He'd been awake since eight, but had done nothing around his place for a while before deciding to head off to the orphanage. It was this stupid thing dragging him there – the stupid thing and the promise he'd made to Shuuya, that he'd let the little brats crawl all over him – and no matter how much he tried to drag his feet he was there faster than he'd ever been before. He looked at it over his sunglasses and noted that there wasn't even a welcoming committee. This either meant that the kids didn't want to see him as much as he'd thought, or Shuuya'd thought that he'd flake and the kids would be disappointed.
He wanted it to be the former, but had a feeling that it was the latter.
So he headed around back, because he knew from experience that there were always a ton of kids around there climbing all over the jungle gym. He was right, of course – and as soon as he passed into view a little girl shrieked at the top of her lungs, flung herself off of the swing set, and came barreling into him at about a hundred miles per hour.
"Woah!" he said, stumbling backward but managing to catch himself. The girl latched onto his leg and looked up at him, and he had an uncomfortable flashback to the time he'd gotten a blowjob from Mitsuko Souma. Then he shook that out of his head and dragged himself over to the group of older kids, child hanging onto his leg and all. "Hey-"
"Can you teach me how to make a basket?" one of the older boys asked, interrupting him, and Mimura wondered if he'd ever promised to do that. Probably. Or, more probable, he'd mentioned that he was boss at basketball and they'd latched on.
"Later. Hey, where's Shuuya?" Shinji asked. "I told him I'd show up, let some kids crawl all over me, and I'm not totally sure he believed me."
"He's not here," the boy who wanted to know how to play basketball. "He went out. With a girl. Nobu's here, though."
"A girl? Whatever," Shinji said. "Take me to Nobu."
"When will you-"
"Later, kid. Jesus. I gotta talk to Nobu," Shinji said. He barely noticed the weight of the little girl on his leg now, but when her friend decided to take his other leg hostage, he glanced down at them and wondered if they'd cry if he tried to pry them off. "You know a way of freeing me?"
The kid, who was apparently a little bit angry about not getting to know the perfect hook shot just yet, smirked and shook his head, so Shinji dragged the girls through the house. He tried not to look at the woman who ran the orphanage, because if he was being totally honest, he didn't trust her, as much as Nobu and Shuuya seemed to like her. He thought that she waved, or said hi, or something, but he didn't say anything back. He just kept walking, slow and clunky as his steps might be.
Nobu was up in the room that he shared with Shuuya, lying on his stomach on his bed with homework spread out in front of him. Shuuya's bed was messy with a guitar thrown over it, and Shinji wandered over and touched a few of the strings. He'd thought about picking up guitar once or twice, but he didn't need an instrument to attract a girl.
"Hey, Nobu," Shinji said. He gave in and sat down on the floor, and this attracted another child, this one a boy, who threw himself over Shinji's midsection. "Shuuya told me to show up today, but he skipped out."
"Oh, yeah, he mentioned you might stop by," Nobu said. He glanced up, laughed a little at the children crawling all over Shinji, and then went back to his homework. "He did seem kind of doubtful, though. He was talking about going out with someone for a while, I guess he let you say tomorrow-"
"Because he didn't think I'd show," Shinji said. He sighed, leaned his head back, and a child immediately set to work on playing with his hair. "Does he really think I'm that flaky? I told the man I'd come, and here I am."
"You were about four hours late yesterday," Nobu said, and Shinji frowned.
"That was different. I slept in."
Nobu made a noise that could be agreement but probably wasn't, and Shinji accepted his fate. He'd thought ahead, just worn sweatpants and a hoodie today in anticipation of them being covered with little grubby handprints and stretched out, and when a child sneezed on him, he knew he'd been right.
"Daiki, get a tissue," Nobu said without looking up from his homework, and the kid immediately stood up and hurried away.
"How the hell do you do that?" Shinji asked. There were whispers and a few little horrified shrieks from the children and he sighed. "Sorry. Why do they listen to you?"
"Because they know me," Nobu said.
"Oh, they're familiar enough with me to use me as liberally as that jungle-gym they love so much-"
"Nobu, I just was on the best date of my life, oh wow you actually showed up."
Shinji looked up to see Shuuya Nanahara, grinning in a button-up shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a pair of nice jeans. If anyone had that sort of look down, it was Shuuya – his hair was a little long, and that didn't usually work for guys, just like short hair on girls, but on him it made Shinji want to hit him, if he was being honest.
