SECRET ; SHIRABU

二

Finally Seito arrived at the bus stop, slightly out of breath because he had been running to get there faster.

Kenjiro was already waiting for him, sitting on a bench and boredly scrolling through his phone. He had a small scowl on his face, though it was deeper than his usual one.

Catching his breath Seito smiled brightly at Kenjiro, asking him, "Have you been waiting for a long time?"

Kenjiro slowly put his phone aside and tried to smile, however it just looked like a grimace. Seito took note to ask him about that later. "No, I just got here. No worries."

That was a total lie. He had been waiting for almost twenty minutes and was slowly getting impatient, not wanting to look ordered and not picked up any longer.

It was just that Kenjiro knew that Seito would feel guilty about having left him waiting for so long, so he thought it would't be good to complain about it. After all Seito surely had his reasons for coming late.

"I'm glad," was all Seito responded, before taking one of Kenjiro's bags and holding out one hand to him. "How about we go to the park?"

Accepting his hand, Kenjiro stood up with a small smile. "Sounds good."

They often went to the park on Friday nights, because there they could act freely, not feeling the need to hide their relationship. It was also calming for both of them to spend some time together in a secluded place, just relaxing and talking about nothing and everything with their favourite person.

Also, both of them thought that sitting on the swings, while slowly rocking back and forth, was a lot of fun.

Walking for a short while with their hands intertwined, they let go after walking past an old woman who looked derogatorily in their direction.

Both were already missing the feeling of the other's hand, feeling a cold nothingness there. However they both, especially Seito, thought that it would only mean trouble if more people saw them, two boys, holding hands.

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Up until now they have been walking in a comfortable silence, but Seito decided to disturb it and ask Kenjiro, "How was your day?"

Looking over to his boyfriend Kenjiro shrugged and responded with a simple, "Fine, what about you?"

Imitating him in a mocking manner Seito responded with a high pitched "fine". There was a short silence in which Kenjiro almost chuckled because he thought that the way Seito acted was very cute.

Expectantly Seito looked at his boyfriend in complete silence. Finally Kenjiro caved in and told him about his day, or rather about everything that he hadn't already told him about the whole five days in which they hadn't seen each other.

"Nothing much, it's just about volleyball," glancing in Seito's direction he saw how concentrated he was listening to what Kenjiro was telling him, that was one of the many things that he loved about him, he always listened to him and waited until he was finished or pushed him to talk about his problems. "You know, on Wednesday we had a practice match against some university students. I think I already told you something about it."

"The one where you won 2:0?" Seito interrupted, not sure if he remembered the right practice match.

"Yeah, that one," Kenjiro inhaled deeply, "I already told you, that I made some really dumb mistakes there, right? It's still kinda frustrating. I mean, how did I even get on this team when I'm not even good at volleyball."

Seito was ready to interrupt him, wanting to tell him how awesome he was and tell him other  uplifting things.

"Shut it for a sec. Today at practice coach Washijo talked to me during the water break, which isn't bad per se, because it felt good that he talked about how I should either concentrate more on the court or just sit on the bench. Anyway, we did some receiving exercises at the end of practice and it was awful. Like, never have I ever received a ball so bad like I did today; not even when I was a beginner!"

Thinking about what would be the best thing to say now, Seito asked, "Did you have a lot of tests or exams this week?"

Confused, Kenjiro responded, "Yes. On Monday a literature oral exam, Tuesday a maths test, Wednesday was a Geography written exam, Thursday we had an English vocab test and today a History exam and in P.E. we had to do an endurance test. Why?"

Ignoring his question, Seito asked another question, "And how late did you stay up to study for those tests?"

Frowning Kenjiro guessed, not being entirely sure himself, "Around 12 a.m.. But you're not making any sense anymore. What does this have to do with volleyball?"

"Kenji, Kenji, Kenji ... I thought you were supposed to be the smart one between us two," was all Seito said, before walking ahead of Kejiro who stood on the sidewalk.

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Catching up to Seito was easy for Kenjiro. "Could you stop talking in riddles? I just want to know what the whole point of this conversation is?" he was becoming more and more upset, after all he hated being confused about something.

Seito went a bit ahead, just to turn around and walk backwards to be able to look him in the eyes. Kenjiro could swear that he almost melted when his blue eyes stared directly into his for as long as they did right at this moment.

"Y'know, it's just that you got only six hours of sleep - at best - were extremely stressed and also under a lot of pressure. No wonder that your performance was a bit worse than usual. You're only human, you can't just overlook the needs of your body and the state it's in. And even if your week wouldn't have been like that, it's still okay to have bad days. "

Thinking about it, what Seito just said did make sense. He really should take better care of himself, even if it becomes stressful. "But that's still not an excuse to perform bad."

"Of course it is, imagine if you would continue to do this and get even less sleep. You know what would happen then?" he paused dramatically, "Exactly, you would collapse because of exhaustion and probably wouldn't be able to play for some time, so that your body can recover properly."

"But-"

"No buts. If I would've known that you were missing some sleep I never would've suggested going to the park," shaking his head Seito took the backpack that Kenjiro was carrying, "I'm walking you home, so you can catch up on some sleep."

Kenjiro's cheeks and the tips of his ears turned red, while he mumbled some incoherent nonsense about not being a baby that has to be taken care of. Nevertheless he enjoys being taken care of by his loving boyfriend.

Once again he thought about being lucky to have the ravenette in his life.

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The way I've been calling myself out so many times in this chapter-

Question of the chapter:

What's your favourite song/artist? (I'm not asking this question just because I don't have anything to listen to, pff I would never do something like that)

My answer:

I don't really have one, but rn I really enjoy to listen to  "Achilles come down" by Gang of Youths.

-NEPTUNXS