some believe in fairy stories

Meliae: always whispering; 🍒

[wintercovers]

rarepair week day two: yellow kiyoyui (ish)

Kiyoko hesitates only because nobody is supposed to be here.

Hitoka left ages ago, it’s just been Kiyoko, the playbook, and her school notes out next to her as well, just in case a teacher comes in to check on her. She doesn’t know if anyone is actually keeping track of them somehow maintaining both study and practice but, just in case, she is ready.

She is not ready for this.

A teacher would not walk past the door multiple times, stopping only a few steps to either side before walking past again. A teacher would not occasionally jiggle at the handle, as if testing to see whether or not the door will open.

Kiyoko is not scared of much, but this makes the list.

The boys are probably practicing, still. Some of them, perhaps all of them — but that doesn’t mean they would see a message for help. Their phones are probably buried beneath clothes at the bottom of bags still waiting in the clubroom and very much not on them.

Kiyoko messages Suga anyway. He’s the one most likely to take a break from practice and stretch his limbs somewhere outside of the gym. He’s also the one most likely to do damage to whoever it is that’s still pacing outside.

Are they waiting for her to leave to ambush her?

Kiyoko lets out a breath. If the case really is as such, as long as she doesn’t leave, an ambush can’t happen. Simple. And it’s not as if she’s in a hurry to leave. The only reason she wants to leave is because of the person trying at the door handle again.

Pulling it open.

Kiyoko clutches her phone tight in her hand, still open on the message to Suga. If she needs to, she can call him. If she needs help, all of it is no good.

But Kiyoko recognises the person that walks through the door. Almost drops her phone from her hands with how much she relaxes.

“Sorry!” Michimiya cries, “I didn’t mean to startle you! I just wanted to come in and it was open but I didn’t know if I should come in because I’m not really on the team anymore and they stopped letting me have the key and I didn’t know if anyone in here might know that and—“

“It’s fine,” Kiyoko interrupts, because it is, and also, she’s spent too much time with Hitoka to know how rambling of this kind ends. It’s probably why she thought someone was trying to ambush her in the first place too.

“Oh, Michimiya freezes all of her motions, arms still held placatingly out in front of her. She drops them and beams. The smile bright and wide and shining. “Thanks, Shimizu!”

“It’s no problem,” but she is curious, “are you not allowed back now that you’ve retired?” Kiyoko can’t picture Sawamura, Sugawara, and Azumane leading everybody alone just because of a word like retire. Sawamura would want to make sure everyone was behaving, Sugawara would be too much of the reason they weren’t, Azumane would probably be the only one of them not to turn any kind of future practice into a farce and be beneficial — after all, there are not many on the team who can spike like he can.

“I used to be allowed,” Michimiya says, and Kiyoko focuses all of her attention back on her. She’s dressed in sports gear, practice gear. Which is strange considering she thought she was going to be chased away. “But there’s not too much practice you can get done with one person and I think our supervisor walked in one too many times on me crying into the volleyball bin and that was that!”

Michimiya smiles while she tells her story, plays it for a joke. Kiyoko sees that the reality is anything but. She wonders how many times this ‘one time too many’ really is. More occasions than there should be, sure, but also not more than is necessary.

Michimiya is a third year just like her, but did not play in the Spring Tournament, did not get a second chance. She was the captain but now she has no team. Just herself, and too many thoughts that lead to tears it seems. Kiyoko can somewhat understand, she has a team now, and when they lost in the summer it felt like she hadn’t prepared them enough, hadn’t done enough, even when she couldn’t play on the court with them.

She can’t imagine what that feels like when even being on the court isn’t enough.

Kiyoko can’t actually say any of this.

“We’re here nearly every day,” her fingers trace a yellow line on the play book in front of her. She has other things to do, her time is already taken up, but really the decision has already been made. “The boys usually stay late but if you don’t mind staying later I can play with you.”

Michimiya bounces over to clasp Kiyoko’s hands, “I always knew you were my favourite!”

A lie, Kiyoko thinks.

But then, the way Michimiya — “you can call me Yui!” — smiles at her when she runs her hand over the volleyball Kiyoko passes her reminds her that things don’t always stay the same. Yui tosses the ball in the air to her, Kiyoko does her best attempt at a set, and Yui spikes it across the net.

They haven’t beaten anyone, there’s no other team, but Yui laughs and Kiyoko thinks back on all the times Yui must have been crying on her own in here and that bringing laughter back to this spot, to this sport, is a win in and of its own.

[wintercovers]

rarepair week day two: orange kuroaka

The firelight reflects off of Akaashi’s face like it’s built into his skin.

Made up of sparks, of danger, of passion, of warmth.

If he shared such thoughts with anyone Tetsurou knows they wouldn’t think the same. They would think him crazy. They would think worse. They would guess at his secret.

He knows these things are just what he feels when he catches glances at Akaashi. When he watches at Akaashi’s mouth when he talks. When he stares at Akaashi because the firelight reflects perfectly off of his entire face.

It’s like Akaashi glows from within.

Tetsurou tries to tell himself it’s just an unflattering thing. It’s the middle of summer, after all, Akaashi is glowing because he is sweating, it’s his sunscreen, it’s not a magical presence that makes it near impossible for Tetsurou to turn his eyes away.

Not magic, a curse.

Cursed to be somewhat in love with his best friends best friend.

He’s started running into Bokuto and wanting first to know about a person that is not him.

It’s just that… somewhere between long summer nights filled with tests of courage and ghost stories and haunted cabins— all things Tetsurou is too smart to be scared of— and teasing Bokuto for his high-pitched screams, Tetsurou had begun to see beneath the cool exterior he had only ever seen before.

Akaashi is a burning flame, covered in ice but wanting desperately to break free and burn everything in his path instead of being burdened with the heavy cloak of responsibility.

It gets more dangerous when Bokuto isn’t there to be the bridge between them.

It’s warmer when Akaashi is driving and Tetsurou is in the passenger seat and there’s nothing but the yellow glow of street lamps flashing through their window.

Tetsurou’s heart beating out a fresh melody every single time.

Because already, things have changed.

Their mouths are silent but an entire conversation passes between them through the flexing of fingers, through the swiftness of a turn, through the road that’s picked, through the songs they alternate picking through on Akaashi’s phone.

Well, they’re meant to alternate, Akaashi only reaches for his phone when red lights flood the street around them and they’re stopped for just one, two, three—

Not enough other cars around when it’s the wrong side of the witching hour for the stops to last too long.

And Tetsurou never knows where they’re going.

Doesn’t care where they’re going.

Doesn’t want the magic spoiled.

Doesn’t want to uncover too much of the Akaashi who’s become a new mystery in front of him. One he thought he’d solved on the first read through.

Two weeks ago on a Friday night, Akaashi had driven them through the city and its lights and the people who spent time under them while the sky was dark. Dropping Tetsurou home only after the streets had emptied and the morning sky had already rushed to greet them.

(He’d spent the entire day after dead on his feet working his part-time job. He hadn’t complained once. Not to anybody, in fear of word somehow getting out.)

One week ago, a Thursday night, they’d ended up in one of his childhood memories — if he takes away the breaking and entering part. Akaashi had simply hushed his complaints and leapt with a grace Tetsurou had been unable to replicate across the barrier keeping them from the juiciest peaches he’s ever had his lips around.

(Akaashi’s lips really had shone then, under the lights in the dark, with the morning sun, and if Tetsurou were a braver man he’s sure they would have been the sweetest thing to ever touch his tongue.)

Only a few days ago, Akaashi had taken him out to Chiba, to the docks, to watch the fishing boats come in, to watch the sun rise as early as they could from this close to home. From further away from home than Tetsurou had ever been at the crack of dawn with birds singing in the day and a mysterious boy with an entire face burnt orange as it reflected the star rising oceans and worlds away from them.

(“Catch of the day,” Akaashi had said, leading him by the hand through the stalls laden with all the goods they’d just seen hauled back in, “I hear it’s your favourite!” 

He’d smiled then, and all Tetsurou had wanted to say was ‘no, you are’.)

Tonight they aren’t anywhere.

Tonight after moving slowly through light after light. Through parts of the city he knows, through back roads he never even knew existed. Past lit up stores that feel like they should only exist in a memory, they end up back at an apartment block.

Tonight Akaashi gets out of the car and walks around to open the door for Tetsurou too.

Tonight Akaashi looks at him almost expectantly, “Bokuto’s made me sit through enough movies to know that three dates is plenty. Unless that’s not something you’re interested in?”

Tetsurou only wishes he’d known that all along he could have gripped at the hand shifting gears, could have tasted the sweetness on his lips, could have asked Akaashi what his favourite things were too.

What he does know now is that Akaashi looks even better when the golden glow of the sun is able to kiss Akaashi’s entire body, when his lips can chase the flames away until the day turns to night on them once more.

[wintercovers]

rarepair week day one: red daiyui (kinda sorta maybe)

Sawamura’s room is much the same as it had been the last time she was here. Three years ago and probably to the day, she’d know if she checked her diary, she definitely would have catalogued such a momentous occasion.

His desk is still covered in a mess of books and stray paper and the telltale remains of too many snacks too late in the night. The cork board on his wall has the same ribbons she’s seen before, middle school participation things, stars for a perfect assignment, newly acquired are photos of his Karasuno team, him with Sugawara and Azumane, the donation poster their new manager made for them. All moments he’s proud of and wants to display. The walls are still covered in the same movie posters, his bed still left unmade, the covers folded down to air instead.

Everything grey on grey on different shade of grey.

Until Sugawara points something out that Michimiya hadn’t noticed herself.

(Too busy trying not to look at Sawamura’s bed too hard, she’s here with her friends, after all, they’d never miss such a thing, and after not missing it they’d never let her live it down.)

“I knew you were as human as the rest of us!” Sugawara shouts, diving for Sawamura’s pillow. It’s then that the rest of them seem to catch on to what he’s found, just the corner of something red adding a splash of colour to the grey on grey on different shade of grey.

Sawamura catches Sugawara before he can reach the pillow, but Sugawara does not still his efforts to make Daichi simply a man. Sawamura’s face blooms red, as can only be expected, Azumane’s does too— “Why would you? You knew we were coming.” —half sentences about all he can muster in the face of second-hand embarrassment.

Yui feels her own face heat too. Half wanting to see, half never wanting to know. Beneath that pillow, between the pages of a red magazine, is information she’s been waiting half her life for.

(Nearly going on six years is close enough for her to not count it as an exaggeration.)

What is Sawamura’s type? Does she have a chance? Or is he unlikely to ever look her way?

Nearly six years of pining on the boy across the gym and this is the closest she’s ever come to having an answer. She kind of wants to see, she kind of also doesn’t — Sugawara is right about it showing that Sawamura is human too, Yui’s not sure she’s ready to see such a thing.

Her friends, the only reason she’d been able to get herself firstly all the way to Sawamura’s house and then secondly all the way to Sawamura’s room for the study session, look just as eager to see what Sawamura is hiding in the pages beneath his pillow. Yui has to catch them both by the elbow to hold them back. Something Sawamura seems almost to thank her for with one small glance.

A glance small enough but long enough to move his attention from Sugawara for just a moment too long.

“Hah!” He cheers, landing face first onto Sawamura’s bed but seeming more than happy about it. “And with girls coming over and everything Daichi, my you might be the worst of us all!” Sugawara cackles, evilly, and Sawamura rather than trying once again to stop Sugawara just sits down at the table unfolded in the centre of his room as if thinking that if he simply ignores the boy behind him then the problem will disappear.

Even more unbelievably, it does.

Sugawara lifts the pillow, and whatever it is on the magazine he finds under there has him quieting right away. “That was… underwhelming,” he says, and Yui wishes she had caught a glance before the pillow returned to its place because while Sugawara seems disappointed in his find Sawamura is only getting darker by the second, blush creeping to the edges of his face, down his neck and into the collar of his shirt.

Yui wants to know desperately what it is that can do such a thing to him.

Chizuru and Mao don’t seem to be curious at all about what was beneath the pillow. Instead, they seem to have grins equal to something often found on Sugawara’s face.

“Let’s get to studying shall we?” Sawamura says stiffly.

“But—“

“It’s fine, I’m sure Shimizu won’t mind catching up, she’s already apologised for being late.” Sawamura punctuates the words by slapping his books onto the table, amazingly not any of the books still littering his desk.

“That isn’t even what I was going to say,” Sugawara grumbles, sliding down from the bed and pulling out his own study materials next to Sawamura. The rest of them follow suit.

Soon enough the equations and history lessons and book passages are all that’s on her mind.

Until what has to be hours later (turns out it’s only been two) when Sugawara’s phone rings out. “Shimizu’s here.”

The doorbell rings soon afterwards and Sawamura rushes off quickly to let her in.

Azumane groans as he pushes his own books to the side, “break time.”

“Food time!” Mao sighs, dropping her hands to her stomach for a timely growl.

“Conbini?”

“Yes please!” Yui stretches her arms up and behind her head, “I’ve been sitting still for too long.”

It is with sighs and creaking joints that they all stand up. Only for Sawamura and Shimizu to make it back up to them.

“Turn around, we’re heading out for food,” Mao directs.

“I brought some snacks with me,” Yui almost feels bad for Shimizu, actually does. But she wants the walk and the fresh air more than the food.

“Great! We’ll eat when we get back!” Sugawara pushes at all of their backs to get them through the door. “Michimiya! Wait, before you head off, I have something for you.” Yui pauses, while everyone else files down the stairs. Sugawara moves back over to Sawamura’s bed, falls onto it, grey hair joining the grey on grey on different shade of grey. “For your fantasies!” He chimes in a saccharine voice and lifts up the pillow that had so intrigued her earlier in the day.

Beneath it is not a magazine, not anything particularly incriminating. Still, Yui feels her face set aflame.

Small and secure and almost protected beneath the pillow lies the charm she had gifted to the boys' team — to Sawamura if she’s really being honest. A splash of red on top of grey and grey and grey.

“It probably means something,” Sugawara says cryptically when Yui has yet to utter even a sound. “But let’s get out of here, they’re probably wondering what we’re up to!”

[wintercovers]

drink fast, talk slow

idk i saw that there’s a daiya week and alex sent me this prompt years ago. feat. kanesawa, underage drinking, and hangovers

day one: bloom of youth

Shinji wakes to a pounding head, a dry throat, and Sawamura practically radiating sunshine through his smile next to him. It’s not an unusual thing—the whole sunshiny smile thing—but the extent of it is. The worst of it is that Sawamura doesn’t look at all the way Shinji feels which seems more than a little unfair given that Shinji is sure he didn’t drink nearly as much as Sawamura the night before.

It’s all more than just a little bit unfair.

Shinji closes his eyes, hoping to put it all off until later but instead, his phone rings out its alarm on the table next to him, adding to the symphony already playing in his head. All of it is just Not Good.

Sawamura’s smile speaks at an even higher volume than the music and Shinji is so not ready for any of this.

He needs at least another week of sleep to be ready for waking up and dealing with Sawamura, needs probably another few weeks based on the pounding in his head.

“Go away,” he grunts, turning back to the blissful dark of his pillow— wait— he flips it over and settles in a second time into the cool darkness of unconsciousness.

Sawamura can wait, Shinji will deal with him later.

Except he settles down too. Nice but too warm. Adding too much heat to Shinji’s bed and Shinji’s body when his arms reach around to pull Shinji closer from behind. It’s nice, it’s not nice, it’s too warm and all he wants right now is a cool peaceful slumber. It’s too much effort to push him away though. The pressure of Sawamura at his back is as welcome as his warmth is not and Shinji knows despite how much he might sweat through his sleep that he wants Sawamura here to slumber with him. It’s too rare an occasion to push onto another time, another morning.

He does at least kick the covers off of himself, off of both of them probably, and the fresh air against his skin pulls him even further away from the burden of consciousness.

He should have had something to drink.

It’s Shinji’s first thought when he wakes for the second time that day. His throat feels broken, cracked, far too dry. It was bad earlier and now it’s even worse. He’s an idiot, he knows this, now it’s more than simply a fact.

At his side, Sawamura is still sleeping. Mouth open, limbs spread across the bed and cheeks slick with drool… pooling on his pillow— Shinji’s pillow.

Ew.

At times like these, it’s almost hard to remember why Shinji puts up with him. Almost, because his cheeks still appear to have a healthy flush—from the night before or because of sprawling across Shinji to sleep he’s not sure— and a smile is etched into his face even in slumber. He doesn’t look to be suffering the effects of last night the way Shinji is. Something he still considers to not be fair at all.

Shinji slides from the bed, escaping Sawamura’s wayward limbs with a practiced ease, and dashes out to the dining hall.

He chokes down two glasses of water to slick his throat, and then reaches for more. More and more and more until he feels like he’s going to be sick. More than just feels like it.

When was the last time he ate? What is there to feel sick on?

He can’t recall anything which means it’s only alcohol which means he’s an even bigger idiot for giving into so much of it last night.

As if he’d given in, Shinji knows for a fact he that last night involved him willingly reaching out for more than his fair share of poorly mixed drinks.

He definitely needs food. Real food. Not whatever snacks he might have had to nibble on during the night, but given the state of the dining hall he’s already missed breakfast. How late did he sleep?

Eleven.

Thirty.

He almost slept through to the afternoon.

He hasn’t done such a thing in years—as much as he’s sometimes wished he could in the early pre-dawn hours of the morning with three alarm clocks ringing in their wake-up calls.

The experience is not as delightful as he had wished for it to be. He could have done without a lot of the things he’s woken up to, but honestly, that probably comes down to the night before. Probably. It’s not the first time he’s woken up to Sawamura, feeling deeply dehydrated and desperate for water and something to eat—something that at this point he should really be able to prevent, but... Sawamura has a way of waylaying his thoughts.

The worst thing about sleeping in though has to be the fact that he’ll now have to wait for lunch to get some food.

He heads back to his room through an eerily quiet campus disappointed in himself and clutching at his stomach. He might actually be sick. He doesn’t want to be but he can feel his insides churning unpleasantly. His first time overindulging in alcohol might turn out to be his last because feeling like this is terrible. Shinji can’t remember the last time he properly threw up but if it turns into today because of drinking he’ll never forgive himself.

He’ll tough it out. He’ll be weak for just one day. Sit still in the dark and under the covers of his blanket and hope he won’t be missed.

Sawamura is still asleep. In his bed. An interesting thing to note given that the other beds in the room show signs of having been slept in. They don’t usually make a habit of sharing a bed in an occupied room. Shinji guesses their open secret has now been simplified into just free information. It’s not necessarily information he wants out and open but given the circumstances, there’s not much he can really do to change that. Shinji doesn’t even know if it’s his roommates that had slept in those beds last night.

He could go back to bed, but he doesn’t want to. He could too easily curl up back around Sawamura—now taking up the entirety of Shinji’s bed—and fall back to sleep, but he doesn’t want to. Instead, Shinji plonks himself down at his desk, pulls down notebooks and textbooks to prepare for the end of summer, leans back in his chair and rests his eyes on the ceiling. He feels too much like shit to do anything. The illusion of studying will do for now.

Time is also an illusion. Shinji isn’t aware of it passing, only aware that in time, a bubbly Sawamura obscures his analysis of marks in the ceiling. A task he didn’t even know he had undertaken until it was interrupted.

“And why are you so happy?” Shinji can only ever dream of waking up in such a good mood himself.

Sawamura doesn’t answer the question. He presses his forehead to Shinji’s for a few too short seconds and then pulls away, pulling Shinji with him, declaring it time for lunch.

The good thing is he hasn’t whiled away another meal, the bad thing is the abrupt movement reminds Shinji of how much water is gushing around his stomach with not much else and how much his stomach wants to protest this very fact. He wants food but also he doesn’t. He really doesn’t feel like it can be kept down.

He should have just climbed back into bed with Sawamura and slept until his body sorted out this whole thing by itself.

On the way to the hall, eyes are following him. Not in a paranoid way, but definitely in a way that Shinji worries for something he’s done. Wide grins and laughing eyes are not the looks he’s used to receiving, definitely not from a majority of the team. The first string team, the managers, others who were brave enough to face down the coaches wrath if they got caught drinking and—

he freezes.

Sawamura hurries him along. Pulls at his elbow, his wrist, his hand, then collects a tray. He piles it up with enough food for the both of them then finds a seat. Sawamura doesn’t even seem to notice Toujou’s and Kominato’s too happy faces, just jumps straight into conversation with them.

Shinji doesn’t touch his food. He drops looks over his shoulder and catches too many pairs of eyes stifling too many laughs behind hands and mouthfuls of food. Shinji turns back to stare at his own.

There’s an answer for this, an easy one. An answer Shinji is fine simply knowing of.

He thinks.

At least, he thinks he doesn’t want to actually know.

What did he do last night?

It can’t have been bad. This is his reason for not needing to know. If it was bad he definitely would have heard about it. If it was bad he wouldn’t be walking around corners to muffled laughter and smiles too wide to have a hope of being hidden—no matter how much the bearers try.

It can’t have been bad because Sawamura is clingier than usual. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. If anything it’s kind of nice. It’s nice to have done away with barriers overnight so Shinji doesn’t have to over analyse how many touches are too many, how close is too close or if people have noticed that somehow he always manages to drag Sawamura’s name up in conversation.

It can’t have been bad because Sawamura is very vocal about things he doesn’t agree with. Whatever Shinji had done last night is clearly something he’s happy with, something that makes him happy at least. Therefore, Shinji reasons, it can’t have been too bad.

“We’ll leave you two alone.”

Shinji nods slowly at the statement, Sawamura beams, “so considerate!”

“We’ll be gone all night, but we’ll be back to grab our stuff in the morning.”

Sawamura nods sagely like he’s been given all the answers to a pop quiz a day in advance and is committing them to memory. “Noted.”

All Shinji notes is that he’s lost. It’s like everyone around him has started speaking in a code nobody bothered to teach him. And why would Sawamura have a code with Shinji’s roommates that he doesn’t know about?

The door swings shut, the lock clicks into place, and in the blink of an eye, Sawamura is on his lap. In another blink, they’ve both fallen down onto Shinji’s bed, his head bashing into the wall and Sawamura’s face crashing down on his shoulder.

“That wasn’t how that was meant to go...” Sawamura deliberates, picking himself up, manhandling Shinji further down the bed and slotting into place against his side. “I expected it to be more romantic.”

Tick, tick—

boom.

“That’s what they left for!?” Shinji’s face burns, he tries to turn around but Sawamura is gripping tightly to him, locking him in place. “What did you tell them?” It doesn’t matter what Sawamura told them, Shinji is never going to be able to face them again. Not without him thinking that they’re thinking about what he’s doing with Sawamura behind closed doors and... he could never.

“I didn’t tell them anything!” Sawamura pouts, “they were just being considerate.”

“I told you,” Shinji presses a finger down on his lips, “you’re not allowed to do that.”

Sawamura opens his mouth, sucks Shinji’s finger in, and it’s so far beyond what he expected that he flinches back.

Out of Sawamura’s grip.

“No,” he says, “no, no, no.”

He’s off the bed and across the room, fighting with the lock of the door under Sawamura’s heavy gaze—funny, that he’s been so happy all day and now Shinji is ruining it for him.

But no, he can’t.

He can’t go from trying to pretend he and Sawamura are just friends straight into the entire team thinking... thinking... his face burns and the lock twists and he’s out. Gone.

He’ll have to face up to Sawamura eventually.

Face Sawamura and his tears and his pout and more of him questioning whether Shinji likes him at all or just said yes out of pity, but that will come later.

Now... now he just needs time to think and come to terms with the fact that the... the laughing and the eyes trained on him all day is because of this.

Now he has to overanalyse what the eyes and the laughs and the smiles mean.

Why did this have to happen? How did this happen? Why did he not get a say in this and... oh...

Sawamura has been happy. Radiant and bubbling and clingy and...

Shinji is the one who told. He’s the one who told.

He told... he... “No, no, no, no, no.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m freaking out,” Shinji says, “in case that wasn’t obvious.”

Toujou hums theatrically, “now that you mention it, the rocking and chanting do give it away a little.”

Shinji grunts a reply. It could mean anything. And after all these years he’s hoping Toujou can translate it into something helpful.

“So—” great, Shinji thinks, a lecture. “What is your actual problem with people knowing?” He stays silent. “Because I’m not going to lie, most of us have known for a while.”

“What!”

“According to your classmates—”

“According to my classmates what?”

Shinji can guess without asking what, he’s aware of the discord. Between Kanemaru Shinji, captain of the baseball team and Kanemaru-kun, just another baseball idiot.

“You spend a lot of time together—”

“We’re in the same class, of course we do!” If he wasn’t there Sawamura definitely wouldn’t have made all the way through to his final year of high school.

“You spend all of your breaks together—”

“If it weren’t for me Sawamura would be happy getting thirties on his tests!”

“Reading manga?”

“I’m not a tyrant!”

“Holding hands?”

He doesn’t have an answer for that. Not for Toujou. He has a lot to say to Sawamura about that because he’s the one who insisted that ‘beneath the desk, nobody can see us anyway’. Cute little bastard.

Shinji’s hands come up to cover his face again and Toujou does him the honour of sitting down next to him. A hand on his shoulder, but any sympathy is shown only in silence.

Eventually, they move. Eventually, Shinji dusts off his pants and moves, feels the need to move. Eventually, through the settling but still audible gurgling of his stomach and the worried glances Toujou gives it, Shinji moves. They don’t move anywhere in particular. Shinji only knows that he needs to keep moving to put off the eventuality of going back to his room. He doesn’t know which is the better option finding it empty or finding Sawamura there, so he’ll put it off.

They wander through the empty campus. Sunday—and god, Shinji thinks, it’s the afternoon now, how has he wasted so much of the day?—means it is blessedly empty of people to continue staring at him or laughing at him but full of corners to duck around as soon as it seems like he and Toujou might not be the only ones out here wandering around.

Time slips away from him again as they walk silently together until Toujou finally gives in. “Not that this isn’t fun, but I do actually have things to do today.”

“So do I!” Shinji says.

“—we know—”

“Do you think I planned this? And no! No! You don’t get to joke about that because now... because now people will always think...”

“They already did think it.”

“I know, but now they know!”

“It really isn’t anything that was unknown before you know?”

“But... but...”

“But...?”

“But earlier, Seto left because he thought... they thought...” Shinji can’t even get the words out. All he feels is his face flame as mortification takes over at what people think he is doing right this very moment.

“Because he thought you and Sawamura wanted some private time together.”

“Yes.” Shinji breathes, quietly, like he’s trying to keep a secret.

“To have sex.”

