A New Love [Tottsu/Hasshi]
Title: A New Love
Pairing: Tottsu/Hasshi, mentions of Miyata/Tamamori
Rating: G
Summary: Tottsu is having a bad day. Hasshi knows gratitude. High school AU, set after this.
Wordcount: 1,857
Having forgotten to set his alarm the night before, Tottsu was running late.
Literally running late.
If he had had the chance to toast some bread that morning he would have been running with a slice in his mouth like the heroines in shoujo manga.
He spotted the front gate from a block away. Almost there.
As he got closer he could see a student leaning at a wall beside the front of the gate. Haven't classes started already? Maybe he wasn't that late, Tottsu was thinking, his run slowing into a jog as he neared the gate.
The student turned out to be Hashimoto Ryosuke, who Tottsu only knew as this really tall first year. He seemed really popular, as Tottsu's seen him around and he seemed to be on good terms with everyone from the upperclassmen to the unpopular teachers. The girls in his class gossiped about him and ogled at him during school events. He saw the kid after what seemed to be a very bad break-up just the week before, but Hashimoto's eyes lit up when he saw Tottsu.
"Totsuka-senpai! You're late!" Hashimoto says happily.
"Why're you out here?" Tottsu asks as Hashimoto starts jogging with him towards the school building. "Haven't classes started yet?
Hashimoto doesn't answer and instead smiles a huge smile. "Good morning!"
Weird, Tottsu thinks.
_______
Today was progressing badly. Since Tottsu had come late, he had also started on today's seatworks late. Which in turn lead to a late lunch, which escalated to no lunch as the cafeteria declared that they had run out of bread.
Tottsu hung his head as he trudged back to the classroom, Kitayama laughing at his plight with his arm around Tottsu's shoulders. Tottsu decides he would mooch off of Kitayama's lunch instead. He slides the classroom door open with much effort from hunger.
"Tottsu," Kawai calls him from the seats near the window. "You've got a fan."
Tottsu looks up to where Kawai was. At first he saw it as the usual classroom setting: his classmates laughing and talking amongst each other, but then he noticed that one of them wasn't his classmate.
Hashimoto was sitting on one of the desks and surrounded by Tottsu's classmates, who seemed to be enjoying his company. The more outgoing girls were among those classmates, trying to flirt with him, while the more reserved girls sat far away from them and giggled to each other.
"Senpai!" Hashimoto waves at Tottsu, looking genuinely happy to see him.
"This kid's really interesting, Tottsu!" Senga tells him as he comes up to them. Their other classmates agree. "He's been waiting for you."
"Hey Totsuka~ How do you know Hashimoto-kun?" one of the gyaru girls who was usually rude to Tottsu asks him sweetly, batting her long, obviously fake eyelashes.
"I… Don't really know him?" Tottsu was confused. The only times he's spoken to Hashimoto was when he gave him his handkerchief after some girl (probably Hashimoto's girlfriend, or ex-girlfriend, Tottsu thinks) splashed a whole can of soda on him, and this morning at the gate. He turns to Hashimoto and asks, "You, uh, need something?"
"I got you lunch," Hashimoto says rather shyly, a sheepish grin on his face. He gets up and moves closer to him, handing Tottsu some bread and a bottle of juice. The girls in the classroom aww'd.
"Real good timing, kid!" Kitayama pats Hashimoto's shoulder. "Tottsu couldn't buy anything because the cafeteria ran out of bread."
Hashimoto looks proud.
"Thanks…" Tottsu is confused but thankful. "Why, though?"
Hashimoto scrunches his eyebrows in thought for about a minute ("Cute!" the girls in the classroom say in unison), before declaring loudly: "Totsuka-senpai is awesome!"
Before anyone could react, some kid ("Hi, Sanada!" Hashimoto greets him) comes into the classroom, apologizes for any trouble Hashimoto's caused, and scolds Hashimoto for bothering the senpai as he drags him out of the room.
The girls in Tottsu's class bombard him with questions about Hashimoto ("What's his favorite food?" "What's his blood type?" "What's his type of girl?" "Does he have a girlfriend?") and Totsuka has no idea at all.
"I can't answer those questions! I don't know him at all!" Tottsu tells them exasperatedly.
The girls get annoyed at him and leave him alone, but kept in mind that they should be in good terms with Totsuka if he had such a cute friend.
__
Tottsu's busy packing his things to go home after soccer practice when Miyata, who had told the team members just a minute ago that he was leaving, pokes his head back inside the club room. "Tottsu, this kid called Hashimoto's waiting for you outside," he announces.
"Huh? Why?" Tottsu is surprised.
"I'll go ask," Miyata says, saluting Tottsu before popping out of the room. He reports back "He says he likes you."
"Huh? Why?" Tottsu says again. His team mates snicker at him.
"Should I go ask?" Tottsu could hear Tamamori snapping at Miyata from outside. "Tama's getting mad at me though. Bye!" Miyata closes the door behind him.
"Why does he like you so much?" Kitayama wants to know, amused.
Tottsu can only rack his brain and come up with nothing.
---
Tottsu finds Hashimoto leaning forward to examine the flowers outside of the club room. The younger boy straightens up and smiles.
"Hey," Tottsu tries to greet him as senpai-like as possible. "Hashimoto, right?" Hashimoto nods enthusiastically. "Thanks a lot for lunch." Hashimoto beams. "Were you waiting for me?"
"Uh-huh." Hasshi grins that same sheepish grin he had when he had given Tottsu his lunch. "Please go home with me! Please!" Hashimoto gives an awkward bow and Tottsu can't find it in his heart to reject him.
