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Mibuchi hummed to himself as he walked down the hallway to the locker room. Rakuzan had been invited to play in a charity tournament in Tokyo following the Winter Cup, and they had been happy to agree, the third-years especially wanting as many more games as possible in their last season. Their match wasn't scheduled until late in the afternoon, but they had arrived early to watch. Since the outcomes had no effect on official rankings, the atmosphere was far more relaxed than the Winter Cup had been.
There were a lot of teams playing, but limited locker room space available, so the teams were scheduled to rotate out throughout the day. Most of his teammates were waiting until half-time of the current game before coming to change, but Mibuchi hated feeling rushed, and he liked getting ready before he had the rest of his team breathing down his neck, so he left to change the minute the space was supposed to be available.
He double-checked his instructions to make sure he was going to the right place. Their locker room was at the end of the hall, and had previously been used by Touou's team. Touou's game had ended some time ago though, and they didn't strike Mibuchi as the type to spend a long time changing or debriefing after games, so he assumed the room would be empty.
He had his hand on the door handle when he heard a crash from inside followed by a string of muffled curses. He threw open the door and rushed in, nearly running into a rather panicked player bumping around the room half-changed.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's my fault; I'm sorry to keep you waiting. I'm sorry, please don't hit me," the player said frantically, continuing to scramble around the room without getting any closer to untangling himself from his undershirt. It didn't take long for Mibuchi to recognize him as one of Touou's first years, Sakurai if he was remembering correctly.
"Sakurai-kun," he said gently, reaching out to stop the boy before he crashed into something and hurt himself. Unfortunately, his hand on Sakurai's shoulder had the opposite effect, and the boy yanked out of his grasp, stumbling across the room until he ran into the lockers on the opposite wall and came to a stop.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm bad, I'm sorry," he said, facing the wall.
"Calm down, Sakurai-kun," Mibuchi said, learning from his mistake and staying across the room this time. "I'm here early, so take your time."
"I'm supposed to be done now. It's my fault; I'm keeping the rest of the team waiting. I thought you were Aomine coming back to get me at first."
"Nah, I don't think I'm loud enough for that," Mibuchi said. "I didn't see him out in the hall either."
"I'm sorry; I'll hurry," Sakurai mumbled, still struggling with his top.
"Do you want a hand with that?" Mibuchi asked when Sakurai let out a quiet string of curses.
Sakurai jumped closer to the lockers. "No! I'm fine, really." he said quickly, moving more frantically and appearing to just get himself more and more tangled.
Mibuchi took a deep breath, looked pointedly at the wall in front of him, and said, as neutrally as he could, "Binders are hard to get into, aren't they? Especially if you've just come from the shower."
Sakurai froze. Eventually, he let out a whimpered exhale. "You recognized it?" he asked quietly, trying to make himself as invisible as possible.
"I know what a binder is, yes," Mibuchi replied, "so now that we've established that, let me ask again. Do you want a hand with that?"
"You...you promise you won't tell anyone?" Sakurai whispered, still not moving.
"I'm not sure why I'd want to, even if it were mine to share," Mibuchi replied, trying his best not to scare Sakurai any further. He'd rarely met anyone more skittish in his life.
"Then...sorry, but if you wouldn't mind, Mibuchi-san."
Mibuchi crossed the locker room slowly, stepping heavily so that Sakurai would hear his approach. Now that he was closer, he noticed a spreading bruise across Sakurai's ribs, blotting out a handful of smaller, fading bruises underneath it.
"That's a nasty bruise," he said, touching it lightly.
Sakurai flinched away. "Kirisaki Daiichi," he said. "We were playing against them. Ha- Hanamiya-san was...was marking me for part of the game. I'm sorry, I should have been paying more attention."
Mibuchi winced in sympathy. He had had the dubious honor of being lumped together with Hanamiya as one of the Uncrowned Kings, and he knew how Hanamiya played. "He's a nasty one," he said. "It's not your fault. Are you sure you want your binder over that?"
"I have to," Sakurai said desperately. "The rest of the team doesn't know. They can't find out, please...please."
"Nothing's broken, is it?" he asked.
Sakurai shook his head, or at least Mibuchi assumed he did; it was hard to tell with Sakurai trapped somewhere in the depths of his binder. "Not broken, just bruised. It's not even that bad a bruise, really."
Mibuchi looked down at the red and purple spreading across Sakurai's ribs and frowned. "It looks pretty bad to me," he said.
"It looks worse than it is, Mibuchi-san, trust me. I've had much worse."
Mibuchi didn't reply, turning his attention to untangling Sakurai from the layers of his binder. It took him a minute, but eventually he managed to get all of the material going in the right direction and Sakurai's arms out through the correct openings.
"Thank you, Mibuchi-san," Sakurai said once he was freed. He was still facing away from Mibuchi, refusing to make eye contact.
"There's no need to be so formal; it makes me feel old," Mibuchi said. "Please, call me Reo."