“Ah!” Shinji shouts, covering up Toujou’s mouth, forgetting for a moment that he’s half in hiding. “Oh my god what if somebody heard you?”

“There’s nobody around,” Toujou says, not even bothering to remove Shinji’s hand. “Also, nobody cares.”

“I care, everybody who was laughing at me today cared.”

“Everybody was laughing because you guys are the newest gossip and also you were kind of out of your mind last night.”

“I wasn’t that drunk,” Shinji says, knowing very well based on the state of his non-existent recollection of last night and the way in which he’s spent the day so far, that he very much was that drunk.

Toujou laughs. Just laughs. “Good one, we’ll just pretend you didn’t ask Sawamura if he was single last night. We’ll just pretend it didn’t nearly make him cry. We’ll just pretend your attempt— I think it was an attempt anyway— to woo him and describe in great detail how carefully he should be looked after and treated didn’t make him actually cry until the two of you were making out in front of everyone.”

“Holy shit.”

“So yeah, that’s why they’re all laughing.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“I... what the fuck.”

“You actually don’t remember.” Shinji thinks his wide eyes and horrified stare must do enough to give it away. “Wow, fuck.”

“Fuck,” Shinji echoes, but on the bright side, if there is a bright side to this, all of his morning mysteries have been solved.

[wintercovers]

haru matsu bokura: towa/mitsuki (spoilers for 32&33)

also this one’s for you aami, bc

#he might as well have made a powerpoint presentation #like “so u see mitsuki this is why i like u and decided to confess despite many things holding me back” 

except not quite a powerpoint presentation bc that would be even cheesier than what this became

The clubroom is different to what Mitsuki was expecting. She doesn’t know exactly what it was she was expecting, only that this is not really it. Maybe she was expecting the classroom when they all change and leave for gym class, not a tidy room, a couple of boxes here and there, motivational posters on the wall and a wall full of lockers. Asakura walks up to these and picks up his phone from amongst what must be his own folded clothes. Mitsuki hopes they’re his own clothes… that it's his own phone.

“Sit down,” he says, and Mitsuki sits across a lone bench in the centre of the room — how the entire team is meant to exist in here at once she has no idea. Another way in which this room is different than expected.

This afternoon is different to anything Mitsuki had expected when Asakura asked her to stay until the end of practice. A rare day off from work and Mitsuki, instead of going home, had stood with Reina and a crowd of other girls, watching the boys and the team practice to the too loud noise of Reina’s camera and girls calling out for attention.

The quiet of the clubroom, now the team has gone, now the observers have made their own way home as well, is a nice change. Asakura’s ever present calm is a nice change.

Until, with what Mitsuki thinks is his phone in hand, he sits down next to her. Sits close, more than close, closer than usual, and hasn’t that been an ever-changing thing recently.

He crosses one leg, knee crossing over Mitsuki’s own thigh, elbow knocking into her arm until she moves it and he takes it as an invitation to move even closer. To take up more of her space. Mitsuki can’t say that she minds only that this is new, different, moving a step closer yet again. Another moment in which she feels like something is changing but come tomorrow morning it will be like none of it ever happened, like to Asakura none of it meant anything.

She doesn’t get her hopes up for it meaning anything.

The message doesn’t always get through.

Her breath catches, her heart races, Asakura doesn’t notice, simply moves to unlock his phone.

It is his phone. A pile of cats on the screen are ones Mitsuki recognises only from the stories she’s heard of them.

“I have something to show you.”

At this point, Mitsuki could have worked that out for herself. There’s been nothing to say she’s here for any other reason. Why here are why now are questions she has but won’t voice; because her hopes are high that with everybody else gone they will be able to go home together. It’s been a while. She’s missed it.

Asakura sifts through his phone, an app, an album, and then he hands it over to her. “Here…” He starts, he stops, he takes a deep breath that catches the strands of her hair, then starts again. “Swipe through.”

It starts with a picture, a picture Mitsuki knows well. A picture Rui had snuck onto her phone, a picture Asakura had discovered as her wallpaper, a picture she now keeps hidden in the depth of her phone’s memory card. She doesn’t know how Asakura managed to get it. She hopes he doesn’t know that she still has it.

Asakura doesn’t say anything about it, she clicks on the screen.

Another picture, one from the night they set off fireworks.

He says nothing. So Mitsuki taps again.

More pictures. Always pictures. Of Mitsuki, of Asakura, of their friends, of this little circle that she’s become a part of. Of his world opening up to include her and her own world expanding drastically.

The pictures are nice, that Asakura keeps them in an album on his phone, close, on hand, is sweet. This… entire afternoon is a gesture she’s trying not to get too swept up in, but at this point, it’s probably far too late.

Each tap on the screen makes her chest pull tighter, has warmth spreading from where their limbs overlap.

Mitsuki knows, knows too well that come tomorrow it will be like nothing ever happened. Because the laws of the universe only allow her to be affected by every little thing Asakura does while he remains blissfully unaware of the effect he has, blissfully unaware of the fact that Mitsuki would like to be able to affect him in the same way.

“Why do you have all of these?” Why are they organised like this, is another question she isn’t brave enough to voice.

“They’re nice memories.” The next photo is the banner she painted, followed by a photo of the wristband she signed. “Special memories.”

Mitsuki can’t be blamed for the fluttering of her chest, for the hitch in her breath. Too many people would want to hear such words directed at memories they share with Asakura, but he’s just here, just here with her, saying his memories of her, with her, are the ones that are special.

Well… not just her, the others are there too.

“They are,” is what she finds herself replying. An unnecessary addition really, but she wants him to know the memories are special to her too. “But why now?” Why show them now?

“Just with everything going on, I wanted you to know how valuable you are.” Something Mitsuki would never even dream of being said. She wants to pinch herself to make sure it's real, but she also doesn’t want to wake up if this is a dream. 

She knows as well. That this time is only for now. In only a moment the culture festival she’s been agonising over will be here. She’ll get to see how much all her work has paid off, if it will pay off. And following that Asakura will be preparing for the winter tournament, he won’t have time to stop by the cafe every afternoon. This is another special moment, a special memory, not one photographed or documented but one she’ll have to lean on in the coming weeks.

“I just wanted this before everything else gets in the way, because I’m comfortable with you, more than with anyone else, I think. I like that. You’re different to other people, you don’t have expectations of me, but even when you do, I never feel like I’ll be letting you down. It makes me want to give you everything you’ve ever wanted because that’s what it feels like you give to me.”

Asakura taps on the screen this time, his fingers winding their way in between her own. A picture from the day they all went to the park during summer vacation.

“But I know you’re working hard to do that on your own.”

A picture of her, with the friends she had made all on her own. Friends who were friends not just in the space of a school building but friends she could see whenever she wanted.

“It’s like you glow brighter with every new challenge you set, with each one you overcome. It’s like,” he pauses, and Mitsuki feels her heart in her throat because these are words she would have never expected to hear, not from anyone, not from him. “You’re like air to me, the very atmosphere when I’m with you changes. I want to fill everything with you, every part of me, of life. You make things better.”

“I… What…”

“You see,” he says, eyes on hers, soft and serious all at once, “I actually like you Mitsuki.”

She’s definitely in a dream. She’s in another one of her dreams. She’s in a dream because she opens her eyes to the ceiling, her back against the soft— nope, hard, definitely hard— not her bed but on the floor, the floor of a room she doesn’t know. A room she doesn’t know but with Asakura’s face looking down on her, pulling her up, off the floor, back to sitting, in the middle of the clubroom— right, that's where she is.

A place she’s never been but— I actually like you Mitsuki— a place she’s never going to forget from now on.

look i’m never going to get over that chapter where all towa wants is a picture with mitsuki but everyone else gets one instead. also bc before the confession my heart was already bursting bc he finally got their photo.

[wintercovers]

@kurooakaweek day one: strangers || amused words: 1328 || rating: t

“Dude!” Is Kuroo’s first word when finally he is able to catch a moment alone with Bokuto. The word is closely followed by “what the actual fuck.”

Bokuto just looks at him, confusion the only thing recognisable on his face.

Kuroo looks back towards the teams sitting around eating lunch, he nods towards them, making it very obvious that he wants Bokuto to know that he’s looking at Bokuto’s team. “Oh,” Bokuto says, confusion gone, partly gone anyway, “I already told you I was made vice-captain, why would I lie about it?” Kuroo can actually think of several reasons but none of them are the reason for Kuroo’s actual state of what the fuck, because Bokuto is his friend, and friends should tell friends when their new friends are one of the most beautiful people to walk the planet.

“Not that,” Kuroo says, “but also congrats on that, by the way, did I say that yet?” Kuroo keeps going, Bokuto’s mouth opens, a question on his lips and even though Kuroo wants answers from him he keeps going. “Okay, so less of a what the actual fuck, maybe more of a who/ the actual fuck— Don’t look! He’ll see!” Kuroo turns Bokuto’s head back towards him. “I’ll tell you, look— Oh my god he’s looking— Don’t!”

Bokuto does anyway. He twists his head from Kuroo’s grip—where realistically, as soon as Bokuto wanted out Bokuto was going to get out, Kuroo doesn’t have the muscles to stop him—and waves—fucking waves—at the prettiest boy Kuroo has ever seen in his life. Like ever. This life, his next one, and all previous lives combined.

What God decided this boy grace should be able to grace lowly humans such as themselves the pleasure of his face?

The modern marvel of humanity waves back and before Bokuto can add a scream to where he already has the attention of their local deity. “Okay, so— him— okay—“

“Akaashi?”

“Akaashi, wow yes, wow. Him. Akaashi. Bokuto, my buddy, pal, man, friend, I repeat: what the actual fuck?” Kuroo shakes his hand in wonderboys direction.

“What did Akaashi do?” Kuroo wants to tear not only his own hair out but Bokuto’s too. It would probably be satisfying, initially. It’s definitely not something Kuroo would be happy about long term but Bokuto needs to catch on to what Kuroo is not saying quicker, easier, because Kuroo doesn’t want to actually say that he now believes in love at first sight when all these years he’s been shaking his head at Kenma’s stupid otome games. Now he’s living one out; the new guy at school, the transfer student, except none of those because they attend different schools. It is like he’s transferred into their friend group because Bokuto has been hanging out with the guy all morning. Talking between matches and sometimes Kuroo has been present, a quick wave, a quick word, and all the while wondering why in the fuck Bokuto didn’t share earlier that he’s friends with this heavenly creature named Akaashi.

He would have like a little more warning.

He would have liked a name, a mail address, a date and a time.

Friends, like Bokuto, should be there to hook friends, like Kuroo, up with his new friends, like Akaashi. It’s just the way friendship works.

And if it’s not, Kuroo thinks it’s the way it should work.

“What do you mean what did he do?! Fuck!” Kuroo needs to keep quiet. He needs not to shout. Firstly because that’s Bokuto’s thing and secondly— and probably more importantly right now— Akaashi might hear. “Have you seen him? Look at him—”

“Okay.” And Bokuto, bless his giant soul, just looks at him. “What am I looking for?”

“At. Look at him!”

“Yes.”

“And?” Kuroo stresses. Is stressed. What wavelength does Bokuto's mind run on?

“And… what? Was he mean to you? He probably didn’t mean it that's just the way he comes off.”

Kuroo growls, actually growls. He stomps his foot, half way to having a tantrum. Why can’t Bokuto understand? It’s simple.

“Akaaaaashi!” No tantrum. No nothing. Bokuto definitely just yelled that out. Kuroo pulls down Bokuto’s hands from where they’re cupped around his mouth and watches, heart stopped and frozen in fear as Akaashi stops talking to Konoha and with what must be the biggest eye roll the world has ever seen, glares at Bokuto, but then, seemingly contrary to the glare, also walks over to them.

Bokuto shakes out of Kuroo’s grip, meets Akaashi half way, and before Kuroo has time to think and to run Akaashi is making eyes—meeting, meeting his eyes— over Bokuto’s shoulder and there’s nothing he can do. This is it. His life is flashing before his eyes, he’s about to ascend from this plane of existence and—

Oh shit, he's walking over—

“Hey!” Smooth, he can do this.

“Hello to you too.” Kuroo did not expect his voice to sound like that. Wow.

“Hi.” A sigh.

“You said that already Kuroo-san.”

“Right of course, hi—“ Kuroo pinches his thigh through his shorts. He needs to just not talk. But also Akaashi is biting down on his lip in a way that looks like it is being done in order to not smile and Kuroo might be feeling ten degrees warmer under his collar and still feeling the aftereffects of what might have been a minor heart attack but this is something he can work with. Besides, “you know my name?” Kuroo can work with this, this means he’s not the only one looking, not the only one interested. He can definitely work with this. He smirks, he puts a hand up, he pops a hip and leans into the wall.

That is not there.

Kuroo trips. He stumbles and nearly falls, but the important thing is he doesn't because he catches himself and Akaashi has reached out to steady him. Akaashi, whose teeth are still pressing into his bottom lip, whose eyebrows are high on his face; Akaashi who might be trying to hide his laughter, but Kuroo can see it all. Can read the amusement gleaming in his eyes. They’re sparkling with the laughter he’s not letting out, not all emotions can be hidden after all — and Kuroo prides himself on his observation.

Like the way Akaashi’s hands are still gripping onto his arms, skin darker than his own, hold tighter than it probably needs to be. Continuing to steady Kuroo for longer than he needs to now that he is standing up straight again.

“Are you okay Kuroo-san?” He prides himself on his observation skills except for where he failed to observe that he is standing outside, a good ten metres, probably, from the nearest wall; there isn’t even a tree nearby that he could have mistaken for a wall to lean on. “Is the sun getting too much for you? Do you need to sit down?”

Not the sun, but a good out nonetheless. “Yes.”

“Hmmm,” Akaashi puts a cool, calloused hand to Kuroo’s head and maybe this time he really will pass out. “You don’t feel too warm but I’ll get you some water and a cold towel. That last set of punishments must have been one too many.”

Kuroo sits, right where he is. He pulls up his knees and burrows his head between them and tries not to scream about how much of an idiot he is. About how much he really fucking loves the fact that in the midst of caring for him Akaashi has somehow managed to throw in a jibe about Kuroo’s team losing to his own just before they broke for lunch. Ouch but also yes.

“I’ll be right back.”

Kuroo just nods and hopes that Akaashi will understand. He honestly needs a little bit of time alone anyway to work through what a mess he is and figure out how he’s going to fix it before Akaashi gets back.

[wintercovers]

for @nikitsuki kuroaka feat. college!au & awakening; 3k~ for the haikyuu rarepair exchange

Kuroo Tetsurou is a smart person. Smart in the way where he sometimes considers himself to be but if someone else were to say it of him, Tetsurou would deny it. As such, Tetsurou is only disappointed in himself not to have put two and two together.

For weeks now, Shirofuku has been talking about babysitting Akaashi. For weeks now, Tetsurou has not been able to put two and two together.

The only reason he’s been able to put two and two together is having every single thing laid out in front of him for him to piece together. Today, Shirofuku had invited Tetsurou along to babysitting, he had only caved with the utterance of the words ‘there’ll be food’ because Tetsurou will take whatever he can get. The words had been enough for him even knowing that Shirofuku saying there’s food is not a guarantee that Tetsurou will be able to get food because… well… Tetsurou knows her.

So it is, weeks— almost a month and a half— of hearing about the Akaashi that Shirofuku babysits and Tetsurou follows as she lets herself— lets them both— into a place that is not her own. She opens the door to the smell of food cooking and a shout of “trouble has arrived!” and all the while Tetsurou is left in the dark.

Until a voice Tetsurou hadn’t expected at all— in the way that he kind of thought they’d been breaking in, not that hearing this voice, in particular, was a surprise— responds, “about fucking time”.

Shirofuku pauses at the words, Tetsurou worries once again that they’ve broken in somewhere they shouldn’t be, but then she hangs her head, wipes a non-existent tear from beneath her eye, and mutters so low it’s probably just to herself “they grow up so fast”. She continues then, up a set of stairs and through a doorway at the top and it’s here that Tetsurou is able to put a face to the voice.

He actually can’t believe he needed to see the face to know who the voice belonged to. He should have already known.

Been able to put two and two together.

Although, if Tetsurou is being honest with himself, most of the time he has spent with Akaashi in the past was spent with Bokuto and Akaashi and Bokuto has apparently drowned out most of the parts where Akaashi was present in his memory. Even now, trying to remember Akaashi’s voice and how he should have been able to recognise it all that is coming to mind is Bokuto’s voice, shouting out, for a toss, for attention, for extra food… for Akaashi. Okay, so Tetsurou definitely should have remembered.

It’s like meeting up again has thrown them into each other's orbits. And quite literally so. Tetsurou has been seeing him everywhere and by all accounts, Akaashi has been attending the same university for weeks before Tetsurou ran into him but now he’s everywhere, actually everywhere. It’s astounding.

Tetsurou has passed him in the corridors and seen him walking in and out of some of the local shops. Tetsurou is pretty sure they even share a lecture theatre, he’s positive he saw Akaashi leaving the very same one he was about to go and sit in for fifty minutes of his life but without actually having the guts to call out to who he thinks was Akaashi he can’t really be sure. Tetsurou is pretty sure they once passed by each other in the bathroom too but for obvious reasons, Tetsurou did not want to look too hard on that occasion.

It’s probably just being able to pick out a face he’s known basically what feels like forever compared to the strangers that he recognises but does not know. But still, Tetsurou wonders how they never crossed each other's path before now. Has he just never been looking? Are there more people he knows around, friends of friends, or acquaintances who now have the potential to be more such as Shirofuku had become?

It’s the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday, every Thursday when Tetsurou knows for sure that it is Akaashi. For Tetsurou it’s a designated lunch time squeezed in after all the lectures he had attempted to have as early in the day as possible this year. It must also be a similar kind of break for Akaashi. Tetsurou always— now always— notices Akaashi sitting elsewhere in the food hall with a smattering of other people.

Today is the first time it feels like Akaashi has noticed him back because today is the first time Akaashi has asked to join him.

Tetsurou has always considered himself observant but this entire situation with Akaashi has told him he is anything but—

“—is anybody in there? Is this space free?”

—Tetsurou apparently can’t even focus on Akaashi talking to him. Instead, too hell bent on figuring out where Akaashi has been hiding all this time or when it is he lost the ability to focus on more than one thing at a time.

“Yes sure, sit!” And Tetsurou wishes he could pay more attention to more things because then maybe getting flustered and being caught daydreaming wouldn’t end up with half his food plastered across Akaashi’s chest.

Tetsurou is getting better at this.

“So,” he starts, “honestly this time, did you like, just transfer in?”

Shirofuku glares at Tetsurou like this is the most offensive thing she’s ever heard. Akaashi just looks at him, confused, before turning his bewilderment onto Shirofuku.

“It’s okay,” she says, “you don’t actually have to listen to him. Pretend he’s an art piece you don’t understand; you look, you nod, you move on.”

“Oi!”

Akaashi holds up a hand to Tetsurou’s protest and Tetsurou swallows down whatever words he hasn’t even thought through saying. “It’s okay,” Akaashi says to Tetsurou, “I understand,” he says to Shirofuku.

“Oi!” Tetsurou shouts this time. “I am sitting right here and I will not tolerate this happening right in front of me!”

“Oh,” Akaashi says, “I apologise, I will keep the talking about you to whilst I am away from you. Unrelated, I feel like a drink.”

“Me too!” Shirofuku pipes up, jumping to her feet before Akaashi has even made an attempt to push his chair out.

“Me—“

“What would you like?” Akaashi cuts across him. “Never mind, I’ll pick something out for you!” Akaashi smiles, smirks, and it’s only now that Tetsurou realises he’s being played.

“No! No, I’m definitely coming!” But they’ve already gone. Whispering conspiratorially together, glancing back over at him. And he has to stay, because they’ve left all their things at the table with him and Tetsurou, despite whatever things they may think of him, is kind enough to not let it all get stolen.

Tetsurou doesn’t drink. There’s no reason for it, no family history of alcohol abuse, no bad night that tainted the substance for him. He simply doesn’t drink. He might when he’s twenty, he might go his entire life without touching it, he might give into it and fall off the deep end. His history is clean and his future is uncertain but in this moment Tetsurou has never touched alcohol, never tasted it beyond the dishes cooked with it where the actual alcohol is cooked out.

He doesn’t drink which places the queasy feeling in his stomach on something other than the feeling of intoxication and that’s worrying.

It’s not that he’s hungry — even though he should be, one muesli bar for breakfast was not enough to get him through the day and now that he’s followed Shirofuku out to a party, hours after classes and his last lab and with no other food to really sustain him until then it should be from hunger. But it’s not, it’s not hunger, it’s not something he ate, it’s something else.

“I think I’m getting sick.”

Tetsurou didn’t expect the excuse to work, not when he doesn’t really believe it himself.

What he actually thinks, is that this whole house party thing is not for him. Not when he doesn’t drink, not when the only few people he knows here are drinking. Not when a guy he’s kind of somewhat known since he was fifteen is downing cup after cup of who knows what with barely a blink in between and with each cup is cozying up to some guy Tetsurou is pretty sure has been making eyes at Akaashi since he walked through the door with Tetsurou and Shirofuku earlier.

Tetsurou doesn’t even know where Shirofuku ended up. Part of him isn’t sure he even wants to know.

He’s definitely convinced he doesn’t want to come to a party again. He doesn’t need to see Akaashi—can that really be called dancing?—hanging off of some stranger Tetsurou doesn’t know if he even knows.

He wants to pull Akaashi aside and take them both home, but when he tries to do so Akaashi whines and complains and the stranger Akaashi hasn’t known since he was fifteen ends up telling Tetsurou off, and Akaashi thanks the guy and Tetsurou has to just walk back across the room and keep an eye on him, on both of them, shaking off drinks all the while.

It’s not his job and Akaashi hasn’t asked him to but Tetsurou is not going to let him go home with some stranger.

Tetsurou keeps seeing him. Occasionally them. Together. Apart. It doesn’t really seem to matter. Either way, it makes Tetsurou angry and there’s no real reason as to why.

Not really, Tetsurou keeps thinking on it but he can’t seem to find one.

Outside of a lecture theatre waiting to go in, they both exit, heads pushed together, whispers shared. Tetsurou feels a frown pull at his features until they’re gone from sight, until a while after they’re gone from sight. Until they’re gone and his mind gets distracted by needing to focus on his own lecture.

He sees them outside of a coffee shop. Sure, there are books surrounding them, pens in hand, but the way they sit, on corners close to each other instead of opposite each other makes Tetsurou’s gut churn. The guy leans over, tucks a strand of hair behind Akaashi’s ear— a stupid motion that doesn’t do anything, it doesn’t make the hair sit, it doesn’t keep the rest of Akaashi’s hair from his face, and Tetsurou only feels slightly better when Akaashi runs his hand through his hair afterwards undoing the pointless gesture anyway.

He’s there at lunch the next week. Again. Tetsurou was hoping it was a one-time thing but here he is again and Akaashi doesn’t say a thing about the guy sitting down next to him. The guy doesn’t excuse himself either, he throws a nod at Tetsurou and Tetsurou feels like growling but keeps it in and regrets it for the rest of the time he’s eating.

Through all of it, Tetsurou can’t figure out what it is that makes him hate the guy. Sure, there was one night where Tetsurou saw him pushing himself on Akaashi but on that night and all of these occasions since Akaashi hasn’t seemed adverse to the attention. All he can put it down to is a gut feeling, the guy is bad news, and somehow, some way, it’s Tetsurou’s job to let Akaashi know.

“Well… shit.”

Thunder cracks overhead the lights flicker on and off a few times, but then there’s nothing. Tetsurou can hear Akaashi moving around in the kitchen where he was supposed to be making food, but if the lights are gone, the stove top is probably gone as well.

“It’s okay,” Akaashi’s voice sounds melodious beneath the crash of thunder and beating rain overhead, soft, warm, comforting. “I’m prepared for this, it just might take longer.

The hiss of a match, a candle being lit, Akaashi’s face is thrown into contrast against the flame and Tetsurou follows him as he moves from the kitchen area to where he is sitting on the floor. A few more candles are lit, and tucked beneath Akaashi’s arm is a portable stove.

“Amazing,” Tetsurou says, because he doesn’t know anyone their own age who would buy cooking equipment that isn’t what they’re gifted with in their accommodation. Then again, it’s also Akaashi, “guess you won’t let anything get between you and a meal, hey?”

Akaashi smiles, laughs into candlelight, into the hiss of gas, beneath cracks and booms.

And oh, realisation dawns on him like he’s never really known what the day really looked like before.

He knows now, Tetsurou knows now what he never quite knew earlier.

Why he’s never known how to react when his friends in class had pulled out magazines and Instagram accounts of busty models in swimsuits and less. He knows now why his go to had been ‘long hair’ because nothing else about girls had ever stood out to him— long hair was all there was because the girls Tetsurou knew with long hair got to iron it flat or curl it out and Tetsurou had always wished he had the ability to manoeuvre his hair in such a way. But that’s really the only wonder he had ever seen in it. In them. In girls. Simply the ability to change their hair, to change their hair, day to day if they so pleased.

In conversation Tetsurou had always agreed, that Kyouko was the prettiest girl in class, followed by Karen, by Chiyo, by Mina, by Reina, and so on; simply because he had heard these things paired with these names and agreeing was easier than coming up with something— with someone— on his own.

“Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”

The answer changing but always the same. He wanted to play volleyball ball. He wanted to focus on his studies. The two were always going to come first. He’s a captain now: his team focusing on volleyball and on their studies was always going to fall into place next. He doesn’t have time for other people. He’s not going to put them above himself and the goals he’s already had set in place for years.

(The— if only brief— falling out between Daishou and his girlfriend was enough to tell Tetsurou he had it right).

Again…

Again, he said these things because they were lines he had heard before and they were better for him, in his own opinion, than simply telling the truth: he just plain wasn’t interested.

Tetsurou didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings but he was never interested in the girls in his class or the ones hanging over the barricade at games, in the ones who sometimes he thought were watching after him whenever he found the spare time to just hang around.

His life would sort itself out first.

Tetsurou had always been convinced that when he had settled down into himself, into a job, into hobbies, into preparing for a future, that would be when he found someone who would fall into place as his partner. It had never been a long sought out dream, it was just the way he thought things went: when he hit a certain age he would inevitably have a wife and family and somewhere between then and now he would finally understand what everyone in school had been so obsessed with.

“Late bloomer” his father had called him.

His mother had called it “waiting for the right one”.

Tetsurou thinks that now, in this moment, both could be right.

Actually, what really seems to have happened, it that he was never made aware that this was also an option.

