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ciirceeAges and ages ago I told Aya that I couldn't write. At all. I was totally stalled out. And she gave me a prompt and then I disappeared from the face of the planet.
Um. Well. I'm back?
(I didn't quiiiiiiiiiite follow the prompt. But I'm close?)
Destiny Calling
"…and then Nagahara-sensei said that he wasn't going to take it anymore and I thought I was going to get cut from the project," Tarou was saying, "but instead he handed me this."
'This' was a cell phone, all sleek and silver and new. Tarou held it like it was something dirty he'd just picked up off the streets.
Mimura smiled. "They're very useful," he said.
Tarou gave the phone a despairing look. "But it's way too expensive!" he said. "I don't know what to do with it!"
"It's a phone," Mimura told him in a serious voice. "It's used for connecting two people who are far from each other."
Tarou's head fell back on his shoulders. "Mimura-kun," he groaned. "You're not helping."
"May I?" Mimura asked, holding out his hand. When Tarou put the phone into it, he opened up the contact list. With the exception of Nagahara's name and number, the list was completely blank. "Ah, your phone book is empty. You might want to add some numbers to it," he said as he handed it back.
He watched Tarou take the phone back with an inscrutable look on his normally open face. And he waited for Tarou to offer to exchange contact information like anybody else would have. But Tarou didn't. Instead Tarou put his phone in his pocket and led the way up to the house. "I'm home!" he called.
"An-chan! Mimura-an-chan!"
Engulfed in a wave of small Yamada family members, Mimura forgot about the phone entirely.
A week later, however, he was reminded of it as he sat in the main room of the Yamada family home, waiting for Tarou to return from an unexpected side job of some sort or another.
"Mimura-an-chan is here! Let's call an-chan!" Mutsumi said cheerfully.
"Okay!" Nanami responded. "Ring, ring!"
Mutsumi put his hand in his pocket and then pulled it out again and held it up to his ear. "This is an-chan!" he said.
"An-chan!" Nanami giggled. "There's an emergency! Mimura-an-chan came with snacks!"
"Snacks! That's a super emergency! I'll be home in three seconds! Zoooooom!"
Mimura smiled at the twins. "So you have his phone number to call for emergencies?" he asked.
Both of them nodded. "For emergencies!" they chorused.
"Like snacks," Mimura double checked.
"Like snacks from Mimura-an-chan!" Nanami said.
"They're the best! An-chan can't miss out!" Mutsumi agreed.
Mimura felt compelled to pinch their cheeks.
Really, it was the most expected thing that his family would have his phone number.
"I'm home!" Tarou's voice echoed in from outside.
"An-chan! An-chan!" The kids raced to him and Mimura sat back and watched as they dragged him inside. "Mimura-an-chan brought snacks!"
Tarou smiled at him from across the room.
Mimura leaned back on his hands. "We were just about to call you. I'm told it's an emergency."
Tarou laughed, scooping the little kids up under his arms. "It's a super emergency, right?" he asked them. "Worth calling An-chan for!"
The kids laughed up at him and Mimura felt right at home and somehow totally outside of it still. "I wonder who I call in an emergency?" he said, watching Tarou's face.
"Mimura-an-chan calls Isogai!" The twins shouted, wiggling down and racing back to him to pile into his lap.
He waited for Tarou to say something but he didn't, just smiled and went to make rice. He talked about the lab and the plants and his part time job and Mimura called Isogai to arrange for a ride to Tarou's job and then a ride home.
Of course the rest of the Yamada family had Tarou's number; it was even more expected than Mimura having Isogai on speed dial. Naturally Tarou wouldn't think a thing of it.
And so Mimura didn't think a thing of it either and, once again, forgot entirely about the phone.
In fact, he didn't remember it until two days later when walking with Ikegami. "Ah! There's a time sale on bakery goods!" she said.
