"Do you ever consider crashing your car so you don't have to go to class?"
"No, but then again I wasn't stupid enough to take a class called 'Marriage and Family'." Makoto said to his dark haired friend.
Haru sighed and thumped his forehead down on one of the large wooden desks in the psychology lab. He was tired, and he was annoyed. He was always annoyed. He was tired, annoyed, and he was tragically bored.
"How do you do it?" Haru asked, peering sideways at his friend through his disheveled bangs.
"Do what?"
"Nothing. Never mind," he mumbled in response to Makoto's clear disinterest in his existential crisis. Haru watched the brown-haired male rifle through his backpack for his laptop charger, which he knew Makoto had left in the living room in the apartment that they shared. Serves him right,he thought sourly. Blinking, Haru picked his head up and reached for his own backpack at his feet. He should probably work on something if he wanted to maintain the façade of being the model student. Well, if he really was at the top of his class, it wasn't really a façade, right? Whatever. Who cares.
"Shit," Makoto sighed, "I left my charger at home. Can I borrow your car?"
"What's wrong with yours?" Haru snapped.
"I forgot to put gas in it this morning and I don't feel like stopping now and wasting more time." The taller male replied, unfazed by his friend's surly attitude. "Please? I'll buy you coffee tomorrow."
"Fine." Haru dramatically snatched his keys from the desk and handed them to a grinning Makoto, "Dark roast, three creams."
"I know I know, thanks!"
Alone in the psych lab, Haru sighed again.
"NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP, NEVER GONNA LET YOU DOWN"
Haru's head snapped up from the computer screen and he shot the world's most powerful glare in the direction of the sudden, unwelcomed cacophony. A small blond boy, clearly oblivious to Haru's death stare—actually oblivious to Haru entirely—playfully kicked the door shut and busied himself with the removal of his blue jacket and bright yellow scarf in the corner of the lab.
I hate you. The irked male thought. Who the fuck are you anyway? What are you, 14? How did you even get in here?
As Haru internally berated the intruder, the little fuck continued to hum noisily while practically dumping the contents of his messenger bag onto the floor. Pens and highlighters clattered to the ground as he yanked a neon pink notebook out of one of the pockets; Haru saw a black and white object bounce under one of the desks; an apparently precious object because the boy yelped before falling to his knees to search for it anxiously. Still unnoticed, Haru began to feel less scathing hatred and more mild amusement as he watched the strange young male peek under a (wrong) desk against the opposite wall. He looked very childlike perched on all fours with his butt in the air as he struggled to reach his thin arm far enough under the desk to feel around for his toy. Haru raised an eyebrow when the boy stood up with an exasperated huff, staring at the offensive piece of furniture and making physical preparations to attempt to move the heavy computer desk; he couldn't decide if he wanted to witness the inevitably hilarious show that would take place when the tiny blond tried to move something at least three times heavier than him, or if he should help him out a little…
"It went und-"
"AHH FUCK!" The boy screamed in a slightly deeper voice than Haru expected. He tensed up and clutched his chest as he whipped his head around, wild eyes falling on the black haired student sitting about 10 feet from him who still had his hands poised above a keyboard. "What—um, sorry—what? You scared the shit out of me. I didn't expect anyone to be in here."
"Obviously," replied Haru, annoyance creeping into his voice, "do you always enter empty rooms like that?"
"Obviously not, since the room wasn't empty." The boy said, mocking Haru's tone and still breathing hard.
Haru removed his hands from the keyboard and swiveled in his chair to regard the blond properly.
Who the fuck do you think you are, you little cunt.
Okay, so he can't say that to a stranger, no matter how irritating said stranger was. Besides, it wasn't the boy's fault that Haru was in the midst of a bout of aggressive self-loathing. However, it was his fault that his flow of ideas had been viciously interrupted. So. Fuck him.
"I'm sorry, but who are you? Do you even go here?" Haru asked bitingly. To his surprise, the blond suddenly beamed at him with genuine warmth.
"Oh! I'm Nagisa, and sorry for bothering you, I really didn't expect anyone to be in here this time of day…and yeah, I go here. I'm—"
"Wait. This time of day? What time is it?" Haru looked around, panicked. Grabbing his cellphone he realized that he had 6 missed calls and just as many texts, all from Makoto. It was 7pm—he had been in the lab for four hours, and he somehow never realized that Makoto hadn't returned. He had also missed his last class.
Groaning, he scrolled through his texts:
3:38pm MAKO: PICK UP YOUR PHONE!