Then again, there’s something to be said for purposely turning his head in the club room, for always keeping a respectable distance even when he’s friends with people who seem not to believe such a thing exists, for keeping his limbs and blankets firmly in place on his own futon at training camps and sleepovers, for always making sure to keep his head up when conversations in the baths turned to tan lines and muscle definition.

A lot of times, a lot of instances, but none of it had really sparked this realisation within him.

But life before now has never been like this. It’s never been candlelight reflected in Akaashi’s eyes, preparing dinner in what is nearly darkness because not even a storm can keep him away from his food. A passion like no other.

One Tetsurou is starting to understand.

Not for food, but for a person. For this person.

A passion that has kind of sprung from nowhere.

Or maybe one slowly simmering, building up ever since they first collided back into each other’s worlds.

Realising that he wants to live out the after credits of the movies he’s never quite understood with Akaashi is strange. Nothing has changed. Not in the way they speak to each other, not in the amount of time they spend together, not even in how they interact, The strange thing is that Tetsurou now spends ten minutes for every second he spends with Akaashi wondering if he was too much, too obvious with his new found feelings. Has he put Akaashi off? Has Akaashi caught on and somehow, in some miraculous twist of fate, he feels the same?

Optimism, Tetsurou think, is okay in small doses.

[wintercovers]

for @yanagay; tried to go for cute senior high with a dash of kin-chan and this is the result

“Hey,” Sakuno freezes, mid-conversation, mid-word, mid-breath. Ryoma’s voice is deep and too close to her ear and she needs warning for when he’s going to do such a thing. “Isn’t that my hoodie?”

Sakuno turns around, a no on her lips until she is able to note exactly how close Ryoma is to her. Too close for Sakuno to be the assertive girl she always wishes she could be. She swallows her no back down and has to turn back to the tennis court in order to answer him. She is meant to be better than this. This year, her newly seventeenth year, she was meant to change. It’s looking like it will take the year for her to change. “It’s Kin-kun’s,” Sakuno says.

And as if he could hear the conversation turning towards him Kintarou waves his racket in their direction from the court. “You promised, remember!”

Sakuno fists at the hem of the hoodie he loaned her. Tomoka elbows her in the side. Ryoma steps in to stand next to her at the fence and Sakuno can’t quite figure out if she’s uncomfortable because he’s too close or not close enough. Especially considering what it is she promised in exchange for the hoodie.

She takes a breath to compose herself. “Good luck Kin-kun!” She calls out, voice only wavering a little to betray the embarrassment she feels as people start turning in her direction. There are barely twenty people watching this spur of the moment pick-up game, but Sakuno feels like she’s under a spotlight when they all look her way. Four more well wishes to go.

She hopes Ryoma doesn’t get the wrong idea.

“How come you aren’t down there?” Tomoka cuts in front of Sakuno to talk to Ryoma, pointing down at the courts where a few other people are sitting around with rackets sitting between their knees. Sakuno wonders why she didn’t think the same thing when Ryoma first showed up. They’re only here because Tomoka heard about the pick-up games through someone in her Echizen Ryoma Fan Club group chat. Watching Ryoma play tennis was the only thing that got them out of their heated homes to brave to cold.

Tomoka promising to help Sakuno with the promise to herself to be assertive and brave is the entire reason Sakuno accepted Kintarou’s hoodie when he offered it to her because apparently, ‘just looking at you is making me cold’.

“I’m not allowed.”

Sakuno chuckles at Ryoma’s answer, the childishness in his tone enough to push her nerves to the side. She really needs to stop being nervous. She risks a peek because she can picture Ryoma’s face in her head but she wants to know if she’s right.

She is.

Sakuno has to cover a new bout of giggles with her hand. Ryoma frowns, his eyes seem to roam from where the sleeve of Kintarou’s hoodie drapes over the tips of her fingers then back up to her eyes, frown still in place. “I have a meeting next week and dad doesn’t want me injured before I go to it.”

Sakuno’s giddiness dims, her chuckles cease. “Good luck!” She calls out to Kintarou again, she doesn’t even know how he’s doing. She should care but she doesn’t. Meeting is what Ryoma called it, but Sakuno is fairly sure this is what her grandmother has been talking around for a few weeks now: Ryoma being offered a scholarship to an overseas university to play tennis. His needing to be uninjured for a meeting/, his actually following the advice… it has Sakuno thinking it’s the same thing.

This is why she needs to be brave, why she needs to be assertive. If she’s complacent in what she feels for too much longer Ryoma will be gone. Gone from her every day, gone from this city, gone from the very country in which she lives.

Sakuno shakes the thoughts away, the future is the future, now is now.

“Shame, Kin-kun would have liked to play you while he’s in town.” And it really is a shame, if Ryoma was on the court playing against Kintarou the game would be much better to watch. More entertaining. Some people enjoy a grossly one-sided match but Sakuno prefers the heart-stopping moments present only in a close game. Even when she’s the one playing she prefers it. Although, if Ryoma was down there playing Sakuno would feel a lot more conflicted about cheering for Kintarou.

Kintarou wins a point. It’s the first one Sakuno has really seen of this game, although it’s less Kintarou winning a point and more his opponent losing it. “This is easy Kin-kun, you’ve got this!” She almost feels bad for cheering, simply because it seems unnecessary. It takes a rare person to beat Kintarou in a match, and one of those rare people is standing next to her. “How come you came if you aren’t allowed to play?”

Ryoma looks at her, frowns at her— frowns down at the hoodie she’s wearing. Sakuno turns away, tugs at its hem, tries to pull it down although it doesn’t seem to want to stretch any further than halfway down her bare thighs. Her eyes track the wires of the wires of the fence but at the continued silence she casts her eyes back to Ryoma. Catches his eyes moving back up to her own. “Toyama wanted me to come. He said he had something for me.” Ryoma frowns again, this time at the embroidery across her left breast, then he turns away, seemingly lost in thoughts while following the ball down on the court. “I thought it was…” Ryoma trails off.

Sakuno chalks it up to him talking to himself but turns to Tomoka instead — her awkward, not quite wingman for the day — hoping for insight. Tomoka is usually her go-to when miracle of miracles she ends up messaging Ryoma. It’s harder to do the same thing in person and she might not have insight into Ryoma specifically but Tomoka’s far greater experience, with people in general, is what Sakuno is counting on to help.

Tomoka hunches her shoulders at Sakuno’s questioning look. Not much help at all in the end.

Sakuno wants to turn away, to give up for the day, to try something again on another day. Tomoka’s attempt to dress her to impress him have fallen to the wayside given the blustery cold and the subsequent wearing of Kintarou’s hoodie before she froze on the spot. Sakuno feels far more comfortable with the hoodie on than she felt earlier with half her body bared ‘to catch his attention’ with ‘something different’, but she also feels a little bad about how much time Tomoka spent planning the outfit for her — although Sakuno has to admit to herself that Tomoka’s clothing suggestions seemed a far better fit for a summer outing than one mid-January — and planning today for her.

Sakuno doesn’t think anything is going to come of it. It’s probably her fault. Her and Tomoka had been here first. Ryoma had approached them, approached her, chosen to watch the game by their side but then Sakuno is the one with no idea how to carry a conversation when nobody is aiding her and she hasn’t had adequate time to prepare herself in advance. Nothing of what they’ve barely talked about today has been a conversation she’s practiced in the dead of the night with Tomoka.

“He’s looking at you,” Sakuno looks to Ryoma who said it, who’s looking back but nods his head towards the court.

“Oh,” she says, “you’re amazing Kin-kun!” Kintarou stares a moment longer before serving. Yeah, even Sakuno can admit that one was weak. There’s nothing amazing about the way he’s playing in this match. If they were playing with different rules his opponent would have been chased from the court a while ago. As it is, it turns out this is the last point and Sakuno fell behind on cheering, fell through on her promise, Kintarou shakes his opponent’s hand and leaves the court stopping on the other side of the fence.

“Sorry,” Sakuno says when he stops in front of them.

Kintarou smiles, “I didn’t actually expect you to do it!” He laughs and Ryoma tenses beside her and Sakuno prepares for something to happen. Nothing does. “I’ll go get dressed and then we should get some food. If Koshimae’s not playing there’s not much point hanging around here longer.”

Kintarou runs back to the court side and Ryoma races around the fence to jump in and follow him. This is where something is going to happen, Sakuno is sure of it this time. She doesn’t get time to worry too much because Tomoka links their arms and walks them both to the court entrance as well. “We need to get a picture!” Tomoka says, “not everyone gets to hang out with Japan’s next best thing at the weekend. We could be famous, we’ll be in their biographies one day!” Sakuno ignores the words. Sure, a photo would be nice, but not necessarily for the reasons Tomoka is suggesting. Being president of Ryoma’s fan club for years on end with no end in sight is much more of a reason for Tomoka to be interviewed for his biography; if one were to even come.

Ryoma and Kintarou return. Arguing, as is usually the case. Sakuno doesn’t understand why when she thinks they have the potential to be actual good friends, but boys minds are not something she understands. She’s not sure anyone does.

“This one is mine!” Kintarou is saying, “see look at the size, it even has my name on the tag! That’s yours!” Kintarou points and in what seems to be slow motion Sakuno watches as both of them turn towards her. So slow is the motion, that she has time to see what they’re doing. Ryoma has Kintarou’s hoodie pulled down at the back collar, Kintarou’s hoodie, an exact replica it seems of the hoodie of Kintarou’s that she’s wearing now. In slow motion everything slides together: Ryoma frowning, the constant looks, of course they weren’t for her.

It had been so easy to believe the hoodie Kintarou had handed her was his own, the U-19 Japan stamped across her breast belonged only to him and a few others. What reasons would she have not to believe it was his own? He already has a boisterous personality, loud where Ryoma’s confidence is silent, she had thought his laughter at her sliding it over her head was because of the size, because he had convinced someone to cheer for him so he could look cool. No, no, no, all wrong. Kintarou had played her, had handed her Ryoma’s hoodie, to tease her, to annoy Ryoma, it doesn’t matter which.

Time speeds up and Sakuno’s face bursts into flame.

“It’s— I’m— Here!” She ends up on, none of her thoughts coming together into words. She can’t wear Ryoma’s hoodie. That’s too much, especially without his knowledge, without his permission. The thought of the warm embrace she’d been enjoying today coming from something of Ryoma’s is too much to handle without being prepared. She needs it gone.

Her hands pull up at the hem, her hair gets caught with it somewhere around her neck, the wind is catching at her skin and Sakuno wishes today had never happened. Why had she listened to Tomoka, why had she thought today might be different? At least at school, at tournaments, they have a set routine. This going out and dressing up — down? — specifically for Ryoma is where it had all gone bad. Pining is better than embarrassing herself in front of him by wearing his clothes.

“No!” Sakuno freezes, stops struggling to pull the hoodie from her tangled hair, stops contemplating ripping it out just to get this moment over with. “Keep it. It’s fine!” And in a turn of events completely unexpected, Ryoma pulls the hoodie back down slowly and even sets about trying to untangle her hair from the knot that’s formed. Tomoka probably has a brush on her, because she’s that type of person, but Sakuno would rather sit through Ryoma’s attempt to comb her hair back even if it’s still going to look like a mess afterwards.

Ryoma steps back, cheeks just a touch darker, from the cold or from her Sakuno will never know. She still feels like she’s on fire. Which is funny, now she has permission to wear the hoodie — Ryoma’s hoodie — she doesn’t even feel like she needs it.

“Keep it,” Ryoma says again. “For now, I’ll— I’ve been missing it for a few weeks now anyway,” he glares at Kintarou who only unleashes a smile warmer than the day, “a few more days is fine. I can pick it up some other time.”

Ryoma doesn’t glare this time, but he’s definitely looking at the hoodie again, his hoodie. He shakes his head and steps away, “I’m not going out to get food, though.”

“Koshimae!” Kintarou whines. “What’s the point of coming here if we don’t get to hang out and play!”

“You didn’t come here for me.” Ryoma answers. “I have things to do at home.” He continues walking.

Tomoka elbows Sakuno so hard in the ribs she winces and steps away from her. Sending a hurt look back at her friend Tomoka mouths an apology but points over her shoulder at Ryoma. “Follow him.” It’s said as whisper, but ends up harsh and loud and Kintarou laughs at it. Sakuno flushes even more because she didn’t need more people knowing about her hopeless crush and this is clearly more than enough for Kintarou to catch on.

“Yeah, go!” He laughs, “I think you wearing that had an effect!”

“Especially when it looks like you have nothing else on underneath!”

“That’s your fault!” Sakuno cries at her friend. “Who owns skirts this short? Who wears them in winter?” A silly question, because Tomoka, owner of skirts this short, is also a wearer of skirts this short in winter. “How are you not cold?”

“I can’t tell you,” Tomoka says, “that’s a part of the charm!” She winks and Kintarou laughs and Sakuno thinks only bad things can come from them being left alone together but she’s also been embarrassed enough for one day and staying with them is too much for her right now.

“I’ll bring your clothes to school tomorrow,” Sakuno says in farewell, rushing off immediately to chase after Ryoma before he gets too far away.

She does catch up, he offers her a silent greeting and they walk in silence. It could have been awkward, but compared to earlier, this is normal. Ryoma talks when he has something to say, and there’s not much for them to say now. In a couple of weeks there will be. Sakuno wants to know about his trial for university but she also knows it’s not meant to be public knowledge yet, she shouldn’t even know. 

Sakuno wants to know where it is he’s going, what he plans to do, she wants to know if there's anything she can do to follow him without it being just to follow him. She doesn’t want to be that type of girl but she does want to challenge herself and watching after Ryoma all these years, being inspired by him and falling a little bit more in love with him in every moment they spend together is a challenge. Taking up tennis, trying to be more confident, making a habit out of asking to walk home with him when their schedules allow…

Ryoma makes the turn for Sakuno’s house on his own and Sakuno steps into place alongside him. The walk is too short. It had taken longer to get to the courts from Tomoka’s house. Sakuno wishes she lived further so that the moment could last longer, but she doesn’t, it doesn’t.

Ryoma doesn’t step past the gate to her house, so Sakuno takes the plunge to reach out and drag him up at least to the door. “Just wait,” she says, “I’ll give this back now in case I forget.”

“You’ve never forgotten anything,” Ryoma says, and Sakuno flushes from the compliment, but that’s not what she means here. Owning something this warm, this nice, of Ryoma’s, it would be easy enough to convince herself to conveniently forget she’s meant to give it back. Taking it off now is easier. “Why are you…” Ryoma doesn’t finish, just waves his hand at Sakuno’s de-hoodied outfit.

“Ah,” she really should have changed in her room and then come back down rather than taking off the hoodie in the genkan. “I stayed at Tomoka’s last night and she let me borrow some clothes.” Clothes being an optimistic term for what she has on. A tiny cut off cardigan, a top that barely covers the roundness of her chest — she’s still convinced the lace of her bra is hanging out the bottom — a bare midriff and a scrap of material Sakuno definitely wouldn’t call a skirt but that’s what Tomoka had called it.

“Right,” Ryoma is definitely blushing now. Sakuno might have enjoyed it were it not for being so exposed; because this is something new, something she hasn’t seen before. Her own self, able to make Ryoma blush. It’s nice, could be nice, if she could achieve it without being undressed. She has never even rolled up the skirt of her uniform. Her parents would never have let her out of her own house wearing these clothes and Sakuno wouldn’t want them to. “I’m not at school next week, but I’ll see you around after that.”

He waves, awkwardly. This is the closest he’s ever been to coming into her home and it’s like they’ve both suddenly realised it. He steps back and he’s at the gate before Sakuno braces herself for one final cheer, she was meant to do it five times in exchange for the hoodie. The first four had apparently been to the wrong person but she can right that wrong here.

“Good luck next week, you’ll do great and I hope you get it.”

Ryoma stops in his tracks, looks back at her. “You know?” Sakuno nods, expecting to be told off but instead gets a smile. “Thanks,” he says, bowing his head, “that means a lot. I always do well when you’re the one cheering me on.”

It’s too much. Too honest with the way he won’t meet her eyes as he says it.

Sakuno slams the door on the moment and collapses against it. She needs warning for when he’s going to do something like that.

[wintercovers]

52 short stories 2: A story about rising to a challenge [feat kanesawa]

There are four knocks at Shinji’s door. Fast. Loud.

Seto jumps twice. Once at the knock and a second time when Shinji smacks his books closed because he gave Sawamura a fucking time to come over if he needed help studying and this is not fucking it.

“No!” Shinji shouts at the door, already getting up to open it. Seto looks slightly confused at the difference between Shinji’s words and his actions but for whatever reason, he simply lets out a soft oh when Sawamura whines Shinji’s name from the other side of the door. A whine which only gets louder when Shinji doesn’t respond to it.

Shinji takes a deep breath before throwing the door open, he won’t let him add his own voice to Sawamura’s noise; it’s already late, and while people have come to expect noise from Sawamura at all hours of every day Shinji wants other people to view him with a bit more respect.

“Shut it!” It’s just that sometimes his patience is tested.

Sawamura mimes zipping up his lips and tip toes dramatically over to the desk littered with Shinji’s recently abandoned textbooks. Shinji sighs, closing the door much softer than he’d opened it. He’s done it now. He’s let Sawamura in. And this is why he keeps on showing up two hours after Shinji told him to because it doesn’t matter how forcefully Shinji makes their plans Sawamura knows he’s going to help anyway. Idiot.

Shinji is one, for letting him in.

“You’re late,” Shinji growls, sliding an extra chair across the room seeing as Sawamura has stolen his. “You better concentrate properly.”

Sawamura takes the words to apparently mean he can push everything off the desk except for his own notebook and thankfully the textbook Shinji had been using earlier.

Shinji did not sign up for this.

Shinji did not sign up for Sawamura rearranging his room, his desk. Shinji did not sign up for Sawamura showing up while he was trying to get his own shit done. Like… he kinda did but if anyone asks, this is a long-held promise that he could not simply abandon and absolutely not something he signed up for.

Deep breaths, deep breaths are the key to dealing with Sawamura in enclosed spaces.

“What do you need help with?”

“Boss’s essay,” Sawamura answers quickly.

Not what he was expecting. Shinji takes a deep breath, “which part?” His own is somewhere in the pile of things Sawamura has thrown on the floor. His essay and the workbook from Modern Japanese where he has notes on what Kataoka was looking for in their writing and what issues he wants them to address; as well as further points Shinji thinks will be important without having to be told them directly. Sawamura will probably benefit from Shinji’s notes by adding some of the points written down to his own essay.

Sawamura says nothing, stays silent until Shinji has retrieved what he needs just in this moment and has everything set out neatly at the back of his desk out of the way. Sawamura’s silence is, as always, louder than his words and Shinji definitely didn’t sign up for this. “Fuck,” he breathes out as Sawamura opens up to a nearly blank page in his book, simply titled at the top book essay and all Sawamura has in response is a giant cheesy smile.

“That’s not going to help you,” Shinji says, gripping at the edge of the desk to keep himself from gripping at the collar of Sawamura’s shirt, “why haven’t you started yet?”

Shinji’s invitation tonight had been planned around the maths test they have coming up next week, not helping Sawamura write an entire essay that is due to be handed in just two days from now. Less, seeing as it’s due when they have class in the morning. Due in less than two days and handed into their coach. Kataoka isn’t going to let any excuses wave away an assignment. Shinji can’t let it get to Sawamura needing excuses anyway, it’s no secret to anyone that he’s somehow officially become Sawamura’s unofficial tutor.

“Just please tell me you’ve at least read the book,” Shinji sighs.

“Of course I have!” Sawamura sounds offended but he’s the one here with nothing written asking for Shinji to help. He sounds offended but Shinji would not put it past him to daydream with his eyes open and the book in his hands. Offended even when too many in their people in class go easy on them, on Sawamura and Furuya both, and Shinji has walked in too many times to them both copying out homework before classes. He’s offended but it would not surprise Shinji in the least if someone was feeding lines to Sawamura for him to spout every time Kataoka called on him in class.

“Then,” deep breaths he tells himself, “have you thought about what theme you want to focus on?”

“Mortality!” Sawamura answers immediately and Shinji is able to release a breath that eases some of the tension from his shoulders. Sawamura may not have started yet but if he’s been thinking about it and already has a theme in mind it makes things easier. It’s also a different enough topic from his own essay that he doesn’t have to worry about accidentally leading Sawamura on to accidentally mimicking his own.

“Okay,” Shinji says, “that’s actually pretty good.” Sawamura actually brightens at the words as if they’re a compliment and not the slight upgrade from Shinji thinking he was totally useless. It doesn’t really matter though, Shinji is not going to actually spend his night telling Sawamura how to write his essay. “Go back to your room,” he directs, “find the quotes and passages you’re going to use and come up with an outline by lunch tomorrow, then I’ll help you with it.”

“Okay!” Sawamura yells, and Shinji sees Seto jump again in his periphery. “Goodnight!” He shouts again, even louder this time.

“Goodnight,” Shinji responds sharply, pushing Sawamura towards the door. He still has his own shit to do tonight and now he also needs to pick it all up from around his desk.

“Goodnight!” Seto calls out as well, sounding much more cheerful than Shinji had. Sawamura sends one last beaming smile to Seto before Shinji shuts the door on his stupid face.

“Finally,” Shinji sighs under his breath. Apparently not quiet enough. Seto starts giggling under his own breath and does not stop when Shinji glares at him — and he’d been so happy to hope that a junior roommate meant one who would respect him. Seto wouldn’t be laughing if he was the one unofficially responsible for making sure two of their regular pitchers were actually eligible to play in games.

As promised, Sawamura shows up at Shinji’s desk at lunch the next day with food, a chair, and his library copy of The Sound of the Mountain littered with sticky notes. This might go better than expected. It also might not. It is due in before this time tomorrow.

Over the break period, though, things go well. Shinji reads over Sawamura’s outline and some of his notes, rearranges a couple of things and when he hands them back Sawamura picks his pen up, sets his head down and gets to work. All Shinji really has to do is shoo anyone away that tries to talk to him. Occasionally he has to set Sawamura back to work when he takes too long over a mouthful of food, but things go rather well.

He’s not sure what to make of Sawamura ignoring most of the afternoon classes to quite obviously work on his essay. It’s a problem for future Shinji for sure but all he can do now is be happy that at least this one thing might get done.

He holds Sawamura back when class ends to do the same. Keeps the both of them in class for an extra half an hour until they both have to race down to change into their gear and race again out to the field.

“I hope you know you’re not pitching extra today, I’ll tell Miyuki if I have to.” Sawamura throws up a salute.

Post dinner and a warm bath the very last thing Shinji really feels like doing is supervising Sawamura as he continues to write his essay. The imminent due date of tomorrow morning does a good enough job of keeping Sawamura focused that Shinji almost feels unnecessary. Almost. He still has to direct Sawamura’s attention down every time his eyes wander the room for too long.

Other members of the team don’t disturb them. In fact, it is Kataoka himself who ends up being the bigger distraction. When he walks through the hall both Shinji’s and Sawamura’s shoulders hunch — neither of them wanting to be caught working on his assignment at what is actually the very last minute.

He probably already knows, they are not the first team members he has taught, they are far from being the last, and somewhere in the middle there must be someone worse than Sawamura. Someone who didn’t hand in anything. But Shinji will die before letting Sawamura show up to class with nothing.

As it ticks over to midnight, Shinji calls for a break.

“Practice if you need to. Pitch with a towel, pitch to the net, to a person, swing. Just don’t you dare fall asleep.”

Shinji takes the time to step quietly back into his own room, the darkness of the interior throwing him for a loop after the bright lights of the main hall. He yawns as the darkness swallows him but there’s no way he can allow himself to sleep either, no matter how appealing it seems right now. Sawamura could probably get it done without supervision, but the illusion of being watched, of someone having someone present with expectations of what he should be doing... Shinji thinks it helps.

He knows even without the use of a flashlight how to navigate the beds and stray clothes to his desk, then using only the backlight of his phone screen Shinji locates his maths workbook, the textbook to go with it. It doesn’t matter that he’s been neglecting it these past twenty-four hours. It definitely doesn’t matter that Sawamura probably doesn’t even know they have a test coming up. With Sawamura in the groove now of what he’s doing, there’s no real reason for Shinji to stay idly watching over him. Not when he has to prepare himself for the test, and probably also has to prepare for the oncoming storm of Sawamura having forgotten this too and coming to Shinji again for last minute help.

It’s not a pattern he wants to get dragged into.

Shinji has to learn now so that he has time to ease Sawamura into a passing grade before the test appears in front of them.

He accidentally stubs his toe in the doorway on the way out and manages to contain a soft but powerful fuck until he’s closed the door and taken a few steps away from his slumbering roommates. Half his foot throbs at what Shinji logically knows is not something that should hurt that much but at least he feels more awake now. More awake to see through this half of the night he’d really rather miss.

Shinji prefers his method of staying awake to Sawamura’s apparent method. Sawamura’s hands twitch on the table in front of him and when Shinji sits down next to him he realises it’s actually his entire body. Sawamura’s chair rattles, the table knocks, it’s just enough small noise to be annoying but Sawamura gets straight back into work so Shinji doesn't complain.

It takes him a little bit longer to be able to settle into his own work after neglecting it for so long. It takes a while for Sawamura’s twitching and turning of pages to settle into the background and for Shinji to trick himself into not thinking he should be in bed right now before he really gets into it.

He half studies himself, half draws up revision notes for sections he thinks are particularly hard; he’ll give them to Sawamura tomorrow… today. He’ll let Sawamura go over them for one night so that he can catch up on the sleep he’s missing now before getting back into this again. Back into this but less intense, because at the very least they still have the weekend ahead of them in which to study.

Shinji keeps it up for… he doesn’t know how long.

He keeps it up until numbers and letters and formulas all blend into one dark blur of ink in his eyes.

He keeps it up until he needs to close his eyes for just a moment— dry and heavy as useless as they have become.

Shinji is so sore when he wakes. Before even opening his eyes all he knows is that everything hurts. His neck hurts, his back hurts, his wrist hurts, his butt hurts. His eyes hurt too and opening them seems only likely to make them hurt more. Shinji doesn’t want to be awake, he definitely hasn’t slept enough. He just wants to stay curled up in bed longer.

“Shh, don’t wake him.”

A weight leaves the back of his bed, and another settles somewhere in his gut. He never went to bed. He’s not in bed. He’s in the dining hall with Sawamura and by the voices whispering quietly around him, people are starting to gather for breakfast. No, he doesn’t want it to be morning already.

Opening his dry and caked together eyes Shinji discovers something has been draped over his head. He pulls it off and sits up to discover not only are there the few people Sawamura is coaxing into a deeper quietness, but another fifteen or so people are sitting on the other side of the room in various stages of eating breakfast. Great. He’s missed morning practice and all these people know he slept through it here.

