So, I know I said that this probably wouldn't update in chronological order, but now I'm writing in that order anyways, so…my bad. But don't worry, I'm sure I'll crank out a prequel to the first chapter when it becomes necessary. There's a plot here, I swear!
Anyways, here's something about these dorks giving each other mixtapes and shit. I'd try to create said mixes myself, but I'm abroad right now and 8tracks just won't load for me. That aside, I hope you enjoy this, and thanks for reading!
"Gokudera-kun, could you read the paragraph on page 36? ...Gokudera-kun?"
The request did not so much on deaf ears as it did on ones that were otherwise distracted. Gokudera, sitting in the middle of the classroom, had his head on his desk and his earbuds in his ears. His face, hidden in his arms, bobbed almost imperceptibly to the semi-indie music in his iTunes library that, despite his being a terror of sorts, was playing at very much a respectful volume. He wasn't about to let his classmates know that he was listening to bands like Vampire Weekend, Modern Baseball, and The Front Bottoms. They wouldn't even understand the lyrics—granted, neither did he, but at least he looked up the Japanese translation. Fuckers were supposed to fear him, not think he was cool, or worse, friend material, and he'd rather die before letting anyone get that impression.
…Well, he might be okay with one person getting that impression.
He might even want that one person to think of him as more than a friend.
His English teacher closed her eyes and exhaled a breath through her nose, trying to remember the meditation exercises she started the other week. She opened her eyes, and then proceeded to shoot glares at every student within arm's reach of the rebellious teen. He wasn't entirely her responsibility, right? Someone had to take charge, but it wasn't going to be her. Not today.
The girls close to Gokudera fluttered their eyelashes at the boys, offering themselves as prize dates to whatever boy who would be brave enough to get Gokudera's attention. They were willing to do anything, anything, to stay away from that weirdo. The boys coughed and shifted in their seats, half tempted by the bribe, half tempted to run out of the classroom to avoid risking Gokudera's eventual wrath.
One meek boy, a member of the school's chess club, lifted a hand, and an audible gasp escaped from the rest of the class as his fingertips brushed Gokudera's shoulder. The silver-haired boy took one—just one—earbud out of his ear, and slowly turned around, giving the boy a chance to send a lengthy prayer to his gods before facing his doom.
Finishing his slow-motion swivel, Gokudera's eyes narrowed and landed on the boy who sat behind him. Hideaki Sakurai seemed like a decent kid. Quiet and intelligent, but not an asshole about it, he was pretty normal, in the grand scheme of things.
"The fuck do you want?" Gokudera asked as he raised an eyebrow, his voice calm, but not without a threat, especially heard in his emphasis of the words 'fuck' and 'you'. He watched his classmate shrink back in his chair and pale as his finger pointed past Gokudera at the front of the classroom. Gokudera followed along where the boy was pointing until his eyes landed on his teacher.
He raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"
The woman straightened her posture, trying to assert her position over the teen. "Read from the passage on page 36, please."
Gokudera pursed his lips, weighing the request in his mind for a few seconds before picking his bag up off the floor. Unzipping the bag, he leisurely pulled out his English textbook and flipped a few pages in before pausing and looking at the boy who sat a few desks over next to the window.
"Oi, baseball dork, what page did she want me to read from?"
Yamamoto smiled to himself and rolled his eyes. He says he doesn't want attention, but then he does shit like this…
"She wanted you to read from page 36, Gokudera-kun."
Gokudera huffed, unsure if the honorific was just a polite gesture or a tease. Granted, Yamamoto was probably the nicest person on the planet, but that didn't stop him from poking fun sometimes. Either way, it was almost a dig of sorts, considering he never addressed him with honorifics when they were alone.
He's probably just being polite. Don't worry about it, Hayato.
The teen flipped to the correct page and read the passage with near fluency, his voice purposefully melodious and steady to spite the request made of him. Finishing the last sentence, he closed the book, placed the errant earbud back in, and dropped his head to his desk.
