Chapter Text
April
“Guys!” Noya yells the second he steps into the bar, sakura petals caught in his hair, arms spread wide and grinning hugely. “I’m back!”
“Noya!” Ryuunosuke yells back, just as loud and grinning just as wide.
“Ryuu!”
“Noya!”
“Ryuu!”
“Oh my god,” Chikara says, smiling reluctantly as both Asahi and Yamaguchi try and fail to smother their laughs. “Shut up and sit down, you idiots.”
“I know you missed me, Chikara, don’t be mean,” Noya laughs, stopping behind his chair to squeeze Chikara’s shoulders tight before sliding into the booth next to Yamaguchi. “Yacchan, Suga-san, Asahi-san, hey! Yamaguchi, look at you! Still a beanpole, huh?”
“Hi, Noya-san!”
“It’s good to see you!”
“You’ve got a tan, Noya,” Suga-san laughs, reaching across the table to ruffle Noya’s hair.
“Yeah, but it suits me,” Noya grins. “Ryuu, pass me a menu, would ya?”
“Yeah, here you go! Dude, the pictures you posted looked so fucking cool!”
“Yeah, it was awesome! I learned how to surf and shit! There were a bunch of people from California living over there because the waves are so great, and they taught me! I mean I’m not great at it, obviously, but I can do it! And the beach sand was black and holy shit, you legit can’t walk on it in the afternoon ‘cuz it’s so hot - oh, and there was this one place I went to where they had this candy race, which was so weird but so fun - they basically took all this chocolate, thousands of them, and sent ‘em rolling down this super steep hill, and if the chocolate you bought won you got a prize, and -”
“Noya,” Chikara says, carefully moving his glass of water out of reach of Noya’s animated hands, “do you want to maybe order something before telling us about all the cool things you did in New Zealand?”
Suga-san snorts with laughter, and Noya only grins with unabashed energy before flagging down a waiter and rattling off an order that’s almost definitely the first three things that caught his eyes on the menu.
“Noya,” Ryuunosuke says, his cheeks hurting from smiling.
“Yeah?”
“It’s really great to have you home, dude.”
And Noya, because he’s Noya, laughs delightedly and leans across to hug Ryuunosuke before going right back to being the life and soul of the party, but Ryuunosuke really means it. It’s just like him to burst back into their lives like nothing has changed, and it’s just like him to be as enthusiastic about Suga-san’s teaching job and Yachi’s website and all of their more mundane lives as he is about black beaches and soaring cliffs and surfing in a whole different country - but it's only when Noya comes back like this, crashing into the room like a tornado and breathing energy into everyone around him, that Ryuunosuke realizes how dull life is without him.
It had happened almost by accident, Noya doing this whole travel photography thing. A family member had gifted him a nice camera for his twenty-fourth birthday, and he’d decided on the spur of the moment to go travelling and snap as many cool things as he could. So he had, going all the way up to Hokkaido and coming back down to Mt. Fuji, and ended up back in Miyagi after three months with a startlingly good portfolio of pictures from everywhere he’d been and five thousand followers online. The pictures had been bought, the followers showed no signs of doing anything but multiplying exponentially, and just like that, Noya had a career. He’d done three more trips through Japan before deciding that it was about time he visited a different country, experienced a different culture.
Thus, New Zealand. And thus, apparently, surfer Noya with new Californian friends, which is honestly so cool that Ryuu doesn’t even have the words to describe how cool it is. And everyone else seems to feel the same, caught in a constant ripple of both awe and laughter at Noya’s stories - or maybe it’s just the way Noya tells them, bright-eyed and forthright and charismatic, timing the punchline perfectly every time.
He can’t hold his alcohol on the best of days, though, and tonight he barely bothers to check what’s in the glasses he recklessly downs. As a result, he’s hopelessly drunk within an hour and quite certainly the loudest person in the bar. The rest of them aren’t much better - the cheer they set up when Noya runs around the table to hug each of them twice is nothing short of deafening, and makes the barkeep shoot them a dirty look for the fifth time that night.
But they aren’t kicked out, by some miracle, and it’s well past one in the morning when they finally step outside into the crisp night. Yamaguchi and Yachi take a taxi, Asahi heads for the nearest subway station with an arm around a happily singing Suga’s waist, and Chikara and Ryuunosuke are left with a very buzzed Noya on their hands.
“Taxi?” Ryuunosuke says in Chikara’s general direction, squinting to try and make him out properly.
