Author's Note: thanks to all of you who read and even more to those of you who review.
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The cicadas sing a song of forever outside, loud and mournful, while the laundry hangs in the breeze. The tea on the table is cold in the cup but hot in the kettle.
Saitama picks up the boiling water and waits to be burned, but instead he only feels metal and maybe something that could be heat if paid enough attention to it.
He offers it to Genos, who declines. "Refresh your own cup first," he says.
Saitama smiles. "I'll drink it all if you keep up with that kinda attitude." Saitama wants the tea. He does not want the tea. He wants Genos to be himself, but he also wants to selfishly drink up everything, bottle it all deep within, and keep it all exclusively for himself forever and ever. It's whatever either way, though, Saitama thinks, and he consciously holds the twist in his face so it seems like he means anything at all by the words that come out of his mouth. "You know?"
Genos' face remains unchanged, and he also both means and does not mean the message that his poker face conveys. Every monotone word is full of feeling, but deadly serious. "If you would like all the tea, I encourage you to have it. You deserve all of it and more, teacher. Besides, I can always go and boil more water."
"Yeah, but that's a pain. I'd hate to make you go to all of that trouble." Saitama is a liar, and he knows it. Hate is a feeling heavier than he can carry.
Genos shakes his head. "It's no trouble. Would you like the rest of the tea?"
Saitama searches for a way to stay blasé about his pleasantly unenthused opinion on the matter. "You're not a maid, man. Don't keep acting like one."
"I know." Genos tends to sacrifice his feelings for the sake of feelings; that is, his devotion and need to show it echo so strongly in his very soul that he tears his emotions apart to try and sate the ones he surely believes live in someone else's heart. Once, he destroyed himself for a dead family that can never reciprocate his dedication in a bid for vengeance. Now, Genos holds his tongue and his passion to suit the whims of the man that he admires enough to make house for, enough to swear his forever to, enough to want to announce his love and admiration for in front of the masses, if he were selfish enough to ignore Saitama's wishes. "I am your disciple." Thankfully, Genos is at least selfish enough to love someone just for the sake of having someone to love.
"Whatever."
Genos' affection radiates off of him in waves as he moves the teapot to the other side of the table and begins to pour.
Saitama appraises the emptiness in the bottom of his cup and wonders if it will ever be full enough.
Genos adds a bag of tea to the fresh water, and it steeps in anticipatory silence.
Saitama takes a sip. "It still tastes weak."
"Can I get you another bag?"
Saitama could get it himself, but he appreciates Genos' efforts- and Genos appreciates making the effort- too much to justify taking this from him. "Thanks," is all Saitama says.
Genos retrieves a fresh bag and puts it into the cup. It floats on the top of the water like a lifeboat before it crumples, overburdened and heavy, to the bottom of the empty ceramic depths.
It's wasteful. The water is too saturated to take on any more flavor in the first place.
"Is that enough?" Genos asks.
"Mm?" Saitama nods. "Oh. Yeah."
(They are both trying so, so hard.)