“...S'not a beard .”
“Could've fooled me, Takaya!”
“'S a-- 'S for the ice -- shhhuddup,” Abe slurs, swatting at their air several feet to the side of Tajima's face. Tajima is pretending to be very serious about the conversation, but he is doing a terrible job and his lips are constantly quirking up as he attempts to keep a lid on a shit-eating grin, but it doesn't even matter because Abe Takaya cannot tell.
Abe Takaya is currently on a lot of medication.
He has a white bandage looped under his chin, strapping a small ice pack to his jaw where, until recently, he had a few extra teeth.
Potential risk , they said. Could lead to an infection , they'd insisted.
Hacks, all of them.
Abe Takaya would very much like to fight them, because his brain feels like cherry flavored molasses, his mouth has a dull ache underneath the fuzz and cotton, and Tajima's stupid freckly face is somewhere to his side, and he can hear him outright laughing now, all attempts at feigning seriousness gone, weightless steam dissolving into air.
“Mm, f'ck off,” Abe slurs, turning away from Tajima, and then turning right back to face the ceiling again when he makes the grave error of resting his cheek against the pillow right where his tooth used to be and, ow.
Ow ow ow.
His doctors are stupid worthless masochists and he is firing them. He will find a new dentist! These ones delight in his pain and he will not tolerate it, it's officially over between them.
“Um, Yuu-- maybe you should, uhhh, let him. Rest.”
Tajima groans loudly over the second half of Mihashi's sentence, but he doesn't respond until after Mihashi finishes. Abe is glad; if he'd cut Mihashi off, Abe was going to be very upset. But Tajima knows better, so he can continue breathing. For now.
“Ren, c'mon! This is like, a one-time opportunity. We have to take advantage ,” he wheedles, grabbing Mihasi's arm, swaying back and forth, pulling Mihashi with him. Abe frowns. There is something about that sentence that disturbs him, but he has already forgotten what it might've been because Mihashi's cheeks are pink and it's taking up all the available space in his brain.
“Yuu, that's-- m-mean!”
“You are not above it so don't even try to convince me, dude.”
Then Tajima's attention is fully on Mihashi and they're wrestling, a constant stream of complete nonsense pouring out of Tajima's mouth as he tries to get Mihashi to admit something, Abe doesn't really care to follow the conversation, and Mihashi is shoving him away but he's also laughing, a lot, and smiling, and it would be really nice except it's not directed at Abe like it usually is, like it's supposed to be. This is incorrect.
The smile is startled off of Mihashi's face as his attention turns abruptly to Abe, who belatedly realizes that his hand is on Mihashi's wrist. How did that get there? He doesn't remember reaching out. But it's there now, and he has decided he wants it there, and he doesn't really feel entirely inclined to move it.
“T....Taka?” Mihashi scoots a little closer, head tilted in a question.
Abe frowns.
Mihashi was laughing, and now he's not. He likes when Mihashi is laughing, but he didn't for some reason just now, and he made it stop, but he wants it back. Except Mihashi is looking at him with concern, which is the opposite of what he wanted, and how did he mess up so badly?
He doesn't know how to make the laughing happen again.
“Make your face,” is what Abe ends up saying, waving his hand vaguely in an attempt to fill in the rest of the words that he thinks he might not be saying. “Go back,” he adds helpfully.
Mihashi's expression falls, slightly. “D-do you want me-- to leave?”
Panic.
Absolutely not , Abe thinks.
“Abso-not!” Is what he says.
Abe frowns, going back over the sounds he think he heard come out of his mouth, and trying to find where they deviated from what was in his head, but he can't seem to find where they don't match up. He feels as though he has two toy planes in either hand, and is repeatedly smashing them into each other, despite that not being their intended purpose at all.
Was he trying to say something?
He curls a fist into Mihashi's shirt, instead, pulling him closer.
“Don't sit,” he mumbles, not realizing that he hasn't said Don't go, sit , like he'd meant to. But his eyes are heavy, and his hand is still clenched tightly in Mihasi's shirt, and Tajima is giggling maniacally from somewhere behind Mihashi still, and Abe is too tired to pay much attention anymore.
“Obviously he wants you to stay, doofus, look at him.” Tajima's words seem far away, and Abe is no longer listening.
Because Mihashi hasn't left yet, and that's all he cares about.