“Nah, he’ll throw up in thirty seconds,” Chikara says, his voice muzzy. “Y’know what, take him to your house. He can head back home in the morning.”
“Won’ throw up!” Noya mutters defiantly, clinging to Ryuunosuke’s arm with a death grip. “Uber ain’t gonna defeat me!”
“He’ll definitely throw up,” Chikara snorts, stepping past Ryuunosuke to flag down an approaching bus.
“Guess you’re comin’ with me, Noya,” Ryuunosuke says, grunting as Noya leans more of his weight on him. “You’re gonna push me over, dumbass, stand up straight!”
“Have fun,” Chikara grins, waving over his shoulder as the bus doors hiss open. “See you guys at my house tomorrow, yeah?”
“Yep. See ya, Chikara.”
“Bye, Chikara!” Noya yells, and Ryuunosuke hastily puts a hand over his mouth.
“Noya, for god’s sake -” He pushes him to start walking, laughing despite himself. “Let’s get home, yeah?”
“Home’s t’other way,” Noya grumbles into his shoulder. “Wrong way.”
“My home, not yours. C’mon, it’s only five minutes away.”
“That’s nice! Nice house, only five mins away from such a good bar. It was a good bar, wasn’ it?”
“Sure was, dude.”
“An’ it was so nice to see everyone! We should have the whole team next time! Daichi-san ‘n Narita ‘n Kinoshita ‘n Kageyama ‘n Kiyoko-san ‘n-”
“And everyone,” Ryuunosuke says, tugging him down a side street. “Yeah, we really should.”
“I miss Kiyoko-san,” Noya says, hugging his arm like it’s his childhood teddy bear. “Like, I miss everyone, but also Kiyoko-san. But y’know there are a lot of Kiyoko-sans in the world, Ryuu. Hot an’ nice people. An’ fun people. An’ fun people who ain’t hot. But still really nice and cool, cooler’n me! Everything is so cool, y’know? So many cool places and cool things to do, an’ some of ‘em are even cooler than volleyball! And I wanna do all of ‘em, an’ make a bunch of cool friends, an’ -”
“You sayin’ we ain’t cool, Noya?”
It's a joke, of course, but Noya frowns at him seriously. “You guys are the coolest,” he says. Most of the gel is gone from his hair, and half of it is flopping into one eye. “‘Specially you, Ryuu, you’re the absolute coolest person ever.”
“Dude, I didn't mean -”
“You are, though! ‘S why you ain’t just my friend, you’re my bestest friend. Coolest people are bestest friends, an’ you’re the coolest, an’ manliest, an’ -”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” Ryuunosuke laughs, trying to ignore how warm his face feels. “Up these stairs, come on.”
Noya stumbles up the stairs to Ryuunosuke’s apartment, still listing as many compliments as he can think of. Ryuunosuke manages to get him to take off his shoes and sit at the kitchen table before he goes to grab water for the both of them. It helps kill his own buzz a little, but Noya is evidently still fairly tipsy, so he digs some leftovers out of the fridge for him, heats them up, and sets them down in front of him.
“Eat that, you’ll feel better tomorrow,” he says, stifling a yawn.
“You’re the best,” Noya says, taking a second to give him a small, lopsided grin before digging in.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Ryuunosuke smiles back, sitting down to watch him eat and propping his head in his hand to steady his own dizziness. “You don’t gotta tell me a hundred times.”
“But people don’ tell you!” Noya gestures with his spoon, mouth full of food. "An’ I don’ know why! You’re given’ me food and lettin’ me stay even though I’m bein’ a pain and that’s really nice of you, dude!”
“Come on, you’re my best friend, of course I-”
“An’ when I told you I wanted to do photo stuff you said I could travel wherever I wanted an’ take awesome pictures even though my English grades always sucked! You, like, supported me! An’ you were the best senpai to Shouyo and Tadashi and everyone in school! An’ I don’ even know why girls didn’ like you, ‘cuz you’re so hot and awesome an’ they should have all liked you! An' -”
“Noya, oh my god.” He’s definitely just saying whatever comes into his head right now, but Ryuunosuke is still fighting a strong urge to bury his face in his hands. All this, coming from Noya, is - is pretty darn great to hear.
“You are, though -”
“I really appreciate it, but you gotta finish eating,” Ryuunosuke chuckles, trying to sound firm. “And then change, and then get to bed so you can go home and get back to your family bright and early tomorrow morning. Yeah?”
