A Heart Too Bold (2/2) - Sugawara Kōshi x Reader
Pairing: Sugawara Kōshi x Reader (can be read as any gender, no pronouns used) Era: post!timeskip Genre: Fluff / hurt-comfort Word Count: 7 021 Warnings: no use of (y/n), mentions of food, mentions of sex (nothing explicit) Summary: After a week of avoiding you, Suga bumps into you at the town’s festival
Haiykuu!! Masterlist | Blog Masterlist
Part One
You don’t talk to Sugawara on Monday. You also don’t talk to him on Tuesday. Not, because you are avoiding him, no. As a matter of fact, you’re trying everything you can to ‘accidentally’ bump into him. But he isn’t in the teacher lounge during his typical hours, and he isn’t even staying late in his classroom, where you were used to seeing him whenever you passed by his room to fetch another cup of hot tea before returning to your desk and work on more material for the upcomming classes.
On Wednesday during lunch break, you place the borrowed clothes on the desk in his classroom, attaching a small note, again thanking him for his help and wishing him good luck with the training match his student team is playing that afternoon. On Thursday, you have playground watch together, but instead of waltzing up to you, as he usually does, to ask about how you’ve been and what you’ve been up to, he seems busy explaining something to a few third graders. It looks like they’re members of the volleyball team, and he’s trying to show them some technique. It would be cute if he wouldn’t use it as an excuse to avoid you, you think.
On Friday, you wake up with a hole in your stomach that is bigger and deeper and more dangerous than it was over the past days. As you roll to your side to turn off the alarm clock, you can’t help but think that it’s been a whole week, since the incident where Sugawara had invited you for dinner at his place, and you cannot stop thinking about how different your life might already be, if for just once in your life, you hadn’t tried being considerate of someone else, if you had just allowed yourself to give into the temptation and accept Sugawara’s offer to sleep over. And it’s not like he’s the only thing on your mind, that makes the morning, the whole day really, but especially the morning, unbearably heavy. There is still the review of your teaching demonstration, and you were told you’d receive it today.
The thought alone makes you so sick, that you can barely stomach any breakfast, so you roll the left-over rice into an onigiri and wrap a sheet of nori seaweed around it before packing it into a bento box and into your bag as lunch. The only thing making the morning a little better is the good weather. After the rain of the last week, the sun had finally decided to break free from behind heavy clouds, and you decide on taking the bike instead of the car. A voice, deep down in your head, asks if you might not want to take the car, in case last week’s events repeat themselves, but you doubt Sugawara would get into your car this week, even if you were to find him walking home again.
As soon as you arrive on the school grounds, you get told to come to the director’s office during first break, which definitely doesn’t help your nerves at all. Your hands are shaking throughout the whole first period, your breathing shallow your feet quite literally cold. The children, fortunately enough, don’t seem to pick up on your nerves, and only do a good job at distracting you, by asking about the river festival that would take place tomorrow afternoon. The river festival was something you had been looking forward to for ages, not only because it was the first performance with your Yosakoi dance team after a long time of having been too busy to train properly. Not the school dance team, but a team of adults, who all came together several times a week to practice Yosakoi and perform it at events like the river festival. Of course, dancing this specific dance in your spare time was a great basis of also helping out at the school club, and many parents of children you were teaching had promised you, they would come to see you dance tomorrow. It felt good to have that sense of community through a hobby you shared with so many different people, but you couldn’t help the disappointment that already settled in your stomach when you thought about tomorrow. You had wanted to finally be brave, to finally talk to Sugawara a little bit more, so you had decided weeks ago, that you would invite him to come see you dance at the festival; after you could go look at the stand and eat something and watch the fireworks. But it had never come to that, and even though you had his contact saved in your phone, you had never texted him before. Considering his behaviour over the past days, you doubted it was appropriate to text him now.