There had been a time in his life when Mimura hadn't cared about time sales or bakery goods or a time sale on bakery goods. And then he'd met Tarou. Now he cared. "He'll be sorry he missed it."
Ikegami had her phone in her hand. "Yamada-kun!" she exclaimed after moment. "There's a surprise time sale at Jusco! Bakery items! You can't miss this!" She slid it shut and put it in her purse. "He'll be right here," she reported.
Mimura looked at her steadily. "You have his phone number?" he asked rather pointlessly.
She looked a little startled but mostly very pleased and slightly pink in the cheeks. "Yesterday he showed me the phone sensei gave him and I gave him my number and he asked if I wanted his. It's really just as friends!" she said, waving her hands. "It's totally like that! For things like this!"
Mimura tilted his head the slightest bit.
"It's not because of that! That's over! It's over! Mimura-kun, I was just a stupid kid! Quit bringing it up! It's totally over!"
"Over? Did I miss it?" Tarou asked, panting and bent double. "The time sale? Did I miss it?"
"You're just in time," Mimura told him. He knew very well that the sale would consume all of Tarou's focus for the next little while and so he waited until they were walking across the bridge, Ikegami ahead of them. "It was a good thing that she had your phone number," he said musingly.
Tarou nodded definitively. "It really was. That was a good sale."
"I told you that phones were a good thing to have," he reminded him.
Shrugging, Tarou nodded again. "Mimura-kun is usually right," he said.
With an internal sigh, Mimura tried one more time. "It must have been a little surprising when she asked for your information."
"Eh?" Tarou blinked over at him. "Not really. When she asked if I wanted hers, I told her that she could have mine in return. It seemed like the thing to offer. Wasn't that right?"
"It's good manners," Mimura said, wondering where those manners had been a week ago. And where they were now. "You just seemed surprised when I gave you mine."
But Tarou had already gone ahead to catch up to Ikegami, who was pointing at another store and waving them forward.
Giving his number to Ikegami, Mimura could understand. She was a friend and much more attuned to things that an interested Tarou would need to know about right away. Like time sales and new markets opening.
That was just natural. Almost as natural as his family having it, really. He shouldn't think a thing of it and just forget it.
But he did think something of it and he didn't quite manage to forget about the cell phone.
After that, it seemed, Tarou's cell phone was everywhere.
Mimura accidentally met up with Sugiura and Nakai in a pastry shop as he stopped for treats for the Yamada children not more than a week after the evening with Ikegami. "Hello," he greeted them politely.
"Mimura-kun!" Nakai smiled sweetly at him. "Did you come for their cakes? They have the best!"
"Kind of too sweet," Sugiura disagreed with his girlfriend. He barely winced as she sent a backhanded slap to his stomach. "I had three."
"I'll remember that." He'd come in for the fruit tarts, after all. The Yamada family loved fruit. He made to bow when Nakai stopped him, rather accidentally.
"You know who would love this? Yamada-kun!" She whipped out her phone. "Ahh, dead battery! Keichi-kun?"
Sugiura was already on it, his own phone already in his hand. "Got it," he mumbled. "Think we should tell him about the day-old ones?" he chuckled. It was apparently still a running joke that Prince Yamada was poor.
Mimura looked back and forth between the two of them. "You've got Yamada's contacts?" he asked rather pointlessly.
"Hey! We're good friends too, you know!" Sugiura protested.
"Yeah, yeah," Nakai said, planting her hands in her boyfriend's back and shoving him toward the door. "You and him are best buddies. I don't want to talk about Yamada all day again! Let's go to the park already!"
Appeased, Sugiura shot Mimura a wave. "Catch you later, Mimura-kun! Masami-chan, quit pushing me around!"
Mimura watched them out the door.
They were friends. It wasn't strange that Tarou, who didn't see them often, would give them is number. It really wasn't.
The strange part was that Mimura hadn't got it.
Wasn't it?
He was asking himself the same question just a day later.
"Bocchan?" Isogai said as the car rolled to stop at a red light.
