Chapter Text
Since graduating from college and taking their first steps into the adult world, it was a rare occurrence for everyone in their friend group to be available for a meet up as their schedule seldomly aligned. Usually, Miyano and his classmates meet up to chat the most while their former upperclassmen might do something once in a while, or for three or four of them spontaneously agreeing to something. So, for the former under- and upperclassmen to find the time does not happen all too often unfortunately. Even Miyano, who has a ‘ scary good memory ’ (or so his friends claim), struggles to remember the last time they all saw each other.
All of this is to say, that fact made it so much worse that Miyano
was running late
. He did not intend to get so absorbed by his work as he was, he only had to get something from his office before their meet-up, but then he saw a new stack of papers on his desk and he thought ‘
I’ll just take a quick look
’ and then it was ‘
oh, I’ll just fix that real quick
’ which turned into ‘
just a little more
’and
would you look at that!
He lost track of the time!
So caught up by what he read, he only looked up when his phone rang. Fishing it out of his jacket, he immediately picked it up when he saw the caller.
“Hi, Shuumei.”
“Hi, Kazu~. Just wanted to check in real quick and ask when ya think you’re gonna get here? I thought you said that you wanted to arrive early to help with the setup.” Miyano frowned, his mind still half-stuck on the paper in his other hand.
“Arrive where?” The line was quiet for a moment.
“The get-together with our friends?” Over the phone, Sasaki’s voice sounded puzzled. “You know, the thing you’re been so excited about for weeks?” Miyano’s eyes widened with dawning horror. “...You lost track of time, didn’t you.” Sasaki did not ask as much as they both knew that he was right.
“ Oh no… ”
Sasaki was quick to reassure him in a soothing tone of voice. “It’s fine. I’ll tell the others, I’m sure they’ll understand.”
“Oh god, even if I leave now I won’t–,” the brunet jumped out of his chair, scrambling to pack his things up as quickly as possible, stuffing hastily bound papers and his laptop into his backpack. “I– Thank you for calling me and telling the others, I’ll be there as soon as possible!”
“No problem. Stay safe on your way here. Cya, I love you~.”
“Love you too,” he said back despite the hurry he was in, (because he would never read another BL manga ever again before not returning Sasaki’s love,) before ending the call.
God, looking at the time for himself, he felt his heart sink even further. Even if Miyano left right now, he would not arrive in time. He’d be– Late! Overdue! Past the deadline!
Miyano chastised himself for forgetting the time because of work ( again ) and felt a little angry with himself for making his friends wait because of it ( didn’t he learn anything ).
Slinging his workbag over his shoulders, he rushed out of the building, going straight towards the agreed upon meet-up place– a nice park wonderful for a picnic–, not even bothering doing a detour to drop the backpack off at his apartment.
Slightly out of breath, Miyano arrived not too horribly late at the park, speedwalking down the path and keeping an eye out for the figures of his friends. A faint call of ‘ Miyano! ’ coming from his left caught his attention. Turning his head towards it, he saw three of his friends, his old classmates, sitting at a picnic table that was already set up, having various containers of different dishes strewn across the wooden surface.
Walking up to them, Miyano wore an apologetic smile. “Hey guys! I’m so sorry for being late.” He stumbled under the sudden weight of Tashiro when he threw an arm around his shoulders.
“Dude, it’s fine,” the half-blond waved off his concerns. “You still came, didn’t you? That’s all that matters.” Patting his back, Tashiro went back to sit down next to Shirahama, who waved lazily at Miyano. Sitting on the opposite side of the table sat Kuresawa, who smiled at him as Miyano settled down next to him.
“As they say, a broken clock is twice right. I agree with Tahiro, you don’t have to feel bad about it. It was a harmless mistake.” Ignoring Tahiro’s ‘Hey!’ , he glanced briefly at his phone. “Yuki says hi, by the way, and told me to tell you to not overwork yourself.”
“Oh, tell her hi from me too. And to expect an e-mail soon! She’ll know what I mean.” Tapping away at the screen, Kuresawa gave him a thumbs up before stuffing his phone into his jacket.
“What, no girlfriend this time?” Shirahama joked. Kuresawa shook his head.
“No, she said that I should focus on having fun with my friends.”
“Wooow, never thought I’d see the day!” Tahiro laughed. Kuresawa sent them both an unimpressed look.
“So you want me to go back to texting my girlfriend?”
“Hold on, that’s not what I meant!”
Miyano chuckled seeing his friends messing around: Tashiro hastily backtracking and pleaded with Kuresawa to put away his phone after he had threateningly pulled it out again. Across the table, his and Shirahama’s eyes met and they shared an amused look at their antics.