First period came and went faster than you could comprehend, and by the time the first break ended, the smile on your face was hard to miss. The director’s words still echoed in your head as he read out the review from last week’s teaching demonstration. You had apparently proven cool headed even in overstimulating and challenging situations and were not deterred by unforeseen events. According to the review, you had handled the unfortunate incident of a sick kid throwing up in class better than most well-experienced teachers would.
It was high praise that was bestowed upon you with that review, and it made you feel all the sillier for your breakdown last week, the one Sugawara had so caringly accompanied you through. All the more it stung that he immediately made a beeline when he saw you trying to walk over to him during second break. And finally, you got angry. You had tried to thank him, to apologize for losing your head last week and wanted to share good news with him, but all he did was run away like a timid 12-year-old. Meanwhile, you had received excellent feedback and were looking forward to the festival tomorrow. If he didn’t want to know about these things, then he wouldn’t get to ruin your joy either.
That decision led you to enjoying the rest of the day even more, out of pure spite. You played ball games with your class during recess, taught the children in the Yosakoi club the next part of the dance they were practicing and convinced them, they could already dance most of it completely on their own, without having to copy off of you. And after you had sent the children home, you went to your own dance practice, laughed with your friends, made plans on which make-up to wear tomorrow and which hair accessories, and finally biked home in the pitch dark of the Miyagi night, picking up a tray of the new chicken dish you had meant to try out on your way past a convenience store.
Saturday morning was a lot better than the previous one. You had allowed yourself to sleep in and prepare an extensive breakfast before showering and packing your bag with the dance costume and all the things you needed for the day. Around noon a group of people from your dance team came to pick you up, all of them already excitedly chattering about the festival and the performance that was due.
What followed the arrival at the community centre was a haze of colours as everyone dressed in their costumes and helped each other apply the makeup. Unlike other teams, there was no colour scheme you stuck to, so while you went with your usual, well tested and proofed combination of colours, others experimented more with glitter and painting flowers, stars and other shapes onto their skin. While a ruckus broke out, when some of the male university students, who were members of your team, also decided they absolutely needed some sparkly hair accessories and heart shaped glitter stones stuck to their cheeks, two of your peers had managed to wrangle you into a chair so they could draw flowers on your cheeks, too. You pretended to protest, but you knew their insistence was a gesture of caring for you, and when they were done, you had to admit they had done a very nice job with the countless little flowers that speckled your cheeks and nose, although you wondered if they might have gone a little over board with the glitter stones they had added underneath your eyes.
The room that had been assigned to your team was pure chaos for almost one and a half hours, people climbing over bags, searching combs or hair needles, a piece of their costume or their wooden clappers for the dance. Someone was playing traditional Japanese music from a speaker, which only added to the noise and excitement that soon seemed to reach critical levels, so it wasn’t an overstatement to claim you were relieved when the team captain announced it was time to line up and get ready for the performance.
Like always before a show, your heart was beating in your throat, but the smile that was consistently held in place on your face was genuine. Standing in rows of two, Haruna, the friend at your side, kept happily blabbing about how much she had been looking forward to today. Sure, it was by far not the biggest festival you ever danced on. In fact, it was tiny, just a few hundred people coming from the surrounding villages, mostly to check out food stands and see the fireworks. Nonetheless, it was made special because this was the place where most people knew your faces. These people out there watching knew you, and they cheered along to the music, encouraged you, even when the hot early-summer sun drove beads of sweat onto your forehead.