3:40pm MAKO: Don't panic, but your car is being towed to Rei's garage. I don't know what happened
3:40pm MAKO: I mean I know what happened, some kid backed into it outside the apt
3:48pm MAKO: he's going to pay for it but the tire hole…wheel hole? IDK the place where the tire goes is all effed up so it doesn't look drivable RN. I'm sorry :(
3:48pm MAKO: I'll buy you coffee for a year please don't hate me
4:29pm MAKO: please call me when you get this.
4:29pm MAKO: I'm so sorry!
Haru rested his head on his arms on the desk. "Fuck," he grumbled. He raised his head to type a response:
7:06pm HARU: fantastic. I don't hate you. Not your fault. I'm taking you up on your offer though. I'll see you later.
7:07pm MAKO: Let me know if you need a ride home. Kisumi brought me to my car.
7:07pm: HARU: thanks.
The now-carless-student put his head back down on the desk, momentarily ignoring his new acquaintance, who had since wandered closer with a look of concerned intrigue.
"Um…are you okay?" Nagisa said quietly.
Haru lifted his head to rest his chin on his hand and narrowed his eyes at the curious boy, "Fan-fucking-tastic," he muttered, "my best friend just wrecked my car." He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his tired blue eyes.
"Oh my god! Is he hurt?" the boy asked, clearly not the best at reading nonverbal cues.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. He's dead. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a paper to write or something." And with that, he put his head back down on the desk, silently begging to be left alone.
"Okay," Nagisa giggled, "well do you need a ride home or anything? I don't really have anything to work on, I just came in to get my TA notes that I left in the printer earlier."
Rolling both his eyes and head to the side to look at the other male, Haru was ready to snap at him again, until he realized what the small boy had just said. His eyes widened and he abruptly sat up.
"TA? You're a TA? You mean…are you a graduate student?"
"Yeah!" Nagisa giggled again, "you seem surprised."
"Well yeah…I um, kind of thought you were in high school… or something…You're…" Haru nervously trailed off, not sure how to address this boy—er, man who he had just been so blatantly and needlessly rude to.
"I'm what? Short? Adorable?"
"Yeah. I MEAN, um, you're short. And just really young looking. I never would have guessed." Suddenly flustered, Haru averted his gaze and swiveled to face his computer screen.
Nagisa giggled again. He giggled, Haru thought to himself, the man giggles like a school girl.
"So what are you?" the giggling graduate student inquired as he kneeled in the computer chair next to Haru, gripping the back and slowly spinning himself around.
Busy, he thought, I'm busy.
"I mean," spin "I know you're a psychology student," spin "or else you wouldn't be in here" spin "what year are you? What's your name?"
"Yeah I'm a psych student. A senior. My name is Haru." He answered to the computer screen.
"Haaaruu," nagisa said as he spun the chair once more. "It's nice to meet you, Haru-chan" he said, sticking his hand out in a formal greeting.
Haru's gaze flicked from the computer screen to the blond's outstretched hand and to his cheerful face; he hesitated before taking the warm hand in his, "Haru-chan? Really?"
"Yep! Seems fitting. So what are you working on Haru-chan?" he added as he withdrew his hand. He leaned his chin onto the back of the chair to stare expectantly at the dark haired male.
"Uh. It's um.. a proposal." Haru tore his eyes from Nagisa's energetic face, this guy's level of eye contact is too much, "I'm proposing a study to investigate the conversion of glutamate to GABA by way of an increase of glutamic acid decarboxylase. It's um..been difficult to find a practical method to test my hypothesis" he admitted dryly to the keyboard.
"I see," the blond replied after a pause, "I'm a social psych guy, so I don't know much about neurotransmitters or…whatever that acid thing is, but I could help you with your methods sometime if you want."
Haru raised his eyebrows and looked over at the shorter male, who had begun wiggling back and forth in the chair again, He looks like a puppy, he thought, trying not to acknowledge how terribly self-conscious he was beginning to feel under Nagisa's intense stare. He had no choice but to notice the unusual coloring of his large eyes, which seemed to bore holes into Haru's soul.
Is this guy wearing pink contacts? "Um, yeah, that would—"
"Great!" Nagisa launched himself at Haru's computer screen, "what do you have so far? Can I see?"
"I didn't mean now!" Haru cried at his companion's unexpected enthusiasm.
"Oh it's fine I don't mind" the blond replied merrily as he leaned towards the screen, pressing his shoulder against the shocked student. Nagisa reached over the desk to grab the mouse, but Haru was not having it.