"Yes," Shinji said. A child placed her hands on his shoulders and stared into his eyes so deeply that he shifted uncomfortably. "Why does this one look like she's either going to kiss me or kill me?"
Shuuya picked the little girl up and deposited her out of his room, and then continued releasing Shinji from his prison until there was only the original little girl, who was still clinging stubbornly to his leg.
"Leave her," Shinji said, waving his hand dismissively and sighing. "I think that's a bigger work-out than anything I've done in the past thirty years."
"Mimura, you're like halfway to thirty."
Shinji shook his head and didn't bother answering. He just looked up at Shuuya, with his eyes half-lidded. The picture wasn't the best – it was all blurry, and the angle sort of made him look like he had at least three chins, but it really said a lot about a guy when you didn't mind. And a lot about the guy not minding.
Like, fuck that 'I don't get crushes' thing, because I have one on one of my best fucking friends. I'm such a fucking-
He shook his head clear of that and pushed himself up to sit on Shuuya's bed. The little girl finally let go of Shinji and ran, and he bent over and massaged out his leg. He didn't know how she did it, but it seriously felt like she'd pinched a nerve or something. Damn little kids.
"I played with the children," Shinji said. Shuuya sat down next to him and picked up his guitar, picking at strings in a way that Shinji would never understand. "And now it's your turn to play with me. Give me some attention."
"Attention? Don't you get enough of that from girls?"
That was probably the worst comparison he could have made, and as well as that, Nobu was right across the room, so Shinji couldn't very well do anything about it unless he wanted to push it off as a joke, so Shinji just sighed.
"Look, man, we've been hanging out less and less. Just come shoot some hoops with me at some point, right? Or tell me about this 'date' you went on."
"Are you making air quotes because you don't believe in dating or because you don't believe I had a date?"
"Both. Now spill. Who was it? How big are her tits? Did you get any action?"
"No, no, and no."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Shinji said, frowning. He watched Shinji's fingers as they played. They were long – piano player's fingers, he'd heard someone say that once about people with long fingers, though he guessed the same was probably true of guitar players. They were calloused, and his fingernails were clipped short. Shinji could understand the short fingernails; he, in fact, kept his fairly short so that they wouldn't get in the way when he typed. It was just a thing that you did when you had to do a lot of shit with your hands.
Shuuya laughed, but didn't answer him. He kept picking away, and eventually went into what sounded like a song.
"You're shit at this," Shinji mused. Shuuya paused in his playing long enough to give him the finger and kept playing. Nobu rolled off of his bed and hit the floor with a thud! and Shinji jumped a little.
There was a knock on the door. "Come in!" Shuuya called, and in stepped the woman herself. Shinji didn't exactly remember her name – Ryouka, or something like that, he hadn't paid much attention to her except the fact that she did have a killer body. He didn't look at her now, though. He was still watching Shuuya's fingers.
"Oh, you have company," she said, and Shinji glanced up, met her eyes for a second, and tipped off a wave. "This is your friend, I remember him-"
"Shinji Mimura," Shinji said. He managed a sort-of smile, because he was fairly certain that one of the kids had repeated one or two of the words he'd said, and he was fairly certain that she was not happy about that.
"Shuuya, Nobu – I just came up to tell you a few times. One, lunch will be ready soon, and two, Daiki has been saying a few words that I'm not sure a boy of his age should be saying," she said, looking at them all reproachfully. "I know how teenage boys work, but if you could control your language…"
"Sorry," Shinji said. That sort-of smile was still stuck on his face. "That was me, actually. Not used to being around little kids, I guess. It's just me at home, so I never have to watch my language there."
She studied him, and he stayed still, the part of him in his pants thinking that, maybe, if he'd worn something a little better, he could get laid this afternoon. But eventually she nodded.
"Right," she said. "I was an only child myself. I understand how it is, sometimes. If you'd like to join us for lunch…?"
"Nah," Shinji said, standing up. He fist-bumped Shuuya and nudged Nobu with his shoe as a farewell, then headed for the door. "I should get going."
"Feel free to stop in again!" she called after him, but he was almost one hundred percent sure that she didn't mean it in the least. He was also one hundred percent sure that, had Nobu not been on the other bed/on the floor, he definitely would have made a move on Shuuya Nanahara.
In other news, thank God for Yoshitoki Kuninobu.
I'm… still not sure where this is going, but I'm still having tremendous fun with it.