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The boys' sheepish conduct was a sharp contrast to their roughed up appearance. Of course they had been hard at practice, so their slightly disheveled appearance was excusable. Except for one, Murasakibara. He didn't appear sweaty or out of breath at all, yet still looked unkempt. She couldn't look him in the eye, for fear that her humiliating behavior the previous night would incapacitate her from acting normally.
Avoiding any eye contact, Estelle believed that he probably hadn't been practicing at all, and just came for the food. As their new manager, this was something that she supposed she needed to watch out for. But as for the first day on the job, she would let it slide and observe more of his behavior.
"So?" She prodded, "How long have you been hiding there?"
"Not that long," Fukui tilted his eyes upward towards the ceiling, as if he found something interesting there.
"How long?" Estelle smirked.
They were avoiding the question.
"You have a great singing voice, Shinya-san," Himuro slyly dodged it again.
Estelle's eyes crinkled from a smile. They were very cute when they were shy and sheepish.
"Is that so," she raised a knowing eyebrow at them, "Come on, food's getting cold. Let's eat!" She waved them in with a gesture of her arm.
The team quickly squeezed through the classroom and Estelle could see their chests rise and deflate with a satisfying inhale of freshly cooked food.
"Wow, smells great!" Okamura's eyes widened in eagerness.
"Tastes great, too," Estelle added pertly, "Check it out."
She grabbed a pre-plated bowl of bibimbap. The bowl boasted a beautiful arrangement of carrots, cucumbers, bean sprouts, and mushrooms in a concentric circle around the star of the show: a perfectly over-easy egg. The team's hungry eyes and noses drank in the full spectacle of the dish. But it wasn't over yet. Estelle expertly took her chopsticks and delicately opened a slit in the egg, and the delicious golden yolk tumbled down the skirt of the egg and saturated the steaming rice beneath it.
"Ain't it something?" She was definitely fishing for compliments.
She had spent so long over cooking and she wanted her fill of praise.
A scattered chorus of phrases to the effect of "looks great," and "can't wait to eat" peppered her ears. They were growing mad with anticipation; to see and smell the food without being able to taste it was torture.
"Alrighty, dig in," Estelle was done teasing them and let them have at it.
Hurriedly, they grabbed their bowls and utensils and jam packed their portions with high piled vegetables. They absolutely wolfed it down.
There was something about them completely stuffing their faces with her homemade food, so much so that they had hardly any time to breathe, that utterly melted Estelle's heart. It felt fulfilling for her, that they seemed to enjoy what she made. Or maybe they were just hungry and anything tasted good. She chose to believe the former. She felt… motherly?
She lay her head between her palms and gave a soft smile as she intently watched them enjoy her hard work. As she looked at each of the players, she accidentally made eye contact with Murasakibara.
Why isn't he eating? Is it because he wasn't practicing earlier?
"Elle-chin," Murasakibara got her attention, "Did you eat?"
The other basketball players were too busy scarfing down their food to pay attention. Maybe she saw some kind of reaction from Himuro, but otherwise, he continued eating.
Estelle paused and thought about what to say, the real answer, or a placeholder.
"Mm," Estelle gave an nonanswer, "Have you tried it this way?" She grabbed her chopsticks, picked up a piece of roasted seaweed, wrapped the seaweed around a bite of bibimbap, and held it across the home economics counter, "This is my favorite way of eating it."
Her holding out food for Murasakibara to eat was enough to catch the attention of the ravenous rest of the team. Okamura's eyes bugged out. Fukui was at a loss for words. Liu's characteristic dissatisfied expression lessened. Himuro just looked on in mild interest. On the other hand, Murasakibara didn't seem to mind. Perhaps to him, food was food.
Murasakibara stretched his long torso over the counter and closed his mouth around the morsel Estelle offered.
As he chewed, she asked, "How is it? Good huh."
Mouth full of food, he nodded. Estelle picked up another piece of seaweed and thought about her next victim, "Okamura-kun, aaaahh." Estelle's innocent smile was markedly different from the devious laughter that was welling up inside of her.
With reddened cheeks and embarrassed eyes looking away, Okamura obliged and ate from her chopsticks.
She looked knowingly at Okamura's expression as he munched on. The natural umami that seaweed holds as well as that nice textured crunch contrasting to the softness of bibimbap, Estelle knew that it tasted great. But it had been a while she since she had eaten white rice. Her hand went to lay on her tummy. She hadn't been eating too much lately due to her strict diet for their previous comeback.
We won't have another comeback for a while, I wonder if…
Murasakibara jabbed a spoonful of bibimbap in her face. Estelle slightly drew her face back. She still wasn't sure if she wanted white rice right now, as tempting as her own cooking looked to her.
Estelle smiled softly, "Thanks Murasakibara-kun, but watching you guys already makes me—"
Without warning, while she was still talking, Murasakibara used his long reach to his advantage and had jammed the spoon in her mouth while she was still talking.
