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Wakatoshi always wakes up before Tendou.
He doesn’t know why, or how. Maybe there's an alarm inside of him, or perhaps his body knows that it’s the only chance he’ll get to pretend he has what he wants.
It happens like clockwork, no matter the reason, whenever they sleep together. He wakes up while Tendou is still sleeping. His eyes blink open to the soft dawn, watching the pinks and purples painted across Tendou’s buzz cut. Tendou is tucked into the curve of his chest so Wakatoshi can hold him close.
They didn't fall asleep like this.
Last night, Wakatoshi closed his eyes with Tendou's face the last thing he saw. Facing each other, like in sleep they could share breaths. Sometime during the night Tendou turned away from him, facing the window.
Sunflowers turn towards the sun, and Wakatoshi turns towards Tendou.
For most of his life he’s never had a favorite time of day. Every hour was equally agreeable and disappointing. If pressed, he could muster up an answer about volleyball, but he never really believed in it. Couldn’t understand why Reon liked midnight and Semi loved sunsets and Goshiki swore by the noon sun baking his skin.
He knows better now. Dawn is his favorite time of day. Mornings are sacred, that brief window of the crackling dawn, because he has Tendou.
Just as he always wakes up before Tendou, so true is one other thing: Tendou always leaves.
Even when he wraps his arms around Tendou’s waist and holds him tight, feigning sleep to feel all his tiny movements as he wakes up; Tendou his anchor, his harbor, and everything in between, he still leaves.
“Easy, Wakatoshi-kun,” he whispers every morning, upon waking, with Wakatoshi’s eyelashes pressed gently against his scalp. Slowly and carefully, he pries Wakatoshi’s hand off of him, loosens his hold.
The first time this happened, he’d foolishly thought Tendou was trying to hold hands. He’d relaxed his grip and twined their fingers together, just to be helpful, and didn’t know what to do when Tendou gasped in shock and skittered out.
He knows better now. Instead of reaching for what he wants he takes Tendou’s lead, and pretends his reality matches his desires.. Makes sure his hand is slack, keeps feigning sleep so he can linger for as long as possible, without Tendou’s voice going all crackly with awkwardness.
When he curls into the space left behind, still warm with his heat, he hopes Tendou thinks it’s only natural of him in his sleep. He’s still in the room, after all, picking up his shirt off the chair or finding his socks carefully folded near the couch. Back in high school, Wakatoshi was notorious for sleeping like the dead, statue-still, so uncanny it occasionally made Reon worry.
He’s older now. Hopefully, Tendou believes his sleeping habits have changed. And he doesn’t think he could stop himself, that sunflower heart of his, seeking out the lingering remnants of Tendou’s warmth and cologne, the imprint he leaves behind in the bed.
Part of growing up is realizing that it’s okay to take comfort in certain things. The other part of growing up is learning that those things didn’t always like you back.
Wakatoshi has learned to thrive in the afterimage.
If they were doing this while they still lived in the dorms, Wakatoshi would be — to steal a phrase from Atsumu — totally fucked.
Luckily, they’re both busy, so this thing — the ‘friends with benefits’ thing, the hooking up with each other thing — only happens rarely. If their schedules align, if they’re in the same country. Some years it happens shockingly often. Sometimes they go months without seeing each other. But every time they do, they’re determined to fall into bed together.
Neither of them date; or Wakatoshi doesn’t, at least, and Tendou never mentions a significant other. He doesn’t want to think about what that means; how easy they are for each other.
(Unfortunately, the gaps between the moments when their schedules align means that Wakatoshi has enough time between hook-ups to forget how bad of an idea this is. It’s stretched the whole affair out impossibly long.)
It always happens the same way, too. Wakatoshi — a pining, inelegant nightmare — spends his nights watching Tendou hold court among the group that’s gathered to hang out. Sometimes it’s Tendou’s patisserie friends, other times it’s Shiratorizawa, occasionally the JNT. His ability to guess and read people has honed him into a social weapon, and people like him now. They want to spend time with him, no matter how scary his first impression is.
So he waits, keeping an eye on Tendou who feels so far away from him even if they’re sitting right next to each other. Watching him kiss other people’s cheeks at dinners, or dance with Semi and Goshiki or strangers at clubs, get plied with wine and cheese by a waiter until he’s too polite to say he’s stuffed. When he sees people flock towards Tendou, trying to hold his wrist or wrap their arms around his waist until he slips easily out of their grip, Wakatoshi has to pretend his heart doesn’t stutter because Tendou does the same to him every morning.
Eventually — “Oh!” Tendou yawns, stretching, “I think I need a break, right Wakatoshi?” — he gets the signal. Follows Tendou’s lead, too afraid that he’ll spook him if he takes the initiative. Wakatoshi knows Tendou isn’t fearful, like a rabbit or a deer, but Wakatoshi is afraid of the depth of his own wanting. Doesn’t want Tendou to see that part of him laid bare.
Tendou leaves first.
He tires of social interaction more quickly than he lets on. It’s easy to think you’re an extrovert when no one wants to be your friend, but in high school they learned that Tendou could recharge either alone or with Wakatoshi, and no one else. Wakatoshi, meanwhile, neither exhausts himself nor replenishes himself in the company of others, because he’s focused on Tendou.
When Wakatoshi follows — a few minutes later, depending on how long it takes for him to pass off his drink to Semi, who sighs and calls them idiots, or to settle the bill, or to box up the dessert he knows Tendou will want to eat, later — he knows he won’t return, forever seeking out his light.
