𝚂𝚞𝚐𝚊𝚛 | 𝚔. 𝚜𝚞𝚐𝚊𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚊

- Minecraft -

I lick my lips and nod, swallowing the sensation of salt and seaside.

-

We fill the next thirty minutes with idle conversation, slowing making our way to the inevitable. The cleanup process takes another thirty as we chuckle over small bubbles and dread the surprise of wet food sliding against unsuspecting fingers. We pack up the leftovers and sort them into the fridge, plans of handing over the cuisine to the rambunctious first years of the volleyball team already forming in our minds.

Sugawara had a practice game tonight against Nekoma, once a rival school to Karasuno. Lately, the volleyball team had been making connections with others to rebuild their reputation, leaving Suga busy as ever.

A sigh escapes my mouth as I throw myself down onto my bed, not bothering to fight away the discontentment plaguing my consciousness. Sugawara follows more carefully. I feel the bed shift and creak as he sits down at the edge. I open my eye a crack, surveying his status in comparison to my drained state.

He watches me, amusement swimming in his hazel gaze. His black sweater, while ordinary, was something I'd bought for him for Christmas. It was his favorite, second only to the lavender sweatshirt I'd stolen, well, borrowed from him this morning. The tension in my mind crumbles as I recall how I can't stay frustrated with him for long. My selfish discontentment never lasted. Volleyball was his passion and rather than being frustrated, it was my obligation to support him. I stir, sitting up, and squint at him teasingly. It's a reflection of his gaze. Soothing relief fills my chest as he grins at my antics. He pats the bed beside him as his smile softens into something more serious.

I scoot over to lean against his shoulder. He stares at the wall now, his gaze warm yet unreadable. "Can I ask you something?" Sugawara questions, carefully, his gaze unwavering.

"Of course, anything, what do you need?" I slide my hand into his, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"I-I...uh..." His face flushes with emotion as his gaze moves to train on carpets below. He wasn't usually this shy. I find myself listening in rapt attention, unsure of the direction he's traveling. He sucks in a sharp breath. "Do you want to try something new?"

I blink. "You've gotta be more specific than that."

He mutters something under his breath. My mind flushes with confusion as I ponder if I should push for results. "I bought a new game."

"Oh." I breathe, confusion falling away like tumbling waters. "What about it?"

"I don't understand how to play it, even when everyone treats it as if it's the easiest thing in existence." Sugawara tenses, flush with embarrassment. "Could you help me?"

"I mean-" I was decent at videogames; how hard could it be? "-yeah, I can give it a shot."

The tension in Suga's expression breaks as my reply registers. "Oh, phew, I thought-"

"What game is it?" I cut him off.

I notice the clockworks of his mind spin as he hesitates. It's not often I cut off his train of thought. "Guess you'll have to wait and see."

He stands from the bed, releasing my hand from his grasp. The feeling is akin to stepping outside on a frozen winter morning. I shiver.

Sugawara leaves, presumably to fetch his switch from his room. The flushed atmosphere of the room dispels as silence blankets my mind. I sigh, falling back onto comfortable bedsheets. I let my fingers travel the expanse of the fabric, letting my thoughts fly like strands of web in the breeze. The sheets are smooth as silk underneath my roving grasp.

As soon as I feel at ease, Suga reenters my room, switch in hand. I pretend not to notice his huff of frustration as he lays down beside me. "This game is impossible," he complains, poking my arm to snag my attention, "c'mon, look."

I glance over to see a world of sandy blocks curling along the edge of a pixelated ocean. "Minecraft?"

"Yeah," he affirms, "how do I find the dragon stage?"

I chuckle under my breath as I notice how his hotbar lacks a classic survival requirement: the heart and food bar. "First off, you're in creative." He flushes with embarrassment. "Secondly, there's a lot more to Minecraft than the ender dragon."

"How do I switch to survival?" Sugawara was like a grandparent when it came to technology, leaving him in awe over my explanations and capabilities in the digital world.

I demonstrated how to switch over and patiently taught him the basics of the game. While he still swung awkwardly at the trees and jumped every time a zombie popped up in his peripherals, he wasn't half bad for someone who didn't know how to swap his gamemode thirty minutes previous.

"Oh, so I need iron to mine this...this...uh..." He tilts his head up to face me from his place on my lap.

"It's diamond, don't play dumb." I run my fingers through his hair, the silver strands softer than velvet. He chuckles and looks back down at the game, snug in his resting place between my thighs. While his weight is bearable, I've lost some feeling in my legs.

He spends some more time mining blocks, shooting random questions about materials and how to build certain helpful objects. Time flies. The caves only grow deeper, full to the brim with monsters, iron, and lava pools.

"Hey, what block is that?" Suga's cursor hovers over a grainy block above him in the caverns.

I smirk to myself. "Mine it and find out."

Sugawara, innocently trusting in my words, mines the block. It falls, bringing a wave of other grains down upon him. He gasps, frantically digging upwards. "Y-You traitor!"

"Gravel is among a group of blocks that can be affected by gravity," I start, my singsong tone gently teasing, "it sometimes drops flint." At my tone, he starts losing hearts as the poor pixelated character is slowly buried alive.

Suga's movements grow frantic as the hearts tick downward. I watch in silence, not breaking his crucial concentration. Three hearts. Two and a half hearts. Two hearts. He's going to die.

Sugawara breaks through the top layer at long last, barely passing by with one heart to spare. He falls silent, astonished by his ability to escape. However, walls of gravel stand high above, blocking his exit.

"Do you have torches?" I query softly, scanning his hotbar for coal and planks.

"Hm?" He blinks, stupor broken. "Oh, uh, I think so." Suga opens his inventory, sorting through the messy heap of items stuffed within.

I notice a stack of torches. "To the right." I remark, pointing them out with a gentle finger.

"I only have sixteen," He murmurs, mostly to himself, "will that be enough?"