Abe & Mihashi, lunch on the roof.
Who: Abe Takaya & Mihashi Ren
What: Eating lunch, talking about insomnia, and holding hands.
Where & When: The day after Abe asked Mihashi to post his thoughts on catchers, at lunch, on the roof of the school.
Warnings: Platonic baseball hand-holding and stammer-speak are about it in this one.
Abe scrubbed his hand through his hair as he walked up the stairwell as quietly as possible. Technically, they were not supposed to be up there. While he knew they weren’t going to get banned from Koshien for eating lunch on the school roof, the nagging voice of danger was still present.
When he opened the door, he was assaulted by the daylight - stuck in the classroom all day, he tended to forget what the sun looked like until afternoon practice.
“Oi, Mihashi,” he said, immediately spotting his pitcher across the cement span of the rooftop, sitting against the bars at the edge. Mihashi looked strung-out, just as he had in the morning, and Abe swallowed the growl that had risen in his throat when he remembered Mihashi denying that he hadn’t slept the night before.
But that was behind them, and they had both apologized. What Mihashi had apologized for, he wasn’t sure. Maybe he was still tired. Abe’s mission now was to find out what was keeping Mihashi awake so that he could help him fix it. It was the least he could do.
“What are you eating?” Abe said. He meant it as innocent small-talk, a bridge to his mission for being up here at all, but had forgotten Mihashi’s tendencies to assume all questions were tests.
Mihashi startled, a shiver of anxiety making his back go stick-straight. The lunch he’d packed threatened to slide right off of his lap, but he managed to save it, setting it carefully to one side and looking up at Abe with what might have been a tired, wobbly attempt at a smile. It looked sort of pathetic. “A-Abe...-kun,” he said, and glanced quickly from his lunch box to Abe and back again. Standing over him like that, Abe could really be pretty scary... especially with the sun behind him, making his face look all serious.
“I, it’s -- I’m, l-lunch, is just --” Mihashi stumbled over his words, and decided that looking at Abe’s face while answering his question was too taxing just then, because Abe was frowning like he was disappointed again (though Mihashi knew it was probably just concern). He stared at his open bento, pointing. “O.... nigi-ri! And some, some, some curry rice from the other day, a-and some gyoza, and a, an, an apple -- in slices!” Mihashi held up a fat piece of bread and a box of milk. “with melon-pan! A-and, a …. y-yeah. That’s... for now.”
Letting out a huge sigh of relief when he’d finished, Mihashi shifted from sitting with his feet planted and his knees up in front of him so that his legs were tucked under him, and he braced himself to talk. He was going to have to talk with Abe. He could do it. He knew that he could do it, because they had managed online. Even though they were talking in person because Abe had been upset again... and Mihashi was pretty sure it was his fault. “U-uhm! What’s -- what’re you.. having?”
He’d answered, and then asked a question! This was conversation!
Abe raised an eyebrow. He’d understood... all of it. He sat down across from Mihashi, putting his own bento in his lap. “I have leftover stir-fried rice. And I think she - my mom - added some heart-shaped eggs-” Abe tilted his box toward Mihashi so he could see “-it’s pretty embarrassing. Mizutani never shuts up about it.”
This... was going well. Mihashi looked attentive, but when his eyes began to droop again, Abe was reminded of his real purpose for being there, which was not discussing lunch.
“So,” he started, shifting his weight a little, bracing for the conversational endeavor ahead. “What kept you up last night? Did you eat something that upset your stomach? Or were you worried about tomorrow’s math exam? I did tell you you’d probably pass, right?”
It seemed to take a moment for Mihashi to understand that this was the point where he should probably reply, so Abe proceeded to try and cut the stupid eggs with his chopsticks while he waited.
“Th-those... are really, re... really cute,” Mihashi said quietly, watching Abe’s eggs. Okay, he really didn’t want to talk about this, but Abe had asked him, and Mihashi couldn’t just ignore him. It was obviously the whole point of eating lunch together. “I wasn’t,” he tried, “worried.”