It’s a bad habit.
Everyone’s allowed one or two of those, though.
“Fancy meeting you here, Wakatoshi-kun,” Tendou says, grinning up at him when he meets him outside of the restaurant, a place one of Tendou’s Parisian friends recommended. It was almost too small for him, and for most of the night his knee was pressed up against Tendou’s leg, and sometimes when Tender rested his hand under the table his pinky grazed his thigh.
Out here, Tendou’s face is shadowed by the streetlights and shines from the lighter he holds against the cigarette in his mouth.
Smoking is a bad habit, too, but Wakatoshi’s is worse.
Something roils in his stomach. Did he misread this? “I thought—” but he unwinds when Tendou’s smile softens into sweetness, reserved for him. He’s just messing with him. “You’re funny, Satori.”
“Do you think I should have become a comedian, instead?” The flame catches, and Tendou stands up to his full height, pulling nearly even with Wakatoshi. He exhales smoke, drifting patterns in the night that Wakatoshi can’t help but follow. “Would you have watched me on television if I were, huh? Hosting variety shows? Hey, maybe I’d interview the Adlers!”
“I already watch you on television, Tendou.” It’s true. He hooks up his laptop to his television screen so he can re-watch the documentary at least once a week, seeing the Wakatoshi in film call Tendou his ‘best friend’ and lie by omission. If he also watches Tendou’s Youtube channel, and his Lionceau adverts, and the short interviews he gives to uplift other chefs, well, he’s just being a supportive friend. Anyone in Shiratorizawa would do it.
But Wakatoshi, a voice that sounds terrifyingly like Hoshiumi says, do they pause every other frame in order to count his freckles?
With the cigarette frozen before his lips, ash growing along the tip, Tendou looks towards him. Raises an eyebrow. “Is that right? Must be my lucky day, then.”
Tendou’s had a lot of lucky days. Wakatoshi nearly says it, too, but he cuts himself off. It’s too revealing. “I think you would succeed at anything you set out to do,” he tries, instead. Satisfactory. It’s supportive. There’s plausible deniability.
It also has the benefit of being true.
Laughter breaks the night. “Maybe you’re the comedian, Wakatoshi-kun. You’d be surprised by what I’ve failed at.” Tendou isn’t looking at him anymore, taking a drag of his cigarette while he tilts his head up towards the stars.
A maudlin mood, and a moon to match.
Wakatoshi’s weak, you know? Weak to the curve of Tendou’s neck in the night, the freckles lining his throat and jaw, the laugh lines at the corner of his eyes, the silver piercings in his ear following the arc of his cartilage, shining like the stars. It’s distracting enough that he doesn’t think about Tendou’s words that much, doesn’t linger on what he might have failed at.
Every man has a weakness; it’s only human. No one can be strong, all the time. Wakatoshi has tried that a hundred times, a thousand times, and felt cracks cleave his marble. He’s much better off like this, knowing where his softness lays; that his heart is soft in search of the love he’ll never find in Tendou, that his hand is soft where he signs autographs for kids, that his pride is soft in the wake of embarrassment.
Before he knows it the cigarette is a useless butt, the air smells like fire and tobacco, and Tendou is grinding the ash under his heel. “Let’s get out of here, Wakatoshi, what do you think?”
He doesn’t have to say anything to agree, just follows Tendou back to Wakatoshi’s hotel. They’re on a trip to Paris this time around, Tendou’s home turf, and he’s only seen Tendou’s bare, underutilized apartment once when they’d nearly broken his narrow bed.
His heart thuds shallow in his chest while they walk together. If Wakatoshi didn’t know it was weak, already, he’d shatter, you see?
He knows what he’s doing. And at least he can keep the lie up all the way back to the hotel, up the stairs to his room, keeping his hand tremorless while he inserts the key, before closing the door behind him.
“Satori-” he starts, but he forgot that Tendou unlearned patience at some point, because he’s right behind him when he turns, mouth wide and eyes narrow, and his skilled hands are enough to tip him against the wall so Tendou can almost-kiss him.
Almost because they never really kiss, not after the first time, when Wakatoshi made the mistake of joining their hands in the morning. Instead, Tendou presses his forehead to Wakatoshi’s, face close enough that they're sharing the same breaths.
“Gonna keep me waiting, Wakatoshi-kun?” With his fingers twisting into the fabric of his shirt, Wakatoshi feels frozen, pinned into place by this man he’s watched grow from boyhood, who matched him toe-to-tip with the exception of the love that’s grown inside of Wakatoshi’s heart. “I’m not that patient, you know?”
It’s such a careful facade, the two of them pretending they don’t know where they’ll end up by night’s end when the evening starts. Shame one of them has to break it.
Wakatoshi drops the box with Tendou’s dessert. “And you think I’m patient, Satori?” he asks, his voice a rumble that makes Tendou shiver as he pushes him to the other side of the narrow entryway, hands working to pull their clothes off.
There are rules, Wakatoshi’s learned, and the one he takes the most liberties with is this: he can’t kiss Tendou’s lips.
But he can kiss him everywhere else, so he leans down to suck at the freckles on his neck, the ones that quivered in the moonlight. He leaves kisses wherever he can reach on Tendou’s skin, a little sunburnt from a stint in the south of France, and pretends he can taste the sea there.
Distantly, he hears Tendou gasp, feels his hand rest on the back of his head and tangle in his hair to press him closer, as if Wakatoshi would ever give this up. “More, Wakatoshi, please.”