"Yes?" Mimura answered automatically before looking up into the front seat. Isogai was not turned to face him nor was he looking at him in the rearview mirror. Isogai was holding his phone.
"Young master and I are parked at the light behind you." There was a pause and Isogai waved. Mimura looked out the tinted window and saw Yamada on the sidewalk, waving at them and jogging toward them. "We would be honored to drive you to wherever you are going. Isn't that right, bocchan?"
Mimura assumed that this 'bocchan' was meant for him. "Of course," he allowed. "How do you have his number?" he asked curiously.
"Young master Yamada and I exchanged contact information several days ago, after we fortuitously met while waiting for bocchan's lecture to finish. Of course he'd never call for a ride but if there is ever a need, I did want him to have it."
"Right," Mimura agreed. He opened his door and Yamada crawled inside. "Hey."
"Hi!" Tarou grinned at him and then turned it on Isogai. "Thanks! I was just on my way to your place anyway," he addressed the last bit to both of them. Mimura raised his eyebrows.
"You were?"
He, himself, had been on his way to Yamada's.
"Sure! Your grandfather called me just a few minutes ago and invited me for tea."
"My grandfather," Mimura said, nonplussed.
"Yep!"
"My grandfather," he repeated.
Tarou beamed and nodded. "For tea! I was hoping you'd be there this time!"
"This time."
"Master has taken to inviting young master over for tea," Isogai put in kindly.
"I see," Mimura said.
"We talk about my research project," Tarou said. "And flowers. He wants to make sure we're working on things like fruits and vegetables and not things with souls, like flowers." Tarou frowned. "But I think that fruits and vegetables have souls, too. They don't speak the way flowers do but they speak to us by the energy they give us when we eat them. Don't you think?"
Mimura didn't know what to think. "It's a topic close to grandfather's heart," he finally said.
"Yeah," Tarou agreed. "Mine too!"
It was almost explainable that Mimura's own family would have Tarou's phone number. His grandfather was a head-strong man with sharp opinions and a deep love for Tarou's thift and kindness—if he wanted to have tea with Tarou, then tea with Tarou he would have no matter what anybody had to say on the matter. And Isogai had almost adopted Tarou in the same manner in which grandfather had done.
It wasn't shocking that they had his information.
Even Ikegami's mother having it wasn't completely out of left field.
"Mom, don't!" Ikegami was begging her. Literally on her knees, hands clasped.
Mimura stopped on his way between classes to watch and maybe laugh a little bit on the inside.
"It's embarrassing!"
"This is war, Takako! This is what you were raised for!"
"Mom!"
Her mother took a cell phone out of her purse. "If you won't, you leave Mama no choice," she declared, punching a number. "There's a new store opening up in the river district," she barked into the phone. "Training starts tomorrow!"
Mimura could hear Tarou's fervent 'yes, Shishou!' from three feet away.
Ikegami's mother clicked her phone shut decisively and rounded on him. "That goes for you as well, soldier!"
"All right," he agreed. It wasn't like he was doing anything else, after all. He looked at Ikegami, slumped and blushing on the ground. "Hand up?" he offered, holding one hand out to her.
But the last straw was Osaki-sensei.
"If the temple has the room and you have the time, it'd be nice to have another study session day like the one from that time," Mimura said, sketching out the idea to his former gym teacher the way he'd draw shapes in flowers. Unsaid was the stress of school, the lack of time, the jobs, the kids, the need for the warmth of one summer day.
Osaki-sensei nodded. "Of course!" He drew a phone out from the folds of his monk's garb and opened it. "Do any of these days sound good for you?" he asked, handing the phone to Mimura.
Mimura looked. Just as he was about to select, however, the phone let loose with a small burst of happy-sounding music. There was a flash and in the corner of the screen was 'text from Yamada Tarou'. "Ah." he said. "Yamada sent you a message. Perhaps the last day of August," he added as he handed the phone back.
