Chapter summary: Lunch time with an unexpected guest.
It was incredibly difficult, Hiro found, to rile McGinnis. He'd done everything from attempting to upstage him in class to booby-trapping his lab with pranks.
Upstaging McGinnis was easy, at first, as the other boy seemed to hardly care – in fact, he encouraged Hiro to do so, if the smiles McGinnis gave him everytime he answered a question or spoke up in class were any indication. Oddly enough, it seemed like McGinnis was proud of him.
It just wasn't fun when McGinnis apparently enjoyed it too.
As for the pranks... Hiro would swear up and down that McGinnis had some sort of sixth sense for them, since he avoided them so damn easy. It was kind of freakish, actually, the ease with which McGinnis sidestepped and deactivated them before they even had a chance to go off.
Again, no fun at all.
It especially wasn't fun when McGinnis actually retaliated.
"You really should've seen this coming," Gogo said, clearly amused. Hiro grumbled under his breath as Honey attempted to get all the glitter out of his hair and off his clothes. An ultimately failed attempt, as Hiro would be picking glitter off himself for days.
Stupid glitter cannon.
"Maybe you should just end this silly war," Honey suggested, finally giving up and sitting on the bend with Gogo. It was the group's shared free hour and they were all sitting at a picnic table on the verge, waiting for Fred to show up with lunch.
"If you can even call it that," Gogo muttered. She had a point, it was a bit too one-sided to actually be a war.
"I can't just give up!" Hiro snapped. He crossed his arms and glared at the table between him and the girls. "He's got to have a weakness..."
"Why are you so upset with Matt anyway?" Wasabi asked from beside Hiro. He balked when the boy turned his glare on to him.
"Matt?" Hiro repeated with a scowl. "Since when is he Matt?"
"Since we share a Quantum Mechanics class..." Wasabi replied warily, wisely deciding not to mention they shared a table in their Quantum Mechanics class. He actually found Matt quite fun to be around, but he wasn't about to tell Hiro that while he was so set on not liking him.
Hiro gave him the evil eye anyway, but eventually went back to his brooding without answering Wasabi's question. The man sighed and gave Honey and Gogo a long suffering look that the two quietly laughed at.
"Heeeey, dudes, guess who brought pizza!" came Fred's voice from behind them. "And a guest!"
The four of them turned to look and immediately Hiro was out of his seat and yelling.
"What is he doing here!" he demanded, pointing at McGinnis, who was holding one of the pizza's. The boy in question raised his eyebrow and lifted the pizza.
"I payed for lunch, I should be allowed to have some don't you think?" he said. He winced a bit when Fred's hand landed on his shoulder and rolled his eyes.
"I found this poor guy sitting alone on the lawn and invited him over," Fred explained. McGinnis snorted and shrugged the mascot's hand off.
"More like you grabbed my arm and dragged me along," he said, taking a step away to set the pizza on the table. Hiro found a little enjoyment in knowing the boy was as uncomfortable as he was when McGinnis refused to sit down.
"So how'd you wind up paying for lunch?" Gogo asked, giving Fred a very unimpressed look.
McGinnis shrugged and flipped open the box. "I was hungry and he was being picky," he said. Fred had spent nearly fifteen minutes trying to decide on toppings until Matt had taken control and just ordered a large meat lovers and a large cheese. He had payed for them while Fred fumbled around trying to find his credit card.
Honey matched Gogo's unimpressed stare to which Fred gulped and slowly set his pizza on the table, as though attempting not to rile a pair of wild dogs. Hiro just smiled; at least McGinnis was being put out a little.
McGinnis chuckled softly and flipped open his box. "Anyway, I appreciate the offer to stay but I really have stuff I need to do so I'm just gonna take my lunch to go," he said, grabbing two pieces of the meat lovers pizza. Before he turned to leave he gave Hiro a once over and smiled broadly.
"That's a good look for you, Hamada," he said, eyeing the splatters of sparkling glitter with amusement. Luckily for him, Wasabi grabbed Hiro's jacked fast enough to stop the boy from lunging. McGinnis gave him a nod. "I'll see you in class, Wasabi," he said finally before leaving.
Wasabi didn't release Hiro until McGinnis was well out of sight. When Hiro was finally free, he shot the big man a withering glare.
"You let him call you Wasabi?" he asked through clenched teeth. Wasabi blinked and then threw his hands up in defeat while the rest of their little group laughed at Hiro's indignation.
With a heavy scowl, Hiro ripped a piece of cheese pizza out of the box Fred set down and ate in broody silence.
This chapter took three attempts to write, and I'm still not entirely satisfied with it.
Still, I've fiddled with it enough so I might as well post it.
More from Hiro's POV, next chapter will include Matt's.