Tendou’s body malleable like chocolate melting in his hands, Wakatoshi gives him what he needs; enough to take edge off, kisses and bites, a hand down his pants that leaves him in tears and coming messily across Wakatoshi’s thighs; then he lets Wakatoshi feed him dessert before Wakatoshi takes him to bed, and does the whole thing again.
By now, Wakatoshi knows Tendou’s pleasure more than his own. He can make him sing in the night, cry out like a bird greeting the dawn; he traces the lines of his lips when he wakes up before Tendou, a touch so featherlight no one would believe it came from him.
The world thinks Wakatoshi is made for hard things; if he’s being honest, maybe Tendou is the only one to believe him to be soft, too.
Although he’s not a glutton, he basks in this little luxury, Tendou breathing softly in his hold, still trapped in dreams while Wakatoshi wishes he could dream of this. Imagining, for a moment, a life where Tendou looks forward to waking up in his arms. Turns to him, even, grinning wide even as he yawns and his eyes crinkle with the desire to sleep in, just a little.
“Y’know, I just had the best dream, Wakatoshi-kun?” he’d say, the Tendou in his imagination.
“Really?” Wakatoshi would reply, tugging him closer. “Please enlighten me, Satori. What did you dream about?”
And — Wakatoshi isn’t fanciful, but if a man is allowed weakness, he’s also allowed indulgence — Tendou would look him in the eyes, and raise his hand to trace the outline of his face, blinking up at him through red lashes. “Well, you were there, Wakatoshi,” he’d say, thumb still, just under his eye, pressure against the tender flesh, “and isn’t that enough?”
Then he’d kiss him, and Wakatoshi would forgive his morning breath, because he’d have everything he’d ever wanted.
But he knows that’s just a daydream. Out of habit, he freezes when he feels Tendou wake up. Carefully feigns sleep while Tendou unravels himself from his body, and burrows into his warmth while he picks up his socks. The smell of his cologne lingers on the pillow.
It never takes him long to get ready to leave Wakatoshi and his stupid dreams behind. Wakatoshi hears Tendou sigh, and the door opens.
Moments pass; Wakatoshi's heart beats faster, and he feels like he can’t breathe. Feels pressure in his skull like he wants to cry, because he’s too heartbroken by the misalignment between his dreams and his brutal reality.
He hears the door close; will swear by it, even, in the weeks afterwards. He’s not trying to break their status quo, after all. He’ll take scraps where he can get it.
But eventually Wakatoshi decides it’s time to get out of bed. When he stretches and turns, instead of seeing his closed door, Tendou just an imagined shadow in the doorframe, he sees Tendou, wide-eyed and real, staring at him in shock.
"Satori?" Wakatoshi asks, clearly too wide awake to have just awoken, because he's horrified at the thought that Tendou's seen him feigning sleep.
"I- Wakatoshi-kun. I’m sorry." That's all he gets out, Wakatoshi already clambering to his feet, before Tendou closes the door behind him and flees down the hallway.
Totally fucked.
Tendou doesn't text him for a week, even though normally he messages him every day.
It’s a death knell for his heart. He knows, now, that something's gotta give. Tendou must know that Wakatoshi pretends to sleep in order to spend more time with him, and he must be so upset and distraught at the lie. He’s probably been filling in the blanks, too, to explain Wakatoshi’s actions, and his biggest fear is that Tendou has happened upon the truth.
He knew Reon would find this stupid if he ever told him about it, so he goes to Sakusa instead, when they’re all finally back in Japan.
“What does that mean?” Sakusa glares at him over the top of his probably-praline-caramel-latte. “Do you seriously think my tolerance for nonsense is higher than Reon’s?”
Wakatoshi blinks. “That is not what I said.” Reon is Goshiki’s biggest and most secret confidant. Goshiki is the favored babysitter for Reon’s five year old daughter, Ayaka, and he thinks it’s because they have the same mindset. Reon goes to Semi’s concerts and has spare earplugs to hand out. When Shirabu was deliriously studying for exams, he would call Reon and put him on speaker to babble vocabulary at. Hoshiumi has started using Reon as a sounding board for what can only be called schemes, and Reon just laughs and thinks he’s funny.
There is no doubt in Wakatoshi’s mind that Reon’s tolerance for nonsense is higher than Sakusa, who once set his bedspread on fire because he thought he saw a bug on his pillow.
“What could you have possibly meant, then?” Wakatoshi appreciates a lot of things about Sakusa. His cleanliness, his diligence, his strange habit of using kaomoji on Line because for years the only person he ever messaged was his cousin, so he thinks it’s normal. In times like this, what he’s most fond of is his reliability: like a mouse to a trap, Sakusa can be lured anywhere, into any situation, to talk about anything, as long as someone pays for his extravagant coffee.
“I meant that you would not find this stupid, Kiyoomi.” Wakatoshi hasn’t taken a single sip of his own iced americano. “I thought you might understand my problem, and show more empathy towards my situation.”
Sakusa levels a stare upon him that reminds him of how Semi dubiously squints at his phone whenever Tendou calls. “Do you mean you’ve exhausted Reon’s goodwill?”
Him and the rest of Shiratorizawa, who altogether suffer from a disease that Reon’s taken to calling ‘folie a dumb’, have exhausted Reon’s goodwill for at least a week. “I will decline to comment, Kiyoomi.”
