One-Punch Man, Saitama/Genos Challenge: COW-T #10 - week 6, mission 2
Prompt: Pisan Zapran
1147 parole
Damn.
How long could it take to eat a banana? Genos wonders, hoping he doesn’t fog the whole kitchen with his steam.
Saitama leans against the counter, munching at the fruit in a not very hinting way, but Genos is so gone, it doesn’t matter how crude and impolite are his sensei’s table manners.
It doesn’t matter his speaking with his mouth full or the munching. It doesn’t because there’s just that moment, that fraction of a second when his sensei puts the banana in his mouth - just before his teeth snap close - when his lips are tight around the pale pulp, his cheeks excavated… Genos has a damn recording device in his head, he can still this scene forever.
Then Saitama is swallowing the fruit, his Adam’s apple bobbing and Genos just knows he should look anywhere else - he knows he’s staring, but damn.
How long could it take to eat a banana?
Too long, and yet Genos doesn’t want to miss a single instant of the process.
“Uh, Genos?” Saitama his about to bite another piece of banana, when instead he takes it off his mouth, a trickle of saliva stretching in the small space, and calls him, and Genos almost short-circuits on the spot. He’s totally gonna save this picture for later.
“Yes, sensei!
“I think you are burning the udon.”
“Oh!”
Genos focus on the sizzle of dried vegetables in the pot, cursing mentally as he adds some water to salvage their dinner. That was close.
* * *
Genos writes down and records everything.
Everything.
To the point, he’s almost OCD about it.
If you were to ask him “how many monsters, creatures, and villains did sensei fought since you live with him?”
He would reply:
“3’226.
His fights have an average length of 2 minutes, 24 seconds and 37 milliseconds.
His shortest battle has lasted 18 seconds and 23 milliseconds.
His longest battle has lasted 35 minutes, 54 seconds and 2 milliseconds. Or do I need to not consider the time it took to sensei to come back from the moon in the fight? Because in that case, it’s still the longest battle, but with 23 minutes, 32 seconds and 12 milliseconds.”
See? Genos eats statistics for breakfast.
So it’s not unusual for him to register an increase in sensei’s supplying of bananas.
“They were in sales!” He had said and surely, no one wanted those extremely conveniently priced fruits to rot, but still, Sensei now is almost continuously eating one.
Genos thinks this is personal Purgatory.
It’s just that those damn fruits seem to replicate by mitosis. Or like hydra’s heads.
Sensei eats one and the next day, two more lies on the counter.
Life is not fair.
“Sensei?”
“Uh?”
“I was wondering…. Is it really necessary to buy all these bananas?”
“Bananas are good,” Saitama looks up from the tv and meets his eye, deadpan. “One of the supermarket in city S has them on sale for the whole month.”
“Oh.”
“Why? Don’t you like them?”
“No. No, I like them.”
“Then have one.”
Genos doesn’t really need to eat, but he still has a digestive system.
So maybe, maybe, if he starts eating away those bloody bananas they will run out of them and his sensei will just… stop.
Saitama doesn’t know just how much is gonna regret that idea.
* * *
(For how casual and uncaring Saitama is in his eating, Genos is the opposite.
Genos eats his banana as if it is a holy duty, a ritual to perform, paying attention to the smallest details.
Saitama thinks he’s probably mentally cataloguing every single molecule of the fruit, but still, that should not be considered legal.
How long could it take to eat a banana? Saitama wonders, hiding his face in his manga.
Nope, definitely, he won’t buy any more bananas.)
* * *
“Genos?”
“Mhm,” Genos nods as he’s eating, licking the side of the banana, sampling the texture before putting it in his mouth.
He registers a peak in sensei’s heart rate, something unusual for him, but that’s happening quite frequently lately. Maybe sensei’s getting hill?
It never happened in the months they’ve lived together, but perhaps he’s not completely immune from flu?
Genos takes a tentative bite, not cutting through with his teeth, before pushing a bigger chunk in his mouth.
Another increase in sensei’s heart rate.
What?
Genos swallows and licks his lips.
Sensei’s has just one drop of sweat on his forehead.
There’s absolutely no way his Sensei could feel the same things Genos feels, - no way - but reactions…
“Sensei?”
“Aren’t you quite done with that banana?” Saitama lets out, and makes a face - why would I even ask something like this?
Genos puts the fruit down on the table and tilts his head.
“Would Sensei want me to eat another banana?”
Is it the steam from Genos vents or the room has got suddenly warmer?
“Genos!”
“Yes, Sensei?”
“Nothing,” Saitama just shakes his head, “I just don’t think you phrased it the right way.”
“What way should I have phrased it, Sensei?”
“Uhm… never mind.”
Sensei is blushing and Genos feels the roar of his fans increasing.
This couldn’t mean he wants the same as Genos, does it?
“You were the first to eat these things, sensei.”
“Yes, well, I don’t eat it the way you do,” Saitama mutters, but Genos can hear him nonetheless.
“So you say. Sensei has chosen a very… hinting fruit to dedicate his shop to.”
Saitama almost chokes on his saliva. “I -” I did no such thing!
But he did.
Genos arches an eyebrow and yes, maybe, he should have bought apples instead.
“Yeah, I did” Saitama scratches his nape.
“I’ve -” Genos trails. This is the moment to make a decision and hope he has interpreted correctly Saitama’s episodes of tachycardia “I’ve noticed.”
“You… noticed?” Saitama looks bewildered. He noticed bananas were hinting? How? What?
“You noticed too,” Genos adds, feigning conviction.
Saitama opens his mouth and closes it, not sure what he should say. Then nods.
“Does it mean sensei wants me to eat his banana?”
“Genos!” He almost shrieks, so much for behind the one who doesn’t care about politeness and appropriateness, “You can’t say things like this!”
“That doesn’t sound like a ‘no’ to me.”
Saitama just looks vacuously at him, his brain cells trying to reconnect, synapsis buzzing in vain.
Genos picks up the forgotten banana and takes up his eating.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, that’s it!” Saitama snaps, “I’m just gonna throw away every banana in this house!”
Genos smiles, innocently. “Wouldn’t that leave only one to eat?”
And yes, the cyborg is succeeding where countless of mysterious being had failed: at this rate he’s gonna kill Saitama for good.
(He doesn’t actually kill him.
He gets to eat his banana, though.)
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