Humming the Baseline
by Kikei
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dsclaimer: I own nothing. mikan-tsuki on LJ, though, officially owns my soul. :B
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Makoto didn't like the fact that he was lost.
...Not that he was the kind of person to get lost, mind you. And what did anyone mean by "getting lost", anyway? It wasn't like he was one of those crazed emotional people with dyed black hair and enough mascara to create an oil spill.
No, Makoto just didn't... really understand where he was going.
Well, okay. This, in itself, was a wonder, seeing as how Makoto was, well, MAKOTO. You know. The best high jumper in all of Tokyo High; The most handsome, tallest, and "half"-looking specimen in the entire vicinity of Tokyo High; The Great and Awesome Kagurazaka Makoto, the man who all foreigners knew and loved.
Ok, so, maybe he UNDERSTOOD where he was going; obviously so, because he didn't get up out of bed for just ANYONE, mind you.
Maybe... he just didn't KNOW how to get there.
Well, that was a false accusation. He KNEW how to get there; he'd been there many times, after all; Kagurazaka knew EXACTLY what he wanted and WHERE to get it and HOW to get it...
Well, maybe not HOW, exactly...
Wait, what were we talking about?
Anyway. He knew how to get there, after all. Not like he hadn't been there the night before, or the night before the night before, or the night before the night before the night--- well, you get my drift. Kagurazaka Makoto KNEW how to get there, alright...
So why was he just standing there looking like a doofus with black bunny slippers on his feet?
...maybe, Kagurazaka Makoto just couldn't handle it anymore.
Couldn't handle what?
The fact that he had been sneaking out at exactly 11:15 PM just to watch Sano Izumi practice his high jump for the past 4 nights now.
Well, that was straight to the point.
"The Great Kagurazaka"; clad in black bunny slippers and sneaking out just to watch some loser from Osaka High run around the track field back and forth like a robot on wheels. It was painful enough that he called Sano his rival, but actually taking the time to watch Sano go through this almost sacred ritual was... well, for lack of a better term, pathetic.
Makoto couldn't help it though.
Makoto stood there, watching from afar, eyes examining the way each of Sano's painful steps represented someone he was crushing underneath his feet, someone who didn't believe that he would high jump again. Makoto could even hear each of Sano's slow inhales and exhales as... well, as the boy continued to run.
"The Great Kagurazaka" was smitten.
And, trust me, he had no idea why.
It was sad, really. How fast his heart beat every time Sano made another lap, each time quicker than the last. It was almost as if he WANTED Sano to keep on going. As if Makoto wanted Sano to succeed in becoming the best high jumper in Japan all over again.
Which was bad. Because it wasn't like Makoto to... give in so easily. Especially to someone like Sano. Sano, who thought that everything was handed to him on a golden platter; Sano, the one who gave up so easily after being in the lime-light for so long... Sano, the one who thought that it would be a piece of cake to get back into high jump.
Just thinking about how easy it was for Sano made Makoto's blood boil.
He would never let himself be defeated by that... child!
Eyebrows furrowing, Makoto took a deep breath, and approached the now sprinting Sano.
"Practicing late at night so no one will see you fail, sano?"
The black-haired teen ignored him.
Makoto huffed.
"So, think that by ignoring me, I'll just go away? It's amazing how much you think like a child, 'Sano-chan'."
Makoto could feel his heart beating in his mouth as sano's dark brown eyes slowly focused on his.
Sano smirked.
"...Why have you been watching me for the past 4 nights?"
The world stopped. Makoto could feel his whole body going slack, the words in his mouth that were ready to torment Sano into oblivion shot down and stepped on, like freshly cut grass that had been trampled on by reckless teenagers.
"Well?"
Makoto blinked.
Oh, right. He was still in the spotlight.
"...Wh-- I mean-- H-How... I MEAN... W-wouldn't you like to kn-know?"
"...Actually, yeah, I would."
Now he had no response to that. What a great turnout this ended up being. Nice job, "The Great Kagurazaka". Maybe next time you would know better than to go with your so-called "instincts" to pick a fight with someone as difficult as Sano.
Makoto blinked, frowning as he felt his ears go red. "Wh-why would you want to know?"
Sano stared directly into Makoto's hazelnut eyes.
"It's creepy."
EH?!
Makoto fell over, face now colored with a nice pink hue, a shade that any peach farmer would be proud of. "You didn't have to be so straightforward...!"
Sano's upper lip curved into a smug grin.
"Of course I did. I'm a child, remember?"
The black-haired male swabbed his forehead of the slowly descending droplets of sweat threatening to burn his eyes, and walked toward the locker rooms.
Makoto frowned, trying (and failing) to subdue the childish pout from taking over his face (his mother did always say that whenever he pouted he looked exactly like his younger sister, which was pretty pathetic in and of itself).