Osaki took the phone. "We exchange jokes," he explained. "Do you want me to text him the date and time?" he asked.
Smiling slightly, Mimura shook his head. "I'll talk to him," he said gently.
He wondered what was on his face that Osaki backed up with a quick and nervous bow.
Remarkably, the Yamada house was mostly empty. The only occupant was Tarou, hanging laundry out over the tiny balcony. "Mimura-kun!" he called down energetically.
Mimura looked up at him. "Come down," he said, short and clipped before he went in the door.
Tarou met him in the main room a minute later, different basket of clothes and a sewing kit at his hip. "Do you want some tea, Mimura-kun?" he asked.
"We have to talk," he said, settling himself at the table. In the center of the table, the sleek, beautiful cell phone sat innocently. Suddenly it chirped like a baby bird. "About that," Mimura said darkly.
"Ichinomiya-sensei?" Tarou asked, opening his phone and making it stop chirping. Mimura narrowed his eyes and Tarou fiddled with the phone until the screen went dark and it went back into the center of the table. "It sure rings a lot!" Tarou told him.
Mimura gave the phone a significant look before turning it on Tarou. "That's because everybody has your information," he said.
Tarou blinked and then nodded. "You said I should fill up my phone list. And you were right! It's handy for keeping in touch with people! The other day Torii-sensei asked me how my studies were going and if her husband was being too hard on me. Wasn't that nice of her? She's really a good teacher, isn't she?"
Whether or not Torii was a good teacher was not what Mimura had skipped class to come and talk about. "Everybody has your contact information," he said. Tarou looked baffled. "Except me."
"Eh?" Tarou looked at the phone and then at Mimura and then frowned.
"We never exchanged numbers or e-mails," he reminded him. "Even though you've exchanged with everybody else since then, we never have."
"Oh." Tarou frowned a little more. And then, "But why would we?" he asked.
Mimura felt his face smooth into a mask, the same face he'd worn when he'd been bored and dissatisfied with everything. His face from before he'd known Tarou. It didn't fit him anymore. It felt wrong and terrible both. "I see." Unaffected, disaffected. Impenetrable.
Tarou tilted his head consideringly. "Do you know what you said to me the day Nagahara-sensei gave me this?" Tarou asked, sliding the phone to sit within reaching distance of Mimura's hands, curled on the table. "You said it was good for keeping close to people who were far away," he answered before Mimura could. "And it is." He stood up and came around the table and sat down so close to Mimura that they were touching all along their sides. "But you're always beside me, Mimura-kun. And I'm always beside you, too. So why would we need to exchange that stuff? He nudged his shoulder into Mimura's own and Mimura turned his head to finally look at him and meet that brilliant smile. "We'll never be far away from each other; isn't that so?"
There weren't many people capable of making Mimura feel like an idiot. He should have expected that Tarou, who consistently beat him in marks despite having no sleep and no time to study, should have been able to do so without effort. "What if there were an emergency?" he asked instead.
Laughing Tarou nudged him again. "If there was an emergency, you'd already be there. You're always there when I need you. Because you're Mimura-kun."
Mimura didn't blush and didn't look away. "It's still a good thing to exchange. Just in case," he advised. But though Tarou nodded to his phone with a 'go ahead' motion, Mimura didn't reach for it nor did he reach for his own phone.
"Want to help me do the mending?" Tarou asked after a few moments of silence.
"Yes," Mimura answered without hesitation.
There was always time to trade phone numbers later. There was no point in moving away from the warmth and bump of Tarou's arm as they sewed buttons back into place. The phone could wait for when they parted ways. Whenever that would be.
And if he never got it?
Then he didn't and that was perfectly normal for them.
Um. Well. I'm back?
(I didn't quiiiiiiiiiite follow the prompt. But I'm close?)
Destiny Calling
"…and then Nagahara-sensei said that he wasn't going to take it anymore and I thought I was going to get cut from the project," Tarou was saying, "but instead he handed me this."
