six

heart out

Tsukasa and I ran outside, lugging a cooler containing about 15 large bags of ice cubes between us as we watched the full timers disembark the transport trailer of the lorry's. They didn't look too bad for wear. Well, except for Murayama.

But like, he probably did something real bad to piss Hyuga off like that.

"Right, Tsukasa can you grab me some extra hands? Those other guys from the Districts you're always hanging around?" I asked, passing Furuya a bag of ice "And see if Todoroki can't find somebody with medical experience. These guys don't look too bad, but a few of them could do with stitches."

The blond nodded, rushing off to grab people from the first floor of the building, or shove them closer to me as they streamed out of the school. A dorky looking guy in the school's uniform ( that nobody wears, by the way ) came over to me and grabbed a few bags of ice, introducing himself as Jamuo and asking if there was anything he could do.

I simply told him to distribute ice packs and assess injuries. There was only one person in the fray who I cared about.

"Yo, Midori-chan!"

Murayama Yoshiki.

Three weeks ago, I wouldn't have given a rats ass about Murayama. Now? I realized he wasn't so bad after all.

"Murayama!" I shouted, waving Tsukasa back over. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Hyuga-chan wasn't exactly happy to see me." The shorter boy rasped, limping over towards me. One of his arms was around Seki's shoulders, helping him keep his balance.

I ushered him over to one of the milk crates littering the front yard of the school, dropping to my knees as he sat down. He was covered in bruises, but Seki reassured me that he was concussion-free. I wasn't too sure I believed Seki over a trained medical professional.

Tsukasa passed me a medical bag and I threw a bag of ice at Murayama. As I unfolded an antiseptic wipe, Muryama tensed up and started swatting at my hands.

"Come on, your face is covered in cuts." I scolded "You expect me to just let them get infected? Baka."

He continued to squirm as I tried to clean up his face, Seki and Tsukasa snickering behind me. After fifteen minutes of Murayama snapping at the three of us, and me smacking him around a little, I finally finished cleaning up his face.I cradled his head in my hands, turning it in every which direction to make sure I had gotten everything. I couldn't get my hands within five centimeters of his headband, so I had no idea if there were wounds underneath the grimy blue fabric that he so treasured, but I wasn't in the mood to fight with him.

Tsukasa caught a glimpse of my tender and loving actions, as well as the thoughtful expression on my face as I pressed a small bandage to a cut on the edge of Murayama's lips. The blond raised an eyebrow at me in a suggestive manner, and I simply glared back at the boy.

"What the hell happened to your legs?" I shouted, pulling up the bottom of Murayama's bloodstained jeans. The jeans had been shredded to ribbons, deep gouges in his skin like he'd been poked or stabbed with something.

Murayama murmured something in response, shyly turning his face towards the ground. This caused Seki to burst out into a laughter, a confused expression blooming across my face.

"Sorry, can you say that a little louder please."

Murayama sighed "He set the fighting chickens on me."

Well, that would explain the wounds.

"Fighting chickens?" I said seriously, trying really hard to hold back my laughter. Something Tsukasa and Seki were failing horribly at.

"Hyuga has a gambling den, right? When I first heard about it, I thought it was like poker tables or some shit. Turns out, he's been running an illegal cockfighting ring, and those chickens are incredibly well trained!" Murayama protested

Seki held out his phone." I caught the entire thing on video."

Tsukasa grinned "This is something I've got to see."

I took the phone from Seki, tapping the small triangular play button. In the frame I could see a slightly beat up Murayama, Hyuga Norihisa backing away with a sly grin on his face, red jacket swishing by his feet as he held up a hand before shouting something unintelligible. I later determined that he was saying 'release the chickens' or something of the sort. Murayama's face contorted into one of confusion before it turned to panic as a flock of well-fed brown chickens rushed past everybody's feet and began to peck at the leader of Oya. He was screaming out, crying for somebody to get the birds away from him as he danced awkwardly around them.
I burst out laughing, Tsukasa ripping the phone from my hand.

"I'm texting a copy of that to myself, and then forwarding it to Fujio. Once Fujio has it, I'm sure everybody else will." The blond laughed, passing me back the phone.

Murayama looked miserable.

I chuckled, patting him on the shoulder. "You can't win them all, Hot Shot. Come on, I'm going to make y'all a stir fry."

Seki shook his head "The fridge is empty. There's probably some leftover rice balls from the takeout we got last night, but nothing you could use."

I sighed, getting to my feet, roughly grabbing Tsukasa by his eye-catching pink button up shirt. "Come on, Takajo. We're going shopping."

I dug my keys out of my bag, Tsukasa trailing behind as I got into the car.

The blond raised his eyebrows at me before getting into the car. "You're in love with Murayama." He said matter-of-factly as I reached to turn the radio on.

"What?" I scoffed "What the hell gave you that idea?"

Tsukasa snorted. "That entire interaction back there proved it. The way you looked at him, the care you took dressing his wounds, making sure he was okay. And I'm pretty sure if he didn't at least like you a little bit he wouldn't have let you touch him."

"Listen here you little shit, I am not in love with Murayama Yoshiki!"

"You keep telling yourself that."

The shopping trip went about as well as you could have imagined. I didn't want to venture too far from the school in case they needed me, so I basically went to the first bodega I could find in the Oya Township, not the supermarket I usually hit up for better-grade ingredients. Tsukasa teased me about Murayama the entire time, and I had to wonder: was I starting to get feelings for the bandanna-wearing idiot?

