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As a kid, Ryuunosuke had only two things in his head: being a kabuki master and being a samurai. Nothing more, nothing less. As such, he basically had no friends (or life for that matter) outside of kabuki. His social life, to put it short, sucked. Despite being one of the tallest in his class, he was also one of the scrawniest, which meant that he was the butt of the joke more times than not. With his eccentricity and dramatic nature, friends were basically a foreign concept, and don’t even get him started on with his pathetic love life. Even in his early twenties, Ryuunosuke was still pretty much the loser with a capital L.
(He doesn’t like being called lonely, but that’s pretty much his entire existence he admits.)
In short, Ryuunosuke never really thought about love. After all, it was only reserved for the ones who weren’t socially awkward crossdressing kabuki masters who can kick ass.
So when Mako asks, “Have you ever thought about being in love?”, he only dismisses it as pathetic. Sure, the part about being a samurai and having to devote yourself to the cause was true, but most of it came from a place of insecurity.
Or stupidity.
He’d rather not know.
Mako could only look at him with concern. Her face quickly changes when he looks back at her, shifting to indifference in a split second.
His stomach gets a funny feeling.
Today was day number 59 of Ryuunosuke being an awkward dork.
It was in front of Mako.
Great.
“You want a towel or something?” she asks, referring to the tea stain on his pants.
“That would be nice,” he replies, panicking at the spill.
Mako shuffles to the kitchen as the Kuroko were getting out with cleaning supplies. Ryuunosuke said that it was just tea and that he could clean it himself, but the Kuroko only waved their hands in dismissal. She appears maybe two seconds later with a blue towel in her hand, almost pushing it towards him. He takes it from her, silently thanking her.
“Hey, you mind me asking what you were doing?” she asks, tilting her head slightly at the sight.
“Eh, just being clumsy I guess. Sometimes the samurai grace flies out the window, I guess,” he jokes, haphazardly dabbing at the stain.
Mako smiles, even though he thought that what he said wasn’t really funny. The both of them stand there awkwardly, though it doesn’t last for long when the Kuroko zoom by past them, making Ryuunosuke trip again. Mako grabs his arm before he falls, lifting him back up and straightening out his clothes.
“You should be more careful.”
She’s cool, almost intimidating to a degree. Despite the neutral look, Ryuunosuke couldn’t help but stare at her features for some odd reason. He immediately bows (hey, better than nothing) when he notices that she’s looking at him in an odd way.
“I swear it won’t happen again,” he says with a serious tone, although it came out as embarrassingly dramatic. He lifts his head back up to see Mako’s amused smile. It’s reassuring, though he can’t really tell why.
Mako bursts out laughing when she sees his goofy grin when he stands back up, and it’s one of the most wonderful things he’s heard in a while. (Exaggerated of course, but who really cares?) Mako leaves him behind, heading straight into the kitchen. He simply just stands there, laughing for some odd reason.
Chiaki looks at him like he’s a psycho.
“You haven’t talked much,” Mako points out when they get to the cereal section.
Hikoma ordered them on a late-night grocery run after the Kuroko got their monthly day-off. (Huh, the Kuroko do have lives, Ryuunosuke jokes to himself.) Being the enthusiastic person that he was, Ryuunosuke was the first one to agree. Well, mostly because Chiaki was too lazy, Kotoha was sick, and Takeru was, well, the lord. What he didn’t expect was to see that Mako agreed to it as well, though something told him that it was just the motherly older-sister thing telling her to do it. He didn’t mind it, seeing as how he could barely stand Chiaki and he was awkwardness incarnate around Kotoha (purely platonic - well as much as you could get with a 16 year old).
So, here they were, standing in the cereal section, having barely said a word to each other directly, being separated by an invisible wall and maybe the shopping cart.
Yep, totally not awkward.
Ryuunosuke almost stumbles when she suddenly stops, awkwardly putting his hands in his pockets when he manages to stabilize himself. “Oh, uh, not feeling it today.”
“Really? Because you sure were the talker when we were at Ryota’s house.” She turns to him and crosses her arms, tilting her head with a knowing stare.
He releases his hands from his pockets and stiffly turns toward her, looking at the top of her head. “It hasn’t been a good day. I think I’ve been feeling a little bit ill,” he says while coughing to convince her.
“You weren’t even near Kotoha,” she states flatly, lips slightly pursing.
“What makes you think that I wasn’t?”
“Because you literally avoided her like the plague.” She steps closer to him, forcing him to look down. “Now tell me, who are you and what have you done with the real Ryuunosuke?”
He frowns, making a tch sound. “Well, I am the real Ryuunosuke and maybe I’m just not really in the mood today,” he nearly exclaims. He looks around, almost mortified.
Mako drops her arms, returning to the cart like nothing happened with a small smile on her face. She moves smoothly past him, grabbing two cereal boxes on the way. Ryuunosuke was just standing there, completely flabbergasted.
“What the hell.”
“Hey, keep up!” Mako exclaims from the end of the aisle.
He swears that she was laughing at him again.
“Mind telling me about your little crush?” Chiaki amusingly asks.
Ryuunosuke nearly spits out his tea, almost dropping the cup once again. Luckily there was no one there besides the two of them, although that wasn’t comforting in the least. He stands up and brushes off his pants, trying to figure out a quick solution. Meanwhile, Chiaki had the biggest shit-eating grin on his face.