"Hey!" he said, a little too loudly, as he tried to snatch the mouse away from the meddlesome male, "Can you not!?" Haru's hand closed around Nagisa's small wrist to keep him from scrolling up to the top of the document. Shocked by his own sudden reaction, Haru quickly released the blond, who had stilled.
"I'm…I'm not ready to have anyone look at it yet.." he said more quietly, a blush creeping up his cheeks at the closeness of the other, who was again examining Haru's face and practically sitting in his lap.
Has he ever heard of personal space? Jesus. "I still need to fix some things," he said, glancing at Nagisa's arm, which was still stretched across the desk. Haru awkwardly rolled his chair back to gain some distance from the man, who he realized smelled very pleasantly of fabric softener and-
"Ah, sorry Haru-chan. I didn't mean to be nosy." He said, straightening up. "But please let me know if you need any help."
"Yeah, sure. Thanks." Haru said, sounding slightly more irritated than he meant to. Nagisa was still looking at him and smiling, as though he expected him to continue speaking. Oh my god, what? He thought.
"What?" he asked.
"Do you want my number?"
Haru blanched, "um what?" he said, crinkling his eyebrows. "Why?"
"How else would you ask for my help?" Nagisa laughed warmly. "Never mind, I don't want to pressure you, I'm sure you will do just fine without me. I hope I get to read the findings of your study one day. When you're a famous researcher I'll get to tell people that I met you once and you almost made me piss myself!" He laughed again as he walked over to the printer to retrieve his TA notes. Haru watched his back as he flipped through the print outs, humming to himself. Nagisa smiled at the undergrad as shoved the papers into his pink notebook before bending down to retrieve the items he had abandoned on the floor.
Grabbing his coat and scarf, the blond smiled once more at Haru before turning to open the door.
"It was very nice meeting you, Haru-chan."
"You too." Haru said, though it sort of came out as more of a question than a statement. He blinked a few times after the door had closed.
With a sudden realization, he stood up and walked over to one of the desks on the other side of the room. He got down on his hands and knees and slid his hand into the dark space between the wood and the carpet; he immediately closed his hand around a small rubber object and smirked to himself. What the fuck. What a weirdo. He thought as he looked at the penguin shaped eraser in his hand.
Quickly crossing the room, he opened the door and shouted down the hallway.
"Hey wait!""Do you ever consider crashing your car so you don't have to go to class?"
"No, but then again I wasn't stupid enough to take a class called 'Marriage and Family'." Makoto said to his dark haired friend.
Haru sighed and thumped his forehead down on one of the large wooden desks in the psychology lab. He was tired, and he was annoyed. He was always annoyed. He was tired, annoyed, and he was tragically bored.
"How do you do it?" Haru asked, peering sideways at his friend through his disheveled bangs.
"Do what?"
"Nothing. Never mind," he mumbled in response to Makoto's clear disinterest in his existential crisis. Haru watched the brown-haired male rifle through his backpack for his laptop charger, which he knew Makoto had left in the living room in the apartment that they shared. Serves him right,he thought sourly. Blinking, Haru picked his head up and reached for his own backpack at his feet. He should probably work on something if he wanted to maintain the façade of being the model student. Well, if he really was at the top of his class, it wasn't really a façade, right? Whatever. Who cares.
"Shit," Makoto sighed, "I left my charger at home. Can I borrow your car?"
"What's wrong with yours?" Haru snapped.
"I forgot to put gas in it this morning and I don't feel like stopping now and wasting more time." The taller male replied, unfazed by his friend's surly attitude. "Please? I'll buy you coffee tomorrow."
"Fine." Haru dramatically snatched his keys from the desk and handed them to a grinning Makoto, "Dark roast, three creams."
"I know I know, thanks!"
Alone in the psych lab, Haru sighed again.
"NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP, NEVER GONNA LET YOU DOWN"
Haru's head snapped up from the computer screen and he shot the world's most powerful glare in the direction of the sudden, unwelcomed cacophony. A small blond boy, clearly oblivious to Haru's death stare—actually oblivious to Haru entirely—playfully kicked the door shut and busied himself with the removal of his blue jacket and bright yellow scarf in the corner of the lab.
I hate you. The irked male thought. Who the fuck are you anyway? What are you, 14? How did you even get in here?