Once things calmed down again, Miyano voiced a question that laid heavy on his mind as soon as he saw them and didn’t spot the familiar orange hair. “Where are the rest? I don’t see Sasaki anywhere and I thought our former upperclassmen would be here too.”
Tashiro was quick to explain, “They were, but then Hanzawa arrived and immediately said he needed their help with something.” He shivered. “I don’t even want to imagine what he wanted help with.”
“Oh, don’t worry your pretty little head about it, Tashiro.”
Tashiro jumped out of his seat and tumbled to the ground, somehow dragging Shirahama down with him. Miyano heard him yelp when he saw Hanzawa looming over his crumpled form.
“S-since when were you back?!” He squealed. Hanzawa’s smile grew sharper.
“What if I told you I never left in the first place?”
“No way!”
Appearing from behind Hanzawa, Hirano nudged him, looking unimpressed. “Stop trying to scare them.” He turned to them, this time wearing a smile. “Good to see you, Miyano.”
“You too,” Miyano returned the greeting, happy to see them again. “What was it that Hanzawa needed help with anyways?” The blond frowned lightly and rolled his eyes, before dismissing the question.
“You don’t want to know.” Deciding that Miyano kind of did want to know (because otherwise his imagination would run wild), he moved to press for answers when–
“Miya~!” He found arms wrapped around him again, this time in an all encompassing hug. A beaming face appeared in his vision, Sasaki’s bright smile stunning him. “I missed you~,” his boyfriend whined and nuzzled into his side. Miyano laughed when the ginger rubbed their cheeks together.
“We saw each other just this morning!”
“Yeah, I know, that was forever ago.”
“Okay, we get it. You missed each other terribly, so will the sappy couple please get a room,” Ogasawara complained, sitting down on the other side of his (unfortunately) best friend. Hanzawa and Hirano had also settled down on the opposite side of the table, with poor Shirahama being used as a shield by an intimidated Tashiro against Hanzawa, with Hirano glancing at his benchmates in bemusement.
Sasaki’s expression immediately fell into a deadpan when he looked at Ogasawara. “As if you’re one to talk. This is payback for every time you forced me to thirdwheel you and Yokota.” Ogasawara sputtered.
“You–!”
“Can we just have peace for a minute ,” Hirano scowled.
“ He started it ,” both said at once. The blond shook his head, muttering under his breath something about ‘ behaving like children ’.
“Say, Miyano,” looking away from the bickering pair, Miyano saw Hanzawa look at him. “Are you planning to wear that backpack throughout the entire picnic?” He was confused initially and brought up a hand to grace at the strap laying over his shoulder. Oh. I completely forgot to take it off .
“Ah, no,” he flushed. “I came here straight from my office, so I didn’t have the time to drop it off at home.” Shrugging the bag of his backpack off his shoulders, he shifted it to his lap, intending to settle it down between his feet. Looking past Sasaki (much to his annoyance), Ogasawara raised an eyebrow at its bulk.
“That looks pretty heavy. Thinking about it, you’ve been carrying that thing around for months now. How is your back not hurting?” Miyano glanced down at the bag in his lap. Now that Ogasawara pointed it out, he could understand where he was coming from.
The black backpack had thick shoulder straps and was more padded than your average backpack, it was also just barely small enough to not be categorized as a hiking backpack. Miyano would also worry about the weight, if he saw a bag this size packed to its max.
“Oh no, it’s fine. It looks heavier than it is!” He reassured his friends, who had started to pay attention to their conversation. “Besides, since it’s a backpack, it doesn’t feel as heavy as a messengerbag.” Ogasawara looked at the black bag in disbelief.
“Really?”
“Yeah! The bag I used for my work before this one, was similar to our old school bags. The kind you either hold in your hand or sling across a shoulder. Back then, I would constantly have a problem with strained muscles at the end of the day, to the point I wouldn’t be able to lift my arm above my shoulder or properly grip things with my hand,” he explained. Miyano then motioned to his partner beside him with a smile.
“After a while, Sasaki asked what was wrong and I told him how my hand or shoulder would hurt after carrying my bag back home. He was the one who gifted me this backpack!”
“How sweet. You must really care about Miyano,” Hanzawa teased Sasaki, who on a normal day would preen at that and yet, when Miyano looked at him, saw Sasaki appear rather flustered by it. That’s odd.
“Of course. That old thing was barely hanging on by a threat anyways,” grumbled the ginger. “If I remember correctly, it tore not even a week later.”
Miyano let out a surprised laugh. “Oh yeah, I remember that too.”