'This' was a cell phone, all sleek and silver and new. Tarou held it like it was something dirty he'd just picked up off the streets.
Mimura smiled. "They're very useful," he said.
Tarou gave the phone a despairing look. "But it's way too expensive!" he said. "I don't know what to do with it!"
"It's a phone," Mimura told him in a serious voice. "It's used for connecting two people who are far from each other."
Tarou's head fell back on his shoulders. "Mimura-kun," he groaned. "You're not helping."
"May I?" Mimura asked, holding out his hand. When Tarou put the phone into it, he opened up the contact list. With the exception of Nagahara's name and number, the list was completely blank. "Ah, your phone book is empty. You might want to add some numbers to it," he said as he handed it back.
He watched Tarou take the phone back with an inscrutable look on his normally open face. And he waited for Tarou to offer to exchange contact information like anybody else would have. But Tarou didn't. Instead Tarou put his phone in his pocket and led the way up to the house. "I'm home!" he called.
"An-chan! Mimura-an-chan!"
Engulfed in a wave of small Yamada family members, Mimura forgot about the phone entirely.
A week later, however, he was reminded of it as he sat in the main room of the Yamada family home, waiting for Tarou to return from an unexpected side job of some sort or another.
"Mimura-an-chan is here! Let's call an-chan!" Mutsumi said cheerfully.
"Okay!" Nanami responded. "Ring, ring!"
Mutsumi put his hand in his pocket and then pulled it out again and held it up to his ear. "This is an-chan!" he said.
"An-chan!" Nanami giggled. "There's an emergency! Mimura-an-chan came with snacks!"
"Snacks! That's a super emergency! I'll be home in three seconds! Zoooooom!"
Mimura smiled at the twins. "So you have his phone number to call for emergencies?" he asked.
Both of them nodded. "For emergencies!" they chorused.
"Like snacks," Mimura double checked.
"Like snacks from Mimura-an-chan!" Nanami said.
"They're the best! An-chan can't miss out!" Mutsumi agreed.
Mimura felt compelled to pinch their cheeks.
Really, it was the most expected thing that his family would have his phone number.
"I'm home!" Tarou's voice echoed in from outside.
"An-chan! An-chan!" The kids raced to him and Mimura sat back and watched as they dragged him inside. "Mimura-an-chan brought snacks!"
Tarou smiled at him from across the room.
Mimura leaned back on his hands. "We were just about to call you. I'm told it's an emergency."
Tarou laughed, scooping the little kids up under his arms. "It's a super emergency, right?" he asked them. "Worth calling An-chan for!"
The kids laughed up at him and Mimura felt right at home and somehow totally outside of it still. "I wonder who I call in an emergency?" he said, watching Tarou's face.
"Mimura-an-chan calls Isogai!" The twins shouted, wiggling down and racing back to him to pile into his lap.
He waited for Tarou to say something but he didn't, just smiled and went to make rice. He talked about the lab and the plants and his part time job and Mimura called Isogai to arrange for a ride to Tarou's job and then a ride home.
Of course the rest of the Yamada family had Tarou's number; it was even more expected than Mimura having Isogai on speed dial. Naturally Tarou wouldn't think a thing of it.
And so Mimura didn't think a thing of it either and, once again, forgot entirely about the phone.
In fact, he didn't remember it until two days later when walking with Ikegami. "Ah! There's a time sale on bakery goods!" she said.
There had been a time in his life when Mimura hadn't cared about time sales or bakery goods or a time sale on bakery goods. And then he'd met Tarou. Now he cared. "He'll be sorry he missed it."
Ikegami had her phone in her hand. "Yamada-kun!" she exclaimed after moment. "There's a surprise time sale at Jusco! Bakery items! You can't miss this!" She slid it shut and put it in her purse. "He'll be right here," she reported.
