#taiban

He doesn’t turn the lights on - Sakyo has a sixth sense for that, he swears it - and takes care to be as quiet as possible when turning open the tap and filling the glass. The sound echoes, far too loud due to the absence of other noise, and it makes Taichi cringe. He downs the liquid in a matter of seconds and, as he goes to place the cup on the counter, the lights turn on.

Taichi blinks, eyes trying to adjust to the brightness. There’s a loud groan coming from the lounge room and he instinctively shivers in fear. What could it be? A ghost? A zombie? It’s got to be some kind of monster, it’s far too late and unnatural for it to be anyone who actually belongs here. But… whatever it is, they’d turned the light on, so that means it can't be a monster, right? Right?

Gulping down his fear, Taichi inches towards the doorway, ready to dash down the hallway and escape. The voice groans again, slightly louder this time. It sounds like whatever - whoever? - is making it is in pain… But that’s the perfect setup for a horror movie, right? It’s best to just walk away - 

“Hurts like a…” Oh, those are actual words - it must be a person, then. And the voice is familiar too...? Slowly, Taichi pokes his head around the corner like he had thought he shouldn’t do and catches a glimpse of the mystery person.

It’s Banri, actually, wearing his usual leopard print jacket instead of sleepwear. He’s sitting with his head in his hands, which is also kind of weird. Taichi wants to ask him what’s up but, for one, he’s still a little afraid, and two, Banri probably doesn’t know Taichi's looking at him, and if he scares Banri they'll wake up half the dorm (it won't wake up Hisoka, at least). Half of him wants to just sneak away and ask Banri about it in the morning - 2am is still the night, right? - but then Banri lifts his head, swiping at his nose and their eyes meet.

“Taichi?” he says and Taichi freezes. “What’re you doing?”

“Uh, well, I was, you know, uh…” He fumbles over his words, not having expected he’d get caught. Just as he settles on a reason, though, his eyes catch the sight of red. The hand Banri had used to wipe his nose is covered with it. Blood. “Are you okay, Banny?”

“Hah?” Banri replies. Taichi points, hand a little shaky, and Banri looks down at the blood on his hand. “Yeah, ‘m fine. Just a scratch,” he says.

Taichi frowns and inches closer, his earlier fear practically forgotten. The more their distance decreases, the easier it is to see - the deep gash on Banri’s cheek, the trickle of blood leaking from his nose, the bruises on his knuckles and the various tears in his jeans. “You’re hurt, Banny!”

Banri scoffs. “‘s nothing. The guys who did it to me have it worse,” he says as if that makes it any better. Taichi grabs hold of his wrist, silently apologizing for the way Banri winces and tries to tug him upwards.

“You’re hurt! We have to treat it!”

“It’s not a big-”

“It is too a big deal!” Taichi interrupts, his whispers growing louder and louder as his concern grows. Mercifully, Banri lets Taichi drag him to the washroom, although he grumbles under his breath most of the way. Banri sits on the toilet seat, carefully examining his hands as Taichi searches the cupboards for the first aid kit. It doesn’t take long to find, thankfully, and Taichi turns his attention back to Banri just as quickly.

“Broke a nail,” Banri observes out loud, staring at his hands with mild concern. Taichi holds back a laugh - injured like this and all he cares about are his hands? If you're cool, life must be something like that - and approaches him, safety kit in hand. “Ah, I can do it,” Banri says, raising his other hand up to take it.

“Nope!” Taichi replies, holding it just out of Banri’s grasp. “It’s harder to work on yourself,” he says with an air of authority.

Banri raises his eyebrow. “And you know that because…?”

“I used to get injured all the time when I was little,” Taichi confesses, placing the kit on the counter and taking out all the necessary materials. “Plus, if you know how to treat yourself, it’s pretty cool, right?”

“Sure is,” Banri laughs and Taichi takes it as a good sign. The two of them chatter a bit longer while Taichi treats all of Banri’s wounds. His nose comes first, cleaning the residual blood there and making sure it won’t start bleeding again. Then, bandaging Banri’s hands and after that the smaller scratches all over his body. There’s a lot of them, but Taichi makes sure to check each and every one of them, putting bandaids over all of them.

“Dokemon patterned?” 

“Omi bought them.”

“How’d you know that?”

“They were for me, obviously!”

Banri laughs again, short and sweet. Taichi only lets the sound distract him for a second, glancing up at Banri’s face. Their eyes meet and Taichi looks away. His face feels hotter than usual, but that doesn’t mean anything right?