"Sorry! Sorry, umm..I mean thank you, Reo-senpai," Sakurai stuttered. He started to dig through his bag and winced. Mibuchi noticed another spreading bruise across Sakurai's shoulder.
"Hanamiya really did a number on you, didn't he?" he said, half to himself.
"I'm sorry; I'm not as good at evading as I should be."
"It's not your fault. Hanamiya's a jerk," Mibuchi said again. "Here, give me your phone, and I'll give you my e-mail and my number in case you ever want to talk; it sounds like you could use it."
Sakurai finally turned away from the lockers and looked at Mibuchi for the first time. "Is Mibu-…., is Reo-senpai…?" he asked hesitantly as he handed over his phone.
"Nah," Mibuchi replied. "I'm a guy born in a guy's body, but sometimes I like dressing up in a skirt as much as any girl. It's not the same thing, but I have some sense of what it's like to be living in a society that wants you to be or act like something you aren't, and that will let you know its displeasure when you refuse."
Sakurai took a breath as if to speak, but before he could say anything, they were interrupted by shouting from the hallway.
"Oi, Sakurai, you coming this century? Everyone's waiting for you! We can't go until you're done, so hurry up before I come drag your ass out of there," a familiar voice yelled, getting louder and louder as Aomine came down the hall towards the locker room.
Sakurai immediately started scrambling at his bag, dropping various things in his haste and generally making things worse and making himself increasingly panicked each time he dropped another piece of clothing he was trying to put on.
Mibuchi quickly finished adding himself to the phone and slipped it back into Sakurai's bag. He caught a sock as Sakurai dropped it, and then caught Sakurai as he nearly fell over trying to put on his socks while standing. He steered Sakurai to a bench to finish dressing, and he went to the door.
"Breathe, Sakurai-kun," he said. "Take your time finishing up; I'll stall for you."
With that, he slipped out of the locker room. Aomine was already halfway down the hall, walking quickly and looking generally irritated. Mibuchi called out to him, chastising him for making such noise when there were people around trying to prepare for their own games. He didn't expect Aomine to agree; all he cared was that he manage to draw Aomine into conversation and buy Sakurai some time to finish changing.
He didn't have to wait long; less than two minutes later, Sakurai rushed out of the room, fumbling with the zipper on his bag as he apologized repeatedly to Aomine.
"Just hurry up already," was all Aomine had to say in response.
Sakurai managed to break off his litany of apologies to Aomine for just long enough to apologize to Mibuchi for inconveniencing him as well.
"It's really not an inconvenience," Mibuchi started to say before deciding the message would be completely lost on Sakurai at the moment, so he settled for simply saying, "It's fine; don't forget what I told you."
Sakurai nodded once, then noticed Aomine was halfway down the hall already and ran to catch up.
As soon as he was out of sight, Mibuchi leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. He hoped Sakurai would take him up on his offer and contact him. He had the feeling the kid could use a friend. Badly.
He was so caught up in his own thoughts that he didn't hear someone coming up beside him. He jumped when a familiar voice drawled "Sorry ya' had to deal with that," right next to his ear. He opened his eyes to Touou's captain standing next to him, just a little too close for comfort.
He let out a long internal sigh. He wasn't sure he had the focus to deal with Imayoshi's scheming right then, but somehow he doubted he would be given any say in the matter.
Imayoshi seemed to pick up on Mibuchi's hesitation. "I meant it y'a know. Aomine slipped his leash while I was in the bathroom, so I owe ya' for what ya' did there. And I'm sure Sakurai'll thank ya' too, once he stops apologizing quite so badly."
"I walked in on him changing," Mibuchi said cautiously. He didn't want to out Sakurai accidentally, but at the same time, he the had feeling that he and Imayoshi were testing the same waters.
His suspicions were confirmed when he caught a rare glimpse of Imayoshi's eyes as they flashed up at him briefly before settling back into their familiar half-closed look of concentration.
"I'm only gonna' say this once," Imayoshi said finally, "reach out to him if you can; he'll never say as much, but he needs all the support he can get right now, and he's not getting any of it."
He didn't even wait for Mibuchi to reply before turning and hurrying back down the hall, presumably trying to get back to the rest of his team before anyone else made poor decisions, leaving Mibuchi with an uncomfortable weight in his gut.
Mibuchi forced himself to put that feeling aside. He'd come back to it later, but right now, he had a game to prepare for, and he couldn't afford the distraction.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That night, Mibuchi lay in his bed thinking about the day. Rakuzan had won their match easily, as expected, but he still couldn't shake the unsettled feeling his encounters with Sakurai and Imayoshi had left.
His thoughts were interrupted by his phone buzzing beside him, and he picked it up to find a new message from a number he didn't recognize. Curious, he opened it.
Message to: Mibuchi Reo
Message from: Anonymous
Subject:
Mibuchi-senpai, it's Sakurai Ryō. I'm sorry for bothering you like this, but you gave me this number earlier today, and I just wanted to make sure it's working properly.
Mibuchi wasted no time in replying; he desperately hoped this would be the beginning of a much longer and seemingly much-needed communication.