That wasn’t true. “A, about the test!”
Mihashi squirmed a little where he sat, took a giant bite of his melon-pan, and thought about how to explain. “My stomach f-felt, it, it was good. Just,” he swallowed carefully, “th... inking?” Mihashi risked a glance from his lunch to Abe’s lunch, checking to see if Abe’s chopsticks were still moving or if they’d stopped, which would probably be a sign of danger. It wasn’t that Mihashi thought Abe would hurt him, or that he thought Abe might yell again -- though honestly, Abe might yell again -- but that he didn’t want Abe to think that it was something he’d said that had made Mihashi lose sleep. Even though he’d been thinking about how to answer his question.
“It! It wasn’t, r-really, wasn’t. I-important.” Mihashi looked from the eggs (even the yolks were cute, they were a really bright shade of yellow) to Abe’s face. Okay, he looked at Abe’s mouth, because if Abe’s eyebrow was twitching, Mihashi didn’t quite know what he’d do.
And it was probably a good thing he didn’t. Because it was. Not that Mihashi not seeing Abe’s eyebrows was going to lessen the impact of what came next.
“Wasn’t important?” Abe said, voice raised at the end in a way that only led to an angry tirade. But Abe paused it, taking a deep breath and replaying what Mihashi had said, searching for a clue of an actual answer within that gibberish. “You were thinking. But it... wasn’t important?” he finally said, maybe a little too sternly. “But it kept you awake. Long enough that you... Mihashi, look at you! You can’t have slept at all. That can’t keep up, you know. We’ve got a practice game in two days.” Abe closed his eyes and shook his head. He didn’t want to bully Mihashi. Really didn’t. And wasn’t going to yell.
“What were you thinking about Mihashi?” he said, finally. “I-” promise I won’t get angry, he’d almost said, “promise I won’t yell.”
He had to keep realistic expectations, after all.
Mihashi cringed at the tone in Abe’s voice. It wasn’t that Abe was bullying him, Abe wasn’t bullying him -- Abe was being concerned. Abe was showing how much he cared. “I’m! I’m sorry,” Mihashi blurted out immediately, and trying to hide behind his melon-pan. “I’m sorry, Abe-kun! I was -- it, i-it, j-just, the -- when, and then you --”
Mihashi sucked in a deep breath. “B-baseball! I was,” Mihashi had managed to say, but then he was tripping over his words again, and having breath and knowing the answer to this particular question of Abe’s really wasn’t helping him get his words out. “D-didn’t want, t-to, to, to be -- ! a-and, I thought you’d, you might, y-you’d be,” angry would just be a self-fulfilling prophecy so Mihashi tried, “a--, uh, u-upset.”
He ventured a tiny nibble on the edge of his melon-pan, but could tell from the weird static tension in the air that he wasn’t really allowed to be done yet. “You’re... y-your q, your questions are, are hard to, to, t-to answer.” Mihashi sighed, and then he jolted upright where he sat again. “N-not, I mean, they’re -- g-good, but, I, I’m, I’m not sure.”
“My questions?” Abe repeated. “Like, the questions I’m asking you now or-”
Oh.
It hit Abe like a brick.
“My... question about catchers. That... was keeping you up?” Abe said, a little sadly. So Haruna was actually right, he didn’t say.
I can’t do anything right, he didn’t say.
I can’t ever do anything for you, can I? also unsaid.
“Damnit,” he did say.
Which was, it turned out, the wrong choice. Mihashi jolted again, strongly enough to knock some rice out of his bento when he bumped it. He seemed to be bracing for a tirade.
But Abe did not have a tirade in him. He looked away- to the railing, the floor, anything. Said, quietly, “I’m sorry. Don’t worry about answering it, okay? It’s... not important, after all.” He contemplated leaving, then. There was still about half of the lunch period to go, but honestly, he couldn’t really just sit there after learning that his attempt to learn his role just left his pitcher too terrified to sleep. He put the lid on his half-eaten lunch.