Finally, once everything else has been dealt with, Taichi moves to the gash on Banri’s cheek. It’s pretty deep, having been dripping blood throughout this entire process. He hesitates for a moment - this one will hurt, won't it? - but dabs at it with a cotton pad covered in antiseptic, taking care to be as gentle as possible. Banri hisses in pain and reaches up, catching Taichi’s wrist in his grip.

“That hurts!” he exclaims, face contorted in pain.

“Not my fault!” Taichi pouts. He wants to say more but - Banri’s face is rather close, isn’t it? Taichi keeps his mouth shut instead and looks away. Banri opens his mouth in question, but it seems he realizes something and closes it just as quickly. He lets go of Taichi’s hand, dropping his arm back down to his side. It's silent for a bit longer than Taichi would like it to be, but before he can say anything, Banri beats him to it. 

“Gonna finish or not?” he asks.

“Y-Yep!” Taichi replies and he hopes that Banri didn’t hear him stuttering. Practically impossible, he knows, due to their proximity, but one can hope, right? Banri smirks and Taichi knows he’s been noticed.

Regardless of that, Taichi does his best to focus on fixing up Banri’s face. It’s not as if it’s lots of work, rather, the issue is that his eyes keep straying towards Banri’s and, every time they do, Banri’s looking right at him and he has to look away. It makes his hands shakier than usual, so it takes a bit longer and that makes it even worse because now there's even more time for his eyes to wander... He wants to screech, but, again, it’s the middle of the night and it’d also be very uncool of him to do so right in front of Banri.

“Thanks,” Banri says as Taichi pulls away after what felt like forever, starting to clean up the mess he’s left on the counter. Banri stretches with a yawn, wincing only a little from the pain. He checks himself out in the mirror, “Better job than I’d have done.”

“Of course! Don’t underestimate my skills!” Taichi retorts, playfully sticking out his tongue as he turns back to Banri, finally finished putting things away.

Banri rolls his eyes. “Well, ‘m off to bed now. Gotta make sure I don’t wake Hyodo…” he trails off. “Actually, why are you awake?”

Taichi despairs inwardly. They'd been doing so well avoiding that topic too! Well, there's still the excuse he'd prepared earlier, so... “W-well, I couldn’t sleep, so I went to get some water and then-”

“And then I came in, gotcha.” Banri nods in understanding. Taichi's inner despair is replaced by a sigh of relief, grateful that Banri had cut him off before he'd made a fool of himself. His coolness is saved! ...or something like that. “Think you’ll be able to sleep now?”

Taichi scratches the back of his neck, slightly embarrassed. “Well, I dunno. I’m kinda really awake now, you know?”

“My bad, sorry. Well, I owe you one, huh?” Taichi watches as Banri brushes past him, pausing at the door frame. “Sleep well, ‘kay?” He smiles before disappearing around the corner.

Taichi blinks at the empty space. Is Banri cool or what? With just a few words and a smile, Taichi’s some-what erratic heart is already beating faster than it was before and he can swear his cheeks are getting hotter too! If he’s not careful, Taichi might start crushing on him - oh. Oh. Suddenly it all makes a little more sense - why he’d been so worried and nervous and distracted. He groans, burying his head in his hands.  With this kind of revelation on the brain, there's no way he would be getting to sleep anytime soon.

(“So,” Sakyo says in the morning. “Who was it that left the light on all night?”

Inwardly, Taichi shrieks, but outwardly he does his best to keep his expression passive. His attempt probably isn’t very good, given that he’d barely slept the night before, but he does his best to hide his guilt as he attempts to turn away without arousing suspicion. In his rush to help Banri, he’d forgotten all about it! Oh no oh no oh no, if Sakyo finds out, Taichi’s as good as dead and then-

“Oh, that’s me,” Banri states and Taichi looks at him, confused. 

“You, Settsu?” Sakyo frowns, unamused, and all the other troupe members in the room casually find themselves very busy with something else, not wanting to watch Sakyo release his wrath.

“Yeah,” Banri replies, purposely drawing out the word to get on the older man’s nerves. “Was up late ‘n forgot.”

Sakyo frowns, a blood vessel practically visible. “You’d better take care not to forget again, or the consequences will make sure you remember.”

“Sure sure, whatever you say, boss,” Banri replies with a noncommittal wave of his hand. He turns to catch Taichi’s eye and winks at him.

Taichi blinks back at him. Is Banri cool or what? Taichi’s heart flutters, helpless to the easy charm Banri displays. Taichi averts his eyes, but the smile on his face isn’t missed by Banri, who watches as his face turns red and his lips mouth out a small ‘thank you’.