Tachi glanced at the first year from his peripheral vision, and indeed, Goshiki was staring at him. He looked back down at the water bottle in his hand.

It was a reoccurring phenomenon lately, that was, Goshiki's staring. Ever since the starting order for Inter-High was announced last week—Tachi made the cut with Kenjirou this year—he'd feel the weight of eager brown eyes trying to dissect him. Whenever they were on the same team for practice matches, Goshiki would glance over at him every ten seconds. He had significantly less subtlety than when Taichi tried to get out of cleaning the gym floor. No, when Goshiki stared, he stared.

He wore the same expression every time Taichi caught him: an intense frown slash pout, with his lips pressed together to a side, his eyebrows furrowed, eyes squinted like he was trying to activate heat vision and melt Taichi's body. He always looked somewhat ridiculous, just as he did now, standing in a circle across the gym with the second-years he trained with, despite only being a first-year himself.

"Still staring," Kenjirou commented, before raising his water bottle to his mouth. Taichi could see that, so he just hummed in response. Kenjirou scoffed at his noncommittal response with a mouthful of water. He swallowed. "Well, have you figured out why he's doing it?" he asked quietly with just a hint of annoyance. Taichi knew from experience that if Kenjirou could control his infliction of annoyance, it meant he wasn't actually that annoyed at anything.

So Taichi answered honestly. "Not really." Goshiki was still staring. Taichi could feel it even if he wasn't looking.

Kenjirou gave him an unimpressed look. "Did you even try?"

Taichi got as far as shrugging when another voice rang out.

"Oh, Kenjirou-kun, what are you whispering about?" Tendou draped himself over Kenjirou with a teasing grin, turning the shorter boy positively red from the weight of his body and their proximity.

"Nothing of your concern, senpai," Kenjirou muttered, looking away.

"Aw, don't be like that. I have endless amounts of care and love for my kouhai."

"Is that so?"

Their exchange held the attention of the entire gym, bantering and flirting blatantly just like they had been for the past three months. Sure, it acted sort of like entertainment during breaks, but it should have led to somewhere by now. Taichi should do something about it. But getting Kenjirou and Tendou together would either be as simple as the English test he had yesterday (it was his best subject) or as laboring as the serving practice Coach made them do.

He wasn't at all tempted to find out which of those would prove to be true.