Mihashi watched Abe fizzle out, and it surprised him. Abe was loud, and quick to react to things, and he could be scary sometimes, but he was a really nice guy. Mihashi had thought that since Abe had given him that compliment before the Mihoshi game - the first time anybody’d told him he was a good pitcher and he’d ever even hoped he might be able to believe them. This wasn’t -- this was wrong.
“That’s, th-that’s not -- that’s wrong,” Mihashi said, his voice a little trembly in its pitch even though his tone was firm. “It’s not, it wasn’t because of -- Abe-kun, I just. Was thinking.”
“I think!”
Mihashi didn’t mean for it to sound like he thought Abe didn’t think he had thoughts, so he furrowed up his brow and tried to figure out what he could do to fix it. He’d worried that Abe would be unhappy with his answers, so he’d worried about what to say, and he’d worried so much he couldn’t sleep, and because he hadn’t slept Abe was worried and upset and now he looked really lost. Abe always seemed to know what he was doing and where he was going and how they were going to make things work, and Mihashi knew that the look on Abe’s face was his fault.
“I, I think that, that, th-that you’re am--azing.” Mihashi set down his melon pan on top of his bento, not thinking about anything but how to get Abe to stop looking like he was going to close up. Abe had always tried hard, so Mihashi was determined to try hard, and to show Abe that he knew that Abe was trying, too.
Reaching across the space between them in a quick, jerky motion before he lost his nerve, Mihashi wrapped his fingers around Abe’s wrist. “N-not, not just as a -- as a catcher. So, I want to say, t-to say the, the, the thing that’ll... show! Show you that! But, it sounds...”
Mihashi didn’t let go, but dropped his eyes, looking at the lunch box in Abe’s lap. “... weird. When, wh-when I, I, I say things. It sounds weird.”
Abe’s breath had caught in his throat when Mihashi grabbed his wrist, and he wondered if he’d be able to get it unstuck in time to say something back before the late bell rang. Luckily, his voice found itself when he opened his mouth.
“I...like you too, Mihashi,” he said, still a little funny from the contact and the introspective confession he’d gotten. “I mean it. It sounds weird when I say it, too. But it’s true.” Abe looked at Mihashi’s fingers wrapped around his wrist. The grip was a little too strong, but he didn’t mind. It felt good to be clung to. And if Mihashi was worried about saying weird-sounding things, he would just have to say them first.
“That’s why...that’s why I don’t just want to be the best catcher!” he said, suddenly enthused. He felt like they were swearing their allegiance again, to combine their strengths and get stronger. The memory gave him a kick of energy. “I want to be the best catcher for you!”
Abe swallowed hard, trying to read Mihashi’s expression for a response. “That’s why I asked...but...” He breathed in through his nose. Nothing was coming after the but, it turned out.
Abe’s declaration gave Mihashi chills. “I’ll --!” Mihashi was nervous about what Abe might think, but he couldn’t help unleashing a smile that made his cheeks flush. “Answer! D-definitely,” he said. He let go of Abe’s wrist, just to grab his hand again, thumb hooking over Abe’s knuckles. Abe’s hand felt about the same temperature as his - chilly but warming up.
“The, the best, catcher … for me, is... is, is,” Mihashi hesistated, steeled himself, and nodded once decisively. “Definitely A-Abe-kun! So...”
The smile faded into a sort of awkward half-grimace, the not-quite-smile Mihashi usually wore when he was pleased but embarrassed about it. Mihashi gave Abe’s hand a squeeze, trying to communicate reassurance. He had said he would answer, and that he’d think about it carefully, and so he was going to. He couldn’t, probably, say what he needed or wanted from Abe right then, to his face -- that would be totally impossible, and it would take forever, and Abe-kun would probably get sick of waiting because Mihashi knew it was irritating how he talked -- but he was going to answer. He’d stayed up all night thinking about it, and he wasn’t going to let it go to waste.
Mihashi looked from Abe’s hand in his, to his lunchbox, and chewed on his lower lip. “L-let’s just... t-together.”
Abe gave Mihashi’s hand a matching squeeze.