“Declining a comment is practically the same as confirming it, Wakatoshi, I know you’ve been through media training.”
Wakatoshi — pardon him for this, truly, he is so diligent in every aspect of his life — has perfected the art of sleeping with his eyes open during media training. Despite being captain, reporters tend to ask him easy fluff questions, as though they’re afraid of him or are pre-emptively disappointed by his rote, by-the-book answers.
Sakusa doesn’t let his gaze wrest itself from Wakatoshi while he takes a sip of his maybe-it’s-a-mocha, and he nearly finds himself sweating under it. “Let me summarize. You’ve found yourself in love with your best friend.”
Wakatoshi winces. “That is… concise.”
“It’s also accurate.” Sakusa looks gleeful. Perhaps being on MSBY has ruined him, and Wakatoshi has made a grave mistake. “You’re in love with your best friend who you keep having sex with. I don’t see the problem.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” He stirs the ice in his americano with his straw. He hasn’t taken a sip since he sat down, and he can’t remember if the ice melting will make the drink overflow or not. Despite picking the most boring drink on the menu, the cafe has sought to make it cute by using ice shaped like stars, with little flowers frozen inside. The whole cafe is impossibly cute, another affectation Sakusa has inadvertently borrowed from his cousin. Satori would like this, he thinks.
“Wakatoshi,” Sakusa starts, setting down his mug of consider-it-could-be-a-caramel-vanilla-latte by resting his pinky on the counter to soften the sound of it. He looks serious. “Be serious. You have been my friend for an uncountable number of years—”
“Fifteen,” Wakatoshi mutters.
“Uncountable.” Sakusa taps on the table, a little sign that he’s annoyed. “And in all the years I’ve known you, I am also aware that what counts as obvious to you can be opaque to everyone else.”
That makes no sense. Tendou always gets him. “But-”
“With the exception of your best friend, Tendou, who you are in love with and also fucking, yes, sorry, I didn’t think that needed to be made explicit.”
“Thank you, Kiyoomi, I appreciate your clarification.”
Has Kiyoomi always had a twitch in his left eyebrow? He might want to get that checked out.
“I need you to explain the problem you are running into. You like Tendou, you’re fucking Tendou, the math checks out.”
“It does not, Kiyoomi.” Wakatoshi shakes his head, and sighs. He takes a sip of his iced americano, carefully and slowly to make sure none of the coffee spills onto the careful white tablecloth. He is aware — as Sakusa sucks his teeth — that he is stalling. “Tendou does not feel the same about me.”
After they apologize profusely for Sakusa spilling his literally-it’s-a-lavender-oat milk-cortado and staining the nice tablecloth, they reconvene with drinks at a konbini.
“What makes you think Tendou doesn’t feel the same way about you?” It’s late winter and Sakusa’s sensitive to the weather, so Sakusa is wrapped in his neon green puffer jacket, the shallow collar tilted up against the cold. He isn’t looking at Wakatoshi, preferring instead to focus on the hot can of coffee in his hands, back against the wall they’ve chosen to drink these by.
Honestly, Wakatoshi prefers it this way. There’s something about sitting across from Sakusa that made the whole conversation feel impossible to have. Here, outside, where the wind can suck up their whispers and Wakaotshi has to pretend not to shiver while drinking his tea, it’s easier to be honest.
His feelings have always been too big to live indoors, even if he doesn’t show it on his face.
“It is difficult to say,” Wakatoshi admits.
Tendou is easy to read, for Wakatoshi at least. And it’s clear in all of his small and little actions that he could not possibly feel the same way as Wakatoshi. It’s obvious in how he leaves before he thinks Wakatoshi wakes up, and how he always turns away when Wakatoshi loses track of himself and tries to kiss him while they’re having sex. Clear as day in the stricken look on his face when he saw Wakatoshi wake up, the same expression he couldn’t possibly explain to Sakusa.
“Then how do you know?” Sakusa still doesn’t look at him, and Wakatoshi is grateful for the attempt at privacy.
“I just do.”
Sakusa sighs. “I’ll take your word for it. You know Tendou better than anyone else, at least.” It’s a compliment, and probably true, but it still stings him.
They’re quiet for a moment, silence broken only by the passage of cars, and Sakusa taking sips of his coffee.
“Wakatoshi,” he says, turning towards his friend for the first time since they’d stalked out of the coffee shop in shame, “have you ever just told him how you feel?
Wakatoshi has not considered telling Tendou.
They part ways — after Sakusa convinces Wakatoshi to give him Reon’s number, so they can ‘commiserate’, whatever that means — and Wakatoshi resolves to begin to think about considering taking this action.
That means he lets himself think about it over the next three days, letting the thought occupy his mind through several workout sessions, four jogs, and two JNT practice sessions during which Atsumu asks him several times if he’s sick or just constipated until Sakusa drags him away before drowning his hands in sanitizer.
He’s never told him. Kept it secret.
And maybe it’s clear on his face, too, that he likes Tendou — likes, because he can’t even say the word love out loud to himself — and Tendou’s just purposefully been ignoring it, the whole time. Out of politeness, probably, even though it makes Tendou ache.
If he tells Tendou, he reasons, lifting weights in the gym, then they could be free of all of this uncertainty, and he’d have an answer.
But if he tells Tendou, he realizes, Tendou might not want to have anything to do with him ever again, and he’d lose even his feigned happiness
Sometimes the pros outweigh the cons, sometimes the cons outweigh the pros. He teeters back and forth, and never really comes to a definitive answer by the time Tendou texts him back, finally.
