Word Count: 933

Chapter 2: The Way We Live

The next day, Sagishi arrived as Ryouta was absent–mindedly flipping through the news channels, having just finished watching a rerun of an anime special involving shrunk detectives and high profile cat burglars, still completely oblivious of his visitor standing in the door frame.

"—wrestler Great Gozu is now facing controversy after the accidental death of his opponent El Pollo in their title bout last—"

Click.

"—intensity III earthquake was felt in—"

"Hi, Mitarai," Sagishi said, not wanting to spend another minute being ignored.

Ryouta yelped, startled by the sudden greeting, the remote control flying from his hands to the floor in a noisy clatter.

"H–Hi! S–Sorry, were you there long?" Ryouta said, poking about the floor trying to pick up the remote control, which as his luck would have it, fell just out of his reach.

Sagishi shrugged. "Not really. I just got here from school," he continued, unceremoniously dropping off his schoolbag onto the bedside table before sitting down on the plastic chair. "How was your day?"

"Sleeping. Being fussed over by the nurse on duty. Watching anime. The usual," Ryouta said, still bent down trying to pick up the errant remote.

"No running away? From what you mother told me yesterday, I got the feeling that was also normal," Sagishi asked, a playful one to his voice.

Ryouta rolled his eyes. "Oh no, definitely not going to do that again. Maybe next week," he added as an afterthought, but not loud enough to be audible. "Just a bit more…" he muttered, not yet done with his attempts to pick up the remote.

As amusing as it was to watch Ryouta's antics, Sagishi finally took pity, crossing over to the other side of Ryouta's bed to pick up the remote, before handing it over to Ryouta, the latter taking it with a grateful sigh.

"Kizakura–sensei wasn't in class again, something about nursing a hangover, so all these stuff came from Yukizome–sensei," Sagishi said, taking out a thick stack of papers from his schoolbag, dropping it all down onto Ryouta's bedside, the uncluttered side, with a loud thump.

Ryouta's eyes widened in horror. "How much did I miss? That can't only be a month," he said, grabbing something from the top of the stack and flipping through it.

Sagishi's own eyes glinted in amusement, in contrast to Ryouta's. "Nope. This," he said, pointing to roughly halfway through the stack, "is what we've discussed so far in class. The rest of it is advanced reading so you won't turn into a 'rotten orange,' as Yukizome–sensei put it."

Ryouta winced on hearing the term. "Does she call everyone that or just the people who don't go to class like me?"

Sagishi snorted out. "Everyone. I think she's still miffed most of us ditched her the day she was supposed to start teaching since we thought no one would fill in for Kizakura–sensei," he replied before going back to pouring out coffee for the both of them from the thermos sitting idly at the edge of the bedside table.

"And? What happened?" Ryouta asked, not bothering to look up from the part of the stack he was currently reading.

"She dragged everyone out from wherever they were hiding in and got us back to class."

"She what?!" Ryouta spluttered, the paper now firmly discarded.

"Yeah, she did, and threatened to repeat it if we ever ditch her class again," Sagishi stated calmly, all while handing Ryouta one of the cups he poured out.

Ryouta shuddered, taking the cup gratefully. "So what's stopping her from dragging me off to class, too?" he asked, tentatively sipping a drop of coffee before making a face. "Kaa–san forgot the sugar again, didn't she?" he muttered.

"Trust me, she'd have dragged you to class too if she wasn't aware you were here," Sagishi laughed. There were still some spare sugar packets from the coffee he had at the konbini this morning, which was coincidentally the same one they met in yesterday, which he promptly tossed in Ryouta's direction.

"Ah, thank you," Ryouta said, immediately ripping through the sugar packets like a kid would with his birthday presents. By the time he was on the fifth packet, Sagishi's mouth was already gaping open with disgust, a fact Ryouta was totally oblivious of as he continued to rip open a sixth packet.

"Why?" was the only word Sagishi could muster, making Ryouta pause from opening up a seventh.

"Oh, uh…" Ryouta blushed, struggling for an explanation. "I know this is bad but…yeah," he shrugged, the last word barely a whisper.

Sagishi held up his hands. "I'm not judging. It's just that I've never met someone who places that much sugar in their coffee," he gestured at the discarded sugar packets, making Ryouta blush even deeper.

"In any case, this isn't real coffee, you know. It's decaf," Ryouta said, sighing.

"Oh."

"Anyway," Ryouta said suddenly, trying to change the topic to disperse the awkward silence. "What even is this?" He pointed to a part of the discarded paper he was reading a while ago which now turned out to be a math worksheet. "I don't think we've actually covered this in middle school."

Sagishi peeked at the worksheet and smiled. "Oh, we've just had that lesson this week. It's actually pretty easy to grasp. Here, let me teach you," he said, sitting down beside Ryouta to begin the lesson.

A/N: Just in case I forget to ever make this pun come up, the fictional town where all this is set is called Nozogahara, written as 希ヶ原, which literally means hope field. I'm not sorry.

Also, I forgot to mention this last time, but Ryouta's mum writes her name as 亮子, 亮 being the same way her son writes Ryou, following the tradition of parents sharing a kanji of their name with their children (Takaaki and Kiyotaka, Taichi and Chihiro). It's not really unusual in real life either, at least in my side of Asia, since I know a lot of people whose given names are combinations of their parents' names, and even a part of my own name is a modification of my parents'. It's embarrassing.