You were just in the process of thinking that today was the perfect day for that festival, and that it had been a long time since you had actually really looked forward to dancing for an audience, when suddenly Haruna beside you started talking about her boyfriend. Immediately your vision lost its vibrant colours and instead you were reminded of a certain someone with silver hair and deep, brown, soulful eyes. You had wanted Sugawara to be here so badly, had wanted him to see you dance with your team, had wanted him to admire the effort it had taken to get this performance down to this degree of complexity, had wanted him to afterwards hand you a bottle of water, or sports drink, and smile at you and tell you “well done”-
Your spiralling thoughts were interrupted by the command to pile out of the room and in orderly rows you stepped out of the community centre and into the blinding light of the afternoon sun. The act before you – a taiko drum group, was still performing, so your group quietly piled behind the stage and listened. Those who stood in the right angle, stretched their heads to catch a glimpse of the drummers, some of the girls on the team giggling at the shirtless men, and immediately earning a shushed warning from the vice-captain. You also listened, as was the respectful thing to do, but your mind was otherwise occupied by forcing useless daydreams upon you. How would today have gone if you had accepted Sugawara’s invitation to sleep over last week? If you hadn’t been so worried about being a nuisance to him, maybe you could have talked more. Laughed, learnt about each other, and maybe that would have been enough to give you the courage to ask him out on a date. Properly. So, both of you knew and were certain about what was going on. Perhaps you would have gone on a date during the past week. You could have told him about the excellent results of the review. You could have invited him to come see you at the festival, could have asked him to pick you up with his car to drive you here, or offered to pick him up…
The taiko performance ended with a bang and everyone started applauding. You joined the applause, still half-dazed from the thoughts of Sugawara that seemed to have clung themselves to you more than you wanted to allow them. Absentmindedly you felt for the wooden clappers – naruko – and the paper fan at your side.
Everything after was a blur. The motivational speech of your captain, which quickly got you back into the right mindset for the dance, the running on stage, finding your position in the formation, and only the tiny bit of intimidation of standing front row for the first time. The team was introduced by the speakers, who stood to the side, and would speak over the song to tell the story in words, which the performance told in movement. You bowed, cheered on your teammates and got into position, as you always did.
The first notes of the song made you forget all the troubles of the past days. It washed over you like a wave lapping at the beach and dragged you out into the ocean, into a storm of emotion that told the story of two estranged friends who had to find their way back to each other. The movements came naturally, quickly, fluently but powerful. The music filled your ears, your head, your heart and you lost yourself in the push and pull, in the rhythm of wooden clappers and shouts, and when the second part of the song rolled around, calm and almost hesitant in its blooming beauty, you felt like you had finally reached the feeling you had been chasing the whole time.
With the calmness in the middle of the song, you pulled out your paper fan, the clapping sound of its opening timed perfectly with the rest of the group. Where the first part had been dominated by anger and helpless rage, the second part was led by the elegant sadness that accompanied the realisation that a friendship was lost. Your body followed the performance like you had trained, keeping your eyes on the open fan as you raised it above your head. When you threw it shut, again in perfect timing with everyone else, eyes still fixed on it, you lowered the fan down to your chest, and then opened it once more, lifting your eyes finally up into the crowd.
Staring back at you, right past the emotions the dancing had drawn to your face, and straight into your heart, were the familiar eyes of Sugawara. He stood pretty much in the middle of the crowd, people of all ages having come together to watch the dance, some of your students having pressed themselves to sit in front of the first row on the stone tiles that made up the square in front of the community centre.
It wasn’t so much Sugawara’s presence that shocked you, as the lack of a reaction you had to it. You kept your eyes forward, as the choreography demanded, your gaze never leaving his face. Usually his reaction might have made your cheeks heat up and your heart thrum wildly, but you were already sweating from the sun beating down on you and your heart was hammering from the demanding first part of the performance, so even if the way Sugawara was watching you now had any impact on you, you wouldn’t have been able to tell.
Instead, you memorised the way his mouth stood slightly open, and his eyes followed you as you lowered yourself to one knee. If you hadn’t known better, you would have guessed the expression in his eyes was one of longing. You turned, your back now to the audience, and at your side you could feel your teammates breathing heavily, as all of you were fumbling around with your costumes. But the music went on, and so did the performance, and when you turned back to the audience, the upper layer of your costume falling away to reveal a differently coloured second layer, a bright smile on all of your faces, you didn’t have the time to search for Sugawara’s face again in the crowd.