Bestie: sorry about the silence wakkun! a customer put in a rush order and one of my machines broke. it's a miracle I've even slept!╰(⇀⌂↼‶)╯
Tendou also changed his name in Wakatoshi's phone, and he hasn't figured out how to change it back.
Ushijima: That is fine, Satori. When did it break?
Bestie: just after you left! (|||❛︵❛。)
After Wakatoshi left. Tendou is careful with his phrasing, but he's imprecise. He's telling Wakatoshi that they'll ignore this. And if Wakatoshi were braver, he'd protest, he'd apologize, he'd do anything but return back to the swirling nothing they used to be in favor of the fracture.
But Wakatoshi is alone in Sendai and he's a coward.
Ushijima: I trust it's resolved now, and you have caught up on sleep.
Bestie: you betcha!
Bestie: d( ᵘ ꒳ ᵘ ✼)
He swears he'll do it this time.
It's that age old problem; because of their schedules, it's been about a month since the two of them started texting again, and in that time Wakatoshi has psyched himself into and out of this conversation a dozen times.
This should be easy. They're only words, after all. I like you, Satori. He practices it in the mirror. He writes it out. He types it a hundred times into his phone, and erases it a hundred times.
But instead, Wakatoshi keeps edging over the pros and cons. Tell Tendou, and everything changes. Keep silent, and everything stays the same.
He's so desperate for advice he asks Atsumu for help, bullying Kiyoomi to put him on video call after he's caught up with his friend and Bokuto as well.
"What do you do," he asks, "when you are deciding if you want to change everything, or hold firm the status quo?"
Atsumu looks terrified of him at first, and then more certain as he stumbles through the question. "Change everything, of course. Nothing’s ever gotten better by being stagnant."
A useless divergence; this isn't about getting better. This is about loss.
After the call, he gets a text.
Not a hankie thief: (๑•̀ㅁ•́๑)✧
Not a hankie thief: tell him, wakatoshi
Apparently Sakusa has also changed his name on his phone.
He's still indecisive the next time Tendou comes to town, which he only realizes when he gets a calendar invitation that reads Dinner? and an address.
It's probably the only break in Tendou's schedule. He's probably coming to Japan — where Wakatoshi's schedule is mostly clear for the off-season — in order to handle a deal or work out some imports. He schedules the dinner for Tokyo, because he knows — by the calendar Wakatoshi shared with him — that he’s at his JNT-supplied apartment to train at their facilities, instead of the Ushijima estate in Sendai.
And he picks a French restaurant because Tendou still gets a little homesick when he travels, but instead of Japan, he’s made his nest half a world away from where Wakatoshi’s roots are buried.
“Are we waiting for anyone else?” Wakatoshi asks, sliding into a table set for two. It’s right next to the wide picture windows of the restaurant, located on a high floor in Roppongi, just far enough out of Wakatoshi’s way that he had to carve out time to stop at home to get dressed up after practice.
“No,” Tendou shakes his head. “Just us."
From up here, he can see for what seems like miles, all the lights of the skyscrapers and towers around Tokyo; he’s not used to these heights, though he’s soared to great ones. He’s not sure if the dizziness he’s feeling is vertigo, or whiplash from Tendou’s words.
Despite their friendship, ever since they’ve started this whole thing it’s rare that they’ve started their evenings alone together. Though they’ll meet up for coffee, or for Wakatoshi to taste test menu items, or to run together when their schedules align, the evenings always start off in a crowd, until it’s just him and Tendou, somehow.
He expected Semi, at least. Or maybe Goshiki, who’s also in Tokyo and loves it when Tendou dotes on him. “Did… did anyone cancel?”
This time, Tendou levels him with a funny, unreadable look, before leaning forward, like he’s sharing a secret with him. “Is it so strange that I’d want to spend time with my best friend, just the two of us?” He winks, as if that lightens the weight of it, but it still sinks like a stone in Ushijima’s chest.
Yes, he swallows back. “Of course,” he coughs, instead, and looks for the menu in order to have something to do with his hands, but he can’t find it. There’s only a place setting, and a bottle of wine between them.
“It’s a set menu, and I already ordered.” Tendou’s already pouring the wine out, deep red like his hair, which has grown in a bit from his usual buzzcut, like he’s been too busy to maintain it. Wakatoshi likes his hair this way; it looks softer, looks like something he can rake his fingers through, and the way it’s combed to the side, it reflects the city lights like stars.
Tendou looks good, too; he lets himself drink Tendou in, the view of him in his soft, dark green sweater, an old gift from Wakatoshi, and the silver chain he always wears along his neck with the coordinates of Shiratoriza’s gym stamped into the metal, so he can carry paradise with him. He’d gotten enough sleep, so the dark circles that are often a permanent mark on his eyes have disappeared, and his lips are plump and shiny with chapstick. Just below the collar, his collar bones jut out, and so too do the pretty freckles on his neck.
Suddenly, Wakatoshi is thirsty, but the first course arrives before Wakatoshi can even take a sip, so they toast over abalone,
Wakatoshi’s never felt this off balance before, and he can’t write it off as vertigo.
