown. He reads Tetora’s expression as he tries to formulate an answer, and remembers, oh, Tetora-kun isn’t actually that smart. But he couldn’t be this stupid, surely not.
“Really...?” Is all he can choke out, looking for any sign that he was just being messed with.
Tetora’s free hand moves now, resting on the Midori’s other side. It bumps against his thigh, and he subconsciously draws them closer together.
“She asked me a question, and I answered.” He says, and Midori swallows, head tilted down, “When did I lie?”
“Y-You gave them the wrong idea..” He stutters, his gaze shifting into a glare directed towards Tetora, unable to control the tremor in his voice, “She thinks that— that we’re together, Tetora-kun, and you were just fueling the fire by alluding to it… didn’t you see the way she was staring after you said that? You’re so weird, you could have just—“
One of Tetora’s arms snap forward, and Midori’s forearm was caught in a tight grip. He flinches, his eyes snap towards the other’s face in a panic, and— that’s too close.
“But I never lied.” Tetora sounds slightly more interested now, the fangs that reveal themselves with his words make Midori much more nervous. Tetora clicks his tongue, “Aren’t we already?”
Heat floods up to Midori’s face. He all but rips his arm away, an abrupt yelp tearing itself from his throat, and he glowers, both out of annoyance at the proximity and embarrassment, shame, confusion and everything else all at once, “I—“
Instead, the hand that previously was grabbing him by the arm snaps upwards. It grabs Midori by the jaw, effectively shocking him into silence.
“Aren’t we already partners?” He asks again, more clearly, with a prying glint in his eye, “You’re my best friend, Midori-kun.”
He glares down distastefully at Tetora, “T-That isn’t what she meant, idiot—“
“I know what she meant, Midori-kun, and I’m sayin’ there’s no lie.” He says as simply as it can get, and Midori curses him internally for being so difficult.
“Best friends don’t— they don’t lie about dating each other,” He seethes, “A-And you just act like it’s something normal, you—“
“You think I’m joking?” Tetora barks out a laugh, and the look on his face makes Midori want to kick him, “You didn’t care when I said it, so what’s so bad?”
“I did care! Because—“ Midori’s irritation seemed to burst, and he grips at Tetora’s forearm with one of his hands, pushing him away, then going back on it and tugging him closer, “I didn’t want you to feel embarrassed about it… but being used as some stupid excuse pisses me off! You don’t get to act so entitled, like—“
“Like what?” Tetora urges, feeding into Midori’s words easily.
“Like— like a degenerate!” He says more clearly, trying to pull himself together because now he was starting to actually get it, “You don’t just get to throw me around to answer questions when it’s convenient, like I only matter when you think I should, because that isn’t fair, asshole.”
“Well?” Tetora huffs, and he suddenly seemed so interested, so entertained, and that’s why it all made sense— “How do you want me to do it, Midori-kun? Huh?”
“Say it properly,” His fingers claw into Tetora’s jacket, his other hand finding its way to his shoulder, “Take what you want properly, instead of being so— so…”
He trails off and tugs Tetora closer, and the other moves on his own accord. Whatever else he had to say was cut off by their mouths finally overlapping, and he couldn’t care less. He nearly falls backwards off the railing, saved by Tetora’s arm wrapping around his back, fingers digging into his side.
It all felt like a type of fulfillment of Midori’s own self-gratification, but he takes advantage of it nonetheless, grasping the back of Tetora’s head to pull him closer.
“You—“ Midori pulls back for a moment, when one of Tetora’s sharp fangs nick the skin of his bottom lip, “You already knew… that’s not fair…”
“Yeah,” He says silently, then leans closer in, “‘Course I did, Midori-kun.”
“Annoying,” Midori sighs, tugging Tetora back by the hair, “Embarrassing me in front of Narukami-senpai and her friends to mess around… So all of that was—“
“I was never lyin’,” Tetora says, a lazy smirk plastered on his face, “You’re the one who assumed I was.”
“Why did you never say anything beforehand?” Midori mumbles in a question, and Tetora moves to grasp both his shoulders, “It’s annoying…”
“You were the one actin’ all stupid over it, don’t pretend like I’m the difficult one,” Tetora replies, then huffs, “Just wanted you to say it first.”
“You… oh.” He trails off, staring dumbly at Tetora. So that was it, it’s not like he said it out loud, but Tetora was nervous. His face burnt, and he grits his teeth, glancing off to the side, “Don’t do that, next time. Even if it’s the… truth, it’s still embarrassing to hear, seriously…”
Tetora snickers. He grips Midori’s shoulders a bit firmer, and all he can do is let out a quiet exhale, looking back at Tetora with a bitter frown that betrayed what he was actually feeling.
His grin lowers into a content smile. At least he’s nice enough to keep his mouth shut, moving back in to kiss Midori as if he’s already done it a million times before.