“Yeah,” he said. “Together.”
Suddenly, a chiming rang through the school, signifying the warning bell for the end of the period. But Abe didn’t let go right away. He lingered for a moment, just cherishing the extended contact, before squeezing again and finally letting go, with a heavy exhale from deep inside of him.
He stood up. “Try and finish your lunch, okay. But not too quickly. Don’t upset your stomach. And...don’t be late to class.” He frowned in on himself when he got to that one, as if he realized the paradox he had proposed. He turned to go back to class, but caught himself, turning back one more time.
“Mihashi. I’d rather you sleep then write your answers. But, I do want to know what you have to say. So, whenever you can. You don’t have to rush. I’ll be waiting.”
Mihashi nodded enthusiastically, scrambling to pick up the rest of his lunch. “C-classroom,” he tried to explain, finishing the last of his melon-pan in one oversized bite -- but being very careful to chew it thoroughly since Abe was watching. He was going to finish his lunch in the classroom. “A, a-and then... w-waiting... so....”
He trailed off, stumbling his way toward the door and thinking through what he’d answer, since Abe was being so patient and really didn’t seem to want to have upset him by asking. Mihashi thought about all the times Abe had answered his questions, and taken care of him, and told him how he could improve -- and then let him work on his fastball even though he hadn’t wanted to at first, even. Mihashi was determined. He was going to return all of those favors and give Abe a good answer, that was honest and sincere... and that, Mihashi hoped, would make him happy.
“And then,” he remembered, “practice! A-after, I’ll... I’ll tell you, some-thing... something good!”
Mihashi shrugged up his shoulders and gave is not-quite-smile again, hugging his bento to his chest and dashing down the stairs before Abe had the chance to ask about the words he’d left out or scold him for taking the steps two at a time. He needed to get to his desk soon, if he was going to be able to hide his lunch in his lap and finish it up during lecture, and he had a lot to think about. When Mihashi got home from practice, he was going to sit down and think hard about all the things Abe did for him and all the things he maybe could be doing, so that they could get stronger, just like they’d promised, together.
What: Eating lunch, talking about insomnia, and holding hands.
Where & When: The day after Abe asked Mihashi to post his thoughts on catchers, at lunch, on the roof of the school.
Warnings: Platonic baseball hand-holding and stammer-speak are about it in this one.
Abe scrubbed his hand through his hair as he walked up the stairwell as quietly as possible. Technically, they were not supposed to be up there. While he knew they weren’t going to get banned from Koshien for eating lunch on the school roof, the nagging voice of danger was still present.
When he opened the door, he was assaulted by the daylight - stuck in the classroom all day, he tended to forget what the sun looked like until afternoon practice.
“Oi, Mihashi,” he said, immediately spotting his pitcher across the cement span of the rooftop, sitting against the bars at the edge. Mihashi looked strung-out, just as he had in the morning, and Abe swallowed the growl that had risen in his throat when he remembered Mihashi denying that he hadn’t slept the night before.
But that was behind them, and they had both apologized. What Mihashi had apologized for, he wasn’t sure. Maybe he was still tired. Abe’s mission now was to find out what was keeping Mihashi awake so that he could help him fix it. It was the least he could do.
“What are you eating?” Abe said. He meant it as innocent small-talk, a bridge to his mission for being up here at all, but had forgotten Mihashi’s tendencies to assume all questions were tests.
Mihashi startled, a shiver of anxiety making his back go stick-straight. The lunch he’d packed threatened to slide right off of his lap, but he managed to save it, setting it carefully to one side and looking up at Abe with what might have been a tired, wobbly attempt at a smile. It looked sort of pathetic. “A-Abe...-kun,” he said, and glanced quickly from his lunch box to Abe and back again. Standing over him like that, Abe could really be pretty scary... especially with the sun behind him, making his face look all serious.