The last part of the song was the most emotional, fast paced and passionate, the hopeful fluttering in your chest when you realised that some people were meant to stay in your life, no matter the hardships that had once seperated you. Everything came together in this last uproar – the music swelled, the choreography had kept its most impressive techniques for last, the colours of the costumes shone brighter than they had before, the voices of the narrators rose about the noise of the clappers supporting the rhythm, and between all of that you caught Sugawara’s eyes again. Never as long as before, not in a matter that would have necessarily let him know you had seen him watch you, but enough to assure you that he was not taking his eyes off of you. Not when sweat started running into your eyes, or one of your clappers slipped out of your hands and joined the others that had slowly but surely accumulated on the floor. He didn’t take his eyes off of you, not when the music ended, not when everyone bowed to the audience, and not when you hurried off the stage and got lead to a table where volunteers had prepared cups of water and cold tea for the performers.
Almost you expected him to come over, as many friends and family members did after the performance. But instead, he vanished from your sight again, and a moment later a small child hugged you around your middle – one of your students as you quickly realised – and told you how much fun it had been to watch the dance. More children and parents began crowding around, making you step to the side, so your teammates had better access to the much needed hydration, and before you knew it, you were being bombarded with questions from the children. How long had you trained for that performance? Why didn’t the school club get to use paper fans? Why were you so sweaty? Did you draw the flowers on your cheeks all by yourself?
It took you almost half an hour, until you had talked to every child to their satisfaction, and the parents that were with them apologised for keeping you so long. You laughed it off and truthfully told them you enjoyed being asked about the dancing, but once things quieted down around you, loneliness began settling in, faster and harder than you had expected. The rest of your team members had already gone back into the community centre, probably even changed and cleaned up a little, the children were back to watching another performance or begging their parents for some food, and Sugawara was nowhere to be seen either.
With a resigned sigh, you grabbed another cup of barley tea, emptied it in one go, and threw the empty cup into the provided trash can before heading towards the building. Like you had predicted, most of your teammates were gone already. Some younger men were huddled in a corner over a mobile game, but they only acknowledged you with short nods before going back to their game.
You grabbed your bag with your regular clothes, gratefully noticing that someone had placed your wooden clapper on top of it, and headed to the bathrooms to change out of your costume. The fabric was lightweight, so most parts had already dried again, but still a shiver ran down your spine when you got exposed to the air. Quickly you wiped yourself down with some wet wipes and pulled on what you had brought as a change of clothes – a shirt with the logo of the dance club, and a wide pair of trousers for the warm evening.
Stepping out of the bathroom stall, you considered wiping of the make up too, but a glance into the mirror told you, it had kept up better than you had expected. Even though sweat had run down your face in streams earlier, there was hardly any smudging, and the colours were just as vibrant as before. You hadn’t even lost any of the glitter stones. Smiling to yourself, you shouldered the bag, pulling out your phone to ask where the others were.
You had just stepped out of the bathroom, when you almost bumped into someone in the hallway. The impact was only narrowly avoided, but the other person still stumbled a little. Immediately apologizing, you looked up and found the person wasn’t just a random stranger, but in fact the very person who had done their best to avoid you for the past week.
“Sugawara-san,” you gasped quietly, quickly taking in his appearance.
He wore jeans, like always, and an oversized T-shirt. He was holding his hands out in front of him, water droplets still gleaming in the low light of the hallway; he seemed to be coming from the bathroom himself. His silver hair was slightly dishevelled, in an unfairly attractive way, and his eyes widened when he recognised you.
“Oh, hey,” he stammered out. “Nice- nice job on your performance earlier.” He awkwardly gestured over his shoulder.
“Oh, uhm, thanks,” you replied and bowed quickly, the same kind of hasty bow you always performed when someone complimented your dancing. “I’m surprised you came to see us.”