Sano wasn't allowed to just leave the topic at that, dammit! He was angry! He had to show Sano who the king of high jump was around these here parts!
So Makoto took off his bunny slippers, and ran after the other boy.
--
He didn't know why, but Makoto felt something drop right when he entered the locker room.
Which was a little suspicious; after all, "The Great Kagurazaka" was wearing nothing but some blue pajamas and pink socks (which clashed horribly, but Makoto wasn't one for fashion). Well, he was holding his now dirt-covered black bunny slippers, but he couldn't have dropped that, seeing as how he was holding onto them for dear life, as if someone in the locker room had every intention of beating up the male for his comfy nighttime slippers.
This, in itself, was a pretty unlikely idea. Why would Sano want his black bunny slippers?
Speaking of, where WAS Sano, anyway?
Makoto frowned; or something like it, at least. Of course, he wasn't very amused at the fact that he was almost made a fool out of (almost, because it was darn right near impossible to make a fool out of "The Great Kagurazaka" ), and that he was following Sano around like some crazed high school girl.
It was an almost-frown, because, no matter how you looked at it, Makoto was inside the Osaka High School locker room, alone, with Sano Izumi.
Er...
...n-not that he WANTED to be alone with sano. In the locker room. Where there was no one around and no eye-witnesses to whatever Makoto was planning.
Not that he was planning anything.
Uhm.
It was then "The Great Kagurazaka" heard a shower running from across the locker room.
...oh.
"...S-Sano?"
Makoto's voice wavered slightly (which was attributed to the fact that he had a stuttering problem) as he raised an eyebrow toward the sound of the water running. "Sano, where are you?"
Of course, he knew where the teen was, he just could hardly believe that Sano would even think of showering at this hour.
...or that Sano would think of showering right when his rival was under his nose.
"Towards the back, then take a left!" Sano's low voice could be heard vibrating off the walls.
Oh, okay. So Sano was telling Makoto where the shower was.
--wait, what?! Why?!
Makoto blinked. Then he raised his right hand and pinched himself on the cheek.
"Oww--!"
Okay, so he wasn't dreaming, judging by the way the 2-second pinch left him crying like a little girl without her mommy. That meant that Sano really was showering right under Kagurazaka's nose, and that the black-haired boy actually expected Makoto to follow him in the shower.
...no, Makoto wasn't freaking out.
He was just... slowly hyperventilating. Eheh. There was a difference!
Makoto could feel himself pacing. What guy, in their right mind, would actually let himself be tricked into following his 17-year-old rival into the shower room?! It was like some badly written gay internet porno that would always be illegally downloaded by crazed, 14-year-old teens (not necessarily girls).
On the other hand, he didn't HAVE to go INSIDE the locker room. Not like Sano was actually expecting him to wash his back or something; he was a grown boy, Sano had showered plenty of times before "The Great Kagurazaka" came around, right?
"Kagurazaka!"
Well, there was Sano's voice. And there was the shower room. The only thing left to do now was either a) run for the hills (which was sort of impossible seeing as how they didn't live near any hills) or b) actually follow his gut feeling and sprint dramatically into the shower room.
Makoto frowned. On the one hand, Sano WAS still his rival.
On the other hand, it WAS his gut feeling that led Makoto to the locker room in the first place. And, in general, watch him practice late at night, anyways. Why let it down now?
...right?
Makoto resisted the urge to kick himself as he felt his pink socks gliding across the floor to the shower room.
--
Makoto never really liked the fact that he was lost.
Well, okay. He admitted it. He was "The Great Kagurazaka" for a reason. And that reason was... well, in actuality, it was a stupid nickname that his older sister created for him when he would always fall off his bike. "THE GREAT KAGURAZAKA RIDES AGAIN!" she would always say, laughing her ass off.
Stupid older sister.
ANYWAY. There was ANOTHER, less embarrassing reason why he was "The Great Kagurazaka". And aside from the fact that he couldn't bike and that he had a horrible stuttering problem, he was perfect. In almost every way. He sang well, he was good with children, he cooked, etcetera, etcetera.
So knowing that "The Great Kagurazaka" was lost was, well...
...pretty pathetic.
And this time, he wasn't "lost" as in "map-less, unaware of his surroundings", even if heaven knew that he rarely ever went inside the Osaka High School locker room.
He was actually "lost" in the emotional, unsure, "slit-my-wrist" sort of way.
Which was sad.
He was staring. Standing there, probably looking like an idiot hugging his black bunny slippers, in his pajamas, doing nothing but blink every so often.
Because it wasn't often that he got to stare at the shower room curtain.
And to think. Sano was just behind said curtain.
(Butt naked as well, to say the least, but we aren't going there, unfortunately.)
Sano, the one who he always considered his rival. The one with the talent for everything that he gave up all so easily without so much as an apology to all the people he had hurt.
