Chapter Text
In their third year, when Ren got scouted and Takaya didn't, it didn't come as a surprise to him, really. He'd always known Ren was the true star between the two of them, and by that point he'd already begun to seriously consider sports medicine as a career path. So they graduated, and went their separate ways. They still kept in touch, of course; everyone who was there that very first year stayed close. But he and Ren were no longer a unit, a battery; even though Takaya always knew it would happen, it still bothered him. And that was ridiculous! Why did it get to Takaya so badly that Ren was out there, pitching to someone else? It was never meant to last longer than those three years; a fond high school memory, and nothing more. So he shoved the feeling to the back of his mind and kept working to become the best damn trainer he could be.
Eventually his efforts caught the attention of the Olympic Committee, and of course he'd accepted; you couldn't get any more "damn best" than going to the Olympics, right? And who should turn out to be have been selected as Team Japan's starting pitcher but the one and only Mihashi Ren.
So here they found themselves in the dining hall of the Olympic Village, Takaya warning Ren to be wary of the athletes who partied too hard and not to walk in front of shotputters or javelin throwers, unable to think of anything but increasingly cartoonish ways for Ren to get hurt just like when he was sixteen. After making their way through the buffet line, Takaya making sure everything Ren added to his tray met his approval, they moved over to the table that had already been staked out by several of the other members of Team Japan (again, just like high school all over again). They sit on the very end, facing each other, Ren sitting beside one of the volleyball players (Hinata? Hyuuga? Takaya couldn't keep most of the non-baseball athletes or staff straight to tell the truth) and Takaya next to one of his colleagues on the support staff, Iwaizumi. (Or maybe it was Imaizumi. Team Japan had one of each.)
Takaya watches Ren talk to the excitable volleyballer and silently marvels at how far he's come since high school; by their third year Ren had already grown a lot better at communicating with their teammates and even with players on other teams, but he had still struggled sometimes to talk to ordinary people who didn't have baseball for brains. Yet here he was, conversing almost normally with a guy who Takaya had just heard say he hadn't even thought about, much less played baseball since he was thirteen. A teenaged Ren might've panicked at this, but now he takes it in stride, admitting to the redhead with only minimal stuttering that he didn't know much about volleyball either. Belatedly Takaya remembers there's food in front of him and absentmindedly shoves a forkful of salad into his mouth, chewing slowly as he half-listens to the continuing conversation. He catches a few words here and there (they're talking the different meanings of 'ace' in each sport, what else?), but mostly he's watching Ren's face - the way his mouth still hangs open a bit sometimes when he's listening to someone else talk, the way he still nods his head with far too much force... the way he laughs, genuinely laughs when Hinata/Hyuuga blanches at a biting comment made by the teenaged... skateboarder? gymnast? on the other side of him.
"...be-san? Abe-san?" Takaya is fished out of his Ren-induced reverie by the sound of his name being spoken at his side. "Are you alright?" I-ma-wa-izumi asks.
"Yeah, just... thinking," Takaya says dumbly after finally swallowing the mouthful of salad he'd been chewing like cud for the last several minutes. I-ma-wa-izumi chuckles a little bit, and Takaya doesn't know why.
"How long have you been together?" he asks.
"It's been a decade now," Takaya answers without thinking, like a cartoon coyote walking just a step too far off a cliff.
"Oh wow. Are you engaged?"
Gravity reasserts itself and the coyote plummets to the ravine below, much like Takaya's stomach.
"Are we... huh? What?"
"Engaged. To Mihashi-san," I-ma-wa-izumi says again, as mildly as if he's commenting on a suicide squeeze in the 8th inning to tie the score.
"I'm- we're not-" Not gay? Why is he suddenly feeling so defensive about this? It wasn't like he hadn't heard the jokes before - about how close the Nishiura baseball team seemed, how odd the handholding and tickling rituals were, and it had never bothered Takaya then. Sure, he'd initially reacted with no small amount of confusion and discomfort - only because he wasn't a naturally tactile person, unless you counted the occasional mild violence - but as strategies they'd proven to work well, so he'd stopped caring. No one on the team had ever said anything about it either - except Tajima, but Tajima was, well, Tajima. That didn't really mean anything, right?
But thinking about it now, really thinking about it (and somehow, this really is the first time he'd ever thought about it), Takaya can't remember a time when he'd had those sort of feelings towards a girl - or towards anyone, really. Whenever the topic came up in high school, he'd never really been part of the conversation because, like always, he prioritized playing baseball over all relationships.
Well, almost all relationships.
Suddenly all the thoughts and feelings that he'd concluded were irrational and locked away in the back of his mind come rushing to the front. All the times his chest felt tight for some reason when he got to see Ren's rare smile, the pride he'd felt when that smile gradually became less rare, the frustration he'd experienced when the two of them had separated after graduation... each and every time he'd pressed Ren's hand to his own, the sensations of nervous chill and assuring warmth and everything in between, flashing before his eyes like a dying character's life story in the movies.