As if a switch had been flipped, Sugawara’s cheeks began glowing red.
“Yes, of course, I- it’s the biggest festival we have here so…”
“Right,” you nodded, internally slapping yourself. Of course he hadn’t come to see you dance, he was here because it was a festival.
For a moment awkward silence overtook the otherwise empty hallway. It wasn’t even late afternoon yet, but the shadows grew long, the twilight making a shiver run down your spine, although it was warm enough to already make sweat beads gather at your forehead again.
“I’m sorry for last week,” Sugawara suddenly blurted out, making your gaze snap back up to him in surprise. “I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable with that invitation-”
“You didn’t,” you quickly interrupted him, waving your hands in the air as if to shoosh away that preposterous idea. “You didn’t at all! I just- I left because I didn’t want to be any more of a burden on you.” And because you hadn’t trusted yourself to not do anything stupid or foolish, like ask him to kiss you when he bid you good night.
“You- you aren’t – were never – a burden,” Sugawara denied, a look of horror spreading over his face. “It was important to me to be by your side, if you needed someone. And you would have been welcome to stay over, so you didn’t have to be alone. I just realised too late it probably came across like I was asking you to have sex with me.”
“Did you?” Your heart skipped at beat at his words. Had you perhaps always had a chance with Sugawara?
“No!” Or not. “I- I just wanted to help, and I’m sorry it made things awkward.”
“And I didn’t want to be a burden on you.”
Sugawara stared at you for a moment.
“So- you’re not… mad at me, or anything?” The way his voice was so hopeful made you want to walk over to him and squish his cheeks between your hands, but you resisted the urge.
“No, no of course not. I also didn’t think you’d try to… try to exploit my vulnerability for sex.” Although you weren’t sure if it had come to that, who would have felt like they exploited whom.
“That’s a relief,” Sugawara sighed, a small smile finally spreading across his face.
“Oh, there you are!” The moment got interrupted as Haruna, your teammate, pushed open the door to the corridor and stuck her head in. “We’re about to drive back. You coming?”
Right. You were supposed to drive back with your teammates. You should have known they wouldn’t bother to stick around for much longer than grabbing a bite to eat after the performance was done. And they hadn’t been held up by a bunch of elementary school students to do so. You cursed Haruna’s timing because she had walked in just as things seemed to clear up with Sugawara finally, but you had to accept your fate.
“I’ll be right out,” you told her, adjusting the strap of your bag over your shoulder.
“I can drive you. If you want.” Sugawara’s voice interrupted your set decision. “I wanted to stay to see the fireworks, if that’s not too late for you…” He looked between you and Haruna expectantly, who shrugged and gestured to you.
The old worry came to mind. If Sugawara drove you, he’d be forced to make a detour, and that surely would be bothersome to him. Except he had just told you a few minutes ago that you were never a burden on him, and he had offered. So why shouldn’t you be allowed to choose what you wanted, not what you thought other people wanted?
“That would be great, Sugawara-san,” you smiled at him, and he hummed relieved.
“Cool, have fun,” Haruna said, and before you could bid her goodbye, she had already disappeared again.
“Thank you,” you mumbled, earning a bright smile from him in return.
“Sure, you’re welcome. Except-”
Nervously you looked up at him, noticing the serious expression he suddenly wore.
“I think it’s time you started calling me Suga, you know, like everyone else… Or Kōshi.”
You couldn’t pretend to hide your shock at his words. Of course, you knew everyone called him Suga, other than his students, you knew nobody who actually called him Sugawara-san as you did. And he had offered you to call him Suga many times before. But Kōshi? His given name was intimate, something only people really close to him would call him. So, to offer you that…
“Okay,” you nodded, trying to ignore the way your heart was racing now. “I think, I can do that, Kōshi.”
His name tasted sweet on your tongue, and his serious expression was immediately replaced by a timid smile and a soft blush over his cheeks. He looked startled, as if he hadn’t actually expected you to use his given name.
