Chapter 3: Hunting Season(ing) Part Two

[mp_npc]

God, was there some planet in retrograde right now? Everything was so…gray. Tome usually would have been able to cite a specific planet but she had been too oddly deflated all day to speculate.

At least she wasn’t the worst one off. No, not by far. That honor went to the pompadour’d thug who did nothing but sulk in the corner of their shared club space now. Her own club mates who were always too scared of him to even approach even tried to offer him one of their honey chip bags out of sheer pity. Tome, usually quite stingy with the resources (especially now they didn’t actually have funding anymore) didn’t even object. ‘How the mighty fall.’

Goda had spent some time trying to cheer Onigawara up. That boy was too nice for his own good. Him AND Kageyama. Tome didn’t know what Goda had been trying, exactly, since she was too engrossed in (or rather numbed by) her video game to listen but she could guess. The Body Improvement Club had one solution for every possible human ailment. It was exactly why she didn’t risk complaining today.

Tome glanced at the clock—it was getting to be that time, wasn’t it? The time where everyone finished their club activities up. Ah. Orwell was calling her name once again.

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[mp_simplyacommoner]

Teru straightened his own pajamas as he emerged. He was in a comfortable blue ensemble. There was a massive photo-realistic shark on his top while his bottoms had a comparatively quite cutesy shark pattern across them. He opened his mouth but closed it when he saw Mob swaddled and very absorbed by whatever he had chosen to watch. Teru quietly leaned forward against the back of the couch to observe.

Ah, a superhero one. So, Mob liked those too? They were really popular right now, but Teru usually watched them in the original English audio. This one was dubbed over. Still, the actors didn't do a bad job. The way Thor screamed as Loki fell into the wormhole was pretty convincing.

The doorbell chimed and Teru snapped back to attention to fetch the food and coordinate Mob's clothes with the concierge.

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

It was only once the doorbell rang that Mob became aware of the other boy.

"Oh, Teru, you're out."

[mp_simplyacommoner]

“Were you so entranced by Chris Hemsworth you didn’t notice?” Teru laughed good-naturedly as he floated the box of pizza over to the coffee table.

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

"There's something about his eyebrows," Mob said, pointing at the screen when there was a close up.

[mp_simplyacommoner]

Teru leapt over the back of the couch to take a seat near the other boy and grab his share of pizza. It was his favorite - a speciality bulgogi pizza with the most tender savory beef and he hoped Mob liked it as much as he did.

“His eyebrows?” Teru took the remote to pause on a frame where he could get a better look. “What about them?”

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

"They're really light. They're nothing like yours."

[mp_simplyacommoner]

“Yeah, you’re right. My eyebrows aren’t as cool looking as his.”

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

"No, I think they look really good." Mob was utterly sincere in his conviction. "When your hair was longer, it didn't look much different from his, either." Mob had to admit that Chris Hemsworth's hair looked good, too. And his muscles. Mob really would be happy to have muscles like his. Maybe after a few more years with the Body Improvement Club and he'd be able to be as muscular as he was.

[mp_simplyacommoner]

"Oh, c'mon," Teru waved that off. Sure, he had been compared to a young Leonardo DiCaprio or River Phoenix (both comparisons he never disagreed with) but Chris Hemsworth? He still had a few growth spurts paired with his gym routine to hit before he earned that one. "So...are you saying you liked my hair better before?"

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

"I like your hair no matter how you style it." It was really light and really pretty. A lot different from Mob's darker, more ordinary hair.

[mp_simplyacommoner]

Teru was quiet. He should be saying something in response, right?

Mob was honest. Painfully honest. That was something Teru had to keep learning over and over again and it made his chest ache in a way that obliterated his genuine happiness at his compliment when he suddenly remembered Mob’s horrified expression when the knife went flying back at him during their fight.

’That was the past!’

“S-so, Tome-san.” Teru grabbed another piece of pizza after he mowed through the last one and hoped Mob was polite enough to humor his awkward subject change. “You should definitely make a move. You really impressed her.”

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

"Oh, I'm not interested in her." Had he given Teru that impression? Mob bit into his pizza.

[mp_simplyacommoner]

‘What?’

‘What!?’

“You said you wanted her to be your girlfriend.”

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

Mob shook his head. "No, I meant Tsubomi. My childhood friend."

[mp_simplyacommoner]

“Oh.”

Teru was feeling light-headed.

The more that sunk in the weaker he felt. He hadn’t even finished chewing his next bite before he was falling forward off his own couch.

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

"Are you okay?"

[mp_simplyacommoner]

Teru didn’t answer from where he was face down on his floor. His body was burning from head to toe with a burgeoning fever, as if it could kill off his sheer mortification like a virus.

‘This whole time…Kageyama-kun must really think I’m…’

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

"It's okay," Mob insisted. Had Teru made a mistake? Was this why he'd insisted on doing something with Tome this afternoon? All this time, he thought maybe Teru was the one who liked Tome. "I still had a lot of fun with you and Kurata-san. And I got to spend the night at your apartment."

[mp_simplyacommoner]

Teru forced himself to swallow. His body shook with a pathetic but unmistakable hic.

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

Was Teru...

Was Teru crying?

Mob mentally flailed, trying frantically to get his mind in order enough to figure out how to react. He set the pizza down because it was the only thing that his mind felt he could do competently in the moment.

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Was he upset that he had gotten it wrong? It seemed like a pretty extreme reaction for just that, but Mob wasn't exactly the expert in determining whether or not someone was reacting to anything with the correct degree of appropriateness. If it wasn't that, was it maybe...

"You don't owe me anything," Mob reassured him once he managed to ready his own feelings. "You didn't owe me anything even before now."

[mp_simplyacommoner]

“Kageyama…”

Teru pushed himself up to face him, not even caring he was revealing his face—red with snot running down. He hastily rubbed at his nose as another cry threatened to lurch from his throat.

“I’m sorry. I thought if…” What did he think? “Tch…I really screwed up.”

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

"You didn't screw up," Mob told him firmly.

[mp_simplyacommoner]

Teru shook his head. “How can you…? You can’t be just okay with this. With me!”

[spiritsandsuchtrainee]

"It doesn't matter to me." It didn't. "Besides that, I hurt you, too."

[mp_simplyacommoner]

“That doesn’t make us even! It’s not the same. It’s not even close.”

It didn’t matter to him if Shigeo Kageyama was the kindness and most selfless person to ever walk the earth. He wasn’t some godly avatar here to cleanse the scum of the earth of their sins. He was still a middle school kid, just like him.

And Teru—he was just a kid stupid enough to think he could make it fair between them with a big enough gesture. After what he did. After everything he did. In the end he couldn’t even do that right.

“You don’t have to tell me that it’s okay or that it doesn’t matter. Just…let me do one thing.” He sniffed. “And if…if you say it’s okay after that then I’ll believe you.”