Is he gay?
Takaya is distantly aware of I-ma-wa-izumi talking to him again but can't seem to make out what's being said as his train of thought spirals even further out of control. Ok, so he might be gay, he might have feelings for his closest friend, but would it even matter if Ren wasn't and didn't? Mihashi Ren, star athlete, soft-spoken and kind and beautiful? Surely there were plenty of women who he could date if he wanted but...
But did he? Ren hadn't done or said anything of the sort in high school either, having had the same one-track mind as Takaya himself, maybe even more so. And since then?
Takaya didn't know for sure about since then, but somehow he just couldn't imagine Ren with a woman on his arm. Plus, they had kept in touch and Ren had never said anything about a girlfriend... but would he have told Takaya if he did start seeing someone? Had they really grown that far apart?
"Takaya? A-are you? Alright?"
The runaway train of thought crashes into a tunnel painted on a wall as Takaya's head jerks up and he finds himself meeting Ren's worried gaze.
Takaya panics.
"I. I gotta. Um. Go." he manages to get out as he quickly stands and leaves the table, heading out of the dining hall at a brisk walk, skin burning with a flush that grew worse every moment. He exits into the hallway, and realizes he's not sure where he ought to go from there; and in that momentary hesitation, Ren catches up with him.
"Takaya! Stop, please!" Ren grabs his hand, and Takaya feels that calm he's come to associate with touching Ren's hand - but only for a moment, as the realization only causes him to panic more, and he pulls his hand away. There's a moment of terrible, unfamiliar silence, and then-
"Are you... mad, at-"
"NO!" Takaya hollers, loud enough to get stares from others in the hallway, loud enough that Ren shrinks back, shoulders tightening in alarm, and Takaya's heart drops. "God, I'm sorry, I know shouting doesn't help at all, I'm just..." Just what? Embarrassed? Panicking?
"If... not me, then..." Ren prompts.
Takaya wants to explain, he really does. He'd decided back in high school not to keep anything from Ren; that was part of what trust was about, right? And he did trust Ren, and he wanted more than anything for Ren to trust him.
But Ren is now the starting pitcher at the goddamn Olympics. Takaya knows from experience that the smallest things can throw off his emotional balance, and this isn't a small thing. This is a huge massive thing. And Takaya can't risk destroying Ren's delicate confidence and wreck his chances of winning by letting him hear even a single whisper of it - for the sake of Team Japan, and for Ren's own sake.
"I just... don't feel well," Takaya finally says - and it's true, technically speaking. "And I was worried you would start feeling nervous because of it."
Ren seems to relax a little, though it's not always easy to tell with him since he still tends to look wound-up and twitchy 24/7.
"O-oh, is that all?" he says quietly. "I-I mean! I don't want you to feel unwell! But you're not... playing, so..."
"Yeah," Takaya says, with a pang in his heart that someone else is catching for Ren that he hasn't allowed himself to feel in years.
There's another silence, but it's less tense - the kind of quiet that comes when one of them is thinking of the best way to say what he wants to say and the other is waiting for him to speak.
"So I'm just going to... go back to my room, for now." Takaya finally says, avoiding Ren's eyes, "Get some rest, y'know. Hopefully that'll help,"
"R-right," Ren says, and Takaya can feel his gaze, searching for answers Takaya isn't giving him. "Do you want me to? Bring you your lunch?"
"Just throw it out. I don't think I can get myself to eat anything right now." Not with the way Takaya's stomach is now doing weird little flips at Ren's every word. He turns to leave, resolving to use this time to calm down and put the entire matter out of his mind, the same way he's done before.
"O-ok, I'll see you at training then...!" Ren calls after him, voice wavering a bit the way it tends to whenever he raises it, and it's like an anvil to Takaya's skull.
It's gonna be hard to lock his newfound feelings in the back of his mind when he's about to be training the object of his affections several hours, every day, for the two week duration of the Olympics.
"What was that about?" Hinata asks, watching with a puzzled expression as Mihashi follows a speedwalking Abe out of the dining hall.
"Your trainer assumed those two were engaged and the jerkface totally flipped out," Chinen explains nonchalantly, tapping away at his phone.
"Wait, they're not?"
"At least it's not just me," Hajime sighs. He feels bad for accidentally triggering a crisis of sexuality, especially in an already incredibly stressful environment, but he has to admit... it was also a little bit funny. Like being back in high school.
But just as that thought crosses his mind, a sing-song voice calls out from across the dining hall:
"IWA-CHAAAAN~"
Hajime suddenly believes in karma.