Shinji thought he had woken up too early, but it hadn’t been early enough. Especially if he’s also taking into account the drool that has apparently collected to smudge at the ink of the page that was his pillow for the night. He just knows it’s mirror will be printed across his face because this morning is the best morning he’s ever woken to.

Shinji stretches, which catches Sawamura’s attention but has others pointedly turning their faces away. “I finished!” Sawamura cheers too loud for Shinji to handle this early in the morning. It’s also too early for him to speak. Shinji nods and stretches again and stands as what turns out to be a jacket, the thing that had been draped over him, falls to the floor.

He leaves the dining hall, steps into his own room to change into his uniform, hits the bathroom to splash his face with cold water and then heads back to the dining hall to eat. In helping Sawamura finish his essay he’s missed practice which means he’ll end up facing Kataoka’s wrath anyway. It wasn’t worth it. It never is.

It kind of is. It’s why he keeps doing it.

Sawamura has a loaded plate and an empty seat next to him which Shinji takes and eats. “Thanks for your help!” Sawamura says, Shinji only grunts through his mouthful of rice. “I saw what you were working on and I totally forgot about the test!” Shinji wishes he could high five himself without looking like a complete idiot, he called it. “I’ll come at lunch again and you can tell me what I need to work on!” Lunch. Not even a day to recover.

Shinji’s face hits the bench, once, hard, and then he’s back to eating. There are plenty of faces looking his way but Shinji doesn’t care. This is his luck, his lot in life, he did not sign up for this but he keeps on signing up for it.

[wintercovers]

52 short stories 1: story entitled ‘A New Beginning’ [feat DaiYui and university]

It’s more than a little unexpected when halfway into his first semester of university Daichi stumbles upon Michimiya in the middle of his evening run. At halfway into the semester, while still not quite feeling as grown up as being able to say he lives on his own in another city was supposed to grant him, he at least had a routine. Routine currently means a run half an hour after he’s eaten, a running path that takes him out past most of the small area of the city he’s come to know, before crawling back around to the campus gym (in case of a particularly heavy meal) and the closest convenience store (in case of a particularly warm day).

Yet not in the few weeks of this being his routine has Daichi ever spotted a red-faced Michimiya leaving the campus gym as he debates whether or not to pay it a visit himself.

Another surprise comes when calling her name results not in recognition and the happy smile Daichi has come to associate with Michimiya, but with a squeak, a dropped bag, Michimiya scrabbling to pick it up, and then running away into the night. Never once looking at him. Never once turning to see who it was that called out to her.

It takes a while of thinking over the encounter later in his room to realise that of course she ran when a strange male voice called out to her in the dark. It takes another short while to come to terms with the fact Daichi has no way to contact her. Firstly to apologise for startling her and secondly to hopefully spend time with someone he’s known since he was twelve; someone who can bring a piece of home to this city that should have become his new one but is not quite there yet.

What Daichi learns when he does some digging — digging actually meaning he is still scary enough to have Asahi do his digging for him because Asahi is much closer to home — is that one: Michimiya Yui does indeed attend the same university, has done since the beginning and yet apparently neither she nor Daichi had seen fit to share this information with each other; two: despite being given this information nobody is willing to pass on any contacts details.

His own searching, both closer to where they now both reside and yet completed comfortably from the table in his room tells him that he and Michimiya apparently do not share any classes as her name is not present in any of the line groups he is a part of.

This leaves him with only one final way to get in contact with her. Something Daichi has thought about whilst trying to dig up information, yet something he had also hoped to be no more than a last resort: he is going to have to find her at the gym again.

Creepy? Yes. Although perhaps a little less creepy if he actually manages to run into her inside of the gym rather than while the sun is down and she’s alone in the dark. Why is she walking around alone at night anyway? If Daichi manages to catch her — in a non-creepy way he means — he’s going to have to fix that.

The problem, Daichi is realising two nights into his casually run into Michimiya at the gym plan, is that he does not actually know how often Michimiya visits the gym. The other night could have been a one-off type of thing, an anomaly from her usual schedule… anything. Which means his not-creepy attempt at finding her has actually become kind of creepy.

The method is not the important part. The important part is that it works.

Exactly one week later at what Daichi thinks might also be the exact same time. Again, he calls out, again, she ducks. Only this time Daichi calls out to her name two more times and gets to watch as her shoulders come back down from around her ears and she actually takes a cursory look around.

Daichi can tell the exact moment Michimiya recognises him. Her face breaks into a sunshiny smile it’s been too long since he bathed in. He’s forgotten it’s radiance and instead of saying any of the words he’s been thinking of the past week all he manages to do is raise a hand. He can’t even find whatever brainwave is necessary to wave it.

“Sawamura-kun?”

It’s his name from Michimiya’s mouth yet even so, Daichi finds himself searching around to check that it really is him she’s talking to. It’s like seeing her again after all this time has sent him back to the boy he was when they first spoke.

“I… yes!”

Michimiya bounds over to him like a puppy, sports bag swinging at her side. “It’s been so long!” She clasps his hands briefly, face blooming when she releases them. Daichi’s own hands tingle at the touch until he brushes it off on the back of his neck. “What are you doing here?” She doesn’t clarify whether she means here at this moment or here in this town or here being very specifically, outside of the campus gym.

“I live here?” It’s not meant to sound like a question. “I go here.” He waves at the gym behind him. “I had no idea you did too.”

Her sparkle dims just for a moment before it returns with a glint of determination.

“Oh! We should definitely share our contacts then!” Michimiya digs around in the bag at her side, hair falling over her face. The brief respite from being directly in her line of sight gives Daichi the chance to breathe again. To relax. To calm himself down—even when he realises there is no reason to be tense. This is Michimiya, this is just Michimiya. Michimiya who has known him from the awkward stage of twelve until now. He is able to relax only until Michimiya stands back up, one hand pushing her hair back behind her ear and the other producing her phone with a grand flourish.

“Oh,” he’s an idiot, “I don’t have my phone with me.” He didn’t want to get distracted by it and accidentally miss her.

“Right, of course, well—“

“Do you have a pen? You can write it down on my arm.” Michimiya flushes a warm red but bends down again to search through her bag. When she comes up this time she doesn’t push her hair away, staying hidden as she prints off how to find her on his arm. “This is so seedy,” he says. Daichi feels like one of the guys he’s overheard comparing how many contacts they’d managed to collect.

Michimiya hums, “I was going to say you could add yourself on my phone, but whatever floats your boat.” She puffs a breath at her hair and Daichi gets a brief look at a soft smile.

“What?” Daichi jolts, the name Michimiya has written ending in a long stripe of ink down his arm. “You could have— You should have— Ah! I feel like an idiot now!”

Michimiya laughs, it’s more of a nervous chuckle than something Daichi feels he should take offence to. “This has its benefit as well.” When Daichi asks what benefit Michimiya could possibly get from writing out her contact details down his arm she only shakes her head. “It’s a secret!” She says cryptically, biting down on a smile before moving away from the topic altogether. “You better add me as soon as you get home!”

She runs off before Daichi gets a chance to really talk to her.

Again, Daichi thinks later, simply jumping on Michimiya outside of the gym is not the best way to catch up with someone. Michimiya probably had somewhere to be; friends to meet, food to eat. All Daichi is able to do is as Michimiya said.

He walks the route back to his room instead of running, just in case running somehow manages to smudge Michimiya’s writing. Although, having read Michimiya’s username, it’s not one hard to forget. It’s simple and not at all the embarrassment of his own username. He’s glad to have Michimiya’s name on his arm rather than the alternative of actually typing up the stupid name Sugarcoated signed him up with back in their first year of high school after taking personal offence to Daichi not having a line.

Unfortunately, despite his care taken on the way home, habit takes over once he’s home. Usually, at this time, he is returning from a run and very much done for the day. Routine takes over and Daichi is halfway into scrubbing really hard at the black ink on his arm before he remembers what it was there for as well as Michimiya’s very specific words.

Daichi jumps from where he’s sat, turns off the water and slips twice on his way out of the bathroom before thinking to slow down. He picks up his phone from his bed, finishes washing, and adds Michimiya as soon as he’s in the bath. The name captainmichimiya81 easy enough to remember now that he knows it. Easy enough to think he should have been able to come up with it on his own.

Almost immediately after sending out the contact request, he gets a message.

[9:30 PM] You live further away than I thought you would (lol)

[9:30 PM] I may have actually forgotten about it (lol)

[9:30 PM] I don’t actually live that far away

[9:31 PM] (crying)

Daichi should have known Michimiya was the type of person to use stickers. Text not quite enough to get her thoughts through on its own. Meanwhile, Daichi has never touched the ones on his phone.

[9:31 PM] And here I thought you were excited to see me (crying)

[9:31 PM] I was!

[9:32 PM] It’s nice to see a familiar face!

[9:32 PM] I can’t believe there was a familiar face around all this time

[9:32 PM] And I didn’t know

There’s a pause in the conversation. Almost unnoticeable except for the fact that Daichi’s screen has been very active; messages popping up almost instantly.

[9:34 PM] Yeah

[9:34 PM] Strange

Strange is Michimiya’s response, but it’s quickly pushed to the back of his mind as Michimiya starts off talking about her course. It’s fun and strange and interesting because Daichi doesn’t think he’s ever talked to Michimiya this much, for this long, in person. Even with being aware of each other since way back in junior high. Daichi doesn’t know if it’s the breath of home in a new town of the screen of the phone that makes it more comfortable, but he likes it.

[10:17 PM] Anyway

[10:17 PM] I should let you go it’s getting late

[10:17 PM] Yeah

[10:18 PM] Okay

[10:18 PM] I’m the one who’s tired (lol)

[10:18 PM] Yeah I’ve probably been in the bath for long enough now

[10:18 PM]  But it was nice to catch up we should talk again soon!

[10:18 PM] I’m all pruney (lol)

Michimiya doesn’t respond immediately and Daichi takes the opportunity to do as he’s said. In moving he notices he’s not just pruney, the water is actually really freaking cold — how did he not notice until now? How long has it actually been?

Daichi towels away his goosebumps and jumps straight into his pyjamas.

Michimiya finally messages back while he’s making himself a warm water to properly heat himself back up.

[10:23 PM] I haven’t even had a bath yet (sigh)

[10:23 PM] Next time we could be bath buddies (lol)

[10:24 PM] (lol)

Daichi doesn’t have anything to say back to that. He doesn’t want to think more on those words, but even thinking this much Daichi knows that any future occasion that involves Michimiya will have him wondering if she’s in the bath… which is not a thing he wants to do.

[10:26 PM] Goodnight

It’s sent with a cute, flowery sticker and Daichi sends the same sticker in return because he doesn’t want to extend the conversation. He doesn’t want to ask Michimiya if she is the bath now. He doesn’t. It’s weird to even think about.

He’s clearly done for the night. It’s been a long day, he’s reunited with an old friend and now he really needs to put his mind to rest.

In the morning, Daichi finds Michimiya has messaged him again. He didn’t hear them come through, but when he shuts off his alarm the notifications sit front and centre across his screen.

[Yui: Or not don’t worry about it (lol) 17m ago] [Yui: If you’re free at all over the next… 46m ago] [Yui: But last night was definitely too late 46m ago] [Yui: Sorry that was probably too early 47m ago] [Yui sent you a sticker 1h ago]

Daichi has only just woken up but straight away he’s been slapped with a six-year reminder of how insecure Michimiya can be when it comes to certain things. Usually, it was in relation to volleyball — the one thing they had in common — her fears of not being good enough, of failing as a captain. This is the first he’s ever known of her feeling insecure even as a friend. It’s another part of what Daichi feels is a part of his life on fast forward. He’s found out more about Michimiya in a few minutes this morning than he feels like he has in all the other years they’ve known each other.

Although, in all those years, while they knew of each other and Daichi kind of considered them friends, they’ve never actually been particularly close. Until now, outside of finding Michimiya in her classroom they’ve never had an alternate way to talk to each other. Yet yesterday Michimiya had not hesitated in asking.

She must be feeling it too. Lost in a new place, even weeks into it being new, happy to find something old and familiar so that this new and strange place doesn’t feel quite so intimidating.

[8:24 AM] What time do your classes finish today?

[wintercovers]

Haru Matsu Bokura ♥︎ Towa/Mitsuki; Christmas/New Years (because this three month break has me missing them)

It starts off feeling a lot like most of Towa’s usual Christmases; the closing ceremony is followed by a quick basketball practice which for a brief moment in time lets him forget that what awaits him outside are the blistering winds of winter. And then it changes. Instead of following Rui home to wait out the time until whatever class event he’s been invited to, Mitsuki sends him a message.

It says the cafe is open, and they are welcome to drop in.

Towa sends off a reply, saying he’ll have to see what the others are up to. He hasn’t heard anything about class dates, and even if there are some, there is surely time enough for them to have a drink and maybe some food before they have to go to out to them.

And in all honesty, when Towa tells the others of the invitation they rush to wipe the sweat from their body’s and change back into still-pressed uniforms. Towa thinks it was a little bit naive of him to think they would turn a visit to the cafe down.

Or… well… perhaps most of it was wishful thinking. The thought that maybe, somehow, he’d be able to spend the rest of the afternoon just with Mitsuki and pretend it was something they could have planned.

It’s still fine this way. It will be nice to spend Christmas Eve with his friends and at the cafe, with people who are beginning to feel have been a part of his life forever.

And it’s nice to walk over with everyone else, body still warm from practice but the breath clouding his face and the tips of his fingers there to remind him of the very not-warm day. And practice is his excuse still, as his face heats further at Kyousuke’s third utterance of the same question. “Are you sure Mitsuki meant all of us?”

“Of course she did!” Ryuji answers again, this time with a new addition, “Nana-san probably has a present for me!”

A present? “A present.” It’s Christmas and he’s on his way to see Mitsuki — it’s half a dream come true, but unfortunately not the half where he has a gift for her. Will she have one for him? No, probably not, of course not. He shouldn’t let himself think such things when he has nothing for her. “Did you get something for Nana-san?”

Ryuji whips out something red and gold from his bag and Towa is left to stew in his feelings of inadequacy. Ryuji couldn’t have known they would go to the cafe today, but even so, he’s prepared.

“How long has that been in your bag?”

“One week!”

Towa’s feet stop moving of their own accord. Rui and Ryuji continue talking ahead of him, their voices fading into the wind. Only Kyousuke stops with him.

“My guess,” he says, “is that you don’t have anything to give to Mitsuki.” Towa only needs to nod, Kyousuke knows him too well. “Why do you need to give her anything?”

“To say thank you,” is Towa’s first answer, “because I want to,” his second. He knows he doesn’t need to get Mitsuki something, but he wants to. He wants to be able to show appreciation for all the things Mitsuki has given him this past year. He wants to show his appreciation for Mitsuki, for the person she has been to him these past few months.

“If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t bring any presents.” It does not make Towa feel better. “Which at least puts us at Ryuji and Rui giving presents and the two of us not doing anything.”

“Of course Rui has a present.” It will be for Mitsuki as well. To make her happy, he’ll say, even though Towa wants to make her happy too, he just doesn’t know how. Rui’s version of liking Mitsuki is different to his own, but Rui’s version of liking Mitsuki might be better, simpler, easier.

It’s closer to the station than the cafe where he’s stopped… but Kyousuke still knows him too well. He delivers a swift, soft kick to the back of Towa’s knee and pushes him into a half-jog to catch up with the others. This as well is true: he doesn’t want to not see Mitsuki. They don’t have any other plans to meet up over the break. This might be their only chance to.

It won’t be because of him, probably, it will be everyone, all of them, together; it will be fun and Mitsuki will be happy and Towa wants to be there for it.

If possible, he wants to be present for every occasion of Mitsuki’s smile, and, well, just the thought makes his face feel too warm so he burrows into his muffler, only keeping his eyes free to follow the well-trodden path to the cafe.

It’s filled with the usual smattering of people when they arrive. Nanase waves them into their usual table and by the time Towa has wrestled off both his muffler and his most outer layers Mitsuki is depositing steaming drinks to all of them. “We haven’t ordered anything yet,” leaves his mouth before his brain has time to think it through.

Rui elbows him none too gently in his side, Kyousuke kicks at his shin under the table, Ryuji remains blissfully unaware of anything not within the one-metre radius of Nanase where she stands talking to another table. Towa understands, his own attention has been drawn in completely to Mitsuki in the aftermath of his own stupidity, face flushed and stammering in place with the drinks tray held protectively in front of her.

“No… ah… Master thought you might like to try the hot juice he just got in.” Great, Towa has just offended the owner of the cafe, an excellent continuation of his afternoon. “But… ah… if you want something else? I can—“

“No,” Towa says, “it’s fine, thank you!” He smiles through his shame and waits for Mitsuki to leave so he can allow his face to meet the table without worrying her.

“Today is not your day, is it?” Kyousuke observes while Rui levels a glare Towa doesn’t have to see to know is there.

In the end, it turns out the warm juice is nice. It’s all the heat he wants from a drink in the middle of winter with none of the heaviness of a hot chocolate. It goes down well following their practice earlier and he actually quite likes the idea of a second one, if only he hadn’t been so awkward about this first one.

If only he wasn’t so embarrassed to still be here when Mitsuki changes from her apron back into her school uniform and joins them at the table. Embarrassed because as soon as she’s seated Rui pulls out a small wrapped gift to place in front of her. Embarrassed because Ryuji blooms like a rose when it’s set on the table; shuffles in his seat and asks if Nanase is around. Embarrassed when Mitsuki jumps to her feet only to settle back down when Master drops a tray of cookies down in front of them.

The cookies are clearly made by Mitsuki, Towa would recognise her handiwork anywhere. The cookies resemble their faces once more, surrounded by ones shaped like basketballs. It seems almost a shame to eat them. Almost, except he knows they don’t just look good, knows they probably taste better than they look. They aren’t exactly the same as a gift, but they also are because Mitsuki will have put more time and effort and heart into this than Towa could have put into a gift. Well, maybe not time, Towa thinks he might have put in at least an hour every night since he first overheard the girls in class talking about Christmas. And yet it had all lead to nothing.

As expected, they are delicious. 

Master closes the shop but instead of chasing them out for once, he brings them all the leftover food from the day. Nanase accepts a handmade muffler from Ryuji that does not look handmade by Ryuji…

… and with a blindingly bright smile, Mitsuki gratefully slides on the same wristband they all wear in their games.

“Now our head cheerleader can really feel like a part of the team!” Rui declares.

The wristband is nothing like any of the gifts that crossed his own mind. It’s better. It means something. It made Mitsuki happy... and that’s all he ever really wanted for her. It doesn’t have to come from him, this is just another way he needs to improve himself.

Plus, when the afternoon draws to a close it’s Towa that gets to warm his chest by walking her home. On a train less crowded than usual but still huddled close as per usual against the door. Down her lamp lit street through a darkness that falls too early. Hand grasped in hand until she steps through her front door. Done, for the day, the night, for what could be the entirety of their winter break because he forgot to ask what her plans were, if she had any... if they could make some.

Everything is colder walking back to the station alone; until his phone lights up right as he steps back onto the train: What do you usually do for new years? ✨

Usually. Usually, he eats and goes to the shrine with his family. Usually, he travels across town to pray for success for their team with his friends. Usually… but neither of these things are close to Mitsuki.

His first year of high school seems as good a time as any to change what is usual.

He needs to think of something to make it special, to make up for not having anything planned out for today, to make up for not having a gift to give today, to make sure the year coming is ever better than the one that has just been.

He… has not thought of anything particularly special. They’ve arranged to meet. With the others. It’s all he could think to get, it’s all he was brave enough to ask for.

The setting sun takes with it all the warmth it had provided during the day. The night only growing colder from where the day had not been particularly warm anyway.

Towa sits on his freshly made bed, in his newly clean room, waiting. Waiting to eat, waiting to leave. Waiting for the night to hurry closer to midnight. There’s not a lot to distract him from how slow time moves. He has one cat in his lap, another scaling his curtains, but still, every time he looks at his phone it tells him the hour he thinks has passed has actually been a mere ten minutes. The time next to Mitsuki’s last message sinks further into the past, while the time written in it slowly, slowly is moving towards something that will eventually be now.

He wants it to be now already.

Slowly the night wears on. He eats and he watches the variety show with his family and eventually— finally— his mum claps her hands and asks them all to go put on some extra clothes to go out. Half an hour until midnight and finally the night feels like it’s getting somewhere. Half an hour until midnight and it’s the first time he’s really felt like he might soon get to see Mitsuki.

Yes, he will at school in a few days but this is seeing her now. Seeing her momentarily just on his own until they meet up with everyone else.

At half an hour until midnight Towa steps into his shoes, double checks his pockets for his train card, his phone, an extra set of pocket warmers just  in case, charms from last year — and has to prove to his grandad that they really are all there, that he really is prepared for the night. Some things never change.

Except, time changes. It passes once he’s outside, he can feel it moving. The cold air bites at his skin even without the wind to aid it. A small cup of amazake warms him back up from the inside out. He can hear the bells ring out from the temple across the way and know that the next year will be here soon. Soon. Much sooner and quicker than the night has passed so far.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to be here, he loves seeing the year change with his family and praying for the continued health of all of them. It’s just that tonight he feels rushed because tonight he’s picking up Mitsuki after this. Tonight it’s not just meeting up with everyone else, tonight he’s picking up Mitsuki on the way.

He doesn’t mean to make it obvious that somewhere else— someone else— is on his mind, but he can’t help it. Apparently.

“You can go,” his mother says, “you don’t have to stay.”

“You look like we’re chaining you here but we know you’re all grown up now.” His grandad doesn’t look particularly happy about the words.

“Stay safe, don’t get into too much trouble.”

Towa nods to his father, wishes another round of happy new year, and heads down the stairs and towards the station.

He’s been looking forward to seeing Mitsuki but in no version of meeting up with Mitsuki did she appear in front of him with her hair all tied up and adorned with both a bow and a glass flower, and he’s not prepared. She’s beautiful. 

“Sorry! I changed when I got back but I haven’t taken my hair down yet!” Mitsuki ushers him inside but Towa takes a step back instead. Mitsuki frowns at him when he shivers but otherwise does nothing to encourage him inside a second time. The door closes and he lets out a breath. He’s never been inside of Mitsuki’s home and going inside for the first time in the middle of the night doesn’t particularly sit well with him.

Mitsuki is back out in only a few moments, her hair brushed down to the way she usually wears it with the exception of a few kinks left over from where she’d had it tied up. “I lost track of time when I was out with Reina earlier, sorry for keeping you waiting!”

“Sorry again?” Mitsuki’s face darkens almost imperceptibly, Towa notices only because he’s catching up on the days he’s missed seeing it. “I didn’t wait—”

“Just now!”

“Oh,” it hadn’t really been waiting, it hadn’t been a long time at all. “It’s fine!”

His hand searches out Mitsuki’s in the dark, holds on until they make it back to the station. “I’m happy the trains are running all night! I wouldn’t be able to go with you otherwise.”

His parents would have driven him over if the trains weren’t running. Like they used to when they said he was too young to make his way across town in the middle of the night. Although, even though his parents know of Mitsuki he’s not entirely ready to submit himself to what might happen if they actually met Mitsuki.

“How far is it to your old school?”

“Pretty far,” he says, and then backtracking when Mitsuki’s eyes widen like she’s accidentally signed herself up for an adventure, “no… not actually that far. I just mean, it’s further than the stop for school is. And then a fifteen-minute walk.” Mitsuki sighs, breath no longer visible in the barely there warmth of the train. “Are you going to be warm enough.”

“Yeah,” she says, but Towa is eyeing up her bare hands, “I ah… I have gloves in my pocket.” She pulls them out to show him she’s telling the truth. Towa wasn’t going to question her. He doesn’t have gloves himself.

Mitsuki pulls them on when Towa says they’re nearly there. When twenty notifications ring off on his phone to say the others are waiting at the station for them, plus one from his grandad reminding him to be a gentleman. He’s trying to be. He can’t be when the others are watching. He can’t do anything that will suggest something real because there’s nothing there, nothing real, nothing tangible, only promises.

As has become the usual side effect of being friends with Mitsuki, she has food for all of them. Master’s homemade mochi for all of them and a large thermos of tea to share. It suits the occasion more than the boxes of chocolate Rui splits open in front of him that were apparently presents from the girls in his class. Valentines Day looks to be a promising affair for him this year.

There’s nothing else really to do but wait. 

They eat Rui’s chocolates and Master’s mochi and talk about the training they’ve been doing during the break, Ryuji talks about where he wants the team to go, how far he wants them to be able to go. The darkness surrounding them opening his heart and his mouth to things he would usually keep inside. It shouldn’t be interesting to Mitsuki, but Towa hears her voice every time she puts in an encouraging word, makes promises to cheer them on at more games this time. He doesn’t know how she plans to travel out of town when they go, only hopes that somehow, miraculously, she manages to do so. Her voice inspires them all.

It’s in the darkest hour of the night that Mitsuki’s head drops onto his shoulder, startling him. “Mm,” she mumbles, “sorry.” 

“Sorry again?”

When she picks herself up, Towa encourages her to stay. There’s nobody here, nobody that cares, the other are talking together amongst themselves anyway, the diminishing pile of snacks surrounding them. They have other things to think about, this is fine.

Her head settles back and Towa shifts closer, his arm moving behind her so she can settle in more comfortably. Going by the slowing puffs of air releasing from her mouth in front of him, she’s already more than half asleep. Towa pulls at her gloves, loosens his scarf to also wrap around her. It’s still cold, and there’s nothing else he can add to keep her warm, not that it seems she needs it. He feels so much warmer already by having her pressed so much closer to his side. Warm, happy, content.

“Should we wake them?”

Towa doesn’t know when the hushed noises above him actually turned into words.

“We have to—“

“Wait!”

“Shhhhh!”

Towa doesn’t remember closing his eyes, doesn’t remember falling asleep. He wasn’t meant to. Waiting out the night is not usually a hard thing for him to accomplish.

“Has someone taken a picture?”

“I did!”

His arm feels dead. All he can feel from it is a giant throb. More than the voices it might be the dull pain of his arm that actually roused him from his unexpected slumber.

“Towa is going to hate us!”

“I’m not,” he doesn’t know if the words come out the way he means them to because all that rings in his ears is a tired groan. “What’s the time?”

“Six-thirty,” now they aren’t whispering it’s easier to pick out their voices, “we thought it was about time to wake you up. I can’t believe we let you make a move on Mitsuki behind our backs!”