Noya thankfully subsides with a grumble, and he’s done eating in record time. Ryuunosuke makes him down another half a litre of water, herds him to the bathroom, gives him a shirt and shorts to change into, and is setting out a futon for him by the time he comes out.
“I’m almost done with this, just lemme grab a sheet for you and -”
There’s a soft thump, and he looks around to see Noya sprawled facedown on his bed.
“Dude.”
“Mmmf.”
“That’s my bed.”
“Mmf.”
“Noya, come on, the futon is for you -”
Noya groans something that sounds halfway like ‘But comfy.’ Ryuunosuke sighs, maybe a touch too indulgently.
“Fine, I’ll take the futon. You better not throw up in my bed, though.”
An indecipherable mumble is the only response he gets. When he turns around to get the sheet for the futon, though, Noya reaches out to grab his shirt, tugging him back surprisingly hard for someone who’s supposed to be inebriated. He falls on his back on the bed, an ‘Oof’ punched out of him, and Noya is sitting on his stomach in a flash.
“You should have the bed too, though,” Noya says, like it’s suddenly the most important thing in the world. His nose is about two inches from Ryuunosuke’s, who has to squint slightly to meet his eyes. “It’s a really nice bed. You know what we should do? We should share it. Dude, we gotta share the bed, that way you can have it too.”
“Noya,” Ryuunosuke laughs, “are you kidding me -”
“No but it’s such a nice bed! You should have it too!”
“It’s my bed, you dumbass,” Ryuunosuke says, laughing even harder. “You know what - okay, fine, we’ll share the bed. You happy now?”
Noya nods hard, looking like Hinata had looked after the first time Kageyama tossed to him, and Ryuunosuke has to take a minute more to calm down and stop laughing.
“Shit, you’re cute when you’re drunk,” he says, grinning up affectionately at Noya - not quite buzzed enough to not feel embarrassed about saying that, but buzzed enough to want to say it anyway.
Noya blinks, his smile dying, and his head tilts to the side a little. Ryuunosuke raises an eyebrow at him, waiting for him to move so they can both get to bed, but all he does is stare back, eyes wide and unblinking. Just when Ryuunosuke is about to push him off, though, he nods like he’s made a decision, and -
- and leans down, and kisses him.
And Ryuunosuke freezes.
His first thought is Damn, his lips are soft. His second thought is -
Playing video games at Noya’s house on some Friday evening when they’re both nineteen, losing for six matches straight because he’s busy fretting over how to tell Noya - he’d told Chikara and it had gone fine, even great, and Chikara had given him some good advice and websites to look at and stuff, but Noya is different. Losing Noya’s respect would be - fuck. He won’t care, right? He’ll be cool, right?
Noya crowing,“I’m kicking your ass, Ryuu," on his knees and holding his controller almost perpendicular to the ground as he smashes the buttons. “You gotta catch up, come on!”
If Ryuunosuke doesn’t say it now, he’ll never say it.
“Noya, can we pause for a second?”
“Hm? Sure -” The figures on the screen going still, a bright red ‘Continue?’ flashing in block letters, Noya turning to him. “What’s up?”
“I wanted to tell you something. About - about me. That I figured out a while ago. Like - I - this is important to me, and I want the people who are important to me to know too, so -”
Noya looking half pleased and half flustered at that, his eyes still dark and enquiring. “Sure, Ryuu. What is it?”
“I - I, um - I think I like guys, too. Not - not just girls. I like both.”
Noya kind of just looking at him for a second, his expression something halfway between uncomprehending and surprised, Ryuunosuke’s pulse going into overdrive - then Noya grinning again, much wider than before, slinging an arm around Ryuunosuke’s shoulder.
“Really? That’s fucking awesome, dude, you got so much more choice now! Good for you!”
Ryuunosuke bursting out laughing, and laughing and laughing and laughing at his weird, awesome best friend until Noya starts laughing too, just from sympathy, the two of them ending up in an exhausted, giggling pile on Noya’s bedroom floor.
And his third thought is a disjointed, Is that why he’s doing this? Because I told him - because he thinks it’s okay to - is he the same? Or is he just - he’s never said -
His hands go to Noya’s shoulders, about to push him away, because he needs a second to process this, to figure out what the hell is happening, to ask Noya what the hell he’s doing -
- but shit, where the fuck did Noya learn how to kiss like this?