As Haru internally berated the intruder, the little fuck continued to hum noisily while practically dumping the contents of his messenger bag onto the floor. Pens and highlighters clattered to the ground as he yanked a neon pink notebook out of one of the pockets; Haru saw a black and white object bounce under one of the desks; an apparently precious object because the boy yelped before falling to his knees to search for it anxiously. Still unnoticed, Haru began to feel less scathing hatred and more mild amusement as he watched the strange young male peek under a (wrong) desk against the opposite wall. He looked very childlike perched on all fours with his butt in the air as he struggled to reach his thin arm far enough under the desk to feel around for his toy. Haru raised an eyebrow when the boy stood up with an exasperated huff, staring at the offensive piece of furniture and making physical preparations to attempt to move the heavy computer desk; he couldn't decide if he wanted to witness the inevitably hilarious show that would take place when the tiny blond tried to move something at least three times heavier than him, or if he should help him out a little…
"It went und-"
"AHH FUCK!" The boy screamed in a slightly deeper voice than Haru expected. He tensed up and clutched his chest as he whipped his head around, wild eyes falling on the black haired student sitting about 10 feet from him who still had his hands poised above a keyboard. "What—um, sorry—what? You scared the shit out of me. I didn't expect anyone to be in here."
"Obviously," replied Haru, annoyance creeping into his voice, "do you always enter empty rooms like that?"
"Obviously not, since the room wasn't empty." The boy said, mocking Haru's tone and still breathing hard.
Haru removed his hands from the keyboard and swiveled in his chair to regard the blond properly.
Who the fuck do you think you are, you little cunt.
Okay, so he can't say that to a stranger, no matter how irritating said stranger was. Besides, it wasn't the boy's fault that Haru was in the midst of a bout of aggressive self-loathing. However, it was his fault that his flow of ideas had been viciously interrupted. So. Fuck him.
"I'm sorry, but who are you? Do you even go here?" Haru asked bitingly. To his surprise, the blond suddenly beamed at him with genuine warmth.
"Oh! I'm Nagisa, and sorry for bothering you, I really didn't expect anyone to be in here this time of day…and yeah, I go here. I'm—"
"Wait. This time of day? What time is it?" Haru looked around, panicked. Grabbing his cellphone he realized that he had 6 missed calls and just as many texts, all from Makoto. It was 7pm—he had been in the lab for four hours, and he somehow never realized that Makoto hadn't returned. He had also missed his last class.
Groaning, he scrolled through his texts:
3:38pm MAKO: PICK UP YOUR PHONE!
3:40pm MAKO: Don't panic, but your car is being towed to Rei's garage. I don't know what happened
3:40pm MAKO: I mean I know what happened, some kid backed into it outside the apt
3:48pm MAKO: he's going to pay for it but the tire hole…wheel hole? IDK the place where the tire goes is all effed up so it doesn't look drivable RN. I'm sorry :(
3:48pm MAKO: I'll buy you coffee for a year please don't hate me
4:29pm MAKO: please call me when you get this.
4:29pm MAKO: I'm so sorry!
Haru rested his head on his arms on the desk. "Fuck," he grumbled. He raised his head to type a response:
7:06pm HARU: fantastic. I don't hate you. Not your fault. I'm taking you up on your offer though. I'll see you later.
7:07pm MAKO: Let me know if you need a ride home. Kisumi brought me to my car.
7:07pm: HARU: thanks.
The now-carless-student put his head back down on the desk, momentarily ignoring his new acquaintance, who had since wandered closer with a look of concerned intrigue.
"Um…are you okay?" Nagisa said quietly.
Haru lifted his head to rest his chin on his hand and narrowed his eyes at the curious boy, "Fan-fucking-tastic," he muttered, "my best friend just wrecked my car." He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his tired blue eyes.
"Oh my god! Is he hurt?" the boy asked, clearly not the best at reading nonverbal cues.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. He's dead. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a paper to write or something." And with that, he put his head back down on the desk, silently begging to be left alone.
"Okay," Nagisa giggled, "well do you need a ride home or anything? I don't really have anything to work on, I just came in to get my TA notes that I left in the printer earlier."
Rolling both his eyes and head to the side to look at the other male, Haru was ready to snap at him again, until he realized what the small boy had just said. His eyes widened and he abruptly sat up.
"TA? You're a TA? You mean…are you a graduate student?"
"Yeah!" Nagisa giggled again, "you seem surprised."
"Well yeah…I um, kind of thought you were in high school… or something…You're…" Haru nervously trailed off, not sure how to address this boy—er, man who he had just been so blatantly and needlessly rude to.
"I'm what? Short? Adorable?"
"Yeah. I MEAN, um, you're short. And just really young looking. I never would have guessed." Suddenly flustered, Haru averted his gaze and swiveled to face his computer screen.