“I don’t have the slightest idea on what you mean,” he says calmly, trying to draw on every single bit of acting skill that he had. He quickly drops the act when he sees Chiaki’s dull annoyance.
“Okay fine, what do you want?”
“Wow, quick to admit,” Chiaki drawls. “And here I was thinking that you would bury it to the ground.”
“Thanks for that.” He crosses his arms in disappointment, knowing that it will never come out that way because Chiaki’s the kind of dude that would turn disappointment into a manipulative win.
“Oh come on! Everyone knows!”
“Please don’t tell me Hikoma knows.”
Chiaki rolls his eyes in a mixture of confusion and annoyance. “Yeah, he’s just suddenly blind when you’re blushing around Mako.”
“I do not blush!”
Chiaki pulls out his phone and shows him a picture of him and Mako during calligraphy sessions when she accidentally spilled ink on his sweater. Once again, Mako got a towel and started to dab it off for him.
“That doesn’t mean anything.” He tries to look away until Chiaki stopped on the picture where Mako was wiping ink off his face. Ryuunosuke tried to swipe the phone to no avail. Chiaki held the phone right in his face before scurrying off, waving it like some sadistic trophy.
The funny feeling comes back again.
Ryuunosuke felt guilty. And shameful. He couldn’t help it really. After all, he was the one in the way of the blast if Mako wasn’t there to protect him from it. Even after the others had told him that it was only natural for a teammate to block his path, he still felt like it was his fault for essentially putting her out of commission for a few days.
No amount of apologizing could really ever make up this mistake.
So, he did what he would naturally do: sit and wait for her to come to. No matter how long it took. No matter how many times the Kuroko would tell him to go outside from them to work. No matter if his teammates tried to get him out. He just sat and waited. And waited. And waited.
He knew it was silly, but it kept his mind at ease, somehow. He doesn’t understand it and at this point? He doesn’t really want to.
It was only when the clock was about to strike midnight was when he decided that he should go to bed. He kept on looking back to see if she would come to.
She didn’t.
“Hey! Focus on me here!”
Chiaki smacked him on the head, which only shocked him. Kotoha was staring at him with concern on the side while Takeru only sighed with a noticeable frown. Ryuunosuke naturally apologized and readied his weapon, but Chiaki grabbed his weapon before he could get back to it. He grabbed Ryuunosuke by the collar and forced him to the other side of the field.
“What the hell was that for?” Ryuunosuke asked in a whisper, fairly annoyed.
“I get that you’re worried about her - we all are. But seriously, you gotta stop moping.”
“Please, you get mopey every single time Kotoha beats you in battle. What gives you the right to tell me to stop moping?”
“Because this isn’t you!” Chiaki suddenly yells. He looks around to see two bewildered figures staring at their backs. He only tchs and shoves Ryuunosuke’s weapon back in his arms.
He grabbed Ryuunosuke by the collar once again, this time close enough to where no one could hear them. “Look, she’s in good hands. When she comes to, stop beating around the bush and talk to her, you hear me?”
Ryuunosuke only stared at the younger one in a daze. In response, Chiaki tugged him closer.
“Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Good.” Chiaki pushes him back, playing it off as if nothing happened.
There’s a sudden pounding in his chest, and he’s not sure if his chest might split in two.
“Hey,” Ryuunosuke says when Mako finally opens her eyes.
Mako wakes up a little bit shocked at the sight of him this early. She tries to get up in her daze, only to get gently pushed down. It stings, only for a little bit, mitigated by the fact that she has an actual friend by her side since god-knows how long. Her face breaks out into an irrational smile, unsure if it’s out of relief or something else.
“Hey,” she rasps.
“You’re okay, right?”
“It’s nothing but a few cuts and bruises. It’s nothing I can’t handle.” Mako tries to laugh, but the pain from her side chokes her air out. Ryuunosuke’s face shifts in concern, which makes her relief drop.
“Ryuunosuke. This isn't your fault.” She’s consoling him naturally, but there’s something about the statement that rubs the both of them the wrong way.
“I let you get in my way when it was meant for me. At least let me apologize for that.”
“We’re teammates, it’s only natural.”
There’s a pregnant pause in the room. Her discomfort triples, and she knows the exact reason why.
“Look, I -”
“Please. Let me finish.”
She instantly closes her mouth, her mild concern sharply turning into stark realization.
“I like you. I really really do. Ever since that time we went to Ryo’s house. I know that you rejected me and shit, if that didn’t hurt like a bitch, but I still really like you,” he says in a single breath. He breaths out, slumping back in relief.
“Didn’t think it would take me this long.”
Ryuunosuke lets out a quiet laugh, which only makes her feel awful.
“This is a mistake,” Mako simply says, eyes softening into blankness.
She doesn’t have the heart to look at him in this state.
“I know that,” he says with a sad smile. “But better now than never right?”
“I just…I just don’t know what to say.”
“Then don’t.”
Every time Mako tries to say something, she catches herself, rearranging and rewriting the words she doesn’t know how to say in a split second. Ryuunosuke only sits there, waiting for nothing, which only serves as a cushion to the block of tension.
“I really wished that I liked you back,” she simply says, riddled with regret.
“It’s only natural, right?”
He scoots back closer to her side, holding her hand with a smile. Her eyes look at him up and down with guilt and concern, baffled at how he was taking it so well.
There’s a funny feeling in her stomach, sharpening the pain in her side.