He has one hand on Ryuunosuke’s chest, fingertips resting lightly on his collarbone, and the other braced by Ryuunosuke’s head as he nudges Ryuunosuke’s mouth open and gently - so gently - sinks the edge of his teeth into Ryuunosuke’s lip. He’s shifted most of his weight from Ryuunosuke to his legs, kneeling over him, and all of his hair is soft and down now, brushing against Ryuunosuke’s eyelids. The shirt he’s wearing is too big for him, and he smells like Ryuunosuke's soap, tastes like his toothpaste, as he kisses him deeper and his hand slides up to cup Ryuunosuke’s cheek.
And Ryuunosuke knows that he’d wanted Noya to stop doing this half a minute ago, but he - can’t quite remember why anymore. Noya is kissing him so sweetly, and he’s tired and still a little tipsy from all the alcohol he’s had tonight, and soft heat is pooling under his skin where Noya is touching him, and it’s the easiest thing in the world to give in and slide his hands up Noya’s neck, into his hair.
Noya moves closer with a quiet sound in his throat, and Ryuunosuke arches up into him, just a little. They kiss for a minute or so more, slow and careful, before Noya shifts back.
“Noya,” Ryuunosuke whispers, fingers still tangled loosely in his hair. Noya’s eyes are somehow almost luminous in the low light of his bedroom. “What are you doing?”
“You don’t want me?” Noya whispers back, tilting his head. The question sounds - normal, somehow, like if the answer is no Noya will just nod and get off of Ryuunosuke and go to sleep, and this whole thing will just become a drunk mistake to laugh about in the morning.
His shoulders are curved differently now, though, marked by a new line of tension, like he’s expecting Ryuunosuke to say no, and that does something to Ryuunosuke’s heartstrings that makes them feel like they’re being pulled achingly tight. Ryuunosuke drops his gaze to the rest of his face, wondering how to say it, wondering if he really wants to. Noya’s breath is fanning softly across his cheeks as he waits, his thin lips looking so damn kissable, the collar of Ryuunosuke’s shirt falling away to reveal the slope where his neck meets his chest, painted pale gold by the lamp on Ryuunosuke’s desk.
And Ryuunosuke thinks, Fuck it.
“God, I want you so much,” he breathes, and he rolls him over in one swift motion, kissing him into the bed as hard as he can as Noya’s legs wrap tight around his waist.
***
Yuu wakes up slowly, bright morning light filtering across his face. For a second he doesn’t recognize the colour of the pillows, or the smell of the sheets - but then his gaze falls on Ryuu’s bare back next to him, and the events of last night come creeping back with steadily growing clarity.
Oh, shit - Yuu throws an arm over his eyes, embarrassment crawling into his face in a slow, hot wave. What the hell was I thinking?
He should probably be having some kind of identity crisis right now, but the crisis is less to do with the fact that he slept with a guy and more that he slept with Ryuu. His best goddamn friend. Seriously, what the hell had he been thinking?
. . . Okay, but in all fairness, no one would have been able to resist Ryuu last night. He’d been all stupidly hot in that cool black jacket he wore to the bar and unfairly kind and caring when he brought Noya home and unbelievably cute when he laughed and incredibly good with his hands and his mouth and -
Okay, wow, what the fuck? Have I been crushing on him this whole time? Yuu peeks out at Ryuu from behind his elbow, watching the way the curve of his spine shifts as he breathes. Nah, I don’t think so. I always thought he was pretty hot, but I never wanted to, like, do anything about it till last night. Damn . . . I know I’m pretty impulsive, but jumping him like that? Definitely not a cool move to pull, even if he enjoyed himself later - okay, shut up! Don’t think about that right now! What the hell am I going to say when he wakes up?
Yuu spends about ten minutes thinking about it, frowning at the ceiling, before he decides that things aren’t so bad. Ryuu had enjoyed himself - the several dark marks both of them have littered across their skin are testament to that - and he’d said, quite clearly, that he wanted Yuu too. There’s no point in getting flustered about the whole thing now. Yuu just needs to clarify exactly where he stands, find out what Ryuu wants, and then they’ll be cool. And if Ryuu regrets it, if he doesn’t want whatever happened between them to happen again, he’ll say so and that’ll be it. Yep. That’ll be fine. Yuu will absolutely respect whatever he wants to do.
