“Are you stupid?“ izumi retorted, lifting an eyebrow. Was this guy honestly so… blunt?
“Being a quick learner means you understand things easily and are good taking them to practice. How is that not something convenient? You could give other’s study tips or the sort. Having sense of rhythm means you could either try dancing or singing, maybe playin an instrument. And if you don’t feel apt for that you could just play rhythm games. they are rather popular nowadays.” he continued, uncrossing his legs just to cross them once more “You are just not seeing them in the right way because you are fucking blunt”
Yes he was angry at this idiot not realizing all the good things he had on him.
“Hah? as if I’d worry about something like that myself. This level of advice is just normal” he replied, shaking his head “Not listening nor trying to come up with anything constructive when someone needs you is terribly rude and childish, don’t you know?”
The insult made Kyouhei flinch but he managed to cut off any protests he had by pressing his knuckles to his lips, the bones pressing against his pouting lips while he listened to Izumi break down his self-criticism.
“Mm, isn’t long term memory more valuable though?” He muttered around his hands, tilting his head into a contemplative pose. As for dancing, singing… he’d never taken a class like that in his life. Creativity wasn’t exactly something his parents pursued in him, after all.
And rhythm games…? What were those? He was tempted to ask, eyes crinkled at his advisor in confusion.
The brunet was almost tempted to warn against sour language - not that he was a prude, it was just first instinct. As pretty as Izumi was, the swearing was… almost unfitting, even though it suited his voice (or not. Kyouhei wasn’t sure).
“You didn’t have to help, though.” He felt like he was in Izumi Sena’s debt now, whether the other acknowledged it or not. “A-anyway, your constructive criticism is greatly appreciated! I’ll try to keep it in mind.”
[水] - Yep! Just about anything was good with Mizumachi. He didn’t have any complaints or anything to give with what he’d added to the blender so he kept quiet as he watched Kyouhei preparing the smoothie. With the smaller male almost running into his arm, the athlete lifted his arm up and out of the way so he didn’t run headfirst into his bicep.
“Yeah? Where do they come from then? Are they like potatoes?”
Mizumachi wasn’t allergic to anything himself so he didn’t know firsthand what it was like to suffer an allergic reaction. He could only assume that it seriously sucked. He was going to have to be careful around Kyouhei then if he had peanuts with him. Don’t want to hurt your friend after all.
“Nhaa~ Sounds good! We should set up a trip one day! I can show you around the beach!”
With a big grin, he moved in close to wrap an arm around Kyouhei’s shoulders. A bit of a reach… and a stretch, mind you but that’s okay! He’s flexible enough to pull it off. Okay no, just less than a minute of this was starting to hurt with the awkward posture he had to twist his body into.
“You’re pretty short, huh?”
Sometimes Mizumachi just spoke without thinking much on what he was saying. He didn’t mean anything by it, but it was true that Kyouhei was just ‘short’ in comparison to Mizumachi.
Cheeks puffed out slightly in embarrassment, Kyouhei mumbled a quiet thanks at Mizumachi for moving at the last second and slipped over to his cabinet to snag some large cups, perfect for big drinks.
“I think so…?” They grew out of the ground, right? Or something equally odd. He nearly snorted while putting his answer together. “Yeah, they’re the potato nuts.”
A beach day… that sounded really nice, actually. Kyouhei was already imagining how the sand would feel under his toes, how the salty breeze would hit his face when Mizumachi brought him into a bit of an awkward side hug.
“Ghck!” Kyouhei coughed, nearly dropping the cups but managing to land them both on the counter. “Yeah! I’m short! That’s fine! It’s great, I’m just. I’m not even five and a half feet tall, was there something you were trying to say?”
This was all said with his palms steadily dragging down his cheeks, which not only made some of the words slur together but also steadily stretched his face out so that when he looked up at Mizumachi to confront him, it looked like he was pouting. And he was.
“… you’re really tall, man. What is your secret? Please tell me.”
