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Makoto was bored, really incredibly bored. He’d finished the latest in a series of video games he’d recently been into and was out of things to do. Of course, he could always practice more, another night staying over at the school alone making sure he didn’t fall behind his unit-mates. But they’d just finished a live so Makoto decided to give himself a break… so what to do? Usually Subaru would come over but he was busy with something and Makoto felt a little too awkward to invite Hokuto over so unannounced and casually. He could always ask if Mao was free… Mao was always busy with something but there was no harm in asking, right? He’d just be rejected, but he was used to that.
Feeling a fizz of nerves Makoto quickly texted. Sitting down on the side of his bed tapping his hands against his elbows he jumped slightly when his phone buzzed less than a minute later.
Mao had texted back saying he had to stay home and help his little sister with an art project, but if Makoto had nothing to do he was free to join them. It sounded fun, nerve-wracking a bit, but fun. He agreed and panicked slightly when he glanced in the mirror and noticed he hadn’t styled his bangs yet.
-
A few minutes later than the time he agreed to be over, due to a hair-fixing emergency, Makoto stood awkwardly outside Mao’s front door. Nervously knocking, he bounced back and forth on his heels until the door opened. Instead of Mao’s spikey bangs his eyes met empty air, then lowered. Looking up at him stood a younger girl with pigtails. Her green eyes narrowed and she didn’t look hugely impressed.
“Ah, um hello! I’m a friend of your brother.” He waved his hand.
The girl continued to squint up at him. “Big bro is never home anymore. You distract him, you better help with my project.” She accused.
Makoto’s hand stopped mid-wave and froze into a sort of solute. “Will do!” He promised, a little shaken up. He hadn’t expected that sort of greeting. She turned and marched to the back of the house with Makoto behind her scrambling to take his shoes off and catch up.
-
Mao was sitting at a table surrounded by glitter and paper-cutouts. He glanced up and waved at Makoto with a hand that was holding scissors.
“Thanks for coming to help.” His voice was warm and he smiled before noticing he was holding scissors up and quickly put his hand back down. Makoto sat across from him at the table, shot-up in surprise, removed a plastic stencil, and re-sat down.
“It’s no problem. You’ve helped me so much, I should return the favor.”
Mao looked like he was about to object but sighed and continued to smile.
“So uh, what are we supposed to be making?” Makoto glanced down at the paper, glitter, and feathers.
“It’s supposed to be something like mixing animals and creating an ideal creature? We haven’t been able to think of anything though.” Mao picked up a feather and flicked it with his hand. It landed on Makoto’s nose. Makoto looked down at the feather cross-eyed in surprise and Mao laughed from the other side of the table and reached over to pluck it off. His hands were seconds away from touching the feather when Makoto excitedly snatched it off himself.
“That sounds so cool! I don’t know how creative I’d be, I doubt I’ll be much help but I play a lot of video games and there’s all sorts of magical creature type things in them.”
Mao and his sister watched, looking a little stunned, as Makoto chatted animatedly about magical avatars and some weird sounding names, neither of them could actually follow along very well.
Although he denied he was of much help, the project went by a lot quicker after Makoto joined in. In that moment of helping them he sparkled with excitement, directing where they could add wings and claws. It was almost too distracting for Mao, who found he watched Makoto’s smiling face more than the paper he was gluing.
In the end the thing was, well it was something. A bird-like creature with serpent tails. It looked rather awesome. (In Mao’s opinion).
-
As his sister stayed to make sure the project dried all right, Mao and Makoto walked up to Mao’s bedroom. The two sat on Mao’s bed and Makoto was toying with his phone when Mao reached over and rested his hand against his.
“Thanks again, for coming over.” Mao’s thumb brushed slightly against Makoto’s finger before he took his hand away again.
Makoto’s heart rate shot up and he thought he was going to have a heart attack. He paused his game and turned his phone screen down to look over at Mao. He couldn’t make his eyes look directly into Mao’s and ended up staring at his chin.
“I’m just glad I was able to help! You’re always helping me Isara-kun. Haha, It’s kind of funny for you to be thanking me. Besides, I was super bored you were doing me a favor.”
Mao laughed, “Bored is good, at least you’re not over-practicing. Don’t you have any games to play?”
Makoto flopped down on Mao’s bed and stared dramatically up at the ceiling. “Nope. I finished them all.”
“What about books?”
“I don’t read too often…I sound stupid don’t I? Maybe I should read more. Up-my intelligence.” He propped himself up on his elbows and glanced at Mao who was looking thoughtfully at his bookshelf.
“You could always borrow some of my manga? I have way too much already. Mom’s always telling me to get rid of it for space since my sister’s been putting some of her stuff in my room.” Mao stood up and gestured to his bookshelf which was stuffed with manga.
Makoto got off the bed and walked over to it. “Sure! There’s a lot of manga I haven’t read yet. Ah.. but I don’t know which ones I’d like…”
Mao grabbed a handful and dumped them into Makoto’s arms. “The ones on this part of my shelf are some of my favorites I think, try a bunch. Tell me what you think.”
“Hmmhmm! Okay!” Makoto clutched the manga to his chest and nodded.
Mao got a bag so Makoto wouldn’t have to hold the manga all the way home and walked him to his front door.
“Tell me what you thought of them when you return them. There's this one about a magical quest I think you'd enjoy.” He reached over and squeezed Makoto’s shoulder. Feeling warm and content after a fun day, Makoto smiled and promised he would before walking off.
-
That night, all ready for bed with glasses carefully placed on his night table, Makoto snuggled into his covers and took out one of the manga to read. Humming to himself, he flipped through the pages. Halfway through, he stopped.
Wait. What?
One of the guys was getting in a kind of awkward situation with the other guy… Makoto snatched his glasses up and shoved them on his face to peer closer at the book. Timidly, he flipped the page. One of the guys was kissing the other guy? And now, oh god. Makoto felt like his entire body was on fire. Flinging the manga across the room, he dived back into bed and put the covers over his face.
How was he supposed to tell Mao about this!? Obviously it was a mistake on Mao’s part.
But, the fact that Isara-kun owned this stuff… Maybe he could “misplace” the book (throw it out?) and Mao wouldn’t notice.
Either way, he was going to need a long minute of contemplation after that.
His life was forever changed.