****Hiking's Hard Work, Too****

Mr. Shiga was right; they were all bound to wander off, but they didn't stray very far. A couple of times people called with the megaphones, but they were found quickly and easily. Mostly, it was just fun, if you ignored the hard work of climbing up the hill; some of them raced through the trees, some of them walked a little slower than usual and watched the team and the scenery.

Hanai had somehow managed to fall behind by just a little. He was currently on his way towards the battery, mostly because they were the only ones he could see, but also because he could hear the Coach's voice. He was behind because he had stopped to retrieve his lost bandana, but it had landed in a huge leafy plant that looked suspiciously like poison ivy, and he had decided maybe he didn't need it so much anymore. He was almost caught up when he heard Tajima's voice behind him through the megaphone.

"Hay, Hanai, if you're around here, I think I see your bandana! I'm gonna grab it for you!"

Hanai froze,then turned around quickly and started running, shouting, "No, Tajima, it's—"

"Oh, hey, Hanai, look! I—oof!"

Hanai came up to Tajima sprawled on the ground face down, his arms and legs clear and untouching of the huge plant, but his shirt had pulled up and his stomach was right in…

"I think that's poison ivy."

The smaller boy swallowed hard and nodded. Carefully, Tajima got up while avoiding the plant, and sat back on his knees, his legs folded under him as he stripped off his shirt gingerly. Hanai gasped and fell to his knees next to him, taking off his pack.

"Tajima…"

Hanai's hands slowly traced an angry long cut from the top of Tajima's ribcage to his hip, pulling away when the smaller boy winced. The captain looked up to meet misty eyes that blinked away tears and crinkled in a smile, one of the dazzling ones that said Tajima was fighting something.

"It..heh…kinda hurts."

Hanai nodded slowly, his fingertips hovering over the cut.

"I can see that."

Hanai pulled his hands away to reach for his pack only to see the stain of blood on them; he glanced at Tajima's stomach, and sure enough, blood was welling up all along the cut, shallow but deep enough to bleed quite a bit. Tajima touched the blood and turned around to grab his pack for his first aid kit, only to stop with a wince.

"Can you grab my first aid kit?"

Hanai was still, looking at his hands in disbelief. He hadn't even heard the cleanup. Tajima tried again, calling, "Hanai, can you—"

The darker haired boy stopped as Hanai pinned him with a devastating look.

"What did you ask me?"

Tajima swallowed at his intensity and said meekly, "First aid kit?"

Hanai nodded and grabbed his own backpack, detaching the first aid kit and getting out the disinfectant. He warned Tajima about the sting before swabbing down the entire cut carefully two or three times, stopping when Tajima flinched. At a sudden thought, Hanai took out his poison ivy cream and put that on the cut, too. Tajima looked down at the new tube and laughed when he realized what it was.

"You always have everything I need, Hanai."

Hanai blushed and finished applying the cream and disinfectant, his hands smoothing out the last of it and missing Tajima's slight shudder. But here's where it got tricky; how to put on the bandage? Tajima couldn't do it himself, of course, because the movement of his arms would make the cut bleed even more than it was now, and that was quite enough of that already. No, it would seem Hanai would have to it for him. So, steeling himself, Hanai took out his gauze and tried not to think about how close Tajima was to him, wrapping the gauze tightly around the other boy's abdomen. It was fine at his hips, but when Hanai went higher and higher Tajima's arms began to get in the way; as if he could read his captain's mind, Tajima slowly and painstakingly brought his arms up to rest on Hanai's shoulders, his hands clasped behind Hanai's neck.

"Is this…okay?"

Hanai looked up with eyes that were far away and nodded dazedly, focusing on the motion of his own hands going across the boys' abdomen, behind his back, pass off, and then back around the front. If he just focused, he could…he wrapped the gauze just a bit too tight and Tajima's hands tightened at the back of his neck, his hands clenching. Hanai tried to remember to breathe and then realize that while he was near the top of the cut, he was running out of gauze. Tucking in the stray end, he looked up at Tajima and asked softly, "You said you had gauze in your bag?"

Tajima nodded and the captain went to reach for the bag, only to stop short. Glancing at Tajima's arms around his shoulders, he sat back and contemplated how best to get the bag closer to him, then reached out with one of his feet and dragged it over, crossing his legs Indian style once it was close enough. Carefully, trying not to disturb the cleanup's position, he got out the gauze and finished wrapping the cut, stopping with a smile at Tajima.

"There."

He was unconscious of the fact that his hands were still smoothing over the bandage with flat palms, and completely unaware of Tajima's reactions; Tajima, at the feel of Hanai's hands, ducked his head and shut his eyes tightly.

"Hanai, I think I'm okay now."

Hanai nodded in a trance, idly watching his fingers trace patterns on the gauze. Tajima shuddered and then grabbed both of Hanai's wrists, holding them in the space between them. Looking up at Hanai, Tajima whispered, "You keep doing things like this, but you push me away. What are we doing, Hanai?"

The captain tore his gaze away from the expanse of white and looked at Tajima, who was looking at him with a hopelessly confused look. Hanai's gaze flickered between Tajima's eyes and their hands, where Tajima was sliding up his palms to meet Hanai's, intertwining their fingers, and then he turned away, breaking from the smaller boy's grasp.

"Catching up. Come on, everyone else must have reached the top by now."

..

..

The walk to the rest of the team was silent, and not Tajima and Hanai rejoined the group at the top, and immediately went over to Coach to have her check them out. She looked over Tajima's bandaging, pronounced it clean and efficient, and then sent Tajima over to Mr. Shiga to be looked at. As Tajima walked away, Coach turned to Hanai with concern.

"Okay, what's up with you guys? You look like someone read your diary in front of the entire school and Tajima hasn't done something random or loud in straight minutes. What's going on?"

Hanai's flush raged across his cheeks once again, but he kept his head up and looked straight at the Coach.

"Well, Tajima was trying to get my bandana for me, and he fell, and he was cut up in the process…he couldn't exactly move enough to do it, so I wrapped the wound for him…"

"Because it was on his stomach, right?"

Hanai flushed deeper but remained steadfast and kept eye contact, refusing to acknowledge his embarrassment.

"Exactly. Because of the…placement of his cut, I think wrapping it up was weird for both of us; being aware of this, I'd ask that you not tell the team what happened here."

Because if they knew how he had freaked out, then they'd all know for sure, and he didn't even know for sure yet. He didn't know anything yet.

The coach nodded with reluctant acceptance, and watching Tajima joke and laughed with the other guys, told Hanai, "I won't tell them, but I want you to know this…weirdness is not going to affect my practice plans. Do we have an understanding, Captain?"

Hanai nodded and walked away, heading past the boys and towards a quiet spot by himself. Coach watched his retreating figure and massaged her temples; if even admitting that was so hard for the tall boy, she personally thought that Tajima had quite the long wait.