Just outside 7-Eleven, Hiruma stops to grab a bottle of Pocari Sweat. A girl his age is working the vending machine, bopping her head to the lousy song from her pink iPod. The second her bottle pops out, Hiruma snatches it from the compartment.

"Just what I need!" he smirks.

Jolted, the girl twists around to face Hiruma. She takes one careful look at him, then takes one careful step back, mumbling words like "...please don't kill me..." and then makes a break for it.

"Like pushing girls around, trash?"

Because there actually are times when Hiruma anticipates just a fraction slower, times when he can barely sense an approach from behind, mostly, all he can do in the moment that follows is watch a rough, deft hand snatch the Pocari Sweat from him.

"Fucking dreads."

It's only when Hiruma bothers to turn around that Agon screws open the plastic bottle, downs it all in one gulp, exhales an obnoxious sigh of satisfaction, and then tosses the bottle over his shoulder, staring Hiruma down the whole while. His burning, unshakable gaze lingers particularly long on Hiruma's bandaged right arm (although, looking closer, Hiruma can make out a thin sense of resentment there, somehow; probably Agon thinks he should've been the one to snap this bone).

"You look like shit," Agon says, mouth twisted in a wry smile.

"Heh." Hiruma dissolves into tickled laughter. "You still fucking sore about it, aren't ya."

"Sore about what?"

"Gimme a sec," and promptly Hiruma fishes out his cellphone. He slides his thumb across a few buttons before shoving the phone screen in Agon's face, and this way Agon doesn't fail to see a snapshot of the glaring scoreboard. "Shinryuuji Naga, thirty-five. Deimon Devilbats, thirty-six. This!"

And that's all it takes for Agon's eyes to go wild. His right hand curls into a twitching fist, but Hiruma, quick enough to see a rush of fury coming, tucks his phone right back in his pocket.

"Listen here, trash," Agon begins, stepping forward so he can growl right in Hiruma's grin and dig his knuckles into Hiruma's right arm -- but just as he looks about to break into furious speech, he stops, abruptly. Then, "You just winced," he points out.

Hiruma puts on a sudden poker face and resumes chewing his gum. "From this puny grip? Nah," he snorts, shrugging off Agon's hold. But the effort sends a million bolts of pain through his arm, and he cusses to himself, figuring he's more than just wincing at this point.

And this seems to be the case, the way Agon's smirking at him. "So the arm's even more busted than I thought," he sniffs. "What a total dud. Hey, trash, you see what I see up there in the sky? That's your shitty dream to play in the Christmas Bowl, flying the hell outta here. Bai-bai."

"Um, that's some pretty crappy metaphor -- and geezuz, dumbass, you're talking like Christmas Bowl's fucking today. I still got three fucking weeks!"

"You're pretty stupid to think you can heal in three..." At a thought that just occurs to him, apparently, Agon scowls. "Damn oxygen capsules."

And Hiruma's back to being amused, cackling. "Yep. It's the fucking capsule for me 'til Christmas Day. Besides that, we're kicking off the one-on-ones tomorrow. You all know you're fucking bound to the contract, right? If this doesn't turn out to be a fucking riot I don't know what --"

Hiruma stops short at the instantaneous shift in Agon's expression, from scowling one moment to grinning the next. Agon fixes him with a roguish kind of stare, and in return Hiruma holds Agon's relentless gaze, reading and reading into it until he can practically hear every plotting thought inside that dreadlocked head. In the same way Agon can catch the slightest twist of the face that Hiruma makes, Hiruma finds it nearly impossible not to guess what Agon's up to, for all the long two years they've kept their distance from each other.

A harsh, clanking sound from the vending machine cuts the moment short. Some middle school boy has just grabbed himself a Pocari Sweat. The instant the boy makes to leave, Agon snatches the bottle from him and shoves it in Hiruma's chest. Hiruma takes the bottle from Agon, and the boy makes a run for it, mumbling words like "...I'm gonna die..."

"Later, trash," Agon smirks, picking the gym bag up by his feet and toting it over a shoulder. Without another glance, he then saunters his way past Hiruma.

Before Agon can get too far, Hiruma tosses a little glance over his shoulder and says, "You know, fucking dreads -- if you're planning to join Teikoku, you're six months too late."

"... Oh SHUT the shit UP."

And Hiruma walks away just before Agon can see his madly grinning face. He takes a large gulp of his Pocari Sweat, unable to remember the last time this crappy drink has tasted so fucking sweet.

END

For the record, I don't know what Pocari Sweat tastes like. ^_^;