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Haru let out a deep sigh as he stuffed his keys in his pocket, dorm room door clicking shut behind him as he made his way down the hall. It was his second weekend in the freshmen dorms and it was shaping up to be just as boring as the first. Though this time he had had some homework to do and he was now on his way to switch his clothes into the dryer. Laundry and math equations, what a way to spend a weekend.
Normally Haru would consider boring to be a better alternative to loud and noisy, something which high school had definitely been, much to his displeasure. And even though he had never hoped to experience the stereotypical party side of college, he did find himself wondering if maybe there wasn’t a happy medium to be found somewhere. Some scenario where the highlight of his day wasn’t going to be color coding his sock drawer.
He made his way down the flight of stairs to the ground floor, avoiding the old and temperamental elevator in favor of the short walk, and was about to head down into the basement where the communal laundry room was located when a high pitched scream broke the Saturday afternoon silence. Against his better judgement, Haru found himself sprinting down the hall towards the sound, which appeared to have come from the dorm kitchenette. He skidded to a stop in the doorway of the small room, head whipping around wildly as he searched for the person apparently being murdered, only to find a very tall, and rather attractive, brunet cowering against a wall and holding a frying pan defensively in front of himself as he stared in fear at the sink. Haru chanced a wary look at the sink, just to confirm there wasn’t a short, axe wielding murderer hiding there, and turned back to the frightened man once he was satisfied they were alone in the room.
Haru took a moment to compose himself, forcing his eyebrow back down into a neutral position before addressing the apparently crazy person standing in front of him. “Are you okay?” he asked, satisfied that the words didn’t come out as clipped and disdainful as they had sounded in his head. Rin would be proud, he hadn’t even sounded half as ‘assholish’ as he usually did, according to his sharp-toothed (and tongued) friend.
As if he had just noticed Haru’s presence, which was probably the case given his still wide and fearful eyes staring fixedly at the sink, Tall Guy jerked in surprise, turning his head to look at Haru. Tall Guy immediately turned a bright shade of red, which only served to highlight the intense green of his wide eyes. This forced Haru to reevaluate his internal name for the man as ‘crap he’s hot’ ran through his mind.
“Oh! Er, yes, I’m okay! Thanks for asking... Eh heh heh…” Hot Guy trailed off, rubbing the back of his rather red neck with his free hand in an oddly adorable fashion as he laughed awkwardly.
Haru was unable to control his raised brow that time. “... Weren’t you just screaming?”
“Um, well, yes, I suppose…” Hot Guy stammered, looking away in embarrassment.
“Then what was the problem?” Haru all but demanded. Sure, Hot Guy was hot, but his craziness was starting to outweigh that point in Haru’s eyes.
Hot Guy’s eyes swept back over to meet Haru’s, searching his face as if to decide whether answering his question was really in Hot Guy's best interest or not. Apparently finding whatever he saw satisfactory, he let out a long sigh before responding. “Well, you see, um, this is going to sound silly, but I’m… I’m really afraid of spiders. You know, like really afraid, and there is one roughly the size of a small dog in the sink over there and I really wasn’t expecting that and I just… screamed?” Hot Guy said sheepishly as he lowered his head, and damn if he didn’t look cute even as he looked up at Haru through his lashes hesitantly.
“Oh… Do you… need help?” Haru found himself asking for some unknown reason before he could stop himself. It was one thing to not be rude to someone he just met, but offering to help said person, no matter how attractive, was not something Haru did. What on Earth was he thinking?
“You wouldn’t mind? Really?” Hot Guy asked, eyes lighting up and looking so hopefully adorable Haru knew he couldn’t back out after that. And then Hot Guy had the audacity to grin at him, a wide, eye-crinkling, full-faced grin.
Nevermind what Haru was thinking before, because after seeing that million dollar smile all thoughts fled Haru’s brain completely.
“It’s fine.” Haru murmured, feeling his ears heat up as he quickly looked away from that blinding smile.
Deciding he needed to focus on something else, anything else besides Hot Guy before he ended up making a complete fool of himself, Haru headed towards the sink. He didn’t really know what to expect as he warily approached, stopping a good few feet away and craning his neck cautiously to peer over the edge. Okay, he’d give it to Hot Guy, that was a pretty big spider hanging out near the drain; maybe not exactly dog-sized, but still probably something to write home about, if one was inclined to write about bugs. Hot Guy’s sanity confirmed, Haru looked around the kitchenette for a solution to the spider issue. It was too big to flush down the drain what with the stopper permanently stuck in the sink, something Haru had unfortunately learned recently when he had tried to clean his dishes the other day. Thankfully, someone had left a roll of paper towels on the counter, and Haru reached for them, planning to toss the soon-to-be-dead spider on top of the overflowing garbage can.
“Ah! Um, sorry, but could you not… kill it? Please?”
Haru looked over, usual deadpan expression firmly in place at the request. “What.”
Hot Guy had the decency to look embarrassed. “I-I mean, I know it probably sounds weird and all, especially since I’m afraid of them, but I still don’t like to see them die, you know?” When Haru’s expression didn’t shift Hot Guy continued, giving him a small smile. “Spiders help control insect populations, a number of which we consider to be pests, so they really are beneficial to us if you think about it. It would be a shame to kill it.”