“Literally,” Kyousuke adds on after Rui, “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Towa shifts, Mitsuki’s weight moves with him, he stops moving. Instead, he simply opens his eyes and blinks his friends into focus where they are apparently all standing around above him. “Creepy.”

They move away, “I’ll send you the photo,” Rui says, “and to Mitsuki too.”

“You should wake her up.”

“I will,” his voice is rough from waking and the cold of the morning, but apart from his arm, sleeping out in the cold doesn’t seem to have caused too much damage. He hopes the same is true of Mitsuki.

But… he doesn’t really know how to go about waking her up.

Shaking her seems too violent, talking at her seems too strange.

The simple solution comes with another violent pulse of his arm; for which the resulting twitch and an attempt to somehow move it enough to get his blood flowing properly again is what wakes Mitsuki. 

She’s slow to wake, and he shouldn’t watch but it’s hard to tear his eyes away from the crinkling of her brows, the scrunch of her nose, and eventually the way she shakes her head softly; which seems to be the final step before her eyes crack open.

The slow way she wakes is in great contrast to the quickness with which she moves when it seems she finally recognises Towa next to her.

“Oh, sorry,” she says, cheeks darkening before being lost beneath a curtain of hair.

Again. “It’s okay,” he does remember being the one to encourage her onto his shoulder. Even as his arm now runs with pins and needles he doesn’t regret it. “I fell asleep too, it’s fine.” It’s meant to be fine but Mitsuki’s face only darkens further until Towa loses all sight of it when she turns from him and stretches out her limbs.

“It’s getting light already.”

Towa stretches out his arms, unaware of how tight and sore they’d managed to get while he’d slept, for however long it ended up being. He rises to his feet and holds a hand down to Mitsuki to pull her to her up as well. She stumbles a little, he catches her, but they are quick to let go of each other and join the others just a few steps away to watch over the horizon to properly see in the new year.

He wished away half the night, he slept away another chunk, but here and now with friends old and new Towa thinks it might be his favourite new years so far.

The sky gets painted in pinks and purples, the town below them slowly dipped with light. It creeps up the hill to where they sit, behind the school they all used to attend, all of them but Mitsuki. It lights up her eyes, it defines the colour in her cheeks, pale and soft like the morning around them. Pink when she catches Towa looking at her, offering a small smile before turning back to the world around them.

They sit in silence until someone yawns too loud and Kyousuke starts shepherding them all to collect all their things and start back towards the school and then back home.

He hadn’t thought this far. Ryuji lives closest. Usually, they sleep through the rest of the morning on the floor of his room, Ryuji’s mother cooking them up a feast for lunch to give them energy enough for the rest of the day. There have been no plans to have Mitsuki stay with them, based on their usual plans it means Mitsuki getting back home all by herself.

It’s not in his usual plans but Towa waves to everyone else when they part ways and walks with Mitsuki down to the right station and onto a train that’s unusually empty. They manage to sit down and Mitsuki drops her head to his shoulder almost immediately. His back straightens, not letting himself get comfortable. He has to keep an eye on when they hit her stop, he can’t let himself fall asleep again. No matter how heavy his eyes feel even with the brief nap he’d accidentally taken in the night.

She doesn’t sleep.

She takes his hand in her and squeezes at it every so often. “To keep me awake,” she says even when he doesn’t ask. He simply likes the contact. Their hands practically hidden beneath the folds of their clothes so that even if somebody they knew climbed on the train at eight o’clock in the morning nothing would seem out of place.

Mitsuki’s parents are both at the door as they welcome a yawning Mitsuki back into their home. Sleepily she bows her head as she disappears past them and Towa bows his own to both of these people he’s never seen before. “Happy new year,” he greets.

The same sentiments are returned. “Please continue to look after Mitsuki,” added on. His chest warms, wondering what they think he is, what they think he and Mitsuki are. He doesn’t want to ask, he prefers his own illusion of them thinking there is more; of them thinking there is more and asking him to please continue. He thinks of it as somewhat of a good sign.

“If you’ll allow me to I will.”

He’s said similar to Mitsuki already, a continued promise to grow, to wait, to be there for each other. Mitsuki isn’t here for this promise but it’s heavier on his tongue.

He doesn’t trust himself to stay awake for the brief journey home. Even without Mitsuki’s warmth at his side, the protective shell of the train is enough to keep away the bulk of the cold. He attempts something he’s always wanted to know— for the future— for a just in case— Towa walks in the direction of home from Mitsuki’s house. The thing he wants to know: is it enough that if she ever came over, it would be far enough to spend more time with her, yet not so far that it’s too much to ask of her to walk.

The answer ends up being a kind of in between. Too far for winter, perhaps the perfect distance on a nice day, with neither biting wind nor burning sun.

Today it simply does the job, it keeps him awake so that he can properly make it home. Even when he is not expected to return home.

His grandad gives a startled yell at the unexpectedness of Towa letting himself in through the front door, his barely vocal “I’m home” not loud enough to let his grandad know it’s only him, only Towa, and not some stranger coming in. All he does then is crash on his bed, avoiding the two cats curled around each other in the very centre. He sleeps fully dressed, desperate to rest as soon as possible. Smile still etched onto his face from being able to spend so much of this night with Mitsuki.

[wintercovers]

kanesawa: inspired by this and then just Shinji caring too much

Sawamura tries. Oh boy, does he try! And the thing is... the thing is that Shinji isn't proud of this, but he can tell when Sawamura's mood is forced. When it's forced, he's stiff. His smile, his face, his entire being. When he's happy, really happy, bordering on a euphoria Shinji might worry about if he didn't know it was Sawamura's natural state, it is expressed with his entire being. His eyes shine, his skin glows, he vibrates with an energy that can not be contained... and the facade of happiness he wears stiffly now is nothing of the sort.

It doesn't even compare.

It might be nothing but Shinji has been forced to look at it for too long. Looking at it for any moment at all is too long, Sawamura doesn't need to radiate happiness at all times - when he isn't feeling it, he doesn't need to pretend otherwise. It's like he's looking down on everyone else, thinking he can replace himself with this shell of a person.

It's like he's looking down on how much Shinji knows about him, has learned—unwillingly—over too many years spent on the same team, in the same place, in quarters that are too close and yet apparently not close enough for Sawamura to realise that for so long, Shinji has been able to read every emotion that crosses his mind.

If only he knew the thoughts that matched as well, if only Sawamura spoke without thinking, even the words he wished to hide, they wouldn't have this problem.

So the problem becomes: something is wrong with Sawamura.

Points to note about the problem:

1— Sawamura is hiding whatever is wrong.

2— Shinji doesn't know what's wrong

3— It's not something new

3b— It's an ongoing thing

3c— Shinji can't remember when he first noticed it

4— The problem is a growing thing.

5— Shinji needs help

5b— From someone who knows Sawamura better than he does.

Which poses a problem. Shinji hates to admit it, but he's long since become the go-to person for Sawamura when he admits he has a problem. As a result, he has become the go-to person for people who want to know something about Sawamura. He's quietly proud of the fact, he will never voice this thought, but it doesn't help in this situation where Shinji is the one who needs a go-to person for information on Sawamura.

And in this situation extreme measures are necessary.

Shinji sends a message out to someone who pressed their digits into his phone for use only in the case of an emergency.

He's pretty sure this is an emergency.

Aotsuki shows up in a whirlwind of activity. She thanks Shinji for reaching out to her. She scolds Sawamura for ignoring her calls and forcing her to travel down to the city when she had other things to be doing (in doing so relieving Shinji of the need to admit to Sawamura that he was the one who called her here). In seconds she has a bag packed and in minutes Sawamura, her, and the bag are out the door.

Shinji didn't count on this happening.

A moping Sawamura who is pretending not to mope is one thing. An empty apartment is something else entirely.

He didn't want Sawamura to leave.

It's something he didn't really want at all. Shinji wanted to be able to help himself. To figure out what was wrong. To see if he could, to see where he could find help - well he guesses he did that part, he just didn't think Sawamura leaving would be a part of it all.

Maybe it's him. Maybe he's the problem. Maybe Sawamura needed to leave him and now he's fine and happy and vibrating with energy the way he was meant to be.

"Taking him home for the weekend."

That's all he has. It's all he gets. He asks Wakana for help because he thinks Sawamura is depressed about something, and in return, she steals him away home. What if he never comes back?

What if he doesn't want to come back?

The fear takes a stronger hold the next morning. He's on his way to class, shoes kicked on at the door and bag picked back up from where he'd thrown it coming in the day before when he notices the notification blinking on his phone. Another message from Wakana, sent hours ago.

"I forgot how early he wakes up to run."

Shinji has forgotten too, it's been so long since the constant attempts of Sawamura to wake Shinji at the crack of dawn to greet the morning together with a healthy dose of exercise. Shinji should have joined him, at least once, instead of blowing him off. Maybe things would have been better...

...How does Wakana know Sawamura went out running in the morning? On this particular morning?

...Why does it matter?

It doesn't.

It doesn't matter.

The updates still come and Shinji opens all of the new ones as soon as they come in and hates himself just a little at how much he finds he needs to know about Sawamura's time at home. He dies inside, just a little, when the words show up on his screen to say Sawamura is laughing, Sawamura is running, that Sawamura is pitching— the words seem to be saying Sawamura is happy. He is happy. He is happy there, when he wasn't here, and it hurts, it shouldn't hurt. It shouldn't affect Shinji in any way that Sawamura is happier elsewhere than he was here.

It does. With every message, he thinks about it more and more and until Sawamura shows up again late Sunday night under Aotsuki's care. "I have brought him back happy, don't break him again."

Shinji nods and Aotsuki leaves again straight away — is she staying in the city for the night or really just leaving straight back home now she's brought Sawamura back? — because he really doesn't know what else to do. He can't say yes, not outright, because then it's like acknowledging he was the reason for Sawamura being depressed. But he's not, he can't be... can he?

"You guys are making it sound like you're my divorced parents."

He knows even less what to say to that... because thinking about it only makes it seem more true. He and Aotsuki sharing custody over Sawamura, her stealing him away for the weekend when he had only wanted to figure out what was wrong when there weren't classes or practice or anything else in the way of trying to figure out why it is that Sawamura has been down.

Aotsuki fixing him... by taking him away for a little while... and Shinji still left to wonder why it happened at all in the first place... why it took him so long to notice once he really stopped to think about how long it's been going on.

He should have been able to do better.

He's happy enough that Sawamura really does seem happier with his return.

He's less happy that it's less than a week before Sawamura is back to his stiff formalities. It's less than a week, and therefore, Shinji can't dial in Aotsuki for help again. She'd never let him live it down. She told him not to break Sawamura. She told him not to, one thing, just this one thing she asked of him and Shinji failed. Failed. In less than a week. He's so disappointed in himself.

If he tells her, she might not bring him back again.

The more disappointing thing is that there is nothing he can do. Shinji tries his best. He puts on movies for manga he knows Sawamura has cried his way through, he makes up Sawamura's favourite foods to eat through them. It's all the time he can set aside for Sawamura in this time of need when he has a week of hell coming up at university. A movie each night, Friday through to Sunday, and again on Monday just because he has to get through somehow.

Somehow, he will find a way through to what Sawamura is really feeling, really thinking.

As another week comes and goes, his stress levels settle down from why are all of his assignments due in the same week  to seriously what the fuck is wrong with Sawamura because it's a problem that is not going away. A weekend vacation was a temporary fix but Shinji wants to put something into action that is going to last a little bit longer— A lot longer. Shinji wants to put something into action that is going to last a lot longer.

Shinji doesn't want to fix him, he doesn't think he's a person who can fix Sawamura. He just wants to get the both of them into a position where they know what's happening, where Sawamura can start a journey to fix himself.

—Which... he seems to do... by going home... again.

Shinji's consolation is that it's overnight this time.

His consolation is this time, he didn't have to call Aotsuki and tell her something was wrong.

(A consolation which falls apart when she messages him to remind Shinji that he promised.)

Does she really think Shinji broke the promise on purpose? He wants Sawamura to be happy. More than anyone. More than Sawamura himself probably but given his happiness at going home last time Shinji can console himself once more with the knowledge that Sawamura must realise now that he's unhappy, and that he can do something about it. Shinji only wishes he could have been a part of the doing something about it phase.

Are they not good enough friends? Does Sawamura not trust him?

The answer to both, Shinji thinks, is no. This has nothing to do with their relationship. This is something to do with Sawamura and just because Shinji doesn't understand the problem doesn't mean he should be throwing himself under the bus. If he wants to be a good friend, if he wants to make it so he never has to ask himself those questions again, he needs to not just think about helping, but find out what he can do to help instead.

Sawamura shows up the next day, glow back in his eyes and the sun back in his smile.

It's easy for Shinji to convince him to stay in and watch old baseball games on his laptop with a few drinks and some junk food to celebrate the end of Shinji's week of hell. It's easy for Shinji, with the help of advanced inebriation, to get over himself and ask the questions that have been plaguing his mind for weeks.

"Do you trust me?" Not the right question.

"Of course I do!" Sawamura laughs, "how many have you had? Are you going to get sappy again?"

"Because you— I do not get sappy!" Shinji prides himself on being able to keep his emotions well in check. It's a little rich of Sawamura to call someone else sappy. "I especially," he adds, "would not get sappy for you!"

Sawamura mouth quirks up in a way that Shinji's missed. It's more than his forced smile, it's better than his usual smile. It's one saved for special occasions and it's a minor blessing every time Shinji manages to bring it forth. He doesn't quite know what occasions bring it out on Sawamura's face, but in this moment Shinji thinks it's telling him that Sawamura knows things he doesn't.

Another rich thing, coming from Sawamura who usually comes to Shinji for help in things he doesn't know — seemingly forgetting that with the separate courses they're completing at university that Shinji is not able to enlighten him the way he had for nearly the entirety of their time in high school. Especially not in these later years.

"You're right," Sawamura says in a way that Shinji knows means he thinks very much the opposite. Has Sawamura forgotten how many years they've known each other? "You're not sappy at all. Especially..." Sawamura has the gall to break off into laughter. Laughter! "Especially not for me." Shinji forgot how they even got to this... "But you wanted to know if I trusted you because..."

Sawamura is an enlightening person. A splash of blue sky on a cloudy day. "Yes!" He remembers now. "Because you've been trying to pretend like you're happy." Which Shinji knows he's not. "And I can tell you're not but it's like you're looking down on me by pretending when you could have just told me! I had to call Aotsuki—"

"I figured you were the one who told on me."

"—and she took you home and it was like you were fine again. But it didn't last! You were sad again but then you left again and now you're happy!" It comes off sounding like an accusation. Shinji doesn't mean for it to be accusing. "Are you not happy here? Do you have to leave? Are you not happy with me?"

Shinji is sure there were more questions to ask. But Sawamura's rough palm settles over his mouth to stem any further ones from forming. In his chest his heart continues to race, beating out the words Shinji didn't get to say. "I knew you were going to get sappy." Shinji pulls away to rebut— "I know, I know. You're not sappy, still, that's more than enough to work with for now."

Sawamura takes a deep breath and Shinji is caught between worrying whether he would have been better off not knowing if Sawamura has to prepare himself to talk — Sawamura never thinks before he talks — and knowing that finally, he can start working on how to make things better again, on how to make Sawamura feel better again. He can get to the bottom of why Sawamura feels like he has to pretend to be happy when he's not, he can find out why Sawamura is unhappy in the first place.

"Have you always lived in Tokyo?"

Shinji sits back from where he hadn't even realised he'd been crowding Sawamura, practically in his lap. Sawamura hand comes away naturally with his movement and it's easy for him to say yes he's been here all his life. Primary school practically down the road from his house, junior high a small commute away, boarding his way through high school and now here. The city is big, but the entirety of it has become a home to him. Crowds of people, luscious parks, a skyline of skyscrapers, and all the baseball diamonds in a ten block radius mapped and taken note of in his mind.

"I haven't."

"Obviously."

"Sometimes I miss the fresh air."

"Oh." Shinji pulls himself up from the couch, a harder task than it should be, and stumbles towards the door out to the balcony. He flings it open, pushes the doors open as far as they will go. "Here!" He declares going back to flop down next to Sawamura on the couch again. Falling into Sawamura as he sits back into the groove surrounding him.

Sawamura bursts into a contagious laughter. Shinji laughs himself without knowing the reason behind it.

"Thank you." He's still laughing, but Shinji still feels like Sawamura means it.

"All you had to do was tell me. I would have helped. I want to help."

"Thank you," Sawamura says again, "but that wasn't quite what I meant." Shinji casts a look towards the open doors. There's nothing exciting outside of them. Their small section of the outdoors is small, when they have their washing out there is barely enough space for it all to hang, nevermind enough air for Sawamura to take in the deep fresh breaths he's apparently been missing. With no railings and a proper run-up Shinji could probably make a half decent attempt at jumping across the gap to the balcony of the apartment across from theirs. "I miss having space, looking outside and having trees, and nature, I miss being able to look out the window and see that. I miss just having it right there." Sawamura waves his arm in the air, his hand motioning in some way towards the window, and Shinji understands.

He's never really had that but he understands.

"Outside there's buildings and more buildings and so many roads and people and once upon a time I could ride my bike all the way to Wakana's and never see another building or person before I got there." Shinji nods, he doesn't know what that's like at all. "I am glad you told Wakana though, I think... I think until then I didn't really know what it was that I was feeling. It's a bit late into not living at home to be feeling homesick but I think that's what it is."

"Homesick." Shinji echoes.

"Mm."

"For plants."

"Is that all you got from that?" Sawamura laughs again, at him this time, it dances in front of his eyes, "thanks for wanting to help." The smile is real, the thank you is real, but Shinji hasn't done anything yet. All he's done is listen — admittedly something Sawamura sometimes struggles with, but still. "I think it's time for bed, you should go too!"

Getting up for the second time is harder than getting up the first time. It doesn't seem like it should have been now that Shinji has done it once but Sawamura has to pull him from the couch and goes so far as to walk Shinji back to his room... Their rooms are next to each other, maybe Sawamura was just walking back to his own room and Shinji had been the one to reach out to him to keep his balance.

Sawamura almost deposits Shinji right into bed — he was walking him — but Shinji makes some kind of noise Sawamura manages to correctly interpret and at the last moment Shinji is deposited at his desk. "Make good choices," are Sawamura's ominous words before leaving Shinji be and closing the door behind him.

Shinji plans to.

Sawamura has thanked him already for wanting to help, but this is where Shinji actually starts trying to help. He opens up his laptop and with the help of google-sensei and the perfect question Shinji knows finally how he can help.

"How to have a garden without a garden"

The words sit delicately at the top of his screen and Shinji opens up every article beneath it in a new tab.

He reads, he closes, he reads, he closes, the third tab holds the answer to his question.

The third tab holds the secret to making Sawamura smile again, for real.

The pictures are beautiful and filled with everything Shinji never knew he needed and even better, it has links to amazon, and even more, in what was surely a good idea at the time, amazon has his payment information saved — a strange thing considering Shinji nearly lets his new purchases arrive at an old address. He barely saves it, redirecting it to his current location, their current location. His and Sawamura's home, their home that is about to become much more Sawamura friendly.

He doesn't mind Sawamura needing to go home to feel better, he'd just rather Sawamura not have to leave. He'd rather Sawamura found happiness and comfort here with him.

He falls asleep with a smile on his face and hope in his heart.

He dreams of green; of grass and leaves and Sawamura's sunny smile.

He's forgotten all of it by the time he wakes in the morning. Thirsty and desperate for the bath he had gone to bed without the night before.

It takes four days for him to remember.

It takes four days, getting home, and seeing Sawamura seated with wide eyes in front of the biggest box Shinji has ever seen in his life to remember.

"What did you buy?"

The amazon logo is printed clearly on all sides of the box, it does not give any hint as to what the box is hiding.

"Is this a late birthday present to yourself?"

"My birthday was months ago, idiot."

"An early Christmas present!" Sawamura's eyes sparkle in a way that has Shinji considering actually getting him an early Christmas present.

"Why would I get you a Christmas present?" It's not something they've done before.

"There's a first time for everything!" Sawamura declares loudly, and then, quieter, "and a lot to be said for wishful thinking."

"I don't even remember ordering anything," he says instead of trying to decipher what Sawamura is trying to get at.

"You don't remember?"

"That is," Shinji stresses, "what I just said."

"Hmm," nothing good comes of Sawamura thinking, "then maybe it is for me!" Case in point. "You probably ordered it the other night when you wanted to go on your computer instead of going to bed so it's probably something to try and make me happy!" Sawamura seems more than happy enough right now.

Mission accomplished.

"Why would I want to do that?"

Sawamura mumbles something under his breath that Shinji doesn't catch, but moves so quickly to pick up a knife from the kitchen to begin cutting through the tape that Shinji might have imagined him saying anything at all.

He's still trying to figure it out when he finally realises that Sawamura is opening the box. His box. The box that is very much not Sawamura's. "Oi!" Sawamura's wide eyes do nothing to him, not even a little bit... maybe a little bit, maybe more. "It's mine."

Sawamura shrugs, "debatable, also you weren't doing anything and I wanted to know what was inside! It's actually lucky you're home, I getting close to not even waiting for you to get home to find out."

Shinji lets him do what he wants. It's how these things usually go. Sawamura blabbers on about what could be in a box so big and Shinji tunes out the words until it ends with an abrupt silence. Broken only by the words "I knew it was for me".

"Why would I—" He cuts himself off when Sawamura starts handing him things from inside the box. Too many things for Shinji to hold. So many things that Sawamura has to unpack the box and lay everything out in a growing circle around the both of them. "Oh," he remembers a little bit now.

Sawamura laughs at something else in the box. Shinji doesn't know what's in there that could be more laughable than everything already piled up around them.

Whatever it is gets pulled out and Shinji's face falls into his hands, burning already.

"What is this?" Sawamura knows what it is. Anyone would know what it is. The real question he's asking is what is this doing here.

"Grass." He remembers it all now. Everything. He doesn't want to. He thinks about how much money is sitting around him now in planter boxes and seeds and fresh sprouts and, of all things, a roll of grass based on how big Shinji thought their balcony was at a combination of alcohol and night when Sawamura really should have forced him into bed. If only Sawamura hadn't been able to decode his grumbles it might have actually happened. How dare Sawamura know him so well. "For the balcony," Shinji says to answer the rest of the question. "So that..." does he have to say it? "So that you could have the doors open and have fresh air and be able..." He sighs. Sawamura probably gets it by now. "So you could look out the window and have nature instead of the city." He says the words slowly, as if by doing so, they might disappear before Sawamura manages to hear them.

It doesn't work. Sawamura's eyes shine with unshed tears... which do not stay unshed for long. He pounces, like a cat, both of them falling over and knocking into everything Sawamura had so excitedly placed around them. "Careful!"

His chest is wet. Sawamura's face is tucked under his chin and Shinji's chest is wet. The plan was to make him happy, and Shinji thinks he's done that — he knows far too many versions than one person needed to of Sawamura's tears. Sawamura is happy but he's also crying... too much. Sawamura is crying and his chest is wet and his mission was accomplished but he didn't plan on Sawamura being quite so emotional about the whole thing.

In fact, Shinji would prefer it if Sawamura went back to laughing at him again because Shinji wants someone to laugh at the ridiculous lengths he went to in order to make Sawamura happy. Preferably without anyone else needing to know.

He did do it, though.

He did make it happen.

Sawamura is happy.

Just too much.

Sawamura is too happy and in tears and Shinji is left to awkwardly pat one hand through his hair while keeping himself half up under his and Sawamura's weight with the other. There's nowhere to tuck his own head except into Sawamura's tuft of hair, an unreasonable thing to even consider doing, and so he's left with Sawamura leaking tears into his shirt and the image of all the mistakes he made last weekend sitting around them.

It's quite the picture. He wants a picture of it all to remember one day if he ever needs to be brought down to knowing the kind of person he is. Someone who kept their distance, he thought, but apparently he's someone who goes far beyond what's necessary to make a friend happy.

Sawamura eventually pulls away and Shinji pushes him back even further, ignoring whatever it is that flashes behind his bloodshot eyes at the action. "Now, we need to get rid of these."

"No!" Shinji actually jumps at the loudness of Sawamura's shout. Sawamura himself even looking shocked at how loud his protest had come out. "Show me the garden you wanted to make for me!" It's an order.

"Haven't I embarrassed myself enough already?"

Sawamura looks far too serious as he says, "not nearly enough in my opinion."

Shinji lets out a deep sigh. If he hits rock bottom today the only way to go is up. "It's probably still saved in my history."

[wintercovers]

... an attempt at a kanesawa wedding

Shinji hesitates outside the doubles doors, earning himself a hard slap on the back for it. "What the fuck!?"

"You can't back out now," Hideaki says, arms crossed like he thinks the possibility is an actual risk, "everyone is already inside. You can't leave them waiting."

"I can," Shinji says, amused at the way Hideaki squares his shoulders, blocking him in between the door and the sweet embrace of... not having to walk through it; not having to see the shining faces of every single person he's ever had the misfortune to meet in his short life. "I hate everything and everyone." Hideaki cocks an amused brow. "You aren't excluded," Shinji says, "I hate everyone in there, but I hate you the most right now Hide for forcing me inside."

"I'm not forcing you anywhere."

Okay, he's not. Shinji could easily push passed Hideaki if he really wanted to. Something the both of them know all too well.

"Face it," Hideaki says, "you want to be here."

He doesn't. "I don't."

"You do," Hideaki says easily, expecting Shinji's response. "You've been compliant all the way up 'til now. It's okay to have cold feet—"

"I do not have cold feet."

"No," Hideaki agrees, "it would be a bit late to be getting cold feet now."

"I do not have cold feet," he repeats, emphasises. He doesn't want Hideaki to be claiming otherwise for the rest of his life. "I'm just... nervous—"

"Yeah, that's totally different—"

"—and trying to remember why I agreed to this." Shinji sighs, sinking against the doors he doesn't want to open. He's ten parts excited, he really is... but... the last few nerves in his system are all he can focus on. Hideaki joins him on the floor in his shame, thankfully laughing only with his eyes. He's grateful to Hideaki for making sure he doesn't run away from this.

"Hey," Hideaki raises his voice in a way that makes Shinji feel like a teenager again, "you already did the hard part, today is easy."

Hideaki's right. Shinji isn't going to tell him so. "Today is not the scariest part." Hideaki smirks and Shinji knows he heard the words anyway.

"Are you ready to go in now?" Hideaki stands, pulling Shinji up with him. "'Cause I already sent a message ahead to say we were here. If we don't show soon they're definitely going to think you ran away!"

