Warm, light sunbeams slowly stepped through the window, drowning the room beneath in a soft brightness. Up twirling dust fell slowly down in the light of the sun.
The sheets ruffled and after a short while the light met the face of a young teenager, slowly waking him up. Almost in the same moment a radio on the bedside started to play music.
Every day at the same time it would start playing, waking the black haired up for the upcoming school day.
As much as Takao loved to be waken by the sun, he needed to stand up at a set time, but drilling and buzzing alarm clocks were just not the right thing for the cheerful teenager. So, last Christmas, he had wished for a radio which could also be an alarm clock and his parents actually got him the wished item.
With that little memory and the still lingering feeling of the cosy and all overwhelming feeling of tiredness Takao slowly opened his eyes more, but they fell shut again almost immediately. Morning tiredness was more than normal for him, but there was no helping, he needed to get up.
He wanted to get up.
Another picture wandered through his mind and now a small smile appeared on the young mans face, making him try to keep his eyes open this time. There was a reason why he pulled himself out of the bed and that reason as his best friend, Midorima Shintarou who had been more to him than just a mere friend for some time now.
The music kept on playing soft tunes and he rolled onto his back, looking up at the ceiling and slowly gaining more and more consciousness, stepping out of the dazzling tiredness.
As he sat up, he needed to shut his eyes once again for the sun was shining through the window so bright, that he actually got blinded for a second, but he really didn't mind. With his eyes closed, Takao started to stretch slightly, yawning once again and then finally opening his eyes almost fully awake. Right next to his bed, there was a window, just in the right height for him to look out when he sat up in his bed.
At first his bed had stood somewhere else, but he had moved it over to the window, since he loved the sight that was before his window. Of course there was the usual city-sight, but on the pavement there were little spots where cherry blossoms had been planted and grown into huge trees.
With a light-hearted smile Takao greeted the almost fully blooming trees and kicked the blanked aside, so that he could stand up.
His room was kind of a mess, but as long as he could walk through it it was alright. Plus he had seen rooms worse than his and he would always pry on that as soon as his mother would gently ask him to clean up.
Firs thing in the morning, for him, was to pack the remaining books into his backpack. And while he did that he started to gently hum along with the tune, even slightly starting to move his feet to the rhythm and while he got his clothes for the day, he actually started to silently sing along. The music carried him downstairs, with the soft strums of the guitar in his heart he had breakfast and as soon as he stepped out of the house, he put on his huge headphones which started to play music almost instantly. When there was no one around, Takao liked to have background music carry him through the day. His personal theme songs.
The moment he put the music away was as he turned around a corner, making his way to his best friend, who patiently awaited him outside his house.
„You are late.", he greeted him while actually shoving his glasses up his nose just for it to fall back into the same place it had been before. A soft chuckle came from Takaos lips, as he smiled upon the green haired, but not further commenting on the adorable try to readjust his glasses.
„Ah, I'll make up for it, Shin-Chan.", he answered him softly with a little hum as he pointed towards the carriage and the bike. „I'm gonna drive it this morning and make sure we wont be late.", he added with a certain determination to keep his friend well spirited.
With a sigh, which almost sounded soft to Takao, Midorima agreed and sat down in the carriage while Takao got onto the bike, taking off as soon as he looked back and got a nod from Midorima, who didn't seem as if he wanted to talk much this morning. The black haired didn't mind the quiet in between.
It was weird when he started to think about it though. When he met up with others but Midorima, getting quite was mostly kind of awkward. No one knew what to say and the troubling feeling, that you actually don't know the other at all would creep up their bodies and make the insecure feeling and the awkwardness much worse. But this was different, sometimes there was no need to say something, sometimes mere existing was enough and only with Midorima that was alright.
Maybe because they got to know each other so much by now … well, actually it wasn't that long, but he had the feeling he had known Midorima his whole life already.
Of course he couldn't tell if the other thought that as well, but somehow Takao hoped so.
In any way, spending time with the other was much more enjoyable as it should be.
In school Takaos thoughts would get clouded again. Lately he got distracted so easily by his mind, that even teachers would notice and tell him to listen up. But as soon as they would turn their heads, his mind would wander off again, as did his eyes. He was seated in the middle of the classroom and sadly he couldn't get a good look of the things outside the window, but he tried to nonetheless. Sadly all he could see was the sky, the clouds and in the distance skyscrapers.
The teenager couldn't really tell why he got distracted so much and why his thoughts seemed to linger around one certain person so much, but he got his theories.
Maybe it was because it was just half a year until they would graduate, or maybe it was because he was just scared of the others rejection? Maybe it was a mix of both.
As they first met, Takao tried to hate the green haired so much, he wanted to beat him in basketball at some point and then it turned out that they were in the same team. He wasn't all to fond of being his team mate at first, but things had changed a long the way and he was glad that it had turned out like this. Now he could only faintly smile at the memory of his old self.
But now things were different and somewhere along the line of learning Midorimas weird habits, learning to understand the small glances he gave him when he didn't want to say something and between all the late training sessions, the meals they had shared and the afternoons spend on completing homework together, Takao fell for the green haired.
Takao had carried these thoughts in a backdoor of his mind for almost two years now. He had never spoken them out loud, he had never dared to. But now that graduation was in front of his doorstep, he slightly started to panic. He needed to make a move now or else there was the possibility that they would part in the end and not see each other any more.
„Kazunari-kun?", the low voice of the teacher echoed in the back his head. „Are you listening?"
„Y-Yes.", he stumbled upon his own words, trying to sort his thoughts out and slightly chuckled to hide the fact that this was kind of embarrassing.
He could feel Midorimas look on him, but chose to ignore it.