Mimura looked at her steadily. "You have his phone number?" he asked rather pointlessly.
She looked a little startled but mostly very pleased and slightly pink in the cheeks. "Yesterday he showed me the phone sensei gave him and I gave him my number and he asked if I wanted his. It's really just as friends!" she said, waving her hands. "It's totally like that! For things like this!"
Mimura tilted his head the slightest bit.
"It's not because of that! That's over! It's over! Mimura-kun, I was just a stupid kid! Quit bringing it up! It's totally over!"
"Over? Did I miss it?" Tarou asked, panting and bent double. "The time sale? Did I miss it?"
"You're just in time," Mimura told him. He knew very well that the sale would consume all of Tarou's focus for the next little while and so he waited until they were walking across the bridge, Ikegami ahead of them. "It was a good thing that she had your phone number," he said musingly.
Tarou nodded definitively. "It really was. That was a good sale."
"I told you that phones were a good thing to have," he reminded him.
Shrugging, Tarou nodded again. "Mimura-kun is usually right," he said.
With an internal sigh, Mimura tried one more time. "It must have been a little surprising when she asked for your information."
"Eh?" Tarou blinked over at him. "Not really. When she asked if I wanted hers, I told her that she could have mine in return. It seemed like the thing to offer. Wasn't that right?"
"It's good manners," Mimura said, wondering where those manners had been a week ago. And where they were now. "You just seemed surprised when I gave you mine."
But Tarou had already gone ahead to catch up to Ikegami, who was pointing at another store and waving them forward.
Giving his number to Ikegami, Mimura could understand. She was a friend and much more attuned to things that an interested Tarou would need to know about right away. Like time sales and new markets opening.
That was just natural. Almost as natural as his family having it, really. He shouldn't think a thing of it and just forget it.
But he did think something of it and he didn't quite manage to forget about the cell phone.
After that, it seemed, Tarou's cell phone was everywhere.
Mimura accidentally met up with Sugiura and Nakai in a pastry shop as he stopped for treats for the Yamada children not more than a week after the evening with Ikegami. "Hello," he greeted them politely.
"Mimura-kun!" Nakai smiled sweetly at him. "Did you come for their cakes? They have the best!"
"Kind of too sweet," Sugiura disagreed with his girlfriend. He barely winced as she sent a backhanded slap to his stomach. "I had three."
"I'll remember that." He'd come in for the fruit tarts, after all. The Yamada family loved fruit. He made to bow when Nakai stopped him, rather accidentally.
"You know who would love this? Yamada-kun!" She whipped out her phone. "Ahh, dead battery! Keichi-kun?"
Sugiura was already on it, his own phone already in his hand. "Got it," he mumbled. "Think we should tell him about the day-old ones?" he chuckled. It was apparently still a running joke that Prince Yamada was poor.
Mimura looked back and forth between the two of them. "You've got Yamada's contacts?" he asked rather pointlessly.
"Hey! We're good friends too, you know!" Sugiura protested.
"Yeah, yeah," Nakai said, planting her hands in her boyfriend's back and shoving him toward the door. "You and him are best buddies. I don't want to talk about Yamada all day again! Let's go to the park already!"
Appeased, Sugiura shot Mimura a wave. "Catch you later, Mimura-kun! Masami-chan, quit pushing me around!"
Mimura watched them out the door.
They were friends. It wasn't strange that Tarou, who didn't see them often, would give them is number. It really wasn't.
The strange part was that Mimura hadn't got it.
Wasn't it?
He was asking himself the same question just a day later.
"Bocchan?" Isogai said as the car rolled to stop at a red light.
"Yes?" Mimura answered automatically before looking up into the front seat. Isogai was not turned to face him nor was he looking at him in the rearview mirror. Isogai was holding his phone.
"Young master and I are parked at the light behind you." There was a pause and Isogai waved. Mimura looked out the tinted window and saw Yamada on the sidewalk, waving at them and jogging toward them. "We would be honored to drive you to wherever you are going. Isn't that right, bocchan?"