Shinji pulls a face at Hideaki before wiping it carefully blank and facing the doors. It's like a band-aid, he just has to rip them open before he has time to think about what he's really doing.

...To find more people than he expected.

Shinji has this room crowded with over a hundred baseball players, he has seen it always filled with action. It's a room of sweat, and heat, and oftentimes nerves as they waited for their name to be called with a number. The room today holds a different kind of energy and Shinji is more scared of it than ever.

He knows Eijun went through his friend list, his contacts, went through everything he possibly could to pull together a number of people equal to the seemingly hundreds of people Eijun wanted to invite. Of course, there aren't nearly that many people in the hall. He'll have to thank whoever it was that talked Eijun into showing restraint.

The crowd turns at the door slamming open hard enough that Shinji has to catch it before it swings back off the wall to knock him in the face. He can see Eijun on a makeshift stage that's been produced just for today, dressed up in a brand new suit... the exact same one he insisted Shinji buy for this. It figures that Eijun wanted for them to match.

"One of life's finest experiences is when a casual relationship grows into a permanent bond of love." Shinji tries not to cringe at the wording while standing across him, he knows Eijun is simmering in the words he helped write for the ceremony. "This meeting and this growth bring us together today. Eijun and Shinji, will you take vows here before all of us which symbolise the promises you have already made and will continue to make to each other throughout your lives?"

"Y-yes," Shinji says.

It takes Eijun longer to get the words out. After swallowing through too many words caught up in his throat the affirmation is eventually spoken.

"And now the vows." Everyone turns to Eijun, Shinji included. A bad idea on his part. It's too easy to get caught up in his pace and in a moment like this—

"I..." Eijun hiccups, "I..."

Shinji's sigh is audible, practically a growl. "Stop crying!" He urges, desperate. If Eijun loses himself to tears now, Shinji will soon follow. This is why he didn't want to do this... He has a reputation in front of these people and breaking into tears purely in sympathy of Eijun crying is not something he needs everyone to be able to hold against him.

"I'm not crying!" Eijun declares. Shinji doesn't think anyone in the room believes him. His face is getting blotchier, red patches springing to life beneath his eyes and across his cheeks.

"Why are you even crying?" It is absolutely not a struggle to get the words out without choking them out himself.

"I'm not crying!" This time, the words are met with laughter, starting with those closest and rippling outwards. "I-if I was crying..." he straightens his spine, and Shinji squeezes down on where Eijun's hands have tightened in his own. "If I was it would be because I was happy!"

"I'm happy too." It's a stupid thing to say, the words escape him nevertheless.

"Yeah? Yeah... if... if you were really happy you would be crying too!"

"It... it doesn't work like that!" He can his chest tightening in a different way, but they can't do this here. He takes a deep breath, taking a half step in towards Eijun, he pushes out the old air and drinks in the new. "Do you want me to go?"

Eijun sniffs and rubs at his face with the sleeve of Shinji's suit; nodding as their hands drop back into place between them.

Shinji takes another deep breath to prepare. "Eijun," fresh tears well up in Eijun's eyes, Shinji can't look look at him if he's actually going to get through this - and at least one of them should get through this. His hands, their hands entwined together, is an easier place to look, to make his promises. "I promise to be a loving friend and partner. I promise to talk and to listen, to trust and appreciate. I promise to respect and cherish you, in all of your uniqueness!"

"What uniqueness?"

"Shut up, you had your chance!" He ignores the laughter that echoes after his words. This is how they've always been. "I promise to support and comfort you, to strengthen you through all of life's joys and sorrows. I promise to share our hopes and dreams as we build our lives together. I promise to build us a home, that is compassionate, filled with peace and happiness, laughter and love. I promise to always be open with you, and to cherish you for as long as I live."

Eijun nods his head, his shoulders shake but no words are spoken. Shinji risks a look at his face and regrets it immediately; biting back the sting in his eyes at seeing Eijun's face dripping with ugly tears—he keeps thinking he'll get used to them, he keeps getting proved wrong. They can't both break down, they can't both lose function. They'll still have to face everyone once the ceremonial part of this is done, and for the rest of their lives afterwards.

"They say wedding bands are made to be a perfect circle, having no beginning and no end, but these rings do have a beginning." Shinji fits the ring around Eijun's finger, the ring filled with his promises. The ring Eijun holds up to his own finger is cool, full of promises not spoken on this day, but ones he has been pressing into Shinji's skin for years. "They are made of rock and metal; cooked, cooled and painstakingly polished. Your rings are something beautiful, made of raw elements. Love is like that. It's a dirty work that comes from humble beginnings, made by imperfect beings. It's the process of making something beautiful where there was once nothing at all."

Shinji presses down on whatever it is building up inside of him. Eijun's hands are shaking, or maybe it's his own, as much as he's holding on tight to prevent it.

"As the two have previously come before your friends and family to declare your love and devotion to each other, it is today that I am happy to now introduce you to everyone here as husbands."

"...So," it's the kind of so that starts conversations people don't want to hear. But Shinji's had just enough to drink that it doesn't scare him. "You kept saying you didn't want to do this, but you agreed to it at one point, and today you went through with it. Why?"

That's an easy question. "Easy," he says, "Eijun didn't want to have kids until we had a ceremony first. He wanted to have something to show them that was more than just a name."

"Hmmm," Hideaki smiles in that way Shinji has learned to be wary of, "this means you're the one who asked him about having children?"

"Yes!" Eijun shouts, Shinji doesn't know how he didn't hear him coming from across the emptying room. "Also," he yells, too loud for how close he is... Shinji draws him in closer, the noise a comfort, until Eijun has no choice but to fall into place on his lap, "now we have rings!"

As the last of their guests leave, Shinji follows Eijun to the car that will take them home. Where on this night— this night dawning to a new day, their home has a new meaning.

"Are you going to carry me in?" Shinji asks. Eijun pouts at the implication that he can't.

"I can bench press twice your weight."

"You did that once."

"It still counts."

"It was years ago."

"You make us sound old," Eijun sucks in his breath, Shinji waits for whatever shining words he's getting ready to spout, "we're going to grow old together!"

Not quite the enlightening words he was expecting, but they're a punch to the chest all the same. "Why are you only thinking about that now?"

"We made a promise today—"

"We've made plenty of promises, I've literally had your name for nearly two years now."

"But this is different," Eijun pouts, "this was in front of everyone."

"Yeah," Shinji sighs, running a hand down his face and reaching for the door Eijun has forgotten about carrying him through, "it was way scarier than signing on to your family."

"Is that why it took you so long to come in?"

"You noticed?"

"Hidecchi sent a message to my phone and Wakana threw me straight up onto the stage. I had everyone looking at me and then you took so long to come in..."

"I'm sorry." He didn't mean to make it bad for Eijun... Eijun waiting for him inside, up on the stage... visible to everyone that Shinji had hesitated in attending.... "I didn't mean to... It's not that I didn't want to... I was just... You said you wanted everyone there and I was freaking out a little bit about who everyone was, and how many people everyone was, and—"

"It's fine," Eijun says, "you came in the end."

"Of course I did."

"I didn't get to say them earlier."

"You didn't have to, you don't have to. I know... I know already."

"I want to." Shinji isn't one to stop Eijun from doing something he wants.

But... "Now?" Eijun nods his head, determined. "Fine."

He sinks back into the pillows, Eijun pulling himself up to sit back on Shinji's hips. He runs his fingers along the soft expanse of Eijun's thighs and focuses in on his face. This time, there's nobody to see him breakdown, this time, he doesn't need to look away.

"I promise to always leave the lights on in the bathroom," Shinji laughs, it's not what he expected. Eijun rests his fingers over his lips and Shinji bites down on them. A silent promise. "I promise to always take three hours to make you breakfast especially when you're running late for work. I promise to create a life that's full of strange and unexpected adventures. I promise that I will love you."

Shinji moves to respond, Eijun's hand doesn't let him.

"I'm not done yet! I pledge to listen to your advice, and occasionally take it." Shinji can't help but laugh again, not muffled at all by Eijun's hand pressing down harder. This time, he continues without waiting for Shinji to stop. "I pledge to never take score... even when I'm totally winning." Shinji bites down on the fingers at his mouth in protest, Eijun laughs. "I pledge to always admire your huge, strong, kind and determined heart. I pledge that I will love you."

He shifts again. "You're so impatient! You'll know when I'm done!" He's just being optimistic. He wants to kiss him into the covers. The words don't need to be spoken smoothly when it's just them. Panting the words out between breaths would have worked just as well. Eijun needn't have stopped them.

Eijun probably wants him to listen, to understand. Shinji spoke his words for everyone to hear but Eijun's words are all for him.

"I vow to listen, for as long as it takes for you to feel heard. I vow to watch in awe, as you kick ass and take names." It's much for of an Eijun thing to kick ass and take names, he's only damage control afterwards. "I vow to be your cheer squad on the days it feels too much. I vow that I will love you." Shinji doesn't move this time, just listens for the rest. "I believe that carefully folded socks make you happy. I believe that I can make you happier. I believe there is no time or place I'm more content than when you're close. Because of this, and so, so much more, I believe that I will always love you."

Shinji lays still in the surrounding silence. He doesn't move until Eijun moves his hand from mouth to cheek, "now who's crying?"

"Still you," Shinji laughs.

[wintercovers]

tried to write some towa&mitsuki plus cats, but it didn’t quite work out as planned (because despite wanting them together, i want towa to be able to play basketball, and there can’t be both)

Haru Matsu Bokura - Towa/Mitsuki (also spoiler free for anyone who hasn’t read the last few chapters)

Kyousuke's words ring in his head, resound, take up nearly everything. Nearly... but nothing can distract from the way Mitsuki fits between his arms and the wall, protected in the small space that is theirs on the crowded train.

Kyousuke's idea circles round and round; followed by Mitsuki's response, his own solution.

To be here, to have this, now. "The next station is Asahigaoka!" To have the movement surrounding them but for once, not having Mitsuki be a part of it. He clenches his fist in the railing as the train pulls to a stop, Mitsuki bounces up against his arms where they sit around her; and around them, the both of them, a tide of people push towards the door. "Asahigaoka station!" He can feel Mitsuki jolt in his arms, muscle memory urging her towards the doors, but she stays, she stays.

She's coming over to his house this afternoon. To his house.

For a time, for just a few moments, he can surround himself with her aura for just that little bit longer tonight.

"It feels weird not to be getting off." The words are audible only by their close proximity, pressed up just inside the door as they always are at this time. She laughs, felt only in the rush of warm air against his neck.

He doesn't know what to say in return. Does it feel weird for him? Yes. Does he mind? No. He's always wanted them to get off the train together. At her stop, to walk her home. He hasn't attempted to do so since the first time - when she told him it was unnecessary. That was before he cared this much. Now he wants to walk her home so he can make sure she's safe, so he can have her to himself a little longer— not needing to share her with their friends. Without having to suffer from Kyousuke's knowing gaze or Rui's innocent teasing... Ryuji has his own problems to think about.

It feels weird that Mitsuki is walking him home before he has been able to offer to do so for her again.

"It's three more stops right?" He nods surprised that she remembers at all. He's only ever mentioned it once, after his first aborted attempt to walk her home. He wishes she'd let him, he wishes it had become a habit. He should have asked again by now, he should have offered. She might have said yes.

The doors slide shut, there's more space now, he stays close but Mitsuki doesn't make it seem like she wants him to move. She doesn't seem to mind. "Three more stops," he confirms.

Another station. It’s weird, he thinks, to stay standing so close together. There's no real need to anymore. It’s only that he wants to. As long as Mitsuki isn't pushing him away, he'll take his chances.

He's more and more conscious of how little space the two of them take up with each rattle of the train. Somewhere between too close and not close enough. The feeling settles down with the announcement of his stop.

"This is the stop."

Like he has before, Towa grips tightly onto Mitsuki's hand to pull her from the ebb and flow of people. She gets caught up in them too easily. They exit the station together, falling into step easily like this is something they do all the time... like the way their hands link up is something practiced, though were they any closer to school he wouldn't dare attempt such a thing.

The walk is silent as the sun sinks into the horizon, their shadows stretching across the pavement. He watches where they link up together, in the play of them over the cracks in the sidewalk. It keeps him from focusing too much on the fact that this is actually happening. That this is real.

It isn't a long walk to his house. Seven minutes usually, when he's taking it easy. Three when he's slept in and has to run to catch the train. With Mitsuki at his side, hand in hand, it takes ten. He's never wished he lived further away, he wishes for it now, for a larger dose of being this close to her. Words exchanged only in the grip of their fingers and Mitsuki's bag placed with his own across his shoulder.

The gate breaks the silence when he slides it open. Followed shortly by Saky, surely telling him that she's upset that nobody is home to play with her. Towa ignores her, Mitsuki does no such thing. He notices her absence in the lack of her hand and the immediate noise of Saky purring at the touch of fingertips he still wants to be holding.

"I didn't know you had a cat."

Strange, this seems like something he would have said, mentioned, brought up, at any time really. "I have more than one," he says, the gleam of Mitsuki's eyes at his words has him wondering whether the words were a mistake or something he should have said long ago.

"You do?" He wishes he could have made her smile like that. If he has to woo her with his cats... well it's not an idea that's below him. "Do you have photos?"

Towa laughs, why is she asking for photos? "You're at my house."

Mitsuki topples to the floor, disturbed from her delicate crouch with the renewed knowledge of where she is. "I am," she takes a moment, looking up at him, down to Saky, standing out with her pale fur on the dark ground where she twirls between the sprawl of Mitsuki's limbs. "Can I see them? Is that okay? I know it was only to drop your bag off but—"

"It's fine," he says, it means they get more time to themselves, "nobody's home so they’re probably waiting by the door."

The sigh Mitsuki lets out at the thought of them waiting for her is dreamy. His cats... he definitely should have talked about his cats before, earlier, months ago— he wouldn't have cared about Mitsuki coming over to visit him months ago but surely, even the idea planted would have had this happening earlier than now. This spur of the moment thing.

Mitsuki picks Saky up to walk with them to the door. To Towa's surprise, she lets herself be carried. Up to the door, and through it when Towa lets them inside.

"I'm home!" He calls out, to the nobody he expects to be home, to the bright eyes shining in the glow of what is left of the sun behind them.

"Sorry for the intrusion," Mitsuki calls after him, softer. Still not sure she's allowed to be here even after Towa had shown her the messages saying that it would be fine. Even the ones where his dad agreed to drop her home afterwards. He didn't show her the ones his grandpa sent, as excited as they were, as sprawling with images, Mitsuki doesn't need to see the words he's been using about him bringing a friend who is a girl out to the festival to meet his family.

They all know he's not allowed to date.

They all think he doesn't even know what dating is.

They don't know that Mitsuki is someone he would very much like to date; that he has to hide it behind outings like these so the wrong person doesn't see them together and call it something he only wishes it could be.

He would like to date Mitsuki, but for the moment, he can’t.

He's glad his family isn’t home, he has time to move on from the face he wears when holding Mitsuki's hand to the one he has to wear everywhere else. "There's nobody home, just the cats."

"Cats," Mitsuki echoes, she looks down at Saky in her arms, still amazingly content to purr in them even though she hates it whenever Towa attempts to bring her inside at night, she looks out at the sets of eyes, glowing from the shadows in front of them. "Cats," she repeats, "plural."

Towa doesn't really know how one introduces a person to cats. He starts off with something he does know to do and shuts the door. Saky wails at the sound of it— and maybe Mitsuki will have to visit again, trick Saky into coming inside with soothing hands and the aura of a new friend. Mitsuki will have to visit again... because... because he wants her to.

Mitsuki kicks her shoes off in the genkan. Not something planned.

He was just meant to drop his bag off, Mitsuki too if she wanted, so as not to have to carry it around all evening. Then, they were both meant to leave again. His family is already there, waiting for him. The others will be there soon, waiting for them. They already agreed to meet up, a place, a time... a time that doesn't account for he and Mitsuki being home for longer than expected.

Shigeru hisses from atop a cabinet. Mitsuki freezes in place, one foot elevated and ready to step from the entrance. "Is it okay?"

Towa kicks his shoes off and steps up into the house, treading carefully between beings of fluff and claws pawing at his feet. "It's fine, Shigeru just likes to pretend he's a guard dog." Towa turns on the hallway light, he can see the way Mitsuki's shoulders relax as they all come into view. No longer simply eyes gleaming in the dark, just cats. She seems to like cats—they should have done this earlier, he should have said something earlier.

"They all have ribbons."

Towa shrugs, "I like it better than having a collar." These ones don't need collars when they don't go outside. The ribbon shows that they're a part of the family. He tied them all on himself. He picks Shigeru up, despite his growls only increasing in volume as he carries him down to Mitsuki. Shigeru doesn't seem to be in danger of attacking, his dark far doubles in size but he seems simply to be wary of the stranger in his home.

Mitsuki puts Saky down to pat Shigeru, he growls the entire time, she doesn't pat him for long. "It takes him a while to get used to people. He gets really defensive."

"I'll get you to like me one day!" Mitsuki declares boldly, chuckling when Shigeru leaps from Towa's arms to run into the house at her words. Almost like he understood them to be a challenge.

Towa's heart jumps at the implication that she'll be over again.

The other cats have scattered now they know who it is that's come home. "Now that we're here, did you want a drink or something before we leave again." They're going out to the festival, they'll probably eat and drink there, but it feels weird to leave straight away now that they've come inside. He's not sure whether meeting two cats was enough, or whether Mitsuki wants to hunt out more of them. Maybe he justs wants her to hunt them out so they can extend this time together.

"Yes," she answers quickly, "but just water is fine."

Usually, he would lead a guest up to his room. Usually, that guest isn't Mitsuki and he isn't worried about what his friends will think if they ever hear Mitsuki talking about what his room looks like. He takes her into the lounge, in time to witness Shigeru leaping for the top of the tower he likes to observe the room from. "Take a seat, I'll be quick." Saky races into the room, leaping for the window sill. "Don't worry if they get playful, they do that."

Mitsuki nods and he moves to the kitchen, taking a breath of fresh air in a room Mitsuki is not in.

Mitsuki is in his house. Mitsuki is his guest. Mitsuki is here. Mitsuki is in the next room over.

He collects matching glasses, empties some ice into them, pours in some water, looks through the cupboard to see if there's any food to serve with it even though they aren't planning on staying for long. His mum would hate to discover he wasn't a good host.

He ends up selecting a couple of chocolate bars from the stash his dad doesn't know he knows the location of.

"Here," he says, not at all surprised to see that Saky has set herself up in Mitsuki's lap. Likely with no desire to move anytime soon. As is her usual. He's glad he picked up the chocolate, it's not much, but it's better than having nothing. He's worried about Saky's desire to stay put for hours at a time, and Mitsuki's tendency to be nicer than a situation warrants her being. "Also," he has to warn her, "once Saky is comfortable she really doesn't like to move."

"That's fine," Mitsuki says, running hands through the coarse fur of Saky's spine, courtesy of her love for the outdoors and an ever growing collection of nature tangled up in it—he won't have to brush her tonight, Mitsuki is doing the job for him.

He carefully forgets to mention that Saky will ensure she keeps her seat with force if necessary. If Mitsuki says it's fine, it's probably fine. He doesn't need to scare her. He doesn't want to. He wants her to enjoy her short time here. She's implied she'll come again, he doesn't want to change that.

The water and chocolate go down quickly, Saky only moving to flicker her tail, to encourage Mitsuki's fingers to scratch over a new stretch of fur. A small pile of sticks and leaves builds up next to her and Towa only wonders when Tiago is going to come and steal it away for himself.

But Saky never moves, and it's definitely dark outside now, and Mitsuki has brought out homework from her bag to do on the table, and Towa ignores his phone vibrating incessantly in his pocket in order to focus on his own work—focuses instead a lot on the fact that Mitsuki is in his house and they are together in his house - in his house and not the cafe.

He doesn't even know at this point if they are going to make it out to the festival.

He doesn't know if he cares whether they make it out.

This quiet companionship is nice. Even without talking, without doing something, just this quiet moment that exists between them.

—He is just aware of the empty table at the encroaching lateness of the night, and the fact that all he's given Mitsuki so far in what has become nearly an hour of homework rather than him dropping off his bag and Mitsuki accidentally meeting a couple of his cats, is a glass of water and a bar of chocolate.

"I'm hungry," not the words he was meant to use, "do you want something else to eat, or to drink?"

"Whatever you're having is fine," she says, "we'll be going out soon to eat won't we?"

Her words sound nice. The way she says we sounds nice.

"I'll be right back." He doesn't know if he will. He doesn't know what food they have. They weren't meant to be here for this long. In the kitchen, he finally pulls out his phone to address the multiple messages he's felt coming through. From his parents, his granddad, even Kyousuke.

What time were you coming? We know you were going to walk around with your friends but it would be nice to see you!

Did you get lost 🏃 Do you need picking up 👣  ww

 If you wanted to take Mitsuki around by yourself you should have said.

He responds to his parents first.

Got distracted by the cats so we’re still at home, what food am I allowed to eat?

He doesn't want to serve Mitsuki food that his parents were saving for something else. He's hungry, he still hasn't eaten anything real since practice. By not going to the cafe he's missed out on his usual post-practice snack. This is better than the cafe, but it doesn't stop his stomach from protesting it's emptiness.

 I'm still at home

Before he can even type up the second part of the message—

Do you want me to pick you up ☄️

       No, we're leaving soon and I know the way.

                🙆

 I'm still at home, Mitsuki fell in love with the cats and we got distracted. Save us a spot and some food for the fireworks

The fireworks can actually be seen from his house, there's no real need for them to leave in order to see them. But the atmosphere of the festival is something he can't give Mitsuki from his house. It's something he's enjoyed with his friends for so many years, it's almost a tradition at this point to watch them together, a tradition Mitsuki can now be a part of, this time, next time, for the future.

There's some fruit on the bench Don't stay too long

He doesn't plan to, he didn't plan on staying this long. Despite their distractions, he and Mitsuki are actually on a time limit.

He wants to take her to see the fireworks at the very least. He would have liked to walk around the stalls with her too, but they're running out of time for doing that.

Seeing the fireworks at a festival is different to lighting them in the park together. It's something real. Something they can go to, together... with their friends.

He dices up some fruit and puts it all into a bowl for them to share. He pours out another glass of water and carries it all down to the table for Mitsuki. He's unsurprised to see her ignoring her homework now in favour of waving around the leaves from Saky's fur for Tiago to jump around and play with. The bell on his ribbon rings with his small jumps, the tinkling matching up with Mitsuki's laughter, who seems not to notice Saky's attempts to encourage Mitsuki back to focusing on only her.

"What is this one's name?" She doesn't turn around to ask.

"Tiago," he says, "we bought so many toys for him to play with, but it’s like he prefers playing with the stuff Saky keeps bringing inside."

"That's cute," she says, and Towa can see the smile grow on her face with the additional information, “he must like the smell of the outdoors.”

After eating, it's a short walk from his house down to where the festival is being held. He lends Mitsuki one of his jackets—one of his mothers might have fit better, but that doesn't warm him up from the inside. Hand in hand, their steps are slow again. It shouldn't take as long as it does, he's almost worried they'll miss watching the fireworks with the others. They'll be able to see them from here, from anywhere along the walk, but they've promised to watch them together.

Together. His friends, and Mitsuki.

Where, with all eyes watching the show in the sky, their hands never need to uncoil.

He has to find his family afterwards, something he doesn't really want to do. He doesn't want the night to end. It almost felt like something real. The others split off, and his and Mitsuki's hands break away with them. He doesn't know who moved first, only notices the absence by the time his granddad is waving him down from atop a chair.

"Embarrassing," he mutters under his breath.

Mitsuki lets out a puff of air, meant to disguise a laugh, "he's very energetic."

"It's too much."

Her laughter isn't disguised this time, it's music to his ears and he's thankful for the chance they were gifted to spend this night together. For the stolen hours in which they could simply be together.

Because time starts flowing again, too quickly, until the night eventually comes to its true end.

"Asakura-kun," she rests one hand on the door, not facing him. He wonders when she'll call his name, but also, he thinks, being the only one called like this is special in its own way too. "Tonight was fun!" She turns in the doorway, her hair rising with the spin, settling slowly against her shoulders. It makes him think of movies, of stories, of things he can't do. "I hope I can come over again soon!"

"Anytime," he says, meaning it, "you can come over anytime." She barely met half of his four-legged family.

The shadows cover her face, what's left she tucks into her borrowed jacket—his jacket. She nods her head, lets herself inside, and he's left to the curious glances of his father the entire drive back home; distracted by the promise of another time. Of a chance for stolen moments that are all their own.

[wintercovers]

hqot3+ week day one: friendship runa & kaori & hitoka (just wants the first year girls to all be friends) rating: g || words: 5757 future fic/university

Her first year of university passes by in a blur and Kaori is determined to make sure that university doesn't pass by in the same manner as high school. She wants more to remember of her university experience than a degree and three years spent paying more attention to a hoard of boys than herself. Her mission, starting this second year of university, is to remind herself that she is important too.

She doesn't quit the team. Manager of the volleyball team has been drilled into her self-introduction for so long she's not quite sure who she is without it. She does cut back on the time she spends with them, starting with the break between her first and second year. She shows up to the old gym early every morning and in the afternoon she only shows up for an hour. She runs drinks around and refills them and leaves long before most of the guys will think of doing such a thing. She doesn't go out to parties and karaoke with them when they invite her, she probably will again, in time, but first, she needs to know she can say no. She still goes out to dinner with them all following their practice match win.

It's only for a little while, but straight away her days have been injected with extra time.

—she just needs to figure out how to fill it.

Day one of the new semester holds her answer.

Kaori shows up late, barely late, but still late enough for the lecturer to glare at her the entire way through his introduction until she collapses into the first seat she can find. Which happens to be in the front row so he can continue to throw glares her way through the entire forty-five minutes he has them for.

"He hates me already!" Kaori groans as she packs her shiny new handout into her bag.

“Um— I— He— He probably doesn't."

Kaori wasn't expecting for someone to respond. The fact that she's sitting next to someone who might listen and respond was not something that even registered in her mind. She's spent too much time with boys who always think they know better than a first-year girl ever could (she's curious to find out if being a second-year girl will change anything).

She turns to whoever it is who caught her whining. If this is a potential neighbour for the entire next semester, Kaori wants them to start off on good terms—good terms usually don't start with her being caught talking to herself, but she doesn't have a choice in being picky about the circumstances anymore.

"He definitely does, didn't you— You— Karasuno? Hitoka-chan? What are you doing here?"

Hitoka—because it is Hitoka; blushing, stuttering, long blonde hair clipped up to the side Hitoka—drops her jaw as well. Kaori is clearly as unexpected in this eight am advertising class as she is.