Minako watched him carefully as he rolled out his shoulders, probably to get all the kinks out of it or maybe to get all his wiggles out so that he wouldn’t disturb her while they were sleeping. It was nice of him to keep that in mind.
Her napping buddy laid down on his back and had his hands folded over his stomach and his head was titled so he could see her. Oh yeah, his introduction reminded her that she should probably do the same, it was kind of rude that she hadn’t done so already.
“You’re welcome, I’m happy to do this. I’m Minako by the way, nice to meet you Kyouhei.” She laid on her side, smiling at him.
“That’s a very pretty name.” Kyouhei offered in return, grinning widely and then righting himself so that he was staring up at the sky. Ah, this was much more comfortable.
“Do you nap here often, Minako?” It was a really good spot. He was surprised a spot like this existed, to be honest. “In this spot, I mean, cuz’ I’m considering visiting again.”
Dongmin wasn’t too good at this either, but he did have the patience for it, so he was sure that as long as they both remained calm and worked hard at it, they would be able to get this to work for them. With the base being as long as it was, he wondered if they would even have enough cards to even finish off their card castle or not. “I think what we have now should be good. Any longer, we may not have enough cards to finish.”
Just a guess on his part, really. With Kyouhei already starting to try to make his triangles, Dongmin on the other half of the castle was trying to do the very same. Absolute quiet descended down on the two of them as they both were keeping quiet to focus with everything they had to make their triangles. Carefully he was trying to make it so that the very tips of the cards would touch at the top, and to have the cards be spaced evenly apart from the center.
Almost there… he could do this. How about—nope. Okay. Let’s try this again. Maybe if he tries to put the bottom of the cards in between two base cards?
“That’s true.” As many cards as Kyouhei had made, there was no telling how many they’d actually need. He rested his elbows on the table, right next to his own stack of cards, and began to set cards up.
“Ah.” On his second set, it collapsed and took out the one he’d managed to stay up. “Harder than it looks.”
Not that the student was surprised, but sometimes images made it look so easy. Or maybe he was thinking of plastic cup towers, which were, of course, way easier to make.
With a little difficulty, Kyouhei managed to get two triangles up and began to set a card down on top of them, carefully. He felt like if he let go, he’d ruin everything.
[水] - Mizumachi continued to watch Kyohei making the smoothies from over his shoulder. He was using good ingredients for the smoothie, so it was bound to be tasty and healthy. Those were the best combinations in his mind. High in protein or calories were also good characteristics to have, but high calorie and greasy were not.
Eating a lot of greasy food wasn’t good for your diet. It wasn’t very nutritious for one thing, but lots of oil and grease made for weaker joints. Lots of junk food made it more likely for you to injure yourself if you weren’t careful on the field. Sports injuries were bad, and could lead to you never being able to play sports ever again if you weren’t careful.
“Yeah? Peanut butter? Is it just peanut butter? What about just peanuts or any other kind of nut? Sucks that you’re allergic to peanut butter.”
Lots of really tasty treats were made with peanut butter, like chocolates and cookies. Though, it was good that he wasn’t allergic to chlorine, because then that meant he could invite his friend to the pool!
“If you aren’t allergic to chlorine, then we should go swimming one day! Do you know how to swim? If not, I can teach you!”
Don’t feel bad if you don’t know, he only learned how to swim himself a few years ago, so it wasn’t like he could judge you if you couldn’t.
After mixing in fruit to his liking (if Mizumachi hadn’t requested anything than anything should be fine, right?) Kyouhei set the blender on low and turned back to his guest, nearly hitting his face into his bicep while doing so.
“Dunno, I haven’t risked eating peanuts but I assume that it’d get me the same results.” The student folded his hands together before continuing. “And peanuts are actually different from any other kind of nut - they aren’t tree nuts so I think I can safely eat other kinds of… but I haven’t risked it and I don’t think I’m going to, you know? Allergic reactions are not fun, no matter how quickly you use an EpiPen.”
