Masaomi still couldn't see very well in the closet. He took one quick sweep, and could only make out faint outlines of various shelves and objects and... was that a broom in the corner? He squinted, but this did nothing.
He turned to Mikado. All that remained visible were the basic shades of his pale skin and the clean, ironed corners of his jacket. And they were shaking. Mikado's chest rose and fell almost violently, his breath gradually growing louder in the small space.
"Mikado."
Masaomi heard only a small whimper, and the frame that pressed against him shook, rattling something on the shelf behind him.
"Mikado, calm down."
"Kida-kun," Mikado whimpered, pulling his hands up to his chest and seeming to try making himself as small as possible. Masaomi placed his hands in a firm grip on his arms.
"Mikado... are you claustrophobic?"
A violent tremor coursed through Mikado, reverberating against Masaomi. The blond just barely felt the boy nod, and pulled him into an embrace, away from the shelves.
"Breathe! Just breathe, Mikado." He patted the back of his head, rubbing the short black hair, and felt Mikado's arms coming around to clutch at the back of his blazer. His breathing seemed to relax and even out, though still maintained the occasional hitch. Masaomi leaned his cheek on Mikado's forehead.
"You're fine. Everything's gonna be fine. Do you have your cell?"
Mikado instantly started to panic again, tears brimming to his eyes. "I was putting it away in my backpack before we started playing. I thought if anyone tried to call me, my ringtone would give me away." He choked and buried his head into Masaomi's chest.
Why didn't you just put it on silent? Masaomi thought to himself, but set it aside, knowing that blaming Mikado would not help him calm down. He rubbed the back of Mikado's neck and shushed him quiet. "It's okay. I don't have mine either, I lost it yesterday."
"How is any of that okay?" Mikado pushed Masaomi away, ignoring the pain as he banged his shoulders against the shelf in the process. "Now we're both locked in this small tight space, we can't call for help, Anri's looking all over the rest of school for us and she's never gonna look back here because she already came this way, we're locked in a closet what if no one finds us oh god, oh my god we're gonna run out of oxygen I can already feel it—"
"Mikado, even if we do run out of oxygen–" he could barely see Mikado's frightened eyes widen in the darkness, and corrected himself "which we won't – you rambling your head off is not going to help, so calm down." He put his hands on his cheeks, gently forcing Mikado to look at him, to see his reassuring expression. "Breathe. We're going to be okay. Pretend we're not in closet, we're at a... a carnival, yeah, and we're out in the wide open air and it's only dark because it's midnight, there's no school tomorrow so no worries, and there are a ton of girls for us to play with, right? That one with the blond hair to her shoulders is looking at you, Mikado-kun~"
Mikado willed himself to close his eyes and relax, concentrating on Masaomi's hands on his face and trying to make the tiny closet seem bigger in his mind. A carnival, midnight, bright stars, fireworks, good food, girls... Mikado peeked one eye open.
"The one with the blond hair, hm?"
"Well duh, the girl with the short black hair is already taken, I claimed her first~"
"No fair! That sounds like Sonohara-san!"
"Nuh-uh! This one's got pretty black hair and big blue eyes, and she's super moe moe cute and shy~ So do you feel better?"
Mikado took one long introspective look at himself. "Yeah, I'm okay."
"Good." Masaomi pulled him tightly into a hug, grinning from ear to ear. "When Anri-chan doesn't find us, she'll come back to look where she..." His voice trailed off. Mikado felt his arms loosen, and put his hands up to touch them.
"Kida-kun?"
"M-Mikado, you're hard."
