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Koga was a coffee person, the kind that take their coffee hot and black and seem to find enjoyment in a strong brew, expression unflinching before a bitterness that they found sacrilegious to hide behind sugar. He was a coffee person, but during their first year he still indulged Teshima’s multiple attempts at, as he’d call it, introducing him to the amazing world of tea.
It starts with a “want to come over to study?” and a “want something to drink?”, only to discover that the other didn't actually have anything to offer but coffee and some boxed juice.
“Not even a teapot, Kimitaka?”, he had asked in astonishment. The other simply shrugged, expression perhaps slightly sheepish but mostly unbothered. The poor guy wasn’t even aware of what he was missing out, he thought, almost pitying him. He had shook his head like it was sad and Koga had barely suppressed a huff of laughter, finding the dramatist was amusing.
He pours water in the teapot, the stove behind already burning with a low fire. The first time he made tea for Koga he went as far as to use spring bottled water — An ace under his sleeve that’d boost the quality of the brew, if nothing else. Koga hadn’t known, of course, though he did take note of the teapot already full and waiting for them upon arrival.
Observant as always, picking on the details. When Teshima thinks of the way he listened to his explanations that day though —abundant words about water temperature and sitting times, how they all changed for each type of tea, how they all affected aroma and flavour—, he’s still under the impression that he was being particularly careful in the way he gave him his attention.
Sometimes he almost thinks that he should’ve found that intimidating, his focus trained on him like that — Almost. But Koga was gentler back then, and Teshima’s always been too stubborn to feel intimidation. He thinks they were similar in that way, sometimes.
(Koga’s eyes started to pass through him sometime during their second year. It wasn’t new, they’d often skim over him during practice —that stung, not that an elite would care—, but the way they started avoiding him inside the clubroom, outside of it? Their absence somehow weighted on him more than their presence ever did.
Sometimes he'd look at his name on his phone, think of all the times after the interhigh he pretended he hadn't seen it, and pretend that they were similar in that way too, even when he knew which of the two was crueler.)
They had tried black tea first, an intuitive choice. As he catches a whiff of the leaves when he opens their container, he has to laugh at that — He had let the water boil back then, out of habit, to bring out the tea’s baked sweetness. Of course the guy wasn’t impressed by that, the different blends doing virtually nothing to win his favor.
Green tea and white tea followed, a different one each time. Fruit teas occasionally, when Aoyagi was present since those were the ones he liked; Even pineapple as a prank once. Koga had scrunched his nose, rolled his eyes when Teshima snickered. He still drank all of it. He always did, though they did skip the exchange of words they usually crossed afterwards (“Did you like it?”, “It was fine”).
The last time Teshima went to Koga’s house as a first year (the last time for many months, too), he surprised him with a teapot and a few varieties — All types Teshima liked, of course.
“Coffee is just more practical”, he had said then, Teshima remembering whenever he went through the ritual and thought of Koga — How he’d just set the coffee maker, go do something else, then come back for a cup when it was done. How he often multitasked as he downed the drink, and hey, maybe that was the secret to standing the bitterness. “But since you come here often I thought I might as well.”
He said that, but still stood by his side and watched as he prepared himself a cup, idle conversation almost hiding the way he followed step by step like he was looking for something else to learn.
Teshima thinks of Koga’s last words to him (“I thought you of all people would understand!”) as he strains the leafs and, not for the first time, feels like he’s close —so close—, but,
doesn’t.
Thinks of how memories are not like tea leafs, how no matter how much he runs them over in his head, carefully passing them through the filter of what he’s supposed to understand, there’s bits of information, unsaid words and answers lost in translation that he just can’t seem to catch.
(Sometime in the future he’ll talk to Koga again, and he’ll say something to him — He’ll remember those words, how they looked so big and so simple against the starry sky over them, his inflection as he confessed: “I don’t regret what happened that day”. How everything that had passed until then felt so small, how for a moment that shared feeling was the only thing that mattered. How he finally understood what the other had meant, how it was almost comical the way he had missed it for so long.
It’s the things that you don’t do the ones you end up regretting the most.)