He was well aware he was missing out on a lot of things but at least there was now the knowledge that if he wanted an easy out of a class he could just give himself an allergic reaction and be hospitalized for a few days.
“I know how to swim!” Kyouhei laughed, delighted by the invitation. It wasn’t too often that he was invited out, so he accepted immediately. “Sounds like fun, so as long as I’m not busy, sure!”
Everyone has their moments and that’s okay. As long as you didn’t hurt anyone (or yourself) it was fine. It was shocking to see him throw up all the notecards, but he could certainly understand the notion. Sometimes he just wanted to give up as well and just stare up at the sky absentmindedly.
“Yeah, let’s see how well this will work out for us.” He followed Kyohei’s actions curiously, moving some chairs on his end of the table and set them aside. He accepted the one pile of the cards and he stared down at them, wondering how well this was going to go.
“Guess we can start with setting up the base?” He was guessing that laying down some cards to use as a base would serve them well so they wouldn’t have to worry about the cards sliding around on the table. Though they would have to worry about the cards that were laid down on the base would end up sliding. “Then we can work on setting up the triangles of the castle.” That is how it works, isn’t it?
Kyouhei wasn’t too good at this on his own, but once he’d managed to make a base for his pile and it was easier from there. Still, only time would tell of their success or failure.
“How far across should we make it?” He had roughly fifty cards altogether, which meant Dongmin and he each had about twenty-five, even if he hadn’t counted them all individually, and that meant that if they wanted they could make a pretty big tower….
“Uhm, yeah, probably.” The table would be too slippery otherwise. He began to set a few down, then took two in his hands and made a test triangle, quickly becoming tense with concentration.
“Oh, of course I can. I’m an expert at opening locked doors. It’s a specialty of mine you could say.” He crouched down for a moment to inspect the lock and hummed to himself. After a few seconds he nodded his head and stood up. “Well lucky for you this doesn’t take much effort. They really should change the locks around here, I mean really.”
With that he took a step back and slammed his heel into the door right about the knob. The door made a cracking noise as it swung open; the top hinge broke off and it hung precariously from the middle and bottom hinges. “Ooops, that was some overkill there.” Yoichi walked inside to inspect the broken hinge. “Ah, that’s an easy fix. We really could’ve been in some trouble for a second there.”
He looked around the immediate area until he located the two small nails that had popped out of place. Picking them up, he stuck them back into their holes and used his flashlight to bang them into place. “There we go. Good as new. Er, actually I’d call maintenance to fix that, I’m not entirely sure the door is going to be straight.” He turned to face the younger boy with his hands on his hips; his watch beeped as a self satisfied smile crossed his face.
“Hah, and just in time. Now, do you need any help with something that doesn’t involve doing illegal things?”
Kyouhei…… didn’t know what to say.
He probably should’ve expected this, knowing his luck, that the officer (Yoichi, he meant) would go about it destructively, and not have a master key or a lock-picking set - although having a lock-picking set would be a pretty weird thing to see on a police officer, right?
The student couldn’t find it in him to care anymore. It was late, he was exhausted, and honestly. Honestly. The fact that he’d seen Yoichi lift his leg and didn’t even bother to try stopping him said something about his mental state.
“I’d offer you some food as thanks,” but I don’t know if I should thank you, “but I don’t know if they’ll charge for repairs and I’ll need all the food I can get if so.”
Still, the nice boy inside him wouldn’t let this go without… without something. He reached into his pocket for his notepad and pencil, scribbled down a number, and ripped it out, presenting it with little ceremony to his “savior”. “If you ever need something a college student can provide, text me… or something.”
Humming through the halls of the university with taiyaki in his mouth, Leo was on his way to class. Or, at least he thought it was the way to his class. Wandering through the long empty corridors, his exceptional hearing picked up someone’s voice and he followed it.
Poking his head into what seemed like an empty classroom, the composer noticed another person standing in front of some… lab equipment? Were they a scientist? How interesting! What was more interesting was their voice. It seemed like they could sing and it wasn’t bad at all. Somehow, this train of thought seemed familiar to him, but he couldn’t recall where he had it. Oh well.
