38. “You fainted…straight into my arms. You know, if you wanted my attention you didn’t have to go to such extremes.”
This line is so corny but so Lavi ;w;
“God, it’s hot out here.”
Lavi shot Kanda an inquisitive look. “Sure? I mean, it’s
the pinnacle of summer, 37 degrees Celsius, and these jerseys have long-ass
sleeves, so of course it’s hot.” His single emerald eye narrowed slyly. “Or
maybe it’s just ‘cause Yuu is so friggin’ hot~”
That earned the redhead a sharp jab in the ribs with
the jabby end of a baseball bat. Lavi pouted and rubbed his smarting side as
Kanda sipped generously from his water bottle. It was a scorching afternoon, the
kind that soaked you down to your underwear and made your peripheral vision
swim. Everything seemed to glow with a bright white light and it made Kanda’s head
throb.
If Kanda could have his way, he would walk off the
field right now and go stand under a cold shower for a while, but Lavi happened
to be the most persistent asshole Kanda had ever met. Lavi followed him around for days, begging for a practice session and
bombarding him with disgusting pet names and one-liners. Kanda had to relent on
the premise that he was that close to
actually giving his teammate a complete visual handicap for life.
The fuck
did I do to deserve this, thought the Japanese as he pulled the hem of his
shirt up to wipe off his sweat. “Are you ready to start yet?” he asked. He looked up to catch Lavi’s gaze flitting quickly
away from his exposed stomach.
“Trust me, Yuu, you’ll always put me in the mood to play ball,” Lavi replied, lifting his
eyebrows suggestively.
“Stop being gross,” snapped Kanda. “And stop fucking
calling me that.” He wet his chapped lips and stood up.
Immediately he regretted it; the act made everything
around him distort and his baby headache evolve into a fully-grown migraine. He
must have wavered on his feet because suddenly there was a hand on his arm,
steadying him and pulling him back down to the bench.
“Yuu?” Lavi peered up into his face,
uncharacteristically concerned. “You okay? You don’t look too hot, no pun
intended. Are you getting a heat stroke?”
Kanda shook his head and put his hand over his eyes. “I’m
fine,” he said hoarsely. He jumped when something cold touched the sweaty back
of his neck. It took him a moment to realize it was Lavi gently pressing his
cold water bottle to his skin.
The temperature rose too suddenly.
“Hey, if you’re not feeling well, we can skip practice
today and do tomorrow,” suggested Lavi softly.
“We can’t do tomorrow,” Kanda retorted immediately. “Prelims
are in two weeks. We can’t afford to waste even a day.”
“But—“
Kanda sighed heavily and shrugged Lavi’s hand off his
arm. “Look, we wouldn’t even have to be here if you weren’t so shit, okay? Why
don’t you stop complaining and just do what I say?”
Lavi had the grace to look offended. “Wait, nobody
said I was bad at this, I may be slightly iffy at batting, but I only have one
eye? I have a damn good throwing arm, if I say so myself—“
“Shut up and get on the damn field, loser.” Kanda
stood and wobbled as best as he could to the home plate. As soon as he stepped out of the shade, the sun was merciless
on his exposed skin. Fuck, it was so hot.
“I’m not playing with you when you look like shit, you
stubborn mule!” Lavi called out to him. “Come out of the sun, Yuu!”
Maybe it was the egg-yolk sun that lit Kanda’s fuse,
but he was hot and pissed off. The
baseball was hard and heavy in his palm. His windup was almost instinctual, the
release flawless. The highball popped, and Kanda squinted his eyes, watching
the little white ball sail up, up up up….
“Yuu!”
And then everything was white.
An entire week had passed before Kanda found the
courage to approach Lavi after practice. He waited until the redhead was alone
after putting away the baseball gloves in the storage room. After he gave a
little cough, Lavi turned around and looked at him in mild surprise for a brief
moment before a cold expression settled on his face.
“To what do I owe this pleasure, Captain?” he asked
calmly.
Kanda averted his eyes and stared at his hands. He had
woken up in the school infirmary with a raging fever and the club manager,
Lenalee, by his bedside. After that, he avoided contact with Lavi like a damn
coward, unsure of how to approach the redhead. It had taken a lot of
self-persuasion to do this. He took a deep breath and said: “About last week…”
Lavi crossed his arms and leaned casually against a
shelf. “You fainted…straight into my arms. You know, if you wanted my attention
you didn’t have to go to such extremes.”
Kanda raised his eyes. It sounded like another one of
his jokes, but Lavi’s tone was sarcastic and cool. His expression was a flat,
unfriendly mask. It was such an alien look on the usually smiling face that
Kanda looked away in discomfort.
“I.. justwantedtosayI’msorry,” Kanda mumbled quickly.
Lavi sighed and looked
angrily away. “Forget it, Kanda.”
“Lavi.”
When Lavi looked back
up, Kanda was looking firmly at him.
“I’m sorry,” the
Japanese said, maintaining eye contact with him so he could see Kanda meant it.
Lavi blinked at him for a long moment,
and suddenly, the hardness in his face melted away like ice on a hot day. “So long as you’re
not going to be an idiot when it comes to your own damn health, Yuu babe, I can
forgive you. After all, I would faint over my own looks too.”
Kanda rolled his eyes
and groaned, silently wondering how one could switch from angry to corny and
cheery in the blink of an eye.
He stepped out of the
storage room. It was hot. He looked at Lavi, standing beside him, red hair like
wildfire and a grin wide across his reddened cheeks. Heat crept slowly up Kanda’s neck.
Maybe the sun wasn’t
the only thing burning him from the inside out.
Forgive me and my shit writing, @orangesea6dragon! Thanks so much for asking! ^^ Feel free to submit another if you wanna!
lanablack 