“I, it’s -- I’m, l-lunch, is just --” Mihashi stumbled over his words, and decided that looking at Abe’s face while answering his question was too taxing just then, because Abe was frowning like he was disappointed again (though Mihashi knew it was probably just concern). He stared at his open bento, pointing. “O.... nigi-ri! And some, some, some curry rice from the other day, a-and some gyoza, and a, an, an apple -- in slices!” Mihashi held up a fat piece of bread and a box of milk. “with melon-pan! A-and, a …. y-yeah. That’s... for now.”
Letting out a huge sigh of relief when he’d finished, Mihashi shifted from sitting with his feet planted and his knees up in front of him so that his legs were tucked under him, and he braced himself to talk. He was going to have to talk with Abe. He could do it. He knew that he could do it, because they had managed online. Even though they were talking in person because Abe had been upset again... and Mihashi was pretty sure it was his fault. “U-uhm! What’s -- what’re you.. having?”
He’d answered, and then asked a question! This was conversation!
Abe raised an eyebrow. He’d understood... all of it. He sat down across from Mihashi, putting his own bento in his lap. “I have leftover stir-fried rice. And I think she - my mom - added some heart-shaped eggs-” Abe tilted his box toward Mihashi so he could see “-it’s pretty embarrassing. Mizutani never shuts up about it.”
This... was going well. Mihashi looked attentive, but when his eyes began to droop again, Abe was reminded of his real purpose for being there, which was not discussing lunch.
“So,” he started, shifting his weight a little, bracing for the conversational endeavor ahead. “What kept you up last night? Did you eat something that upset your stomach? Or were you worried about tomorrow’s math exam? I did tell you you’d probably pass, right?”
It seemed to take a moment for Mihashi to understand that this was the point where he should probably reply, so Abe proceeded to try and cut the stupid eggs with his chopsticks while he waited.
“Th-those... are really, re... really cute,” Mihashi said quietly, watching Abe’s eggs. Okay, he really didn’t want to talk about this, but Abe had asked him, and Mihashi couldn’t just ignore him. It was obviously the whole point of eating lunch together. “I wasn’t,” he tried, “worried.”
That wasn’t true. “A, about the test!”
Mihashi squirmed a little where he sat, took a giant bite of his melon-pan, and thought about how to explain. “My stomach f-felt, it, it was good. Just,” he swallowed carefully, “th... inking?” Mihashi risked a glance from his lunch to Abe’s lunch, checking to see if Abe’s chopsticks were still moving or if they’d stopped, which would probably be a sign of danger. It wasn’t that Mihashi thought Abe would hurt him, or that he thought Abe might yell again -- though honestly, Abe might yell again -- but that he didn’t want Abe to think that it was something he’d said that had made Mihashi lose sleep. Even though he’d been thinking about how to answer his question.
“It! It wasn’t, r-really, wasn’t. I-important.” Mihashi looked from the eggs (even the yolks were cute, they were a really bright shade of yellow) to Abe’s face. Okay, he looked at Abe’s mouth, because if Abe’s eyebrow was twitching, Mihashi didn’t quite know what he’d do.
And it was probably a good thing he didn’t. Because it was. Not that Mihashi not seeing Abe’s eyebrows was going to lessen the impact of what came next.
“Wasn’t important?” Abe said, voice raised at the end in a way that only led to an angry tirade. But Abe paused it, taking a deep breath and replaying what Mihashi had said, searching for a clue of an actual answer within that gibberish. “You were thinking. But it... wasn’t important?” he finally said, maybe a little too sternly. “But it kept you awake. Long enough that you... Mihashi, look at you! You can’t have slept at all. That can’t keep up, you know. We’ve got a practice game in two days.” Abe closed his eyes and shook his head. He didn’t want to bully Mihashi. Really didn’t. And wasn’t going to yell.
“What were you thinking about Mihashi?” he said, finally. “I-” promise I won’t get angry, he’d almost said, “promise I won’t yell.”
He had to keep realistic expectations, after all.