“Hey~!” Leo called out to them loudly after swallowing the rest of his snack. “Whatcha humming!? Ah, and what’re you doing? Is it science? A science guy!? Or, maybe you work with the aliens~”
Not expecting anyone to find him (or interrupt), Kyouhei startled, dropped his tongs while trying to look over his shoulder at whoever was spying in on him, catching a glimpse of orange/red hair before the panic set in.
He’d dropped a potassium cube. He’d dropped a potassium cube into a dish of cleaning water, and it was already starting to react.
With an urgency he didn’t know he had, the student scrambled away, hitting the floor in front of the door as the cube popped due to the transfer of electrons, causing a loud, smoky explosion.
Or was he giving it too much credit, seeing as there was no fire, only a reaction that created a violent noise and a screen of smoke…? In the end, all that mattered was that it was harmless from a distance.
A little stunned, Kyouhei stared up at the person still standing in the door, a little irritated but mostly just indifferent to everything. That had been his last potassium cube, too….
The boy was being more obedient now, eating the chocolate and drinking the water as he had been told. He also answered to izumi’s suggestions.
he didn’t minded the reservation he took at some points; no one wants to talk about personal stuff with a stranger. It was understandable, and expected. Izumi himself didn’t knew much about this stranger, so he was just throwing ideas at the air.
“Well, I believe building up confidence in yourself is what helps against negative critique. That and not caring too much about what others might think. But you can only do that yourself. You can’t ask for help when it comes to that kind of thing” he concluded “Things like gaining lots of confidence in something most people aren’t too good at, is a good way of getting that”
He sighed, trying to think of more ideas. he was already getting invested in helping this boy.
“What do you feel the most confident about? Studies, games, whatever. If you have one thing you can start from there. it’s also helpful when making friends”
Wow, this Izumi was… pretty smart. Good at giving advice, in any sense. Kyouhei made sure to listen intently while finishing off the chocolate and washing it down with some more water.
He then had to pause. Because… he’d never really thought about what he was good at. Whenever the student had to make decisions, it wasn’t usually based on “well, I’m good at this” but rather “this would be better for me”.
Well, there was obviously talent involved, so maybe it was something that went along with having hobbies? So….
“I guess… I’m a quick learner? And I have a good sense of rhythm, and I’m fast - but none of those are really practical skills, right?” Especially not in biochemistry, where it was a good memory that was needed. It was very matter-of-fact.
As for the friends front, Kyouhei’d just moved and the whole ‘socializing’ business was fairly strange to him, but there were already a few people who probably didn’t mind hanging around him?
“You’re very sensible, aren’t you Sena? Or maybe you have experience in stuff like this…?”
Akira doesn’t move at all, he doesn’t really care too much if he gets wet since he knows he’s going to at some point, but he does appreciate Kyouhei’s efforts not to splash any water on him.
“It could be useful, especially if you’re new to this area.” He wasn’t sure if Kyouhei was new to Bellevue but there was no harm in mentioning the update of a weather app, it did turn out to be helpful after all.
“Um…I think I’ll wait out a bit. I was only heading home, so it’s not like I’m in a rush.” Morgana could wait, maybe he’ll even bring his cat back some sushi as a treat. Rubbing the back of his neck, he turned his head to the other.
“I forgot to introduce myself– I think? My name is Akira Kurusu.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Feeling a little foolish for putting off the act for so long (because of what it meant, really) Kyouhei took out his phone and turned on the automatic location setting on his phone before putting it away, not risking any water damage on that front.
“There, problem solved! Well, as long as you only make a mistake once I’m sure it’s fine.” Not including fatal mistakes, of course.
The brunet nodded, acknowledging the decision Akira had made - and what a nice, simple name! He hoped he wouldn’t forget it on accident. “Kyouhei, a pleasure to meet you Akira - though I’m sure the conditions could’ve been better.”