It’s been a long while, he realizes, since he’s borne the full brunt of Tendou’s attention on him without sex. His best friend tends to flit from person to person, but he always indulges Wakatoshi and he misses it, desperately. Over dinner, Tendou tells him stories that he’s apparently been keeping under his sleeve for the past month, about orders gone awry and flavor combinations he’s tested and thrown out. He makes sure Wakatoshi’s glass is never empty until he’s pleasantly tipsy, warmth flaring in his cheeks, and then lets him sober up over his steak. When Wakatoshi returns from the bathroom where he splashed water in his face and tried to regain his composure, Tendou is waving away the staff to pull out his chair,
If he didn’t know any better, he’d get the sense that he’s being wooed.
But that’s impossible.
Instead of lingering on the thought, he thanks Tendou, who smiles down at him and lets his hand rest on his shoulder, squeezing the muscle, lingering for longer than a casual moment.
The heat of his touch, the phantom pressure, stays behind.
Despite his confusion, the dinner is nice; spending time with Tendou always is. They’re friends for a reason, and — even without Wakatoshi’s monstrous crush — it’s always good to listen to Tendou talk. They fit neatly, the natural gaps in Tendou’s speech are the exact moment when Wakatoshi would want to cut in with an observation or a question. Tendou always gasps in delight when he does, even though it shouldn’t surprise him anymore.
And the whole thing is good. It feels easy, even with the specter of the confession Wakatoshi’s been putting off hanging over them. He almost deludes himself into thinking that maybe ignoring everything is the right course of action. Fuck change; the status quo is stable for a reason.
It’s over dessert, a vanilla mousse paired with port, all the sugar hitting his bloodstream, when things come to a head.
“I’d prefer having your chocolate, Satori,” Wakatoshi says, tiny spoon balanced delicately in his big hand, frowning at the taste of the mousse, “this is…”
“It lacks depth,” Tendou shrugs, as if to say ‘what can you do?’ “And really? Even the wasabi ones?”
He suppresses a shudder. “Maybe not those.” Goshiki claims he likes them, but Wakatoshi is pretty sure he’s just lying to avoid upsetting Tendou, even though he’s also sure that they’re mostly a long prank on Semi, who eats each one with a straight face.
Tendou laughs, sudden and big. He throws back his head and once again Wakatoshi can’t help but drink in the full view of his neck, the curve, the skin, the places where he left bites last time. The freckles that haunt him.
He remembers exactly where he left each mark, and he mourns the fact that they’ve faded. Understands that it’s inevitable, too, that they can’t be permanent, no matter how much he wants them to be, no matter how much he desires to have Tendou go out with them emblazoned on his skin so the world can see he belongs to Wakatoshi.
Or, at least, the part of himself he shares with Wakatoshi.
Then he stiffens, flooded suddenly with the memory of the morning after that he’d been trying to carefully put aside, of Tendou’s face in the doorway, stricken, like he’s realized all of Wakatoshi’s secret shame.
They can’t go on like this. pretending it never happened, pretending that their friendship can survive by ignoring the naked truth of Wakatoshi’s feelings. This whole evening has felt awkward, Wakatoshi realizes, because they haven’t addressed it. If he’s going to have to give up on loving Tendou like that, he wants to make sure it doesn’t end up tarnishing their moments as friends.
He understands Atsumu now; the only way out is through. Better in this case means progressing forward, through the fire, through the flood, instead of standing at the edge of it, forever wondering what could be on the other side.
“Satori—” he says, at the exact moment Tendou opens his mouth to speak.
“Do you know why I’m in Tokyo, Wakatoshi?” Tendou’s elbow is on the table, his head in his hand, uncouth but so perfectly him, his limbs all easily slack. Every inch of him looks easy, except the part of him that shies away from Wakatoshi, that slips away in the mornings.
Wakatoshi has guesses, but ultimately - “No.” He shakes his head.
A soft huff of a laugh from Tendou. “You always bet on certainties, Wakatoshi-kun. It’s part of your charm.”
“Is it?” Wakatoshi wrinkles his nose. The alcohol must be getting to him.
“Yeah.” It’s soft, and it lingers between them for a while. They’re quiet, but the restaurant isn't. They’re surrounded by soft conversation, the clink of utensils and wine glasses, soft jazz piped in from overhead. Beside them, the city spreads out, an endless swath of lights, like they’re floating away and above Tokyo, far from the lives they usually lead.
Normally, Wakatoshi doesn’t feel untethered. Now, it’s like he’s flying.
“Why are you in Tokyo, Satori?” He asks, because it’s like Tendou is leading him there. He’s almost forgotten what he wants to say, distracted by this relaxed Tendou, stirring his coffee with a dainty spoon, cheeks a little flushed.
He takes a deep breath, but his expression doesn’t change. He looks fond, impossibly so. “I was looking for a location for a shop,” Tendou says.
It doesn’t register at first.
“For Lionceau?”
“The very same.”
Understanding creeps on slowly, climbing up Wakatoshi’s consciousness like a vine. “Don’t you already have a storefront? In France?”
Tendou waves his hand, airily, like it doesn’t matter. “It’s what they call a flagship, Wakatoshi. And I trust my staff to take care of it while I open this one.”
He doesn’t normally drink, because alcohol slows down his thinking. “So you’ll be—”
“Opening another store in Japan. Probably next year. It’s Olympic season again soon, right? JNT’s going to heighten training in Tokyo?”
Wakatoshi nods, a little absently. It’s true; he’ll be spending more time training here than with his team in Poland. His life is a little unpredictable, but the broad strokes of his year are already outlined. “And you’ll be in Japan, then.”
“That’s the plan.”
Silence, again, but this time all Wakaotshi can hear is his heart pounding in his ears while he tries to process it. He wants to plant his feet into the ground, but he can't feel the floor beneath him.