Mihashi cringed at the tone in Abe’s voice. It wasn’t that Abe was bullying him, Abe wasn’t bullying him -- Abe was being concerned. Abe was showing how much he cared. “I’m! I’m sorry,” Mihashi blurted out immediately, and trying to hide behind his melon-pan. “I’m sorry, Abe-kun! I was -- it, i-it, j-just, the -- when, and then you --”
Mihashi sucked in a deep breath. “B-baseball! I was,” Mihashi had managed to say, but then he was tripping over his words again, and having breath and knowing the answer to this particular question of Abe’s really wasn’t helping him get his words out. “D-didn’t want, t-to, to, to be -- ! a-and, I thought you’d, you might, y-you’d be,” angry would just be a self-fulfilling prophecy so Mihashi tried, “a--, uh, u-upset.”
He ventured a tiny nibble on the edge of his melon-pan, but could tell from the weird static tension in the air that he wasn’t really allowed to be done yet. “You’re... y-your q, your questions are, are hard to, to, t-to answer.” Mihashi sighed, and then he jolted upright where he sat again. “N-not, I mean, they’re -- g-good, but, I, I’m, I’m not sure.”
“My questions?” Abe repeated. “Like, the questions I’m asking you now or-”
Oh.
It hit Abe like a brick.
“My... question about catchers. That... was keeping you up?” Abe said, a little sadly. So Haruna was actually right, he didn’t say.
I can’t do anything right, he didn’t say.
I can’t ever do anything for you, can I? also unsaid.
“Damnit,” he did say.
Which was, it turned out, the wrong choice. Mihashi jolted again, strongly enough to knock some rice out of his bento when he bumped it. He seemed to be bracing for a tirade.
But Abe did not have a tirade in him. He looked away- to the railing, the floor, anything. Said, quietly, “I’m sorry. Don’t worry about answering it, okay? It’s... not important, after all.” He contemplated leaving, then. There was still about half of the lunch period to go, but honestly, he couldn’t really just sit there after learning that his attempt to learn his role just left his pitcher too terrified to sleep. He put the lid on his half-eaten lunch.
Mihashi watched Abe fizzle out, and it surprised him. Abe was loud, and quick to react to things, and he could be scary sometimes, but he was a really nice guy. Mihashi had thought that since Abe had given him that compliment before the Mihoshi game - the first time anybody’d told him he was a good pitcher and he’d ever even hoped he might be able to believe them. This wasn’t -- this was wrong.
“That’s, th-that’s not -- that’s wrong,” Mihashi said, his voice a little trembly in its pitch even though his tone was firm. “It’s not, it wasn’t because of -- Abe-kun, I just. Was thinking.”
“I think!”
Mihashi didn’t mean for it to sound like he thought Abe didn’t think he had thoughts, so he furrowed up his brow and tried to figure out what he could do to fix it. He’d worried that Abe would be unhappy with his answers, so he’d worried about what to say, and he’d worried so much he couldn’t sleep, and because he hadn’t slept Abe was worried and upset and now he looked really lost. Abe always seemed to know what he was doing and where he was going and how they were going to make things work, and Mihashi knew that the look on Abe’s face was his fault.
“I, I think that, that, th-that you’re am--azing.” Mihashi set down his melon pan on top of his bento, not thinking about anything but how to get Abe to stop looking like he was going to close up. Abe had always tried hard, so Mihashi was determined to try hard, and to show Abe that he knew that Abe was trying, too.
Reaching across the space between them in a quick, jerky motion before he lost his nerve, Mihashi wrapped his fingers around Abe’s wrist. “N-not, not just as a -- as a catcher. So, I want to say, t-to say the, the, the thing that’ll... show! Show you that! But, it sounds...”
Mihashi didn’t let go, but dropped his eyes, looking at the lunch box in Abe’s lap. “... weird. When, wh-when I, I, I say things. It sounds weird.”
Abe’s breath had caught in his throat when Mihashi grabbed his wrist, and he wondered if he’d be able to get it unstuck in time to say something back before the late bell rang. Luckily, his voice found itself when he opened his mouth.