“Perfect,” he clapped his hands, “then we got that out of the way.”
You laughed at his antics and shook your head.
“If I had known it means that much to you, I’d have started calling you Suga way earlier.”
“Nu-uh, no,” Suga waved a scolding finger in the air. “You’ve graduated to given-name-basis, no going back to my family name.”
Laughing, you shook your head again. “Alright, alright, got it,” you grinned, and finally moved away from the spot to which you had been rooted since you had almost stumbled into him.
“Good.” Suga looked satisfied and walked over the remaining distance to the door that had shielded you from the brighter world beyond the corridor. “Let’s get your bag into the car and find something to eat, hm?”
You nodded in approval and aimed to walk past him, but as you did, his hand came to rest on the strap of your bag.
“Give me that,” he demanded, but you hesitated. He had already offered to drive you home, how much more did he want to do for you? Apparently, he hadn’t decided how much more, because he gently tucked at the strap. “Come on. Please?”
You finally allowed him to pull the bag off your shoulder and throw it over his own, and Suga looked like you had just given him a special present. Together you walked through the entrance hall of the community centre, the open main doors allowing hot air to stream into the building. Once outside Suga turned not right, towards the plaza where the stage and the food stands were but instead left towards the parking lot.
You followed him, quietly watching him walking next to you as if it were the most normal thing in the world to him. Maybe he didn’t feel as nervous in your presence as you felt in his, maybe this wasn’t nerve-wrecking for him at all. But you had a feeling he was good at pretending to have the upper hand, which was why he had avoided you during the past days when he wasn’t sure where he stood with you. But if there was a chance, he felt just as nervous about you as you did about him- and he had offered to drive you home after watching the fire works together. And he had offered you to call him by his given name. So…
“Ne, Kōshi,” you asked while the two of you strolled over the parking lot.
The air had heated up a lot over the asphalt, and it felt like you had stepped into an oversized air fryer, but the sun began sinking behind the mountains, the shadow already covering a good portion of the town.
Suga hummed in response and glimpsed at you from the corner of his eyes.
“I was really glad to see you at the performance today,” you admitted. That hadn’t been what you had wanted to say, but it was the next best thing.
“I was really glad to see you dance again,” he replied. Of course, right, he had seen you dance during other festivals, too. “And front row this time. You were fantastic! All bam and swoosh and uhi!”
He tried imitating some of the movements he had observed, your heavy bag flinging around him and his adorable attempts at onomatopoeia making you raise your eyebrows in amusement.
“If you liked our bam and swoosh and uhi so much, you’re always welcome to join,” you teased, making Suga bark out a laugh.
“I’m afraid I have two left feet when it comes to dancing. I’m more the volleyball-kind of bam and swoosh and uhi type of guy,” embarrassed he rubbed his neck. “But I’ll come and see your next performance too, if you like. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of watching you dance.”
His words were supported by a gentle shove, his arm bumping against yours for a moment, his bare skin leaving a burning trace against yours, while your breath hitched from his words.
“I’ll count on it,” you chuckled, your eyes flickering down to his hand that was casually swinging between the two of you. Where did that temptation come from to just take it, wrap your fingers around his? You could almost feel how warm his palm would be against yours, dry, and a little rough from always cleaning the blackboard with chalky water, but gentle and careful.
“Hey, I was thinking-” you continued before the saner part of your brain could stop you. “Would you like to go out some time? I mean, properly. For dinner maybe.”
Suga stopped in his steps, and for a moment you thought you had ruined everything, that he would tell you he could drive you home but that was it, that you had completely misread the whole thing and were an idiot to believe someone like him could ever be interested in you.
Then you realised you were standing in front of his car.
Suga pulled out his car keys and unlocked the door, before he turned to look at you, his expression completely neutral.