Tendou’s trying to come back here.
It’s rare that they’re in the same country, rare that they can spend time together, rare for Wakatoshi to luxuriate in the moments he’s stealing from Tendou. If he confesses, there may no longer be moments; if he stays quiet, next year’s going to hurt worse than ever. But he’s still a coward when he’s not tied down.
“Why, Satori?”
Tendou frowns. It wasn’t the question he was expecting, then. “I’ve always wanted to expand back home, Wakatoshi-kun. You know this.”
“You have also always wanted to build a castle made of ice cream to live in.”
“Chocolate ice cream, Wakatoshi-kun. That’s the important part.”
Tendou is made of wishes and fancies. Some of them are grounded and understandable; make a friend, play volleyball for as long as he can. Others are less so — cotton candy clouds and champagne waterfalls — but in his shop he builds as close to those sweet dreams as he can. For all he’s made of fluff and believes in paradise, though, he’s always made the smaller dreams come true, and built his own foundation off of them. Made friends, and raised himself taller. Played volleyball, and flew.
This one? A shop in Tokyo, in a year? It’s somewhere in between, but Wakatoshi can’t fathom where it sits.
“I understand that it’s your dream, Satori,” he says, and it’s half a lie because he thought Tendou made his home in France, “but why now? What makes you want to expand back to Japan?”
Tendou’s lips shut into a tight line. He fiddles with the spoon again, and then sits upright. “You know, this isn’t how I expected this to go?”
Wakatoshi is taken aback. “What do you mean?”
“I assumed you’d be overjoyed,” Tendou shrugs, and his voice sounds weak and sad, a frayed string. “I thought you’d be happy to know I’m coming back.”
He’s a lot of things. He’s mostly a bit confused.
“Of course I’m happy, Satori,” he says, even though the happiness hasn’t caught up to him yet, “but I want to know what brought this on.”
This time, when Tendou laughs, it’s weak and nervous. He tucks his head into his chest and looks down, away from Wakatoshi.
They’re not reading each other right, he realizes. They’ve taken advantage of their innate ability to communicate for so long that they’ve forgotten what it’s like when they’re on opposite sides of the conversation. Fire meet flood.
“It has something to do with last time, correct?” Wakatoshi asks suddenly, surprised by the way it flies out of his mouth. He couldn’t be brave for himself, but he’s fine to do it — break the status quo, extract himself from the safety of this unclear middle ground they’ve been living in for so long — for Tendou’s sake. “When we, when I—” but of course, just like that match, he chokes when it matters.
“I like you, Wakatoshi-kun,” Tendou says, plain and simple, like it’s easy. He doesn’t know it but he’s shattering the thin veneer of plausible deniability that’s shielded Wakatoshi for so long. “That’s why I’m doing this.”
Tendou has a knack for finding his weak points, he’s realized; maybe that’s because Tendou is his softest place, after all.
Sometimes, when Wakatoshi is hit by a sudden shock, shattered or shielded or otherwise, he freezes. It’s rare, but it happens. Reon says he’s just rebooting. His mind gets caught on one thought and repeats it over and over, and he gets locked in a cycle that he needs to fight his way out of.
“I don’t understand.” Tendou can’t like him. It doesn’t make sense.
Tendou covers his face with his hands and groans. They only draw one concerned glance from another guest.
“I like you, Wakatoshi,” he repeats, as if he’s caught in the same loop, too. “I thought I made it obvious. I’m taking you out for dinner!”
Wakatoshi blinks. The dots are starting to connect. “This was a date?”
“It’s a fancy French restaurant with prime seating, and it’s just the two of us, Wakatoshi.”
“I thought you just missed France.”
Tendou opens his mouth and closes it. He does it again, like a fish. “I- I live in France most days of the year. I don’t miss it that much, when I’m not around.”
When he’s in Poland, Wakatoshi is a regular at a Japanese restaurant. “We all get homesick,” he says.
“The thing about you, Wakatoshi-kun,” Tendou sighs, rubbing his forehead and hair, making Wakatoshi want to set it to rights. He resists the urge to reach out and brush it back into place, though. “It’s that everything you do and think is so sensible. Of course you didn’t think this was a date! Of course you’d ascribe this restaurant to homesickness. I should have just told you! I should have just come right out and said it! Sometimes you just need things told to you plainly!”
He’s talking to himself more than he is to Wakatoshi, like he’s beating himself up over the confusion. Eventually, he looks back up at Wakatoshi, eyes wide, a little desperate.
“This can’t possibly come as a surprise,” he says.
“Satori—”
“I’ve liked you for so long, Wakatoshi! And you always said you’d return home, eventually; I wanted to find that with you. I needed to prepare for it.”
There are a hundred things swirling inside of him, and all of them bubble to the surface at once. “You always leave! Everytime we—” he can’t really say it out loud. This isn’t how he wanted to bring this up at all, lost in the midst of a thousand other emotions. He likes Tendou. Tendou likes him.
It should be easy, but it doesn’t make sense. It’s like he’s dizzy again, and he needs to settle himself; he reaches out but the only thing that can stabilize him is Tendou.
Of course the only thing that can stabilize him is Tendou.
He grabs his hand..The familiar birdbone of his wrist, the smart fingers he remembers most clearly wrapped in tape, his long, cold, chocolatier’s hands; it draws him down to earth, as if they’re not 50 floors above it.