Haru was about five seconds away from just leaving Hot Guy to deal with the dog-spider himself, but on top of being unfairly good-looking, Hot Guy was apparently also gentle and kind and caring and fuck, Haru was going to get rid of the spider without killing it wasn’t he? Haru chanced a glance at Hot Guy and found himself the victim of another dazzling smile and his fate was sealed. Damnit.
Wordlessly, yet with some slight exasperation, Haru found himself scouring the room again, this time looking for a nonlethal way to deal with the spider. Thankfully, he quickly found an abandoned plastic cup in one of the cabinets and in one fell swoop managed to scoop the spider into the cup, slapping a folded paper towel over the opening to keep it inside, and eliciting a certainly not adorable ‘eep’ from Hot Guy. Haru definitely wasn’t fighting a smile when he brought the spider over to the small window in the kitchenette, either.
“Could you…?” He began, halting in front of the window.
Hot Guy took only a moment to understand Haru’s intentions, rushing over to open the window so Haru could toss out the unwanted guest. The window was quickly slammed shut as soon as Haru pulled the now empty cup back inside.
“Wow, thanks a lot, um…?” Hot Guy said, looking at Haru expectantly, smile back in place.
“Haruka Nanase. Haru.”
“Haru! Thanks, Haru, I really appreciate it!” Hot Guy said, giving Haru a small bow and flashing him another should-be-illegal smile.
Haru wasn’t sure if he could take more much of that, it was already taking an awful lot of effort on his part to fight the blush that seemed to constantly want to stain his face. “It was nothing.”
“Well, I certainly couldn't have done it without your help! I'm Makoto Tachibana, by the way, it's nice to meet you!” Hot G- Makoto said, green eyes shining.
“Nice to meet you,” Haru echoed, suddenly feeling awkward like he usually does in unfamiliar social situations now that he no longer needed to be Makoto’s spider savior.
“Soo… I hope I wasn’t keeping you from something important with my silly problem,” Makoto said, looking shy again, and damnit if that didn’t make him look even cuter.
“Just laundry. Nothing important,” Haru mumbled, looking to the side in order to avoid looking directly at the attractive source of his embarrassment.
“Ah, the washers here are kind of spotty I’ve noticed. One was still full of water when I went to get my clothes the other day,” Makoto said, obviously attempting to make conversation to fill the looming awkward silence Haru could feel threatening to close in on them. "Have you noticed that too?"
Normally such an occurrence wouldn’t bother Haru, in fact he would usually welcome it. People would generally leave him alone once the silence truly set in, something Haru found preferable to conversing with people. But he was beginning to realize that was the last thing he wanted at the moment.
“No,” Haru said before he realized his usual monosyllabic responses weren’t going to be enough to get Makoto to stay. “But, um, this is my first time… doing laundry here. So.”
“Ah, I see,” Makoto said with a nod, as if Haru was actually contributing to the conversation in a useful manner. “Well, I don’t want to keep you if you’re in a hurry, Haru.”
“I’m not really,” Haru answered quickly, not really sure what he was doing as far as the whole human interaction thing was concerned, just knowing that he wanted to stay and look into those pretty green eyes some more. “What- what were you doing? Before the spider,” he tried, hoping Makoto would want to keep talking to him too.
“Oh! I was going to attempt to make a grilled cheese sandwich,” Makoto explained, lifting up the pan he was still holding. “That’s about the extent of my culinary abilities. That and instant ramen,” Makoto joked, though the flush on his cheeks appeared to indicate that wasn't far from the truth.
“Ah… Do you need help?” Haru found himself asking before he could think better of it. Offering to help twice in one day, Rin definitely would be proud. If he ever believed Haru.
“Oh you don’t have to do that, Haru! I’m sure I’ll manage somehow,” Makoto said with a rather self-deprecating chuckle. He didn’t look as confident as his words implied as he eyed his pan skeptically.
“It’s fine,” Haru assured him, taking hold of the pan and ignoring the way his heart sped up when his fingers brushed Makoto’s as he pulled it from Makoto’s grip. He also ignored the way Makoto’s green eyes seemed to pierce right through him as their eyes met in that moment.
Turning away, Haru headed over to the stove and the stack of ingredients Makoto had thankfully managed to place safely on the counter before the spider incident. “Besides,” Haru continued, looking back over his shoulder, “what if more spiders show up?”
Makoto not so subtly inched closer than was probably proper to Haru at that. Haru almost felt bad about it, but then he could feel Makoto's arm brush against his and Haru’s guilt somehow disappeared.
“Um, well, heh, that- uh, maybe it's for the best, then. That you stay,” Makoto stuttered and Haru could swear Makoto was this close to grabbing onto Haru’s sleeve like a frightened child.
Haru definitely didn’t mind.
And Haru may or may not have pretended to have seen a spider at some point during the cooking process and may or may not have smiled to himself when Makoto grabbed his shoulders and hid behind him with a small shriek. And it may or may not have been totally all worth it when Makoto invited Haru back to his non-spider-infested room to eat the sandwiches and watch a movie.
All in all Haru’s Saturday turned out to be not so boring after all. And Haru couldn't even be mad when he remembered his laundry four hours later and found it still soaking wet in the machine, unable to even manage a glare at the sodden clothes; it was just something he could text Makoto about later, since he now had Makoto’s phone number- secretly programmed in under ‘Hot Guy’- and had already received ‘See you at dinner tomorrow! (=^･ω･^=)’ earlier, the mere memory of which caused his lips to curl up into a small smile even as he wrung out his wet clothes.
Haru had never been more thankful for spiders and subpar dormitories before.