pairings ‣ Quinton Aoki x Harrison Chang, Hannah Zhao x Noah Wisetkaew

prompt ‣ on the same sports team AU

notes ‣ a more appropriate prompt for this is "I see you with the same person all the time and I assume you two are in a relationship so I'll just pine for you from a distance" AU, but that's too long for a title. have fun.

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"—scrimmage."

"Ow!" Quinton exclaimed, rubbing his left ear where his earbud had previously been. "What did you do that for?" Sitting on his left, Hannah had suddenly pulled out his earbud all of a sudden, and when she gestured over to Harrison, Quinton then realized Harrison had been talking to him about something this entire time. Clearing his throat nervously, Quinton asked Harrison, "Did you say something?"

Harrison frowned, slightly annoyed, decided to ignore Quinton, and turned to his left to Delilah to explain the rules of American football to her again. Every time the five of them went to a game together, Harrison would spend the entire time explaining the various rules and aspects of football to Delilah, and Hannah and Noah would make out or do some other weird couple-y thing most of the time, and Quinton would be left to scroll through Reddit or Twitter or watch pirated movies on his phone. That was how every home football game worked.

After all, the only reason Harrison and Delilah sat with them was because Noah and Harrison had been friends since middle school. Though Harrison never spoke to them anyway, since Harrison didn't even talk much in the first place. When he did, it was to Delilah, his girlfriend, or Noah, his best friend since middle school, or occasionally to Hannah, who was so social for Harrison to ignore, but never to Quinton.

The only time he did, Quinton hadn't even been listening. He was a terrible person.

"He said Coach Young wanted you to play in the scrimmage tomorrow," Hannah explained when she noticed he was silently berating himself. "It's in his duty as co-captain to tell you."

"Oh." His voice caught on that one word, and he cleared his throat. "I suck at soccer though. Why would I play in the scrimmage?"

She shrugged, gesturing to Noah on her right for the large soda they had ordered. Quinton knew it was mostly Coca-Cola, half Sprite, and part lemonade, but he never understand how they found that good. A few weeks ago, Quinton had been thirsty and drank some, but he wasn't able to stomach it. "For practice, probably. I don't really know. I hate sports." Although she said that, she still went to a plethora of sport games. "Oh, yeah, Q, why did you tell Delilah that Noah's last name was Xue?"

"I don't know." Quinton felt his ears burn. "She asked me, and I was, well, nervous, so I just said that. It was stupid. I don't even know anyone with that last name."

Noah gestured for the soda before raising an eyebrow at Quinton. "Xuē? As in Xuē Bǎochāi?" Noah sounded offended, but Quinton could never tell with Noah. "I would not marry my cousin."

Quinton didn't want to know. "I'm sorry, but I was just nervous, as she is Harrison's girlfriend after all."

Hannah scoffed loudly, before realizing Harrison was sitting near them. She lowered her volume. "Why are you nervous? You guys are on the same soccer team. You talk every week. I've gotten one too many texts about you two eating tacos together. You guys carpool."

He knew all this, and Hannah always reinforced these points, but Quinton couldn't comprehend it. Hanging out with Harrison outside of soccer was weird. It shouldn't be weird, but it was. "Yeah, but that's like, no homo kind of stuff, you know? It's just, you know, high school boys being high school boys. We play shirtless sometimes, even when it rains. Plus, as you know, no one else on the soccer team is gay, or even nonhetereo, as far as I know. I'm pretty sure I'm an outlier."

"Harrison's not hetereosexual," Noah piped in before taking a sip of the soda, and Quinton raised an eyebrow at him. Obviously Hannah didn't believe him either, because he insisted, "He isn't."

"How would you know?" Hannah asked, gesturing for the soda again. He gave it to her.

"He helps me with physics all the time."

"That's because you suck at physics, not because he's attracted to you." Noah raised an eyebrow, as though asking for her point. Hannah gave it to him. "My family is better friends with his family than your's is with his. Plus, my family and his family are liberal, while your parents are conservative, so let's be real, if anyone would know his sexuality, it would be me." Noah didn't know how to argue with that.

The three of them fell into comfortable silence, watching the game for a few seconds, until Hannah grew impatient. Leaning over to talk to Harrison, she asked, "Hey, Harrison, what's your sexuality?"

"You can't just ask someone for their sexuality," Noah said, frowning, and turned to Harrison to apologize, but Hannah stopped him.

"Well, can I ask if he's hetereosexual?" Hannah asked Noah. Quinton couldn't tell if she was genuinely looking for an answer or not, since it was hard to tell with Hannah, and before Quinton could decide and before Noah answered, Harrison interrupted,

"I'm not."

Suddenly everyone erupted into cheers at the touchdown they had missed, but the five of them just looked at each other, unsure what they were expecting. Quinton somehow ended making eye contact with Delilah for a few seconds and felt his ears burn up in embarrassment. After a few seconds, Harrison repeated, "I'm not heterosexual."

"Oh." Hannah looked pleased with herself. "Cool."

There was another few seconds of silence where they were unsure what to do, until Noah spoke up.

"Hey, Harrison?" Harrison leaned back to look at Noah. "Quinton wants to buy popcorn, but he doesn't know where the concession stand is. Can you show him?"

Harrison glanced back at Delilah, who said something to him, and then got up. "Sure." Quinton glared at Noah, who was already drinking his soda innocently, and then sent a pleading look to Hannah, who refused to look Quinton in the eye. Sighing, Quinton was thankful he brought money with him. It would be awkward to get to the concession stand and then not have money, which would destroy Noah's story.