__
"Tottsu-senpai," Hashimoto says slowly, like he was trying out how to say it. "Can I call you that?"
"Sure. Everyone at school calls me Tottsu." As they walked beside each other towards the station, Tottsu could see how much taller than him Hashimoto was.
"At school they call me Hasshi," Hashimoto tells him. His eyes look hopeful.
"Do you want me to call you that too?"
"Yes! Thank you very much!" Hashimoto chirped. The kid seems to be very easy to please, Tottsu noticed.
“Hasshi,” Tottsu started. Hashimoto’s eyes gleamed. “You need something from me?”
“Um…” Hashimoto contemplates something. “Oh,” he says, remembering.
“What is it?” Tottsu asks patiently.
“I wanted to return your handkerchief,” Hashimoto says. “Thanks for lending it to me last week!”
“Oh,” Tottsu says. So that was it.
“But I’m keeping Tottsu-senpai’s handkerchief. As hostage!”
Tottsu blinks. “Why..?” he asks. He doesn’t know how many times he’s asked that question today, in relation to Hashimoto.
“So you’ll hang out with me.” Hashimoto looks proud of himself for coming up with such a plan.
“What?” Tottsu could not for the life of him understand the logic behind Hashimoto’s plan. He wanted to tell Hashimoto that he could keep the handkerchief, but decided against it.
“I want to be friends with Tottsu-senpai. Really, thank you for being nice to me last week!” Hashimoto continues. His smile is so genuine that Tottsu can almost understand why everyone liked him so much. “I really appreciate it! Really! I recovered from heartbreak real quick because of you!”
Hashimoto seemed like a good kid who knew gratitude towards others. And Senga did say he was an interesting kid… Tottsu felt like a kid contemplating on keeping an oversized puppy.
Tottsu smiles. “Well, Hasshi, want to go get something to eat?”
Hashimoto didn’t need any persuading.
__
They decide to eat at a fastfood chain. Hashimoto warmed up to him quickly, Tottsu noticed that he didn’t have that initial shyness he had before.
"Tottsu-senpai is really nice! You're my 1.25th favorite senpai now! That’s really close to being first," Hashimoto declares, happily munching on fat, greasy french fries.
"1 point what?" Tottsu had seen Hashimoto talking to a lot of senpai. "Who's your first favorite?"
"Gocchi-senpai, of course!" Hashimoto tells him proudly. "He's the best!"
"Gocchi?"
"Goseki Koichi-senpai!" Hashimoto stares at him like he's stupid for not knowing. "He's in the same club as me and he's the club president too! Do you know him, senpai?"
Of course he did. Goseki Koichi of class 3-A had a reputation for being cool and composed, but had a knack of randomly saying things that either offended or scared people. Tottsu had often comforted those people.
"Senpaaaaai," Tottsu heard Hashimoto whine as he felt a series of quick and violent pokes all over his shoulder. "You're not listening!"
"Sorry," he mumbles, swatting Hashimoto's hand away. What kind of horrible club could Goseki have been running?! It was already strange that Hashimoto hadn't been calling him Goseki-sama as most people do to not make Goseki throw subliminal insults at them.
"So you know Gocchi-senpai?" Hashimoto asks impatiently.
"Yes, yes, I do. Same year as me." Why couldn't Hashimoto have picked another Favorite Senpai?
The younger boy's eyes lit up. "Then we can hang out and the three of us can totally be BFFs!♥"
Tottsu sighs into his cheeseburger. "What club was it? That club with Goseki?"
"O'clock," Tottsu thought Hashimoto say.
"O'clock?"
"Something like that," Hashimoto tells him.
"A time-telling club? Like six o'clock?"
"No way, that would be so boring," Hashimoto laughs at him. Tottsu feels stupid. "We study aliens and tell scary stories. It's real fun!"
"Ohh," Tottsu says, understanding. Hashimoto sure talked strange. "The occult club? I didn't know there was something like that in our school."
"I can ask Gocchi-senpai if you want to join," Hashimoto says hopefully.
Tottsu was glad he was already in the soccer club.
__
At the train ride home, Tottsu finds out a lot about Hashimoto. The kid just babbles on and on about everything, continuing even if his words get jumbled. Tottsu finds out that Hashimoto lives alone with his older sister as his parents are always traveling for work, that he’s good friends with Nozawa and Sanada (“He got mad at me earlier for bothering your classmates,” Hashimoto adds) and that his favorite teacher is Takizawa (“He’s handsome and looks after us,” Hashimoto gushes). They’re quite normal, everyday stories, but the way Hashimoto tells them made them interesting.
Hashimoto looks genuinely disappointed when they get near his stop. “I want to hang out with you more!” he says sadly.
“You can hang out with me tomorrow,” Tottsu reassures him. “After our club activities.”
Hashimoto looks happy. “Good thing I kept my hostage,” he says as he walks out of the train car. Tottsu laughs. “Bye, Tottsu-senpai! Thank you for hanging out with me!”
Tottsu waves back at Hasshi as the train door closes.
___
Tottsu remembers to set the alarm clock on his phone that night. He sees there’s an unread message so he decides to read it first.
“Tottsu-senpai~ It’s Hasshi~
Thank you for hanging out with me today ♥
I am keeping my hostage
P. S. Did you know that the way to recover from a broken heart is to find a new love?
I like you~
From Hasshi”
Tottsu smiled. Today wasn’t such a bad day after all.
--
Author's note: I'm having a hard time with LJ's post editor, so some of the spacings are weird D: Comments are much-appreciated!