"I go here?" She doesn't sound sure about it.

"Did you just start?" This is a second year advertising class, surely Kaori would have recognised a familiar face in her marketing class last year and yet... she hadn't.

"No," Hitoka chirps, "I was here last year as well."

"Me too!" Hitoka startles at the volume and looks around where they're seated, embarrassed at the noise. "How did I miss you?"

Kaori stares at the girl in front of her. She has terror in her eyes but stars in her hair, Hitoka is small, still, but not in a way Kaori would have missed.

(The fact that she missed her now, here, today, until words were spoken between them, is carefully forgotten.)

“Um— I— We— we should leave."

"Right!" Kaori's bag is already packed but she's blocking Hitoka in, well, not really. The rest of the front row has managed to leave by other means; out the other side, or maybe they leapt over the bench. What's important are the people loitering by the door, seemingly waiting to come in. "Let's go! Are you busy? We should catch up!"

“I— Um—“ Hitoka is still the Hitoka Kaori remembers. Time hasn't changed her at all. She doesn't move from her seat, frozen beneath Kaori's enthusiasm and the curious eyes at the door. She doesn't move until Kaori grips at her hands, picks up the laptop Hitoka hasn't yet packed away and leads her gently through the crowd at the door and out of the room.

"Do you want to get a drink? Food? Breakfast?"

Hitoka doesn't pull her hand free, only makes distressed faces at the laptop cradled under Kaori's arm. "Please be careful!" She squeaks.

"I will, I will, don't worry!"

Hitoka hasn't answered any of her questions but Kaori heads for the convenience store located in the heart of the commerce building anyway. Hitoka doesn't settle down until Kaori has bought them both a warm tea, a rice ball, and secured them a table to sit at.

When Hitoka's laptop is set down in the table, she seems to fall into a more relaxed state as well. Tension rolling from her in waves.

"So," maybe now her questions will be answered, "what are you studying?"

"A Bachelor of Arts," Hitoka says.

"Really? The Arts school is all the way across campus!" If Hitoka had an art lecture directly after her commerce lecture it would be a rush to make it on time.  "What are you doing in advertising?" Kaori doesn't actually want to be doing it, it's been forced on her by choosing management and marketing. She's biding her time wading patiently through all her courses up until she finally gets to the sports component all the way down the track in her third year.

"I'm doing a minor in marketing," Hitoka speaks without a stutter, without squeaking. She's strong with these words and Kaori leans over on the table to listen. "I had an affinity for it in high school and I had space in my programme so I thought why not? I'm really looking forward to some of the assignments this semester to challenge myself with what I can do!"

"Wow." The word escapes with her breath, and luckily for Kaori gets caught up in it too. "You already know what the assignments are?"

Hitoka flushes, pink staining high on her cheeks. "Yes, well there's a lot more creative freedom given in these assignments compared to my art projects. As long as it fits the topic I can use whatever materials I want."

"Wow," again, "I haven't looked at anything we have to do!"

"You shouldn't be proud of that," Hitoka scolds, "Ushuaia-sensei was talking about it during class!"

"Was he?" Kaori rests her head in her hand on the table, eyes going to the ceiling. "I don't remember anything that happened in that lecture." At least, not aside from the glares. The only thing learned is that she needs to either move faster from the gym to the lecture hall or tell Oikawa that she needs to leave earlier. "Why did we have to be stuck with a class so early in the morning?" Kaori turns her attention back to Hitoka just in time to see her sympathising with the statement. "At least one good thing came from the early morning!"

"What?"

"I got to meet you again!"

Kaori wasn't aiming for it, still, satisfaction bubbles in her chest as Hitoka's face blooms red once more.

Kaori runs to class the next morning. She wasn't able to leave practice early, she could have, probably, but in all honesty, the boys don't look as if they'll leave on time unless she's there to push them to (the first years especially, it seems, do actually listen to her). she races to class, almost knocking into someone to get through the door to the lecture hall. She apologises hastily, still rushing until she is sat in place next to Hitoka.

"Good morning!" Kaori cheers. "I made it on time today! He can't hate me!"

“You— But—“ Hitoka's face is pale, paler than usual, her eyes not moving from the entrance.

"Fuck me." Hitoka squeaks something that sounds like an agreement. Someone else is at the door, helping their lecturer to his feet. Their lecturer, whose face is dark, hard eyes glaring, once more, in Kaori's direction. This is just not going to be her class, she needs to look up if they are switching lecturers during the course because otherwise... she's screwed.

Kaori keeps her head down during the lesson. Head down, ears open, only ever looking up enough to see the slides on Hitoka's laptop which she has turned to the side for her. All in the name of avoiding direct contact with the lecturer.

She stays seated once again as the lecture comes to a close. Hitoka sits with her, this time not in as much of a rush to leave.

Kaori packs away her things, and still seated, looks elsewhere around the lecture hall. There is a back door. “Do you think there are spare seats up the back?” There probably are. Yesterday she had been late and in a rush to pick the first available seat, her eyes ever made it high up the hall.

“Um, maybe, I’m not sure…”

“How early do you get here in the morning?”

“Not— Not that early, just five minutes beforehand.”

“Do you think you could check if there’s a spare seat in the back on Thursday?” Small blessings for having one day to recover from these last two. “I can come through the back door and that way if I’m late I’m not as annoying and if I’m rushing again I’m less likely to knock someone over!”

“I can try,” Hitoka says after a long pause.

“I would really appreciate it! If after one day you want to move back to the front I won’t blame you!” Kaori isn’t mean enough to have Hitoka permanently move seats with her if she’s more comfortable sitting up the front. Hopefully, even if they sit apart they can hang out between classes still. It’s been one day but it's nice to have a familiar face around. It’s nice to think they can become better friends now, than when they only met up a few times a year with their respective volleyball teams. “Now that that’s settled, do you want to grab a drink again?”

“Yes, but also… if it’s okay can I bring my friend along?”

“Um, sure?”

Hitoka’s new friend holds potential for Kaori too. Another new friend. Someone not on the volleyball team, and not forced upon her by living situations, but a friend from actually talking to someone in her class. Yes, she knows Hitoka from volleyball, but the past and the present are two different things.

They each buy a cup of tea and sit down at the same table they occupied yesterday. Hitoka places her laptop gently down on the surface and sends off a message on her phone.

“Hey,” they’re friends now, probably, possibly, “do you think we could swap contact details?” Hitoka nods before Kaori can get too carried away with reasons it would be beneficial to swap contacts.

“Sure, that way we can meet up at times that aren’t nine in the morning!”

It is a weird time to be meeting up with people, Kaori realises. This is what university has done to them - forced them into socialisation before it’s even reasonable for them to be awake. Kaori laughs, and Hitoka smiles without even knowing the real reason—Kaori hasn’t slept in for so long she’s forgotten what it’s like not to be already out of the house and ready for the day before it even hits six in the morning.

“I hope you never planned to go home and nap after class,” Kaori says, “I hope I haven’t just stolen you away from something else planned for between classes.”

“No, no, no, not at all!” Hitoka waves her hands around in the air, missing the way her phone lights up with a notification. “I usually go to the library to work on… on random things between classes but I like sitting out here,” she indicates the entire ground floor of the commerce building, “there’s a lot more activity so I don’t have to worry about whether or not I’m making too much noise.”

Kaori laughs again, she can picture Hitoka holed up in the library, hunched over the desk in one of the cubicles, taking up as little space as possible and holding her breath lest she annoy someone by simply breathing. It’s a funny image, but Kaori doesn’t enjoy the idea of Hitoka being terrified while studying. It can’t have made things easy on her. “Happy to be of help,” if Hitoka can relax enough to do work the way she wants to, it’s better than planned. Not that there even are plans. “Although it’s only the second day so I guess you haven’t really had an opportunity to see if you get much done down here, huh?”

Hitoka nods, picking up her phone to answer the message, her friend, Kaori thinks. “Not yet, but I always feel like I do more when someone is checking up on me,” she sends a small smile Kaori’s way, “even if it’s not actively being checked just sitting with someone always makes me feel like I should be working.” She sets her phone down on the table, “Runa-chan is leaving now.”

“I hope we didn’t wake her up.” A real worry now that Kaori thinks about how early it is to be sitting around campus doing nothing. If they showed up even just a couple of hours later it would be a lot harder to get a table in the main hub of the school. Hitoka’s guilt is written all over her face and Kaori feels herself freezing up at it. “We did, didn’t we? We could have met at a different time.” She’s only just taken Hitoka’s contact details, only recently been informed that meeting up outside of waiting for classes is an okay thing to want—but it’s definitely a thing that could have been asked for earlier.

Hitoka is the middle ground here. If she knew Runa would have to be woken up Hitoka could have asked Kaori if they could meet up again later in order for them all to meet.

It just makes her feel bad.

They spend twenty minutes talking and working before Runa shows up. Kaori is organising the new training regimen into what she knows of the first strings class schedules. This way, she can let the coach know when to have the gym open for the guys to do weights; both supervised and unsupervised.

Runa shows up, and Kaori isn't sure what she was expecting but Runa might be exactly it. It's clear to see how she and Hitoka are friends. In two seconds of seeing her, Kaori watches Runa stumble into chairs, apologising needlessly to them, and then apologise to both Kaori and Hitoka for showing up late.

"I don't know why you're apologising!" Hitoka doesn't look like she's going to say it, Hitoka only looks like she's ready to begin a stream of apologies back towards Runa. "We're the ones hanging out at a ridiculous time in the morning, I'm sorry for dragging you out early. Hitoka mentioned that you came out just to meet up."

Hitoka looks guilty at the statement. Again. And okay, Hitoka didn't use the exact words Kaori has said but she's paraphrasing. Either way, Kaori needs these girls to not feel guilty over a) being late to a meeting Kaori only learned of half an hour ago and b) not realising that Kaori would have been happy to meet up with either of them at a later time.

Now she has Hitoka's contact details the latter is something that can actually happen.

"It's nice to meet you Runa-chan—can I call you that? I'm Suzumeda Kaori, I'm a manager for the boy's volleyball team here, and I knew Hitoka-chan from high school when we were both managers."

Kaori doesn't think she's said anything particularly scary but instead of relaxing at the introduction Runa looks even more put out. "I'm sorry!" She shouts and runs away, knocking into chairs and people and disappearing into the distance. Kaori watches her the entire way. That was... a strange encounter to say the least.

"She seems nice." She does, even without talking to her. If she and Hitoka are friends Kaori doesn't see how Runa could be anything but nice. Nice people are the kind of people Hitoka surrounds herself with, even if she doesn't know it herself.

"I'm sorry!" Hitoka squeaks.

Kaori has heard enough apologies in the last little while to last a lifetime but she knows better than to say so. "It's fine," Kaori insists, "but—" she waves in the direction Runa ran off in— "what was that? Should I not have called her by her name? Did I say something wrong?"

"Um— No— Well— I—" Kaori waits, Hitoka will get there eventually. She just has to wait for her to calm down. Hitoka pulls in a deep breath, pushing her laptop away from her, and Kaori drops her own work in imitation of Hitoka's actions. This looks like it's going to be serious. "Runa-chan is scared of volleyball."

"Scared of volleyball?" Hitoka nods, and Kaori thinks there must be more to the story but Hitoka is remaining tight-lipped for the moment. "Why is she scared of volleyball?"

"Um, maybe saying volleyball was the wrong thing. She's scared of volleyballers. She was the manager for a team back home—that's how we know each other!" Kaori would never have guessed. "Her team was known for... well... um..." Kaori waits, eyes always on Hitoka, letting her know that she's listening. "Her team was known for being really... really..." In this pause, Kaori can almost guess what's going on in Hitoka's mind. She's searching for something, a nice word for something she doesn't think is nice. "Playful? Maybe? They... they got into a lot of trouble and as the manager, Runa got in trouble a lot too for not being able to control the team."

"That's ridiculous!" Kaori slaps a  hand over her mouth for the outburst. She knows Hitoka needs quiet at times, particularly times in which she is trying to say what's on her mind and is terrified of the thoughts will be received. Still, "Runa-chan can't possibly have been expected to be in charge of a whole team. There's a responsibility there, sure, but making sure the team isn't dehydrated, or lacking in supplies, is different to making sure they're abiding school rules. That's definitely something the captain or the coach—no wait, the adviser should have taken care of!"

"I— Yes— Um... yes, I think so too. Runa did it for a year, her second year. In her first year, there was a third-year manager that kept the team in line, but when the third years retired and the second years took charge things changed up a bit and... it was too much for her."

"Poor thing," slips out without her thinking about it. She thinks of Runa who ran through the foyer here apologising to chairs and to them for not being awake when half the student population is still wrapped in slumber; it just seems unfair. "I guess I scared her off by saying I was the volleyball manager then, right? I'm sorry." Now she's apologising too. Her apology seems much more needed than any apologies the other girls had spouted this morning, though.

"I'm sure it'll be fine. She just still gets scared around people who are too loud or too tall."

On Wednesday morning Kaori doesn't need to rush. Instead of doing something useful with the extra few hours she's been given to herself in the morning, she stays in the gym with the rest of the boys not rushing off to morning classes.

The mood is different once scheduled practice ends. It's less serious for some and ten times more serious for others. Never before has she really thought too much about it, but after her brief meeting with Runa yesterday Kaori finds herself paying more attention to it—the height of the boys and the noise they emit.

They're tall, taller than the average boy she's sure. Not that average boys have ever stood out to her much. She's always been long and lanky for her age, with no coordination to speak of for getting involved in sports herself managing a sports team seemed to be the obvious choice. Thus, the height of the boys surrounding her doesn't mean a thing to her.

The noise isn't anything she finds too excessive to her ears either. There's the slap of the ball against hands and wrists, the thud of shoes on the court, echoing off the walls, the smack of the ball. The boys talk to each other, teasing words and encouraging phrases thrown in amongst friendly chatter that Kaori would use with her friends as well.

It's nothing out of the ordinary. Then again, she's been putting up with these boys for a year already, and before this was high school, which had... a very interesting selection of boys crammed together in one room. She's also never been scared to speak up when she needs to, to shout above whatever noise the boys are creating.

It makes it hard to picture being Runa, terrified of everything in front of her eyes, or even Hitoka. Kaori can still distantly remember the way Hitoka had cowered beneath the bodies of boys taller than her as she delivered drinks and food to them at training camps. Within her own team she had been fine, but even with the boys of Kaori's own school, boys Kaori knew well to be gentle and kind, Hitoka would shrink even further beneath their gazes.

It's a strange thing to think about, but also something she wants to be able to understand. She wants to be friends with these girls. More than just friends of convenience thanks to being in the same class. For the few weeks she'd seen Hitoka over her high school years, Kaori had enjoyed being in her presence. Talking and eating and playing cards and sometimes just doing nothing. Lying out on the hillside under filtered sunlight to escape the heat of summer and the smell of the gym.

She wants to be their friend. She wants these to be the people her parents told her about. High school is high school, it's the blink of an eye, and university has been too, but Kaori has spent the last year with her mother lamenting over the phone that Kaori is wasting it by only focusing on the team and on her school work and not forming the lasting bonds that she had made in university with people from all kinds of areas. Her parents meeting at university is only a small part of it. Her mother knows she's not going to date anyone on the volleyball team but her father keeps asking if any of the boys have caught her eye.

—She hasn't told him yet, and Kaori guesses her mother hasn't either.

But her parents met at eighteen and she's nineteen now and it's all a lot of pressure when she thinks about it.

Is this what happens when all there is to distract her thoughts are the sporadic squeaking of sneakers on the gym floor and the occasional thud of a ball? One by one, group by group, boys leave the gym to head home or to classes or out together and Kaori's thoughts swirl even deeper.

She needs more in her mind. She needs the click of a mouse and a keyboard and a calming presence that apologises for existing even though it's all Kaori never really knew she was missing.

She's not going to see Hitoka today. The realisation comes in slow and takes up her other thoughts. They aren't going to meet between lectures, and Kaori has three hours to kill until she has her first class of the day— three hours until there's something else to fill up her mind from the thoughts of home and expectations she's managed not to think about for the last few days.

She retires with the last of the team that clears out, after helping to pack away the nets and locate stray balls across the gym. Kaori sits in the centre of the commerce building, but not at the table she's been sharing with Hitoka for the past two days. The thought of sitting there alone seems foreign. Like she's breaking a promise she never actually made.

She reads up on the sheets crumpled in the bottom of her bag from day one reading up on due dates and assignment dates and typing them into the planner on her phone. It's easy to see then, where they fit around practice games and the Kanto tournament. It's the same way she's spent the last couple of mornings. But it takes so much longer. It's harder for her to focus, to think about what she's doing, to not get distracted by every person that catches her attention by simply walking past or every app on her phone that hasn't been visited in a short while.

Hitoka's words from the first day they sat here, only two days ago, catch up with her. It really is easier to focus when the illusion of being put to work is there.

Kaori remembers then too, it's only week one. She doesn't need to be organised yet. It's more than she needs to do.

She folds her things away, sends out a message to Hitoka on her phone, and leaves campus for the mall. She doesn't have anything she wants or needs to buy, only time she needs to kill and she'll feel better for being in a fresh environment than sitting down in the foyer all morning lamenting the absence of a friend she's only just made contact with again.

Sneaking through the back door of the lecture hall on Thursday morning goes a lot better than any of her previous attempts at making it to class through the front door. For a moment, the only problem seems to be the lack of seats, and even though she asked for Hitoka to save a seat, she in no way reminded Hitoka of this idea before now. Oops. She's resigned to the fact she'll have to walk down to her seat at the front after all—garnering even more attention now that she'll have to traipse down twenty rows of seats to get there—but right as she takes a deep breath in order to do so, Hitoka pokes her head up from between multiple hulking bodies and waves her down.

A deep sigh relaxes her entire body and Kaori makes it into her saved seat stepping on exactly two feet of people who accept her hushed apology but also managing to escape the glare of the lecturer up front. She isn't sure if this is good or bad, maybe it will just make him think she didn't bother to show up to the lecture at all.

She's meant to be focusing on her work but it's more interesting to look around the room, to look at the people sitting around her: tall and scary and generally the kind of people Hitoka tends to avoid. "Thank you," Kaori scrawls into the corner of her notebook. She doesn't know if Hitoka will see it or if the sentiment will go unnoticed, but writing it out is important to her. She wants Hitoka to know she really is thankful for the change in scenery to these people she's usually scared of.

"So," Kaori says, clearing up all of her things and picking up Hitoka's attendance slip as well to take down to the front. She picks up all the ones from the aisle seats on her way as well—she might as well be a nice person to these strangers while she's being a nice person for Hitoka. It's nothing out of the way for her. "So," she tries again, now that she's back with Hitoka who is gently placing her laptop into its carry case, "shall we get a drink?"

Hitoka's answer is a smile and Kaori leads the way out to the convenience store and then their table.

The change, just in sitting with Hitoka again, hits her like a freight train.

"Is it going to be okay with Runa-chan if we all have dinner together?"

"I think it will be fine, I asked Runa-chan why she ran away the other day and it was because after hearing you were on the volleyball team she was worried that some of them might see you in here and talk to you and by association, her."

"Oh," Kaori never considered such a thing happening. Outside of the gym and the court and going away together for matches and competitions and camps she doesn't see much of the boys on the team unless they're going out to a dinner to celebrate something—a win, a birthday, and a good test score have all been cause for celebration in the last year. "If that's something she's worried about I can always tell the boys not to talk to me if I'm with you guys? I'm sure they'll listen to me if I tell them—not the reason why because I'm sure Runa-chan doesn't want that getting out—but just telling them that I want to keep volleyball separate from the rest of my life."

"You don't have to do that!" Hitoka insists, "Runa-chan would probably feel bad if you did that!"

"She doesn't have to feel bad, I really don't talk to them anyway. I might wave to them, or occasionally pass over forms or something but that's really it. I want to hang out with you both, but I don't want either of you feeling uncomfortable."

Hitoka's presses her lips together, her eyes start to shine, and Kaori knows that look. Not on Hitoka, but she knows that look. "You're such a kind person," Hitoka sniffs, and Kaori abandons her chair in order to wrap her arms around Hitoka. It might be a bit much for how long and how well they know each other—that is, not much at all—but if it were her about to burst into tears she'd definitely want comforting over the possibility of everyone walking past being able to see tears staining her face.

"I'm not that kind, come on, I know—" can she say it?— "I know you two are on the sensitive side but these past few days have been fun and I'd love to include Runa-chan as well. There's no need to cry, come on!" It's been too long since she has needed to comfort someone emotionally rather than physically comforting someone for not being able to perform a drill to the best of their ability. Kaori is not quite sure if she has it down.

Later that same night Kaori follows the GPS on her phone to where Hitoka's phone is flashing on her map. She ends up at a grey stone block of apartment buildings and here she actually has to use her brain to figure out which one of the blocks is the one Hitoka lives in.

After a few minutes and with the help of another resident, Kaori manages to actually get into the building Hitoka lives in as well. Hopefully, it won't be too much of a surprise that she's showing up straight to the door without needing to be buzzed into the building first.

Following three sharp knocks on the door, Runa, of all people, opens up with terror in her eyes to invite her inside. "Sorry if I scared you, someone else was coming in while I was trying to figure out which building was yours and they let me in with them."

Runa's shoulders come down from where they were hunched up around her ears. Kaori kicks off her shoes in the entrance and steps into the slippers she assumes are left down for visitors. "Thanks for having me over!" She calls into the house, a potential mistake as the sound of something crashing from further inside greets the statement. "You guys really don't do well with noise, do you?"

"Sorry," Runa mumbles.

"It's fine, there's no reason for you to be sorry, I'm just used to having to speak over everyone, I'm sure I'll learn that I don't have to yell as much in no time!"

"Thanks," Runa says, and Kaori is happy to bear witness to the beginnings of a smile at the corner of her mouth.

"I'll do my best," Kaori says, quieter this time. Successfully so seeing as Hitoka doesn't seem to have dropped anything at her words, "please don't be scared to tell me if I'm doing or saying something that bothers you."

"Hitoka-chan was right," Kaori doesn't know what that means. "You really are nice."

Kaori is not one for blushing, she's never had a problem with it, never worried about it even as so many of the boys she knows have flushed brighter than a sunset at a bad play or a private cheer shouted down from the stands. She knows what it feels like now, standing in the entrance to a house of two girls she's really only just getting to know—again, in the case of Hitoka—and her face feels like it's on fire. Can Runa tell? Is it obvious? Kaori hopes not. Just thinking about  how embarrassing it is to feel elated at such a small sentiment only makes her more conscious of it.

"Are you okay? Is it too hot in here? Should I turn the heater down?" Hitoka appears with a ladle in one hand and concern lacing her features and Kaori thinks that it hasn't even been a week of getting to know these people, but already she hopes that they can be friends, for the year, for the duration of their degrees, forever.

They're the quiet storm that's been lacking from her life and Kaori can be the support they need when they want their voices to be heard.

[wintercovers]

The red of your joy

Happy birthday to my baseball boyfriend.

kanesawa - 6194 words - hanahaki disease 

Five times Kanemaru Shinji coughs up petals for reasons he doesn’t want to learn and one time he finally figures it out.

i

Shinji watches the ball fly perfectly into the mitt and registers the familiar swoop in his chest at the loud smack of the ball. Less familiar to him is the tightness that follows the swoop, an inability to breathe, the darkness that creeps slowly through the edges of his vision.

He doesn’t register much at all after that.

There’s another slap of the ball meeting mitt,

a rush of air,

the ground rising to meet him,

a familiar voice, shouting his name in an unfamiliar tone

and then there’s nothing.

Quiet.

Peace.

Bliss.

Until eventually Shinji can feel a hole in his chest, a burn in his throat, something lodged in his throat—he can’t breathe. He can’t breathe.

He hacks and he coughs until the feeling passes, until air passes. With big heaving breaths, Shinji takes in the warm air of the room. Stale air has never tasted so good.

He pries his eyes open to a flutter of red down his chest, a slew of worried faces, a hard bench, a grey roof, and all he can wonder is when he left the field.

Being awake means nothing to him, he can’t do anything, he’s not allowed to do anything—nobody wants him to move. He’s forced to sit and wait for a medic to say that he’s okay— which doesn’t actually take too long. And yet, by the time the cool metal of the stethoscope has pressed over his chest and grazed over his back and his health deemed nothing out of the ordinary the main team is jumping down through the bullpen door. All dirty and sweaty and gleaming with the aura of victory.

He was on the field. He was. But now Shinji can’t remember if he helped. Did he contribute? Is the win partly his own or did the team win in spite of his collapse? Were they happy to chase him off and put in his senpai? Someone better, someone stronger, someone faster— someone who doesn’t pass out on the field in the middle of a game.

Shinji wants to ask, about the game, about what happened— he doesn’t quite understand it himself. But Takashima hangs over him with a concern his own parents can’t match and makes sure he’s first on the bus back to school, first to eat, first to bathe, and doesn’t stop caring until Shinji is tucked up in bed like he’s five years old again and not in fact in the prime summer of his sixteenth year.

Shinji does as he’s told, complaints about not feeling sick, or faint, or anything of the sort falling on deaf ears.

In the morning he feels the same, he submits to Takashima’s questioning and Oota’s pandering and Coach’s steely gaze trying to pick him apart inside out before finally, he is allowed out onto the field with everyone else where his early night only brings forward all the questions that couldn’t be asked the day before.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you feel sick?”

“No.”

“Did the ball hit you?”

“No,” he would never let himself be hit by the ball hard enough to knock himself out. Sure, being second most likely to be hit with a speedily travelling ball is one of the dangers of third base but for Shinji, it’s also its biggest allure. Shinji would never let himself fall prey to a ball to the head.

But… if he missed the ball because of his collapse he’s never going to be able to live it down. Other people might forgive him, the team might sweep it under the rug, but Shinji isn’t going to be able to forgive himself for letting a ball get through while Sawamura was on the mound.

And with that thought his chest hurts again. Burns. Once again it’s like he’s forgotten how to breathe.

He coughs and it draws the attention of those around him, but Shinji waves it off as a laugh before the looks become too concerning.

Whatever is blocking his air makes it’s way to his mouth and Shinji feels sick at the thought that something is actually wrong. He swallows it. He swallows the thought of being sick, and the hardness in his mouth despite not having eaten since the night before. It’s not the taste of anything good.

It doesn’t end there, on and off again it comes. A burn in his chest, something stuck in his throat, his mouth filling and filling and filling with something that makes it hard to breathe.

He swallows it all. And it’s done with for another few moments. An easy solution to a problem Shinji wishes he didn't have.

