Chapter Text
Another day of training passed, just like every day that had passed before it, and every day that would come after it. The BBA youngsters had been blessed with peaceful life for the past several months, without any more strange or otherwise troublesome occurrences coming their way. It was summer, and the entire team had gathered to spend it together, practicing for whatever sort of event Mr. Daitenji was unquestionably going to throw at them next. The old man derived so much entertainment from watching his favourite young players battle, they fully expected him to come up with a new sadistic idea of unknown sorts. Takao's suggestion was fighting aliens next.
Nevertheless, the peaceful days continued. The gang met up almost every day, using a few hours on training and spending the rest goofing off together, usually at Takao's house, sometimes at Max's dad's hobby shop or at the riverbank, sometimes at the BBA's training hall in the city, and occasionally, they wandered off wherever their feet happened to take them.
One of their favorite places for hanging out was a hilltop, a short walking distance away from town. Even Kai, who arguably always displayed some level of discomfort or detachment, seemed to enjoy this spot surrounded by woods and meadows. The town was visible below, but nobody down there could see them.
This very week, in late June, had been particularly serene as Daichi had gone back to, well, wherever he came from, while Hiromi had gone on early vacation with her family, leaving only the original quintet together. After a typical day of training, they had climbed up the hill again. Takao had rolled back down and was lying leisurely in the middle of some flowers; Hiromi had tried to teach them the art of making flower crowns, and while Takao had initially loudly expressed how little he cared for something so stupid, now that she was gone, he was the most ambitious to make one... Just so he could force it on Kai's head while he was sleeping. It fell to Professor, who had easily memorised the technique, to try to assist Takao with this handicraft. The attempt was pathetic. Max couldn't stop laughing at it for the rest of the day. Kai himself practiced the art of ignoring everything the rest were doing and seemed to focus on making Dranzer climb up and down the hillside.
Several failed flower crown attempts and one setting sun later, Takao decided it was time to go back home, mostly because he was getting hungry. Professor and Kai followed suit, possibly for the same reason; Max was thinking of doing the same, when he noticed that Rei was still sitting at the top of the hill by himself, surrounded by a serene aura. Bidding the rest a ”see you tomorrow”, he climbed back up the steep, grassy hill.
”What are you doing?” Max asked curiously, crawling his way next to the dark haired boy who gave him a questioning glance of his own.
”Just looking at the stars,” Rei answered. ”There's supposed to be a meteor shower tonight.”
”Really?? I've never seen one before!” His voice filled with genuine awe, Max looked up at the dark sky. Thousands of stars arched above them like a veil of distant diamonds, gleaming somewhere far away from reach. They didn't seem to be moving, however.
But Max hadn't climbed back up just to know what Rei was doing. He happened to have thoughts of high importance to share.
”Rei,” he began with a solemn tone, ”we really need to do something about Takao and Kai. They still haven't made any progress. It's driving me nuts, you know! Have you seen how they look at each other??”
”You know I know,” Rei responded.
Observing their friends had been a long-term activity of the two; it was glaringly obvious that Kai and Takao were all over each other, but with Kai's avoidant personality, and Takao simply being Takao, it was like following a pair of blind penguins waddling around while hoping to bump into each other. This was a description Max had formerly constructed to describe the situation.
”I think our duty as their best friends is to help them.” Max lifted his right hand to his heart, or where it was approximately located in his chest. ”How about we make it our goal before the end of the summer? Before you go back to China? It'd be such a grand way to go. We should get those two together!”
”Right, but how? To be honest, I can't imagine either of them confessing at all.”
”Well, maybe actions speak louder than words!”
”So we should set them up in a way that just... drives them in each other's arms or something...” There was a hint of scepticism in Rei's pensive voice.
”Wouldn't that be perfect? Imagine if...” Max cupped his hands and pressed his fingertips together, mimicking the image of two faces pressed against each other. ”... we got them to kiiiiissss!”
Rei let out a short chuckle, but didn't say anything right away. He kept looking up at the black velvet sky above them, his thoughts subtly drifting elsewhere behind his glazy, golden eyes. ”A first kiss, huh...”
Max lifted his own gaze back up, his playful expression softening to a calm smile. ”It would be nice, wouldn't it?”
”Mm-hmm...”
The two were sitting shoulder to shoulder while looking upwards in unison, a gentle breeze of cool night air ever so lightly blowing past them. The hilltop was surrounded by silence, with only the trees below rustling in the warm breeze.
Suddenly, Max jumped a little, letting out a delighted ”ah!”.
”I saw it!” he said, ”I saw a shooting star! Just now!”
Rei, not admitting he was too pre-occupied to notice anything himself, turned to look at the blond. ”So what did you wish for?”
Max pressed his pair of pale hands together excitedly. ”For Cupid to do its job, of course!”