He doesn’t really want to sit around waiting to find out what it’s going to be, though (or if their friendship is gonna be Weird now, fuck), and anyway there’s no time like the present, right? So he leans over to shake Ryuu’s shoulder.
“Ryuu, hey. Get up.”
Ryuu makes a grumbling noise as he rolls over, forehead scrunching up as he blinks awake. For a second he looks at Yuu, blank and a little confused, then his eyes go wide.
“Hey, uh - what’s - what’s up?”
“Dude, so listen, I wanna apologize for last night - like, I kinda just threw myself at you, and I think I kinda freaked you out, so. Really sorry about that.”
Heat is creeping into Ryuu’s cheeks. “I - no, it was fine - I mean, more than fine, it was good, last night was - was, um -”
“Yeah?” Yuu grins, suddenly inordinately happy. “Cool! I don’t know what I was thinking, honestly, but you were smokin’ hot and also really sweet and I just wanted to kiss your face, you know?”
Ryuu’s entire face is bright red, now. “Shit, Noya, what -”
“And we don’t even have to talk about it ever again if you don’t want to, I totally get it if that’s how you feel, but honestly I had a really great time and I’m down to do it again if you are.”
Ryuu’s mouth opens, closes, and opens again before he says, “Like - like right now?”
“No, dumbass,” Yuu laughs. “Like whenever. Next time I come over or something, whatever’s good with you.”
“Oh, okay. That’s - yeah.” Ryuu smiles at him, sudden and sweet. “Yeah, I like the sound of that.”
“Awesome!” Yuu punches his shoulder enthusiastically before hopping out of bed and stretching. “I mean, if you want to go another round right now -”
“No, absolutely not,” Ryuu laughs. “I definitely ain’t got the energy, and my head is killing me.”
“Next time, then,” Yuu says, giving him a quick grin and grabbing his shirt off the floor.
Ryuu is now propped up on one elbow, watching as he pulls it on. “Dude, don’t you have a hangover?”
“Nope!”
“Huh.” A couple of minutes pass in silence, Ryuu still watching him, before he says, “So, uh . . . you’re into guys too?”
Yuu tugs his pants up and puts his hands on his hips, giving Ryuu - bare-chested, sheet rucked up by his hips, sunlight gleaming on his skin - a clear once-over. “Apparently,” he says, letting his voice drop a little lower and his grin grow wider, and decides he very much likes the way Ryuu bites his lip and looks away when he’s embarrassed.
Yeah, they’re going to be fine.
***
Noya has about two weeks before he’s off on his next trip, to Australia this time, and he comes over once more before he leaves. They’re a little awkward around each other at first, but then Noya hugs Ryuunosuke from behind when he’s cooking, quick and tight with his cheek pressed to the back of his neck, and grins up at Ryuunosuke a little shyly when he turns around - and Ryuunosuke grins back, and suddenly everything is fine. They eat lunch like they normally do, play a few rounds of whatever video game Ryuunosuke has on hand like they normally do, and then Noya climbs into his lap and kisses him soundly like they do this all the time, too.
“Okay?” he says, eyes bright.
“Absolutely,” Ryuunosuke says, reaching up to kiss him again as his hands slide under the hem of his shirt.
He sees Noya off at the airport with his family, standing just a little way behind everyone else as Noya says goodbye. He’s so excited to go, hugging his parents and his sisters and his parents again, promising to bring them back everything under the sun, and Ryuunosuke has to hide a smile more than once.
“What’re you laughing at, huh?” Noya says when he finally gets around to Ryuunosuke, mock-glaring even though he’s almost bouncing on his feet.
“Nothing, you’re just cute,” Ryuunosuke grins, flicking the tip of his nose. “You’re gonna have an awesome trip, dude.”
Noya blinks at him, a hint of pink in his face, before he grins back and reaches up to hug Ryuunosuke. “Thanks! See you when I get back, yeah? And text me if you want anything!”
“Yep, I will!”
Noya gives them all one last round of hugs before dashing off into the airport, and his family very kindly treat Ryuunosuke to dinner before they drop him off at home.
And that’s the first time.
The second time is when Noya comes back after Australia, having posted pictures almost every single day from all the places he’d been to. An especially cute selfie with him sitting cross legged on the ground, tilting his face up as if to kiss a young kangaroo who’s sniffing down at him inquisitively, gets his follower count to thirty thousand followers nearly overnight. Ryuunosuke gets twenty texts from him in all caps a couple of days later, about a magazine that got in touch with him about sponsoring a trip to Greece so he can shoot for them, and calls him immediately.