„You are not really focused today.", Midorima approached him calmly in one of the lunch breaks.
They had gotten outside, sitting on a bench and Takao was fumbling around with his food and didn't eat anything yet, for his mind was still around the previous topic.
Somehow he had managed to think about asking Midorima out, to actually do that, but he was still not sure if he should. Being best friends with someone was one thing, but starting to date was a whole other. When Takao was honest, he wasn't even sure if Midorima had interest in anything like that at all. After all, he had never shown any interest in anyone and chances were that he was actually asexual.
„Takao ...", Midorima sighed again, slightly displeased with the lack of attention the other brought up, but that wasn't something all too unusual. Takao could sometimes be a bad listener, but today it was worse. Not to mention that even their teacher had called him out.
„Yeah", he said. „Sorry, Shin-Chan.", he added then, looking over and smiling as if that would be enough of an apology. Oddly it was and Midorima merely commented with a sigh.
Silence fell between them and Midorima continued eating, but his mind was locked on the black haired who seemed to be off today. But he didn't want to pry either, so he waited. Usually Takao would sooner or later tell him what was keeping him on the edge.
Instead of eating, Takao gazed down into his food, feeling a soft wind blow go through his hair and he suddenly got a bit more nervous. He had never made a step into such a direction. This was really difficult and he didn't want to loose Midorima as his closest friend … but if he wouldn't do it, his mind would never settle down.
In movies this seemed to be so easy.
„Shin-Chan?", he started then and looked up again, waited for the response of the other. The calm green haired merely looked up and linked eyes with Takao, showing him that all of his attention was just on the black haired now and Takao couldn't help but smiling at that.
„You know what would be funny?", he started now, but his face was unusual serious for a sentence like that, but the other didn't seem to mind since he answered in his usual habit.
„Oh no.", Midorima almost sighed instantly and stopped the eye contact with Takao, actually not expecting anything anymore.
Now was the moment where Takao would need to ask him out and the black haired felt his heart beat faster, so that he feared it might stop. He took in a deep breath and his gaze went into another direction. Wow this was really difficult, but he had a plan.
„If we would … you know, go on a date.", he forced out and tried to sound as collected as possible and smiled as if all of this would just be a joke. If things would go wrong he could still pull back.
Silence fell between them once again, but not the awkward kind. Midorima looked up, but not at Takao but up to the clock that could be seen from the school yard.
Did he even listen?
„Alright.", he said then and stood up, avoiding eye contact with Takao. „Let's go back, Takao.", he added quickly and shouldered his bag.
The black haired was not really sure how to react to this and just nodded, eyes slightly widened in confusion and lips parted as if words wanted to leave his throat but would never make it out. Nonetheless he stood up, got his bag as well and left for the next lessons with him.
What had this just been ?
His concentration had been bad before, but this time it was actually the worst ever. He couldn't keep his thoughts at the topic of mathematics, chemistry or even basketball and all thanks to his best friend who kept on scoring with threes as if they never had tat talk.
That was probably just kind of the case, Takao realized and kind of feared that he had messed this up.
As they left to make their way home, he had sighed in defeat. Of course Midorima thought this all to be a joke, after all Takao had put it that way as well. If he had just been serious for those 3 seconds, but maybe it was best this way … Midorima was probably asexual anyway and if he wasn't he was most likely not into men.
Takao couldn't help but feeling kind of numb now. It wasn't directly sadness, not as overwhelming as it was when you cried your heart out because life was unfair, it was lingering underneath and a voice in the back of his head whispered: I told you so.
He really could have expected this, but that didn't change the fact that thinking about it more and more made his guts slowly twist.
But one upside was there, Midorima was still his best friend. Maybe it was best this way.
On their way home, neither of them drove the bike, Takao merely pushed it down the street. With all those words left unspoken silence had woken up again. It was unbearable.
At the sides of the pavement, trees had been planted and Takao tried to fix his eyes on those, thinking that the cherry blossoms were about to bloom soon.
„We could go and watch.", Midorima said all of a sudden, walking next to Takao and what the black haired didn't see was that he was nervously fumbling around with the lucky item in his pockets.
„Hm?"
The taller one fell silent again, not looking over but again readjusting his glasses and continuing to turn the item in his hands, to keep them busy, to have something to hold onto physically. He was not good with these kinds of things.
„When we go out, I mean.", he then added but between his words were long pauses as if he wasn't really sure if he should really speak it out.
Takaos heart skipped a beat and before he could say what he wanted, he made an actually surprised sound, something along the lines like 'eh?'.
Now Midorimas tensed up all of a sudden, he grabbed the lucky item in his pockets as if his mere existence would depend on it and his cheeks started to blush. So Takaos words had been a joke all along and Midorima had thought too much about it. This was not only embarrassing, but also terrifying since Midorima didn't want to wreck their friendship, after all Takao had been the closest friend he had ever had.
„Ehm .. I mean -", he stumbled now over his own words and wished to dissapear deeply.
Slowly Takao started to understand this situation and his heart beat faster, he started to smile and chuckled for a short second, causing Midorima to actually look over in surprise. And as he was there next to Takao, with the blushed face of his and those ridiculous princess-like eyes, the black haired couldn't help but fall once again for him.
„Why are you laughing, Takao?!", the ace growled displeased, but that caused to Takao only chuckle again and Midorima was not only confused, but also somehow angry? Impatient? Or just more confused?
„Alright.", Takao agreed finally.
At home Takao would turn on the music as loud as he could, sing along and awkwardly step into the tunes of it. His heart was about to burst, but he couldn't care less, his only thoughts lingered around his friend again, but this time he didn't even feel anxious about it.