“How do you mean,” he asked in a voice that was entirely too calm for your liking. If he had any interest in you, he’d be excited, wouldn’t be? Instead, he opened the car trunk, not taking his eyes off you. “Like a date?”
Nope, this was too much. You felt dizzy, which was idiotic, since the actual rejection was still outstanding. In an attempt to make the world stop spinning quite as quickly, you leant against his car, crossing your arms over your chest protectively, while Suga carefully placed your bag into the car.
“Yeah, why not? I mean-”
His eyes widened slightly, and his neutral expression melted into nothingness as a relieved smile overtook his features.
“Oh, thank god,” he sighed, leaning his head back and taking a deep breath, before propping himself up against the side of the car with one hand. “I thought we were setting ourselves up for another misunderstanding.”
He laughed lightly, shaking his head, and you couldn’t help but admire the way his silver strands danced in the sun. He was close enough for you to see the skin around his eyes crinkle, the little mole under his left eye and the freckles that spread over the back of his nose. It took you a moment to realise just how close he suddenly was, but in all honesty, it was impossible to tell which one of you had lent in first, him or you. Maybe you had just moved simultaneously.
It seemed like Suga noticed the lack of distance between your faces at the same moment, because his eyes widened a fraction, but his easy smile never faltered as he let his gaze skip to your lips and back.
“It it’s a date you’re talking about, then I’m all for it,” he whispered into the narrow space between you, his breath hotly fanning over your skin.
You just stared at him, unable to answer. Something about the way he suddenly seemed so confident had completely fried any reply you might have mustered, and all you could think about was how he was close enough for you to pick up on the scent of his shower gel, one you recognised after having used it yourself last week.
It was impossible to tell for how long Suga and you stood next to his car, both of you leaning against it, with less than an inch separating you in the scorching heat of the summer evening. It might have been seconds or hours, you weren’t sure, not when your whole field of vision was taken up by the beautiful man in front of you, who looked at you as if he had just found the most precious treasure.
In the end it was Suga who caved first, exhaling a shaky breath before closing the miniscule distance between you and locking his lips against yours. He was warm, warmer than the air around you, his hand big and steady as he placed it against your waist and guided you to lean your back against his car. You followed his lead, senses overwhelmed by him, the scent of his shampoo, the taste of bottled green tea from his lips that so softly moved against yours, as if you were too delicate to even touch properly. The way he held you now left no thought in your brain, only comfortable static that hummed appreciatively at the way Suga leant his weight more against you, unbearably warm but oh so comfortingly present. Your arm snuck around his waist, carefully running up his back, feeling the soft fabric of his shirt ripple underneath your fingertips, and like a reflex he arched his back closer to you, deepening the kiss beyond the tame locking of lips he had restrained himself to before. The way he moved now, gentle lips demanding more from you, was but a glimpse of the desire that slumbered beneath a façade of control, you realised, as he brought his other hand up to the side of your face, using it to tilt your head in a manner that would allow him better access to your lips.
Just as you meant to wrap your arm around his neck, in a meagre attempt to hide the lack of strength in your legs, Suga suddenly pulled away. Not far, just far enough to separate his lips from yours. Gasping, you tried chasing after him, but with his hand still at the side of your face, he held you in place. His eyes skipped to your cheeks; his breath came in fast pants that could not be explained by the heat alone. You were definitely not the only one out of their depth. Or at least so you thought.
“No,” he breathed out, making you freeze. “This isn’t right.”
The world stopped. Hadn’t he just been the one pulling you closer, kissing you harder? He ran his thumb along the side of your face, his eyes following the motion.
“I’m gonna smear your flower make-up.”
You blinked.
“Really,” you asked incredulously. “That’s what you’re worried about now?”
Suga giggled gleefully as you relaxed into his hold and brushed his nose against your hair.
“You look cute with that make-up,” he whispered against your ear, driving more heat into your cheeks than before as the words so effortlessly rolled off his tongue. “Besides, let me take you out properly first, hm?”