Mimura assumed that this 'bocchan' was meant for him. "Of course," he allowed. "How do you have his number?" he asked curiously.
"Young master Yamada and I exchanged contact information several days ago, after we fortuitously met while waiting for bocchan's lecture to finish. Of course he'd never call for a ride but if there is ever a need, I did want him to have it."
"Right," Mimura agreed. He opened his door and Yamada crawled inside. "Hey."
"Hi!" Tarou grinned at him and then turned it on Isogai. "Thanks! I was just on my way to your place anyway," he addressed the last bit to both of them. Mimura raised his eyebrows.
"You were?"
He, himself, had been on his way to Yamada's.
"Sure! Your grandfather called me just a few minutes ago and invited me for tea."
"My grandfather," Mimura said, nonplussed.
"Yep!"
"My grandfather," he repeated.
Tarou beamed and nodded. "For tea! I was hoping you'd be there this time!"
"This time."
"Master has taken to inviting young master over for tea," Isogai put in kindly.
"I see," Mimura said.
"We talk about my research project," Tarou said. "And flowers. He wants to make sure we're working on things like fruits and vegetables and not things with souls, like flowers." Tarou frowned. "But I think that fruits and vegetables have souls, too. They don't speak the way flowers do but they speak to us by the energy they give us when we eat them. Don't you think?"
Mimura didn't know what to think. "It's a topic close to grandfather's heart," he finally said.
"Yeah," Tarou agreed. "Mine too!"
It was almost explainable that Mimura's own family would have Tarou's phone number. His grandfather was a head-strong man with sharp opinions and a deep love for Tarou's thift and kindness—if he wanted to have tea with Tarou, then tea with Tarou he would have no matter what anybody had to say on the matter. And Isogai had almost adopted Tarou in the same manner in which grandfather had done.
It wasn't shocking that they had his information.
Even Ikegami's mother having it wasn't completely out of left field.
"Mom, don't!" Ikegami was begging her. Literally on her knees, hands clasped.
Mimura stopped on his way between classes to watch and maybe laugh a little bit on the inside.
"It's embarrassing!"
"This is war, Takako! This is what you were raised for!"
"Mom!"
Her mother took a cell phone out of her purse. "If you won't, you leave Mama no choice," she declared, punching a number. "There's a new store opening up in the river district," she barked into the phone. "Training starts tomorrow!"
Mimura could hear Tarou's fervent 'yes, Shishou!' from three feet away.
Ikegami's mother clicked her phone shut decisively and rounded on him. "That goes for you as well, soldier!"
"All right," he agreed. It wasn't like he was doing anything else, after all. He looked at Ikegami, slumped and blushing on the ground. "Hand up?" he offered, holding one hand out to her.
But the last straw was Osaki-sensei.
"If the temple has the room and you have the time, it'd be nice to have another study session day like the one from that time," Mimura said, sketching out the idea to his former gym teacher the way he'd draw shapes in flowers. Unsaid was the stress of school, the lack of time, the jobs, the kids, the need for the warmth of one summer day.
Osaki-sensei nodded. "Of course!" He drew a phone out from the folds of his monk's garb and opened it. "Do any of these days sound good for you?" he asked, handing the phone to Mimura.
Mimura looked. Just as he was about to select, however, the phone let loose with a small burst of happy-sounding music. There was a flash and in the corner of the screen was 'text from Yamada Tarou'. "Ah." he said. "Yamada sent you a message. Perhaps the last day of August," he added as he handed the phone back.
Osaki took the phone. "We exchange jokes," he explained. "Do you want me to text him the date and time?" he asked.
Smiling slightly, Mimura shook his head. "I'll talk to him," he said gently.
He wondered what was on his face that Osaki backed up with a quick and nervous bow.
Remarkably, the Yamada house was mostly empty. The only occupant was Tarou, hanging laundry out over the tiny balcony. "Mimura-kun!" he called down energetically.