Sano, the one he willingly followed to the bitter end just to make his own heart happy.
Whoa, getting a little deep there, aren't you, Makoto?
Makoto shook his head, grasping the bunnies even tighter in his clutch. What did sano want him here for, he wondered? As he stated before, Sano was a grown boy. He was able to get dressed by himself early in the morning, it didn't make sense that he couldn't shower by himself late at night. It was unreasonable, impractical.
Then again, Makoto following Sano around like a lost puppy was unreasonable as well.
It probably wasn't a big deal, the brown-haired teen thought to himself, the smell of shampoo wafting up his nose (it smelled faintly of coconut, makoto giggled inwardly). He probably just wanted to talk to him about something. Probably wanted his advice on the way he was running, or the formation of his high jump, or...
Or...
Or maybe Sano wanted to talk about him. Makoto. Maybe he wanted a more valid reason as to why Makoto was stalking him like that. Maybe he was angry at him.
Maybe he was so angry, in fact, that he would start punching him. Violently. In the shower room. And because of this Sano would naturally still be stark naked, soaking wet, smelling of cherries and coconut, an odd combination, but befitting nonetheless.
Anyway. Maybe he was so angry that Sano would want to start a fight. And, knowing that Makoto's weakness was his lower stomach, he would punch there, first. Then Makoto would fall down, slipping on the wet floor. And Sano would tower over him, baring all: his thin arms, his thick leg muscles... And most importantly, the limp muscle dangling, twitching between his legs,
Makoto gulped.
Then, since Sano was so angry at him, he would lean up to the shaking Makoto, grab the black bunny slippers away from his grip, and rip them to shreds.
And, since Sano was so incredibly angry at Makoto at this point, he would grab him by his blue t-shirt, throw him up against the wall, Sano's face barely 2 inches away from his own, and---
"Kagurazaka? Why is your face red?"
Makoto jumped, blinking rapidly as he felt his own heart throbbing in his chest. His hands were red from clutching his slippers so tightly, and he could feel his ears growing red from Sano's questioning stares.
Needless to say, the Sano in front of him now was not buck naked, and not at all angry.
And he didn't look like he was about to throw him up against any wall any time soon.
Which was upsetting, but Makoto knew he was never going to admit it.
"...n-nothing," Dammit, there he went, stuttering again. "Just thinking to myself, is all."
Sano frowned condescendingly, looking at Makoto as if he knew he was having fantasies about him. Makoto blushed even more.
Dammit, he hated his imagination.
"Well, whatever. You still haven't answered my question."
Makoto frowned, ears still red. "What ques--- Oh. That one." He resisted the urge to groan. "The one with the stalking."
Sano smirked. "I wouldn't go so far as to call it stalking..."
"I mean...!" Makoto mentally kicked himself, trying desperately to think of something that would save himself from embarrassment. He sighed exasperatedly when he realized he couldn't. "Y'know... because... I-I mean..."
Sano lightly punched him on the shoulder. Makoto flinched, his heart beating fast once again, his legs getting weak, the previous fantasy still fresh in his mind. Sano didn't notice anything. "You're starting to sound like a girl, you know that?"
The brown-haired male blinked, taken aback. Did Sano just call him a girl?!
"You did not just call me a girl."
Sano rolled his eyes, waving his hand as if to push the subject away. "Relax. Didn't mean anything by it. After all, you are 'The Great Kagurazaka'."
Makoto bit his lip. How did Sano find out about his embarrassing yet extremely befitting nickname?
"It's cool," the black haired male smirked. "And, in all honesty--"
There was silence. Sano paused, as if he was trying to hand pick the right words to say out of 8 billion. His eyebrows furrowed together in a wobbly "V" shape, and Makoto could do nothing but stare.
"...Well, in all honesty, if you were the one practicing, I'd want to watch you too."
Makoto could feel himself weakening as Sano's dark brown eyes stared straight into his.
He felt like he should do something, like give Sano a hug, or say something, like a small "thank you", but Makoto was too faint to do anything of the sort.
"...uh."
"Don't say anything," Sano almost-laughed, because Makoto knew Sano hadn't laughed for a while, and he himself wasn't sure what laugher sounded like when it came out of Sano's mouth.
Besides, he was still busy oggling Sano and his simple but sweet words.
"You're... different, Sano." Makoto finally said quietly, ears still ringing with the almost-compliment that the black-haired male had spoken not too long ago. Makoto knew he was blushing tomato red, but this time he didn't try to hide it. "You really are."
Sano raised an eyebrow. "...uh, okay?" Then, a grin. "Thanks."
Makoto sighed as he watched Sano slowly walking out of the locker room, his subconscious trying hard to tell him not to stare straight at Sano's wobbling butt, and failing.
He didn't feel lost anymore.
-fin-