Maybe he’s been wrong this whole time. Maybe Tendou isn’t the sun, or the stars, or some faraway thing; Tendou’s his firmament, foundation. The core and the crust.
“Whenever I see you, Tendou, you leave. You never stay.” He gulps, and hopes Tendou understands him. Hears the confession underlying it; the silent plea, the desire for him to remain in his arms.
“I couldn’t bear it,” Tendou admits. “The idea of waking up and you asking me to leave. It would feel too much like a rejection when I liked you this much. And I thought that if I left first, well, then you wouldn’t get the chance.”
“So everytime, you thought that I’d make you leave?” His mouth is dry, his heart aches; he can’t imagine the version of himself that Tendou imagines, but he’s familiar with that kind of fear.
Tendou nods. “Yeah,” he says, laughing a little. “And I know it’s stupid, but it was the only way I could stay sane, you know? And last time, I couldn’t help it. I just wanted to watch you a little bit longer, so I held the door open and stood there for a while. You’re cute when you sleep, all curled up around me. It was easy to imagine that, just for a bit longer.”
When Tendou smiles small, like he’s caught up in the memory, Wakatoshi feels that familiar melancholy; candy sweet. He knows the shape of it so well.
“And when I saw you turn to me, I thought ‘this is it, he’s caught me!’ You can read me clearly, Wakatoshi.” Tendou’s fingers skirt against his wrist. “I thought you saw the obvious truth. How much I wanted you, even if you didn’t want me back.”
His heart never beat this fast before. His affection has forced him illiterate. “Tendou, do you know that I wake up before you every morning?”
Tendou snaps his head. “What?” He’s clever though, and Wakatoshi knows it’ll dawn on him soon.
Wakatoshi nods, and he tightens his grip on Tendou like he’s afraid he’ll run away. “I would pretend to sleep just to spend more time with you, but you always left.”
Silence, again, before Tendou’s laughter comes once more, this time in relief. “So you mean, this whole time, we’ve wanted the same thing.” He gets it, Wakatoshi realizes. He sees him.
“I like you, Satori,” Wakatoshi says, plain and clear, now that the words are unnecessary, “and I want you to stay in the mornings.” And evenings, and forever, when they get a chance at it.
It doesn’t take them long to clear out of the restaurant and settle the bill, leaving Wakatoshi’s dessert unfinished.
“So, should we…” Wakatoshi says, when they’re out on ground level again, and Tendou isn’t smoking but his hand is tucked snugly inside Wakatoshi’s.
Tendou laughs, big and loud and echoing through the street. “Creature of habit, huh, Wakatoshi-kun?” But he tugs at Wakatoshi’s arm ,and starts to pull him in the direction of Tendou’s hotel. “That’s why I like you! Come on, faster!”
When they race down the street, Tendou’s joy inhabits him, too, and he feels it coursing through his veins when he presses him against the door, kissing the grin and sensing his pleasure.
It’s freedom, he realizes. No more rules. No more restrictions. He likes Tendou, and he’s free to say it. Whispers it into his mouth while they’re kissing, Wakaotshi’s hands ruining Tendou’s hair while he tilts his head, moans it against his neck while he tastes the freckles.
Reverence, as he sets Tendou down on the bed, pulling off his pants and the soft sweater, keeping the necklace. Paradise between the two of them, while he strokes Tendou’s lean form, running his hands up and down the lines of his body like he can scarcely believe he’s allowed to luxuriate in this, too.
“Satori, may I?” he asks, when Tendou’s lips are bitten pink and he’s touched his fill, looking up at him from between his thighs, begging permission he knows will come.
“Anything you want, Wakatoshi-kun,” Tendou pants, breathless and joyful. They’ve done this so often they should know the shape of each other, but because there's no longer any pretense between the two of them, it feels different. Wakatoshi is clumsy in his motions, relearning Tendou’s body this way.
“That’s a dangerous thing to say, you know?” Wakatoshi presses his lips against his inner thigh. “You have no idea what I want.” He’s still afraid of the depths of his own desire.
“I have some idea,” Tendou grins. “Now get to it, Wakatoshi-oh!”
Luckily he’s brave with Tendou, he realizes, as he swallows him down. Surprises him with it, sucking him to pleasure, his hands a vice around him to tame his bucking hips. Wakatoshi wants to give him this; all the love he’s owed, all the affection he’s held back.
With Wakatoshi engulfing him, his thumbs rubbing circles into the divots of his hips, Tendou moaning and panting and calling his name from somewhere above him, it’s easy enough for Tendou to come, gasping, into his mouth.
Before he can recover, Wakatoshi pulls his body up and kisses the pleasure from his lips again, rubbing himself off. He’s impatient, but he just needs to kill the edge of it; they have their whole lives ahead of them, after all.
In the morning, when Wakatoshi wakes up to the dawn gently warming their bodies, he blinks his eyes open to see Tendou’s face, turned to him like a sunflower.
For a second, he contemplates sleeping more. They had a late night, after all.
But Wakatoshi’s faced his fears, his weaknesses; let him have this last indulgence. He pushes forward, kisses Tendou softly, then deeper. Wakes him up slowly and sweetly, cupping the back of Tendou’s head in his hand.
He feels Tendou’s body relax below him. Knows he’s awake when he starts to smile into the kiss. This time, when Tendou pulls back to breathe, he’s wiped clean of worry.
“Say, Wakatoshi-kun. I just had this really good dream,” he says. “Want me to tell you about it?”