I ended up making more stir fry that afternoon than I had ever made in one sitting. The less than perfect kitchen soon smelt like fried rice and curry, and Tsukasa and his friend Fujio were suprisngly good helpers in the kitchen. More than once I had to stop Fujio from eating the curry, but for the most part I think it went pretty good. And there was enough to feed basically all of Oya Kokoh.

"This is incredible." Todoroki said "You've seriously only been making food for Murayama this entire time? That is called favoritism and I will not allow it."

Fujio nodded "You should just always make food for us. I'm done with take out."

"You guys are forgetting that I have a life you know." I laughed, stuffing more stir fry in my mouth. "I have a degree to earn, and part of that is a work placement, then I have to worry about coming up with the money for culinary school. I've been working at it for years but so far, nowhere close to enough money."

Murayama snapped his fingers. "You should work here."

Everybody else in the room seemed to nod in agreement. "We could threaten the headmaster. He's never here, and given the state of the place I'm sure there's enough in the budget to hire you." One of the first years- Nakagoshi, I think his name was -suggested.

"I dunno guys."

"Come on." Tsukasa placed a hand on my shoulder "Clearly this is something you enjoy, which must be better than being stuck somewhere you hate every second of." He leaned closer to me so that I was the only person who could hear what he was going to say next "and you get to spend more time with Loverboy over there." He chortled with a laugh, causing me to jokingly elbow him in the gut.

"Okay." I gave in, throwing my arms up in defeat, a piece of rice flying off the end of my chopsticks and nailing Todoroki's left-hand man Tsuji in the side of the head.

After determining that somehow the 'students' of Oya would bully the people in charge into giving me a job, we all settled on a suede couch in a now unused classroom to watch some dumb American horror movie. I was sitting in between Murayama and Todoroki, which was enough for Tsukasa to raise an eyebrow at how close I was to Oya's leader.

Tsukasa and Fujio settled themselves in front of my feet, and I jokingly kicked Tsukasa in the back as the movie started.

It was a movie I'd seen before, illegally streaming it with a crappy audio version of the Japanese dub mere weeks after it hit North American theaters. It actually wasn't that bad, but I could tell some of the guys- namely Furuya -were starting to get bored with it.

My own lack of sleep was catching up with me, my head lolling over on to Muaryama's shoulder as I found I couldn't hold myself upright anymore.

I fell into a peaceful sleep, unaware of the drama that would unfold while I was dead to the world.

___

"Murayama-san." Todoroki mumbled, reaching over Midori's sleeping form to hit the boy in the chest, trying desperately to get his attention "I think Yamada's asleep."

Fujio perked up from his position on the floor, ready to play the jokester again. "Can I draw a dick on her face?"

Shibaman scoffed, getting up from the loveseat he and Tsuji had crammed themselves into rather than fighting over it. "Knock yourself out, Hanoaka." The boy promptly threw a Sharpie at Fujio before leaving the room.

Nobody was entirely sure when the rocky truce between the teams of full-timers had been called, but nobody felt like breaking it any time soon.

Fujio grinned like a madman, uncapping the marker and getting to his feet. "I'm drawing a dick on her face."

Todoroki scoffed "This isn't a frat party, Hanoaka."

"Yeah mate. Come off it." Tsukasa grinned, lazily reaching up to stall his best friend's arm from touching the girl's pale, angelic face.

Murayama turned his head slightly, looking at Midori. Her gentle, steady breathing slightly ruffling the cheap fabric of his bomber jacket. Hesitantly, he reached out and placed a hand on the girl's thigh, gently moving his thumb back and forth. Truth be told, he'd noticed how tired the girl had always looked, amazed that she could still fight, let alone walk without dropping to the floor in a peaceful slumber.

Almost unconsciously, Midori reached out slowly with her own shaky hand, placing it just on top of Murayama's.

The boy's features curved up into a small smile, an action not unnoticed by Tsukasa, who was mentally loading up on blackmail material for when the girl he'd come to think of as a sister woke up.

"Come on." He murmured, gently jabbing Fujio in the ribs. "Let's give them some space."

Shortly after Fujio and Tsukasa had left, Nakagoshi and the rest of the full-timers followed. Todoroki grinned softly, socking Murayama in the shoulder before he left, knowing full well that the part-timer wasn't going to fight back as it meant waking Midori.

Seki and Furuya left last, the younger of the two hanging around a little to see how his senior was going to handle the situation now that he was alone with Midori.

Murayama smiled, brushing a strand of Dori's hair behind her ear before carefully detaching their hands and standing up to turn off the TV. He grabbed the blanket hanging on the chair Shibaman and Tsuji had shared, gently wrapping it around the sleeping girl, a warm feeling spreading throughout his stomach as he stared down at her.

He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead before grabbing the remote from the coffee table and turning off the TV.

He pulled the blinds down a little, darkening the room enough that the girl would be able to sleep soundly. He turned to look at her one last time before a voice startled him.

"You're in love, little man." Furuya grinned at the boy.

"Shut up." Murayama said, thankful that the dark was stopping Furuya from seeing how red his face was becoming "What do you know about love? You're on your third girlfriend this month."

Furuya chuckled, leaving the younger boy to his own devices.

"Sweet dreams, Dori-chan." He smiled, running his hand through her hair one last tie before shutting the door behind him.

NOTES!

at 2157 words, that makes this the longest chapter i have ever written and i have no regrets whatsoever.