“Sugawara Kōshi!” You pulled away far enough to be able to look at his blushed face. “Are you being a tease?”
“You had to learn about it earlier or later,” he chuckled, carefully letting go of you and taking a step back. “I’ll make it up to you.”
You felt the air rush back to where he had held you before, leaving you with a shiver in the hot summer evening. The shadows of the mountains had crept far enough across the parking lot to block out the sun already, but the air was still warm and humid.
You watched as Suga bounded on his heels once, twice, and bit his lower lip while looking you over before he finally spoke up again.
“How about, for our first date, we go back to the festival,” Suga suggested, standing a little straighter, as if posture alone could get his still erratically beating heart under control. “And we’ll share some fried noodles, and shaved ice, and some taiyaki before we search a good spot to watch the fireworks from. Food’s on me, obviously.”
For a moment there was nothing you could do but stare at Kōshi. The way the wind tucked at his silver hair, his brown eyes glimmered hopefully, his otherwise pristine white shirt a little crumpled where he had used his body to keep you pressed against his car to kiss you. Rolling your eyes at him playfully, you pushed away from the car.
“What if I also want Takoyaki,” you asked teasingly, making Kōshi sigh in mock-surrender.
“Then I’ll be broke by the end of the night, but at least you’ll be happy,” he joked and joined you as you stepped around the car. He slammed the trunk shut and locked the car before turning to you.
“Basically, what I mean is: it’s up to you. I think, festivals are perfect for dates, and even if you don’t want this to be an official date yet, I’d love to treat you. You’ve had an exhausting day.”
Kōshi smiled at you softly, and you hesitantly nibbled at your lower lip, which didn’t really help get a clear head because you could swear you could still taste his kiss.
“Doesn’t it at all bother you, that I’m not wearing anything nice,” you asked, helplessly tucking at the oversized team shirt you had slipped on. “I haven’t even showered after our performance…”
Kōshi’s eyes wandered down from your shoulders, taking in the way the fabric blew around your hips in the evening breeze, the way your trousers fell in soft folds down to your ankles, the shoes you had slipped on in the expectation to be wearing them not much longer than it took you to walk to the parking lot and get driven home.
“You look perfect,” he replied, his voice leaving no room for your insecurity, admiration laced deeply into his tone. “I’d rather have you look authentically yourself than whatever polished version you would present the world if you tried to convince me that you’re cute. Because I already know that. To me you’re the most perfect, when your passions are worn on your sleeve.”
You wanted to tease him for the cheesy comment he had delivered, but the honesty in his voice made the words stuck in your throat. You thought back to all the times he had caught you in the wrong moment, when your hands were still dripping with chalky water from cleaning the blackboard, when your hair was dishevelled after you had played catch with the children during break, when at the end of the day your blouse was crumpled and your cardigan askew, or early in the morning, where the hot cup of tea you had wrapped your hands around was the only thing that seemed to keep you tethered in the world of the waking.
“Well,” you swallowed thickly, not sure what else to do with the words Kōshi had just offered you. “If that’s the case, let’s go on that date!”
Kōshi nodded and held his hand out for you to take. Wide eyed you looked between him and his stretched-out hand. It wasn’t unusual anymore for couples to hold hands in the street, but it was still very much understood as a declaration of belonging with each other. He might as well have gotten on the roof of the community centre and shouted for everyone to hear, that you were going out now. It also showed that he was serious about you, that it wasn’t just something he wanted to try out and would drop as soon as it stopped being new and exciting.
So, after a moment’s hesitation, you quickly placed your hand in his. Immediately his warm fingers closed around yours, his hand bigger and rougher, but gentle, even gentler than you had imagined him to be. Beaming down on you with a bright smile that you could have sworn had the power to put the sun to shame, he started walking side by side with you back to the festival, and if anyone would have asked him, he confidently would have told them that this was already the best festival and the best first date (hopefully also the last first date) he had ever been on.