“Ryuu!”
“That’s so awesome, Noya!”
“I know! I can’t believe this, holy shit!”
“Your photos have gotta be damn good to get picked up by a magazine this fast, huh?”
“I’ve still got a long way to go,” Noya chuckles, “but yeah, I’ve been trying to learn whatever I could off the internet on like train rides and stuff. I met some photographers here too, they gave me a bunch of great tips. I’m super glad it paid off!”
Ryuunosuke rolls onto his back on his bed, smiling as he settles his head on the pillow. “That’s really awesome, Noya. When do you gotta go to Greece? When are you back from Australia?”
“I’m back next Wednesday, I’ll get in at four in the morning, and I’ll need to leave for Greece in a week. I gotta get a bunch of stuff for trekking and mountain climbing, they want me to take enough photos from Mount Olympus for a whole spread.”
“Oh hey, one of the girls who works with me at the gym used to do that kinda stuff! I can ask her about what to buy and where to go and all that, if you want.”
“Heck yeah, that’d be great! How’s your job going, by the way? You had that one annoying-ass customer, is he still around?”
“I can’t believe you remember all that boring stuff,” Ryuunosuke laughs, “when you’re going around scuba diving and smooching kangaroos and -”
“I didn’t actually smooch him, idiot! And of course I remember, why would I not?”
“Aww,” Ryuunosuke grins, kind of pleased that Noya does remember. “Well, yeah, that guy’s still around. I shifted to working just mornings there, though, so I don’t gotta see him as much, and I work weekends at a bar now! Which is so much fun, way more fun than I thought it’d be.”
“Dude, really? So we can go out for free drinks where you work now? That’s awesome!”
“Not that many free drinks, my boss would kill me. And it means I don’t have weekend nights to spend with you guys now, which kinda sucks.”
“You still have weekday nights, though.” Noya’s grinning, Ryuunosuke can hear it. “Even if you can’t spend ‘em with everyone else, you still have me, right?”
Ryuunosuke has to swallow once before he can say, “Yeah, I - yeah, that’s a good point.”
“Aw, Ryuu,” Noya says, and he’s definitely grinning wider now. “You miss me?”
This time Ryuunosuke finds the composure to make his voice a little deeper, a little more flirty, as he says, “Yeah, of course I miss you. You don’t miss me, Noya?”
“ ‘Course I do,” Noya says instantly, defiantly, because he couldn’t back down from a challenge if his life depended on it, but his voice isn’t quite as steady as it was before. “Hey, Ryuu -”
“Yeah?”
“You wanna pick me up from the airport when I get back? I can go home in the morning, we could -”
“Fuck yes.”
“Great. Damn, I really wanna be there with you right now.”
Ryuunosuke closes his eyes for a second. Only Noya. Only Noya could say shit like that without thinking twice about it.
“I gotta go now, though,” he continues. “I’ll call you when I get time, yeah?”
“Yeah, yeah, no problem, just let me know when you’re free. See you, Noya.”
“Bye, Ryuu!”
That Wednesday morning takes an intolerably long time to arrive, but arrive it does, and 4:30 AM finds Ryuunosuke with his wrists pinned to his own front door, Noya kissing him so deeply he can’t form a thought coherent enough to say that they should at least take their shoes off. They do make their way to the bedroom eventually, somehow - though Ryuunosuke is damned if he knows how the hell it happens - and they fall into exhausted sleep only when the sun is just peeking over the horizon.
Ryuunosuke has to force himself to get up in an hour to get to work, and he lets Noya sleep late in his bed. He’s still there when Ryuunosuke gets back at lunchtime, sprawled out and snoring quietly with his cheek smushed into the pillow.
“Noya,” Ryuunosuke says, shaking him gently. “Hey, it’s past one. You gotta get home.”
“Mmf?” Noya pushes himself to sit up, yawning.
“Your sister called me, dude.”
“Which one?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Ryuunosuke laughs, “get some clothes on and go home.”
Noya sways forward to plant a lazy kiss on Ryuunosuke’s cheek before he hops out of bed, and Ryuunosuke retaliates by ducking his head to place a kiss on his bare shoulder. Noya chuckles quietly, laying a hand on Ryuunosuke’s cheek for a second.
“You’ll drive me home?” he says, looking up mischievously through his eyelashes.
