"oh! hey, c'mere, i gotta show you something funny!"
whatever nonsense satoru had been planning on spouting is tucked away the instant he sees your coy little grin, and one of his own grows on his face, made brighter and wider by the ease of your invitation.
yes, he's just spent the last seven minutes in your doorway, silent and scheming, thinking on what to say to attract your attention — but it doesn't matter if that's now been disrupted, because he'd take your attention any way it can be served, cold or hot. it's warm today; that much he can tell by the way you beam at him, as he comes to stand beside you.
you dig through the top drawer of your desk for a minute or two, and satoru is bubbling with things to say, now, about the little mess you keep there, but he gets distracted by the hurried, chalky handprints staining the material covering your ass. the sight makes him grin so hard that his cheeks swell, nudging his blindfold up the littlest bit; satoru finds it invigorating, this innate ability you have to fluster him. the heat in his face is surely visible, even to someone like you.
"aha!" you dance back and forth on your feet for a second, stopping only when he starts to join you, excited, and then you hold up two dangly, jingling little things right in front of his face. "a student's sister is selling these for school, and they made me think of you! so i bought us some to match!"
keychains, he realizes, suddenly sober. cute and colorful miniature ice bars.
"adorable, huh?" you pull them back to assess in your palm, touching gently at the plastic as if they were real, as if they could melt in the warmth of your hand. "which one do you want? the watermelon is the cutest, so i was gonna give you that one."
everything satoru had thought to say dissolves, leaks between his fingers, sugary and sweet. he's left with nothing, cold, then, smile frozen, as you fiddle with something so meaningless—
you look up, waiting for his response, and he watches you clock the change in his demeanor, instantly; you can't see cursed energy, but you can see — something, within him. always have been able to, though he's yet to figure out how.
"unless you want strawberry," you shrug, a little awkward now, but sunny as usual. "do you even have keys, actually, or do you—"
"no take-backs!" he snatches the dainty thing from your hand, sticking his tongue out at the flat look you send him. "i get watermelon!"
"fine," you pout for just a second before sticking your tongue out at him, too, and then you laugh quietly to yourself. amused, like a child.
once you start to dig around in your messy drawer for your car keys, satoru turns his attention to the tiny treat, focusing on it. trying to ignore the blood rushing in his ears.
it's so simple. so silly. you are, selfless and honest to a fault, all the traits that make you a liability in this world. if anything were to happen to your students, then you wouldn't make it. and if anything were to happen to you, satoru thinks—
right there in your presence, so close that he can hear your heartbeat peacefully thundering over his own — he can feel the cracks in his composure. how close he is to splintering off, how quickly everything would collapse if he dared to blink wrong.
if anything were to happen to you, satoru thinks, he'd go insane. he already has.
a small laugh leaves him, at the thought, but he closes his fist around the small keychain when you look up at him again. still grinning, leaning in so close that you're about to be stopped.
"do you like it?" you ask, open and hopeful and silly.
it makes him laugh again, because you really have no idea.
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