Thus destroying Quinton's zero percent chance of being with Harrison.

As they got away from the loud crowd, Quinton played with his jacket's zipper, pulling it up and down idly. Harrison didn't seem to mind the noise, and as they walked, Quinton realized he actually didn't know where the concession stand was.

Noah knew Quinton too well.

However, Noah obviously didn't think that far ahead, because before Quinton could blink, he was saying, "Okay, I thought I could live Noah's lie, but I can't, because, like, I don't even like popcorn." Quinton was aware that Harrison might not be able to hear him over the sound from the stadium and the highway nearby, but they were still walking to the concession stand and he was still talking. "This is just an excuse he made up so we could spent time alone, since he knows about my massive crush on you"- At this point, he decided he was terrible at making good decisions, but for some reason, he wouldn't stop stopping. -"and he just wants us to talk, and probably because Hannah is dying from the sexual tension, not that there is any, you know, but Hannah is always trying to get me laid, even though I'm asexual, but you know, even though, well, you're dating Delilah. I mean, it's super obvious you two are d-dating, since you've been dating for, like, as long as I can remember, so obviously I have absolutely zero, nada, chance with you, but you know what they say-"

Quinton was interrupted by Harrison grabbing his arm, preventing him from walking any farther. Quinton turned around, his eyes wide as he stared at Harrison. "Delilah's not my girlfriend." Harrison's arm let go of his arm, and his arm fell to his side. "We're not dating."

"Delilah's..." Quinton stopped, trying to formulate the words before speaking. "You're not dating?" Quinton let out a shaky laugh. He was probably shaking himself. "That's impossible." Harrison raised an eyebrow, probably confused. Quinton wished he could read emotions now. "I mean, if you're not dating Delilah, obviously this means I didn't have to, well, I didn't have to-"

Harrison laughed, the sound stopping any neurons in Quinton's head that were dedicated to transmitting thoughts. He laughed for approximately ten seconds before Quinton registered the sound, and if he knew him telling Harrison about his crush led to him laughing, he would've done it a lot sooner, but right now he was too embarrassed to care. His ears burned in shame.

"Hey! I mean, seriously, I thought you two were dating, and so do everyone else, and I've liked you since middle school, you know, so imagine my shock that after, like, a year or two, I realize you were unattainable, and please just- I just told you I liked you, oh my gosh, and you're laughing at me. Imagine if you confessed to the person you liked, and they just laughed at you!"

Harrison slowly stopped laughing, realizing Quinton's embarrassment. "Sorry." He looked Quinton in the eye. "Do you still want to go to the concession stand?"

Quinton thought that over before nodding. "Yeah. I want a Powerade." Nodding, Harrison continued to lead Quinton to the concession stand. Since there was no one in line, Quinton immediately bought a bottle of blue Powerade before walking back to their seats. When they were halfway there, he said, "You know, it takes a lot of courage to tell someone you have a crush on him."

"I know," Harrison said. "I don't have the courage to confess to the guy I like."

The guy I like. "Oh. Oh, okay, I see." The guy I like. The guy I like. The guy I- "I wish you luck in your endeavors. I mean, I'm sad, yeah, but like, I already knew that the two of us would never get together, because this is just a silly little crush-"

"Aren't you aromantic?"

"What?" Quinton stopped walking and blinked for a second. "No. I'm gray ace. I usually tell people I'm asexual to avoid questions, though, but I've never been aromantic. That's not for me."

"Coach Young told me you were aromantic."

Quinton's ears grew hot. "Why would she- I mean, she might've- Well, that's not true. Plus, why do you care? You have the guy you like, and plus, if you care in a political sort of way, you're not hetereosexual, so we're, like, you know, in the same boat, regardless of whether or not I'm aromantic of not. We're both not hetereosexual. What are you, anyway?"

"I don't label." Harrison stuffed his hands into his hoodie pocket, as though he was used to explaining this. "I believe attraction is fluid, and there is no one sexuality you should define yourself by, unless you're heteronormal."

"Oh." Quinton didn't know anyone who believed that. "That makes sense." Quinton didn't really understand it perfectly, but it didn't make Harrison any less valid. Harrison was as nonheterosexual as he was. "I get it, I think. I'm not particularly sure." Awkwardly, Quinton looked down at his glow-in-the-dark Skechers shoes, unsure of what else to say. Harrison was wearing black and white Adidas shoes.

"Do you want gum?" Quinton suddenly asked, remembering Noah had given him a packet of gum the other day. "It's Kinetic Mint."

"Noah?" he asked, not looking up from his shoes.

"Yeah."

"He gave me Stride Shift."

"Oh." Quinton looked up and scratched his neck. "Well then, I guess you don't need gum." A few people walked past them, chatting about something or another, and they just stood there, unsure what to do next. Quinton knew that Harrison probably wouldn't say something, so he took a deep breathe. "Hey, Harrison?"

"Hm?" Harrison said, looking up to make eye contact with Quinton. For a second, Quinton forgot he had to ask a question.

"Um, can you maybe explain to me your belief in sexuality someday?"

Harrison frowned for a second, before chuckling lightly, sounding amused and loveable and completely attainable, and Quinton thought that maybe owing Noah a big favor for this would maybe be okay. And although Harrison didn't look any less unemotional than he normally did, he was smirking.

"I can maybe explain to you my belief in sexuality someday."