#ogashiro

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“He acts spoiled? With you?”

“Yeah,” Ogasawara said, unthinking. Like an acknowledgement, Tashiro hummed beside him. Breezily, he continued, “He’s so annoying. Wailing on me like that, causing all that trouble for your club…”

Tashiro pointed out, “I won the candy back, though.”

“Doesn’t erase all the times I lost,” Ogasawara griped, and then he stopped to think, because it kind of did.

The sheer nerve and talent it took, to go up against Hanzawa Masato when he was like that, and win—it wasn’t nothing. Tashiro Gonzaburou, Ogasawara reflected, was really a special kind of guy.

He wasn’t really sure why he was here, but maybe this was part of the reason. He’d hung around with Masaomi and Masato—who he’s just learned were related, which made a hell of a lot of sense when you stopped to think about anything, like their names or the way they liked to tease people—during the festival, and once they’d split up Ogasawara had been about to head home and… then he’d doubled back. Tashiro, two-tone hair recognizable even from afar, was out on the field, snapping pictures. He’d been separated from the lanky, light-haired kid Ogasawara had spotted earlier, but he didn’t seem all too bothered.

He didn’t seem surprised to see Ogasawara, either. Instead he’d greeted him like they’d just passed each other in the hallway, like he was still every bit the senpai he wasn’t, and from there it was just natural to start a conversation.

When he’d asked about his friend, Tashiro explained, “He got roped into helping someone else.” Privately, Ogasawara had thought that the kid seemed like the type to get easily conned.

Tashiro didn’t ask about where Ogasawara’s friends had gone. Maybe he didn’t need to. He’d just asked, “You guys had fun?”

Ogasawara had said, “Yeah, tons.” He’d grinned at Tashiro. “Especially once you pulled that guy away from the ping pong tables.”

Tashiro had smiled. “He really doesn’t like to go easy on people, does he?”

“Seriously,” Ogasawara had agreed, “he doesn’t hold back. That guy always loves to act spoiled, he’s such a pain…”

And Tashiro had paused, then. It took a bit for Ogasawara to notice. But now that he had, he couldn’t look away from it, because Tashiro, who’d been moving with an unpretentious ease the whole day, was saying, “Ha, that’s true…” even though he couldn’t wipe the longing from his face.

Ogasawara swallowed back whatever he’d meant to say. But even after thinking through it a second time, he wasn't sure what to do. “Probably he doesn’t whine as much to you because he wants to maintain his image,” he said, which was probably a ruthless betrayal of that image. “It’s a little stupid.” Only a little, because Ogasawara was just now realizing how easy it was to want to make your kouhai happy.

Tashiro shook his head. Ogasawara wondered if maybe he thought it was a lot stupid, but then Tashiro said, “Hanzawa-senpai’s kind of an idiot, sometimes.”