“I...like you too, Mihashi,” he said, still a little funny from the contact and the introspective confession he’d gotten. “I mean it. It sounds weird when I say it, too. But it’s true.” Abe looked at Mihashi’s fingers wrapped around his wrist. The grip was a little too strong, but he didn’t mind. It felt good to be clung to. And if Mihashi was worried about saying weird-sounding things, he would just have to say them first.
“That’s why...that’s why I don’t just want to be the best catcher!” he said, suddenly enthused. He felt like they were swearing their allegiance again, to combine their strengths and get stronger. The memory gave him a kick of energy. “I want to be the best catcher for you!”
Abe swallowed hard, trying to read Mihashi’s expression for a response. “That’s why I asked...but...” He breathed in through his nose. Nothing was coming after the but, it turned out.
Abe’s declaration gave Mihashi chills. “I’ll --!” Mihashi was nervous about what Abe might think, but he couldn’t help unleashing a smile that made his cheeks flush. “Answer! D-definitely,” he said. He let go of Abe’s wrist, just to grab his hand again, thumb hooking over Abe’s knuckles. Abe’s hand felt about the same temperature as his - chilly but warming up.
“The, the best, catcher … for me, is... is, is,” Mihashi hesistated, steeled himself, and nodded once decisively. “Definitely A-Abe-kun! So...”
The smile faded into a sort of awkward half-grimace, the not-quite-smile Mihashi usually wore when he was pleased but embarrassed about it. Mihashi gave Abe’s hand a squeeze, trying to communicate reassurance. He had said he would answer, and that he’d think about it carefully, and so he was going to. He couldn’t, probably, say what he needed or wanted from Abe right then, to his face -- that would be totally impossible, and it would take forever, and Abe-kun would probably get sick of waiting because Mihashi knew it was irritating how he talked -- but he was going to answer. He’d stayed up all night thinking about it, and he wasn’t going to let it go to waste.
Mihashi looked from Abe’s hand in his, to his lunchbox, and chewed on his lower lip. “L-let’s just... t-together.”
Abe gave Mihashi’s hand a matching squeeze.
“Yeah,” he said. “Together.”
Suddenly, a chiming rang through the school, signifying the warning bell for the end of the period. But Abe didn’t let go right away. He lingered for a moment, just cherishing the extended contact, before squeezing again and finally letting go, with a heavy exhale from deep inside of him.
He stood up. “Try and finish your lunch, okay. But not too quickly. Don’t upset your stomach. And...don’t be late to class.” He frowned in on himself when he got to that one, as if he realized the paradox he had proposed. He turned to go back to class, but caught himself, turning back one more time.
“Mihashi. I’d rather you sleep then write your answers. But, I do want to know what you have to say. So, whenever you can. You don’t have to rush. I’ll be waiting.”
Mihashi nodded enthusiastically, scrambling to pick up the rest of his lunch. “C-classroom,” he tried to explain, finishing the last of his melon-pan in one oversized bite -- but being very careful to chew it thoroughly since Abe was watching. He was going to finish his lunch in the classroom. “A, a-and then... w-waiting... so....”
He trailed off, stumbling his way toward the door and thinking through what he’d answer, since Abe was being so patient and really didn’t seem to want to have upset him by asking. Mihashi thought about all the times Abe had answered his questions, and taken care of him, and told him how he could improve -- and then let him work on his fastball even though he hadn’t wanted to at first, even. Mihashi was determined. He was going to return all of those favors and give Abe a good answer, that was honest and sincere... and that, Mihashi hoped, would make him happy.
“And then,” he remembered, “practice! A-after, I’ll... I’ll tell you, some-thing... something good!”
Mihashi shrugged up his shoulders and gave is not-quite-smile again, hugging his bento to his chest and dashing down the stairs before Abe had the chance to ask about the words he’d left out or scold him for taking the steps two at a time. He needed to get to his desk soon, if he was going to be able to hide his lunch in his lap and finish it up during lecture, and he had a lot to think about. When Mihashi got home from practice, he was going to sit down and think hard about all the things Abe did for him and all the things he maybe could be doing, so that they could get stronger, just like they’d promised, together.