Turning back to Ogasawara, Miyano said: “As you can see, there’s no reason to worry about my back. Besides, it’s only filled with paper, my work laptop, and maybe a couple books. It’s really not that heavy.” Hirano started to frown as he listened to Miyano rattle off the list off the bag’s contents.
“That– Miyano, that actually doesn’t make it sound any better. Paper and books can be quite heavy, especially at the amount that probably fills up your backpack.” Hearing that made Miyano frown (and thus, Sasaki too, though he also looked a little nervous).
Sensing some tension, Tahiro jumped up and rounded the table to stand next to Miyano. “Well, there’s only one way to find out the truth!” Ignoring the brunet’s protest, Tashiro practically yanked the bag out of Miyano’s arms with both hands. “See– oh wait– Ah!” The grin on his face fell quickly as once the momentum ceased, he found the bag much heavier than anticipated and almost dropped it onto the ground, only barely holding on to not damage its contents.
“Holy shit,” Tashiro gasped after setting the backpack onto the grass and looked at Miyano in utter shock. “How is your spine okay?!” Miyano waved his hands in denial while standing up, fretting about any possible damage his work could've taken. What if some papers got wrinkled? Or his laptop got dented?
“You must’ve misjudged your grip or something. Look, let’s just forget about this and talk about something else–” Miyano leaned down to pick it up, but a different hand snatched the bag from right under his. Head snapping up, he saw Ogawara holding it in both hands with a stunned expression.
“No kidding. I would get a killer back pain after carrying it around for a while.” Seeing Miyano’s mounting distress over the mishandling of his belongings, Hirano stood up and took it from Ogasawara. Miyano gave the blond a relieved expression.
“Stop it, can’t you see how you’re stressing Miyano… oh wow,” he looked bewildered at the bag in his hand, his arm already starting to shake under the weight. “You weren’t overexaggerating.” With that, Miyano’s relief disappeared and he let out a dismayed groan.
“It’s not that heavy…”
Like he will always do, Sasaki came to Miyano’s rescue, snatching the back from the blond and sending them all a fierce glare. “Stop messing around with Miya’s stuff.” He returned the bag back into Miyano’s relieved hands with a soft smile on his face. “Here you go.”
Miyano smiled at his boyfriend gratefully. “Thank you, Sasaki.”
From the sidelines, Hanzawa let out a thoughtful hum. “You aren’t surprised by the weight, Sasaki.”
Caught, the ginger sent him a withering look. “Why do you think I got Miya that backpack.” That made Miyano confused.
“Sasaki?”
“I’m sorry, Miya,” Sasaki apologized to the brunet, looking like a kicked puppy. “But they aren’t wrong. It is that heavy.”
“Eh? But I’ve been carrying it around for almost 2 years and never had any issue with the weight.”
“Miya, love,” Sasaki looked at his partner seriously. “Think back to high school, or even college. Do you honestly believe you would’ve been able to carry a backpack packed to the brim with a laptop, multiple books and god knows how many papers?” Miyano thought about it. I guess not, but–
“I’m not that strong though. I mean, look at me. I haven’t really built up any muscles.”
“Miya,” Sasaki now deadpanned. “Love of my life, apple of my eye– you carried over a dozen boxes filled with hardcover books up seven flights of stairs, without losing your breath . And that was just last week, I have more examples if you don’t believe me. You don’t have to have big muscles to be physically strong.”
“I– oh…” The brunet frowned slightly. “If you’ve known all this time, why didn’t you say anything?” Miyano startled when Sasaki suddenly gribbed his shoulders, cheeks glowing.
“Because
I couldn’t.
Do you have
any
ideas what those moments do to me? I don’t think I could get through that conversation without… any distractions.” It took a second for Miyano to understand the implication, but when he did his face bloomed into a bright shade of red.
The couple were in their own world when Shirahama’s voice startled them out of whatever that atmosphere was and made them jump away from each other. “Okay, I think I speak for all of us when I say that you should probably postpone this until you’re in private."
“Y-yeah,” Miyano stuttered, sitting back down with a burning face. Sasaki wordlessly mirrored him, face just as red. Once things settled back down, the others around the pair moved on to other conversation topics while eating the dishes they each had brought to the table.
Miyano took a piece of karaage, his mind wandering as he chewed on the juicy piece of fried chicken (he needed to ask Kuresawa where he got it from or what the recipe is, it’s really good). “Am I really…?”
Beside him, Sasaki perked up. Turning to his boyfriend, he leaned towards him and said in a whisper: “We can test it at home later.” Miyano stared at him in shock, red-faced, making Sasaki have to stifle a laugh.
Averting his eyes, Miyano feels like he’s about to combust. “Shameless…”
“O-ho, we’ll see who’s shameless.” Sasaki promised, sending a shiver down Miyano’s spine.