Nagisa giggled again. He giggled, Haru thought to himself, the man giggles like a school girl.
"So what are you?" the giggling graduate student inquired as he kneeled in the computer chair next to Haru, gripping the back and slowly spinning himself around.
Busy, he thought, I'm busy.
"I mean," spin "I know you're a psychology student," spin "or else you wouldn't be in here" spin "what year are you? What's your name?"
"Yeah I'm a psych student. A senior. My name is Haru." He answered to the computer screen.
"Haaaruu," nagisa said as he spun the chair once more. "It's nice to meet you, Haru-chan" he said, sticking his hand out in a formal greeting.
Haru's gaze flicked from the computer screen to the blond's outstretched hand and to his cheerful face; he hesitated before taking the warm hand in his, "Haru-chan? Really?"
"Yep! Seems fitting. So what are you working on Haru-chan?" he added as he withdrew his hand. He leaned his chin onto the back of the chair to stare expectantly at the dark haired male.
"Uh. It's um.. a proposal." Haru tore his eyes from Nagisa's energetic face, this guy's level of eye contact is too much, "I'm proposing a study to investigate the conversion of glutamate to GABA by way of an increase of glutamic acid decarboxylase. It's um..been difficult to find a practical method to test my hypothesis" he admitted dryly to the keyboard.
"I see," the blond replied after a pause, "I'm a social psych guy, so I don't know much about neurotransmitters or…whatever that acid thing is, but I could help you with your methods sometime if you want."
Haru raised his eyebrows and looked over at the shorter male, who had begun wiggling back and forth in the chair again, He looks like a puppy, he thought, trying not to acknowledge how terribly self-conscious he was beginning to feel under Nagisa's intense stare. He had no choice but to notice the unusual coloring of his large eyes, which seemed to bore holes into Haru's soul.
Is this guy wearing pink contacts? "Um, yeah, that would—"
"Great!" Nagisa launched himself at Haru's computer screen, "what do you have so far? Can I see?"
"I didn't mean now!" Haru cried at his companion's unexpected enthusiasm.
"Oh it's fine I don't mind" the blond replied merrily as he leaned towards the screen, pressing his shoulder against the shocked student. Nagisa reached over the desk to grab the mouse, but Haru was not having it.
"Hey!" he said, a little too loudly, as he tried to snatch the mouse away from the meddlesome male, "Can you not!?" Haru's hand closed around Nagisa's small wrist to keep him from scrolling up to the top of the document. Shocked by his own sudden reaction, Haru quickly released the blond, who had stilled.
"I'm…I'm not ready to have anyone look at it yet.." he said more quietly, a blush creeping up his cheeks at the closeness of the other, who was again examining Haru's face and practically sitting in his lap.
Has he ever heard of personal space? Jesus. "I still need to fix some things," he said, glancing at Nagisa's arm, which was still stretched across the desk. Haru awkwardly rolled his chair back to gain some distance from the man, who he realized smelled very pleasantly of fabric softener and-
"Ah, sorry Haru-chan. I didn't mean to be nosy." He said, straightening up. "But please let me know if you need any help."
"Yeah, sure. Thanks." Haru said, sounding slightly more irritated than he meant to. Nagisa was still looking at him and smiling, as though he expected him to continue speaking. Oh my god, what? He thought.
"What?" he asked.
"Do you want my number?"
Haru blanched, "um what?" he said, crinkling his eyebrows. "Why?"
"How else would you ask for my help?" Nagisa laughed warmly. "Never mind, I don't want to pressure you, I'm sure you will do just fine without me. I hope I get to read the findings of your study one day. When you're a famous researcher I'll get to tell people that I met you once and you almost made me piss myself!" He laughed again as he walked over to the printer to retrieve his TA notes. Haru watched his back as he flipped through the print outs, humming to himself. Nagisa smiled at the undergrad as shoved the papers into his pink notebook before bending down to retrieve the items he had abandoned on the floor.
Grabbing his coat and scarf, the blond smiled once more at Haru before turning to open the door.
"It was very nice meeting you, Haru-chan."
"You too." Haru said, though it sort of came out as more of a question than a statement. He blinked a few times after the door had closed.
With a sudden realization, he stood up and walked over to one of the desks on the other side of the room. He got down on his hands and knees and slid his hand into the dark space between the wood and the carpet; he immediately closed his hand around a small rubber object and smirked to himself. What the fuck. What a weirdo. He thought as he looked at the penguin shaped eraser in his hand.
Quickly crossing the room, he opened the door and shouted down the hallway.
"Hey wait!"