Mimura looked up at him. "Come down," he said, short and clipped before he went in the door.
Tarou met him in the main room a minute later, different basket of clothes and a sewing kit at his hip. "Do you want some tea, Mimura-kun?" he asked.
"We have to talk," he said, settling himself at the table. In the center of the table, the sleek, beautiful cell phone sat innocently. Suddenly it chirped like a baby bird. "About that," Mimura said darkly.
"Ichinomiya-sensei?" Tarou asked, opening his phone and making it stop chirping. Mimura narrowed his eyes and Tarou fiddled with the phone until the screen went dark and it went back into the center of the table. "It sure rings a lot!" Tarou told him.
Mimura gave the phone a significant look before turning it on Tarou. "That's because everybody has your information," he said.
Tarou blinked and then nodded. "You said I should fill up my phone list. And you were right! It's handy for keeping in touch with people! The other day Torii-sensei asked me how my studies were going and if her husband was being too hard on me. Wasn't that nice of her? She's really a good teacher, isn't she?"
Whether or not Torii was a good teacher was not what Mimura had skipped class to come and talk about. "Everybody has your contact information," he said. Tarou looked baffled. "Except me."
"Eh?" Tarou looked at the phone and then at Mimura and then frowned.
"We never exchanged numbers or e-mails," he reminded him. "Even though you've exchanged with everybody else since then, we never have."
"Oh." Tarou frowned a little more. And then, "But why would we?" he asked.
Mimura felt his face smooth into a mask, the same face he'd worn when he'd been bored and dissatisfied with everything. His face from before he'd known Tarou. It didn't fit him anymore. It felt wrong and terrible both. "I see." Unaffected, disaffected. Impenetrable.
Tarou tilted his head consideringly. "Do you know what you said to me the day Nagahara-sensei gave me this?" Tarou asked, sliding the phone to sit within reaching distance of Mimura's hands, curled on the table. "You said it was good for keeping close to people who were far away," he answered before Mimura could. "And it is." He stood up and came around the table and sat down so close to Mimura that they were touching all along their sides. "But you're always beside me, Mimura-kun. And I'm always beside you, too. So why would we need to exchange that stuff? He nudged his shoulder into Mimura's own and Mimura turned his head to finally look at him and meet that brilliant smile. "We'll never be far away from each other; isn't that so?"
There weren't many people capable of making Mimura feel like an idiot. He should have expected that Tarou, who consistently beat him in marks despite having no sleep and no time to study, should have been able to do so without effort. "What if there were an emergency?" he asked instead.
Laughing Tarou nudged him again. "If there was an emergency, you'd already be there. You're always there when I need you. Because you're Mimura-kun."
Mimura didn't blush and didn't look away. "It's still a good thing to exchange. Just in case," he advised. But though Tarou nodded to his phone with a 'go ahead' motion, Mimura didn't reach for it nor did he reach for his own phone.
"Want to help me do the mending?" Tarou asked after a few moments of silence.
"Yes," Mimura answered without hesitation.
There was always time to trade phone numbers later. There was no point in moving away from the warmth and bump of Tarou's arm as they sewed buttons back into place. The phone could wait for when they parted ways. Whenever that would be.
And if he never got it?
Then he didn't and that was perfectly normal for them.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-06 12:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-06 02:24 am (UTC)I love Mimura getting more and more irked and retreating into mask-face only to find it doesn't fit.
Thank you. It's been an ungodly crappy month or so, and I've been mostly hiding from lj, but this was worth emerging for&hearts
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-06 04:13 am (UTC)thank u^^
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-06 05:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-06 11:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-06 02:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-07 01:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-07 04:14 pm (UTC)*melts into puddle of goo*
Tarou's logic XD
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-09 10:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-20 09:35 am (UTC)Standing Ovation
Date: 2017-06-27 08:13 am (UTC)