“Like hell I will,” Ryuunosuke laughs, pressing a kiss with too much teeth into his palm before stepping away to let him get dressed. “I’ll grab lunch for ya, though.”
“Fair enough. Hey, Ryuu?”
Ryuunosuke pauses, looking back. “Yeah?”
Noya smiles, soft and unselfconscious, a slight figure standing in the middle of Ryuunosuke’s bedroom floor. “I’m really glad we’re doing this, you know?”
And Ryuunosuke smiles back. “Yeah, so am I.”
***
So they fall into a pattern. Noya makes it home between his trips for anything between three days to two weeks, and Ryuunosuke’s less conventional work schedule means that he’s usually available to accommodate his inconvenient flight timings. If he can’t pick him up, Noya will go home and make it to Ryuunosuke’s when Ryuunosuke has time for him - but it’s usually the two of them driving to Ryuunosuke’s apartment in the dead of the night on empty roads, both a little quieter than usual both from the lateness of the hour and the anticipation of what’s going to come next. Ryuunosuke still never makes the first move - he loves what they do, of course he does, but Noya started this and he’ll keep it going only if Noya shows him - and keeps showing him - that he wants it to happen.
So Noya will nuzzle into the side of his neck, or grab Ryuunosuke’s collar and pull him into a kiss, or sneak his small hands under Ryuunosuke’s shirt, or into his back pockets, then pause and say “Okay?”And Ryuunosuke will nod, breathe “Yeah,” into the space between their mouths, and pull him closer without wasting a second more.
It’s both so much more than he expected and so similar to how they've always been that he can’t even remember, sometimes, how they were before they started doing this. They’re still best friends, they still get along incredibly well, they still trust each other with everything - it’s just that everything has now expanded to include the way Noya likes his coffee on lazy Saturday mornings, the way Ryuunosuke likes to wrap an arm around Noya’s waist when they sleep, the way Noya likes Ryuunosuke’s hands on his thighs, the way Ryuunosuke likes Noya’s teeth at his neck, the way they both like to be loud and the way they both like to hear each other be loud. Everything just clicks so goddamn easily, and Ryuunosuke can’t help wondering why the hell they’d never thought to do this before.
Everything after the sex is just as easy, too. Whether they're nestled against each other in the dark, or wolfing down breakfast together in the morning, they talk about anything and everything they can think of. Ryuunosuke likes to hear about all the things Noya’s done, tracing his waist lightly as he listens to him talk about all the places he’s been to and sights he’s seen. And even though Noya never runs out of stories to share, he always asks about Ryuunosuke’s life too, as if the rowdy office workers Ryuunosuke had to kick out of the bar one night are as interesting to him as running with the bulls in Spain.
“You’re really something, Noya,” he tells him once, but when Noya gives him a curious look, he doesn’t know how to say -
- you’ve been to so many places I’ll probably never see and you’re still the same Noya I’ve always known - you’re still reaching higher, you still want to learn more, do more, be more, and you still don’t think you’re anything special, when you’re -
“- you’re just fuckin’ awesome,” he grins, rolling Noya over and blowing a raspberry into his neck to make him yell with laughter.
The times in between, when Noya is off being incredible, are . . . not boring, exactly, but normal life feels like soda gone flat without him, with all the taste but none of the excitement. That was true before too, of course, but the effect is heightened now, days dragging slower and clocks ticking quieter.
If he can’t be with Noya, though, he can at least keep up with what he’s doing, where he’s going, maybe indulge in a daydream or two about how cool it would be to join him on a trip someday. He catches up on Noya’s social media first thing in the morning when he wakes up, and usually checks it whenever he’s bored or has a few minutes free during the day. Noya in California using the surfing skills he picked up in New Zealand, Noya in Ireland petting dogs who dwarf him even sitting down, Noya’s stunning pictures of temples in Cambodia, Noya climbing any and every mountain he happens across and always posing on top with one fist upraised and the wildest grin on his face, like he’s the first person to ever see the view from that summit.
He meets people everywhere he goes, too, and the few video clips he puts up he has everyone from school students on the street to farmers in the market to food truck vendors talking to him, laughing with him, telling him about themselves. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t speak the language fluently, or that they’re on camera - his energy is so infectious, his smile so endearing, that by the end of a single conversation they’re treating him like family. He seems to come back from every trip with new friends to stay in touch with because they’ve hosted him at their homes, or shown him around their locality, or taught him about their culture. He himself starts getting quite a bit of attention, but he still prefers to backpack around with just a couple of other people, taking the trip as it comes. Not for Noya the luxuries of five star hotels or SUV taxis, even if he’s being sponsored and the costs are taken care of. He’s always firm in refusing, preferring instead to find humble homestays and go around on public transport, rickshaws, and when nothing else is available, his own two feet.