Estelle fell off her chair in surprise and choked on a grain of rice falling into her windpipe. She coughed, pounding her chest to get the food out of her airway.
"Oi! Hey are you ok?" Fukui rushed to the other side of the counter and bent down next to her.
Okamura followed and knelt next to her, "What do we do? Is she choking?" He frantically asked.
"I'm not choking," Estelle managed to whisper, "I'm—"
Okamura, in his frenzy, took it upon himself to palm Estelle's back with full force, in an attempt to get her to stop choking.
It hurt. She had already coughed up the food that was irritating her before the slap and her diaphragm was sore with all the sudden exercise. And then added onto that was a heavy hit from a basketball player. Pain radiated from the spot of impact and stung her entire backside. She dug her nails into her palm with all her might to prevent herself from letting out a string of curse words.
"Hey! You're being too rough with Shinya-san!" Himuro finally intervened.
Himuro wedged himself between Okamura and Estelle.
"Shinya-san are you ok?" He placed a tender hand on her back.
She bit the inside of her cheek to prevent herself from hissing at him because of the pain.
"I'm fine," she quickly said. She didn't want another other basketball player to slap the feeling out of her back, "I think maybe I need a little ice though."
"I'm— I didn't mean to," Okamura was utterly crestfallen.
As cute as Okamura might be, Estelle had almost forgotten his sheer size.
"It's not your fault Okamura-kun," Estelle smiled, but her eye twitched. She sat back on the floor, hands supporting her.
Himuro turned his attention to Murasakibara, "Atsushi! That's not how you treat a girl."
The purple titan eyes seemed offended, "But Muro-chin, you said I should always return favors."
"Yes but," Himuro's fingers rested between his eyebrows, "You have to wait for their ok."
"Hmpf." Murasakibara was not happy either.
"I'm sorry, Shinya-san," Himuro turned his attention back to Estelle, "He means well."
Estelle was getting tired of forcing her smile. As nice as Himuro was, right now her head was filled with the tingling sensation of pain.
"I'm sure he does," she responded, and slowly got up, "I think I'll head over to the nurse's." She looked around the home economics room, there was a lot of cleaning up to do. Might as well put the boys to work. She used her chin to gesture to the mess, "Do you think you guys could…"
"Yes. Yes. Right away," Okamura scrambled aside to go clean up, grabbing the back of Fukui's shirt to accompany him.
"Hey, I'm not the one who pummeled Shinya-chan," Fukui complained as he was being dragged. But he obediently began collecting dishes.
Poor Liu Wei was caught in the crossfire and began looking for something to clean.
Estelle walked to the door to go by herself to the nurse's office. She needed to check if the slap left a mark on her back.
"Atsushi," Himuro firmly said, "Take Shinya-san to the infirmary."
"Eh, why me?" Murasakibara seemed about ready for round two, with snacks already in his hand.
Himuro raised his eyebrow and gave a stern knowing look. Murasakibara took the hint. Estelle was too tired to protest and walked out of the classroom with the purple titan in tow.
Her steps were sluggish as the pain exuding from the center of her back drew her attention. She really needed to ice soon, but she couldn't bring herself to walk faster. Murasakibara, with a much longer stride, as naturally sluggish as he was, was ahead of her and looked back at her.
"You're slow."
That was the only warning he gave before unceremoniously scooped her up into his arms. Estelle had way too many surprises this week and she was all out of self-control to hold herself back.
"What do you think you're doing?" She didn't hold back and her voice was tinged with disdain.
Despite her tone of voice, she didn't struggle in his grip. She was tired and could use a ride to the infirmary, but his total lack of respect for her autonomy was extremely off-putting.
"You were going to take too long," Murasakibara didn't look at her at all.
Estelle kept quiet until they arrived at their destination, seething with contempt. He brusquely dropped her on the bed. Which again hurt. She was not a happy camper and she was ready to tell him off when he turned around suddenly.
"Be back," Murasakibara closed the curtain on her.
Estelle muttered a string of choice words under her breath, for a cathartic effect that only foul words could bring her and mulled over the events that had just happened.
Have these basketball players never interacted with a girl before? Save for Himuro. But isn't hitting a girl on the back without any constraint a little much? I mean how much does that fu—
Murasakibara was back with an abrupt drawing back of the curtains. Orange rays of the sun flooded her little curtained off area and she winced at the sudden light.
"Did you get—" Estelle started as she blocked out the sunlight with her hand.
Murasakibara sat down on the bed where she was; his heavy weight sent Estelle bouncing on her bottom. She looked over at his hand. He did have ice. But he was reaching for what seemed to be the direction of her face with the hand that was unoccupied with ice, with his face slowly coming near her.
She instinctually flinched backwards, yet couldn't help but notice how different his violet eyes looked with rosy beams of sun saturating them. His eyelashes were a brilliant purple color too.
Murasakibara placed his thumb on the corner of Estelle's lip and slowly drew it across her bottom lip. The action set her heart racing. His thumb seemed to leave a trail of fire in its wake as her face began heating up uncontrollably.
Uh, what?