Only once does he cough hard enough to spit out what’s in his mouth. Something blood red, too much to swallow, but he hides it beneath bellowing laughter, the result of Sawamura’s latest words shouted for all of Tokyo to hear.

And yet even when it’s gone, as Shinji’s wallows through breakfast and dreams through his first classes of the day he can’t get the sight of red out of his mind.

Red.

Blood red.

Shinji doesn’t know much outside of his classes or outside of the field, but he is more than smart enough to know that coughing up blood is never a good sign.

But if he tells anyone, will he still be able to play?

He doesn’t think so.

And nobody noticed this morning. He was able to hide it.

Shinji makes the decision then: for as long as he still feels fine, for as long as it’s only an occasional nuisance, nobody needs to know. It will be his burden to bare, for as long as he can get away with it. If it happens more often, if it becomes a bigger problem, Shinji knows he will need to get himself checked out. It’s not that he wants to die, that he doesn’t value himself; but more than anything else for his nearly seventeen years of age, he wants to play baseball for as long he can.

ii

In one moment, Shinji is laughing in class, in the next, he knows nothing, he sees nothing, there is nothing.

When he wakes, it's the same as before. Red laces his vision, the bed. He's in bed—his bed—but he doesn't know how or when it happened.

Yoshikawa sits at his bedside. He didn't even know the managers were allowed in their rooms. She's talking to Toujou but Shinji still isn't conscious enough to make out the words. All he can feel is the confusion, and the longer he's awake, the more being so hurts.

His throat burns, the air feels dry. He breathes, but it doesn't work. It hurts, and it's not enough, he tries to suck in air but it only leads to coughing which hurts even more—but it dislodges something.

It does bring Yoshikawa and Toujou's attention to him, and Shinji swallows down this something in his mouth. Toujou would never let it be if he was really sick. He can’t let it show.

It takes two seconds of their attention for the world to feel somewhat normal. His head cools—and he hadn't even gotten to thinking about the uncomfortable heat in his skull trough the burning pain elsewhere—and they pass him iced water to drink. It soothes the burn of his throat, lubricates his breath, and suddenly something meant to be easy becomes so again.

"What happened?" Did Yoshikawa bring him here? In his head, it makes as much sense as it doesn't. She sits behind him in class, which is the last thing he remembers, and yet, she's so small. Is that why Toujou's here? Did Toujou carry him?

"You don't know?" Shinji tries to glare, if he knew he wouldn't need to ask. "You passed out," Toujou tells him, "again."

"Again?"

"Oh no," Yoshikawa says, "his memory is being affected as well!"

"You passed out during the game at the weekend."

"I did." This is a lot to wake up to. They've soothed his current ailments, but Shinji only wants to be alone now. The information is too much and he needs time to come to terms with the fact that he passed out—again!—and more than anything else, it means he probably won't be on the team for a while. He'll have to see a doctor, get checked out, be deemed healthy. He doesn't want that, he only wants to play. He didn't come to school to miss out on the whole point of coming to this school. "I remember." He'd just rather not, he'd rather there was no such thing to remember.

"How are you feeling?"

"Better," not great, but better isn't a lie. "The ice helped."

"I'll go get some more!"

Yoshikawa dashes from the room. She doesn't need to, Shinji knows where the ice is stored. It's not that far away, although it is true that he doesn't feel like leaving his bed for a while. He will, though, for practice.

"What's the time?" He shoots up from the bed. The last thing he remembers before being in bed is laughing during lunchtime. It's not unreasonable to think he'll have to get ready for practice soon. If Toujou's out of class it must mean classes are over.

Toujou laughs. "Nice try, Coach already knows you left class there's no way he's going to let you go to practice." Shinji sinks slowly back into his bed. He shows his new distaste for the afternoon by throwing the covers up and over himself as well. "I haven't seen you throw a tantrum in a while, I should take a picture!"

"I'm not throwing a tantrum!" Shinji snaps. "If I can't go to practice I might as well sleep... Maybe I've just been tired lately..."

"Maybe..." Toujou agrees slowly, "do you remember anything from before you passed out?"

"Being in class." Toujou nods his head. "It was lunchtime."

"Lunchtime!? I didn't find out until classes were over!”

“So,” Shinji has to ask, “you didn’t carry me down here?”

“I did, with help, but when I got Sawamura’s message you were in the nurses office at the school.”

“Sawamura,” Shinji says, “I remember he was talking about the test we had last week. We got the results back.” Shinji had been worried for Sawamura, tutoring him had been a challenge and he had not been confident in Sawamura doing well. And yet, “he was really happy because he got exactly what he needed to pass. He was trying to brag that he’d done it that way on purpose.” Shinji has other theories—Sawamura’s a key part of their team, he can’t play if he doesn’t pass and none of the teachers really want to face the coaches wrath. Not with a test that came mid-tournament.

He coughs again. His breath is short, it wracks his body just to get the air up and out and Shinji sucks in back in. Coughing again on whatever else has made it up his throat.

Red.

Again.

In front of Toujou, there’s no hiding it, but still, he tries. In one motion Shinji throws his blankets off and in the same moment, Yoshikawa returns with ice in her hands and Sawamura on her tail.

“Kanemaru! Are you okay?”

“Sorry,” Yoshikawa hands the cup over, “but when he heard you were awake he wanted to come down and check on you.”

Through another bout of coughing, he now can’t hide from three people, Shinji gasps a question. “Awake?” The last thing he remembers is lunch, but from what Toujou has said it is now after school, and although nobody present is yet dressed for practice—meaning it can’t be that late—Shinji still has hours that are unaccounted for. “What time is it? How long was I not awake for?”

He doesn’t get an answer.

Sawamura throws himself across the bed, across him, and the weight on his chest has his breath caught up once more with whatever sickness it is that ails him. The good thing, this time, is that Shinji can hide his fitful coughing beneath Sawamura’s trembling body of which Shinji can only make out a few words of whatever it is he’s spewing to the covers.

“Sorry…genius…amazed…”

Shinji pieces together the words with what he knows of Sawamura and his sputtering breaths get interspersed with actual laughter that keeps the other two from fussing over him too much more.

iii

Sometimes, Shinji can’t hold it back. Sometimes the loss of breath is unexpected. In class, on the field, a few times while in the bath. Shinji can’t look away from the red, red, red that surrounds him then, but sometimes, he can feel it coming. He can estimate when the tightness in his chest will come through.

Sometimes he lets it.

The bubble of laughter forces it out, red, red, deep blood red, into his food and over his desk, and Shinji might worry about the state of it all, the mess, other people being able to see. But nobody is looking at him. He brushes it all away, aside, red petals littering his rice and through it all, he laughs.

It’s freeing to laugh, to let loose. To not have to hold it back when he really, really wants to — and right now Shinji really, really wants to.

Doubling over, fist thumping on the bench chest heaving for too many reasons and cheeks hurting at the smile that pulls too wide. More than he’s used to. More than he lets himself.

He laughs, bubbling with energy and happiness and in time he doesn’t even remember what it was that was so funny.

When Shinji picks his head up, tears littering his cheeks and blush clinging to them he registers everyone else in the class looking at him. Friends he knows, people he’s talked to, and none of the above. Everyone.

“It wasn’t that funny,” Kiritani states from the left.

Shinji’s body betrays him at the words. A giggle, high and light and nothing he ever wants to escape his own mouth ever again, but it keeps coming.

“Kanemaru thinks I’m funny! I’ve made it!” And Shinji looks, burying his face into a pillow of petals spurting before turning to see Sawamura, happy tears flowing freely to drip off the edge of his face. Proud. Sawamura Eijun is proud and Shinji is giddy and he laughs again because of course, he forgot but of course, of course, it’s Sawamura who told the joke. Whatever joke it was, if there was one.

There probably wasn’t.

Shinji doesn’t always laugh with Sawamura but nine times out of ten Shinji likes to laugh at Sawamura. When the occasion calls for it. He can’t recall the occasion for this instance only, it might have caught him off guard. It’s the only excuse.

Sawamura is a funny person, but he isn’t funny.

He is, maybe, just a little bit funny. It’s funny the way he declares his intentions even when he’s miles away from the batters box. It’s funny, the puff of his chest, the bellow of his voice, the failure, so often of the time, to live up to his words.

It’s funny, he’s funny, and Shinji can’t help but shout back to him this time, chest tight and the words ringing clear across the diamond for everyone to hear. “If you get it past me I’ll write your English essay for you!” Because Shinji knows Sawamura hasn’t read the book.

Sawamura shouts out his acceptance of the challenge and Shinji’s chest pulls in tighter.

And misses and misses and misses again and if it were anyone else Shinji would be delighting in not having to write out his own English essay, but he’s not stupid enough to have Sawamura write his own in return. It’s not what he wants. He gets nothing out of this except the flutter of his stomach, a dry throat

But still, he tries. Furuya lets his aura out more with every pitch of the ball, Miyuki cackles from behind the plate and Shinji feels caught up in it all. Yamaguchi shouts out for a chance to hit but Sawamura refuses to move, not until he doesn’t have to worry about his homework.

Shinji doesn’t think he’s’ been worrying about it anyway. He probably hasn’t even thought about it. He's probably waiting until it’s close enough to needing to be finished that Shinji will have to take pity on him and help him out regardless of any bets taken on the matter.

He gets lost in those thoughts. Sawamura at his door, face a mess with tears and other things. Dropping to his knees outside Shinji’s door and gripping at his clothes until Shinji agrees to help. Like he would ever say no… but it’s nice to see Sawamura beg.

He’s brought back with the feeling of his own knees hitting the floor, and Sawamura shouting “You missed it!”

He’s already on the ground, the collapse isn’t as noticeable. He laughs into the dirt, because he has another essay to write because of course, Sawamura pulled through. He chokes into the dirt, pounds red petals into the dust around him and swallows down around laughter he can’t see the end of.

Why is it happening again?

Why here?

Now?

He can’t have been out for long—he’s getting used to this: the tight chest, the short breath, the giddiness, his mind clouding over, the fade to black—because when he comes back to himself he’s still on the field, head pillowed on the base and half the team crowding around him. He doesn’t want people to see him like this, and yet he can’t do anything but lie down amongst their muddy boots and curious eyes and not know what it is he’s meant to say.

“Kanemaru.” Because what does he say to the coach now? The coach who knows he’s collapsed three times when Shinji knows the number Kataoka knows of is infinitesimal compared to the number Shinji knows. “What’s going on?”

Shinji shrugs, because he doesn’t want to say, but there are too many people, too many who have seen. And there is one thing in common with each of his collapses and it rings true here as well. The blood red petals surrounding him. Stuck around his mouth and his face; already coughed up and lying stagnant with him under all of their eyes.

“Office.” Is all he says next.

All Shinji hears is ‘bad news’.

iv

He can see the stars chasing each other across the sky. They arc and bend and curve and shine and through the motion of the stars Shinji can sense the earth turning beneath him. Hurtling through the universe at over fifteen hundred kilometres an hour, he feels like it’s all passing through him. On his back, he clings to the earth and hopes he won’t fall into the dark expanse of space above him.

Has it ever happened to anyone? Is it going to happen to him? What if Shinji is the first?

“What are you doing?”

Shinji thought the time of night would have him out here alone. The only person awake in the world, falling and turning and spinning and watching the universe pass him by—but apparently not. Toujou walks out to join him where he lies spread out in the centre of the diamond. As much body to the dirt as possible to ensure gravity is gripping down tight.

“The stars.”

Toujou sits down next to where he lies. He lies one hand over both of Shinji’s eyes and seems to see something in the way he blinks when it’s pulled away.

“It’s cloudy.”

“It doesn’t make a difference.” The stars he sees now are no duller than those he usually sees. And the flashing lights of the cloud make for a nicer sight than the glow of the city. Silver lights, flashing and growling and roaring. Soft rain, painting across the earth. Cleansing, soothing, calming.

“What stars then?”

“The planets are aligning.” He heard it in class earlier today. Venus and Jupiter meeting each other in the night sky. Big and bright and red and just beyond Shinji’s reach but he can see them as he saw them earlier. Paint them in on the clouds they hide behind.

“How long have you been out here?” Toujou’s hand comes down again, cool against his forehead.

“Hours.”

“Don’t you think it’s time for bed then?”

“Time is an illusion…” Something they’ve been tricked into. Do this at this time and that at another. Like sleeping, now, why have they been forced to sleep through the night and made to run around in the burning heat of the daytime sun? This is a much nicer time to be awake. It’s peaceful and quiet and Shinji can watch the stars, something none of his other friends are awake to do

“No,” Toujou says, like he hasn’t just heard Shinji’s thoughts on the matter, “it’s bedtime.”

“I’m hungry.”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“I’m hungry,” Shinji repeats, standing up from the position he’s held for hours now. He nearly falls back into it again—this is his place in the world, he’s taking his place in the world—but Toujou has already moved, even faster than himself, and catches him before he can sink back down.

“Maybe I should give you some food if you’re tripping over yourself.”

“I want a burger.”

“You’ll get what you’re given,” Toujou pulls him in the direction of the dining hall but Shinji knows well enough that what he wants will not be given to him there. Not ever, not in the daylight hours when they insist on feeding them, definitely not in these dark hours between the twilight. He wants a burger, he won’t be given one here. Toujou has been placating but he has no intention of letting Shinji get what he wants.

He shakes himself out of Toujou’s grasp and with an energy he hasn’t possessed until right in this moment Shinji runs. He runs through the pelting lights and the gleaming clouds and he follows his feet and his heart and the empty hole becoming more and more obvious in his stomach until he finds what he wants.

And no money. “Fuck.”

“Shinji!”

Fuck again.

Toujou takes him by the hand and weaves them both down streets and alleys and thoroughfares Shinji has never been aware of. Lights shining only for the dead of night and his friend, his best friend, the best person he’s ever known and will ever know, pulls Shinji into a shop, with chairs pulled tight into empty tables and shelves stacked high with drinks Shinji has only dreamed of tasting and in the blink of an eye Shinji is presented with a burger glistening with marbled meat and  Shinji tears the wrapper off to find something even more beautiful.

It smells like heaven, it tastes like all of his wishes coming true.

“It’s beautiful.”

“You’re a mess.”

“Toujou, you’re beautiful.”

“Let’s get you home.”

“Where is home? What is a home?” They follow the stars, their own stars beamed into the sky from the city that is their home. “I want to go home.” Toujou grips harder at his hand and pulls him forward and the bright lights blink out as the sky wakes. A blinding red through the sky, colouring the clouds and reflecting off puddles of the pavement.

Red, red, the world is bathed in red. Shinji is bathed in red. Red blood, red heart, beating, beating, beating, with every step they take closer to their goal. Beating, beating, faster and faster, and Shinji knows where they are now. He knows the road they walk, the convenience store on the corner, the sprawling fields, the hill behind the building, the fences lining it all. Red heart beating faster and faster, not for their steps now but for the steps Shinji can hear echoing around them.

Against concrete, through the splash of puddles, through a morning that hasn’t quite dawned yet.

His chest pulls tight, his throat constricts, he knows this feeling. Maybe this is what it is. Maybe this is what Toujou has been walking him towards. This is where Shinji has been walking towards, back to this.

“Ah,” Shinji understands now, “so this is home.” A blinding grin, a flash of sunlight cresting over the hills. Loud on a quiet morning. Awake before the day. Asleep after the night. Always moving, always inspiring and enlightening and the red spouts out, billowing forth. Matching the morning and his heart and the steps sinking through the grass ahead of him. It’s beautiful.

v

It’s hard to get out of bed in the mornings. It’s so much easier to stay buried beneath his covers. Nothing happens between his bed sheets—nothing of import anyway. It’s safe. For a brief period of time, Shinji can pretend he feels normal. Waking up in the morning is more than just the beginning of a new day. The lights don’t halo, time moves quickly, his breaths move without conscious thought, and his pillow… his pillow is moulded to the exact contours of his head and it clings to him. Shinji doesn’t want to leave.

So he doesn’t.

He sleeps through practice, through school.

He gets away with it once.

If once counts, he gets yelled at by everyone, from the coach, to Takashima, to Toujou, to his parents over the phone, to Sawamura.

“If you aren’t in class who’s going to teach me what we learned in class?”

Shinji smiles, his chest pulling tight, and this isn’t meant to happen in the safety of his room. He coughs into his sheets, petals unfurling around him, and real laughter is enough to cover it up.

“That’s exactly what the teacher is for Bakamura!”

“What?” And Shinji laughs again, pressing the noise, and the mess, into his mouth with the hem of his shirt. “No,” and he seems so confident, determined, that teachers are not there to help him, “you’re the one who actually makes it make sense.”

“I’m nothing special.”

Deep brown eyes stare at Shinji, meeting where they’re left free of his clothes. Nothing is said, no words spoken, but all in a moment Shinji feels the lowest he’s ever felt. Sawamura is calling him out on himself. Sawamura who has always had so many more reasons to be down on himself but never let himself wallow in his losses.

His chest is tight, with more than the usual feeling. It’s too much, he can’t control it. He pulls all of the blankets up over him, disturbing Sawamura from where he’s perched on the side of the bed. It’s loud, the wrack of his body, entire buds caught up in his throat. It hurts, it hurts, it’s never hurt so much. He doesn’t want it to hurt this much. When it hurts he can’t keep pretending that it’s a passing thing. He can’t tell himself that he’s used to everything, that soon he’ll be able to play again without it getting in the way.

If he can’t convince himself, how is he meant to convince others?

Shinji hears Sawamura run across the room, “I’ll go grab you some fresh water.” The door slams and Shinji is left alone and yet still the flowers burst from his body.

It’s not meant to happen here. It’s not meant to be here. Here is meant to be safe.

There’s no point if it is no longer.

Where he has to stare at the phone number taped to the desk. The one coach gave him, for if he can’t sort things out himself. The number that will let him back on the team, all problems solved. The one that will stop everything. The pain, the tightness, the benching. He could be on the team again. He worked so hard to get on the team. To get to start with the team. To be someone who’s trusted to guard the base and attack the ball—

—and now he’s nothing.

A body in a bed in a room—“here you go!”—that people feel the need to look after.

“Thanks,” he says gruffly. Taking the ice water and sitting up in bed. Everything still hurts, it’s a pain to breathe, but he can breathe, it’s a step up from earlier.

“I brought my notes from today!” Sawamura cheers, slipping onto the bed, spreading multiple notebooks across the bed between them.

“Why do we need to do this now? People don't usually ask the sick person to help them with homework.”

“Yeah,” Sawamura admits, “but you’re you.”

Shinji doesn’t quite know what that means. It still makes him have to hide a smile, a laugh, a cough, behind his hand and his opening of the first of Sawamura’s notebooks.

The page for today is empty, nearly empty. “You didn’t even take notes today.”

“I did too!” He leans over to point at the numbers on the page. “I wrote out what page of the textbook we were working from!”

That… is a thing he has written out.

“Can’t you just read from the textbook then?” Sawamura only pouts at him. “Why didn’t you do work in class?”

“I didn’t understand it?” Shinji waits. “I was sleeping.”

“I should be sleeping now. Why does this have to be done now?”

“Please!” Sawamura drags the word out, longer than Shinji has ever heard it before.

“I’m going to need more than that, don’t you know I’m meant to be resting? Not helping out idiots.” Sawamura puffs up, but before he can offer up loud words that have Shinji’s chest clenching tighter he continues. “So we better make it quick, and you better tell me why this has to be done now.”

Sawamura shifts, crossing the room and pulling down Shinji’s maths textbook before throwing himself back on the bed. “Furuya and I may have a test tomorrow as punishment for sleeping today.”

“Furuya too?” Shinji sighs and Sawamura nods. “How come he isn’t here as well then?”

“He went to Harucchi!”

Shinji doesn’t understand why Sawamura couldn’t have also done that. But… they’re here now. He’ll do what he can until the fit takes over again.

It sneaks up on him. Sawamura gets visibly flustered as it sets in, but Toujou is there when he wakes up. Toujou, who Shinji has known long enough to recognise the look in his eyes, who he has known long enough to know he doesn’t want to hear what is is that Toujou has to say. “You know don't you.”

It’s not a question, Shinji runs from it like it is. Trust Toujou—wonderful, beautiful, talented, cares way too much Toujou—to figure out what Shinji never wanted to figure out himself.

i

Sawamura Eijun glows. His aura is golden, surrounding and engulfing him. Shinji knows because he has seen it. Sawamura bathes in the dawn of the morning and lights up the evening sky. Shinji is drawn to him, as all things are—as they are made to be—to the light of the sun. He shines, radiates, his happiness drawing everyone to him—Shinji included.

Accepting this fact is easy.

It’s visible.

Shinji doesn’t know how he didn’t see it before.

He can’t stop looking.

Sawamura smiles and Shinji’s breath gets cut short, he coughs and he chews and he swallows and it’s gone. Habit drilled in over months. So engrained into his very being that if those first few times weren’t burned into his memories—the fear, the terror, the decisions to come—he wouldn’t even remember the colour of it all.

He doesn’t care to learn the name. Others have, he knows they have. He sees it in the quick looks that last hours and the slow nights as they birth to morning. Shinji doesn’t care to know, he doesn’t want to. Learning more means giving it a name and he doesn’t want to do such a thing. He doesn’t want to give it power.

It’s already strong enough.

But he can control it.

Now that he knows what it is, what is happening and what— who it is that is causing everything… dealing with it all becomes so much easier, so much simpler. Life becomes so much easier to live when Shinji can navigate his own illness.

(Although there are times he doesn’t think of it as such.)

(There are times he embraces the feeling.)

It’s a simple change to don headphones during breaks, the noise deafening, silencing the voices around him. He moves his own practice to the hills beyond the dorms where those deemed unworthy swing their bats. He bathes early in the freshly drawn water before anyone serious even deigns bid goodnight to their drills. Shinji rests the way he once thought he needed, he is early to bed and he is late to rise and he becomes everything he once hated in a person who was trying to succeed.

But this is what he needs to do.

The more he learns himself, the more he learns how much others already knew. The more he learns of the reasons behind why they have done the things they’ve done. The more he understands the reasons for his own set backs, his own benching, his own removal from the squad for nationals.

(Nationals. And they made it there without him.)

Where he spent nights roaming the city. Where the lights he’s grown up around call to him. Draw him forth, further and further into the tangle of streets until he can’t find his way home again.

(What is home?)

(He hasn’t called home home in years.)

(The home he’s found is across the country.)

(He’s meant to stop thinking such things.)

He turns on the television in the main hall to the recorded games, where the golden glow embraces him, comforts him, it escapes the screen and brings forth all of the things he’s been unconsciously chasing after all these months.

Now he chooses it.

The team returns and Shinji takes a place no longer necessary for him. But he’s good at this. He stands tall and strong and in the hours it takes for the ball to land in the mitt behind him Shinji stares straight ahead and the sparks leaving eyes and fingertips and all of it is directed his way.

(Nearly his way.)

(To the mitt with the ball clasped between it’s weathered creases behind him.)

For a few moments, hours that drag on, Shinji gets to stand on the right side of those eyes, of the laughter and the intensity and he coughs into his fist and bites down on the petals in his mouth, crunching through the seeds. He sucks in breaths until he can’t anymore, until he watches laugher billow forth in musical notes and smiles that call flowers into bloom. Shinji coughs and chews and swallows and lives the whole night on repeat until he escapes to the darkness of his room and blinks away the sparks of laughter behind his eyes.

Sawamura doesn’t know, can’t know, can’t ever know—

—that it’s the diamond in his smile, the pride behind his words, his belief in himself and those around him. The not-so-quiet confidence, the unbelievable statements, spoken in such a way that Shinji finds himself thinking twice. That it’s hard work, dedication, sweat and blood and tears poured into seams and soil and flung at Shinji so many hundreds and thousands of times that it’s impossible to see past the golden arc of it all.

Spinning through the world, in front of his eyes.

Sawamura doesn’t know, can’t know, that every single thing he does closes his throat, opens his heart, sends him spinning towards an everlasting twilight.

But Shinji is used to this now. He’s used to this haze, the extension of twilight. He knows that coming back is hard, is exhausting, is not quite worth the joy of swallowing everything it is that he feels. But Shinji is used to this now.

To golden eyes, and a glowing form, to loud words that say soft things and to an unbridled joy he more than admires. He’s grown used to the catch of his breath, to the flowers in his mouth and the seeds between his teeth and he doesn’t need to live out his life in high school—no matter what his reasons for coming here were.

As much as it doesn’t seem real now, there is an afterlife, Shinji has seen it. The sun goes down and night takes over and one day his life will not be filled, surrounded, gravitationally pulled into Sawamura Eijun’s orbit.

There is life after death. As there will be a life after high school. A life after living day by day with Sawamura. A life where the world doesn’t glow and time doesn’t slow and where Shinji can’t feel the turn of the earth beneath his feet. He remembers it once, like a past life, he doesn’t look forward to it but he is smart enough to know he needs it.

Red poppy: fun loving

I had a giant list of flowers I picked out from hanakotoba to use as flowers that might relate to Eijun, and I asked my friend, she saw red poppy, checked if opium poppies were red, and said anyone who was choking down those was gonna get fucked up and that was the end of that.

I love hanahaki disease fic but even more I love when the story is unresolved. Is the love ever returned? Do the feelings leave naturally or through surgery? Do they find a love elsewhere while still holding on to these unrequited feelings that never come to a close? (If they can’t admit them to a person, face rejection, are the feelings always there beneath the surface? Stagnant, until a stray thought, a faraway whisper, brings everything back?)

Sorry Shinji.

[wintercovers]

@gbomobsession: Just wanna say thanks! I really disliked Aya and this chapter and while everyone's gushing over how "cool" he is. I'm angry over the fact that he's treating Mitsuki like an object and completely ignoring her comforts so that he can belittle Towa and make himself the more "superior" one. Oh please, Towa is so much more of a gentleman than Aya could ever be.  His feelings for Mitsuki are so selfish!

Yeeeeeesssss. Everything here. He makes a bet for Mitsuki to be his prize and I was never on his side but I was fairly neutral towards him bc we haven’t seen much since Mitsuki pushed him away after their ‘date’ but this was just a flat, nonononono you don’t do that to someone. I cheered so hard at Towa’s answer, I was so happy he turned the bet down (if he agreed I would have hated them both but you go boy)!

I’m still partially conflicted about the kiss at the end, mostly the words to it and what kind of things Mitsuki might think from it, but it was in private, and we can tell afterwards that it absolutely meant something to him -- and tbh I’m more worried about his wristband in the wash and Mitsuki’s new friend seeing the message more than anything else. Mitsuki needs all the friends she can get but of course they’re crushing on the same boy.