Noya calls Ryuunosuke whenever he can, which is about once or twice a week, and it’s - more often than he used to when they both lived in Japan, honestly, but it somehow doesn’t quite feel like enough. As months pass, Ryuunosuke starts to find himself starved for stories about Noya, brushing off questions about his own life to ask instead about what Noya did with that person he met the other day, or what he saw when he went exploring with that forest ranger, or how it felt to rappel down that cliff. Nothing worthy of note is really happening in his own life, anyway; certainly nothing compared to Noya.
They text fairly often, too, but time zones often mean that a time that’s convenient for one of them isn’t for the other. And Noya’s super busy with his adventures, which Ryuunosuke knows, but there’s still sometimes a tiny lump of disappointment that sinks to the bottom of his stomach when he wakes up to find that Noya hasn’t yet responded to what he’d sent yesterday.
Ryuunosuke, in fact, starts to find that he misses his best friend more these days than he ever has before.
He talks to Chikara about it, after about a year. He knows Noya’s told Asahi-san about them, and of course Asahi-san is a great person who’d probably be more than willing to hear him out if he asked, but he really wants someone equally close to both him and Noya to talk to. So he calls Chikara one Friday night in the tail end of winter, curled up cozily under a pile of blankets.
“Wait, so this started last April?” Chikara sounds half disbelieving, half startled.
“Yeah. I don’t know why we never told anyone else about it for such a long time, but it just - it felt like our secret, kinda? I know he told Asahi-san a while back, and - I don’t know, I wanted you to know too.”
“I’m honoured,” Chikara laughs. “Damn. I don’t really know how to react, honestly.”
“What was the first thing you thought when I said it?”
“My first thought was . . . well, it was ‘Those two? Together?’ But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. You guys fit, somehow.”
Ryuunosuke smiles into his pillow, quiet happiness washing over him. “Thanks, Chikara.”
“I still can’t believe you’ve been long distance dating since April and I’m just hearing about it now, but -”
“Oh, we’re - we ain’t dating, we just. You know. Just sleep together whenever he comes home. Like a friends with benefits thing.”
“Oh. Oh, okay. Wait, so -” Chikara breaks off, unusually hesitant.
“So what?”
“So are you like . . . exclusive? Do you both sleep with other people when he’s travelling? Or do you -”
“I don’t,” Ryuunosuke says instantly, the happiness from before starting to dissipate. “I haven’t. Shit, I never even thought - I’ve never asked. I don’t know if he does.”
“You two never talked about this?”
“We didn’t, nah. It just kinda happened, we never sat down and drew up like a list of rules or whatever.”
Chikara is quiet for a second before he says, oddly gently, “And you’re okay with that?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be? We’re still just friends, it’s not like we ain’t allowed to sleep with other people.”
Even Ryuunosuke can hear that he sounds less than convincing, but Chikara mercifully doesn’t pursue the subject. “Okay then,” he says. “Okay wait, Ryuu, I gotta ask you something - doesn’t Noya have a weird birthmark right under his butt? I swear I saw it once, but he gets all embarrassed when I asked him about it, so you’re my only hope for blackmail material now -”
Ryuunosuke bursts out laughing. “I’m not telling you, dude! I’m not gonna betray him like that!”
“Come on, he’ll never know! I just need to know if it’s really there or not!”
The conversation turns to birthmarks, then birthdays, then parents and family, and Noya is forgotten. Chikara only brings it up again at the end, when he says, “You can always talk to me about whatever goes on with you guys, yeah?”
Ryuunosuke says “Thanks, Chikara,” and they say good night, and Ryuunosuke is left alone in his bed, feeling strangely lonely. He takes a long time to get to sleep, and when he does, his dreams are full of smiles bright as burning magnesium, hands small enough to curve perfectly around his face, excitement flashing like lightning in dark brown eyes, and a voice that could fill the sky murmuring his name like a prayer.
In the morning he reaches for his phone, sees No new messages, and decides that going for a run would be a great way to get rid of the weird tickle behind his eyes and pull himself together.
After all, it’s what Noya would do, right?