Title: Calculated
Summary: Communication by means of a calculator.
There are times, Tezuka wonders, just why he decided to go to Germany of all places. The language sounds harsh to his ears after a tiring day of listening to the orders and shouts of his coach; the weather is cool all year round and makes him miss the hot blazing heat of Japan's summer; the world is suddenly a whole lot larger than he realized, and walking is all but a luxury in the heavily automated city.
Tezuka flips the page of his book, eyes tired. The textbooks also take effort to read. He sighs and puts his book down. He is developing a headache, and trying to make sense of the letters that he always mixes up with English always intensifies the pain.
"Go to sleep," a deep smooth voice cuts through his thoughts. It was said in English, and it takes Tezuka more than a few moments to sort through the meaning. He must be more tired than he realizes.
Ryoma is sitting on his bed, arms folded behind his head as he sprawls back languidly against the wall. Tezuka gives him a deadpanned stare, and moves the book aside to do his Maths homework. Usually when German becomes too much he switches back to something he can understand without thinking. Mathematics, no matter what country, is always the same.
He sighs with satisfaction as the all too familiar numerals flow nicely from his mind to his hand. From his bed Ryoma scoffs. Tezuka ignores him, but the sounds of movement makes him sneak a glance from beneath his glasses. Ryoma, too lazy to stand up and walk, is crawling across the short distance between his bed and the coffee table. Tezuka raises a brow but goes back to calculating the value of x.
"Du solltest schlafen."
The lead of his mechanical pencil breaks with an abrupt crack and Tezuka stops working. He doesn't know if he is slightly startled by how close Ryoma is, or how strange he sounds speaking German. Either way he refuses to look up. He has homework to do, and Ryoma is the last thing he needs distracting him. German though, the last thing he wants to hear so late at night, is surprisingly easy to understand flowing from Ryoma's tongue. His eyes narrow into a glare. x. He must solve for x.
"Che." Ryoma leans back on his legs so that he's no longer invading Tezuka's personal space.
"I come to visit you and you still study," he mutters in his mother tongue, sulking.
Tezuka, stubbornly keeping his pencil moving, tries to make sense of the words.
A good minute later he replies in Japanese, "I didn't ask you to."
Ryoma throws him a sidelong glance, a brow rising in disbelief. Then he scoffs again and props his elbow onto the low table. "Sure," he drawls, slowly. Though it's a little hard to believe, Tezuka is a horrible liar, especially to Ryoma.
The mocking lilt of Ryoma's tone is a little more distracting than Tezuka would like to admit. He moves on to discovering the value of y.
Ryoma, not one who liked to be ignored when he gives someone attention, stares hard at him, knowing that the pressure only makes it harder for Tezuka to study. His gold eyes flicker down, and Ryoma notes how messy Tezuka's numbers have become. He smirks, and reaches out a hand.
There is a slight tensing of muscles, but it is gone as quickly as it came and Tezuka continues with solving the problem. Ryoma sees that he is keeping a wary eye on him, and purposefully moves his arm slowly across the table. The numbers on Tezuka's page slant a little ways off the pale blue line just as Ryoma's hand touches the graphical calculator by Tezuka's elbow.
Tezuka doesn't want to admit to the feeling of disappointment that rushes through him. Instead he takes his eraser and rubs out the line of working out. It's too messy trailing off the lines of the page that way.
Ryoma smirks, but doesn't say anything as he slides the lid off the device. Within a few moments he is clicking away on the keys, a focused expression on his face.
Tezuka is curious about what the tennis player could be doing. He is sure he'd gotten rid of all the games on it the last time he caught Ryoma playing solitaire with it.
At that moment Ryoma's eyes flicker upwards and lock with Tezuka's. Flustered, the brunet looks down quickly, determined to figure out the coordinates of the the tangent. It really isn't supposed to take more than a few moments. He frowns, listening to Ryoma's soft snickering.
Then, just as suddenly, the calculator knocks his hand aside and is placed rudely on top of his exercise book.
ARE YOU JUST GOI
NG TO WASTE YOUR
TIME PRETENDING
TO DO WORK?
is typed across the screen. It takes him less time to translate the words than by hearing. Either way he clears the screen and, at a rather slow pace, types in his answer after pressing 2nd and ALPHA.
YES.
It's childish he knows, and not at all an effective method to stop Ryoma from being such a distraction. That's not something he can easily change though, and he's resigned himself to that fact a long time ago.
Instead Tezuka glares at the chuckling male across from him, writing utensil lying abandoned on his book.
Even though he doesn't admit it, Tezuka knows that he loves it when Ryoma distracts him from his homework.
The infuriating thing is that Ryoma knows as well, a little too well.
German sentence means, "You should sleep." Much thanks to CrossPatchKitty for that correction. :D