The teacher sighed out of both relief and exasperation—he was difficult, but she couldn't complain for too long—he aced all his English tests and was one of her best students.
"Thank you for participating, Gokudera-kun. Class dismissed."
Squeaks and scrapes escaped from the classroom's metal desks as the students escaped to their lunch break. Yamamoto, pulling two bento boxes out of his backpack, rose and walked over to Gokudera's desk, waiting for the silver-haired boy to acknowledge his presence.
The boy plucked an earbud out and looked up with mild annoyance. "Earbuds in means no talking—we went over this, remember?"
"Yeah, I know, but I wanted to ask something—my teammates and I are having lunch together. Want to join us?"
"Ugh, and watch you freaks do your baseball circle-jerk? No thanks."
Yamamoto smiled. "I knew you'd say something like that, but I figured I'd try anyways. Either way, my dad made you lunch, so you better eat it, okay?"
Gokudera took the bento and muttered his thanks, watching Yamamoto's back as he exited the classroom. Glancing around, he pulled what appeared to be a slim paper square out of his backpack and slid it under the bento, hiding the object from any prying eyes as he walked out of the classroom. Walking to the front of the school, he slowed down, scanning the lockers for a certain name.
Yoshida….Yamashita….Yamamoto, Takeshi.
He stopped and opened the small locker, hesitating briefly before shoving the square object on top of Yamamoto's ragged tennis shoes and bolting away before he could think twice. Plopping down in the shade of a tree, he opened the bento and shoved a piece of sushi in his mouth, attempting to swallow the nervousness away.
God, calm down, Hayato! It's not like you did anything major! All you did was make him a mixtape. That's it. Just a mixtape. You might as well make one for his dad, to thank him for all the times his sushi has kept you from the brink of starvation.
Gokudera sighed, frustrated with Yamamoto's endless magnetism. He wasn't romantically involved—not yet, at least—but he knew he liked him. It was freeing, but it also made him freeze up from time to time. There was just something about Yamamoto that made him want to get close to him, but, at the same time, he didn't want to scare him away by moving too fast.
Making someone a mixtape wasn't too much of a romantic gesture…right? Friends could get away with making each other that kind of stuff, but their relationship wasn't a platonic one. To be honest, Gokudera wasn't quite sure what their relationship exactly was—not friends with benefits, as the benefits came first, and they didn't have a deep enough understanding of each other to be considered friends—but they weren't a couple, either. They were definitely compatible, but what they were, and what they would become—well, Gokudera would just have to wait and see.
Yamamoto sat on his bed. Headphones in his ears, his thumb hovered over his iPod's play button. Turning the disk in its paper case between his fingers, he paused and reread the scrawled note above the tracklist.
"A list of songs that made me think of you. Just listen."
Songs that made me think of you…but in what way? Hopefully a good one. He pressed play and closed his eyes, figuring there was only one way to find out.
Yamamoto was standing at the side of Gokudera's desk the second he sat down. He placed a flash drive in front of the boy, causing him to raise an eyebrow.
The black-haired boy scratched his head sheepishly. "All I listen to is Top 40 and my dad's old vinyls, and I couldn't even find translations for some of the songs on the CD you gave me, and I don't own any blank CDs…but I tried to make something for you, too."
Gokudera blinked once, then another time, staring at the USB for a solid moment before slipping it into his pocket.
"Thanks," he murmured, in some sort of mild shock—or maybe it was bliss, as he moved his hand to hide his growing smile.
It was a good mix. Not the best, but definitely not the worst, either. It had good flow, and variety, and half the songs were love songs, but he actually liked listening to it, bias irrelevant—or so he liked to think.
Gokudera settled back in his desk chair, glancing at Yamamoto as the mix cycled through his headphones on repeat. The boy caught his eye and smiled, leaving him eager for what would happen next.